Do ye CHILD WELFARE 46. THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 1 I hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, They are weeping in the playtime of the others, II Do you question the young children in the sorrow, The old man may weep for his tomorrow Which is lost in Long Ago; The old tree is leafless in the forest, The old year is ending in the frost, The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, But the young, young children, O my brothers! Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, III They look up with their pale and sunken faces, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses 1 From Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary; 66 Our young feet," they say, are very weak; Few paces have we taken, yet are weary, Our grave-rest is very far to seek: Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children, For the outside earth is cold, And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, And the graves are for the old." VI "For oh!" say the children, “we are weary, If we cared for any meadows, it were merely And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, Through the coal-dark, underground; Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron VII "For all day the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places! Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels' (breaking out in a mad moaning), 'Stop! be silent for today!"" VIII Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing Let them feel that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God fashions or reveals; Let them prove their living souls against the notion Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark. XII And well may the children weep before you! They are weary ere they run; They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory They know the grief of man, without its wisdom; XIII They look with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see, For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper 47. HISTORY OF THE CHILD WELFARE COMMISSION In 1908 England passed what is known as the "Children's Act." This act was a revision, amplification, and codification of most of the legislation affecting the rights and interests of children. So great was the progress made by this act that it has been called the Children's Magna Charta. Within a year, America, under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, concerned itself with the needs of its children. President Roosevelt in 1909 called a conference at Washington of child-welfare experts from various parts of the country. The report of this conference is a classic in the field of social welfare and states with great force and clarity what the rights of children are and how those rights are to be safeguarded. It will be remembered that the greatest pronouncement of this conference was that home life was the finest product of modern civilization and that no child should ever be taken from his home and his parents except for grave and serious reasons which make it impossible for him to secure a square deal in his home. It was also the conclusion of this conference that the state should equip itself to discharge its full obligation to the child, and it was recognized that good law was one means of discharging that obligation. Following the White House Conference of 1909, Child Welfare Legislative Commissions were appointed in Ohio (1911), Oregon and New Hampshire (1913), District of Columbia (1914), Missouri (1915), Minnesota (1916), Montana and Michigan (1917), and Delaware and Kansas (1918). In 1919 the Federal Children's Bureau called another conference, inviting experts in America and from every progressive country in the world, and here again were threshed out the great social prob1 From the Report of the Iowa Child Welfare Commission, pages 8-9. State of Iowa; 1924. lems involved in child protection. The progress of Commissions in various states was discussed and recommendations made based on the experience of such commissions to that date. Following the conference of 1919, commissions have been appointed in twenty-one additional states; namely: Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Connecticut, Indiana, and Nebraska (1919), Colorado, New York, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee (1920), West Virginia, Alabama, Virginia, Utah, and North Dakota (1921), Maryland (1922), and Pennsylvania, Florida, and Iowa (1923). It will thus be seen that the movement has become national in its scope and that the appointment of a child welfare commission in Iowa was but the coöperation by the State in a movement that has steadily gained recognition in the most progressive states in the Union. The principle involved is well outlined in this statement of the Federal Conference of 1919 referred to above: The child welfare legislation of every state requires careful reconsideration as a whole at reasonable intervals, in order that necessary revision and coordination may be made and that new provisions may be incorporated in harmony with the best experience of the day. In states where children's laws have not had careful revision as a whole within recent years a child welfare commission or committee should be created for this purpose. Laws enacted by the several states should be in line with national ideals, and uniform so far as desirable, in view of diverse conditions in the several states. 1 48. SOCIAL INSURANCE AND CHILD WELFARE 1 The failure of the underpaid masses to protect themselves against the many hazards of life presents a serious social problem. The problem extends far beyond the suffering and want of the individual wage earner. It involves his wife, his children, the industry of which he is a part, and finally the state, upon whose care both he and his family may ultimately be thrown. It becomes therefore the concern of the progressive state to provide, by legislative enactment, a form of insurance which shall, at the lowest possible cost, adequately protect the wage earners from economic risks. It is natural to term 1 From John B. Andrews, "Social Insurance and Child Welfare," in The American Child, Vol. 1, pages 48-52 (May, 1919). Reprinted by special permission of the publishers. |