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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirty four, Part one of Margaret Sanger by Margaret Sanger.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter thirty four,
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  Speaker 1: Part one, Senators be not affrighted? Should the federal laws
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  Speaker 1: be changed? Was the subject of my debate with Chief
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  Speaker 1: Justice Richard B. Russell of Georgia, who had had eighteen
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  Speaker 1: children by two wives. I always welcomed the debate, although
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  Speaker 1: after the first few years it had been almost impossible
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  Speaker 1: to find any one to defend the other side, and
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  Speaker 1: therefore I was pleased to be called to Atlanta in
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  Speaker 1: May nineteen thirty one for this one. The old judge,
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  Speaker 1: white haired and with white eyebrows and mustache, his figure
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  Speaker 1: still erect, fixed me with a glance, sometimes satiric and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes flaming, with the rage of an Old Testament prophet.
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  Speaker 1: He talked of the sacredness of motherhood, the home, and
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  Speaker 1: the state of Georgia. We don't need birth control in Georgia.
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  Speaker 1: We've had to give up two congressmen now because we
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  Speaker 1: don't have enough people. If New York wants to wipe
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  Speaker 1: out her population, she can. We need ours. I can
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  Speaker 1: take care of all the children God sent me. I
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  Speaker 1: believe God sent them to me because they have souls.
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  Speaker 1: Poodle dogs and jackasses don't have souls. I have obeyed
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  Speaker 1: the command of God to increase and multiply his children
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  Speaker 1: and their wives and their relatives. Occupying several rows of
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  Speaker 1: seats down front, applauded vigorously. On the train coming back,
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  Speaker 1: I bought a paper and noted with surprise that I
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  Speaker 1: had been awarded the American Women's Association Medal for Accomplishments
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  Speaker 1: on behalf of Women and was supposed to be receiving
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  Speaker 1: it that night in New York. I sent a telegram
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  Speaker 1: of thanks to Anne Morgan, saying that I had just
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  Speaker 1: learned about it and there was no way of my attending.
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  Speaker 1: It was nice to be handed a medal instead of
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  Speaker 1: a warrant. At the postponed dinner organized by John A. Kingsbury,
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  Speaker 1: a director of the Millbank Fund, I sat there listening
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  Speaker 1: to the beautiful tributes and asked myself, is it really true?
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  Speaker 1: Am I awake? Or is it a dream? I never
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  Speaker 1: thought of the medal as being given to me as
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  Speaker 1: a person, but to the cause the women I represented
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  Speaker 1: and representing them went through the act of accepting it
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  Speaker 1: as I was trying to express this, a little woman,
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  Speaker 1: who used to appear frequently on all sorts of occasions,
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  Speaker 1: came up through the well groomed audience, climbed to the platform,
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  Speaker 1: offered me a bouquet of flowers from the Brownsville mothers.
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  Speaker 1: You are our Abraham Lincoln, she said, unconscious of the smiles,
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  Speaker 1: amused yet sympathetic of the audience, she left a kiss
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  Speaker 1: upon my brow and hurriedly went back to her place.
