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-nor religious, nor even moral-it is the demand of the nation's chemists, based upon scientific analysis," says Dr. Rogers. "Don't close the breweries and distilleries. Transform them" to make the product vital at this time.

Other aspects are discussed in a statement by Prof. Thomas Nixon Carver, of Harvard. All those who grow grain can sell their product at high prices, he argues even barley, which is used very little as human food, may find a ready market as feed for stock. Hop-growers may have more difficulty than others in adjusting themselves, but they can readily turn their land to other uses and "can easily make a living even though they make smaller profits than from hops.

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As to the men employed in the liquor trades, Professor Carver holds that at a time when we "are to put two millions of men into the army and navy, a few million more into the production of military supplies, and at the same time increase the production of foodstuffs, the great and all-absorbing question is where we shall get men-not what we shall do with our surplus men." We are talking of putting high school boys on the farms and committees everywhere are organizing to find new sources of labor. "If these committees take hold of this problem, every man now employed in any branch of the liquor business will find another job waiting for him. Some highly trained and technically skilled men may not be able to turn their training to equally good account elsewhere. That is one of the chances of war which we all must take. Many industries besides the liquor business are going to be badly upset by the war. That, however, is one of the least of the burdens of a great war."

The remaining economic aspect-the loss of tax revenue through prohibition -has scarcely been touched upon, perhaps as a result of its failure in state campaigns; wherever the people have been ready for prohibition, they have brushed aside the loss of revenue as irrelevant in the face of the great gains which they hold will follow prohibition. General Carter touches on it briefly in his statement: "After many years observation of the effects of drink upon our soldiers, it is the unhesitating opinion of the writer that the proceeds of governmental taxation of stills and breweries, is, to say the least, no compensation for the misspent lives and stunted brains of those who are addicted to drunkenness. If it requires war-time prohibition to insure an absolutely sober and dependable army, we should have it, and the sooner the better."

As an offset to the stand of the wet congressmen from the North and East, the committee and other agencies are giving publicity to statements in favor of war prohibition by various bodies, by

prominent business men, such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank, New York city, and by former President Taft, who is chairman of the Yale Committee of Seventy-one which proposes to have a dry commencement at Yale and to persuade other colleges, through their alumni, to follow suit.

At a hearing in the Boston State House, representatives of 300 granges and other bodies urged war prohibition. The Rev. Paul Revere Frothingham presided and among the speakers were exPresident Charles W. Eliot, of Harvard, who put strongly the connection between drink and venereal disease; Bishop William Lawrence, who believes the change of public sentiment the past month has been so enormous that prohibition would undoubtedly get enforcement; Maj. Henry Higginson, who spoke as a veteran of the Civil War; Professor Carver; John B. Moors, president of the Boston Associated Charities; Jessie Hodder, superintendent of the Sherborne Reformatory for Women, who is sending her only son to war; and Dr. Walter E. Fernald, of the Massachusetts School for the Feebleminded at Waverley, who said: "I believe national prohibition during the war necessary to avert economic and military disasters which may destroy our civilization."

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The letter signed by yourself and others under date of April 16 has, of course, chimed in with my own feelings and sentiments. I do not know what steps it will be practicable to take in the immediate future to safeguard the things which, I agree with you in thinking, ought in any circumstances be safeguarded, but you may be sure I have the matter in mind and will act, I hope, at the right time in the spirit of suggestion.

The sentiments which "chimed in" with the President's own feelings were expressed in part as follows:

Even by this time we have seen evidence of the breaking down of immemorial rights and privileges. Halls have been refused for public discussion; meetings have been broken up; speakers have been arrested and censorship exercised, not to prevent the transmission of information to enemy countries but to prevent the free discussion by American citizens of our own problems and policies. As we go on, the inevitable psychology of war will manifest itself with increasing danger, not only to individuals, but to our cherished institutions.

What we ask of you, Mr. President is to make an impressive statement that will reach not only the officials of the federal government scattered throughout the union, but the officials of the several states and of the cities, towns and villages of the country, reminding them of the peculiar obligation devolving upon all Americans in this war to uphold in every way our constitutional rights and liberties. . Such a statement sent throughout the country would reinforce your declaration that this is war for democracy and liberty. . .

