Medicine: Relief & Babies

¶In East St. Louis, 111., Mrs.Cleveland Piper, 38, mother of six, gave birth to triplet girls. The Cleveland Pipers are on relief.

¶In Sharon, Pa., Mrs. John Ondich gave birth to a daughter and, after a 36-hour interval, to two sons. Mr. John Ondich has no job.

¶In Toronto, Mrs. Frances Lillian Kenny, 31, mother of 14, hopes to win $500,000 by bearing twins this year, and thus becoming beyond compare Toronto’s most prolific woman (TIME, Dec. 24).

The Kennys would go cold & hungry were it not for Canadian relief.

¶In The Bronx, jobless Charles Steinman became father of his ninth child, a 22-lb. son.

The urge to procreate, with such recent results as the foregoing, today provides relief administrators throughout the U. S. with one of their toughest and most ticklish problems. Twenty-two million people are on the dole in one form or another. They cost State and Federal Governments $180.000.000 a month. And they are producing a quarter of a million children a year. Relief administrators want to use scientific birth control to constrain that impoverished sixth of the population but have done nothing openly for fear of the Roman Catholic Church.

Last week, by reporting the honest concern of relief workers over the num-ber of relief babies, the United Press and the Associated Press caused a burst of fury among pious Catholics. Rev. Ignatius Wiley Cox, professor of ethics at Fordham University, was roused to the extent of threatening a boycott against newspapers which dared to hint that birth control might remedy the situation. Cried he: “Is it logical or even fitting for Catholic:parents to introduce into the sanctuary of the home newspapers which by their editorial policy, their news emphasis and news selection, and their columnists, aim repeated, insidious and deadly blows at the Christian doctrine and ideals which are dearer to the Catholic than life itself? Newspapers today in many instances have become considerably more than mere purveyors of news.”

Father Cox had the National Catholic Welfare Conference News Service speed reporters to Federal Emergency Relief Administration headquarters in Washington. Was FERAdministrator Harry Hopkins “becoming concerned over the birth rate among families on relief?” No! “Was he gathering information on the subject?” No! Assistant FERAdministrator Corrington Gill rushed off a telegram to Father Cox: “FERA has not collected statistics of this nature.”

Father Cox: “Real news!”

Father Cox, however, based his exultation on a couple of quibbles. Administrator Hopkins’ unconcern over the relief birth rate was purely official; two relief administrators cannot talk shop privately for ten minutes without getting around to the topic of what is to be done about jobless breeders of babies. FERA may not have collected official statistics on relief birth rates. But most relief administrators agree, off the record, that the birth rate of the nation’s indigents is 60% greater than the birth rate of self-supporting families. For every 100 children born to self-supporting parents, relief parents produce 160 children. Professor Samuel H. Stouffer of the University of Wisconsin fortnight ago announced that that ratio holds among Wisconsin families. Professor James Herbert Siward Bossard of the University of Pennsylvania meanwhile found that a 16-to-10 ratio prevails throughout the U. S. Concluded Professor Bossard: “One-third of our coming generation are being born from the one-sixth of our population which is now on relief.”

Mr. Hopkins had another stock technicality with which to vault Father Cox’s criticism: “Grants of money made to states by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration become state funds upon receipt by the Governor. These monies, therefore, must be expended in accordance with state laws and regulations. The subject of birth control is governed by state and local laws. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration is not in a position to execute a program in conflict with these laws under the Act of Congress which created this Administration.”

The only State Emergency Relief Administrator who up to last week dared to declare himself in favor of birth control was Michigan’s William Haber. But even Mr. Haber dared not order his workers to send their cases to birth control experts. However, with such tacit permission, relief funds support one Michigan county birth control clinic as a medical necessity.

The attitude of Charles C. Stillman, Ohio’s new relief administrator, is more typical. He orders his field agents to refer every request for birth control help to the inquirer’s family physician or minister. In Lynchburg, Va., the health department maintains a birth control clinic. In Greene County, Mo., relief workers send cases to doctors and clinics. But in few other states do relief agents dare to be so bold. The common attitude of state administrators to workers seems to be: “Go ahead until you’re stopped.” Wary field workers know they must protect themselves by volunteering no birth control information until asked, but telling any man or woman who does inquire just where the-information is available.

In the Manhattan headquarters of the American Birth Control League and in Mrs. Margaret Sanger’s Washington lobby office are huge stacks of requests for birth control help—from relief workers and administrators, from city managers, probation officers, public health workers, officials of CCC camps.

Birth Controllers have responded with all their might. Last week they had 172 clinics, a 16% increase since last November, running full blast. In every state, except Nevada, there is either a clinic or a number of doctors ready to supply contraceptives.