1
10
38
-
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
Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress (LCM)
Description
An account of the resource
LCM ######
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.
Person
Max Stirner
Plato
Nietzsche, Frederich
Ibsen, Henrik
Blake, William
Voltaire
Chatteron-Hill, Georges
Schopenhauer, Arthur
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Kant, Immanuel
Wagner, Richard
Place
Germany
Europe
England
America
Richen, Germany
France
Publication
Gospel
Birth of Tragedy
Beyond Good & Evil
Zarathustra
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>Frederick Nietzche</h4>
<p>The powerful mind of Nietzsche has exerted an influence in Europe which has made itself felt in all philosophy & letters of the past ten years.</p>
<p>His gospel of life has awakened new channels of thought in other writers & preached under the forceful, vigorous forum of aphorisms has broken loose from the dogmatic travels school which had dominated the world of Western thought since Kant.</p>
<p>The philosophy of Nietzsche has attracted attention in literary circles in France England America besides giving birth to literature abundant in quantity & varying in quality in Germany.</p>
<p>It is to me regrettable that such interest in the seems to remain outside the reach of the workers--for whom it is intended. Nietzsche philosophy not only calls in question the moral law itself it challenges & attacks the foundations of all moral law. Before this almost all schools of philosophy had been agreed upon the fact that a universal moral law exists.</p>
<p>Max Stirner was perhaps the first to deny the existence of it & preach the gospel of immoralism but Stirner name remains almost unknown to us.</p>
<p>But in Nietzsche lyrical <span class="unclear">enthusiasts</span> in <span class="book">Zarathustra</span>he first called general attention to the fact that serious reasons exist for preferring the immoral to the moral--the untrue to the true.</p>
<p>Perhaps no where thru N-- philosophy can it be felt that he intended to deduce any sociological conclusions from his philosophy, rather did mean it as an expression of <span class="line-through">his</span> <span class="addition">a</span> personality, <span class="addition">a</span> character & of a temperment--but nevertheless we have a right to extract from this or any philosophy that which we can use for our own purpose & so I claim the right of the worker to deduce in Nietzsches philosophy as much as they can use for their own.</p>
<p>It is impossible to apply his philosophy of Nietzsche or to study or know him before first getting an insight into the tremendous personality which so strongly reveals itself through every line of his work in every aphorism of his mind.</p>
<p>Sincerity & heroism are the two characteristics of Nietzsches personality and a third may be added a delicacy of sentiment & refinement. These characteristics give us a clue to his rupture with his once dearest friend Wagner. They give us a clue to his hatred of the democratic & plebian movement to his hatred of the Christian religion "All or nothing" was his motto & he lived up to it.</p>
<p>As one of his biographers (Hill) has said of him:</p>
<p>"<span class="HILCH">Gifted with an extraordinary refinement of sentiment & taste; having set himself as an ideal Life itself, & Life in beauty, in plentitude, in power in exuberance of wealth; he was determined to be sincere with himself at all & every cost, to examine every ideal, however ancient, however universal its acceptance; to examine it to the bottom, to reject it if necessary at what ever cost or friendship or of suffering to himself; to affirm & reaffirm his ideal, that ideal which he held to be true; to affirm & reaffirm in the face of the whole world if necessary, without compromise.</span>"</p>
<p><span class="HILCH">To be able to do this--to be able to attack & reject all that which mankind has hitherto by almost universal acceptance, held sacred to be able to sacrifice all these ideas which tradition & education have rendered personally of value to be able to sacrifice friends that one loves & venerates on the altar of ones convictions--to do this requires courage above the ordinary--it requires heroism.</span>"</p>
<p>His refinement of taste his third great characteristic can not be submerged by the two other traits. He is essentially an artist. Some think him more an artist than a thinker or rather that his career as thinker is subordinated to his artistic properties-- He wrote poetry it is true he also loved music & composed some, but greater & more important than these was the fact that his whole conception of life was an artistic <span class="line-through">production</span> conception.</p>
