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A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Deity
God
Law
United States Criminal Code, Section 211
Organization
American Medical Association
League of Nations
Latz Foundation
United States House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary
United States Postal Service
National Catholic Welfare Conference
National Committee for Federal Legislation for Birth Control
Roman Catholic Church
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
United States Department of Agriculture
National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control
University of Pennsylvania
United States Congress
Person
Higgins, Anne Purcell
Toy, James Joseph
Malthus, Thomas Robert
Sumners, Hatton W.
Sachs, Jake
Kurtz, Jacob Banks
Burton, Hiram Ralph
Bossard, James H. S.
Hepburn, Katharine Houghton
Mundell, Joseph J.
Celler, Emanuel
Latz, Leo J.
Willson, Prentiss
Sachs, Sadie
Healey, Arthur Daniel
Norton, Mary Hopkins
Coughlin, Charles E.
McGoldrick, Rita Connell
Ryan, John Augustine
Place
Quincy, IL
Europe
Netherlands, the
The Hague, Netherlands, the
England
United States
New York
Chicago, IL
New York, NY
Amsterdam, Netherlands, the
Publication
The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility in Women
Bible
Western Catholic
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div id="Published-Testimony">
<h4>Statement of Mrs. Margaret Sanger, National Chairman <name type="org" reg="National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control">Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control Inc.</name></h4>
<div class="section">
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Mr. <name type="person" reg="Sumners, Hatton W.">Chairman</name> and members of the <name type="org" reg="United States House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary">committee</name>, in the brief time allotted to me, I simply want to discuss the effect of this <name type="law" reg="United States Criminal Code, Section 211">law</name> as it stands today on the various institutions and upon women receiving contraceptive advice which they may receive legally in their various States, and also to tell you just what this bill proposes to do, what it will do as we see it.</p>
<p>The law today is directed entirely to the <name type="org" reg="United States Postal Service">United States mails</name> and to common carriers. It makes it a crime, punishable by 5 years in prison and $5,000 fine, to send any information, printed or written, through the mails, or to send any devices that may be designated for the prevention of conception.</p>
<p>Please do not misunderstand us as to our position on the present obscenity law; we want those provisions as to obscenity to remain, and we only have an interest in the present law to the extent that it deals with the prevention of conception.</p>
<p>We believe that this whole subject does not belong in the obscenity clause. It was put there nearly 60 years ago when there was no knowledge of this question, or of its effects or results on the community or on the population, and we are simply taking that out of the law, but not by repeal, but by amendment, and placing it in the hands of persons who are responsible and qualified to disseminate it.</p>
<p>We believe, that this question of receiving contraceptive information should be the woman’s right, that it should be the mother who should have the right to receive information, but we believe in limiting who should get it. That is the difference.</p>
<p>We believe that the doctors who have a knowledge and understanding of anatomy and physiology should be the ones to dispense, to give out that information, but today there is no exemption in that law for anyone, for it says that no one shall give such information. It does not exempt scientific books or medical books, and while there are scientific and medical books sent though the <name type="place" reg="">United States</name> mail, there is no reason why there should be, if the law is really enforced.</p>
<p>The law also says that anyone who tells anyone else where such information bay be obtained is also guilty under the law. Now, this condition means that there are 47 States in which a physician may give information as he sees fit, with the exception of the <name type="place" reg="">New York</name> State Law, where he can give information only for the cure or prevention of disease, but most of the other States allow the physician (who would naturally give this information orally) also to give any device that may be necessary for the woman to prevent conception. There are 157 clinics that are legally operated for birth control throughout the country, and yet the physicians who have a right under their State laws to advise these women in these clinics have to bootleg their supplies from <name type="place" reg="New York, NY">New York</name> or <name type="place" reg="Chicago, IL">Chicago</name>, or wherever there is a concern providing these articles, in order properly to give the advice to their patients which is legal under their own State laws.</p>
<p>That is the situation that we are trying to change; and, furthermore, while the mothers in the States have a legal right to obtain information from their physicians if they know where to go for it, they cannot know of it because there is no way of letting them know about this, and yet they may really be next door to a birth-control clinic, what good does it do to those particular women? They will write to me, or their nurses will, or someone, asking where it can be obtained, and we subject ourselves to the law by merely sending the woman the address of a qualified physician or legal clinic, a physician or a clinic that has been qualified in her own State to give her that information.</p>
<p>It seems, and it undoubtedly is, an absurd situation, and we are trying to change the law so that persons, especially those persons who have the right to have such information, may be able to obtain it properly.</p>
<p>There are in the country today, 26,170,756 married women between 15 and 49 years, of the child-bearing age. Now, it seems to me, and I honestly believe, that every adult, normal woman not only wishes to have children, but has a responsibility toward those children, toward bringing them up. Those women that want to have children, often want to have a few children and want to do well by them, and in the last few years I have received over a million letters, since I have been in this work, and nearly every one of those letters the mother says: “Yes, I love children, but I want to give them a better chance than I have had.”</p>
<p>For example, here are just two of the letters, to give you an idea why we feel as we do about this--and I consider that these women are really the forgotten women of this Nation. No one knows much about them. They are ignored. They are not given the consideration that they should have. They may have their children’s teeth taken care of in clinics, or their childrens’ adenoids removed in hospitals, and the children may have free lunches at the schools-–all of these considerations are given to them, but when it comes to this particular question, when a woman say “Doctor, what can I do so that I won’t have any more? I have enough. My husband is out of work, and he is sick, and the last child that I have had is not very well; give me a chance,” there is this peculiar atmosphere created about this, as if it is something horrible that she is asking for, and her request is refused.</p>
<p>Here is one letter:</p>
<p rend="blockquote">"I just passed my twenty-first birthday on August 10. I am already the mother of 5 children, the oldest 6 years of age and the baby 3 months. My husband has been out of work for over a year and a half now. We would have starved long ago but for the relatives, who among them gave us $5 a week. It is awfully hard to live like this, and my husband was so blue when he found out I was that way again that he wanted to go to another place."</p>
<p rend="blockquote">"My children are well, but I am awfully weak, only weighing 90 pounds. I do all of my work, and if I could get some consideration and not get any more babies, I would be happy and so would my husband."</p>
<p rend="blockquote">"Won’t you do all that you can and give me the advice that I need?"</p>
<p>That is the type of letter that I have received nearly a million of--in fact, over a million, because I stopped counting them when we got to a million.</p>
<p>Another letter states, and I would like to analyze this with you:</p>
<p rend="blockquote">"I am only 34 years of age, and I have given birth to 12 children, only 3 of these being alive. They died so quickly after they were born that it seems that they did not have much strength to live on. My husband is a good, hard-working man, but the most he made is $1.50. We are poor people, and the coffins of the last three have not been paid for yet. It is hard to see them go like that, but if I did not have any more for a while, I could keep the three that I have got."</p>
<p>That woman is 34 years old. She has not finished with child-bearing yet. She has perhaps 12 years still to be anxious about more children that she cannot take care of.</p>
<p>Now, 12 times that woman has gone down into the shadow of death, to bring forth three living children for the State. When you analyze this, as to what it means, it means that that woman was in pregnancy 9 times for those dead children, and it means 8 consistent years, night and day, in this state of pregnancy for 9 dead children.</p>
<p>It is barbaric. It is not civilized for this woman to ask advice and not be able to get it. It is absolutely unfair that she cannot be told what she wants to know.</p>
<p>If this woman asks me what to do for her pigs to make them fatter, or if she asks me what to do with her cows so as to get more milk, or if she should ask advice about her chickens, so that she could get more eggs, we could sent to the <name type="org" reg="United States Department of Agriculture">Department of Agriculture</name>, and Uncle Sam would give her so much literature that it would take her the rest of her life to read it; but when she says, “What can I do to prevent having more children that are born dead, or that do not survive,” we have to ask ourselves if we want to put ourselves in jeopardy and be subject to a $5,000 fine or 5 years imprisonment in order to tell her what she asks.</p>
<p>My position is that I would not want to send through the mails any device, or any information for that woman, but what we do want to do is to tell her where she can go so that she can get proper information in her own community. We do not want to use the mails to give that information; we want the physicians to have a right to give the information and to get the materials from the manufacturers, and they, in turn, can give information wherever they see fit under their own State law.</p>
<p>We have found that all women differ in the advice given. We have a <name type="org" reg="Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau">clinic</name> in New York where we had over 35,000 women who have come to us in the last 6 years, and so we know what we are talking about. We know whether these things are injurious, or bad, or whether they will cause cancer of sterility. We know. We are not guessing anymore.</p>
<p>As I said, we know that women differ in their physical needs, and that there is no particular means or method that will suit everyone. Women who have had a large number of children, and had good care, are in a different physiological and gynecological condition than women who have had no care, and so it is important for these women, if we are going to protect them, not to act in a hit-or-miss fashion on this. If a woman’s life is in jeopardy, we should give her the best scientific information for her protection.</p>
<p>So, for those reasons, we make this information individual, just as individual as having eyeglasses fitted to the individual’s eyes.</p>
<p>So we want this in the hands of the medical profession, where it properly belongs, and I ask you to consider this bill favorably for the sake of these millions of child-bearing women, women who have to consider themselves for the future and who have to consider their children for the future. [Applause.]</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. <name type="person" reg="Hepburn, Katharine Houghton">Hepburn</name></span>. All of this applause, as the chairman said, is taken out of our time.</p>
<p>The next speaker is Dr. <name type="person" reg="Bossard, James H. S.">Bossard</name>, of the <name type="org" reg="">University of Pennsylvania</name>, Department of Sociology.</p>
<p><reg resp="MSPP">The statement by Dr. Bossard and the Resolution from the American Medical Association were omitted by the MSPP editors.</reg></p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Hepburn.</span> Mr. Chairman nd members of the committee, Mrs. Sanger will make our concluding statment.</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4 class="sub-heading">Statement of Mrs. Mrgaret Sanger</h4>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee, it must be rather confusing to you to hear so many statements, misstatements, overlapping of evidence, as has been given to you in the past 2 days.</p>
<p>We have had the introduction of the amendment, but I want to tell you that in approving this bill about a year ago, I believed that those who opposed it, especially the Catholic organizations, should be interviewed, and that it would be a good thing to submit this bill to them and to see just where we could get together on the bill.</p>
<p>This bill was drafted, gentlemen, with the advice of the physician recommended by the <name type="org" reg="National Catholic Welfare Conference">National Catholic Welfare Council</name> and that physician considers this a good bill, and he was the one referred to me by this organization.</p>
<p>There was a question asked about the condition in <name type="place" reg="">England</name> relative to birth control, and I would like to give you this. In July of 1930 the government in England issued a memorandum to all public health authorities informing them that birth control information might be supplied on medical grounds to women in attendance upon the maternity and child welfare centers, so that today in England all maternity and infant welfare centers are allowed to give this information.</p>
<p>Then the <name type="org" reg="">League of Nations</name> has officially recognized contraception and abortions as problems of public health. Under date of October 15, 1931, the health organization of the League issued a report on maternal welfare and the hygiene of infants of free-school age; and on February 1, 1933, the Council of the League of Nations adopted the report in its amended form. I would like also to submit for the record the report of the League of Nations recommending contraception in the various health center throughout the world.</p>
<p>Now, there is one other point that seems to me very interesting, and that is that it may seem there has been a great deal of warfare practiced between the people who oppose the bill and we who propose it, and that the people who have come here to oppose this bill are at the north pole, and we are at the south pole; but I beg to inform you that is not true.</p>
<p>There is a book that has recently been published by the <name type="org" reg="">Latz Foundation</name> called “<span class="book">The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility in Women</span>.” This has been published with “ecclesiastical approval,” and this has been recommended by all of the Catholic societies and Catholic publications.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. <name type="person" reg="Healey, Arthur Daniel">Healey</name>.</span> May I ask when you consulted with the representative of the National Catholic Welfare Association?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> A year ago.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> Who was that; do you recall his name?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Colonel <name type="person" reg="Toy, James Joseph">Toy</name>, who represented our <name type="org" reg="National Committee for Federal Legislation for Birth Control">organization,</name> went to see both of these gentlemen who are present here, and also Father <name type="person" reg="Ryan, John Augustine">Ryan</name>, and we were recommended to see Dr. <name type="person" reg="Mundell, Joseph J.">Mundell</name>, who appeared here this morning.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. <name type="person" reg="Burton, Hiram Ralph">Burton</name>.</span> You were not recommended by me to do that?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> We went to him on that recommendation.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> What did you do?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> We went to see him and found him very sensible.</p>
<p><span class="strong">The Chairman.</span> You may proceed.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> The particular thing in this bill that seems to be objected by Father <name type="person" reg="Coughlin, Charles E.">Coughlin</name> is the phrase, “by any physician, or by his direction or prescription.”</p>
