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CHAPTER XXIII

MOTHERS' PENSIONS

HE stigma of ordinary charity long ago fastened itself to its recipients. Private charity, as in the Charity Organization Movement, has tried to overcome that handicap by emphasizing service rather than relief. Pity for the helpless mother left with young children prompted search for a method by which help could be given such a mother that should not carry the taint of charity. If her necessities were relieved by the public poor relief official, then she and her children were forever branded with the term "pauper." Many private societies, while endeavoring to remove the stigma of "pauper" from all their cases by careful case treatment, yet felt that ordinary relief did not have the certainty of income which is necessary if the mother's mind is to be free from the worry incident to her unfortunate position.

As long ago as 1877 in London the importance of a steady income for the aged was recognized by the organization of the Tower Hamlets Pensions Committee, created by a number of Charity Organization. and Poor Law Workers in East London. The application of the principle of pensions to mothers, however, did not occur anywhere until 1911. While France in 1900 in connection with a system of compulsory old age insurance made provision for the death benefits to dependents, and while Germany in connection with a revision of its social insurance laws in 1911 inserted as an important feature a national system of widows' and orphans' pensions, the earliest specific statute in the United States providing for the payment of a regular stated allowance to mothers for the care of their own children was enacted by Missouri in 1911.

By a limitation in the law, however, it applied only to Kansas City. In the same year, following upon a report by a municipal commission on delinquent, dependent and defective children in St. Louis, Missouri passed a law giving authority to cities to pass an ordinance creating a board of children's guardians and allowing this body to board out Bosanquet, Social Work in London, 1867-1912, London, 1914, p. 283.

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children with their own mothers. In 1912 St. Louis passed such an ordinance.

Not quite two months after the passage of the law in Missouri, Illinois on June 5th passed a much more comprehensive mothers' pension law officially known as a "funds to parents act." This law provided that if the parent or parents of neglected or dependent children were poor and unable to care properly for the child but otherwise were proper guardians, and that it was for the welfare of the child to remain at home, the court might enter an order finding such facts and fixing the amount of money necessary to enable the parent or parents to care properly for the child. This law made it the duty of the county board upon the order of the court to make the payments to the parent or parents specified by the order until further orders? from the court. This was the first comprehensive law passed in this country by any state providing for the support of children in the homes of their own mothers at public expense with the avowed object of providing primarily for the children. Moreover, this law of Illinois' really provided the model for similar laws in other states.

In 1912 Colorado adopted by popular referendum a "Mothers' Compensation Act" which became operative in January, 1913.

Indicative of the development of thought on this question about this time are experiments of cities in two states and of a private organization doing family relief work in New York City.

For many years it had been the custom in California under the authority of the state constitution to allow institutions $100 a year for the care of dependent orphans and $75 a year for half orphans and abandoned children. Under a provision of the juvenile court law of that state it had also been the practice to allow up to $11 a month for the care of children committed to institutions. Liberally construed. the institutions had made a practice of giving the amount allowed by; the court to the mothers to care for the children in their own homes when it seemed that the child could be cared for in that way as well or better than in the institution. San Francisco and Los Angeles had followed the practice. In 1913 the state passed a law which authorized the payment of a subsidy half from the state treasury and half from local funds to mothers for the support of half orphans in their own homes.

In Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, also without legislative enactment authorizing such practice, the county board by resolution of March 26. 1912, set aside a fund of $5,000 to be used by the juvenile court in

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giving assistance to the families of dependent children instead of sending them to the County Home for Dependent Children.1

In December, 1912, the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor began the experiment of pensioning certain mothers of dependent children. The experiment was tried out first on a small scale. Up to an early date in 1914, 50 such widows had been pensioned. The experiment was such a success that the director of the Department of Family Welfare of that Association in 1914 felt that the policy should be extended to all the widows in their care.2

In addition to these experiments two states had passed laws in connection with their compulsory education laws not only to supply school books and clothing to poor children of school age, but also for the support of indigent children. Oklahoma passed, as early as April 10, 1908, her "school scholarship" law providing for the payment to the widowed mother of a child of school age an amount equal to the earnings of the child, when the child's wages are necessary for the support of the mother. Michigan in 1911 enacted a law requiring the payment from the school funds of a sum not to exceed $3 per week to indigent parents to enable their children to attend school.3

Attitude of Private Agencies and Workers Toward Mothers' Pensions. From the very beginning of this movement private case working agencies and their workers have had very grave doubts concerning the plan. In 1912 the Russell Sage Foundation appointed Mr. Carstens to study the working of public benefits to widows. He made a report after a survey of the plans in San Francisco, Chicago, Kansas City, Missouri, and Milwaukee. At the time he made the study Wisconsin had no state law on the subject but Milwaukee was operating under the resolution already referred to.