<p>He was born in 1844 at Richen in Germany.</p>
<p>I am not going into detail with the incidents of his biography only to relate here & there in passing the events which influenced his life</p>
<p>As his father was a protestant pastor he naturally was brought up in a religious atmosphere. Tho' it was neither bigoted nor austere.</p>
<p>Its interesting to note in passing that <span class="addition">tho'</span> Nietzsche who hated Christianity & broke away from its chains, that he bitterly attacked the faith of his forefathers. He who proclaimed in all places & at all times that "<span class="NIEFR">God was dead</span>" that he was beyond & above all religion & supernatural belief--yet by his great worship of truth by his idealization of life his fearless & intrepid sincerity that he was really activated by the deepest religious principles.</p>
<p>He was far above churches & religion yet he believed in life, in life as a manifestation of Beauty he believed in principles & lived up to his principles.</p>
<p>His study of Greek did more than anything else to reveal Nietzsche to himself.</p>
<p>Already many writers might be named who owe if not half their ideas, at least half their courage to their ideas to Nietzsche. No other man is more representative of the spirit of his age (Emerson, Blake, Ibsen--) he was his age for he understood the mind of Europe.</p>
<p>Its significant that his main attack should be leveled against the foundations of European morality. The greatest immoralist the modern world has see--he needed the humane qualities he possessed to stand alone against a continent & a tradition of 2000 years.</p>
<p>Passion the characteristic of his thought, <span class="book">Birth of Tragedy</span>, his first book. No bombast--no out pouring of big minds to cover up little ideas.</p>
<p>The greatest events he says are <span class="line-through">our</span> greatest thoughts--the product of our stillest hour.</p>
<p>"<span class="NIEFR">The secret of a joyful life is to live dangerously.</span>"</p>
<p>Throw not away the hero in thy soul.</p>
<p>What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness.</p>
<p>(<span class="book">Beyond Good & Evil</span>)</p>
<p>ascending & descending character. The need of salvation--in the sincerest form of expression of decadence.</p>
<p>Nietzsche sees the world becoming peopled with a ludicrous species--a tame, <span class="gap"></span> sickly, mediocre kind of gently--grunting domestic animal.</p>
<p>What is good?--all that elevates the feeling of power--</p>
<p>What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness.</p>
<p>What is happiness? The feeling that power increases--that resistance is being overcome.</p>
<p>Philosophers have never dared to case doubt upon the lawfulness of moral judgements--but it is Nietzsche who dares to declare war on all morals, mans instructs etc. "<span class="NIEFR">There is a morality of Master & a Morality of Slaves-- Moral values have been determined either by a race of Masters, conscious & proud of the distance that separates them from the ruled race--or by a crowd of subjective ones, slaves, inferiors of all kinds.</span>" page 120 <span class="book">Gospel</span></p>
<p>"<span class="NIEFR">Man must retain all the knowledge aptitudes & new strength acquired in the course of his long & painful experiences but he must break up the <span class="addition">tablet of</span> laws which at present hinder him in his march forward--he must renounce the present historical values, the Christian, democratic ascetic ideal, & create Master values of his own.</span>" page 174 <em>Gospel</em>.</p>
<p>Power of laughter (a secret unknown) page 204 -- "Free dost thou call thyself."</p>
<p>Nietzsche--what he taught the worker</p>
<p>His teachings.</p>
<p>1st a teacher of Eternal recurrences everything repeats itself, life, earthly solar system.</p>
<p>2nd He applied the principle of evolutions to the extant system of morals.</p>
<p>3 He tried to trace the origin of our present day morals, & found that we must create a new ethics which are beyond good & evil.</p>
<p>4. He attacked the <span class="addition">morality of</span> Christianity perhaps more vigorously than any previous writer (Voltaire). He claims it teaches a slave morality & teachers a Master morality is higher to aim at. Yea to life in its fullness & all that is high, beautiful & daring.</p>
<p>Schopenhauer his <span class="addition">first</span> great teacher. He found a book & read it & became charmed & captivated, a devoted follower personality & his teachings.</p>
<p>One can scarcely separate a mans personality from his life--neither can we separate it from his teachings.</p>