<p>I don’t quite understand what he means, but if Father Coughlin or those opposing this measure want to take that phrase out, “or by his direction or prescription,” I can’t quite understand why, but if they want to take that out, it can be done, but at the same time they are talking about the control of these contraceptives that are flooding the country today. I believe the only way that contraceptives can be controlled is when this dissemination of information and appliances is put in the hands of the medical profession where they rightfully belong.</p>
<p>Mrs. <name type="person" reg="Norton, Mary Hopkins">Norton</name> brought in this morning the suggestion of commercial activity, I believe it was Mrs. Norton or Mrs. <name type="person" reg="McGoldrick, Rita Connell">McGoldrick</name>, intimated that we are associated with commercial firms, or with some of the manufacturers who are bringing forth these contraceptives so widely. We deny that. There is not one person in our organization associated in any way with any manufacturer of contraceptives. I don’t mind telling you that a year ago I was offered an immense sum of money, nearly a quarter of a million dollars, if I would speak on the radio for a firm that has a product that is perfectly legitimate, it is not a contraceptive, but I thought that people listening in might think it was a contraceptive, and I refused that offer.</p>
<p>We have had numerous offers during these many years, and at no time has any of us been associated in any way with any manufacturer of any kind whatever. This is not a commercial concern, we are not interested in that part of it, we are only interested in trying to see, so far as our research is concerned, what can be done, and what can be found to be effective and helpful to the vast millions of women who are seeking advice on how to limit their families and limit them safely.</p>
<p>Here is a copy from a clipping from a paper called the <span class="journal">Western Catholic</span>, dated February 17, 1933, published in <name type="place" reg="Quincy, IL">Quincy, Ill.</name>, which mentions birth control by the so-called contraceptives, which say:</p>
<p rend="blockquote">We have received many inquiries about the remarkable by Dr. <name type="person" reg="Latz, Leo J.">Leo J. Latz</name> on national, rational, safe birth control as a potent means to combat the hideous, horrible, unnatural vice of contraception. This remarkable book published by Dr. Latz, of Chicago, Ill., should be read by confessors, physicians, editors, preachers, nurses, social workers, etc. Send us a new subscription for the Western Catholic, and we will send you a free copy of this great work.</p>
<p>So the racket is not all on one side. If we are going to have a racket, let us look at it squarely and take our share of the responsibility.</p>
<p>To me it is a very dangerous thing to put out a book like that, when the physicians and the scientists of the country do not by any means agree that there is a safe period for all women, as Dr. <name type="person" reg="Willson, Prentiss">Willson</name> has suggested to you.</p>
<p>Now it comes down to a safe device or a safe period, and that is just about where both sides are now. I can read to you out of this book, “<name type="book" reg="The Rhythm">Rhythm</name>,” answers to everything that has been said here. Out of this book comes answers, and I will take up your time to read at least some of them. It states here that Catholic doctors are not in agreement as to the serious physical consequences of contraception, and the answer is that they are by no means in agreement on this, and I would want you to understand, they agree that the consequence of over-child bearing and the consequences of prolific child-bearing are to a certain extent a greater cause for worry and anxiety than the other point of contraception.</p>
<p>That is right from this book. There are many of these questions that should be answered, and they have been answered here in this study of the Rhythm.</p>
<p>Father Coughlin in his statement yesterday gave us to understand he is Irish, and I am Irish myself for many generations back, and I know how charming such a personality can be, and how facetious it can be, too, when it is coupled with a medieval mind. I think Father Coughlin should study up a little bit on <name type="person" reg="Malthus, Thomas Robert">Malthus</name>. Malthus did not coin the words “birth control,” but he believed in late marriage and continence until such a day when only a few children could be conceived, and that was the time they should be married, when they had decided how many children they could economically take care of.</p>
<p>Father Coughlin also said it is our duty to increase and multiply, and he quoted the <span class="book">Bible</span>, and he said that today, “we, believing as Catholics that marriage was invented by <name type="deity">God</name> for the primary purpose of propagating children.” This was rather humorous to me, that he a celibate, never knowing the joys of fatherhood, could come here and tell us to increase and multiply. It seems to me if that is the word of God, certainly he should be on the job.</p>
<p>It was brought up about <name type="place" reg="Netherlands, the">Holland</name>; I think Mrs. McGoldrick or Mrs. Norton said the laws of Holland had been rescinded. But that is untrue. Let me explain what Holland has done. Holland had gone far on the way to the practice of methods of contraception. Back from the time of 1878, physicians of <name type="place" reg="Amsterdam, Netherlands, the ">Amsterdam</name> were concerned about this question and they formed clinics in Holland, and it is an interesting thing, if you will look at the facts and statistics to see that Holland right through for the past 50 years has had a low birth rate, and has had a low infantile death rate, but has had a higher survival than any country in <name type="place" reg="">Europe</name>, and has the lowest death rate in Europe, and three of her cities have the lowest infant mortality of any country in Europe.</p>
<p>About the time of the World War Holland had a perfectly open law. I myself learned the technique of contraception at <name type="place" reg="The Hague, Netherlands, the">The Hague</name> in 1914. It was not necessary to be a trained nurse, or a doctor, but anyone old enough to be married, by the laws of the State could receive or give such information or instruction. During the war there was an amendment of the law to the effect that articles of contraception should not be exposed or exhibited in the drug stores, and that is as far as that law has been rescinded; otherwise, it is the same as it was.</p>
<p>In our clinic, where many Catholic women come, we have all due respect for them, and all due respect for everyone who has an opinion, whether religious or moral. We know that this bill is not mandatory, it is not asking those opposed to do anything different than they do today. It is permissive legislation we are asking for.</p>
<p>There are twenty or twenty-one million Catholics in the country, and there are about a hundred million other people who are not Catholics. It seems to me there is no reason why any one group should impose their will upon the rest of the country, whether it is their moral or religious or their political ideas.</p>
<p>I think you should know, as we have found, that women who come to our clinics average just about equal. We have had 35,000 women in one clinic in New York City, and there are over 150 clinics throughout the country; and every one of them reports the same thing, that there are about one third Catholic, one third Protestant, and one third Jews, so that they run about even.</p>
<p>I have myself had the most pathetic cases of Catholic women torn by their loyalty to the church and their desires to control the size of the family. They have exactly the same problems every other woman has, except it is a greater hardship on them not to be able to have religious sanction of the thing they feel they should do.</p>
<p>To give you briefly a picture of the thing, we find there are two groups of people, on one side you see the people who practice birth control, and control the size of the family, and then the other group who have not done that, not because they do not want to, but because they cannot get the information, and have to resort to operations. Look down among our own friends and see what you find, you find in one group under average conditions today, if they control the size of the family, you will see the highest percentage of health among the women and the lowest percentage of mortality. There may be only two or three children brought into the world, but more is done for those children. They live longer, they go to schools, and they go through college; then their mothers are able to participate in public life and help bring along the general progress of our civilization, and do not neglect their children either.</p>
<p>I find that those engaged in our welfare and social activities and most of our culture activities come out of that group. It is they who are paying the highest taxes, and paying in philanthropies for the other group.</p>
<p>My experience as a nurse in New York brought me into this. I was a member of a large family, 11 children, and my <name type="person" reg="Higgins, Anne Purcell">mother</name> died just weeks after the last one was born. I maintain if she had had some knowledge of birth control she would not have died; but they say, in that event, I would not have been born, and maybe some of you would not be sorry. Nevertheless, if my mother had had some knowledge of birth control, she might have been alive today and able to take care of the children, which she could not do.</p>
<p>In my practice as a trained nurse I found women were trying to find some methods by which they could limit as well as control the size of the family; where should they go? They asked each other. It was a sort of common gossip about this or that. They go to the hospitals, dispensaries, and public agencies, and always they are refused when it comes to asking for this particular kind of information.</p>
<p>One women would ask me what to do; and they say, “You give it to the rich; they get the information; why must we bear the burden? You see what I have got, how many children I have got; my husband is a good man, we are trying to do the best we can for the children; won’t you help me?”</p>
<p>I came to this movement after <name type="person" reg="Sachs, Sadie">one case</name> I had, the last one, who died with septicemia. We had worked very hard with her; it was on the East Side in New York, on Grand Street, in the summertime; the doctor worked hard on her, and we finally brought her back to her home and the doctor said, “Now, young lady, you don’t go through this again, or don’t call me in.” She said, “Yes; what shall I do?” He said, “You tell <name type="person" reg="Sachs, Jake">Jim</name> to sleep on the roof.” We left that woman with that kind of advice after she had gone through an operation and nearly died.</p>
<p>We went on, went on our way, irrespective of what happened to her, and within 3 months I was called back to that case. The doctor was there ahead of me, and that woman had not been able to survive, she had gone through another operation and she had no resistance, that woman passed out leaving a frantic husband with two little children.</p>
<p>I went home that night, gentlemen, away back in 1912, and I decided then and there that life was not worth living in this country unless we could give back to society some of the benefit of our experience. Of course, we had no idea what we would get into with such a decision, but we then found the Federal law which had been on the statute book since 1873. We asked the physicians, and they shook their heads.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. <name type="person" reg="Kurtz, Jacob Banks">Kurtz</name></span>. Pardon me, I would like to ask this question. Is there any reason why you or the physician in the case referred to should not have given to that lady the necessary information for her protection?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Today she would get it if her doctor happened to know it.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Kurtz.</span> Why didn’t she get it then?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Because in the first place I knew practically nothing about it. I was a mother myself, but I knew nothing about getting the information, and the doctor assumed there was a law against it.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Kurtz.</span> The New York statute did not prevent him from giving it.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Quite right, but they didn’t know it. The New York State statute was never construed, and in fact, some of us went to jail to get a decision on it. It is only under that decision we are operating today in New York, in all the clinics.</p>
<p>This law as we find it, affects the United States mail and common carriers. Someone asked about a physician prescribing by mail. No physician would prescribe by mail, but a physician needs to get proper information of newer means and methods, he needs to exchange with other physicians, clinics, laboratories, and so forth, through the United States mails. As it is now, as one of our physicians testified yesterday, the medical publishers do not want to jeopardize their liberty under such conditions of law. This book here, Rhythm, is going through the mails, not by right, but by privilege, and it gives illegal information just as any other book I might write on preventing conception.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> Can you differentiate somewhat between that? One is an interference with life itself, isn’t it?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> I beg your pardon, not any more than information in this book is.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> The method you advocate is an interference with life?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> It prevents conception, it is not an interference with life.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> It does interfere with it.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> So does anyone remaining single; so does continence.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> You are not opposed to continence?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> No; I am not.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> That does not in any way oppose the policy you advocate here.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> No; I am not opposed to that, and I am not opposed to this book, if we can find a safe method. We are coming down now, not to a question of principle, but a question of methods. We have no objection whatever to this. We say there are three methods of preventing conception, continence, sterilization, mechanical method, or chemical means of contraception. One group believes in mechanical or chemical and the other group believes in continence, and this book, I feel it will do harm to send it though the mails until there is a study made of it. Possibly, if it were found there was a safe period, it would have to be the physician who advices the patient as to her safe period.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. <name type="person" reg="Celler, Emanuel">Celler</name>.</span> You have read that book; doesn’t it say that study would indicate there is a safe period, or does it give a full guarantee there is a safe method?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> It gives a calendar which shows the date exactly of the variations of the menstrual cycle. Here is one of the little ones with those dates and the concept calendar.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> Is the language all through the book indicative of absolute assurance to the reader, or are there no qualifications whatsoever in the book?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> No more than we give with our contraceptive. It depends on the individual, I would say, and the doctor to advise her, but if I picked up that book and read it and believed as a Catholic, and saw an ecclesiastical approval, I would follow it to the letter.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> Insofar as the ecclesiastical feature is concerned, I don’t know whether the people who read it pay any attention to the ecclesiastics in the book; that has nothing to do with the scientific fact.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> No; I am not intimating that.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> What I am trying to get from you is whether or not the author of that book has made the absolute declaration that there is a period in which there can be no conception.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Yes.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr Celler.</span> Without any qualification?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Without qualifications, it gives the definite statement. They tell you exactly when your period of sterility starts and when to depend on the period of fertility.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> There is not anything in the book, no method prescribed, that would interfere with the natural laws.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Do you want to argue that?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> I say there is not anything. There is no artificial mens prescribed, and no use of medicines or drugs or any thing that would inrerfere with natural laws.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> If we are going to argue natural law, it is something different. I will say if there is a period of sexual sterility and a day when nature makes a woman sterile, it is most likely that is the time she would repulse the idea of relationship, and so far as any natural law is concerned, I think that is the period to stay away.</p>