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  Speaker 1: To me, she embodied the spirit of Missus Sachs, who
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  Speaker 1: had died so long ago. All I was still working for,
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  Speaker 1: though through channels which had broadened immeasurably since then. In
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  Speaker 1: the beginning of the birth control movement, the main purpose
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  Speaker 1: had been the mitigation of women's suffering. Comstock Law or
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  Speaker 1: no Comstock Law. Its very genesis had been the conscious,
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  Speaker 1: liberate and public violation of this statute. Later to change,
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  Speaker 1: it became imperative so that the millions who depended upon
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  Speaker 1: dispensaries and hospitals could be instructed by capable hands. In
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, Mary Ware Dennett had dissolved the old National
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  Speaker 1: Birth Control League into the Voluntary Parenthood League, which had
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  Speaker 1: for its aim the repeal of the federal law. This
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  Speaker 1: seemed fine on the surface, but repeal would permit any
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  Speaker 1: one to give and send contraceptive devices, as well as
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  Speaker 1: information to anyone through the mails, regardless of standards or quality.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Dennett still looked upon the movement as a free
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  Speaker 1: speech and free press issue, just as I had done
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  Speaker 1: before going to the Netherlands. Now I considered no one
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  Speaker 1: had sufficient knowledge of the possible consequences of some contraceptives
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  Speaker 1: to permit them to be manufactured or distributed without guidance
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  Speaker 1: or direction. They might kill the birth control movement as
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  Speaker 1: well as some of the women who used them. No
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  Speaker 1: sponsor could be found until in nineteen twenty three Senator
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  Speaker 1: Cummins had introduced her repeal or so called open bill,
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  Speaker 1: in which the lack of safeguards was severely criticized. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: she had had it reintroduced in nineteen twenty four with
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  Speaker 1: a clause added that all literature containing contraceptive information must
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  Speaker 1: be certified by five physicians as not injurious to life
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  Speaker 1: or health. This bill, practically impossible of application, died in committee.
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  Speaker 1: Since we believed information should be disseminated only by doctors.
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  Speaker 1: We had kept very quiet and out of it during
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  Speaker 1: those years, but we had our own ideas of what
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  Speaker 1: sort of legislation we preferred. When Missus Dennett retired and
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  Speaker 1: her organization ceased its work, Missus day Anne Kennedy and
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  Speaker 1: I in January nineteen twenty six went down to Washington
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  Speaker 1: on a scouting expedition to take a survey of the
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  Speaker 1: mental attitude of congressmen and discover whether their reaction was
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  Speaker 1: more favorable towards a repeal bill or our proposal of
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  Speaker 1: an amended Doctor's Bill. We set up headquarters and began
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  Speaker 1: interviewing senators until we had satisfied ourselves that personal sentiment
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  Speaker 1: was more in favor of our policy. We thought it
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  Speaker 1: advisable also to sound out the Catholic stand. Getting together
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  Speaker 1: was the trend of the times. Eugenists, the Voluntary Parenthood League,
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  Speaker 1: the American Birth Control League all were trying to meet
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  Speaker 1: each other. People of tolerant opinions had always felt the
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  Speaker 1: Catholic Church was too clever to oppose a movement that
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  Speaker 1: inevitably it would some day have to sanction, and the
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  Speaker 1: tumult and interference was simply the result of local ignorance
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  Speaker 1: and bigotry. If we could reach the scholarly heads themselves.
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  Speaker 1: If we could all sit at a table and talk
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  Speaker 1: things over, we would find their ideals of humanitarianism were
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  Speaker 1: much like our own. Consequently, Anne had an interview with
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  Speaker 1: members of the Catholic Welfare Conference, including Monseigneur John Ryan,
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  Speaker 1: John M. Cooper, p H. D. Father Burke, and other prelates.
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  Speaker 1: We thought we would agree on the doctor's bill, that
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  Speaker 1: they surely wanted the public safeguarded from the misuse of contraceptives,
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  Speaker 1: But they inequivocally set forth their objections. Not even a
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  Speaker 1: physician's indisputable right to save lives swayed them. They declared
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  Speaker 1: it was their office to see that no social or
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  Speaker 1: moral legislation passed Congress that did not conform to the
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  Speaker 1: tenets of Catholic doctrine. They would attempt to prevent any
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  Speaker 1: such bill from becoming a law. Anne wrote out a
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  Speaker 1: report of the interview, including this shocking statement, and showed
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  Speaker 1: it to them so that they might have an opportunity
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  Speaker 1: to correct it if they so desired. They left it
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  Speaker 1: essentially as written. Considering this a fundamental issue of liberty
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  Speaker 1: and life, not affecting birth control alone, I took the
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  Speaker 1: presumptuous document to H. L. Menkin, Supposedly the outstanding libertarian
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  Speaker 1: in America. He had the power to evoke a response
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  Speaker 1: from thinking minds, even though they were rock bound in
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  Speaker 1: patriotic dogmas. He had knocked down a great many gods,
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  Speaker 1: chiefly along political and religious lines. Trusting that Mencin would
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  Speaker 1: make an effective protest in the American Mercury, I talked
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  Speaker 1: to him explain the situation, predicting that if we let
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  Speaker 1: this go unnoticed, we should all have to endure the
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  Speaker 1: future consequences. He admitted the Catholic action was brazen, but
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  Speaker 1: mention the fact that he had too many friends of
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  Speaker 1: that faith in Baltimore for him to attack their church.
