MOTHERS’ PENSIONS On account of the fact that the major portion of charitable relief has always gone to poor widows with young children to support, family rehabilitation has been a main study of social workers. Charity and institutional relief have combined forces—orphan asylums taking the children in many cases of destitution while work for her own support was found for the mother. The slight assistance that could be rendered in each case to supplement the mother’s earnings and the necessity of her putting the children to work too early or overtaxing the oldest child in family labor soon showed the ineffectiveness of this method of family rehabilitation, for broken-down physiques, undeveloped minds, wrong associations and delinquency were recognized as the outgrowth of the enforced neglect of home care and training by mothers. Thus arose a general demand for public aid for mothers as a preventive measure, for the sake of the family, and for greater economy, much of the institutional care of delinquents, sick, orphaned, in day nurseries and the like being saved thereby. Mothers’ pension laws now exist in seventeen states, the great majority of which passed the laws within the past year, a year in which women have been their busiest in urging this legislation. In Pennsylvania the law creates an entirely new set of administrative officials—unsalaried boards of women, from five to seven in number, appointed by the governor—in all counties which elect to make use of the act. New York passed a bill for a commission instead of the pension act itself, being conservative enough to desire further investigation. Two women who have worked for mothers’ pensions in that state are on this commission—Mrs. William Einstein and Sophie Irene Loeb. The New York City Federation of Women’s Clubs asked for this commission. The Federal Children’s Bureau has taken a great interest in state aid for dependent mothers with children and has published a study by Laura Thompson of laws relating to the same in the United States, Denmark and New Zealand, with all the legislative technicalities so much discussed. Perhaps more women have agreed on the wisdom of mothers’ pensions than on any other single piece of social legislation. They have even been accused of rushing heedlessly into the support of such laws on purely sentimental grounds, and they are vigorously opposed by many charity workers. Public relief for mothers strikes at the very vitals of private philanthropy which makes its most effective appeals for funds for dependent widows. Dr. Devine, of the New York Charity Organization Society, vigorously opposed the idea of public pensions, and published in _The Survey_ his views on the matter. The following spirited defense by Clara Cahill Park, represents the attitude of a large number of women workers who support the measure: