To prohibit the misuse of vessels used in the sale of milk (Acts 1906,
chapter 116).
To establish a standard for cream (Acts 1907, chapter 217).
To establish the standard of milk (Acts 1908, chapter 643).
To provide for the proper marking of heated milk (Acts 1908, chapter
570).
Relative to licensing dealers in milk (Acts 1909, chapter 443).
To provide for the appointment of inspectors and collectors of milk by
Boards of Health (Acts 1909, chapter 405).
Relative to the liability of producers of milk (Acts 1910, chapter 641).
To provide for the inspection and regulation of places where neat
cattle, their ruminants or swine are kept (Acts 1911, chapter 381).
To authorize the incorporation of medical milk commissions (Acts 1911,
chapter 506).
Relative to the establishing of milk distributing stations in cities and
certain towns (Acts 1911, chapter 278).
Relative to the labelling of evaporated, concentrated, or condensed milk
(Acts 1911, chapter 610).
To regulate the use of utensils for testing the composition or value of
milk and cream (Acts 1912, chapter 218).
To safeguard the public health against unclean milk containers and
appliances used in the treatment and mixing of milk (Acts 1913, chapter
761). Relative to the production and sale of milk (Acts 1914, chapter
744).
To prohibit charges for the inspection of live stock, dairies, or farm
buildings (Acts 1915, chapter 109).
The State is divided into eight health districts, with an inspector for
each in the State employ. Each city has its board of health; each town
administers the laws through its selectmen. The City of Lynn has a
board of health; also health inspectors, who do much of their work
before we are up--from 2 to 5 o'clock. They inspect all the milk
stations; take samples from milk wagons; inspect dairies that sell milk
in Lynn, wherever those dairies may be, even out of the State--as, for
instance, the Turner Centre Creamery in Maine. All that doesn't look as
if the milk situation was being neglected.
Massachusetts is doing a great deal for the children. There are over
5,800 wards in the care of the State Minor Wards Department. I do not
need to tell you what a great work is being done for the care and
education of these little ones; it speaks for itself.
Our opponents do not say much about the work women are doing on State
Boards. There are plenty of positions already held by women who are
doing inconspicuous and unexciting work, yet, nevertheless, most useful
to the Commonwealth. Here are some of them, with the number of women on
each board:
The State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity was organized in 1879,
with 2 women on the board.
The work is now divided among different departments.
The State Board of Education had 1 woman member as far back as 1880; it
now has 2.
The State Board of Charity has 2.
The Free Public Library Commission has 2.
The Commission for the Blind has 2.
The Homestead Commission has 1.
The Minimum Wage Commission has 1.
The Board of Registration of Nurses has 3.
The Prison Commission has 2, who also serve on the Board of Parole for
the Reformatory for Women.
The Board of Trustees of the State Infirmary and State Farm has 2.
The Board of Trustees of the Hospitals for Consumptives has 1.
The State Hospitals at Worcester, Taunton, Northampton, Danvers,
Westboro, Medfield, Monson, Boston, Foxboro, have 2 each.
The Gardner State Colony has 2.
The Wrentham State School has 2.
The Massachusetts Training School Trustees has 2.
The Massachusetts General Hospital has 1.
The Perkins Institution for the Blind has 1.
The Hospital Cottages for Children has 1.
Here are forty-five women doing voluntary work on these Boards, all
appointed by the Governor and working under laws passed by the _men_ in
the Legislature.
Take another line. The manual of the labor laws enforced by the State
Board of Labor and Industries, covers the enforcement of the laws
relative to the education of minors, employment of minors, hours of
labor, apprenticeship, hours of labor for women, health inspection,
lighting, ventilation, cleanliness, guarding against dangerous
machinery, work in tenement houses, etc.
The little book entitled "Woman Suffrage, History, Arguments, Results,"
tells all about the suffrage states and gives the good laws that have
been enacted since women voted. It gives the impression that none such
are passed in male suffrage States. It has just two words about
Massachusetts; under the heading of "School Suffrage," it says,
"Massachusetts--1879." Under California, however, it gives a list of the
following laws and institutions:
Mothers' Pensions.
Minimum Wage.
Juvenile Court.
State Training School for Girls.
Teachers' Pension.
Weights and Measures.
Civil Service.
State Housing Commission.
Milk Inspection.
Tuberculosis.
Workingmen's Compensation
Psychopathic Parole.
But it carefully omits to mention that Massachusetts has all of these,
that some of them are much broader in scope, and that many are of longer
years standing.
You go into the Western States, and you find that legislation is
conducted on a different basis from what it is in Massachusetts.
