CHAPTER I THE RIGHT TO CHILDHOOD It is no part of the aim of this chapter to prove that the right to childhood exists. That right follows from the existence of the Republic and must be guarded in order to guard its life which must perish if it should ever cease to be replenished by generations of patriots, who can be secured on no other terms than the full recognition of the need of long-cherished, carefully nurtured childhood for all the future citizens. The purpose of this chapter is simply to indicate certain instances in which, the right to childhood having been recognized, an ethical gain has been achieved, and farther gains may be accomplished. The noblest duty of the Republic is that of selfpreservation by so cherishing all its children that they, in turn, may become enlightened self-governing citizens. The children of to-day are potentially the Republic of 1930. As they are cherished and trained, so will it live or languish a generation hence. The care and nurture of childhood is thus a vital concern of the nation. For if children perish in infancy they are obviously lost to the Republic as citizens. If, surviving infancy, children are permitted to deteriorate into criminals, they are bad citizens; if they are left illiterate, if they are overworked and devitalized in body and mind, the Republic suffers the penalty of every offense against childhood. An unfailing test of the ethical standards of a community is the question, "What citizens are being trained here?" Where young children die by thousands, the ethical standards of the community are, so far, bad. For science has long shown how to minimize infant mortality. The failure of a community to follow the teachings of science in this direction is a moral dereliction of the gravest character. The death from preventable disease of thousands of young children in the tenement houses of the city of New York, occurring year after year, from generation to generation, stamps the ethical standards of the metropolis as bad beyond belief. For the exposure of infants on the highways of China is not more obvious to the people of China, than the preventable mortality of infants in New York City has for years been obvious to the people of the United States. It is, moreover, one of the incredible things of our civilization that this excessive infant mortality, from generation to generation, is left to local boards of health and to local philanthropies, whose inability to cope with it its persistence has long conspicuously proved. The legislation of the last few years, intended to secure improved housing for the people of New York City, although it is still wholly inadequate, constitutes one of the fundamental ethical gains of our generation. For it marks the beginning of that social protection of infant life without which the right to childhood is illusory; and for want of which thousands of potential citizens in the great cities have, within the last half century, been lost to the Republic. It would seem at first glance to be a universally acknowledged right of the human being to receive during the first months of life food, clothing, shelter and nurture without even passive coöperation on its own part beyond swallowing food, wearing clothing and sleeping in a quiet, warm, clean place. Yet within one generation it has been necessary to enforce with fines and imprisonment, statutes and ordinances for the purpose of stopping large numbers of infants less than one year old from being used to contribute to the income of their owners by being exposed in the arms of begging women upon the streets of the great cities. The colder the night and the later the hour, the more overwhelming the appeal to the pity of the passer-by and the greater the pecuniary value to its owner (not by any means always its mother), of such an instrument for securing income. Before the enactment of the statute which put an end in New York City to this misuse of infants, a belief was current that, if the public should cease to contribute to their support, starvation might be the alternative for both woman and child. But women and infants do not starve in New York. The suppression of this exploitation of infants is a clear gain for the moral sense of the community, not only be |