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  Speaker 1: I gained the impression he was out to slash and
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  Speaker 1: hit where the cause was obviously popular, but had no
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  Speaker 1: intention of leading a forlorn hope or playing the role
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  Speaker 1: of a pioneer for freedom. He never fulfilled the expectations
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  Speaker 1: I once had of him. He was not a tree
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  Speaker 1: bearing fruit, but a spoon stirring around. Very much of
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  Speaker 1: a yes, but uh, he said, oh, yes, that is grand.
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  Speaker 1: But on the other hand, there is this to be
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  Speaker 1: said for the other side. In our campaign of educating
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  Speaker 1: the public in the necessity for changing the federal statute.
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  Speaker 1: I began having regional conferences in the East, South, Middle, West,
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  Speaker 1: West and linking them all into an organization to support
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  Speaker 1: the bill. One of these was at Los Angeles. At first,
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  Speaker 1: most of the Westerners wanted an open bill, such as
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  Speaker 1: Missus Dennet's, and I stood rather alone on the Doctor's Amendment,
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  Speaker 1: which was only approved on the last night of the
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  Speaker 1: conference by a very narrow margin. As the people filed out,
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  Speaker 1: I saw at the end of the room a thin,
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  Speaker 1: almost emaciated woman with gray hair, somewhat shabby but not
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  Speaker 1: unusually so. She held out a bony hand to clasp mine,
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  Speaker 1: saying practically nothing, just a word or two, and her
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  Speaker 1: name Kaufman came to me. I remembered it because Viola
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  Speaker 1: Kaufman had been one of the small subscribers to birth
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  Speaker 1: control in the past, and I was familiar with most
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  Speaker 1: of these names. I thought nothing further of it at
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  Speaker 1: the time. Wanting all the endorsement I could get for
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  Speaker 1: the Doctor's Bill, and particularly that of the American Medical Association,
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  Speaker 1: I made a special trip to Chicago to see doctor
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  Speaker 1: Morris Fishbine, who was a power in that organization. I
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  Speaker 1: asked for help or advice, and offered to draw up
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  Speaker 1: a bill in any way which would suit them. Doctor
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  Speaker 1: Fishbine appeared sympathetic and turned me over to doctor William C. Woodward,
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  Speaker 1: the legislative Director. We had a pleasant conversation and that
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  Speaker 1: was all, though he made no comment as to its
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  Speaker 1: merits or demerits. I put the bill on record in
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  Speaker 1: their office. Tried and true friends whose abilities and loyalties
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  Speaker 1: had been tested and proved rallied round the National Committee
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  Speaker 1: on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, which established its headquarters
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  Speaker 1: in Washington in nineteen thirty one. Francis Ackerman assisted my
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  Speaker 1: husband as treasurer for Vice President. We had missus Walter
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  Speaker 1: tim who had left the League of Women Voters. A
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  Speaker 1: fine speaker, a clear thinking crusader, a devoted ally of
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  Speaker 1: long standing, tall, large framed, broad shouldered. She could harangue
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  Speaker 1: audiences in the strong, convincing and forceful fashion of the
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  Speaker 1: early Suffrage soap box days. Nothing delicate or fragile. When
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  Speaker 1: she had an idea, it was an idea, and she
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  Speaker 1: stated it as an idea. More than once. Our bank
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  Speaker 1: account would have faded to a mere wraith had it
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  Speaker 1: not been for Ida Tim's money raising talents. Missus Alexander C.