Among those who signed the letter were Herbert Croly, editor of the New Republic; Matthew Hale, the Progressive leader in Massachusetts; Judge Ben B. Lindsay, of Denver; Charles J. Rhoades, of the Federal Reserve Board of Philadelphia; Jane Addams; Paul U. Kellogg; Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and others.

Moved by similar alarm at what they term "the first casualties of any war"free speech and peaceable assembly-a group of prominent men and women have formed the American Legal Defense League. They are drawn both from those who favored and those who opposed a declaration of war against Germany, and their object is to defend in the courts "constitutional liberties in any part of the United States." The league has already appeared in a number of cases tried in New York city.

The league has headquarters at 261 Broadway, New York. The first name on its board of advisors is that of Charles S. Whitman, governor of New York. Other names are:

Oswald G. Villard, president of the New York Evening Post; Charles C. Burlingham, lawyer, New York city; Judge John F. Hylan, County Court, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Leonard D. Abbott, president of the Free Speech League of America; Prof. Henry R. Mussey, Columbia University; Owen R. Lovejoy, secretary, National Child Labor Committee; Prof. Emily Green Balch, Wellesley College; Gilbert E. Roe, lawyer, New York city; Lillian D. Wald; Moorfield Storey, lawyer, Boston, and others.

The league will defend accused persons free of charge unless they are able to pay. It plans to secure the services of attorneys throughout the country. Already twenty-five have said they would try cases. It hopes to hear of cases needing attention through existing organizations, both of a militarist and pacifist character. A Legal First Aid Bureau has been formed in New York city to discover and investigate such cases, with headquarters at 70 Fifth avenue. At present the league is supported by contributions, but it may try to establish itself on a wide membership basis.

The principal cases in which the league has appeared for the defendant or been interested are those of Stephen Kerr, arrested for disorderly conduct when speaking in Madison Square, New York, and accused of using the phrase, "you skunks of Americans," though he

denies it; Henry Jager, accused of talking against conscription and of applying improper language to a man who had testified against him; George L. Glison (pen name "Shiloh") arrested for distributing pamphlets during the "Wake Up, America" parade; Helen Boardman, a writer, and Katherine B. Anthony, a social worker and author of Mothers Who Must Earn, who posted signs reading "No conscription—thou shalt not kill," and were put under bonds to keep the peace; and Loewe De Boer, a citizen of Holland, a graduate of Yale and Leyden universities and a writer on American colonial history, who engaged in a conversation on internationalism near a recruiting station and was sent to Bellevue Hospital for observation as to his sanity. De Boer was released several days later after the Dutch consul had testified to his personal acquaintance with him.

Glison, Kerr and Jager were each given six months in the workhouse and the last two were refused bail. "The severity of sentence in these cases is unheard of," declared Harry Weinberger, general counsel and executive secretary of the league, "and the bail offered ($5,000 in the case of Jager) is regarded as more than sufficient in cases of highway robbery and burglary."

Whether these are sporadic cases or whether they show a concerted policy on the part of municipal authorities to curb the free expression of opinion has not been made clear. On April 3, the grand jury then sitting in New York county passed resolutions declaring that "it is the duty of every citizen not only to display his own patriotism, but to be on notice to see that his neighbor neither says nor does anything to reflect upon or weaken the power of constituted authority." The grand jury declared that "it views with dismay and reprobation. the tolerance shown to assemblages in the public parks, squares and streets," and instructed the district attorney to procure authority for the commissioner of police to stop such practices and to prepare a bill making "any seditious utterance a crime punishable by a severe penalty." Either in pursuance of these resolutions or upon complaints received from citizens the Police Department has increased its watchfulness for utterances of a so-called objectionable nature.

Meanwhile, a letter from Mr. Weinberger drew the following reply from Attorney General T. W. Gregory:

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TO SAVE THE ARMY FROM VENEREAL DISEASE URING the first eighteen months of the European war one of the great powers had more men incapacitated for service by venereal disease contracted in the mobilization camps than all the fighting on the front."

Quoting this and other evidence as to the seriousness of the problem of prostitution which confronts the United States in the mobilization and training of a million and a half men, the Oregon Social Hygiene Society has appealed to the Council of National Defense for official precautionary action.

