Latest / Margaret Sanger; an autobiography / 42 - Margaret Sanger; an autobiography by Margaret Sanger
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter thirty four, Part two of Margaret Sanger by Margaret Sanger.
- 0:07Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter thirty four,
- 0:13Speaker 1: Part two. Senators be not affrighted. The next morning, the
- 0:20Speaker 1: opposition began by trying to prove that we who advocated
- 0:25Speaker 1: birth control, a Russian innovation, were seeking to pull down
- 0:30Speaker 1: motherhood and the family, as had been done in Russia.
- 0:35Speaker 1: The Honorable Mary T. Norton, representative from New Jersey, made
- 0:40Speaker 1: the astounding assertion that the happiest family was the big one,
- 0:46Speaker 1: and that a large percentage of the great men and
- 0:48Speaker 1: women of this country were born poor. This was a
- 0:53Speaker 1: blessing since it fired them with ambition, and she mentioned
- 0:58Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday had been but two days before.
- 1:04Speaker 1: I was particularly outraged by hearing statements from other witnesses
- 1:10Speaker 1: that the American Federation of Labor was against us, that
- 1:14Speaker 1: the American Medical Association was antagonistic, and that the Methodist
- 1:20Speaker 1: and other churches were going to help defeat our bill.
- 1:25Speaker 1: Speaker after speaker representing Catholic organizations repeatedly hurled such dramatic
- 1:32Speaker 1: tirades as I ask you, gentlemen, in the name of
- 1:36Speaker 1: the twenty million Catholic citizens of the country to whose
- 1:40Speaker 1: deep religious convictions these vices are abhorrent, and of all
- 1:46Speaker 1: those to whom the virtue of a mother or a
- 1:48Speaker 1: daughter is sacred. To report unfavorably on this diabolical and
- 1:54Speaker 1: damnable bill, it was difficult to gauge the impression that
- 1:59Speaker 1: was being You could only sense that the response was
- 2:03Speaker 1: one of feeling. These dogmatists, HARKing back to the dark ages,
- 2:10Speaker 1: summoned to their aid the same arguments that had been
- 2:14Speaker 1: used to hinder every advance in our civilization. That it
- 2:19Speaker 1: was against nature, against God, against the Bible, against the
- 2:24Speaker 1: country's best interests, and against morality. Even though you proved
- 2:29Speaker 1: your case by statistics and reason and every known device
- 2:34Speaker 1: of the human mind, the opponents parroted the line of
- 2:38Speaker 1: attack over and over again. In the end, you realized
- 2:43Speaker 1: that the appeal to intelligence was futile. On occasions like this,
- 2:50Speaker 1: the inward fury that possessed me warmed from coldness to
- 2:54Speaker 1: white heat. It did not produce oratory, but it enabled
- 2:59Speaker 1: me to move others. The way to meet the opposition
- 3:04Speaker 1: was to keep emotions in hand and at the same
- 3:07Speaker 1: time without stumbling or fumbling, to let them go. Every
- 3:13Speaker 1: word I said was calculated and thought through, not in advance,
- 3:18Speaker 1: but as it came along. I did not react this
- 3:21Speaker 1: way often, but I did that day when my ten
- 3:26Speaker 1: minutes for rebuttal came, I knew that emotional speed was required. Nevertheless,
- 3:33Speaker 1: I first knocked down their false assertions that the birth
- 3:38Speaker 1: control movement had originated in this country during nineteen fourteen,
- 3:43Speaker 1: long before any one had ever heard of Bolshevism, that
- 3:48Speaker 1: the objections of the American Federation of Labor had referred
- 3:52Speaker 1: to the Repeal Bill of nineteen twenty five, quite different
- 3:56Speaker 1: from the Doctor's Bill now under discussion, that the American
- 4:01Speaker 1: Medical Association had taken no stand, but two of its
- 4:05Speaker 1: most important branches, the Neurological and Women's Medical, had gone
- 4:11Speaker 1: on record in our favor. That doctor C. I. Wilson
- 4:16Speaker 1: of the Methodist Board had denied his church was opposed,
- 4:20Speaker 1: and in fact its ministers had worked unofficially for us.