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  Speaker 1: Dick was Secretary. She had the old fashioned head of
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  Speaker 1: a daggerytype, but was thoroughly modern in her verve and
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  Speaker 1: gay personality and her quick agility of mind. Since nineteen sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: when I had first known her, she had been really
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  Speaker 1: interested in the research end of birth control and definitely
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  Speaker 1: had agreed with the then new war cry that it
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  Speaker 1: should be under medical supervision. It was mainly due to
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  Speaker 1: her and her late husband, Charles Brush of Cleveland, that
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  Speaker 1: Ohio had had from the beginning one of the best
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  Speaker 1: organized and conducted state leagues. Kate Hepburn was chairman. In
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  Speaker 1: her long public career, she had learned great efficiency and
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  Speaker 1: was so careful of minutia that she never let our
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  Speaker 1: witnesses run over their time. Just as we were swinging
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  Speaker 1: along briskly, she invariably tugged at a coat and passed
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  Speaker 1: over a little slip time up in one minute. Best
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  Speaker 1: of all our lobbyists was Missus Hazel Moore, our legislative secretary,
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  Speaker 1: who had left the Red c Ross in the South
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  Speaker 1: to support us. Nothing could withstand her indefatigable enthusiasm and
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  Speaker 1: it took a stout senator to harden his heart against
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  Speaker 1: her feminine ruses and winning manners. We now began to
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  Speaker 1: be initiated into the A b. C of federal legislative procedure.
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  Speaker 1: After your bill had been drawn up, you had to
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  Speaker 1: find a congressman to introduce it. Sometimes he believed in
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  Speaker 1: it one hundred percent, Sometimes he believed in the individual
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  Speaker 1: one hundred percent. Sometimes he sponsored it only to be
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  Speaker 1: accommodating and agreeable, in which case it was called by request,
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  Speaker 1: a very weak way, since you knew he was not
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  Speaker 1: going to fight for it. When introduced, the bill was
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  Speaker 1: read in the House or Senate and at once referred
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  Speaker 1: to a committee those having to do with changing a
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  Speaker 1: law to the judiciary. Ours was difficult to manage it first,
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  Speaker 1: because we were trying to alter several statutes simultaneously, not
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  Speaker 1: nearly Section two one one and everything pertaining to males
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  Speaker 1: and common carriers, but also laws relating to imports. We
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  Speaker 1: had a general principal back of us, but we had
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  Speaker 1: to keep whacking off clauses so that it would not
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  Speaker 1: be thrown into the wrong committee. If you were fortunate
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  Speaker 1: enough to secure a Senate hearing for your bill. The
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  Speaker 1: chairman of your committee appointed a subcommittee of about three
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  Speaker 1: in the House. The entire committee might attend the hearing.
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  Speaker 1: A day was set and you began preparing your ammunition.
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  Speaker 1: The opposition was allowed an equal amount of time to
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  Speaker 1: the second. After the hearing, a vote was taken. If
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  Speaker 1: they were against it, they killed it then and there.
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  Speaker 1: If they recommended it, it came before the full committee,
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  Speaker 1: and if then approved, went to the Senate or House
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  Speaker 1: for debate on the floor. To the frantic, worried, harassed
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  Speaker 1: driven congressmen of nineteen thirty one, the announcement of a
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  Speaker 1: birth control bill was like a message from Mars, only
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  Speaker 1: less interesting and more remote. The mind of each senator
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: resembled a telephone switchboard with as wary secretary as the operator.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: All the wires were tied up with foreign debts, unemployment, relief, reparations, moratoriums, cells, taxes, prohibition,
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  Speaker 1: budgets and bonuses, war and Manchuria, peace conferences, disarmament, and
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the tariff. Issues of vital concern to themselves for which
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  Speaker 1: they needed every vote, and their principal endeavor was not
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  Speaker 1: to cause conflict or get themselves disliked. What chance had
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  Speaker 1: we to plug in. When the vigilant secretary found we
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  Speaker 1: were not direct constituents, we were told the Senator was
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: busy in conference, in committee meeting, and arriving delegation. Would
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  Speaker 1: we come back later tomorrow, next week. Always we came
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  Speaker 1: back promptly and on the dot. For months it was
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  Speaker 1: almost impossible to see any of them. Often as many
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  Speaker 1: as forty calls were made, and if we succeeded in
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: getting two interviews, we considered that a good day's work.