It asks that the council call upon Congress to establish a division of educational hygiene under Surgeon-General Gorgas of the army, with a trained executive in charge, and having an appropriation of $300,000 to $500,000 for a comprehensive educational campaign throughout the army and navy. As an alternative plan it asks that the President appoint a commission which shall be given such an appropriation for this work. It asks also that Congress forbid prostitution within a given distance of all camps.

Under the heading, Shall Prostitution Follow Our Army? the society gives these reasons for drastic action to prevent the entrance of the social evil into army camps and into the navy.

"First, because the experience of European countries has shown that prostitution is one of the most serious, if not the most serious, of army problems. "The number of syphilitics in the army. [Austrian] must certainly be several hundreds of thousands. . . . Since the war began, a total equivalent of sixty divisions have been temporarily withdrawn from the fighting for venereal diseases' (Vienna report, Journal of American Medical Association). . .

"Second, because prostitution was a serious problem on the Mexican border in the summer of 1896. (1) 'As soon as the order to mobilize went forth, the vice interests . . . also began to mobilize their forces and to move them to the border.' (Exner, Social Hygiene). (2) 'Vice districts were established especially for the soldiers.' (Exner. See also Literary Digest, November 18, 1916.) (3) 'Prostitutes were extensively patronized.'

"Third, because venereal diseases, resulting from prostitution, spread more rapidly through the nation in time of war. This condition tends to make the army and navy problem more seri

ous.

"Fourth, because the venereal diseases cause serious complications in later life, and because these diseases will be spread among innocent women and children when the war is over.

"Fifth, because prophylactic measures, while helpful, are insufficient.

"Sixth, because commercialized prostitution is unnecessary.

"Seventh, because it is easily possible to prevent in large measure commercialized prostitution and venereal disease.

"Eighth, because drastic (i. e., immediate and powerful) action is necessary because a large amount of disease in the army originates in mobilization camps and home barracks."

Medical authority and evidence is cited, in the brief, in support of each of the eight contentions made. The brief is now before the medical division of the Council of National Defense, Senator Chamberlain, chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, and others responsible for the carrying on of the war.

TRADE TRAINING FOR THE INJURED

HERE is timeliness in the report

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just made by the Massachusetts Board of Education on special training for injured persons. At the moment the United States is entering war the board, after investigation, proposes that a bureau be established "for the training and instruction of persons who, through industrial accident or industrial disease, have suffered the loss of or injury to a limb, or other severe injury, and whose earning capacity has been destroyed or impaired thereby, for the purpose of reestablishing or increasing the ability of such persons to earn a livelihood."

The board was instructed a year ago to undertake an inquiry into this subject. It interpreted its instructions as referring primarily to industrial accidents. Nevertheless it secured testimony and help from people who have been at work on the problem of training crippled soldiers in Canada and in Europe. Its recommendations, therefore, have an application to the injuries that will be sustained by our own citizens on the battlefields of Europe.

The board was not able to determine definitely the number of people in Massachusetts who, under present conditions, are in danger of becoming unemployable because of industrial accident. Estimates vary from 500 to 2,000 yearly. It did find, however, that there is in that state "a large problem of rehabilitating injured workers through scientific methods of discovery of aptitudes, organization. of means of training, development of agencies for placement in industry, and rendering assistance to the handicapped while adapting themselves to the demands of a new position." What is true of Massachusetts is probably true. also of other highly industrialized states.

Although nearly all states make provision for training the blind, the board. found no national or state-aided institutions for training the injured. There are a number of private institutions for training cripples, but these are frequent

ly designed especially for children. It discusses several typical agencies for training disabled workmen and soldiers in foreign countries.

There are five stages in the treatment and rehabilitation of persons seriously injured, if they are to be restored to industry as self-supporting workers and citizens, the board finds. These are the period of surgical treatment, of convalescence and mental adjustment, of training, of placement, and of physical adjustment to the demands of the new position.

An act has been drawn by the board to establish the new bureau it proposes. This bureau should, it thinks, maintain such additional agencies as may be necessary to instruct, train and place in employment injured persons whose earning capacity has been destroyed or impaired. The bureau should be under the board of education and should issue bulletins containing information about choosing an occupation, obtaining training and securing employment. Such a bureau, says the board, would only be an extension of a state policy already in operation in reference to the blind.