Altogether too frequently, bills are pigeon-holed; the bills can't be
reported out of committee unless the chairman consents; and the result
is that many bills never see the light. Here in Massachusetts
law-making is better managed. The number of bills presented is large;
3,459 were printed during the session of 1914, and 2,802 were printed
during the last session. Some of these were offered by women. A woman,
as well as a man, can petition the Legislature. Every bill is referred
to a committee; it is given a public hearing, is reported upon and
action taken, one way or another; not one bill is pigeon-holed. The
Massachusetts system of legislative procedure is not surpassed anywhere
in the United States, and there are competent boards and officers who
carry out the various laws. Many of the things the suffragists agitate
about and think they need the franchise to bring to pass, they would
find are already being administered at the present time if they would
only look into the facts.
V
HOW MASSACHUSETTS FOSTERS PUBLIC WELFARE
MONICA FOLEY
_Miss Monica Foley, was educated in the Boston schools, graduating
from the Boston Academy of Notre Dame; is a member of the
Massachusetts Bar and Secretary of the Massachusetts Association
of Women Lawyers. She is a director of the Notre Dame Alumni
Association of Boston, and is connected with the State Commission
on Economy and Efficiency._
_J. A. H._
In the suffrage campaign just closed so much was heard of the
greatness of some of our states, including Utah and Nevada, Colorado
and Wyoming, that one was tempted to inquire, "Is there no good now in
Massachusetts?" It seemed passing strange that our Commonwealth, which
had always been the leader in every great turning point of the policy of
the nation, should have so signally failed that it ceased to exist as a
model to be extolled; it was stranger still that her worthy record was
ignored by her own sons and daughters. And yet the facts are that while
we may hold high in memory the examples of those who have gone before
us, we may also rejoice that the men of our own time not only uphold
the best ideals and lofty purposes of our State, but are day by day
working out her problems in such a way that her position is still secure
as a pioneer in sane legislation, her laws are still models for all
states (particularly woman suffrage states) her name is still cherished
in the wildernesses where her sons are pioneers, still venerated on her
own soil where her people stand at the gateways and welcome the
oppressed.
Proud as we are of her traditions, glorying as we do in her present
achievements, we are unafraid that the future will see her fall from her
eminence, from the dignity which has always characterized her statehood
and made her name a synonym for the best in government in the nation,
our Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
While this paper deals almost wholly with the executive functions of the
state, to make no mention of our judiciary would be to omit reference to
one of the brightest pages of our history. Massachusetts law and
Massachusetts judiciary decisions have always been and are now quoted
and respected in the greatest courts of the country. This splendid
system is being maintained at an annual cost exceeding $600,000.
Hand in hand with the establishment of a great judiciary system,
Massachusetts has devoted herself to the highest ideals of human
charity, and her enormous expenditures show that selfish materialism
plays no part in her legislation. Year by year the calls for charity are
more insistent, and year by year the State responds more generously.
The State Board of Charity was first organized in 1863, and at the
present time is an unpaid board of nine members, two of whom are women.
The institutions under their supervision are governed by unpaid boards
of seven members, two of whom are women, this latter being provided by
law, except in the instance noted below. The institutions under the
supervision of the board are the State Infirmary for the sick poor at
Tewksbury, and the State Farm at Bridgewater for misdemeanants and
insane criminals, both opened in 1854 and costing the state nearly
$1,000,000 annually. The training schools for delinquent children are
the Lyman School for Boys at Westborough (1848) and the Industrial
School for Boys at Shirley (1909) and for Girls at Lancaster (1856)
costing over $300,000 annually. The hospitals for consumptives are
located at Rutland (1898), North Reading (1909), Lakeville and
Westfield, both the latter being opened in 1910. Upon these suffering
poor the State spends over a half million dollars each year. The Norfolk
State Hospital at Walpole was opened in 1911 for inebriates and drug
habitues. There are no women on this board of trustees, there being no
women inmates of the hospital. There has also been located at Canton
since 1907 a Hospital School for crippled children. A hospital for
lepers has been maintained at Penikese Island since 1905.
Under the direction of the Board of Charity, aid is given mothers with
dependent children, the support of poor babies is undertaken, and the
tuition of poor children is paid. The board places the children in
homes wherever possible--institutional life being approved only when
necessary. Certain suffragists (of the Socialist persuasion) would give
the children to the State under the new order. In 1914 the Board
together with the institutions under their direction expended over three
million dollars and cared for more than 7000 persons in the institutions
alone. Is there anything here in the State's charity work which would
make any woman other than proud of its record?