<p><span class="strong"> Mr. Celler.</span> That is your viewpoint, or medical opinion.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> It is my opinion.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> You have no medical opinion to back it?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs Sanger.</span> Yes; I have some of the world authorities that claim that is true.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> That say that period of sterility would be the time when there would be a repulse on the part of the woman?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Yes; when nature sort of closes the door toward this attraction.</p>
<p><span class="strong">The Chairman.</span> I want to get clear the thing under consideration and discussion. It is you contention that the difference between your position and the position of the opponents is to be found only in the method to be used?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Yes; we both have the same principle.</p>
<p><span class="strong">The Chairman.</span> In your case, the purpose would be to have the relationship without the possibility of conception. Is that your contention?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Yes, that is my contention. We are both together on the principles, and we separate the question of methods.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> Don’t you separate right here, in the case of that book, there is nothing done to interfere with the natural results of sexual functions, but you advocate the introduction of foreign substances by your chemicals or instruments seeking to prevent the natural result of the sexual function?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Not of the sexual function, but of reproduction.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> Isn’t that where you and the author of this book, whoever he is, differ?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> There is nothing in the book which gives contraceptive information as to chemicals or devices and they object very strongly to them, but they agree to our contention that children should be spaced and women should not have a large number of children. We say there is not a safe period, and if there was, we would gladly accept it and say blessings on you for advocating it. But we claim that in the meantime we should have the right to use our knowledge as we see it, just the same as in eyeglasses or other things individually advised.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> Don't you recognize thee is a vast difference between the propagation of the race and the fact that you may have poor eyesight or poor hearing?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> There is quite a difference, but I am talking about the question of the mechanical means toward the preventing of conception.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> But you must agree you are interfering with a function of the human body.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> You are not interfering with a function, any more than you are by remaining single, if you wish to go into detail.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> You don’t interfere there, you refrain.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> In this you don’t refrain.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> In that book there it is said there is no outside interference with the natural result that would come. This physician says there is a period when there is no possibility of conception, but there is no outside interference.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> As far as conception is concerned, in the method we advocate, by the use of the contraceptive, the ovum is not fertilized, it passes out of the body just the same as if she had never used one. We do not believe in interfering after conception has taken place. We do not believe in destroying after conception, but preventing conception. There is where we differ, and that is what I want to make clear. We maintain that prevention is the important thing and not interference afterwards.</p>
<p>We want this bill passed because we know operations are going on at a tremendous rate, and we are trying our best with all the human decency we can command to take care of that problem and to help abolish it.</p>
<p>We know there are very few married women in the United States, that haven’t a conscience toward their children, they are seeking the best way out to protect themselves.</p>
<p>Physicians have gone on record to get the <name type="org" reg="">American Medical Association</name> to have a research body to investigate all of these newspaper advertisements of contraceptives and other things in the drug stores, we have made a brief investigation ourselves. We have records that 43 percent of the contraceptive chemicals on the market are absolutely useless. A woman doesn’t know where else to go. She will go to the druggist and ask what to do, or her husband will ask, and the druggist will give to them whatever a high-powered salesman has loaded him up with.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> You do contend that because of the physiological differences in women, each woman presents almost a new case?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> That is right.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Celler.</span> And any information along this line to be imparted should be imparted by a physician or someone in a position to impart knowledge?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> That is right.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> You say the reason the poorer classes are not getting that is because they can’t afford to get that information from physicians; is that why they are not getting it?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Yes; partly.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> If we passed this bill, do you think there will be any reason why they can afford after the passage of this bill to get it any more than they can now?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Yes.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> What is the reason?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> In New York City, for instance, or most of the cities, if the woman can go to the private family physician and pay his charges, there is no hesitancy then on the part of the doctor if he has been instructed in methods, but if she goes to the hospital he will not break the law. There are 7,177 hospitals in the United States. In addition, the hospitals have to pay for those articles at their own cost, and they will not do it. I know a woman who was dismissed from a hospital for giving a contraceptive device to a woman who was in there are who had six children already, and was not in a physical condition to have more.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> As a practical matter, women will not go to a physician if we pass this bill any more than they go now, and won’t this information pass on from person to person, and therefore the information will be abused and will not be used in a manner beneficial to that particular reason?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> It cannot be done that way any more than you can get proper eyeglasses at a 10-cent store.</p>
<p>That is the main thing, when they go to qualified persons at established places where competent instruction is given, they simply cannot pass it on. A woman would be a fool to use it when advised for someone else. She might as well not have anything at all as to try to use something given to someone else.</p>
<p>I am of the opinion that the medical profession will have to do away with all of this scattered broadcasting of chemicals and materials, and have it tied up in a way it will be distributed at the proper place where the women can seek advice, and I believe that is the only possible safeguarding of the whole question we are talking about.</p>
<p>Now, here is a little book that is an introduction to the Rhythm, and gives the contents of the book, and I would like you to see just what is in it.</p>
<p>Now, Mr. Chairman, I believe we are all very much in the same boat and this whole thing is getting beyond us, and I believe it is time for <name type="org" reg="United States Congress">Congress</name> to take action on this and try to establish it on right principles. I have every faith in the medical profession. I know that among physicians there are good and bad, but the great mass of them are decent men of integrity. We have got to trust them, and we have got to have a thing of this kind placed somewhere, in my opinion, and it cannot be in better hands than in the hands of our medical profession.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> You don’t mean to leave the impression with this committee that the opposition to the passage of this law is confined to Catholics?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> I think the organized opposition is.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> In view of all the people who testified here from the other religions?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Yes, there were mostly individuals.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> There are millions of people throughout the country opposed to birth control, of all religious denominations.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> I doubt it, but if you are going to put in individual letters, I could have brought in trunks of individual letters, if I had an idea you wanted them.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> There are millions of non-Catholics throughout the country who are opposed to this, and you know that, as a matter of fact.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> No; I don’t--not millions.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> You ought to know there is considerable opposition to it from every state.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> There is no organized opposition except from the <name type="org" reg="Roman Catholic Church">Catholic Church</name>. A small group of Lutherans have opposed it, and they are the only groups we have any record of.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> Have you tried to get resolutions from other churches sponsoring your view?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> We have, yes.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> Have you such resolutions of endorsement?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> They have gone in the record; I think they were put in yesterday. The endorsements of some medical organizations and some religious organizations are in the record.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Healey.</span> I mean the national bodies representing the churches throughout the country.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Yes; there are individual churches just like those read here today, individual Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists--there are lots of them.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. Chairman.</span> Are you through, Mrs. Sanger?</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Yes; and if there are any questions I would be glad to answer them.</p>
<p><reg resp="MSPP">The section entitled "The Big Problem of Married People Solved" was omitted by the editors.</reg></p>
</div>
</div>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kurtz, Jacob Banks
Western Catholic
Healey, Arthur Daniel
Celler, Emanuel
Burton, Hiram Ralph
H.R. 5978
Hepburn, Katharine Houghton
Coughlin, Charles E.
Sumners, Hatton W.
Sachs, Sadie
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Margaret Sanger
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1934-01-18
Description
An account of the resource
<p>The following is an excerpt from the hearings. Only Margaret Sanger's testimonyand her answers to committee questions have been included.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#300448
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Collected Documents Series</span>, C15:883
<span class="book">Birth Control. Hearings before the Committee onthe Judiciary, House of Representatives</span> Seventy-ThirdCongress, Second Session on H.R. 5978, Jan. 18,19,1934 (Washington, 1934), pp. 6-9, 230-238
Subject
The topic of the resource
abortion--birth control and
American Medical Association
birth control--access to
birth control--class-based
birth control--health benefits and risks
birth control--lack of knowledge of
birth control--medically contolled
birth control--opposition to
birth control laws and legislation--Congressional bills--H.R. 5978 (1934)
birth control legal cases--Crane Decision or People V. Sanger
birth control laws and legislation--doctors-only laws
birth control laws and legislation--Postal Codes
birth control methods--sexual continence
birth control methods--safe period
Catholic Church--and birth control
children--rights of
conception--definitions of
England--birth control in
men and boys--sex and sexuality
National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control--bills
Netherlands, the--birth control in
Netherlands, the--birth control clinics
physicians--and birth control
religion--and birth control
Sachs, Sadie
Sanger, Margaret--biographical details
United States--birth control clinics
United States Congress
working classes--and birth control
World War I--MS on
Title
A name given to the resource
Testimony Before the United States House of Representatives on H.R. 5978
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published Testimony
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
New York Times
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Organization
Blackwell's Island
Brownsville Clinic
Carnegie Hall
Person
Roosevelt, Theodore
Higgins, Anne Purcell
Place
United States
Europe
Salem, MA
Oyster Bay, NY
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>"Mrs. Sanger Defies Courts Before 3,0000"</h4>
<p>"I come to you tonight," she said, "from a crowded courtroom, from a vortex of persecution. I come not from the stake at
Salem, where women were burned for blasphemy, but from the shadow of
Blackwell's Island, where women are tortured for 'obscenity.'"</p>
<p>"Birth control is the one means by which the working man shall find emancipation. I was one of eleven children. My
mother died when I was 17 because she had had too many children and had worked herself to
death. I became a nurse to help support my family, and I soon discovered that 75 per cen of the diseases of men and women are due
to sex ignorance. I determined that when I was able I would do what I could to solve that problem. I found that the average person was
as ignorant of sex matters as our most primitive ancestors. There has been progress in every department of our lives except in the
most important--creation. So I cam to the conclusion that the greatest good I could do was to help poor women to have fewer children
to be brought up in want and poverty. I threw my nurse's bag away and swore I would take it up no more. I went to Europe
and studied the birth control clinics there and came back to America to do what I could.</p>
<p>Colonel Roosevelt goes all about the country telling people to have large families and he is
neither arrested nor molested. But can he tell me why I got sixty-three letters in one week from poor mothers in
Oyster Bay asking me for birth control information? No woman can call herself free until she can
choose the time she will become a monther.</p>
<p>My purpose in life is to arouse sentiment for the repeal of the law, State and Federal. It is we women who have paid for the folly of
this law, and it is up to us to repeal it. It is only by birth control that woman can prepare with man, her brother, for the emanicipation of the race.</p>
</div>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Hunt, Mary
New York Times
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mrgaret Sanger
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1917-01-29
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Sanger spoke before three thousand at Carnegie Hall on the eve of her sentencing for
opening the Brownsville Clinic. The only version of the speech is was located from
newspaper reports. The <span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">New York Times</span></span> reported that
she departed from the prepared copy of her speech by being was less severe toward the judiciary than she had
intended. Acccording to the <span class="italics">Times</span> "<q>She had evidently prepared her speech in the conviction
that she was to be found guilty yesterday afternoon</q>." Only the portions quoting Sanger have been transcribed here.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#421073
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="article">"Mrs. Sanger Defies Courts Before 3,0000,"</span>,
<span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">New York Times</span></span>, Jan. 30, 1917.