WAR-TIME TRAINING AND PROGRAMS

OLLOWING the lead of the New York School of Philanthropy, training courses in civilian relief work have been established in a score of cities, and a special section on social problems of the war is announced by the National Conference of Charities and Correction for its meeting next month in Pittsburgh. Edward T. Devine is chairman and Ernest P. Bicknell vice-chairman.

The section has been arranged to discuss the war as it affects social work and conditions without scrapping the program carefully built up before the break with Germany. There is to be, moreover, a special meeting the afternoon of June 11 at which William Howard Taft will address the conference on the League to Enforce Peace. Frederic Almy, president of the conference, points out that the league's program has to do with the period after the present war and that, in accordance with its practice established for many years, the conference will not expect to take a position for or against this or any other proposal laid before it.

Civilian relief training courses in all the cities from which the SURVEY has received announcements are based on the regular case work of charity societies applied directly to the situation which is expected to develop as the result of experience in Canada, on the Mexican border and, to some extent, abroad. In the professional training schools for social workers and the Red Cross classes organized by charitable agencies, stress is laid on required field work under the direction of experienced agents. The

result is expected to be a considerable body of volunteers with some understanding of the principles involved and a bit of experience resulting from the field work-minutemen of charity. The size and details of the task they may be called upon to perform depend, of course, in large measure, upon how effectually Congress keeps married men out of the army and what provision it makes or fails to make for the dependents of soldiers.

In the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, the special lectures on emergency war relief follow after a course on the principles of case work and another on the background of social work. Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, of the school faculty, is giving a closely related course in the University of Chicago which, together with courses on food conservation and production, and on first aid, are made a part of a special program of war service for the women students of the university.

The leading social agencies of Boston are represented on a committee which is acting in an advisory capacity to the Boston School of Social Work (which forms a department of Simmons College) in its course on First Aid in Social Service. Elizabeth L. Holbrook of the Associated Charities is in charge of the class conferences and assignments to field. work. The Pennsylvania School for Social Service, Philadelphia, follows very similar lines and, in common with the others, is giving its course under the auspices of the local Red Cross.

In Scranton, Pa., thirty-five students. are at work under the direction of Maurice Willows, general secretary of the Associated Charities, who is also one of three men in charge of the newly organized civilian relief department of the Red Cross. In Yonkers, N. Y., course is given by Mary J. Van Hook for the local chapter of the National League for Woman's Service, with the cooperation of other local agencies.

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The Denver Federation for Charity and Philanthropy is establishing a class. And among a great many special wartime college classes may be mentioned that on emergency aid by Prof. Susan M. Kingsbury, Carola Woerishoffer professor of social economy at Bryn Mawr.

Of interest in this connection is a dispatch received by the Christian Science Monitor, in which Neville Chamberlain, British director of national service, emphasizes social service as an occupation for volunteers. While recognizing the value of part-time work by women prevented by domestic duties from placing their whole time at the disposal of the country, he urges that further help from volunteers is needed in social work carried on directly by the state and by local authorities or partly supported by them, such as care com

'mittees, boys and girls clubs, infant welfare agencies, war pensions and disablement committees, canteen service for munition workers, rest huts for soldiers and sailors.

On the other hand, he pleads for voluntary workers in services which must be rendered for the whole working day, or which can be rendered better by whole-time workers, including the voluntary aid attachments to auxiliary hospitals and civil as well as military nursing which requires a period of preparation and probation.

PRACTICAL PATRIOTISM FOR

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OBJECTORS

EPRESENTATIVES of the three separate Quaker organizations, the Five Yearly Meeting, the Hicksites, and the Arch Street Yearly Meeting (Philadelphia), have come together to form a Friends' National Service Committee for the purpose of directing the energies of those men and women who, though unable on conscientious grounds to take part in military or civil war service, desire to cooperate with the government in meeting the new tasks of social service arising from the country's state of war. The committee consists of five delegates each from the three organizations and has empowered an executive committee of four, Alfred G. Scattergood, Arabella Carter, L. Hollingsworth Wood and Lucy Biddle Lewis, to formulate plans of active service.

Following the example of English Friends, the committee is contemplating the formation of an ambulance corps for service at home or abroad if a real need for it should develop. The idea of a Friends' farm labor corps, already previously announced (see the SURVEY for April 21, page 70) has been received with much approval throughout the country. Their formation has, for this reason, been delegated to local committees which are actively engaged in enlisting conscientious objectors for this service, whether members of a religious organization or not.

