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44 - Margaret Sanger; an autobiography by Margaret Sanger · Margaret Sanger; an autobiography

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Speaker 1: Chapter thirty five, Part two of Margaret Sanger by Margaret Sanger.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter thirty five,
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Speaker 1: Part two, A Past which is gone forever Enlarged portraits
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Speaker 1: of Lenin and Stalin were in all public buildings. Their
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Speaker 1: statues were everywhere, in every square, on every corner. A
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Speaker 1: major industry of Russia seemed to be to find new
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Speaker 1: poses for Stalin, standing up, lying down, writing, reading, often
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Speaker 1: just his head definitely recognizable, in spite of the predominance
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Speaker 1: of red, was designed in flower beds. One of the
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Speaker 1: most delicate attentions was to give him a different colored
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Speaker 1: necktie on different days. The plants were kept in to
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Speaker 1: make this charming gesture possible. After the Revolution, when peace
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Speaker 1: had come, connoisseurs from various countries had been invited to
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Speaker 1: examine the recovered statues, rugs, tapestries and obje dhar stolen
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Speaker 1: from the palaces and churches. One by one, the priceless
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Speaker 1: paintings were displayed. Specialists rendered their opinions, commercial dealers furnished appraisals.
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Speaker 1: Stenographers took down every word. The same was done with
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Speaker 1: the lapis Lazuli tables, the snuff boxes, the court jewels.
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Speaker 1: The interesting part of the new arrangement was that the
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Speaker 1: interpretation was entirely Marxian. Pictures, instead of being hung according
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Speaker 1: to the orthodox history of art, were fitted into the
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Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution. Madonna was not admired for its qualities of
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Speaker 1: color or form, or as a thing of beauty in itself.
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Speaker 1: The guide explained to you that it was created at
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Speaker 1: such and such a time when the Church was trying
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Speaker 1: to get a hold over the people, when artists were
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Speaker 1: starving and had to look for their means of livelihood
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Speaker 1: to the patronage of the church. Later in the Kremlin
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Speaker 1: at Moscow, we saw fantastic and incredible riches, jeweled saddles,
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Speaker 1: a whole set of harness studded with turquoise, a huge
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Speaker 1: casket cloth embroidered with thousands of pearls. In order to
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Speaker 1: place the period of the latter, I asked Tanya where
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Speaker 1: it had come from. She replied, in her precise English,
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Speaker 1: you see, it is for to cover the dead. You see,
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Speaker 1: in Russia there was such a custom when they died,
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Speaker 1: they put them in the ground. It was such a custom,
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Speaker 1: you see, to cover them with cloths. She spoke of
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Speaker 1: the Tsarist regime, as though it had been centuries ago.
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Speaker 1: One of the pictures was a Christ removed from the
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Speaker 1: cross and lying on the ground. Tanya said, people used
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Speaker 1: to come here and they even kissed it. This, she
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Speaker 1: uttered in the tone of scorn, of a very youthful generation,
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Speaker 1: shocked and horrified at the ancient traditions. Our hope is
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Speaker 1: in the young people, she said frequently. But how old
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Speaker 1: are you? Oh, I'm thirty two, as though she were doddering.
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Speaker 1: Grant and I were once walking by a group of
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Speaker 1: children when a small boy pointed at us and remarked, Ah,
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Speaker 1: there go some of the dying race. To them. All
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Speaker 1: americanski were capitalists. The Marxian ideology had been applied to
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Speaker 1: every phase of life. H G, accompanied by Jip, his
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Speaker 1: biologist son, had flown over from London since he wanted
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Speaker 1: an opportunity to go around alone. He rather resented being
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Speaker 1: so closely guarded and courteously guided. After talking with Stalin,
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Speaker 1: he had come to the conclusion that the dictator had
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Speaker 1: no understanding of economics. He was somewhat annoyed at the
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Speaker 1: constant interpretation of everything in terms of politics, and of
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Speaker 1: having Marx stuffed down his throat. At every turn. At
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Speaker 1: the schools, you might ask what kind of mathematics they
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Speaker 1: taught and what system of engineering Marx. No matter what
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Speaker 1: the question, the answer was Marx. The anti religious museum,
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Speaker 1: once a cathedral, was directly across from the astoria. Each
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Speaker 1: half hour, little girls who seemed hardly more than ten
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Speaker 1: or twelve, their sleeves hanging down over their finger tips,
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Speaker 1: with great dignity, conducted excursions of peasants through their lecture
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Speaker 1: started with the fundamental principle that the earth was round.