- 4:25Speaker 1: When someone says that the happiest families are the largest ones,
- 4:30Speaker 1: and that the world's great leaders have been of large families,
- 4:35Speaker 1: I would like to call to your attention that the
- 4:37Speaker 1: great leader of Christianity, Jesus Christ himself was said to
- 4:42Speaker 1: be an only child. Here the Catholics crossed themselves and
- 4:47Speaker 1: muttered blasphemy. These opponents have had the laws with them,
- 4:54Speaker 1: the wealth, the press, and yet they have come to
- 4:58Speaker 1: day to say they are afraid of the morals of
- 5:01Speaker 1: their people. If they have knowledge, and they do not
- 5:05Speaker 1: continue to be kept in fear and ignorance, then I
- 5:10Speaker 1: say their moral teachings are not very deep. Mister Chairman.
- 5:15Speaker 1: We say that we want children conceived in love, born
- 5:19Speaker 1: of parents conscious desire, and born into the world with
- 5:24Speaker 1: sound bodies and sound minds. The two senators sat there
- 5:29Speaker 1: in silence. The bill was killed due to the adverse
- 5:34Speaker 1: vote of Senator Borah, who had not attended the hearings.
- 5:40Speaker 1: The next year, nineteen thirty two, Senator Jillette was gone
- 5:45Speaker 1: and a substitute had to be found. Believing the first
- 5:49Speaker 1: woman's senator would be on the side of her sex,
- 5:53Speaker 1: we asked missus Hattie Caraway to introduce the bill. She
- 5:58Speaker 1: said she herself was in trrested in the subject, but
- 6:01Speaker 1: her secretary would not let her touch it. Ordinarily, congressmen
- 6:06Speaker 1: paid little attention to abstract arguments, logic, or the humanitarian
- 6:12Speaker 1: needs of outsiders, but they could be reached through their constituents.
- 6:18Speaker 1: One way of doing this was to get women back
- 6:21Speaker 1: home to help themselves directly by writing letters. This required money.
- 6:28Speaker 1: We sought it from a foundation which donated ten thousand
- 6:32Speaker 1: dollars earmarked for this special purpose to the still continuing
- 6:37Speaker 1: stream of letters from mothers requesting, as always, contraceptive advice.
- 6:43Speaker 1: My reply went, I would gladly give you the information
- 6:47Speaker 1: you ask for if the law permitted. Your congressman now
- 6:52Speaker 1: has the opportunity to vote on this bill. Send him
- 6:56Speaker 1: a letter telling how many children you have living, how
- 7:00Speaker 1: many babies dead, how many abortions, what wages your husband receives.
- 7:07Speaker 1: Everything you have told me, and I enclosed an envelope
- 7:11Speaker 1: stamped and addressed to their respective congressman. While walking one
- 7:17Speaker 1: day through the tunnel which connected the house with the Senate,
- 7:21Speaker 1: I stopped to ask a man my direction. He said,
- 7:25Speaker 1: I'm going your way, Come along, I'll show you. We
- 7:29Speaker 1: fell into conversation. He informed me he was a Senator
- 7:34Speaker 1: and asked what I was doing. I'm working on the
- 7:38Speaker 1: birth control bill. That's funny, I've just had a letter
- 7:42Speaker 1: from a woman five miles from where I've lived most
- 7:45Speaker 1: of my life. Listen to this, and he took it
- 7:49Speaker 1: out of his pocket and read the history of the
- 7:52Speaker 1: woman's abortions and operations. I've never heard anything quite so awful.
- 7:58Speaker 1: And at the bottom she says, you can help me
- 8:01Speaker 1: by getting this law changed. And missus Sanger, who has
- 8:05Speaker 1: the information, will send it to me if you get
- 8:08Speaker 1: the law changed. These letters brought fine results through them.
- 8:15Speaker 1: Senator Henry D. Hatfield of West Virginia was persuaded to
- 8:20Speaker 1: introduce the bill. At the hearing, he described how as
- 8:24Speaker 1: physician and surgeon and governor of his state, he had
- 8:29Speaker 1: seen the free mating of the unfit and had forced
- 8:33Speaker 1: through a sterilization law. We produced our usual array of experts,
- 8:40Speaker 1: and the opposition produced doctor Howard Edward Kelly, a famous
- 8:45Speaker 1: gynecologist in his day at Johns Hopkins, but now professor
- 8:50Speaker 1: emeritus and very old, who rambled discursively on morals. His
- 8:57Speaker 1: was a state of mind, if not of reason. Doctor
- 9:01Speaker 1: John A. Ryan, a member of the National Catholic Welfare Conference,
- 9:06Speaker 1: chose economics for his discussion. Neither spoke on his own subject,
- 9:12Speaker 1: but selected something on which he was not an authority.