Subject
The topic of the resource
birth control--lack of knowledge of
birth control clinics and leagues
birth control--socio-economic benefits
Brownsville Clinic--arrests, trials and imprisonment
client letters
censorship--in United States
birth control laws and legislation--Comstock Laws
Sanger, Margaret--biographical details
Sanger, Margaret--family of
Title
A name given to the resource
[Portions of Carnegie Hall Address]
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published speech
-
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Organization
Cornell University
Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital
Claverack College
Person
George, Henry
Higgins, Michael Hennessey
Bellamy, Edward
Schopenhauer, Arthur
Sanger, Peggy
Higgins, Anne Purcell
Nietzsche, Friedrich
Grimm, Jacob
Sanger, William
Sanger, Grant
Sanger, Stuart
Sachs, Sadie
Place
Corning, NY
Publication
Looking Forward
Progress and Poverty
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH</h4>
<p class="byline">Mrs. Margaret Sanger</p>
<div>
<h4 class="sub-heading">I.</h4>
<p>I had for my father not only a great man, but
a great philosopher. Both of my parents are of Irish birth and both came from a long
line of thinking fighters. My father in particular is an idealist. At the present
time he is fighting for the ideal of international peace and international
understanding. My mother was one of
those old fashioned gentlewomen who devote their lives to the happiness of their
husbands and the welfare of their children. She bore eleven children of whom I was
the fifth. I was born in Corning, New York State,
in 1883. Early in my childhood days, I was instructed by my father that one's life
must be a great effort toward accomplishing an ideal. He would often say to his
children that what they must first attain was a dream or a vision and then make
their life work a struggle to make that dream come true. He also taught me in
earliest childhood days that no one can achieve happiness alone, that my happiness
depended upon my food, my clothing, my shelter, and therefore I was dependent for
happiness upon those who provided these necessities for me. I was in duty bound to
consider what I in turn could do to alleviate and assist those millions of men and
women who were providing for my comforts and physical necessities and to bring
happiness to their lives. This philosophy was my earliest teaching and some one who
knew my family in those days said that we were "<span class="UNK">rocked in the cradle
of liberty and nursed at the breast of the goddess of wisdom</span>."</p>
</div>
<div>
<h4 class="sub-heading">II.</h4>
<p>I was always considered a child too old for my age. I was always nursing the sick
cats, dogs, horses or other domestic animals that came within my reach. I was also
the advisor and little mother for the homeless children in the neighborhood and my
days, especially my play time hours, seem to have been spent nursing and bandaged
cut fingers of my playmates. Up to the time I was sent away to a boarding school, my
life was spent in the little country town in which I was born. This is an industrial
city where the finest glass in the world today is produced and cut. Very early I was
made to realize that my playmates--both boys and girls--were sent into the factories
as soon as they were old enough to secure working certificates and were unable to
take advantage of educational opportunities. I learned that invariably the reason
behind this grim fact was the pressure of providing necessities for the little
brothers and sisters at home.</p>
<p>My own father was a highly skilled artisan. He was a sculptor carving out his vision
in marble and granite. Even though he was highly paid, my own family was made to
endure many privations in order to obtain the necessary education which the ambition
of parents demanded.</p>
<p>My reading as a child was strangely unbalanced. I had for my day time studies the
serious philosophy of Henry George who wrote
"<span class="book">Progress and Poverty</span>," Edward Bellamy
who wrote "<span class="book">Looking Forward</span>," Nietzsche's
"</p>Ecce Homo," and Schopenhauer's
essays whose philosophy angered and tormented my curiosity. There were other writers
along these lines. While my day-time study and reading dealt with serious thought,
my night reading around the fire-place was always devoted to fairy tales. These were
read from the standard works of Grim or were original stories of
Irish folk-lore, the product of my father's wonderful and vivid imagination. As I
look back upon these contradictory influences I realize that my parents wished to
keep their children simple and yet to encourage original thinking.
<p>My boarding school days had a very great influence upon my social life. Up to this
time I had been entirely under the influence of my parents--especially my father,
for my mother became an invalid after the birth of her last child. Now at the
boarding school I was thrown together with five hundred boys and girls of my own age
and was left to my own devices--to "sink or swim" along with these various
characters and individuals. I took very naturally to gymnastics, dancing and basket
ball, and during four delightful years studied many social activities. I was the
first girl at this school to deliver an address on woman suffrage. It was announced
that I was to deliver this address in the public forum and I had much difficulty in
practicing my delivery because of the amusement and the jokes that were played upon
my by the students. In fact, I was compelled to go to a cemetery two miles away from
the school to practice the delivery of my address. I succeeded, however, in
convincing my hearers of the inevitability of women's emancipation, and later on
there were many arguments and debates which resulted in a suffrage organization in
that community. At this time I was only fourteen years old and the next year I
plunged heavily into political discussion. During these years I formed many charming
friends whose friendships have been retained up to the present time. I attempted to
make my career that of a physical and passed examinations into Cornell
University. Immediately preceding my entrance, my mother died and I had to
give up my career in order to mother my younger brothers and sisters. After
satisfactory arrangements were made for our home life, I entered a three year course
of medical study in the New York
Hospital to specialize in medicine and nursing. It was here that all of
philosophy of life was put into practice and here that I came into intimate contact
with the nakedness, not only of human bodies, but of human souls. It was here that I
saw birth and death as grim realities, and during these four years of study and
devotion I learned to know that there are two human instincts which guide humanity
in its destiny. These instincts are Hunger and Love. While much attention has been
given to the former, very little attention has been directed toward understanding
the latter, and as the solution of the problem of hunger has been the aim of man, so
will the understanding and direction of the love impulse come under woman's realm.
As the faster woman evolves in her emancipation, the higher and more spiritual will
be her understanding of the beauty of life and of love.</p>
</div>
<div>
<h4 class="sub-heading">III.</h4>
<p>When I finished my medical training, I married William
Sanger, an artist. Mr. Sanger is an artist of the new day. He belongs
to that school of the impressionists generation has passed away. He has the
temperament of the idealist and is willing to sacrifice material gain in order to
live up to his own ideal. He is considered to be temperamental and eccentric but is
acknowledged by all who have looked on his work to be a genius.</p>
<p>My marriage to Mr. Sanger came as a logical sequence to my life's work, for he helped
me to realize love in all its pristine beauty. Three children were born to us.
Stewart is now eighteen,
Grant is thirteen, and the little
daughter who passed away five years ago, would have
been nine. When I fist began my married life, I had a dream of a large family. We
built a large house--an Italian villa--over looking the Hudson River in which we
made provision and plans for at least ten children. By the time my third child was
born, I gave up this plan and also the house and decided that it would be better for
my three living children to have a mother who had health and to raise them, if
possible, to full maturity, than it would be to risk my life to further maternity.
My children were spaced far enough apart to permit me to continue my studies in
economics and science and to develop literary clubs and to keep abreast of current
topics. My husband and I evolved a plan of working together for six months and to
spend the other six months in the country with our children for leisure to devote
ourselves to their development and recreation. In this way we were both permitted to
develop our tastes, he continued with his artistic career, while I spent my leisure
time in the study of sex hygiene.</p>
</div>
<div>
<h4 class="sub-heading">IV.</h4>
<p>It is impossible to hide one's knowledge, and I could in no time when I was called
upon to lecture in social hygiene before working girl's club and various women's
organizations. These lectures I delivered in the evening after my day's work, for I
continued nursing for six months each year continually though many years.</p>
<p>In 1912 I became convinced that the necessary element in woman's freedom was not the
vote but control over her own body. For no matter what ideals placed before the
mother of the day, such ideals were cast aside to make place for the more urgent
need of her life–-"<span class="UNK">How can I prevent having more children than I can
feed, clothe and care for.</span>" This was the urgent cry of mothers in the poor
districts everywhere.</p>
<p>In 1912 I was confronted by a serious case of a mother
who had been brought to death's door though the ill-advised attempt to interrupt a pregnancy. She was
poisoned as the result, and with the greatest difficulty we brought her out of the valley of death. She already had a
small family of three children and felt she could afford no more. She asked me and
the doctor to advise her how to prevent conception, but we both turned away and left
her question unanswered. A few months later I was called again to this woman's
bedside, but this time it was too late to rescue her, for she died before either of
us could aid her.</p>
<p>I was greatly agitated by this woman's death and I saw from it the whole panorama of
social evils arise before me. I resolved that night to devote my life to help women
avoid such experience and to rescue them from such untimely death. Since 1914 I have
been publicly advocating the idea of Birth Control. I expect to continue in such
work until every mother in the entire world may have such knowledge if she desires
it.</p>
</div>
</div>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
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Unknown
Higgins, Michael Hennessey
Creator
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Margaret Sanger
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1924-00-00
Identifier
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msp#304089
Source
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<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Collected Documents Series</span>
C16:233
<span class="book"><span class="italics">Public Opinion on Women</span></span> (1924), pp. 150-153
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sanger, Margaret--autobiographies
Sanger, Margaret--biographical details
Sanger, Margaret--children of
Sanger, Margaret--education
Sanger, Margaret--family of
Sachs, Sadie
Title
A name given to the resource
Autobiographical Sketch
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published article
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
New York Times
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Organization
Blackwell's Island
Carnegie Hall
Brownsville Clinic.
Person
Roosevelt, Theodore
Higgins, Anne Purcell
Place
Europe
Salem, MA
Oyster Bay, NY
America
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<p>"I come to you tonight," <span class="NYT">she said,</span> "from a crowded courtroom, from a vortex of persecution. I come not from the stake at
Salem, where women were burned for blasphemy, but from the shadow of
Blackwell's Island, where women are tortured for 'obscenity."</p>
<p>"Birth control is the one means by which the working man shall find emancipation. I was one of eleven children. My
mother died when I was 17 because she had had too many children and had worked herself to
death. I became a nurse to help support my family, and I soon discovered that 75 per cent of the diseases of men and women are due
to sex ignorance. I determined that when I was able I would do what I could to solve that problem. I found that the average person was
as ignorant of sex matters as our most primitive ancestors. There
has been progress in every department of our lives except in the
most important--creation. So I cam to the conclusion that the
greatest good I could do was to help poor women to have fewer
children to be brought up in want and poverty. I threw my nurse's
bag away and swore I would take it up no more. I went to Europe and studied the birth control clinics
there and came back to America to do what I could."</p>
<p>"Colonel Roosevelt goes all
about the country telling people to have large families and he is
neither arrested nor molested. But can he tell me why I got
sixty-three letters in one week from poor mothers in Oyster Bay
asking me for birth control information? No woman can call herself free until she can
choose the time she will become a monther."</p>
<p>"My purpose in life is to arounse sentiment for the repeal of the law,
State and Federal. It is we women who have paid for the folly of
this law, and it is up to us to repeal it. It is only by birth
control that woman can prepare with man, her brother, for the
emanicipation of the race."</p>
</div>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
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Hunt, Mary
New York Times
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Margaret Sanger
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1917-01-29
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Margaret Sanger spoke before three thousand at Carnegie Hall on the eve of her sentencing
for opening the Brownsville Clinic. The only version of the speech
located comes from newspaper reports. The <span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">New York Times</span></span> reported that,
"<q>Mrs. Sanger departed from the prepared copy of her speech in that she was not so severe on the judiciary as she had intended to be. She
had evidently prepared her speech in the conviction that she was to be found guilty yesterday afternoon.</q>" Only the portions of the article
quoting Sanger have been transcribed.</p>
Identifier
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msp#321964
Source
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<span class="article">"Mrs. Sanger Defies Courts Before 3,0000,</span>
<span class="newspaperl"><span class="italics">New York Times</span></span>, Jan. 30,
1917
Title
A name given to the resource
[Carnegie Hall Address]
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published speech
-
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Deity
God
Organization
Washington Naval Conference
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference
International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference, 5th
Middle Western States Birth Control Conference
Brownsville Clinic
British Museum
United States Government
Kaizo
Drake Hotel
Peking National University
Birth Control League of America
American Birth Control League
Japan Consulate
Person
Einstein, Albert
Byrne, Ethel Higgins
Higgins, Anne Purcell
Bonaparte, Napoleon
Bridges, Horace
Lane, William Arbuthnot
Higgins, Michael Hennessey
Wells, H. G.
Russell, Bertrand
Bennett, Arnold
Hanohawa, Mr.
Schroeder, Theodore
Ellis, Havelock
Sachs, Sadie
Freschi, John J.
Edward VIII (England)
Sachs, Jake
Mindell, Fania
Dawson, Bertrand E.
