Horace Mann Towner - Congress

Congress

In 1910 Towner ran successfully as a Republican to succeed retiring Democrat William Darius Jamieson representing Iowa's 8th congressional district in the U.S. House. He was re-elected five times. From 1919 to 1923, he was served as the House Republican Conference Chairman.

He was the co-author (with Texas Senator Morris Sheppard) of the first federal law to offer matching federal funds for social welfare or to offer grants-in-aid to states for health purposes. That law, known as the Sheppard-Towner Act or the Maternity and Infant Act, was designed to lower the United States' relatively high rates of infant mortality, and established maternal and child health services in each state. First offered in 1919, it passed in 1921. Although the program it created was chronically underfunded after passage and was allowed to expire in 1929, it paved the way for many similar state-federal social welfare programs in the New Deal era and thereafter.

Towner was also the co-sponsor of the Towner-Sterling bill, which would have created a cabinet-level department of education. It failed to pass during his tenure in the House, and over fifty years would pass before its objective would be fully realized.

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