- 9:17Speaker 1: The bill was killed in committee, and the one introduced
- 9:20Speaker 1: by Representative Frank Hancock of North Carolina in the House
- 9:25Speaker 1: got into the wrong committee, so nothing happened. Before you
- 9:30Speaker 1: had seen it, the Congress of the United States loomed
- 9:34Speaker 1: impressively in your consciousness. You had a feeling, this is
- 9:39Speaker 1: the greatest country in the world, this is its government.
- 9:43Speaker 1: I helped to send these men here. Then you watched
- 9:47Speaker 1: Congress at work, listened to it, and were disillusioned. A
- 9:53Speaker 1: few years of sitting in the gallery and looking down
- 9:56Speaker 1: gave you less respect for the quality of our representation natives,
- 10:00Speaker 1: less faith in legislative action. And you wondered whether those
- 10:05Speaker 1: who had already abandoned hope of obtaining relief in this
- 10:09Speaker 1: way and resorted to direct action had not perhaps the
- 10:14Speaker 1: right idea. The same arguments went on from year to year.
- 10:20Speaker 1: A certain amount of publicity was secured, a certain number
- 10:24Speaker 1: were educated. Some of our followers, in face of the
- 10:29Speaker 1: evidence to the contrary, were still confident that if the
- 10:33Speaker 1: Catholics understood our bill, they would not obstruct it. They
- 10:38Speaker 1: said Representative Arthur D. Healy of Massachusetts, a member of
- 10:43Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee, although a Catholic, was so liberal that
- 10:48Speaker 1: if he could once be made to see the reasons
- 10:51Speaker 1: back of it, he would cease being openly hostile, and
- 10:55Speaker 1: it might even get out of committee. Accordingly, I went
- 10:59Speaker 1: to his office. We talked at length, and again got nowhere.
- 11:05Speaker 1: As I was leaving this father aforesaid, in order to
- 11:09Speaker 1: explain himself, you see missus, Sayger, I'm just one of
- 11:13Speaker 1: those unusual men who are very fond of children. I
- 11:19Speaker 1: was inwardly convulsed at the thought that he considered himself
- 11:23Speaker 1: unusual and that we were all a lot of Herod's
- 11:27Speaker 1: trying to do away with babies. At first, it seemed
- 11:32Speaker 1: that I was to have greater success as the result
- 11:35Speaker 1: of my interview with doctor Joseph J. Mundell, professor of
- 11:40Speaker 1: obstetrics at Georgetown University, who advised the Catholic Welfare Conference
- 11:46Speaker 1: on all their medical legislation. In a private session, I
- 11:52Speaker 1: conceded some things in the bill. Doctor Mundell gave up
- 11:56Speaker 1: certain others. The compromise apparently suited everybody. In nineteen thirty four,
- 12:04Speaker 1: identical bills were introduced in Senate and House, the latter
- 12:09Speaker 1: by Representative Walter M. Pierce, Democrat, who, as Governor of
- 12:14Speaker 1: Oregon had burned his political bridges by vetoing a bill
- 12:18Speaker 1: which permitted parochial schools. Since he had nothing to lose,
- 12:23Speaker 1: he did not have to play politics. Hatton W. Summers
- 12:28Speaker 1: of Texas was chairman of the hearing. Our side led
- 12:33Speaker 1: off again, specialists in each line, covering the vital points.
- 12:39Speaker 1: Rabbi Edward L. Israel of Baltimore made an impassioned plea,
- 12:46Speaker 1: and I say, gentlemen, if this thing we are now
- 12:49Speaker 1: advocating is not morally right, let us stop being hypocrites
- 12:55Speaker 1: and in its place put a law on our statute
- 12:58Speaker 1: books that will drive contraceptive devices out of your homes
- 13:03Speaker 1: and mine. Here John C. Lair of Michigan, sitting back
- 13:09Speaker 1: in his chair with thumbs hitched in his suspenders, declared pompously,
- 13:16Speaker 1: as a member of this committee, I want to go
- 13:18Speaker 1: on record there have never been any contraceptives used in
- 13:22Speaker 1: my home. I have six children too. Malcolm C. Tarver
- 13:29Speaker 1: of Georgia interrupted, You don't mean any member of Congress
- 13:34Speaker 1: has used anything of that kind, do you? His surprise
- 13:38Speaker 1: was obviously genuine. The proponents of our bill, even elderly women,
- 13:45Speaker 1: had stood while delivering their testimony. But when father Charles E.