The State's care of her insane is under the direction of a paid board of
three members, each hospital having a board of seven unpaid trustees,
including two women. The hospitals for the insane are at Worcester
(1833), Boston (Dorchester, 1839), Taunton (1854), Northampton (1858),
Danvers (1878), Westborough (1886), Foxboro (1893) and Medford (1896),
Gardner (1902.) There is a hospital for epileptics at Monson with
schools for the feeble-minded at Waltham (1848), with a colony at
Templeton since 1900 and a school at Wrentham (1907). In 1914 the State
cared for over 14,000 of these unfortunates and expended over three and
one-quarter millions of dollars for their maintenance.
The reformatory and correctional work of the Commonwealth (other than
exercised over the training schools) is under the direction of a board
of five prison commissioners (two women), only the chairman being paid.
Four institutions comprise this group; the State Prison at Charlestown
since 1805, but first established in 1785; the Reformatory at Concord
(1884); the Women's Reformatory at Sherborn (1877); and the Prison Camp
and Hospital at West Rutland, the camp being opened in 1904, the
hospital in 1907. Massachusetts has the distinction of being the first
state in the union to separate its women offenders from the men, by
establishing the Sherborn Reformatory. No child is born at this
institution. A mere man a few years ago, realizing the needless handicap
an innocent child would suffer through life if born in a prison,
petitioned the legislature to prevent the possibility. A law accordingly
was passed, and these unfortunate women are placed in a state hospital
until after their children are born. In 1914 over 1500 persons were
cared for in our prisons at a cost of more than a half million dollars.
Two boards of parole now study the histories of prisoners and recommend
certain persons for parole, the men's board in addition recommends
persons to be pardoned to the governor and council.
In no other sphere of the State's activities is the great throbbing
heart of the Commonwealth shown with such poignant fervor as in the case
of her unfortunates, and this phase of her work alone would entitle her
to the homage of all our people--but she does not stop here. She
dominates the educational field, and stands preeminent before the nation
and the world for the superiority of her educational institutions.
Massachusetts has given abundantly to the great university at Cambridge,
still endows freely the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and gives
annually of her funds to the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the
Textile Schools at New Bedford, Lowell, and Fall River, and other
independent industrial schools. She practically maintains the
Agricultural College at Amherst, and gives to other agricultural
schools, and also aids certain cities and small towns.
In aiding the deaf, dumb, and blind in 1914, Massachusetts spent over
$200,000. In 1891 she opened a nautical school to train her young men in
seamanship, navigation, and marine engineering. In 1839 Massachusetts
founded the first Normal school in this country, and today ten of these
schools are open throughout the State. In this line of endeavor in 1914
the State expended over one and one-half millions of dollars.
The Commonwealth maintains a Department of Health, established in 1869,
expending in 1914 over $350,000. In Massachusetts also was passed the
first pure food law in the country.
The Metropolitan Water Works have cost the State since 1901 over
$50,000,000. Our park system is one of the finest in the world, and is
maintained at an annual cost of over half a million dollars. In addition
to the parks in the Metropolitan District, there are six other
reservations throughout the State. These parks represent an outlay of
over $20,000,000.
Our Homestead Commission was established to investigate defective
housing conditions and study building and tenement house laws. Its
members are unpaid, though the labor representative is reimbursed for
any loss he may suffer from absence from his regular occupation.
It can truly be said that no State in the union shows such grateful and
worthy appreciation to its veterans as does Massachusetts. In 1914 over
$700,000 was given to the veterans of our Civil War and to certain of
their dependent relatives, and to women army nurses. Under a special
gratuities act of 1912 she gave each living veteran of the war the sum
of $125, this one act alone costing over $500,000.
Among other of her good works, she appropriates each year $15,000 for
the relief of injured firemen and families of firemen killed in the
performance of their duty, and since the fund was established has
expended $270,000 for this work. The State also provides under a
contributory system for its employes.
Nowhere in the country are the people's savings and insurance more
zealously guarded than by Massachusetts, and here again she is leading
the way in the savings bank life insurance legislation. The bank
commission was established in 1838, the insurance commission in 1855,
the savings bank life insurance board in 1907, these three departments
costing in 1914 almost $200,000.
In dealing with her labor problems Massachusetts maintains a Department
of Labor and Industries (1913) which investigates industrial conditions
and enforces the labor laws; an Industrial Accident Board (1912) which
enforces law compensating injured employes. These two boards together
constitute a joint board for the prevention of industrial accidents and
diseases. There is also a Board of Conciliation and Arbitration (1886)
which mediates and arbitrates industrial disputes, and a Minimum Wage
Commission (the first in the country), which investigates the wages of
women and minors, and forms boards to recommend scales of wages in low
paid industries. Over $200,000 was expended by these boards in 1914.
On encouraging farming and caring for her forests, fisheries, and game,
was spent over $600,000 in 1914. This was distributed in many ways, some
being in form of bounties to children and youths, to agricultural
societies to encourage orcharding, poultry raising, for the purchase of
forest lands, the prevention of forest fires, the propagation of wild
birds and animals.
