Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1913 — A WOMAN’S VIEW OF OUR LEGISLATORS [ARTICLE]

A WOMAN’S VIEW OF OUR LEGISLATORS

Thinks Care of Babies Would Be Better Investment Than Pictores of the Members. Starke County Republican. The fact that the Indiana legislature appropriated $2,500 to have the biographies and photographs of the members thereof printed In book form, and at the same time turned down a request to appropriate a sum of money sufficient to print of circulate a booklet on “The Care of Babies,” is causing a storm of indignation to sweep over the state. About the best article we have read in condemnation of the act is written by Mrs. 8. E. Boys, of Plymouth. Herewith is that lady’s opinion:

A photo of a state legislator vs. the life of a Hoosier baby! How would the ordinary citizen compare values? '• ■ _ Evidently our state representatives place a much higher estimate on the former, judging by their recent action in appropriating $2,500 for printing a book containing pictures and biographs of themselves, while they actually refused to make an appropriation of $3,500 asked by the state board of health for the printing of a little book for mothers on the care of babies. Even the care of the jack rabbit takes precedence over the care of our own offspring, in the minds of these wise solons of Indiana, for they at the same time made an appropriation of $2,500 for the printing of a book on game and its preservation. No up-to-date farmer would think of raising hogs without the aid of bulletins furnished at state expense. There are more modern methods and later findings of science on the care of swine, and it is worth while that every agriculturist should know them. There are also better ways, safer ways of raising babies, of caring for eyes to prevent blindness, of nursing so as to make strong babies instead of weaklings, of feeding so as to escape the fatalities of the dreaded second summer. But it is not worth while, i. e„ not worth money, that the mothers of Indiana should know these things. Let the babies die, one in four. We shall preserve our game in this noble state. Let the babies sicken and perish of preventable diseases. And when Rachel is mourning for her children, present her for comfort a book containing biographies and photographs of our state lawmakers. The pictures of great men are always inspiring. Of course, if Indiana were rich enough we might profitably have all three of these books referred to, but in our poverty it is the height of wisdom to choose the most important, the one which will be of most lasting benefit, saving not? only this generation, but laying stronger foundations upon which to build the next; to choose the book which will be prized by the largest number of people, since we, the people, pay the bills. Our legislative friends who refuse the ballot to us mothers say that our place is in the home, rearing children; and now they deny us the means of informing ourselves on this vocation which we most cheerfully accept, though not without longing for the ballot in circumstances such as these. In lieu of this knowledge which we crave they hand us a book on the preservation of game, or, still more to the point, one containing photographs of themselves.