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Speaker 1: A bas relief of the world was underneath the huge
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Speaker 1: pendulum which hung from the dome. If you stood there
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Speaker 1: long enough, you saw its swing from one point to
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Speaker 1: a further one. They were trying to show that it
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Speaker 1: was within man's power to make his own heaven. Gear
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Speaker 1: were kept the relics of the churches, the icons laden
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Speaker 1: with silver and gold wrung from the poor peasants in
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Speaker 1: the past. Actual concrete things were reduced to their simplest
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Speaker 1: terms on large poster type murals, which depicted stories, a
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Speaker 1: necessary practice since the Muzzaks were so generally illiterate. In
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Speaker 1: one a Kulak was coming to the priest with a
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Speaker 1: sick child in his arms, asking for prayers to cure
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Speaker 1: its illness. The priest, fat and clad in rit robes,
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Speaker 1: shook his head, saying, you must bring money for the saint.
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Speaker 1: The saint will not cure your child unless her arms
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Speaker 1: are covered with silver. But the kulak had only his farm.
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Speaker 1: Mortgage it and get the money the priest ordered. Soon
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Speaker 1: the culock returned with silver, and the mural showed how
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Speaker 1: now the saint's arm was almost hidden, but still the
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Speaker 1: child remained sick. The Saint's halo is bare, said the priest.
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Speaker 1: At last the whole figure was silvered, but the baby
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Speaker 1: died just the same. Opposite this mural was pictured the
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Speaker 1: Soviet way. Their father carried the baby to the hospital,
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Speaker 1: where nurses with gauze across their mouths took it, preciously,
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Speaker 1: bathed it, carefully laid it in bed. The entire sterilizing
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Speaker 1: process was illustrated, the doctor in white gown and cap,
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Speaker 1: scrubbing and washing each hand five minutes, as marked by
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Speaker 1: a clock. Finally you saw the child, healthy and well,
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Speaker 1: jumping into its mother's arms. The people stood there looking,
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Speaker 1: their imagination fired. They said, this is what's happening to us.
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Speaker 1: Most particularly, I wanted to investigate what had been done
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Speaker 1: for women and children in Russia, to learn whether they
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Speaker 1: had been given the rights and liberties due them in
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Speaker 1: any humanitarian civilization. Grant Rose, as she was known to me,
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Speaker 1: and I went to the Institute of Protection of Motherhood
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Speaker 1: and Childhood, a vast establishment stretching over several miles, with
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Speaker 1: model clinics, nurseries, milk centers, and educational laboratories. I was
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Speaker 1: overwhelmed in contemplating the undertaking. There was no doubt that
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Speaker 1: the government was exerting itself strenuously to teach the rudiments
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Speaker 1: of hygiene to an enormous population that had previously known
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Speaker 1: nothing of it. Russia was also aiming to free women
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Speaker 1: from the two bonds that enslaved them most. The nursery
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Speaker 1: and the kitchen all over the country were crushes connected
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Speaker 1: with the places they worked. Children were the priceless possessions
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Speaker 1: of Russia. Their time was planned for them from birth
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Speaker 1: to the age of sixteen, when they were paid to
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Speaker 1: go to college if they so desired. No longer were
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Speaker 1: they a drain or a burden to their families. Not
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Speaker 1: only were teachers or parents forbidden to inflict corporal punishment.
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Speaker 1: But children might even report their parents for being vindictive,
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Speaker 1: ill humored, disorderly, and in many cases they did so.
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Speaker 1: In one divorce dispute as to custody of the offspring,
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Speaker 1: the father argued that the mother was bad. The judge
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Speaker 1: asked of what does her badness consist? She is nervous
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Speaker 1: and loses her temper. The judge agreed she was not
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Speaker 1: fit for motherhood. Furthermore, Russia was investing in future generations
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Speaker 1: by building a healthy race. If there were any scarcity
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Speaker 1: of milk, the children were supplied first the hospital's second,
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Speaker 1: members of the Communist Party, third, industrial groups, fourth, professional classes,
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Speaker 1: fifth and old people over fifty had to scrape along
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Speaker 1: on what they could get, unless they were parents of
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Speaker 1: communists or closely associated with them. I was eager also
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Speaker 1: to find out what had been done about the study
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Speaker 1: carried on by Professor Tushnuff of the Institute for Experimental
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Speaker 1: Medicine on so called spermatoxin, a substance which it had
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Speaker 1: been rumored, produced temporary sterility in women. I made an
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Speaker 1: appointment with him, but a shock awaited me. He had
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Speaker 1: tried out his spermatoxin on thirty women twenty two of
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Speaker 1: whom had been made immune for from four to five months.