<p>As a Philosopher--the government has always tended to capture & employ the Philosopher of its age, but what State would patronize Plato or Schopenhauer.</p>
<p>When you get to the Library get some of the works on Nietzsche-- You will understand the coming generation and what is in the air today when you have read & grasped his philosophy--for instance his liking our civilization (?) and character into three states--the camel--the lion--& the child.</p>
<p>The camel takes all the heavy loads & burdens & goes into the wilderness where he dwells in solitude & loneliness but the weight of the burdens strengthens him & he becomes a lion & as Nietzsche says a "laughing lion"--& "freedom it will take as its prey & be lord in its own wilderness."</p>
<p>"To create freedom for his self--and a holy <span class="gap"></span> even towards duty;--for this my heathern, there is need of a lion."</p>
<p>Again, "a sense of truth in a sense of security."</p>
<p>Attraction & repulsion, reason & energy, love & hate are necessary to human existence.</p>
<p>From these contraries come what is called good & evil.</p>
<p>Good is the passive that obeys reason evil is the active springing from energy. Good in Heaven, Evil in Hell.</p>
<p>Those who restrain desire do so because the desire is weak enough to be restrained. Reason usurps its place & governs the weak & unwilling and being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive till it is only the shadow of desire.</p>
<p>Prudence is a rich old maid courted by incapacity.</p>
<p>The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom.</p>
<p>Exuberance is Beauty.</p>
<p>Sooner murder an infant in the cradle than nurse unacted desires.</p>
<p>I must create a system of be enslaved by another mans. I will not reason & compare my business is to create.</p>
<p>The chains are the cunning of weak & timid <span class="addition">tame</span> minds.</p>
<p>There are two classes of men are always upon the Earth. They should be enemies whoever tries to reconcile them seeks to destroy <span class="line-through">them</span> existence. Religion is an endeavor to reconcile the two.</p>
<p>The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water & breeds reptiles of the mind.</p>
<p>The significance of the individual--of the consciousness of the individual. First that the individual is the original source & constituent of all value. No other standard of obligations for you or for me than that set by our personal ends & ideals.</p>
<p>"The triumph of life!-- The great yearning to all things high, beautiful, daring!"</p>
<p>"No one knoweth yet what is good & evil."</p>
<p>What a shock these words must have given Europe--Europe with its priestcraft popery & Culture-- No wonder <span class="gap"></span> that the many who dared to thunder out the above words was considered a madman--good & evil--did not Europe know what it was.</p>
<p>Two lessons to be learned from Nietzsche--to understand Aristocracy & to acquire a subtle methods of thinking.</p>
<p>His love of music was strong in him at an early age.</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
Nietzsche, Frederich
Chatterton-Hill, Georges
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
1914
Description
An account of the resource
<p>This is a rough draft of a speech; no final versions have been found.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#143075
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress,</span> LCM 130:356
Subject
The topic of the resource
Nietzsche, Frederich
religion--MS on
working classes
Title
A name given to the resource
Frederick Nietzche
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
draft Speech
-
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
Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm Edition, Smith College Collections
Description
An account of the resource
Letters, writings, diaries, photographs and other papers written by, sent to, or collected by Margaret Sanger
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Microfilmed and published by University Publications of America, a subsidiary of Proquest.
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
Divine Mother
Giver of Life
Organization
League of Nations
Japan Statistical Bureau
Roman Catholic Church
World Court
All-India Women's Conference
Women's Co-operative Guild
United Kingdom Maternity and Child Welfare Centers
International Congress of the World Fellowship of Faiths
Jewish Federation of Women
United States Supreme Court
National Recovery Administration
Person
Buck, Emma
Bergson, Henri
Buck, Carrie
Luther, Martin
Inge, William Ralph
Whitman, Walt
Pius XI (Pope)
Holmes, Oliver Wendall
Place
Germany
Europe
India's.
