The Women's Joint Congressional Committee and the Politics of Maternalism, 1920-30

7. The Struggle to Save the Sheppard-Towner Act, 1926-30

133 7 The Struggle to Save the Sheppard-Towner Act, 1926–30 In the midst of mounting attacks on their aims and methods, WJCC members initiated a campaign to extend the appropriations of the Sheppard-Towner Act. As originally passed by Congress in 1921, the act included a provision whereby the distribution of federal funds to the states for infancy and maternity programs would automatically cease on June 30, 1927. Under pressure from WJCC organizations, the Children’s Bureau, and other social reform groups, Representative James Parker of New York and Senator Lawrence Phipps of Colorado introduced bills for the extension of the Sheppard-Towner Act in January 1926.1 The House of Representatives referred the Sheppard-Towner extension bill to the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce led by Representative Parker. At a hearing before the House committee on January 14, both advocates and opponents of the extension bill appeared to offer testimony . Among the advocates were Grace Abbott of the Children’s Bureau and Maud Wood Park of the League of Women Voters. Those testifying against the bill included Mrs. B. L. Robinson of the Massachusetts Public Interests League, Thomas Cadwalader of the Sentinels of the Republic and the Maryland Constitutional League, and J. S. Eichelberger of the Woman Patriots.2 The House committee eventually submitted a favorable report on Sheppard-Towner on March 17 with only one member, Schuyler Merritt , dissenting.3 When put to a vote in the full House, the extension bill passed easily by a margin of 218 to 44. Encouraged by the House vote, proponents expected a similar vic- 134 women’s joint congressional committee tory in the Senate. Such was not the case, however. Though the Senate Committee on Education and Labor reported the extension bill favorably on May 3, it added an amendment that, if adopted, would extend the federal appropriations under the act for one year only. The amendment was wholly unacceptable to the WJCC and its allies, who vigorously lobbied Senate members to pass the House bill without changes.4 On June 15, a motion to consider the bill was introduced in the Senate; though the motion passed by a vote of 51 to 18, the Senate adjourned on July 3 without having taken further action.5 Still, the Senate’s failure to vote on Sheppard-Towner did not mean that a new bill would have to be introduced, for the pending bills on the Senate calendar would carry over to the next congressional session.6 WJCC members recognized that if a favorable vote could be secured early enough in the new session, the states would be able to continue their administration of the act without delay.7 Hence, in their report to the executive board on July 8, the members of the Sheppard-Towner subcommittee requested that all WJCC organizations send letters of support to each senator prior to the opening of the new congressional session. They also recommended that organizations favoring the extension bill make detailed reports citing the beneficial work carried out under the act in their respective states and the grassroots and legislative support the act had received since the beginning of its operation. Confronted with these reports, senators would recognize the benefits of federal funds to the states for infancy and maternity programs, WJCC members hoped, and the need for a continuation of these funds far beyond the 1927 deadline.8 At the request of the League of Women Voters, the American Child Health Association compiled a summary of the reports on SheppardTowner work conducted in fourteen states in different regions of the nation. Included in the reports were descriptions of the activities on which federal-state funds were expended and testimony from field nurses, actual beneficiaries of the maternity act, and other “interested citizens.” Careful analyses of these reports, noted the ACHA, revealed that nearly all the states had incorporated the following features in their SheppardTowner programs: establishment of permanent health centers in local communities run by state nurses and local physicians, registration of births, distribution of pamphlets on prenatal care and infant hygiene to expectant mothers, conferences and lectures on child care, and investigation of the causes of maternal and infant mortality. Of course, each state’s program was also specifically tailored to meet particular local conditions. In Minnesota, for example, special services were created to cater to Native American mothers and children. States with large urban-industrial Struggle to...