In speaking of the work which the bureau would do, we quote again from
Miss Wald:
The children's bureau would not merely collect and classify
information but it would be prepared to furnish to every
community in the land information that was needed, diffuse
knowledge that had come through expert study of facts valuable
to the child and to the community. Many extraordinarily
valuable methods have originated in America and have been
seized by communities other than our own as valuable social
discoveries. Other communities have had more or less haphazard
legislation and there is abundant evidence of the desire to
have judicial construction to harmonize and comprehend them.
As matters now are within the United States, many communities
are retarded or hampered by the lack of just such information
and knowledge, which, if the bureau existed, could be readily
available. Some communities within the United States have
been placed in most advantageous positions as regards their
children, because of the accident of the presence of public
spirited individuals in their midst who have grasped the
meaning of the nation's true relation to the children, and
have been responsible for the creation of a public sentiment
which makes high demands. But nowhere in the country does the
government as such, provide information concerning vitally
necessary measures for the children. Evils that are unknown or
that are underestimated have the best chance for undisturbed
existence and extension, and where light is most needed there
is still darkness. Ours is, for instance, the only great nation
which does not know how many children are born and how many die
in each year within its borders; still less do we know how many
die in infancy of preventable diseases; how many blind children
might have seen the light, for one-fourth of the totally blind
need not have been so had the science that has proved this been
made known in even the remotest sections of the country.
At least fifteen states and the District of Columbia were represented
at the hearing. Among the speakers were Edward T. Devine, editor of
CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS, who pointed out the scope and importance of
the inquiries the bureau would undertake; Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay,
who drew the bill for the national committee and explained its fiscal
features and the plan for the organization of the work of the bureau;
Jane Addams, who showed the real service the bureau would render the
practical worker; Florence Kelley, who pointed out the extent of our
present ignorance on the questions with which the bureau would deal;
Homer Folks, who emphasized the unanimous demand for the bureau by the
widely representative Conference on Dependent Children; Congressman
Bennett of New York, who showed the service it would render in
dealing with the peculiar problems of the children of immigrants;
Bernard Flexner of Louisville, Hugh F. Fox of the State Charities
Aid Association of New Jersey, Judge Mack, Judge Lindsey, and Judge
Feagin, who all pointed out the service it would render the courts
in dealing with children; Mrs. Ellen Spencer Mussey, who represented
the General Federation of Women's Clubs; Thomas F. Walsh of Denver,
Dr. L. B. Bernstein of New York, William H. Baldwin of Washington, D.
C.; Secretary A. J. McKelway, and General Secretary Owen R. Lovejoy
of the National Child Labor Committee. The House committee was deeply
impressed and it is believed will report the bill favorably.