The fear that such an Act would make the general government the active controller and director of the lives of parents and their children in most intimate ways seems not justified by the facts.

The Bill, when passed, simply provided money to be given to the states on the fifty-fifty basis "for the purpose of cooeperating with them in promoting the welfare and hygiene of maternity and infancy." The specific plans for each state are to be made by the state agency in charge of the work and the only Federal supervision is that of standardization, by which the Chief of the Children's Bureau, the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, and the Commissioner of Education must approve those plans as "reasonably appropriate and adequate to carry out the purposes of the Act" before the money of the Federal Government is passed over to any state.
It is rather as a help to states desiring aid in this particular than as a compulsory requirement that the Act is intended to operate.

There are those, however, who fear any extension of power of the National Government even through influence acquired by subsidies for necessary aids to the common life.

It is a matter for thought and unprejudiced study what form of public aid is, on the whole, the best for our country.

It cannot be denied, however, that different states have differing burdens to carry for the immigrant, the ignorant, the destitute, and the defective.