- 13:50Speaker 1: Coughlin entered, cheeks very pink over his black collar. A
- 13:55Speaker 1: chair was placed for him, because as a representative of
- 13:59Speaker 1: the church, he would not stand before a representative body
- 14:03Speaker 1: of the state. He began talking at random. I have
- 14:08Speaker 1: not heard one word of the testimony these ladies and
- 14:12Speaker 1: gentlemen have produced, and my remarks are not addressed to
- 14:16Speaker 1: them now because I can easily handle them over the
- 14:20Speaker 1: radio Sunday after Sunday. You gentlemen, you are married men,
- 14:27Speaker 1: all of you, and you know more about it than
- 14:30Speaker 1: I will ever know. Here, he arched his eyebrows into
- 14:35Speaker 1: a leer. The chairman, I understand, is a bachelor like myself.
- 14:41Speaker 1: We know how these contraceptives are boot legged in the
- 14:44Speaker 1: corner drug stores surrounding our high schools. Why are they
- 14:49Speaker 1: around the high schools to teach them how to fornicate
- 14:53Speaker 1: and not get caught. All this bill means is how
- 14:58Speaker 1: to commit adultery and get caught. Some of our sympathizers
- 15:05Speaker 1: walked out of the room. Two congressmen left the table.
- 15:10Speaker 1: But we were a polite, well behaved group that shrank
- 15:14Speaker 1: from scenes, and though furious and indignant, we allowed him
- 15:18Speaker 1: to conclude his half hour of grossness. I could hardly
- 15:23Speaker 1: believe my ears when doctor Mundell, who shortly before had
- 15:28Speaker 1: helped us formulate a bill which he said was satisfactory
- 15:31Speaker 1: to him, rose and deliberately betrayed us by stating there
- 15:37Speaker 1: was no need for legislation whatsoever, because a recent scientific
- 15:42Speaker 1: work by which he meant Rhythm, had shown that fertility
- 15:47Speaker 1: in women could be reckoned with almost mathematical precision. In
- 15:53Speaker 1: the rebuttal, doctor Prentiss Wilson testified that the theory of
- 15:58Speaker 1: the cycle of sterili had no medical standing. Then came
- 16:04Speaker 1: my turn. I had in my pocket a copy of Rhythm,
- 16:08Speaker 1: and quoted from it. Under the heading of procreation. It
- 16:12Speaker 1: asked whether married people were obliged to bring into the
- 16:16Speaker 1: world all the children they could, and then made answer,
- 16:22Speaker 1: far from being an obligation, such a course may be
- 16:27Speaker 1: utterly indefensible. Broadly speaking, married couples have not the right
- 16:33Speaker 1: to bring into the world children whom they are unable
- 16:36Speaker 1: to support, for they would thereby inflict a grievous damage
- 16:41Speaker 1: upon society. I told the committee that apparently the only
- 16:46Speaker 1: distinction in the pros and cons of the birth control
- 16:50Speaker 1: question was that the method we advocated was a scientific one.
- 16:55Speaker 1: Under the supervision of doctors that of the Catholics had
- 16:59Speaker 1: not been proved scientifically, and was open to any boy
- 17:04Speaker 1: or girl who could read the English language. Nevertheless, the
- 17:09Speaker 1: bill again died in committee. The Senate hearings on the bill,
- 17:16Speaker 1: introduced by our old friend Daniel O. Hastings of Delaware,
- 17:21Speaker 1: did not come until March. We presented our advocates, among
- 17:26Speaker 1: them a miner's wife from West Virginia, the native state
- 17:30Speaker 1: of two members of the committee, Hatfield and Neelie. She
- 17:35Speaker 1: was a perfect illustration of the type which most needed
- 17:38Speaker 1: birth control. When she had finished, a Catholic woman asked her,
- 17:44Speaker 1: which of your nine children would you rather see dead? Oh?
- 17:50Speaker 1: I don't want to see any of them dead. I
- 17:52Speaker 1: love them all, but I don't love those I haven't had.
- 17:58Speaker 1: Her reply was just right. It could not have been better.
- 18:04Speaker 1: Vito Seleccia, my former coal and ice fender from Fourteenth Street,
- 18:10Speaker 1: also made his way to Washington and told his simple story.