Place
London, England
Brooklyn, NY
Peking, China
Portland, OR
China
New York
United States
Netherlands, the
Sweden
New York, NY
Germany
Chicago, IL
San Francisco, CA
Illinois
France
Mexico
Japan
England
Norway
Corning, NY
Europe
Spain
Honolulu, HI
Canada
India
Publication
New Republic
Family Limitation
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>Address of Welcome</h4>
<p class="byline">MRS MARGARET SANGER</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is my pleasant duty to express a cordial welcome
on behalf of the American Birth Control League to you all, and especially to
the delegates, the friends and others who have come from the various cities to attend
this conference and to assist us by their counsel, wisdom and experience. I also want to
take this opportunity to thank the Chairman, Mr. Horace Bridges, and I must say that I
have never heard an address given so briefly, so exquisitely, so beautifully, and covering the subject so comprehensively as he has done in his few minutes of
introduction. I wish there were more people who could hear him.</p>
<p>Great and significant events have occurred in the world since the first Birth Control League
was formed in the United States something less than ten years ago. I have been asked by friends recently coming to the
movement, and by some friends who have long been in the movement, to tell you to night something of the vicissitudes, something of the early struggles, something of
the barrier, that we have had to fight in order to bring this subject of Birth Control before the American people for discussion, and it seems to me that this might
be a fitting occasion to do this, because tomorrow and the next day the various sessions of this
conference shall be devoted to the discussion of the subject from various angles. There shall be presentation of papers by
some of the most distinguished men and women in the country. So that it seems to me that I might take you with me, if you will bear with me and be tolerant of the
pronoun "I", which must be interjected into the details of this evening's discourse.</p>
<p>It is a well-known historical fact that the idea of Birth Control is as old as history itself. Far back through the ages, through the various stages of barbarism,
savagery, and even in civilization, there has always been an attempt on the part of man to control the size of his family, to control the number of people in the clan,
in his tribe. The methods that were used were not those that we wish to tolerate today. These were the methods of infanticide, the abandonment of children, the killing of babies, and
foeticide. Civilization as we know it today does not believe in those methods of controlling the population, and at the same time civilization does not supplant an
alternative which makes these conditions and these methods necessary.</p>
<p>The only means that have been used today are agencies that are legislative and
ameliorative. These agencies have been established for the purpose of reducing the
misery, the unhappiness and the squalor, the disease, that is here with us. But I do not
believe that either of these agencies are effective in producing or bringing about the
most desired results. I believe that only through birth control, or the knowledge of how
to prevent conception, can the most effective measures be brought about. For birth
control is the key to the greatest of human problems, the problem of reconciling
humanitarianism with greatest improvement.</p>
<p>Today we know that this great, fine impulse of humanitarianism brings about a dysgenic
effect, where, with the application of birth control, it could produce a eugenic effect.
These measures, both legislative and ameliorative, or rather these agencies, could be
brought about and made of great use in the country and in the world, if there was
accompanied with them, going hand in hand, information to control birth, and it would
make the multiplication of the unfit and of the diseased cease.</p>
<p>When we look out upon the world today, we must recognize that there is already the
practice of birth control going on among us. It is as Lord Dawson said in the
London conference,
birth control is here to stay, and I say the only trouble with it is that it
is not practiced far enough. It is only practiced by one group in society, the group
that we must call the small family group. The other group, the large family group, has
not the benefit of this knowledge.</p>
<p>Up to 1912, when I first came into this work, there had been no group, and to my
knowledge no individual, who had attempted to bring this idea of family limitation into
the large family group, or to interest or advise its practice there. We know for the
last quarter of a century that the small family group has been perpetuating itself, but
also in that group we find conditions that we all approve of. We find there health,
wealth, comfort, leisure, possibilities of development. We find in that group, while
there are only a few children, two, three or four, these are the children that get the
best care, that are usually brought through to maturity, and are given the advantages of
state and of society. These are the children who eventually fill the universities and
the colleges, and it is from this group that every one is clamouring that they should
produce more of their children.</p>
<p>And, on the other hand, the large family group has also perpetuated its conditions. It
perpetuates from generation unto generation its misery, its ignorance, its poverty, its
disease. For there we see all of the problems that we have got today. We see the problem
of <span class="line-through">daily</span> <span class="addition">child</span> labor, we see the problem of slums, we see our infant mortality,
maternal mortality, we see practically every condition that we are trying to ameliorate,
that we are trying to legislate against, there snuggled closely in that group and
perpetuating themselves continually.</p>
<p>There is another condition there that to me is very serious, and that is that the women,
the mothers, in one group do not wish to have the large families that are forced upon
them. I found that they did not want to have more children than they could take care of,
any more than the women, the mothers, in the small family group. But because of
ignorance, because of the lack of knowledge, they had to resign themselves to either one
thing or the other, that is, to having children as fast as nature sends them, or to
resort to illegal operations. I found, especially in my work as a trained nurse, that
this condition was very prevalent. I found it was so prevalent that it was almost
abhorrent, and yet the women would come to me and say "<span class="UNK">What else can one do?</span>"</p>
<p>I happen to be born of a large family. I happen to be one of that large family group. My
own parents had eleven living children, so I knew something from the beginning of all
the problems that are constantly there perpetuating themselves with large families. I
lived in a small factory town, and there I saw
constantly girls and boys who came of my age, sometimes younger, year after year leave
school and have to take their place beside their father in the factory. Always behind it
was another baby that came into the family to force the older one out to compete with
his father for his daily bread.</p>
<p>I had a very peculiar childhood, because I came from parents who were Irish, and sometimes I think it is a very great burden to be given, two Irish parents (Laughter). Someway we are always wanting to change <span class="line-through">them</span> <span class="addition">things</span>. We never are quite
satisfied with things as they are. My father was a great philosopher. He was a
poet. He had the possibilities of a sculptor. And there was one thing that he taught his children, and that was to be true to themselves, to think their own thoughts,
to pray their own prayers to their own God. And last, to give back to society the benefit of your experience as you live in life. He also told us again and
again that the object of life was to hold fast to a dream, to get a dream and then make that dream come true. With this peculiar kind of a philosophy, this strange kind of a
religion, I was launched out upon the world to compete for my daily experience.</p>
<p>And so, after several years of nursing, after I had finished training, I found myself applying some of my father's philosophy to my life work. It was very difficult
for anyone to live among the working people, to see their agony, to see their misery, to see their unhappiness, and not to try to apply something to help
them remove it.</p>
<p>I found women in almost every walk of life, I saw them go through agony, needless agony, o bring forth dead children. I saw them go through that agony, and they
were glad and said "<span class="UNK">Thank God</span>" when they were told that their baby was born dead. And when you look about you and use your reason you realize
that they were right. This mother instinct knew in the first place that she had no moral right to have children that she could not take care of. Again and again
these women said to me "<span class="UNK">Why should I bring a child into the world when those I have already cannot be fed?</span>" And then sometimes they grew rebellious
with me, a social worker, and others who came to them, and they said "<span class="UNK">If you would tell us what you tell the rich women, we would be much happier.</span>"
(Applause)</p>
<p>It was impossible to go on, year in and year out, without coming to some conclusion about
these conditions. It was impossible for me to keep on going back and seeing these women
and finding what they were doing, and not be able to help them. And I shall never forget
the case that I had last. Some of you may have heard this before, but I am going to tell
it to you again. That was the last case I ever took in the nursing world, and I think
the last I ever shall take.</p>
<p>It was the case of a woman, who was a young woman, a
little over thirty years old; her husband was thirty-two. They were a kind and loving
couple and devoted to the three children, ages five, three, and one and one-half. They
lived in the congested quarter of New York, and lived
in two small rooms. The father at that time was earning Twelve Dollars and a Half a
week, which was a small wage even for those days. And this mother had repeatedly said to
her friends, to neighbors and others who had come to her, that it would be impossible
for her to get on if she had to have an increase in her family. And so when I was called
to her to look after her it was to rescue her out of a death bed. She had attempted to
perform an operation upon herself, and when I was called in it was a case of septicemia.
We had a very great struggle, the doctor and I, to bring this woman back to life, and
again and again neither of us thought it was possible. I remember of going eighty hours
without a wink of sleep, until the crisis was past. I slept partly on the floor, near
this woman, so that she would not be disturbed, and so I could keep track of her
pulse.</p>
<p>And then finally it was over and we had won the victory, and every one was glad. The
neighborhood rejoiced, and the day came when both the doctor and myself were dismissed.
But when we were going before we went, this woman, sitting there with her children, her
face pale and haggard and very much worried, had something on her heart and something on
her mind, <span class="line-through">and she</span> <span class="addition">had something to say but</span> did not know how to say it. But finally the Doctor,
who was very cheerful, very grateful to himself that he had brought this woman out of the valley of death, said to her "<span class="UNK">There is one
thing you cannot do, and that is to get into this condition again.</span>" And she said "<span class="UNK">Yes, I know it, but Doctor, what am I going to do?</span>"
<span class="UNK">What are you going to tell me so that I will not get that way again?</span>" And then the doctor patted her on the back and tried to make the
best of it, but nevertheless he went away without telling her what to do. And then she turned to me and said "<span class="UNK">Oh, you are a
woman, you have children, you know, you understand. Surely you will tell me what to
do.</span>" And I too, although I had been a trained nurse, I must confess that I was
very ignorant, I had no idea what to tell this woman or how to make it understandable.
And so I followed the doctor's attitude. I closed the door and left that woman there to
her misery and to her fate.</p>
<p>Oh, I wonder if any of you have ever been haunted, haunted by a face, haunted by remorse!
And as I went on in my work for the next two or three months, this woman's face would
come before me as I sat down quietly to read, or when I was unoccupied by other duties.
And then it was only a few months later that I was called again to the telephone, and
this anxious husband begged me to come as quickly as possible, that his wife was very
ill. And back I went, only to find that we were both too late, this poor little woman
had again become pregnant and had again resorted to one of the cheap doctors in her
neighborhood, and this time she could not make the fight. This time she lost. And then I
came there and I saw what really had happened. I saw a bed, these children being torn
away to orphan homes, I saw this poor, frantic young father,
who was just as innocent, just as ignorant as she was, and just as helpless. I saw that whole condition, and from that I saw the whole panorama of our
social life today, and I went home and I knew then, though that woman had died, that in
her death she had given birth to a new idea that was going to free other women from such
hardship. (Applause)</p>
<p>Now, it is all very well to have an idea, but the thing is, how to get that idea over to the people. In the first place, there was nothing that you could call it.
I hadn't any knowledge that there was such a League, or that this idea had been already formed into League, and that it was being carried
on as an educational work in other countries. But it was a most important thing for us or for me to find some <span class="addition">[name]</span>or handle
that could be used for this instrument to free <span class="line-through">womanhood</span> <span class="addition">womankind from maternal bondage.</span></p>
<p>Now, I found a little later that this idea in England was called
"Neo-Malthusianism." That didn't seem so easy. In France I found it was
called "Conscious generation," in Germany and in Holland it was called "New Generation,"
but none of these seemed to be words or names that would convey to an American headline public an idea rapidly.</p>
<p> So the first thing that it was necessary to do was to get a name, and to get a name that
would speak for itself. <span class="line-through">Now, that is not easy, because here we were, generations before me, and this thought had never been concentrated.</span>
For months and months I concentrated on what this should be called, how you could call out to the people and tell them what was happening, how you
could convey the idea in <span class="line-through">an item of</span> a few words to the public. <span class="line-through">Because</span> I felt that it was absolutely necessary to call out from
the housetops to the American people what I knew, what I saw and what I believed. And then one evening I gathered a few people together, just a little group of
men and women who were with me, who were interested in doing something to help get this thought over. It was not by any means an easy thing to do, although our friends
all agreed that something should be done.</p>
<p>It is not always so easy to do the thing that is before us. But after an evening's conversation, after juggling with words, after taking an inventory of everyone's
vocabulary, it came like a flash out of the nowhere into the here, the words "Birth Control." They came like lightening, as a bugler of the dawn, they came as a
battle cry.</p>
<p>Now, to me, the idea in the words "birth control" were the best that had been conceived,
because as our chairman said, it meant control, not limitation. When you say
"limitation" that narrows the idea, but "control" is a far bigger word, and I have never
been able to understand what the prejudice is against the word. I often think I would
like to have those persons who dislike the word psychoanalyzed and see what is the
matter with them.</p>
<p>At any rate it was one thing, and it seemed to me that was victory <span class="line-through">won</span> <span class="addition">one</span>, to get a name that would convey your thought, <span class="line-through">a victory won</span>.