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  Speaker 1: When finally we did reach them, few of the younger
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Still fewer of the older senators knew what we were
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: talking about. When we were able to make this clear,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: young and old alike, just as in the state, legislatures
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: were full of fear, fear of prejudices, fear of cloak
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: room joshings, mainly fear of Catholic opposition. Though Senator Norris
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: had approved the repeal bill, he believed that ours had
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: a better chance of passing because antagonism to the former
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: was even greater than in nineteen twenty six. He himself
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: had Muscle Shoals and the lame Duck Amendment on his
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: hands and several more pet projects to boot, and suggested
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: we get somebody to introduce the bill who would not
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: be up for reelection. Our choice fell on Senator Frederick
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Huntington Gillette of Massachusetts, for years Speaker of the House
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and now about to retire. He was a gentleman, born,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: gray haired, typically New England, without children or any particular
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: philosophy regarding birth control. O were Southern helpers, notably missus J. B. Vandeveer,
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  Speaker 1: were persistent and determined they would not be put off
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: with polite routine dismissals, but asked, point blank, will you
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  Speaker 1: introduce this bill for us? Senator Geillette, recognizing their earnestness, agreed,
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  Speaker 1: but we heard no more of it. When I returned
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: to the next session of the same Congress, some one remarked,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: aren't you lucky to have had your bill introduced? What?
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I stared with wide open eyes, Yes, Senator Gellette remembered it.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: A few days before the session closed. I called on
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: him at once, where's our bill gone? It had gone nowhere.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: We'll just send it round to the Judiciary committee, said
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the Senator nor as chairman, and he's friendly. He'll pick
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  Speaker 1: out a good subcommittee for you. We gathered our witnesses together,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the night before the hearing, which was to be February thirteenth,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and asked what do you want to say? How long
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: do you want in which to say it? We had
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: eight people to testify in the space of two hours.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Moments had to be carefully parceled out to each. We
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: were permitted to deduct ten from our allotment the first
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: day to be used the following one for a rebuttal.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: William E. Borah of Idaho and Sam G. Bratton of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: New Mexico had been assigned to us with Senator Gillette,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: but Bora did not appear. The audience, mostly women, crowded
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the committee room, imposing with marble pillars, glossy mahogany gleaming windows.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Doctor John Whittridge Williams, obstetrician in chief of JOHNS. Hopkins,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: summed up the medical evidence for birth control. A doctor
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: who has this information prevention of conception and does not
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: give it cannot help feeling he is taking a responsibility
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: for the lives and welfare of large numbers of people.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: The Reverend Charles Francis Potter, founder of the Humanist Society
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: of New York, discussed the moral phase. The bird of
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: war is not the eagle, but the stork. Professor Roswell H. Johnson,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: then at the University of Pittsburgh, stressed eugenics. Most intelligent,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: well informed people are so determined in this spacing children
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: that no laws yet devised succeed in forcing a natural family,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: which is about eighteen children upon them. Rabbi Sidney Goldstein
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: dealt with religious aspects. The population is not made up
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of those who are born, but is made up of
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: those who survive. Professor of sociology Henry Pratt Fairchild spoke
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: from the economic point of view. We human individuals cannot
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: break laws of nature. We can, however, choose which of
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: her laws we see fit to obey. Missus Douglas Moffatt
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: announced that the twenty seven hundred members of the New
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: York City Junior League were overwhelmingly in favor of the
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: bill and of Chapter thirty four, Part one