After a survey of the legislation and a study of the administration of the law in the places visited, Mr. Carstens reported adversely to the scheme of mothers' pensions. He urged:

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I. That inasmuch as communities in the same state differ very widely in their circumstances a state wide law does not suit the various communities.

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2. Public agencies have recognized only imperfectly or not at all

Laws Relating to 'Mothers' Pensions, etc.,' Children's Bureau Publication, No. 7, Washington, 1914, pp. 7, 8.

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Matthew's "Widows' Families, Pensioned and Otherwise," The Survey, Vol. XXXIII, June 6, 1914, pp. 270-275.

Laws Relating to 'Mothers' Pensions, etc., Children's Bureau Publication, No. 7, Washington, 1914, p. 8.

the many forms of service to be rendered in addition to the granting of money.

3. The creation of new administrative machinery without coördinating it with the whole machinery for the aid of dependents often leads to conflicting policies and develops antagonism rather than coöperation with established relief authorities.

4. Since in the places visited, with the exception of St. Louis, the administration of the law was vested in the juvenile court, it is inexpedient because it adds to the already heavy duties of the juvenile court the function of pensioning and supervising these cases. In other words, the juvenile court is not adapted to the task.

5. Mothers' pensions do not reduce the number of commitments to institutions, since the number of children committed to institutions because of poverty alone is very much smaller than is generally supposed.

6. Mothers' pensions create a new class of dependents in our communities as experience in Chicago indicated.

7. Efforts to prevent the train of circumstances which leads to the need for pensions is a more hopeful social procedure than the mere pensioning of widows who were victims of causes inherent in our social economy. Moreover, he urged that the existing public and private agencies should be adapted, standardized and used to meet the present needs. He concludes by urging that the preventive measures are the more hopeful measures, such as compensation laws, laws dealing with desertion, bastardy, and support by relatives in line of descent, social insurance against widowhood, unemployment, invalidism or accident.1

In the meantime the advocates of the idea pressed for the enactment of laws in various states with the results already noted. The sentimental appeal in the movement outweighed the prudential considerations urged by the more experienced case workers of the social agencies.

'Carstens, Public Pensions to Widows with Children, Russell Sage Foundation Publication No. 31, New York City, 1913, pp. 25-28. This report started a lively debate which continued for a number of years with considerable activity on both sides. William Hard, "The Moral Necessity of 'State Funds to Mothers,'" The Survey, March, 1913, pp. 769-773. Richmond, "Motherhood and Pensions," The Survey, March 1, 1913, pp. 774-780. Sheffield, "The Influence of Mothers' Aid upon Family Life," The Survey, Vol. 34, July 24, 1915, pp. 378379. Lindsey, "The Mothers' Compensation Law of Colorado," The Survey, February 15, 1913, pp. 714-716.

EXTENT OF THE MOVEMENT

On the basis of these municipal, state and private experiments and impelled by an active propaganda in favor of "Mothers' Pensions," the movement grew very rapidly. During 1913, 13 states in the Union passed new or amended old laws on the subject. By January 1, 1921, 40 of the 48 states had adopted some form of mothers' pension.1

In Europe in addition to France and Germany, mentioned above, Denmark passed a law providing for payment of money to the mother of dependent children in 1913. In 1911 New Zealand passed a law of much the same character as those in force in the United States, but in both these countries the methods of administration are somewhat different, adapted to the political institutions and social conditions there to be found.

THEORY OF THE MOVEMENT

The Mothers' Pension movement is an attempt to carry out the first resolution passed at the White House Conference on the care of dependent children in 1909. This resolution reads: "Home life is the highest, finest product of civilization. It is the great molding force of mind and of character. Children should not be deprived of it except for urgent and compelling reasons. Children of parents of worthy character suffering from temporary misfortune and children of reasonably efficient and deserving mothers who are without the support of the normal breadwinner should as a rule be kept with their parents, such aid being given as may be necessary to maintain suitable homes for the rearing of the children." The movement violates the principle laid down in the second part of that resolution which is: "This aid should be given by such methods and from such sources as may be determined by the general relief policy of each community preferably in the form of private charity rather than of public relief." The movement accords with the last part of the resolution which says: "Except in unusual circumstances the home should not be broken up for reasons of poverty, but only for considerations of inefficiency or immorality."

In short, the theory back of the movement is that children should be kept with their mother in the case of infants for the sake of keeping the infant alive; for older children for the sake of moral develop 'Monthly Labor Review, U. S. Department of Labor, Washington, Jan., 1921. p. 184.