But that was not, oh, half the battle. In the first place, having resolved to give up my work, it was not an easy matter to try to interest others to give money and <span class="line-through">half</span>
<span class="addition">help</span> financially and morally to put over an idea that was so new. It was not at all easy to do that. I went to ten of the most prominent women in
New York, and asked them if they would go on record with me to write a booklet or a pamphlet giving out this thought, and conveying the idea in
simple English to the American public.</p>
<p>Would you believe I could not find one woman in New York City who would do it? The answer came back "<span class="UNK">Wait until we get the vote.</span>" Wait, wait, wait.
Nobody said "do," everybody said "don't." Again, I asked different people if they wouldn't give something toward getting out a publication, and again my heart was filled
with hope by an attorney who wrote and said he would come to see me. He was very much interested in free speech, and
he believed that I had struck at the root of a great many of our social problems, and consequently he and I arranged for a meeting, where I thought, as he had a certain
financial backing, it might be possible to make short day of this. When I met him he went over the pros and cons of the matter with me, and he said
"<span class="SCHTH">Do you understand and realize that there are laws against conveying this idea to the public?"</span></p>
<p>Well, this was quite new to me. I said "Laws!" He said "<span class="SCHTH">Yes, there are laws in practically every state in the Union, as well as Federal laws.</span>" He said "<span class="SCHTH">Do you know that this means jail, means prosecution?</span>" Well, that didn't sound very well.
But before the evening was over I still wanted to go on with this work. And as strongly as he argued, as vivid a picture as was presented, I still felt that something
within one that drives you on and makes you go, and it was impossible to give up the idea. So finally the lawyer looked at me, very seriously, and he said
"<span class="SCHTH">I will back you with the publication if you will do something for me first?</span>" I asked him what it was. He said "<span class="SCHTH">If you will stay for
six months and by psycho-analyzed, I will stand behind you.</span>" My kind old father, who had been so anxious for me, in my youth, to have <span class="addition">a dream</span> and make
that dream come true, came on a visit to New York, the first in forty years, to take me home to put me in a retreat where I could rest from some shock he was sure I
must have had.</p>
<p>So it was that one had to fight every step of the way. There were no friends, there was
no one to help, there was no one to say "do." So I sold the little home I had, where my
children played, and I sent them on to a small boarding school, and I took the money and
I decided to study this subject from every angle before I launched a national campaign.
I went to Europe, I went to England, to France, to Holland, to Spain, and I studied in the
British Museum from the time the gates opened, which was 9:00 O'clock, until 7:00 O'clock at night, for more than
eight hours. I went to Holland and took a course of instruction. I went to Spain to see what they were doing there. I went to France,
and studied this subject from away back to the time of Napoleon.</p>
<p>So I came back equipped, not only with information but also with such distinguished men behind me as H. G. Wells,
Arnold Bennett, Havelock Ellis, and others. And then I was amused to find that with those
names behind one it was not half so difficult to find some American women who would go on record with <span class="line-through">one</span> <span class="addition">you</span>.</p>
<p>My first attempt at a publication was to discuss the theory of the subject. Yet only just
to talk about the subject in a theoretical way seemed to offend the government, and with
nine small publications, each of them was confiscated and each of them meant an
indictment. Now, at the Federal Court it means five years imprisonment with every
indictment, if you are convicted, so by the time I was through saying what I had to say
in even a small way, 45 years in the penitentiary hung over me.</p>
<p>Then again began a great deal of agitation to get the American public to see what one was
trying to do to enlighten them with the facts, and I am glad to say it was only a very
short time when the Federal government
dismissed the whole nine cases, because as a matter of fact they had nothing that was
illegal in those indictments. It was simply that they were afraid of the words and
hadn't themselves known the law.</p>
<p>Now, with 45 years of imprisonment wiped off the slate, you would think that one would go back into <span class="line-through">the</span>
<span class="addition">your</span> maternal corner and stay there. But having been to Holland I realized now as I had never realized before that all the discussion and talking,
and all the pamphleteering and the publications I could get to the people were not going to help the women that I wanted to help. Many of those women could not
read a pamphlet or a book, so that no matter what I did to get the Federal law changed, there were those <span class="addition">poor weary ignorant</span> women that would not benefit
by <span class="addition">that change of that law</span>.</p>
<p>Those women wanted someone to talk to. They had to be instructed personally. They had to
be taught. And I knew that many of them could not read, thousands of them could not read
English, and it takes <span class="line-through">too high</span> an intelligence to follow <span class="addition">printed</span>
plans and directions, <span class="line-through">and I knew that was not the way for me to work</span>
<span class="addition">while oral instruction is far simpler</span>. So, having found clinics established
in Holland, I decided that the thing was to show the government, and especially the
government of New York State, and the courts, that the establishment of a
clinic was the proper way to disseminate this information, and <span class="line-through">have</span>
<span class="addition">give</span> it there privately where women may come <span class="addition">for instruction.</span></p>
<p>And so I established a clinic in the District of
Brownsville, Brooklyn, in the midst of a very
thickly populated section. It was there where the infant mortality was highest, and it
was there where the greatest amount of money was spent for charity. It was only a short
time that this little clinic was allowed to stay, about ten days, but within that ten
days, 488 women came and applied and were personally instructed in means to prevent
conception.</p>
<p>We had to have <span class="line-through">that interpreted </span> <span class="addition">an interpreter
</span>, and we also had to have a trained nurse, <span class="line-through">and yet this did not
suffice</span>. There were baby carriages and women in line for nearly two blocks around this little place. We took their records, we took their names, we took
<span class="line-through">record</span> <span class="addition">record of</span> the wages <span class="line-through">that</span> their husbands made, the number of children they had already had, the number of miscarriages.</p>
<p>We had facts and data that, when they came before the court, made a profound impression upon the judges, and one of the judges refused to come up the next day
to try the case, he was so impressed. Nevertheless, the law was the law, and that was a distinct
challenge to the law. This was done openly and knowingly. One of the judges said "<span class="FREJO">If you will
promise not to go on with this work, your case may be dismissed. We want you to obey this law, reply that it was impossible for me, knowing the suffering that I
knew of, to respect such a law. It was impossible."</span> (Applause) And so thirty days in jail was not very much for the satisfaction of helping 488 women. And many of
those women have come to us since and told how much this has meant in their lives.</p>
<p>In one case there came to us a woman whose husband was about to leave her. She had grown
cold and indifferent. She was afraid of him, she was afraid of his caress, afraid of his
touch. She felt that something was going to happen to break up that little family.
Someone read in the paper that there was such a place <span class="addition">as the clinic and</span> sent
her there, and she came to us for help. Three years later she returned, her arm locked
in that of her husband, on their way to the moving pictures, and they said that they had
never been so happy, that their home life was happy, they had had no more children, and
they felt that they owed a great deal of their happiness to the establishment of that
little clinic.</p>
<p>From 1914 to 1917 were three years of constant agitation. Those of us who sat down to
think out this campaign decided that there were four stages through which to pass, four
courses to pursue: Agitation, education, organization and legislation. Those were four epois or four periods that we must pursue.</p>
<p>So those first years, with agitation, it meant imprisonment, jail, hunger strikes, it
meant meetings being stopped, it meant everything that was disagreeable, most
disagreeable. And then we began, from 1917 to 1922, a course of education. We had been
able to have some books and pamphlets reprinted. We established a magazine
to carry forth this message, and it jumped from 2,000 the first year to 10,000 within two years.
This has conveyed the message for our association or our league. We have since that time
created practically a literature in the United States. I do not mean that we personally
have done it, but I mean the agitation and the thought going out has brought back to us
an entirely new literature which was not in existence when we began in 1914.</p>
<p>From 1922 to 1925 is to be a special time for organization. Just a few years ago, after
that first little league had broken up on account of the war, we again formed another
league, which <span class="line-through">was</span>
<span class="addition">is</span> a national league with its headquarters in New York City. From that we
have gone out and organized similar leagues all over the world. We have a branch league
in Canada, another in Mexico, another in Honolulu, two in Japan, two in
China, and there are also similar leagues and organizations in
practically every country in Europe, although <span class="addition">some of</span> those were in existence
before we began this work.</p>
<p>Perhaps the greatest victory that I have been able to see was the invitation to go to
Japan and to bring the message of Birth Control to the Japanese people. It seemed to me
that that was indeed part of the dream coming true, because those who oppose this idea
almost always say "<span class="UNK">If the white race practices birth control, and the yellow race does not, it is going to mean the
wiping out of our civilization.</span>" So I was overjoyed when I received an invitation from a group called "Kaizo",
which means "Reconstruction" <span class="line-through">"Group"</span>, similar you might say to our <span class="journal">New Republic</span> group in America.
They asked me to come to Japan and deliver four lectures on the subject of "War and Population."</p>
<p>I of course was delighted to do so. When I heard that I had been preceded by Bertrand Russell, and that I was to be followed by
such distinguished persons as Einstein and H. G.
Wells, I felt greatly flattered that I was to go into such good company.</p>
<p>Everything seemed to go very well until I got to San Francisco. When I reached San Francisco and applied for a visa
to my passport, I was told most courteously by the Japanese Counsel that that morning he had received a cable from his
home office saying that if Mrs. Sanger, the birth control advocate, applied for a passage to Japan, that it
was to be refused her. So then I asked if it were possible to go without delivering the lectures, and he cabled back, and back again came the word
"<span class="UNK">No.</span>" So it seemed for a time as if it were impossible to get into Japan.</p>
<p>I heard, however, that the boat I was going on was sailing also to China, and that on
that boat were more than 150 representatives from the Peace Conference at Washington. These were
some of the most distinguished men of Japan. It seemed to me that it was absolutely
necessary to get into Japan, and at the same time to get onto that boat with these
delegates. So I booked my passage, not for Japan, but for China, and I was only on board
a few days when the Japanese Group came to me and asked if I would speak to them in the
first class passage or saloon. I of course was delighted to do this, and immediately
after this address had been given, Mr. Hanohawa,
who is now the Japanese representative in this country, cabled to his home office,
saying that he had heard this address, and he believed that the Japanese Government
would be making a very great mistake if it did not raise the ban <span class="line-through">over it
doors</span>, and also <span class="line-through">if it did not</span> listen attentively to the message
that was to be given. (applause)</p>
<p>I will not attempt to tell you all the pros and cons, and the difficulties that awaited
me in Japan, but needless to say, after a great deal of questioning by the authorities
who came out to meet me, I was finally allowed to enter Japan, and I was also allowed to
give thirteen lectures while I was there. There was only one other person who was better
known in Japan, who was an outsider, and that was the Prince of Wales.</p>
<p>Every paper throughout the entire Empire was filled with something about birth control.