Manchuria
England
United States
Italy
Japan
Soviet Union
Chicago, IL
Ireland
India
Publication
Ecclesiasticus
Psalms
Apocrypha
World Fellowship Addresses and Messages by Leading Spokesmen of All Faith, Races and Countries
Unity
Proceedings of the International Congress of the World Fellowship of Faiths
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>WOMAN OF THE FUTURE</h4>
<p>Friends:</p>
<p>Humanity today stands at the crossroads.</p>
<p>One way leads down to decay and destruction. It is the way of the shiftless, careless, irresponsible ignorance of the past.</p>
<p>The other <span class="line-through">is steep and narrow. It</span> points upward demanding of us who inhabit this globe all that we possess in intelligence, knowledge, courage <span class="line-through">and</span> visionand responsibility.</p>
<p>The <span class="line-through">steep</span> <span class="addition">upward</span> road leads to the fulfillment of human destiny on this planet.</p>
<p>Which road shall we take? There is no time to mince words, to procrastinate, no time for hypocritical evasion. The problem is immediate. As the great French philosopher Bergson expresses it: "Humanity must make up its mind <span class="underline">whether</span> it wants to go on living, not only whether it wants, merely to live, as the beasts and insects live, but <span class="underline">whether</span> it wants to continue to carry on the <span class="underline">Torch of Progress</span>.</p>
<p>Progress! We are gathered here in Chicago from all countries of the world to celebrate a Century of Progress. Nowhere is the advance in the sciences of Humanity more impressively shown than in the exhibits of that remarkable Hall of Science. There we find eloquent evidence of Man's conquest of the Air, of his daring explorations in the realm of the infinitesimally small, his war against microbes and germs; we find there all the miracles of the atom and of Radio-Activity. In brief, in the last one hundred years, Science has taken remarkable steps in the conquest of the external forces of Nature. Man has tamed and harnessed many natural energies and directed them for his own use.</p>
<p>But before we congratulate ourselves too complacently upon all these achievements of modern science, it might be a sign of wisdom to evaluate these achievements in terms of a higher and finer civilization. Unless these and other results of man's creative energies are utilized with vision and foresight they may become not scientific achievements but instruments of <span class="addition">human</span> destruction.</p>
<p><span class="addition">For</span> how can we boast of the conquest of the air or of the marvels of chemistry when whole nations of innocent men, women and children are compelled to seek protection against these by wearing gas-masks?</p>
<p>Why should we take pride in the advances of surgery, if its main use is to be the salvaging of the maimed and mutilated?–-or of the art of medicine if the physician makes it his business to preserve evils in order to “tinker at them?”</p>
<p>How can we boast of our philanthropy and great enterprises of charity when countless millions are born in conditions of disease, ignorance and misery-–whose very existence depends upon the continuation of private and public charity?</p>
<p>NATIONAL RECOVERY--the NRA--is the great slogan of today. We hear on all sides of <span class="underline">Codes</span> for the producers, codes for the consumers, codes even for the control of PIGS. Here in your Middle West there is to be <span class="underline">pig control</span> on a large scale! But do we ever hear of a <span class="underline">Biological Code</span> for the race? I propose a Code for Babies, so that each child brought into the world shall be assured of a welcome, so that each child may help toward <span class="underline">permanent National Recovery</span> by coming into this complex realm with a heritage of health, a sound body and mind, and with the certainty of a happy home and proper nourishment to arm him for life's unending struggle. Unless this is assured to each and every child born into the United States, real National Recovery can never be realized.</p>
<p>Consider for a moment: the <span class="underline">millions</span>, nay the <span class="underline">billions</span> of dollars we shovel every yearinto the bottomless pit of so-called charities. Futile extravagance!--this effort to keep alive the delinquent, the defective, the dangerous classes that, in <span class="underline">all compassion</span> should never be brought into the world at all!</p>
<p>Science may well pride itself on the conquest of the external forces of Nature–-electricity, radio-activity, atomic energies, hydro-electric power, but despite all the miraculous achievements of the past century, Science has not succeeded in getting Humanity out of the man-made muddle in which we find ourselves today. For strangely enough this great Conquest of External Nature has been accompanied by a gross neglect--a misuse-–a tragic waste of the greatest creative force within human nature itself–-the creative energy, force and power of womankind.</p>
<p>The great prophetic American poet, Walt Whitman, wrote:</p>
<p>“Be not ashamed, Woman, Your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exitof the rest,</p>
<p>"You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.”</p>
