BABY’S TRIBUTE

Grey River Argus, 11 August 1925, Page 6

BABY’S TRIBUTE

TO MODERN INDUSTRIALISM. Buckle many years ago observed that crime increased with the increase in the price of bread and thus shocked many good people for whom the price of bread had little/interest. They and their descendants who never missed a good dinner would deny that economic conditions bore any intimate relation to the conduct of human beings. That the death rate of babies in well-to-do families is lower than in families of the working class is well known, A study which the United States Children’s Bureau has beet making for more than ten years of the the rtn-rS r - >tc in workers’ lantilies in eight American cities shows that low’ wages kill babies. Where the worker receives less than 450 dollars the infant mortality rate was twice as high ns where he received 850 dollars and 1,049 dollars. A study of women in industry also shows that when the mother worked for wages infant mortality was still heavier. Out of 1,900 children whose mothers worked away from home tn the period before the citild was born. 170 of the children died. If the mother worked for wages at home, 1 1 4 died. If the mother did not work for wag ps died. All indications ere that infant mortality was about 49 per cent higher when mothers worked. 'there is no mistaking what these figures mean. The economic necessity that forces mothers to work for wages also requires that they shall sacrifice their babies to the needs of capitalist product ion. The fathers whoso wage does not permit them to adequately care for their children also offer a certain percentage of their children as a sacrifice to capitalism in industry. With the powers of wealth production we have, this sacrifice of the young is a criminal indictment of the capitalist order of society. Workingmen and women who give their votes to the parties of capitalism also sign the death warrant of many babies.

Quite n price to pay for the continuance of a system that enriches workless idlers and gives prestige to their political brokers.