That does not mean that everyone agreed with the idea. Not at all. But nevertheless
there was such a fine, liberal group there--that to me is the hope of Japan--that they
insisted upon making it possible for one to say one's say. And also out of the 101
magazines that came out the 1st of April, 88 of these magazines carried a principal
article on the population question. <span class="line-through">So that</span> It is said that <span class="line-through">while</span>
98 per cent of the population of Japan are literate, <span class="line-through">nevertheless</span>
<span class="addition">and</span> 95 per cent of the people know something today about birth control.</p>
<p>We also formed leagues there, and before the disaster the work was going on very
beautifully. The same with China, although there was not the same opposition. In China
the students from the Government University
<span class="line-through">begged</span> <span class="addition">requested</span> me to address them. And the interesting thing to me was the
difference in the two languages. In Japan, one had to stand three hours to deliver a one
hour address. In China, you stood a half an hour to deliver an hour's address, on
account of the difference of languages.</p>
<p>Naturally, I was nearly exhausted and worn out when I left Japan, but in China they
gathered together a large student body of 2500 persons, mostly men, as there were very
few women <span class="addition">students</span> in <span class="line-through">China</span> Pekin attending the university. Later on in the
evening the chancellor of the university held a meeting at his home, where there were some of the distinguished professors of Pekin, and that night before we left an
organization was formed, and a little pamphlet, called "<span class="book">Family Limitation</span>", that some of you might have heard of, was <span class="line-through">written</span>
<span class="addition">read</span>. Some of them stayed up that night and translated it into Chinese, and the next morning it was on the press, and five thousand of these pamphlets were
being distributed among the men and women of China. That shows quick action. It shows how an idea goes, is taken, and <span class="addition">quickly</span> <span class="line-through">act</span>
<span class="addition">acted</span> upon <span class="line-through">it so quickly</span>.</p>
<p>From China I went to London to attend the International Conference, and there it was indeed a most inspiring occasion, because there were delegates <span class="line-through">there</span> from every country
in Europe. There were such men as Lord Dawson and Sir <span class="line-through">William Archer</span> <span class="addition">Arbuthnot Lane</span>
attended the conference, and H. G. Wells held a reception for the delegates at his home, and we were all inspired and encouraged to go back to our various countries
and to carry forth the message in unison with those who were holding the conference in London.</p>
<p>By the way, at that conference we invited the next international conference to assemble
in the United States in 1925, and while Portland,
Oregon has been chosen as the place, some still believe that San Francisco
might be a better place. Already delegates from China, India,
Norway, Sweden, and from many other countries are
planning and preparing to attend.</p>
<p>Now, in conclusion I want to say that these have been disturbing times. I think, if the
war had not been on, that this work would have been far ahead of any other movement in
the United States. As it is, we are gaining headway constantly. We had made a tremendous
change in public opinion, even in the last three or four years, and we have here at this
conference represented many welfare organizations; but I am quite certain that there
could be a great improvement among the welfare organizations, as far as this idea is
concerned.</p>
<p>Again, we have the medical profession that still must be educated. (Applause) But from
the requests that have been sent in to attend the medical conference tomorrow night it
sounds encouraging, because there are more than six hundred requests for medical men and
women to come and attend the conference tomorrow night, where we will have discussed the
methods of contraception. That will be discussed tomorrow night, <span class="line-through">and our</span>
<span class="addition">the</span> audience is limited to the medical profession <span class="line-through">only</span>.</p>
<p>It is, after all, to the medical profession that we must look for the greatest benefit to
this work, because when it comes right down to it, it is a question of technique,
contraception technique. We cannot really bring about the best results with this idea or
with this work until the medical profession are ahead of us, as we have been ahead of
them in the past. The idea and the education of the public is far beyond the medical
profession's work today. By that I mean we are ready for birth control, and they are not
ready to give us what would make birth control practicable.</p>
<p>The only opposition that is left is the religious opposition. That is opposition that we
get here and there individually, but really we have broken down the great barriers of
opposition, with the exception of official religious bodies. The people themselves are
really with us.</p>
<p>Now, it may surprise you to hear me say that, but I want to tell you that at a research
clinic that was established in New York, we have a proportion like this: Thirteen Protestant women,
Twelve Catholic women, Eleven Jewish women, who come to us constantly for advice. Now,
this shows you that that is an idea that is going to stand, in spiteof race, color or
creed. (Applause)</p>
<p>And I think what Lord Dawson said is very applicable to the church. He said at this
London conference, he asked the church to approach this question of birth control in the
light of modern knowledge and the needs of a new world, unhampered by traditions that
have outgrown their usefulness. I think that could be applied to practically all
opposition today.</p>
<p> Now, friends, why are we here? Why are we holding this conference? We are holding it
because we are asking your help, just as women for the past ten years have been
appealing to me, so we come out here and appeal to you. I have had from the 1st of
January to the 1st of October 58,432 letters addressed to me personally from women
asking for information. Think of it! Twenty per cent of those women come from the State
of Illinois. Now, to me that is a sign of intelligence, high
intelligence, because only a woman who is intelligent and who is rising out of the
lowest depths of degradation and poverty and misery, who has the conscious
responsibility of controlling her offspring, will inquire.</p>
<p>Shall we not answer that call? Shall we thrust that woman back into degradation when she
is asking for help to get out of it? I think not. I think you will agree with me that
she should be helped, and that every hand in this state should be reached out to help
her help herself, because that is what she wants. These women ask in these letters for
health, for just a little time to space their children; they ask for a little time so
they can gain, as they say, their real strength.</p>
<p>Some of them say they have never known what it is to have one night's sleep from the
night they were married until the present day. Some of them call out and say, "<span class="UNK">My husband is leaving me, because I cannot
endure his presence or the sight of him while this fear of pregnancy hangs over me.</span>" Some of them say they
have never had a new dress; old clothes, old shoes, old things have been passed on to
them from others. Some of them say they have not been to the neighbor's house in five
years, that is only a half-mile away. They tell of the drudgery, of the enslavement that
they endure, and in reading those letters I am convinced that these women are enduring a
slavery that the black race of this country never endured. </p>
<p>You feel, when you finish reading those letters, that you are almost broken. And do you
know, it does break us. We have to keep on changing, because of course I cannot possibly
read all these letters. No human being could. My desk is piled high, in various groups,
some of one thing and some of another.</p>
<p>And do you know that we have had girls in that office who have broken down mentally and
physically just from reading those letters? One girl, 26 or 27 years old, came out to
Chicago. She couldn't endure it any more. Perhaps she is here tonight. She is working
now with the soldiers who have come back from war maimed and broken. She wrote back to
one of the co-workers in our office and she said: "<span class="UNK">As bad as this work is,
it is not as bad as you are doing there. Because here we have everyone to help these
men, societies, clubs, organizations, churches, everybody is reaching out a hand to
give to these men. But it broke my heart to see that no one was helping those poor
mothers.</span>"</p>
<p>That is the message I have for you here in Illinois. I have come to you to appeal to you
to help us. Help us help these women. Let us make a better world. Be the first on record
in this state to open clinics, not one but dozens of clinics, where we can tell these
women to come and be advised. Give them the hope that they are reaching out for. These
women are bent, they are bowed, they are broken, and they want your help.</p>
<p>Now, I believe that by birth control we <span class="addition">can</span> remove untold misery. I think that
through it we can remove poverty, we can do away with slums. I think we can have
children conceived in love and reared through the aid of science for the development of
humanity. I believe also that through it we can change not only the quality of the race,
but the thinking of the race, and bring about peace on earth, good will to men,
(Vociferous applause)</p>
</div>
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Unknown
Freschi, John J.
Schroeder, Theodore
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Margaret Sanger
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1923-10-29
Description
An account of the resource
<p>With this address, Sanger opened the Middle Western States Birth Control
Conference, held in Chicago at the Drake
Hotel. Handwritten additions by Sanger. </p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#143237
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress, LCM 122:0009
Subject
The topic of the resource
abortion--health risks
birth control--as a term
birth control--socio-economic benefits
birth control clinics and leagues--establishment of
birth control laws and legislation--Federal
birth control laws and legislation--state
birth control methods
birth control movement--history of
Brownsville Clinic
Brownsville Clinic--arrests, trials and imprisonment
child labor
client letters
conferences--International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference--1922 (5th)
conferences--Middle Western States Birth Control Conference--1923
Family Limitation
family size--and poverty
family size--class-based
Japan--birth control in
neo-Malthusianism
physicians--and birth control
race progress
Sachs, Sadie
Sanger, Margaret--biographical details
Sanger, Margaret--tours--1922 (China)
Sanger, Margaret--tours, 1922 (Japan)
Sanger, Margaret--as a nurse
Sanger, Margaret--family of
Sanger, Margaret--exile, 1914-15
Woman Rebel The--legal case
women and girls--enslavement of
women and girls--reproductive choices and decisions
Title
A name given to the resource
Middle Western States Birth Control Conference Welcoming Address
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Typed speech
-
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Organization
United States Children's Bureau
United States Government
Maternity Center Association of New York
United States Congress
Person
Wells, Marjorie
Higgins, Michael Hennessey
Towner, Horace
Newton, Walter Hughes
Higgins, Anne Purcell
Swift, Jonathan
Voltaire
Candide (fictional)
Sheppard, Morris
Lathrop, Julia
Shaw, George Bernard
Corbin, Hazel
Pangloss, Dr. (fictional)
Hoover, Herbert
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
Place
United States
Publication
The Survey
The North American Review
Motherhood in Bondage
Candide
The Woman's Journal
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>Women and Birth Control</h4>
<p class="byline">BY MARGARET SANGER</p>
<p><span class="italics">
<span class="NARE">Answering Marjorie Wells, mother of ten, who decried Birth Control propaganda in our
March issue, Mrs. Sanger, one of eleven children, urges the social duty of family limitation.</span></span></p>
<p>I was one of eleven children. My mother died in her
forties. My father enjoyed life until his
eighties. Seven of my brothers and sisters are still living. If I am not an "old-fashioned" woman,
at least I was an old-fashioned child. I have never thought it necessary to call public attention
to these circumstances of my life. Not that I ashamed of them, but, on the other hand, neither am
I brazenly proud of them. I do not believe that these facts are sufficient as a foundation upon
which to erect a code of moral for all men and women of the future to follow. I do not say: "My
mother gave birth to eleven living children, seven of whom are still alive and more or less
healthy. Ergo, all women should give birth to eleven or a dozen children." There are, it seems to
me, a few other things to consider.</p>
<p>I have been impelled to cast aside my habitual reticence because I have just finished reading a
highly personal essay in the March number of <span class="journal">The North American Review</span>,
written by a lady known as Marjorie Wells. Mrs. Wells confesses herself the mother of ten children. Her family
stretches <span class="WELMA">"already as far as the eye can reach and with the end not yet in
sight.</span>" This biological fact seems to endow Mrs. Wells with the glib authority to hand
down decisions concerning complex problems which have puzzled humanity since civilization first
began. I rejoice with Marjorie Wells in the peace and happiness she has found in her "monumental"
family. But I confess that I am not convinced that feminine wisdom increases in direct proportion
with the number of one's offspring.</p>
<p>Implicit in Marjorie Wells's confession I discover a certain condescension toward the mothers of
smaller families. She knows all there is to know about keeping the stork from the door. She admits
her vastly superior knowledge of practical biology. She has read my book
<span class="book"><span class="italics">Motherhood in Bondage</span></span>, which is a compilation of case records in
marital misery, of protests from slave mothers against the blind inhumanity of natural law. From the citadel of her
self-satisfaction, Marjorie Wells asserts that my theories have become badly scrambled with my
emotions and that I attempt to be "<span class="WELMA">both scientific and sympathetic at the same
time</span>"--as though that were quite impossible! I have made, according to Mrs. Wells,
"<span class="WELMA">the usual mistake of women who attempt the guidance of public opinion,
and try to transfer to public responsibility what is essentially and inevitably a private and
local problem</span>."</p>
<p>Intellectually speaking, she "high-hats" me. A mere woman who has borne only three children instead
of ten, who can therefore never hope to reach that peak of serene Olympian indifference to the
cries and moans of my less fortunate sisters which Marjorie Wells has attained, I cannot hope to
equal in dialectic skill a lady who has enjoyed the educational advantage of ten pregnancies. I
have not yet attained that point of self-confidence which enables me to cast aside as irrelevant
and unimportant the conclusions of scientists who have devoted their lives to the study of
genetics, nor can I close my eyes to the statistics of Government workers who have made deep
researches into the conditions productive of the alarming maternity death rate in these
United States. Having been only one of eleven hungry little brothers and
sisters, I was not able to profit by the early educational advantages which Marjorie Wells
evidently enjoyed. Her philosophic poise enables her to look upon the birth of a child as "<span class="WELMA">a purely
private and local problem</span>." I have always assumed, and I do not
believe that I am egregious in this assumption, that the birth of a child is an event of the
utmost importance not only to the family into which it is born, but to the community, to the
nation, to the whole future of the human race. I agree with President Hoover:</p>
<p>
<span class="HOOHE">The ideal to which we should strive is that there shall be no
child in America: That has not been born under proper conditions; that does not live in
hygienic surroundings; that ever suffers from under-nourishment; that does not have prompt and
efficient medical attention and inspection; that does not receive primary instruction in the
elements of hygiene and good health; that has not the complete birthright of a sound mind and
a sound body; that has not the encouragement to express in fullest measure the spirit within
which is the final endowment of every human being</span>.</p>
<p>I suppose those of us who subscribe to these ideas are in the eyes of Marjorie Wells hopeless
sentimentalists.</p>
<p>My opponent sharply crystallizes a definite point of view not only concerning the theory and the
practice of Birth Control, but toward all the social problems which confront us today. Hers is the
attitude of "splendid isolation," of enlightened self-interest, of <span class="italics">laissez-faire</span>.