<p>Not only the gate of the body and soul, I would add, but Woman is the <span class="underline">main</span> portal to the future. Only through the emancipation of Woman's creative energies, her sex force, can Humanity redeem itself. Civilization is marking time: Mankind cannot choose the road upward to the fulfillment of its true destiny until the other half of its self-–Woman–-is released–-freed–-emancipated. Emancipated?-–I can hear you say. Has she not the right to vote?–-to work?–-the right to engage in any activity where man goes? Yes, and she has fought for these activities and <span class="line-through">their power, for</span> <span class="addition">proven an</span>, equal ability in <span class="line-through">her</span> <span class="addition">these</span> undertakings. I do not consider such superficial rights as sufficiently important, however, to be called emancipation.</p>
<p>Because I am not looking upon woman merely as “the Mother of Men” (even great men), let us set aside as a masculine invention the sweet, simpering, clinging imitation of woman and see Woman liberated, Woman awake, Woman conscious of her invincible creative powers, imperiously and autonomously wielding that power with vision and intelligence.</p>
<p>Looking back at the long centuries of woman's bondage to man-made religions, customs, laws and creeds, there might be reason for discouragement, for women have been compelled to be all things to all men. They have been throughout the ages and still are today in nearly every country of the globe beasts of burden, pack animals, slaves, servants, instruments of pleasure. (Now and then they've even been inspirations).</p>
<p>Everything, you see, in terms of masculine psychology; everything in terms of the needs of men.</p>
<p>Age after age has shown woman taken from her lofty heights, where previously she was referred to as a Creative Deity–-Giver of Life–-Divine Mother–-and placed on the level of the nurse-maid, permitted to care for man's offspring, allowed to compete with his animals as pack-horses whose honored destiny it was to suffer and to serve.</p>
<p>With this vast reservoir of racial and spiritual energy, why has woman never challenged the supremacy of the male?-–you may well ask. And in that answer lies the problem which confronts us today and which must be solved if we are to evolve upward and onward in the march of civilization.</p>
<p>Christianity was founded on the suppression and sublimation of the sex instinct. Previous forms of religious worship, from prehistoric times, were founded upon the unfathomable, inevitable mystery of Sex and its creative function. People were and still are as ignorant and confused about sex as they are about God. We must cast the light of science upon the former in order to understand the latter.</p>
<p>While the mental attitude and religious teachings on the basic function of life confuse it with shame and sin, Mankind cannot rise to its highest possibilities. Our ecclesiastical fathers have decreed that there were only two states of respectable womanhood open to women--virginity or motherhood. Sex in any of its manifestations was akin to sin, and for the woman only the bearing of a child sanctioned its expression.</p>
<p>Thus we find that woman's bondage in the past as well as today is based solely on the biological task of child-bearing. Consequently, until that function is under her complete control woman can never hope to rise to the heights of her own spiritual destiny.</p>
<p>Throughout the centuries it has been the Churchmen who have decreed that woman's first and only duty to man and God is child-bearing. Did not Martin Luther assert that women shall bear and bear and bear even though they sacrifice their lives in an endless waste of sacrifice! And today from that great Church with its headquarters across the sea in foreign lands, sits a Celibate Pontifical Dictator (whose office predicates that he has never known the problems of fatherhood) yet whose voice reaches into the lives of 43,000,000 American women of child-bearing age and forbids Congressmen toliberate scientific knowledge whereby children may be wanted, conceived in marital love, born of the parents' conscious desire and given the heritage of healthy bodies and sound minds! Until this voice is stifled, this influence checked, the slavery of futile child-bearing will continue.</p>
<p>Why this clerical glorification of breeding? Why this idolatrous urgence of reproduction, a function in which the human race is surpassed, from the point of view of quantity, by the house fly and the fishes of the sea-–a function which has blindly plunged the worldinto chaos and confusion so grave that the future of the whole world is threatened?</p>
<p>Breeding orders to women in the past were:</p>
<ul>
<li>For the sake of the Clan.</li>
<li>For the strength of the Tribe.</li>
<li>For the Pride of Man and Family.</li>
<li>For the Glory of God and the Church.</li>
</ul>
<p>While now the pleas are:</p>
<p>For the military strength of the Nation and the Preservation of Peace.</p>
<p>All of it emanates from that classic in <span class="book">Psalms</span> 127:</p>
<ul>
<li>“As arrows in the hand of a mighty man,</li>
<li>So are the children of youth,</li>
<li>Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed,</li>
<li>When they speak with their enemies in the gate.”</li>
</ul>
<p>In this we find the suggestion not of <span class="underline">peace,</span> but of <span class="underline">war</span>. Men are advised to havesufficient children to hurl at their enemies, just as the militarists of Europe today clamor for an increased population to enlarge their armies. Certainly for people who in spite of world conditions still believe in the possibility of “peace on earth, good will among men,” it would be well to refrain from quoting this war appeal to increase the birth rate.</p>
<p>Against this and other much quoted Biblical texts may well be set the following verses from <span class="book">Ecclesiasticus</span> in the <span class="book">Apocrypha</span> (Chap. 16):--</p>
<ul>
<li>“Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children, neither delight in ungodlysons.</li>