Preparedness was not overlooked, over half a million dollars being
expended on the militia in 1914. On highways and harbors nearly a
million dollars was spent.
Over a million and a quarter dollars was spent on public buildings, the
total valuation of state properties being over $8,300,000, the State
capitol and land itself being valued at over five and one-half million
dollars.
This is the record of Massachusetts. The suffragists have shown wisdom
in avoiding reference to these facts. They could not well do otherwise,
however, since they are allied with those detestable groups in our midst
who are preaching anarchy and revolution as a means to better
government. Better government where? This record is one that the men of
the State may well be proud of; it is a record that its women will
continue to make possible by their non-partisan influence in government,
by the training of its future citizens, by the teaching of those lessons
of civic honesty and uprightness that make for national integrity as
exemplified in the history of our Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
VI
MASSACHUSETTS COMPARED WITH SUFFRAGE STATES
CATHERINE ROBINSON
_Miss Catherine Robinson was a student at Radcliffe in 1911;
graduated from Miss Wheelock's Kindergarten Training School in
1915; has worked two winters among the children in the cotton
mills of Georgia, and has been affiliated with Neighborhood
House in East Boston, and with the Associated Charities in the
Co-operative Workrooms. She is now connected with the Social
Service Department of the Massachusetts General Hospital, her work
being in the Orthopaedic Clinic for Children. Miss Robinson was
formerly a suffragist, but after studying the question decided
that the suffragists' claims are illusions which never become
realities. She says: "Everything I do along these lines (Social
Service) convinces me more than ever what a detriment the vote
would be to our sex."_
_J. A. H._
Not long ago I heard Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the President of the National
Woman Suffrage Association, say at Springfield:
"Laws have nothing to do with this question of woman suffrage; facts
have nothing to do with it. I shall not answer facts. We do not promise
to do great things for women; why should we? All we ask is the right to
vote."
All suffrage speakers are not so frank about their inability to answer
facts as Dr. Shaw is, nor do they cease from claiming that good laws for
women exist chiefly in suffrage states.
Massachusetts gives to her women the best protection of any state in the
Union. In January, 1915, New York ranked first, but since our
legislative enactments of 1915, Massachusetts is again in the lead. We
have, in the first place, the Maternity Act. Then we have the law
prohibiting women in industry from working more than fifty-four hours
per week. We have the absolute prohibition of night-work for our women
in textile, mercantile, and manufacturing establishments. We are one of
the five states in the Union to have such a law. All the five states are
male suffrage states. Not a single woman suffrage state prohibits the
night employment of its women; and yet among the laws safeguarding the
health of women workers, the prohibition of night work is of the most
fundamental importance.
Some women suffrage states do not even set a limit to the hours a woman
may work. In Wyoming, Nevada, and Kansas--all woman suffrage states, you
note--there is no limitation of hours of labor and no prohibition of
night work. Some one may say that Colorado, California, Oregon and
Washington have an eight-hour limitation. They have; but in each case
the canneries are excepted, so that in those states where the cannery
business is of vast importance, the women therein employed may work any
number of hours and any time of the day or night. Not long ago in New
York a similar law was proposed, allowing women and children to work
seventy-two hours a week in canneries, but the bill was defeated.
Colorado, to be sure, has the eight-hour law, but it does not prohibit
night work for women, so that the eight hours can be at night; neither
does Colorado require one day of rest in every seven. In Massachusetts
and New York there is a law specifically requiring one day of rest in
every seven for employees in factories, workshops, and all mercantile
establishments.
Another way in which we can protect women is by early closing hours, and
prohibition of work before a certain hour in the morning. Again we find
that it is in the male suffrage states that women have acquired such
protection, for New York sets an early closing hour of 5 p. m. for her
women in factories, mercantile, and manufacturing establishments, and
Massachusetts sets 6 p. m. Fourteen other male suffrage states set 10
p. m. as the closing hour; and all these states prohibit work before 6
a. m. What do we find in the woman suffrage states? Simply that out of
the eleven suffrage states, one state, California, sets a 10 p. m.
limit, but it does not apply to canneries.
As women enter further into the industrial field, more and more laws are
made for their protection. The men have done wonderfully for our women.
Whenever the public conscience is aroused to the need of a law, that
law is passed. Women do much, in fact, nearly everything, towards
arousing that public conscience, but we find when we study the laws as
they exist in our state that our men have made better laws for the
protection of our women than the men and women have made together in any
suffrage state. Let me add some of the other good laws we have in
Massachusetts. We have the Mothers' Pension Bill. This law was
originated by a man in a male suffrage state. We have the Equal
Guardianship Law. There are suffrage states where neither of these laws
exist.