- 18:15Speaker 1: His wife had come to me when pregnant with her
- 18:17Speaker 1: fourth child, and I had said I could do nothing
- 18:21Speaker 1: for her until she had had her baby. Now, many
- 18:26Speaker 1: years afterwards, she had no more than the four Vito
- 18:30Speaker 1: reasoned his case as a man, I am Catholic myself.
- 18:36Speaker 1: The Catholics say we should have much children. I say different.
- 18:41Speaker 1: I say it is not good to have too many children.
- 18:45Speaker 1: You can't take care of them. He ended by describing
- 18:49Speaker 1: the mother of six who lived next door to him.
- 18:53Speaker 1: I told her, I will take you to a place.
- 18:57Speaker 1: It is a wonderful place. She does not know the
- 19:01Speaker 1: English language. Therefore she has never come up to see
- 19:05Speaker 1: Missus Sanger. But she will, but she will for the
- 19:11Speaker 1: first time. The Senate Subcommittee reported out the bill and
- 19:16Speaker 1: it was put on the unanimous consent calendar. The last
- 19:20Speaker 1: day of the session came June thirteenth. Over two hundred
- 19:25Speaker 1: were ahead of it, but there was always hope. One
- 19:29Speaker 1: after another they were hurried through, and then, miracle of miracles,
- 19:35Speaker 1: hours passed with no voice raised against it. The next
- 19:40Speaker 1: one came up was also converted into law. Another up
- 19:45Speaker 1: for discussion tabled twenty minutes went by. Suddenly, Senator Pat
- 19:52Speaker 1: McCarran from Reno, Nevada, famous divorce lawyer, though an outstanding Catholic,
- 19:58Speaker 1: came rushing in from the cloak room and asked for
- 20:01Speaker 1: unanimous consent to recall our bill as a matter of
- 20:06Speaker 1: senatorial courtesy. Senator Hastings granted his request. Had he not
- 20:13Speaker 1: done so, Senator McCarran would have objected to every bill
- 20:17Speaker 1: he introduced. Thereafter, it was summarily referred back to the committee,
- 20:23Speaker 1: and there died. In nineteen thirty five, we took the
- 20:27Speaker 1: fatal step of having it voted on early in the session,
- 20:32Speaker 1: and it was promptly killed. The whole year's labor was lost.
- 20:37Speaker 1: The following winter, when I was in India, Percy Gassaway
- 20:42Speaker 1: of Oklahoma introduced a bill in the House, Royal S.
- 20:46Speaker 1: Copeland of New York in the Senate by request. Neither
- 20:51Speaker 1: one reached a hearing. Another line of attack on the
- 20:56Speaker 1: Comstock law was to try for a liberal interpretation through
- 21:00Speaker 1: the courts. Among the products shown at the Zurich Conference
- 21:05Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty had been a Japanese pessary pursuing the
- 21:10Speaker 1: clinic policy of testing every new contraceptive that appeared. I
- 21:15Speaker 1: ordered some of these from a Tokyo physician. When notified
- 21:19Speaker 1: by the customs that they had been barred entrance and destroyed,
- 21:24Speaker 1: we sent for another shipment addressed to doctor Stone, in
- 21:28Speaker 1: the hope that it would then be delivered to a physician.
- 21:32Speaker 1: But this also was refused, and accordingly we brought suit
- 21:37Speaker 1: in her name. After pending two years, the case finally
- 21:42Speaker 1: came up for trial before Judge Grover Moskowitz of the
- 21:47Speaker 1: Federal District Court of Southern New York. Morris Ernst conducted
- 21:52Speaker 1: our claim brilliantly. In January sixth, nineteen thirty six, Judge
- 21:58Speaker 1: Moskowitz decided in our the wording of the statute seemed
- 22:03Speaker 1: to forbid the importation of any article for preventing conception,
- 22:08Speaker 1: but he believed that the statute should be construed more reasonably.