<li>Though they multiply, rejoice not in them, except the fear of the Lord be withthem.</li>
<li>Trust not thou in their life, neither respect their multitude, for one that is just is better than a thousand!</li>
<li>And better it is to die without children than tohave them that are ungodly.”</li>
</ul>
<p>To the pleas of the militarists, woman must refuse to listen. She must awaken to the responsibility which is hers as a creative force. She shall become an instrument to a World of Peace. Until this consciousness becomes a reality, all the great grandiose schemes for "world improvement" must fail. Birth control is the first sign of an awakening consciousness in Mankind. It signals a new moral responsibility, a higherregard for life, not only after birth, but even before life has been conceived. It is the conscious control of the birth-rate by means that prevent conception.</p>
<p>Not only a health and economic expedient, it is also a moral principle, a spiritual factor in the lives of women upon which the development and advance of the family depend.</p>
<p>It is truly strange and ironical that the Women's Movement in the United States has kept itself apart from any cause connected with sex hygiene or sex reform. It is even stranger that they have been silent on the subject of birth control, knowing, as we do, that only because of its practice among themselves, as the birth-rate among the educated, intelligent, and wealthy indicates, could they have battled for Suffrage orany other social or cultural movement during their child-bearing years.</p>
<p>What woman constantly in the condition of pregnancy or who is submerged in the daily fears of pregnancy can compete with man in social or economic efficiency? Where are the women with large families? In the grave yards or in the kitchen slaving to make an inadequate wage feed too many hungry babies.</p>
<p>Women in all lands of all creeds and nations look to this new freedom as a blessing.</p>
<p>In England, the Women's Cooperative Guild, a league of more than 75,000 married working women, mostly mothers, were the first to endorse this movement. Practically every liberal and labor group of women in England have followed the Women's Cooperative Guild in an overwhelming endorsement of the principles and practice of birth control–-with the result that more than 80 Maternal and Child Welfare Centers are including such advice in their instructions to working-class mothers.</p>
<p>In India in the spring of 1933, the All India Women's Conference passed a resolution in favor of birth control and demanded that the Government should give information to mothers. This Conference represents many millions of enlightened women of India.</p>
<p>In the United States, the first national group of women to endorse this movement was the Jewish Federation of Women.</p>
<p>In other countries, such as Italy, Ireland, Germany, where militarism of either State or Church triumphs, women still count only as breeders.</p>
<p>I want to go on record here and now to the effect that child-bearing and rearing are <span class="underline">NOT</span> the end and aim of woman's existence. Nor do I consider the first duty of the young married couple to be “non-stop” perpetuation of their kind. I go even further: in many cases I regard it as man's patriotic duty to refrain from this crime against posterity and world-peace. Let me explain why.</p>
<p>Take the case of Japan and her population policy. According to statistics made public by the Statistical Bureau of the Japanese Cabinet, Japan's population was increased last year by a total of 2,182,743 births--or <span class="underline">four babies a minute</span>, twenty-four hours a day, day in and day out. Japan is breaking her own record for population increase. The whole crisis in the Far East-–so menacing for the peace of the world at large–-grows out of this “full-speed-ahead” cradle competition between Asiatic races. Is it not time for the League of Nations or the World Court to turn on the red traffic light? Japan's determination to find an outlet for this surplus population precipitates the so-called “undeclared war” against the Chinese, the creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo, the breaking of solemn treaties, the sowing of the seeds of another World War! And yet some people solemnly tell us that Birth Control would not help solve her problems! If this is patriotism, let us have a little less of it.</p>
<p>If this menace of uncontrolled cradle competition screams aloud to us from across the vast Pacific Ocean, the evils of indiscriminate child-bearing are painfully evident to impartial observers at home. While our Federal penal code forbids the dissemination of scientific information on contraception, and the Roman Catholic Church actively campaign against it, many of our states have been compelled to pass sterilization laws to protect themselves against the perpetuation of the feeble-minded, the defective and the moron population which threatens to engulf us. I want to read to you part of a decision given by the venerable Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes for the United States Supreme Court, concerning the case of a feebleminded woman who was herself the daughter of a feebleminded inmate and the mother of mentally defective children. This decision so admirably sums up the whole case of civilization and the future of the race that it should be compulsory reading for all Americans.</p>
<p>Listen:</p>
<p>"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives."</p>
<p>"It is better for all the world, if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes."</p>
<p><span class="underline">"Three generations of imbeciles are enough."</span></p>
