Page:Jay Lovestone - Blood and Steel (1923)).djvu/11

 "Mortality among the children is generally recognized as a very sensitive indicator of the health conditions of a community. The Federal Census Reports for the five years, 1909 to 1913, inclusive, showed that the deaths among children under five years of age averaged 27 per cent of all deaths in registration cities of the United States, and contrasted with considerably higher percentages for certain iron and steel manufacturing towns, where investigations have shown unhealthful conditions to exist and where low-paid wage-earners constitute a large part of the population. …

"Iron and Steel communities: Braddock, Pa., 51; Carnegie, Pa., 47; Homestead, Pa., 57; Johnstown, Pa., 40; Monessen, Pa., 67; South Bethlehem, Pa., 55; Steelton, Pa. 45; Loraine, Ohio, 45; Youngstown, Ohio, 39; Gary, Indiana, 48.

"Thus the percentage of all deaths of children under five years of age in these industrial communities during the period indicated was from 50 to 150 per cent above the average for all cities in the registration area.

"An even sharper contrast is shown when communities of this type are compared with residential communities composed largely of well-to-do families. For example, in Brookline, Mass., the deaths of children under 5 years of age for the period averaged 10 per cent of all deaths. In East Orange, N. J., the percentage was 17.1."

It is especially interesting to note that in the thorough field study made by the Children’s Bureau of the U. S. Department of Labor in Johnstown, Pa., the following condition was found to prevail according to Warren and Sydenstricker:

"In the distinctly unskilled workingmen's wards were rates found to range from 156 to 271, while in the other wards the rates ranged from 50 to 125…"

Let us now go to Gary where the investigations of Hughes made public in 1923 clinch our point that the greatest infant mortality rates are found amongst the families whose breadwinners are the worst under paid and most overworked. Bulletin No. 112 of the Children's Bureau shows that: "Among the 392 live born infants in the lowest earning group (under $1,050), 54 deaths under 1 year of age occurred, giving a mortality rate of 137.8; 90 out of the 708 babies in the mid-group (under $1,050–1,850), died under 12 month of age, making an infant mortality rate of 127.1; of the 179 in the highest income ($1,850 up) group 16 died in infancy, establishing a mortality rate of 89.4 for the group which was best favored financially. In these figures appears again the coincidence between low income and high infant mortality rate which has so persistently recurred in the studies made by the Childrens' Bureau."