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Speaker 1: But now all laboratory workers had been taken from pure
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Speaker 1: research and set at utilitarian tasks, such as the practical
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Speaker 1: effects of various vocations on women's health. Nothing concerning immunization
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Speaker 1: to conception. Could be published in Soviet Russia. No information
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Speaker 1: could be given out under penalty of arrest, and moreover,
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Speaker 1: nothing could appear in a foreign paper which had not
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Speaker 1: already been printed in Russia. In Tourists, the Government Tourist
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Speaker 1: Bureau and VOX, the All Union Society for Cultural Relations
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Speaker 1: with Foreign Countries, had asked me when I had first arrived,
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Speaker 1: whom I wished to see and where I wished to go,
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Speaker 1: and had offered to call up people on my list
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Speaker 1: and arrange for visits, a service which had saved me
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Speaker 1: much trouble and expense. In spite of this co operative attitude,
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Speaker 1: I was suspicious that much was being hidden from us.
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Speaker 1: Before I had left America, I had heard I could
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Speaker 1: see only what Russia presented for a window dressing, and
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Speaker 1: with this in mind, I was on the alert. Both
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Speaker 1: Grant and I wondered how the hospitals built under the
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Speaker 1: Tsars compared with recent ones. When I asked to be
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Speaker 1: taken to a certain one, I was assured it was
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Speaker 1: too far away, and anyhow it was being renovated. There
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Speaker 1: was nobody there. I to myself, Aha, here is one
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Speaker 1: of the forbidden sights. Whoever heard of a hospital equipped
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Speaker 1: to handle thousands of patients being utterly empty. They are
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Speaker 1: not going to let us see this because it might
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Speaker 1: speak in favor of the old in contrast to the new.
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Speaker 1: Politely but firmly, I insisted again. I was told there
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Speaker 1: were so many other interesting things it would be a
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Speaker 1: pity to waste my time going to see it. I
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Speaker 1: found it difficult to say anything further without giving offense.
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Speaker 1: Then Grant encountered a young American nurse from the Presbyterian
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Speaker 1: Hospital in New York who spoke Russian. She also wanted
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Speaker 1: to visit hospitals. We engaged a car of our own
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Speaker 1: and drove a good fifteen miles out of the city
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Speaker 1: over horrible roads, winding and dusty and badly paved, and
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Speaker 1: even pushing on as rapidly as we could, we did
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Speaker 1: not get there until late in the afternoon. To our dismay,
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Speaker 1: we discovered not a patient, doctor or nurse in the place,
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Speaker 1: only plasterers, painters, carpenters, and cleaners, pulling down and refurbishing.
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Speaker 1: We had lost half a day and were a little
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Speaker 1: ashamed of our lack of faith. The night came to
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Speaker 1: take the train for Moscow, nobody called all aboard. In Russia,
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Speaker 1: trains went right off underneath you when you had one
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Speaker 1: foot on the platform and one on the step. They
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Speaker 1: just moved and moved fast. But we clambered on, and
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Speaker 1: soon the leather seats were made into our beds. They
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Speaker 1: were so slippery that we kept falling out. Once at Moscow,
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Speaker 1: we who were coming second class according to Marxy and procedure,
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Speaker 1: received the worst rooms at the hotel. Those who traveled
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Speaker 1: third had the best. I could not applaud the one
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Speaker 1: selected for me. It was directly over the laundry, and
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Speaker 1: the smells of cooking and SuDS floated through the window.
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Speaker 1: I refused to stay and was accommodated on the top floor,
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Speaker 1: where the servants had once lived. Moscow was as different
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Speaker 1: from Leningrad as New York City from a sleepy Pennsylvania town.
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Speaker 1: The people walked more quickly and seemed to be going somewhere,
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Speaker 1: not simply wandering listlessly. Bedlam existed at the hotels. But
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Speaker 1: by now we were beginning to learn that the Russians
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Speaker 1: were so concerned with their own efficiency that they had
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Speaker 1: no time to do anything, to be in a hurry
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Speaker 1: merely complicated matters I could wait, But for the energetic
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Speaker 1: Rose it was torture. To all specific requests, they replied,
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Speaker 1: it cannot be, it cannot be. She had her own
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Speaker 1: methods of coping with this, saying she did not wish
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Speaker 1: to hear the word impossible. She had no intention of
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Speaker 1: asking the impossible. Then, when they procrastinated with a little later,
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Speaker 1: she countered in America. We say now her triumph over
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Speaker 1: dilatoriness came on Health Day. Since health was almost a
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Speaker 1: god in Russia. All activities ceased on that occasion, and
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Speaker 1: the populace of Moscow came together on Red Square. The
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Speaker 1: spectacle was to start at two in the afternoon, but
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Speaker 1: before it was light you could hear the songs of men,
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Speaker 1: women and children moving towards their appointed stations. Out Of
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Speaker 1: our party, only thirty were privileged to receive tickets, and
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Speaker 1: their names were posted. Missus Clyde and I were on
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Speaker 1: the list, but not Grant or Rose. The previous day,
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Speaker 1: the numbers were cut to twenty. That morning there were
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Speaker 1: but sixteen, and feeling ran high, why haven't I a ticket?
