Political Quotes

“I took the occasion to read a passage from the first page of the New York Times which described the White House as "exceedingly eager to support a law that promises to change the welfare system," which is to say abolish title IV-A, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. It went on to say the White House was "sending increasingly friendly signals about the bill." This is a bill which three professors at the Columbia School of Social Work, including the revered Alfred Kahn, said would recreate the turn-of-the-century era in which the children of single mothers were referred to as "half orphans" and sent to orphanages. In reaction, 40 States established mothers' pensions, the forerunner of aid to dependent children. The 1935 legislation created aid to dependent children. In 1939 the mother was entitled to a benefit, hence family with dependent children. They said, "It is our hope that 100 years later the Nation might be spared another such misbegotten and shameful era."”