pose the Bureau distributed over seven and a half million cards, was followed by an effort to secure adequate recreational facilities, and by a " Back-to-School'

movement.

As a concluding activity of Children's Year, a conference on child welfare standards was held in Washington during May, 1919, with a number of distinguished child welfare experts from foreign countries in attendance. Following eight Washington meetings, beginning on May 5, regional conferences were held at New York, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Seattle. At the Washington conference minimum standards on child welfare were formulated and these were later revised and approved by a special committee.

The results of the Children's Year were followed up in subsequent years by tabulating 200,000 of the weighing and measuring cards; by putting into operation the Child-Welfare Special, a specially equipped travelling unit to promote child hygiene work in rural communities; and by publishing a series of Children's Year Follow-Up pamphlets. A program for communities was also suggested. The Child-Welfare Special consisted of a motor-truck, fully equipped for making physical examinations of children, and carried a staff consisting of a physician, a nurse, a clerk, and a chauffeur. It was sent into a state only on request of the state health authorities. After being in operation four years, during which it made surveys in six states, its operation by the Bureau staff was discontinued in September, 1923, because a number of the states had signified their willing

'What is malnutrition? (Bureau Publication No. 59, 1919); Save the youngest (Bureau Publication No. 61, revised 1921); Every child in school (Bureau Publication No. 64, 1919).

ness to supply the staff and operate the Special without expense to the Children's Bureau.

The Maternity and Infancy Act. In her annual report for 1917, Miss Julia C. Lathrop, then Chief of the Bureau, recommended that there be adopted in this country a plan for federal aid to the states for the public protection of maternity and infancy. Some four years later, after having had the matter before it in the meantime during the Sixty-Fifth, Sixty-Sixth, and Sixty-Seventh congresses, this latter Congress passed such a measure and it was signed by the President on November 23, 1921.

This law (42 Stat. L., 224) authorized an annual federal appropriation for five years, amounting to $1,240,000 a year, to be allotted to those states which accepted the terms of the act and designated a state agency to administer it. Except for an initial sum of $5000, which is given outright, the Federal grant can be obtained only if matched by a state appropriation." The state agency is required to submit for approval detailed plans to a Federal Board of Maternity and Infant Hygiene, composed of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, the Chief of the Children's Bureau, and the Commissioner of Education, and make such reports to the Children's Bureau concerning its operations and expenditures for the purposes of the act as shall be prescribed or requested by the Bureau. The Children's Bureau was designated as the agency to administer this law, by coöperating with the states, by making necessary studies and investigations, by certifying to the Secretary of the Treasury and to the states the amounts allotted to each state, and by other general administration. A special 10 See text of law, page 65.

Maternity and Infant Hygiene Division of the Bureau was created in 1921 to perform the duties required."

Although the Federal Maternity and Infancy Act passed Congress by a large majority and by June 30, 1922, had been accepted by forty-two states, a considerable amount of opposition to it also developed. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts refused to accept the act, and, believing that its rights as a state were infringed, brought suit in the United States Supreme Court against the federal officers charged with the administration of the act, in order to restrain them from carrying out what was alleged to be an unconstitutional law. About the same time a Massachusetts taxpayer brought a similar suit in the Courts of the District of Columbia. Both the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia and Court of Appeals of the District upheld the law, however, and an appeal was taken to the United States Supreme Court. Here both cases were decided together. The decision," given by a unanimous court in 1923, was to the effect that the cases must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, neither the state nor the taxpayer having a status sufficient to bring court action. The constitutionality of the law was not actually passed upon.

An act approved March 10, 1924, extended the provisions of the Maternity and Infancy Law to the Territory of Hawaii upon the same terms as the states, and beginning with the fiscal year 1925, for which period an appropriation of $12,079.96 was made.

The administration of the law, which by May, 1925, had been accepted by the legislatures of 43 states, is discussed in the next chapter.

"See The promotion of the welfare and hygiene of maternity and infancy (Bureau Publication No. -, 1925. No. 137, 1924).

12

Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447.

CHAPTER II

ACTIVITIES

The act establishing the Children's Bureau authorized it to investigate and report upon "all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life and especially [to] investigate the questions of infant mortality, the birth rate, orphanage, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases. of children, employment [and] legislation affecting children in the several states and territories" (37 Stat. L., 79).

In General. In putting into effect this organic act, the Bureau has gone on the theory that its proper sphere encompasses all of the problems of childhood, including hygienic, social, industrial, civic, and economic questions. It endeavors to deal with the child as a whole and childhood as a unit. To this end, activities undertaken have been and are concerned with all classes of American children and the factors which directly or indirectly affect their welfare. Not only have children themselves been the subject of investigation and report, but an attempt has been made to achieve effective working relationships with all the agencies, official and voluntary, and with the great groups of people in the country who are concerned with the community problems of child care, and the still larger numbers of individual parents who have been asking for assistance in problems connected with their own children.'

1

See Abbott, Grace, Ten years' work for children, North American Review, August, 1923.

Activities, therefore, include not only studies and surveys of maternal and infant mortality and the myriad of cognate matters, but also research into health problems of the pre-school or runabout period, investigations and reports on child labor laws and their administration, juvenile courts, mothers' pensions, illegitimacy, exploitation of children, school attendance, and all matters pertaining to neglected, dependent, delinquent, defective, and underprivileged children.

Actual adminstrative duties have consisted only of the enforcement of the first federal Child Labor Law during the nine months of 1917 and 1918 that it was in operation, and of the administration of the federal Maternity and Infancy Act since it went into effect on November 23, 1921, though the funds authorized were not available until March, 1922.

Except for its activities under these two laws the Bureau has had no administrative duties, and, therefore, its attention has been devoted to research along the lines indicated by the portion of the organic act quoted above and to promoting the welfare of children. The statement below gives an account of typical investigations that have been undertaken; the classified list of publications is a more complete index to the activities of the Bureau.

2

Infant and Maternal Mortality; Child Hygiene. The early studies of infant mortality, with which the Bureau began operations, reversed the usual process of investigation. Instead of deriving the information from death records, they began with birth records and followed each child through the first year of life, or such part of the year as had been lived. Between 1915 and 1923 reports