Social Security through Aid for Dependent Children in Their Own Homes

Abstract

The term to dependent children in their own has until recently been referred to as aid, but it is a broader term than the latter. Even is by no means the only term which has been in vogue. Some states in their statutes use the terms pensions or allowances. The use of the broader term in the Federal Social Security Act, which permits a broader application of the principle, is likely to have a general acceptance in the course of time. The history of mothers' aid dates back to the first White House Conference, called by President Theodore Roosevelt in i909. At that Conference, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch of Chicago urged that the payment of public money be made possible to mothers of dependent children who might otherwise be placed in institutions, instancing the fact that most of these children had mothers living. The idea did not arouse enthusiasm among the members of the Conference at that time, but it was taken up with great enthusiasm by the National Congress of Mothers and other women's groups who made themselves felt in the development of the early mothers' aid legislation. In Illinois, however, where the first mothers' aid law was passed in I9II, there was a different origin. Widowed mothers who had been giving their children good care frequently came to the Juvenile Court, asking to have their children placed in institutions. When the Court urged that they keep their children at home they pleaded their inability to support them at home. They found that neither private nor public relief was sufficient to meet their needs to keep their homes intact. This led to the Cook County Juvenile Court's strong advocacy of this new relief measure and to Judge Merritt W. Pinckney's thoughtful and devoted administration, which contributed much to its general acceptance. Rarely has a movement in legislation spread as fast as that of establishing mothers' aid. By the end of I9I3 there were such laws in twenty states. In I9I5 eight more were added, in 1917 six more; after this they came more slowly. At present there