The marketing myth and the reality; Grace Hutchins is having neither of them.

‘’Mother’s Day’ Bunk Spread to Cover Hunger and Deaths’ by Grace Hutchins from the Daily Worker. Vol. 8 No. 111. May 8, 1931.

“Flowers by wire for Mother’s Day.” “A Mother’s Day treat in the candy shop, only $1.50 a pound.” (The unemployed will be glad of this good news.)

“If you cannot go home, do as your heart tells you, send her a telegram.” A five minutes walk on any shopping street reveals these and more such signs in the shop windows.

Over 16,000 mothers each year in the United States die leaving behind them their new-born babies.

The United States, richest capitalist country in the world has a higher death rate from child birth than any other country in the world for which statistics are available, and has held this record for 20 years.

At least 10,000 of these dead mothers could have been saved each year if they had had money for proper medical care, rest and security.

Babies die at the rate of 167 for every 1,000 live births in working class families where the father earned less than $450 a year. But babies in the families where the fathers earned $1,250 or over die only at the rate of 59 for every 1,000 live births. For babies in families of the unemployed where the fathers had “no earnings”, the rate is highest of all 211 for every 1,000 live births.

These cold facts tell the true story of working class mothers in the United States. They are facts admitted by physicians and by government surveys.

Working mothers who must continue work through pregnancy almost up to the moment of child birth have far less chance of having healthy babies than other women, and the number of still births is greater among factory workers than among women who can stay at home during the last weeks of pregnancy. Yet the number of mothers who must go out to work with no protection for the months before and after child birth is steadily increasing in the United States. In Philadelphia the percentage has increased from 14 percent in 1918-19 to 21 percent in 1928.

Boss Class Profits from Slushy Sentiment.

In the face of these facts about motherhood in the United States what does the boss class do? Urge maternity benefits for the protection of working mothers? Social insurance against unemployment and against illness? Of course not. Only in the Soviet Union is such protection established.

The boss class in every capitalist country wants profits and more profits. So a few years ago some clever advertiser for the capitalists invented “Mother’s Day.” Cash in on the sentimental appeal of “Mother”. Make Mother’s Day a second Christmas for buying surplus goods. Capitalize child birth and make it profitable for the ruling, owning class.

But the workers answer: demand social insurance so that mothers may have constant care and supervision during the illness of pregnancy and child birth. We demand leave of absence with full pay for working class mothers before and 2 months after child birth.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n111-NY-may-08-1931-DW-LOC.pdf