She tells us in effect that she is the mother of ten healthy
children, that she and her husband enjoy from them a daily dividend of satisfaction and delight,
and that therefore she "<span class="WELMA">should worry</span>" about the behavior and condition of the
less fortunate. "<span class="WELMA">Am I my sister's keeper?</span>" asks in effect Marjorie Wells.</p>
<p>It is late in the day to point out that all human experience teaches that an attitude of "splendid
isolation" can no longer be logically maintained by any individual in the face of the problems
which confront American civilization. If only from the motive of self-protection the well-born and
the well-bred can no longer shirk responsibility concerning "<span class="WELMA">the behavior and the
condition of the unfortunates.</span>"</p>
<p>Time after time, it has been demonstrated in all the countries of Western civilization, that as we
descend the social scale the birth-rate increases. Dependent, delinquent and defective classes all
tend to become more prolific than the average normal and self-dependent stratum of society. With
this high birth rate is correlated a high infant mortality rate. This law is true in all
countries. More children are born; more babies die. So likewise, the maternal mortality rate jumps
correspondingly. Out of the surviving infants are recruited the morons, the feeble-minded, the
dependents, who make organized charities a necessity, and who later fill prisons, penitentiaries
and State homes. To compute the cost in dollars and cents of these industriously prolific classes
to society is beyond human power. Every one of us pays for their support and maintenance. Funds
which legitimately should go to pure scientific research, to aid the fine fruition of American
civilization, are thus diverted to the support of those who--in all charity and compassion--should
never have been born at all.</p>
<p>We cannot ignore, as Marjorie Wells confesses she does, "<span class="WELMA">such charming contingencies
as inherited lunacy, disease and abject poverty</span>." They press in upon us on all sides.
These things, she says, do not belong in her personal problem. I beg to remind her that they do.
For, despite her valiant efforts to bring up her own brood, Mrs. Wells will, in time, find out, if
she has not already found out, that the children of the defective and the diseased will crowd into
the schoolroom with her own children, and that standards of intelligence must perforce be lowered
to meet their limited capacities. The community in which she lives will call upon her to aid the
alleviation of the poverty and distress of the all too prolific. Her property and income will be
taxed to maintain State institutions for the support of the dependent and the delinquent. She will
resent bitterly this enforced expenditure of funds that should go for the higher education and the
cultural development of her talented children. That is, if her resources are as limited as she
admits them to be. And finally she will discover that her own good luck in life is not the general
rule, but a fortunate exception, upon which it would be the utmost folly to attempt to generalize
concerning this exceedingly human race.</p>
<p>"<span class="WELMA">But</span>," she may now retort, "<span class="WELMA">you are speaking dogmatically,
making a special plea for public approval of the dissemination of Birth Control</span>." Marjorie
Wells is convinced that the cases recorded in my book <span class="italics">Motherhood in
Bondage</span> are abnormalities and horrors, gathered together merely to foist the practice
of contraception upon unwilling parents.</p>
<p>Let us turn, then, to less prejudiced and partisan sources. Let us consider the findings of
impartial investigators who have no interest in what our critics call propaganda. Let us find out,
if we can, the truth concerning the conditions under which children are brought into our American
world. For this evidence we need not go far afield. In a recent report published in
<span class="journal"><span class="italics">The Survey</span></span>, Hazel Corbin,
R.N., general director of the Maternity Center Association of New York, states that year
after year, more than twenty thousand women die from causes due to childbirth--one mother for
every one hundred and fifty babies born! The Newton
bill had as its aim Government responsibility for the health of American citizens including the
special needs of the mothers of the country. This bill died when the last Congress
expired. The Sheppard-Towner Act expires June 30, 1929; and
unless Congress provides a further Federal subsidy, the Government aid for mothers and children
which its funds have furthered during the last six years will be brought to a close.</p>
<p>When correlated with the refusal of State legislatures to consider bills which would make Birth
Control education permissive, these facts assume new significance. Our Government
pronounces itself unwilling to assume responsibility in alleviating the hazardous trade of maternity. At the same time the State and
Federal authorities refuse to countenance legislation which would allow American mothers to help
themselves--which would permit them to choose the time and the conditions best suited for the
fulfillment of the maternal function</p>
<p>"<span class="CORHA">The birth of a baby is such a common, every-day occurrence,</span>" writes Hazel
Corbin, "<span class="CORHA">that people do not realize that during pregnancy the margin between health
and disease becomes dangerously narrow, and only by skilled medical supervision can the
maintenance of health be assured. Every mother in the country needs skilled medical
supervision, nursing care and instruction during pregnancy, at delivery, and for the six weeks
that follow. Many families do not know of this need. Not all families can provide this care.
It is not available at any price in many parts of this rich country. There are no doctors,
nurses and midwives properly trained to give adequate care to all mothers</span>."</p>
<p>Yet two million women in America are compelled, by law, to descend annually into the valley of the
shadow of death, to bear two million children in a country that has enacted drastic immigration
restriction laws to prevent over-population. No: we are not under-populated--there is no need for
a "full speed ahead" policy of procreation. Since the revelations of <span class="book">Motherhood
in Bondage</span> are condemned as exceptional, let us listen further to the testimony of
Hazel Corbin: "<span class="CORHA">There are, caring for our mothers, midwives so ignorant and
superstitious as to suppose hemorrhage can be controlled by placing an axe upside down under
the patient's bed. Of about fifty thousand practising midwives only a small portion are
well-trained and the majority are untrained--yet in most instances they are licensed or
registered by their States</span>."</p>
<p>Let us turn to the testimony of Julia Lathrop, ex-chief of
the Children's Bureau, under whose supervision
Government agents made extensive investigations surrounding infant mortality in eight typical
cities of our country. Infant mortality rates concern all children who die during the first five
years of life. On the whole, according to Miss Lathrop in <span class="journal">The Woman's
Journal</span>, the evidence is overwhelming that poverty, ignorance, or both, lack of
medical and nursing care, unwholesome living conditions, overworked mothers, remoteness from
doctors and nurses in rural areas, and other types of inability to give babies needed care are in
marked degree coincident with high infant morality rates. A vast number of babies and of mothers
die needlessly every year in this country. This fact is well-known to statisticians, doctors and
to some social workers, but details as to social and economic conditions under which the parents
live are seldom disclosed or frankly discussed.</p>
<p>Today the situation remains fundamentally unnoticed. Women clamor for deliverance from compulsory
motherhood. Yet dull-witted legislators, both State and Federal, refuse to sanction the
dissemination of harmless contraceptives to those unable or unwilling, due to the conditions
discovered by Government agents, to undergo a pregnancy that may be fatal to mother or child. Yet
measures aiming to improve by Governmental agencies dysgenic conditions surrounding maternity and
infancy are condemned and defeated as "paternalistic." The situation calls for a
Shaw or a Swift.</p>
<p>Perhaps this dilemma has been created not so much by the laws and the legislators themselves as by
the smug and bland indifference of women themselves--of those fortunate, well-bred, well-educated
women who refuse to concern themselves with the sordid tragedies of those they consider their
social inferiors.</p>
<p>Whether Birth Control is right or wrong, moral or immoral, a need or a nuisance, one thing is
certain. Mothers of ten or of one can no longer, by the mere exercise of a function common to all
living creatures consider themselves exempt from social responsibility. As Miss Lathrop has
expressed it: "<span class="LATJU">One thing is in my opinion certain--only mothers can save this
cooperative work for maternity and infancy. If prosperous, intelligent mothers do not urge the
protection of the lives of all mothers and babies, why should we expect Congress to come
unasked to their aid?</span>"</p>
<p>Though Julia Lathrop is here making a plea only for Government protection of maternity and infancy,
the same truth is applicable to the doctrine of Birth Control. The most stubborn opposition to
Birth Control has come, not from the moralists nor the theologians, the most distinguished of whom
recognize its legitimate necessity, but from those women who, like Marjorie Wells, "<span class="WELMA">know
as much about keeping the stork from the door as my most friendly and unfriendly
critics,</span>" yet nevertheless assume that such knowledge, simple, harmless and hygienic as it
is, must be kept for the privileged few and from the very women most in need of it. Such an
attitude seems to grow out of a frantic feminine desire to retain a certain superiority, social or
otherwise, over one's less fortunate neighbors.</p>
<p>Even for that very limited and very special type of woman who is gifted by nature and natural
inclination--and also by wealth--to undertake a specialized career in maternity and to become the
mother of ten or a dozen children, there is need for the practice of Birth Control. For if she be
intelligent and farseeing, such a woman will recognize the necessity of "spacing" her children, of
recuperating her full physical strength and psychic well-being after the birth of one child before
undertaking the conception of another. Mothers of large families have written me expressing their
gratitude for the benefits of Birth Control. It has enabled them to give each of their children a
good start in life. It has prevented crowding, and has moreover permitted them to enjoy marital
communion which would otherwise have been impossible. But let us recognize today--with the
ever-increasing cost of living, and the high cost of childbirth--that the large family must more
and more be considered the privilege of the moneyed class. A large family, if the income is small,
is a crime against the children born into it. I was one of eleven, and I believe that I am
slightly more entitled to speak on this subject than Marjorie Wells, who is, after all, only the
mother of ten! I may be prejudiced, but I feel that the testimony of a child born into a large
family is of more interest and importance than that of the mere progenitor of a large family. It
all depends on the point of view!</p>
<p>American civilization has long passed the pioneer stage of its development. We no longer have a
vast continent to populate. We no longer need mere numbers. But we are only beginning to realize
that there are other values in life than those of mere quantity. We have not yet outgrown the
adolescent habit of worshiping the biggest this, the largest that, the most of the other thing. So
I think, no one need take any excessive pride in the production of a large family, even though the
rotogravure sections of our Sunday newspapers will undoubtedly, for the delight and amusement of
their millions of readers, continue to publish photographs of large families which imitate
visually a long flight of steps.</p>
<p>The attitude of those who have been rewarded by life, and cannot see the punishment inflicted upon
others reminds me always of Dr. Pangloss in
Voltaire's <span class="book"><span class="italics">Candide</span></span>. "<span class="VOL">It has been
proved</span>," said Dr. Pangloss, "<span class="VOL">that things cannot be otherwise than they are;
for, everything being made for a certain end, the end for which everything is made is
necessarily the best end.</span>" And though the world went to wreck and ruin about him, he still
maintained that "<span class="VOL">it does not become me to retract my words. Leibnitz cannot possibly be wrong--the
pre-established harmony is the finest thing in the world. All events are inextricably linked
together in this best of all possible worlds</span>."</p>
<p>Rather, I think, in this matter of mothers and children--whether we be the mother of ten, or the
sister of ten--we must heed the counsel of Candide
himself and cultivate our garden.</p>
</div>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Margaret Sanger
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1929-05-00
Description
An account of the resource
<p>For draft version, "One of Eleven," see Margaret Sanger Papers, Library of Congress Microfilm LCM 130:419.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#231905
Language
A language of the resource
FRE
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Smith College Collections</span> S71:159
<span class="journal"><span class="italics">North American Review</span></span>, May 1929, pp. 529-534
Subject
The topic of the resource
birth control--class-based
birth control--health benefits of
birth control--lack of knowledge of
birth control--opposition to
birth control--propaganda and publicity
birth control--socio-economic benefits
birth control laws and legislation--Federal
birth control laws and legislation--state
child spacing
child welfare
client letters
family size
midwives
mortality rates--infant
mortality rates--maternal
pregnancy--health risks
population size--and birth control
Sanger, Margaret--biographical details
Sanger, Margaret--books--Motherhood in Bondage
Sanger, Margaret--family of
unfit to reproduce--as social burdens
United States government--birth control and
Title
A name given to the resource
Women and Birth Control
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published article