The committee is particularly anxious that Friends already engaged in social work of permanent value shall not, under a mistaken conception of patriotic duty, neglect it for the sake of swelling the ranks of the new social crusaders.

"We are united," says a resolution unanimously adopted by the Friends' National Service Committee, "in expressing our love for our country and our desire to serve her loyally. We offer our services to the government of the United States in any constructive work in which we can conscientiously serve humanity. We encourage freedom of thought and of speech to carry on as far as the law will allow open forums and to encourage the press to state both sides of a question at issue. We recom

mend that at all times, in all things, we exercise and advocate self-control and the application of enthusiasm for service, for constructive ends."

EFFICIENCY FOR THE ARMY

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CHAPLAINS

HE selection of chaplains for the greatly enlarged army and navy is being made a matter of highly selective processes and of close cooperation among the constituent bodies of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America.

"The chaplaincy is not a political office, not a soft snap, not an easy salary or a pension for life, and is no place for people who make failures in other types of ministry," says the Rev. Clyde F. Armitage, associate secretary of the Commission on the Church and Social Service of the Federal Council.

The federal council is cooperating with the secretaries of the Army and Navy De

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partments in the discovery and selection of capable men. A large number of applications from some of the denominations are now on hand, and it is evident that there will be no opportunity for other than the highest grade men. We have been in conference with the denominational committees concerning chaplains and are cooperating with them in such a way as to give every chaplain the backing of a united Protestant church. We have generally agreed that no candidate shall receive endorsement unless he fully meets the strict requirements set.

We expect also that the man shall have prepared himself with a thorough college and theological seminary education. It is quite essential that he shall have had some pastoral experience and that he be an organizer as well as a preacher. A chaplain finds awaiting him no official board, no group of deacons, no organization of any kind. He must be a man of resource and must build his work in many cases against the indifference, and in some cases against the opposition of the officers.

We prefer also that the men becoming chaplains be of an athletic type, capable of supervising the recreations of the enlisted men. Preference shall be given to those who desire to enter the chaplaincy as a life work.

Social Legislation

For the Children of Minnesota

By W. W. Hodson

SECRETARY, MINNESOTA CHILD WELFARE COMMISSION

F the forty-three measures submitted to the state legislature by the Minnesota Child Welfare Commission, thirty-five were enacted into law with but few and unimportant changes. The success of so large a number is especially heartening because the legislature considered, during the session, 2,300 measures of which 78 per cent failed of passage. With possibly three exceptions, the child welfare program constitutes the record of social legislation for this session.

Earnest people in this state have long labored to secure a commission for the revision of laws relating to children. At two preceding sessions of the legislature, efforts were made to bring this about, but without result. Finally Governor Burnquist was urged to appoint such a commission, which he did, and twelve persons were selected to serve. Work was begun in September, 1916, under the leadership of Judge E. F. Waite, of the Juvenile Court of Minneapolis. Funds were raised by popular subscription throughout the state.

After as careful and thorough study as time could permit, a report was made to the governor in February of this year, in which forty-three bills were submitted for consideration. In the legislature, a joint committee, appointed by House and Senate to consider the recommendations, reported out for passage forty-one of the original forty-three proposals. It should be noted in passing that the strategic advantage of a joint committee and a favorable report by it cannot be overstated. The measures were introduced in each chamber as committee bills bearing the sanction of men from both houses. As "two-name paper" is better than one, the moral is pointed and the tale

guarding of her rights and those of her child. A Bureau of Child Welfare is created in the Board of Control and local county Boards of Child Welfare are authorized in the various counties of the state to cooperate.

The law relating to illegitimate children is shaped on the principle, expressed in the statute, that the child born out of wedlock is entitled to the same degree of care and nurture as though he were legitimate. The father's obligation, in any event, cannot be settled without the approval of a court having jurisdiction. Supplementary to this, it is made a felony and hence subject to extradition, to abscond after issue is conceived of fornication.

