These, we are now learning, must be helped in some way, for society's sake even more than for their own, if they are willing to undertake parental service to the race.
The passage of the so-called Sheppard-Towner Bill is one answer in the United States to the right of the child and its mother to life and health.

There are those who deplore the tendency to seek for such aid to individuals through the Federal Government.

The Governor of New York State, for example, although a man of progressive ideas and liberal point of view, opposed "starting aid to mothers and babies from the Washington end," declaring that work for the "welfare of citizens of any class should start at the locality to be benefited." He would not have the people educated to depend upon the Federal Government for benefits.

He feared that the Sheppard-Towner Bill would tend to "make the public expect to be nursed from the cradle to the grave" and be a detriment to the public life rather than a benefit.
New York State made a good appropriation for its own aid to mothers and babies, but did not apply for the Federal aid in addition.

By the middle of the second month of 1922, however, nearly thirty states had accepted the Act as a welcome help in their welfare work, and few will be left outside of its provisions by the end of the year.