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Speaker 1: Fortunately for me, I had been invited to lunch by
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Speaker 1: Ambassador William C. Bullet, who entertained lavishly and was helpful
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Speaker 1: to traveling Americans. When I had met him back in
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Speaker 1: New England, I had never thought of him as an ambassador,
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Speaker 1: nor as a man skilled in dealing with the great
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Speaker 1: problems that required strategy, diplomacy, political sagacity, and a prime
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Speaker 1: knowledge of economics. In his I considered him rather as amusing,
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Speaker 1: an excellent dinner host, and one to whom you could
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Speaker 1: go when in difficulty, sure that he would get you out.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps this was what Russia wanted at that time more
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Speaker 1: than anything else. No doubt he was then somewhat disappointed
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Speaker 1: at the turn relations between Russia and the United States
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Speaker 1: had taken. Russians on the whole admired him. They had
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Speaker 1: not forgotten that, although he was not counted a proletarian
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Speaker 1: or in the category of Jack Reid, he had lifted
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Speaker 1: the cudgels for them in the early days when friends
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Speaker 1: were needed. The ambassador's little daughter, Anne, aged ten, officiated
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Speaker 1: at the head of the table, apparently enjoying herself. The
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Speaker 1: house in which they were living while the new embassy
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Speaker 1: was being built, had an architecture quite befitting what I
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Speaker 1: imagined the style of Russia should be. A bit of
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Speaker 1: the Kremlin, a bit of a mosque, and a bit
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Speaker 1: of an Indian palace. On the way to the square
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Speaker 1: after luncheon, a wave of people surged between the rest
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Speaker 1: of the diplomatic party and myself, but I kept saying
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Speaker 1: diplomatique and was bowed through to the grandstand. Meanwhile, Rose
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Speaker 1: had been devoting her whole attention to tickets, and there
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Speaker 1: were no tickets. The lucky holders lined up and filed
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Speaker 1: off under a leader. Rose, the ever resourceful, donned a
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Speaker 1: red bandana and said to the forgotten men in the party,
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Speaker 1: we'll make our own battalion. She handed out slips of
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Speaker 1: paper about the size of the tickets, and then started
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Speaker 1: Grant and the Harvard professors following her through the blare
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Speaker 1: of music and the tramping troops and the pageantry of
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Speaker 1: blue trunks and white shirts, orange trunks and ceres shirts.
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Speaker 1: Whenever anyone stopped Rose, she pointed ahead and repeated my
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Speaker 1: open sesame diplomatique, and they let her buy until she
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Speaker 1: reached the last barrier. There the guard was suspicious of
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Speaker 1: her password and challenged her. Then she spied another group
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Speaker 1: coming up, dashed over to the leader and exclaimed, quick,
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Speaker 1: please explain that our interpreter has gone on with our tickets.
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Speaker 1: The woman looked unbelieving, but still others arrived at that moment,
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Speaker 1: and the Russian system collapsed under pressure. In they all
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Speaker 1: piled and rose. Turned to her unknown benefactress, You don't
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Speaker 1: know how grateful I am to you for getting us in.
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Speaker 1: The reply was, you don't know how grateful I am
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Speaker 1: to you for getting us in. I am a tourist too,
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Speaker 1: and we have no tickets either. Nobody seeing Moscow that
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Speaker 1: day could have thought at a somber place. It was
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Speaker 1: alive with song, happy faces, bright attire. The parade of
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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand or more was one of the most
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Speaker 1: marvelous spectacles for color, form, cadence, geometrical precision that I
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Speaker 1: had ever seen. Human beings, accomplish men and women were
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Speaker 1: representing all sorts of games and sports, swimming, shooting, tennis, flying,
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Speaker 1: There was nothing tawdry. Each company held aloft beautifully designed
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Speaker 1: placards as it passed Stalin, who stood on top of
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Speaker 1: London's tomb. The Dictator looked much like his pictures, with
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Speaker 1: this heavy black mustache resembling the wings of a bird
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Speaker 1: of prey. All day long and everywhere you heard the
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Speaker 1: Internationale over and over and over again. Each band struck
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Speaker 1: up as it approached the tomb and kept playing as
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Speaker 1: it swung on, always the stirring song from those coming up,
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Speaker 1: those far away overtones, undertones thrilling, insistent, now loud in
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Speaker 1: your ears, now dimly echoing in the distance, A rhythmic
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Speaker 1: motif symbolizing the onward march of Young Russia and of
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Speaker 1: Chapter thirty five, Part two,