Defendant

One night last week at an inn some 20 miles from Washington, 80 women from the U. S. Children's Bureau picked at the last crumbs of a Maryland chicken & dumpling dinner. They had gathered to do honor to their chief. Grace ("G. A.") Abbott, who had resigned and was leaving Washington for good. Thirteen years ago, after an apprenticeship in Chicago's Hull House, Grace Abbott was picked by President Harding to succeed the late great Julia Lathrop as the second chief of the Children's Bureau. She hung a big, red-splotched map of U. S. infant mortality in her office, and stayed there until last June. How much she had accomplished in that time her 80 excited employes were ready last week to show her as soon as dinner was done.

First they presented her with a fat, leather-bound book bulging with press comments on her resignation. Then one of them clapped a hand on her shoulder and solemnly announced: "You're under arrest." In silence she was led up to one of the tables, cleared of everybody save a judge. The charge against Miss Abbott: deserting 43,000,000 U. S. children. One by one her workers took the stand to give testimony. Attorney for Defendant Abbott offered in evidence the fact that her name was not listed in 500 Delinquent Women (TIME, Oct. 1). By unanimous vote she was found guilty. The judge sentenced her "to take with you a bureau from which you cannot resign"--an antique highboy purchased by the employes. From Washington Grace Abbott will go to teach at the University of Chicago, where her elder sister, Edith, is Dean of the School of Social Service Administration.

For 13 years, as chief of the Children's Bureau, Miss Abbott's name has appeared on the inside page of a slim, yellow booklet let called Infant Care and sold by the Government for 10-c-. The Bible of young mothers, Infant Care, since it was first issued in 1914, has sold more than 8,000,000 copies, a record equaled only by In His Steps.

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