Life, 1918-01-24 · page 38 of 40
Life — January 24, 1918 — page 38: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is an advertisement for *The Delineator* magazine's public health campaign to reduce infant mortality. The piece uses the fictional case of "Samuel," a baby who dies despite his parents' loving efforts—including folk remedies (a charm from a midwife) and patent medicines—to illustrate how preventable deaths occur through community negligence rather than parental failure. The text argues that one in seven American babies dies before age one, making infant mortality a national crisis comparable to World War I casualties. The campaign references specific cities (Rome, Georgia; Fort Smith, Arkansas; Putnam, Connecticut; Pittsfield, Massachusetts) that supposedly achieved safer childbirth conditions through *The Delineator's* advocacy. The "little white hearse" is a literal symbol of child death. The appeal asks readers to support this progressive-era public health initiative through interest and awareness rather than donations—essentially urging them to champion better sanitation, medical care, and maternal education in their communities.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
They named him Samuel because it means “asked for of Gox But it seemed as though God might ask him again, for th emaciated and the great dark eyes carried little body was in their depths the sorrow of the world. Their first baby “born blind” (because of the midwife’s inattention) had died after a few months, from impure milk, but the poor parents thought it was the judgment of God, in their ignorance. So Samuel received every attention. They bought from the midwife a potent charm to hang around their infant’s neck — the claw of a black hen sewed up in a little bag. His anxious mother tempted him with nice ripe bananas and gave him tea to keep his strength ; and the good father every pay- day brought home a new kind of patent medicine. But even this did no good, and once again the little white hearse drew up at the door— to take away the hope and future of a lonely family. Samuel was only one of a hundred thou- Sacrificed through ignorance and ness, not of the individual parents but of the community itself. One baby in every seven born in America dies before it is a year old, and one half of these deaths are an indictment of every community where they occur. You who devote time and money and heart-aches patching up men wounded on the far fields of France, is it a less important war measure for the future of our country to save the lives of the new generation ? Are you following the campaign of The Delineator to Save the Seventh ny? Ts your community one of those, like Rome, , Fort Smith, Ark., Putnam, Conn., or Pittsfield, Mass., that Cheyenne, W through the aid of The Delineator have be- come safer places for babies to be born and reared in? Have you done your bit to put a little white hearse out of busine: We ask your help, not in money but in interest, to win the fight for the life of the Seventh Baby. Read The Delineator.