Maternity hospitals and infant homes must now be licensed and properly supervised by the Board of Control and that board must investigate homes in which children are to be placed, and visit within ninety days after the entrance of the child into the home. The surrender of children under fourteen years of age is restricted. Adoption proceedings are now subjected to careful scrutiny by the board, and no child can be adopted until he has remained in the proposed foster home for six months.

The so-called mother's pension law has been rewritten, its provisions enlarged, and standards of administration established in the light of the experience of our own and other states. The juvenile court law has likewise undergone a thorough process of recasting at the hands of persons intimately acquainted with the juvenile court problems. The scope of the law, the machinery of its procedure, and the spirit of its text have been put on a solid and liberal foundation.

In many respects Minnesota now has as soundly progressive laws relating to children as will be found on the statute books of any state in the union.

PRISON PROGRESS IN NEW
JERSEY

EW JERSEY, by act of her legislature

adorned. One cannot refrain from further Njust adjourned, enters the list of states

suggesting that the euphonious title of "child welfare" was not without value and the few who found it necessary to oppose the interests of children squirmed vigorously. Catchphrases are fortunately not always misleading nor of evil purpose.

Of the forty-one measures approved by the joint committee, six were withdrawn before the bills came up for final passage. The opposition to these developed such strength that it was feared the whole scheme would be jeopardized. So it was necessary to discard a proposal relating to the regulation of marriage, which provided, among other things, that five days should elapse between the application for and issuance of a marriage license. Two bills allowing inheritance by illegitimate children from the father where paternity has been adjudged were sacrificed to a vague but strongly prevalent fear of blackmail. A measure regulating street trades by prohibiting them to boys under twelve and requiring boys between twelve and sixteen to have licenses met the bitter resentment of all newspapers in the cities affected. Because of it those papers closed their editorial columns to the entire body of child-welfare legislation. Two other measures including a revision of the child-labor law were withdrawn to meet the needs of the situation.

Of the measures passed none is of greater importance than one which gives the state Board of Control powers of legal guardianship over children who may be committed to its care. Complete responsibility is centered in the board, and it is given broad powers of action. Special emphasis is laid, in this law, upon the care of the unmarried woman approaching motherhood, the safe

that are dissatisfied with their methods of controlling and managing state charitable institutions. A commission of five persons has been created not only to investigate conditions in such institutions, but to inquire into ways of "centralizing authority or control over all such institutions, the transfer of inmates," and other questions of improvement. New Jersey now has a department of charities and correction with a single commissioner at the head. Governor Edge has appointed the commission of inquiry.

The exposure of conditions at Trenton prison by the Prison Enquiry Commission and the reforms that followed have already been noted. This commission has been continued for another year to investigate other penal institutions. An unusual county jail bill was passed, giving authority for employing jail prisoners and establishing a wage system. Wages must not exceed fifty cents a day, and may be paid to a prisoner's dependents. A judge of common pleas is empowered to parole any jail prisoner under rules made by the court whenever work can be found anywhere in the county. It is made a misdemeanor for a person "knowing himself or herself to be infected with venereal disease" to marry, and the reporting of cases of venereal disease to the Department of Health is required.

The State Labor Commission was given authority over sweatshops, and the Department of Labor authority relating to home work manufacture, in times of epidemic.

Another measure provided for two women members on boards of managers of state hospitals for the insane in addition to the present membership. The sale of cigarettes to minors under eighteen was prohibited.

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HEALTH MEASURES KILLED IN INDIANA

HE Indiana legislature, some of whose enactments were noted in the SURVEY for April 28, killed the "chiropractic bill," which would have given to an examining board, separate from regular medical practice regulations, the licensing of "chiropractitioners." But it also killed the bill providing for all-time county health officers; the bill that would have greatly aided the control of infectious diseases by providing medical examination of school children. Not even a commission to investigate health insurance was secured-much less insurance itself. Measures were killed that aimed to control venereal disease, to prohibit the sale of habitforming drugs, and to require health certificates for marriage licenses.

The report pictures a gory session. Verily, as Dr. Hurty, Indiana state officer of health, says, "the education of the people is a slow process. But," he adds, "public education is a surer foundation for public health than law-making."

VERMONT STATE GOVERNMENT REORGANIZED

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HE primary concern of the Vermont legislature was with administrative reorganization of the functions of the state government. The governor, who for fourteen years had been the state auditor of accounts and had thus had the opportunity of gaining an unusual amount of knowledge of state affairs, laid down a complete plan for reorganizing and regrouping administrative functions.