- 22:14Speaker 1: The government at once appealed, and the case was argued
- 22:17Speaker 1: in the Circuit Court of Appeals before Judges Augustus en
- 22:22Speaker 1: Hand Learned Hand and Thomas Swan, whose unanimous decisions were
- 22:29Speaker 1: rarely reversed in the Supreme Court. In the fall of
- 22:33Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, while I was in Washington getting the
- 22:37Speaker 1: federal bills started again in advance of Congress's meeting, news
- 22:42Speaker 1: came that the three judges had upheld the Moscowitz decision
- 22:47Speaker 1: and had added that a doctor was entitled not only
- 22:51Speaker 1: to bring articles into this country, but more important, to
- 22:55Speaker 1: send them through the mails, and finally to use them
- 22:59Speaker 1: for the patience general well being, which for twenty years
- 23:04Speaker 1: had been the object of my earnest endeavor. The government
- 23:09Speaker 1: still had the right to appeal inside of ninety days. Therefore,
- 23:14Speaker 1: I was not unduly jubilant. We had had so many
- 23:18Speaker 1: seeming victories that melted away afterwards. But long before the
- 23:23Speaker 1: period of grace had expired, Attorney General Cummings announced to
- 23:28Speaker 1: the press that the government would accept the decision as
- 23:32Speaker 1: law and with commendable consistency. The Secretary of the Treasury
- 23:38Speaker 1: sent word to the Customs at once that our shipments
- 23:42Speaker 1: should be admitted. It is really a relief to be
- 23:46Speaker 1: able to say something good about the government in the
- 23:51Speaker 1: face of the court decision. There was a little point
- 23:54Speaker 1: at this time in continuing the federal campaign. The money
- 23:59Speaker 1: for closing out up came through a most unexpected and
- 24:02Speaker 1: affecting channel. About a year after I had seen Viola
- 24:08Speaker 1: Kaufman at the California Conference in nineteen thirty one, I
- 24:13Speaker 1: received a letter from her asking me pleased to write
- 24:16Speaker 1: out the form in which I would like any money left,
- 24:20Speaker 1: so that she could designate it in her will. I
- 24:24Speaker 1: took her clear concise note to my attorney, who suggested
- 24:28Speaker 1: that since organizations were many and might go out of
- 24:33Speaker 1: existence at any moment, it would be wiser to have
- 24:37Speaker 1: the bequest in my name to be dispensed for any
- 24:41Speaker 1: purpose within the movement I saw fit. I answered her
- 24:45Speaker 1: to this effect, and she replied, I am now passing
- 24:49Speaker 1: over to you in my will whatever I possess. I
- 24:55Speaker 1: considered that the only courteous thing to do was to
- 24:59Speaker 1: have Anna Lifschitz, who was living in Los Angeles, go
- 25:03Speaker 1: to see Miss Kaufman. The address was in the Mexican District,
- 25:08Speaker 1: in the poorest, most dilapidated, run down section. In patched clothes,
- 25:15Speaker 1: she came to the door of her house, in which
- 25:18Speaker 1: there was hardly any furniture. She was formal and rather cold.
- 25:24Speaker 1: Anna merely explained the reason for her call was that
- 25:29Speaker 1: she knew Miss Kaufman as one of our subscribers. She
- 25:33Speaker 1: wrote me that poor creature hasn't money enough to keep
- 25:37Speaker 1: body and soul together. Two years went by. I was
- 25:43Speaker 1: in Washington, preparing to start for Boston for a meeting,
- 25:47Speaker 1: when a messenger boy delivered a telegram from the director
- 25:51Speaker 1: of the General Hospital at Memphis, Tennessee, requesting me to
- 25:56Speaker 1: come at once. Viola Kaufman was dangerously ill with pneumonia
- 26:02Speaker 1: and asking for me. I looked up trains. It would
- 26:06Speaker 1: take forty eight hours, and so I put in a
- 26:09Speaker 1: long distance call to the director, who told me she
- 26:13Speaker 1: had died during the night. What was she doing in Memphis?
- 26:20Speaker 1: We don't know. The Salvation Army brought her into us.
- 26:24Speaker 1: She has only a little cash tied up in a handkerchief.
- 26:29Speaker 1: We can't do anything without you, because you're the beneficiary.
