CRESSY L. WILBUR, M. D. 97 



cents apiece (it costs no more, unless the wholly unnecessary 

 and detrimental feature of payment to physicians and mid-wives 

 is incorporated) for making the permanent legal records of the 

 deaths of our parents, our brothers and sisters, our children, 

 and our kin, as well as our own when our appointed time shall 

 arrive, and of the births of our children! No other civilized 

 nation on the fact of the earth so neglects its duty in this respect 

 or holds the vital records of its people in such low esteem. If 

 this is the estimate that we deliberately place upon ourselves, 

 it would seem that this Association has undertaken a foolish 

 task in trying to save the lives of babies that are not even 

 worthy of civil record. It is not true that such is the case. 

 It is largely ignorance and thoughtlessness on the part of the 

 people, who have never realized the essential importance of 

 such records, and slovenly and faithless service oa the part of 

 their official servants, who have grossly neglected the adminis- 

 tration of such laws where they exist. 



The blame is sometimes placed by health officers upon 

 physicians or mid-wives for failing or neglecting to register 

 births. This is unfair, because the physicians and mid-wives 

 are not charged with the enforcement of the registration laws. 

 It is their duty to obey them, and if they do not obey them, 

 it is the duty of the registration officials to compel them to obey 

 them under the penalty of the law. Such excuses show great 

 weakness and a misconception of the duty of the registrar to 

 enforce, not to connive at the violation of, the law he is charged 

 with executing. It is perfectly easy to ascertain whether or not 

 such a law is being thoroughly carried out. Here is an extract 

 from a paper by Florence Kelley, General Secretary of the 

 Consumers' League, in "The Survey/' September 3, 1910, on 

 "What Our Official Statistics Do Not Tell Us:" 



"In a rapidly growing number of States children must pro- 

 duce their birth certificates before they can go to work. In 

 New York city they must produce such certificates before they 

 can enter the public schools, and again before they can go to 

 work. The exceptional children admitted upon other evidence 

 of age are put to such inconvenience in the process, that every 

 exertion is made by parents to get birth certificates. Of 28,000 

 children, native-born and foreign-born alike, who get working 

 papers each year in New York city, between the ages of 14 and 

 16 years, three-quarters have birth certificates. The remaining 

 quarter, who fail to get birth certificates, are native American 

 children and those who come from certain parts of Russia or 

 from the earthquake district of Italy. What earthquake and 

 revolution do in Europe, official slovenliness accomplishes 