The central feature of the plan was the organization of a board of control to have a general control over all boards, departments and institutions. As enacted, the law provided for a board to consist of the governor, state treasurer, auditor of accounts, director of state instiutions and an additional member appointed by the governor. This board holds monthly meetings and has general powers of oversight over all state departments. The employment of all assistants by any department is subject to the approval of this board, as is also the pay of all officers and employes whose pay is not fixed by statute. Departments of government are required to make monthly reports to this board showing the work done and the money expended, and a summary of these reports is to be furnished to the newspapers. The Board of Control, together with the chairmen of the Finance Committee in the Senate and the Ways and Means Committee and the Committee on Appropriations in the House, constitute a committee on budget to prepare the budget for submission to the legislature. Other measures which were part of the reorganization plan provide for a commissioner of agriculture, who takes over the duties of several departments formerly doing work relating to agriculture and the commissioner of industries, who takes over the work of the Industrial Accident Board and the factory inspector. The office of state engineer is also created, and the office of insurance commissioner.

The director of state institutions is a new office created to take over the work formerly done by the Board of Penal Institutions, trustees of the State Hospital for the Insane and trustees of the State School for Feebleminded Children. He is also authorized to establish, with the approval of the Board of Control, detention farms, where persons now confined in jail may be detained. Provision is made for a reformatory for women Windsor, where the women prisoners now sent to the house of correction and the state prison will be confined.

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Another measure which formed part of the governor's program was that which provided for a board of charities and probation.

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This is an unpaid board which is given supervision over such dependent, neglected and delinquent children as may be committed to the board by the juvenile court and has power of investigation over all public charities. It takes over the work of the Probation Commission and administers the probation law of the state, for which purpose it may appoint deputy probation officers. It is also the duty of the board to investigate the administration of the poorhouses of the state. In this connection it may be noted that an offer was made to the state of a large farm to be used as a state home for dependent children and the legislature gave full power to the Board of Control to act as to the advisability of accepting the home.

Benefits under the workmen's compensation act were somewhat increased and made more specific, and the administration of the law was given, as above noted, to the commissioner of industries. An act was passed making the child labor law conform to the provisions of the federal act.

Measures directly relating to war were the appropriation of a million dollars for the National Guard and for aid to dependents thereof; the codification of the laws relating to the militia; an espionage act; an act prohibiting the granting of second-class liquor licenses (bottle licenses) while the United States is at war; and the law providing that the commissioner of industries may suspend the law regarding hours of labor of women and children while the United States is at war.

Among the measures relating to public health were an act authorizing counties to establish tuberculosis hospitals; an act relating to the practice of chiropody; a net weight law; an act providing for the cleanliness of food establishments and giving large powers to the State Board of Health relative thereto; an act providing that food standards promulgated by the federal Department of Agriculture should be the legal standards for Vermont; the pure ice-cream law; an act permitting the State Board of Health to conduct an educational campaign for the prevention of venereal diseases; an act appropriating money for the establishment of wards or hospitals by the state for the treatment of tuberculosis; an act prohibiting the sale of drugs or other commodities containing wood alcohol.

A woman's suffrage measure provides that women who pay taxes may vote in local elections, which includes a vote on the question of granting liquor licenses.

JOHN M. AVERY. NEW HEALTH ADMINISTRATION FOR OHIO

Tand substitute for it a public health

abolish the State Board of Health

council of four members and the state commissioner of health was the proposal made to the Ohio legislature by Senator Howell Wright. The measure passed in the Senate without a dissenting voice; in the House after a sharp partisan fight, and was signed by Governor Cox, who, according to the Ohio State Medical Journal, will probably appoint the new council before June. when the system takes effect.

Under the new law the commissioner is given broader powers than formerly were conferred upon the secretary. "The gov ernor and his advisers," says the Ohio State Medical Journal, "are now engaged in scour ing the country for a high-grade man." Comparison with the recently enacted law of Illinois at this point is decidedly in Ohio's favor. "The only qualification demanded is that the commissioner be a physician skilled in sanitary science," whether he has practiced medicine for five years in Ohio or for one in Montana is of small importance in comparison to the fact of adequate training.

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