- 26:35Speaker 1: The undertaker also wanted an order from me, and since
- 26:39Speaker 1: her executor, an officer of a bank in Los Angeles,
- 26:43Speaker 1: had gone on a fishing trip, I ranged the details
- 26:47Speaker 1: for her cremation. She had ordered that her remains be
- 26:52Speaker 1: sent to me, and when they arrived, the clinic's staff
- 26:56Speaker 1: came up to Willow Lake and we held a little
- 26:58Speaker 1: memorial service of gratitude and respect, spreading the ashes over
- 27:04Speaker 1: the rock garden to everybody's astonishment. Viola Kaufman had about
- 27:11Speaker 1: thirty thousand dollars in Los Angeles realty, but it took
- 27:16Speaker 1: a year and a half to settle the estate, and
- 27:19Speaker 1: by this time everything was at the lowest ebb of
- 27:23Speaker 1: the depression. We received approximately twelve thousand dollars. I have
- 27:30Speaker 1: never looked at the obituaries for the last twenty years
- 27:33Speaker 1: without hoping to read that someone has willed a million
- 27:37Speaker 1: dollars for birth control. But the only legacy ever bequeathed
- 27:42Speaker 1: us was that saved from the meager earnings of this
- 27:46Speaker 1: school teacher, Viola Kaufman, who herself lived in poverty. With
- 27:53Speaker 1: this money, we wrote finis to the federal legislation of
- 27:59Speaker 1: the old organization. All that was left in Washington was
- 28:03Speaker 1: a secretary to read the Congressional record daily, a watchdog
- 28:09Speaker 1: to report any bills proposed which would make it necessary
- 28:13Speaker 1: for us to jump into action to combat them. Six
- 28:18Speaker 1: years of this work had cost one hundred and fifty
- 28:21Speaker 1: thousand dollars. It had also meant strain and worry beyond
- 28:26Speaker 1: anything I had ever attempted, never being able to detach
- 28:31Speaker 1: myself from it, whether Congress was in session or not,
- 28:35Speaker 1: always on the alert to discover any new person elected
- 28:39Speaker 1: who might be favorably disposed. Now and again it had
- 28:44Speaker 1: been discouraging. You could exert yourself to the utmost with
- 28:48Speaker 1: pleasure if it were a matter of convincing a person
- 28:52Speaker 1: and watching his mind being pride open. But here over
- 28:57Speaker 1: and over again. You saw this same conviction, yet he
- 29:02Speaker 1: reverted to the same fears and refrained from doing anything. However,
- 29:09Speaker 1: the process of enlightening legislators had also unclosed the eyes
- 29:14Speaker 1: of an enormous number of organizations. First to approve publicly
- 29:20Speaker 1: had been the National Council of Jewish Women. Eventually, more
- 29:25Speaker 1: than a thousand clubs civic, political, religious, and social, including
- 29:32Speaker 1: the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the YWCA local junior
- 29:38Speaker 1: leagues in all, representing between twelve and thirteen million members,
- 29:44Speaker 1: had given their endorsement, and more important than anything else,
- 29:50Speaker 1: the public had been educated persistently, consistently away from casual
- 29:56Speaker 1: and precarious contraceptive advice into thequalified hands of the medical profession.
- 30:04Speaker 1: Doctor Dickinson had been appearing regularly at American Medical Association meetings,
- 30:11Speaker 1: keeping the question constantly alive. But not until doctor Prentiss
- 30:16Speaker 1: Wilson had formed a national body of doctors in nineteen
- 30:20Speaker 1: thirty five to carry on legislative work, had there been
- 30:25Speaker 1: any action one had stirred up the other organized. I
- 30:31Speaker 1: was at Willow Lake one June morning of nineteen thirty
- 30:35Speaker 1: seven when I saw spread across the newspaper in double
- 30:39Speaker 1: column the glad Tidings. The Committee on Contraception of the
- 30:44Speaker 1: American Medical Association had informed the Convention that physicians had
- 30:50Speaker 1: the legal right to give contraceptives, and it recommended that
- 30:55Speaker 1: standards be investigated and technique be taught in medical stone.
- 31:01Speaker 1: In my excitement, I actually fell downstairs. To me, this
- 31:07Speaker 1: was really a greater victory than the Moskowitz decision. Here
- 31:12Speaker 1: was the culmination of unremitting labor ever since my return
- 31:17Speaker 1: from Europe in nineteen fifteen, the gratification of seeing a
- 31:22Speaker 1: dream come true. These specific achievements are significant because they
- 31:28Speaker 1: opened the way to a broader field of attainment and
- 31:32Speaker 1: to research which can immeasurably improve methods now known, making
- 31:38Speaker 1: possible the spread of birth control into the forlorn, over
- 31:42Speaker 1: populated places of the Earth, and permitting science eventually to
- 31:48Speaker 1: determine the potentialities of a posterity conceived and born of
- 31:53Speaker 1: conscious love. End of Chapter thirty four, Part two