<p>If the United States Supreme Court can hand down this decision concerning compulsory sterilization, what possible judicial of moral case against Birth Control could be validly sustained? Only the age-old masculine tradition, entrenched in the powers of darkness, in reactionary ecclesiastical authority hell-bent to perpetuate its tyranny in a world in which the light of science is creating a new day for humanity, dares still <span class="addition">to</span> withhold from the masses of women this benevolent, clean, safe and scientific instrument of their liberation.</p>
<p>Sterilization–-a necessary, harmless means of protecting the race from the perpetuation of those whose physical, mental and moral fiber is too weak to apply the knowledge of birth control or contraception.</p>
<p>Another grave problem (long kept in the dark because of the conspiracy of silence) now forces itself upon the attention of the medical world. This is the problem of abortion. An ugly word, I agree, but because the forces of reaction maintain the obstacles in the way of scientific instruction in contraception, this complicated question must be faced sanely and humanely.</p>
<p>Women in all lands of every religion and creed are forced to resign themselves to unlimited pregnancies unless they have proper information in contraception. When this is denied them their only resort is to abortion. Out of fear–-because of their misery, poverty and ill health, they seek to evade a motherhood which would bring with it destitution and possible starvation to an unwanted baby.</p>
<p>Medical men are discovering that if they withhold from the awakened womanhood of the world a proper, safe and dependable means of birth control they are bound to be confronted by the infinitely more complicated problem of abortion.</p>
<p>As this department of medicine has as yet not been legalized (except in Russia), women who refuse to bring miserable, sickly, feebleminded offspring into the world are thrust into the channels of quackery where profit is made out of their ignorance and misery. It is the opinion of competent medical observers during the last twenty-five years that there are more criminal abortions performed in this country than in any other country in the world. The national total of abortions has been estimated to top 2,000,000 per year.</p>
<p>This total does not include the number brought about by drugs or by instruments used by the pregnant woman herself.</p>
<p>All this vast activity is carried on in defiance of laws, penalties, punishments or the possible consequence of death. And this violent and harsh means of freeing herself from undesired pregnancy will continue in the future as it has in the past, for nothing short of contraceptive practice can put an end to the horrors of abortion.</p>
<p>The history of abortion shows that it was opposed by law, by religious canons, by public opinion,–-and the penalties range all the way from ostracism to imprisonment; yet neither threats of hell nor the infliction of physical punishment has availed. The two million abortions annually in this benighted country testify to that. Women will deceive and dare. They will resist and defy the power of Church and State. They will march to the gates of death to gain that liberty, that freedom from unending child-bearing which the awakened woman demands.</p>
<p>Intricate and complex, I admit, is this whole problem of woman's control of her procreative function, but it remains the pivot of a new civilization. A great cosmic mystery lies hidden here: that the union of male and female, a communion that seems to private, so personal, so secret indeed that it can scarcely be spoken of in public–-among Puritans at least-–is actually of the most fundamental and public significance for the whole future of the race as well as for the peace of the whole world! In that intimate relationship lies concealed not only the joy or misery of the individual sharing it, but of their children and the children of their children. Here indeed are the gates of the body and here are the gates of the soul!</p>
<p>Never in the whole history of this planet has Woman's place in the creation of the structure of the Future been so important. Today we seem to stand at the end of an era. We witness the bankruptcy and the collapse of Man's attempt to conquer the universe–-of man's one-sided, womanless battle for supremacy. Man has successfully spanned the oceans, flung railroads and airlines across continents, conquered the air, harnessed the endless torrents of water-power. Thorough the lenses of his telescope he has explored distant universes, through the lenses of his microscope he has waged war against germ and microbe; girdled the globe in the fraction of a second with his radio broadcasting.</p>
<p>Everything has been accomplished in the desire to <span class="underline">unite</span> peoples and nations and to bring them closer together. Yet because of the ceaseless hordes of human beings ever multiplying and increasing their numbers, we find mankind goaded on to a frenzy of exploitation and war. Before there was a Capitalist, there were hungry mouths to feed. In going forth to battle, to destroy, to subjugate other nations and races, he has found himself destroyed and mutilated by his victories.</p>
<p>Thanks to our opponents who keep human beings in ignorance regarding contraception, each day reveals about 50,000 extra babies on earth. For every 100,000 who died between dawn and dawn, 150,000 are born. These new inhabitants who survive daily have contributed to the 330,000,000 which have been added to the world's population since 1920, a horde larger than all India's.</p>
<p>In all these ventures woman has been allowed to march beside him–-to serve his physical needs. Man has seemingly succeeded in conquering everything but his own ignorance. My good friend Dean Inge has pointed out that "Nothing fails like success,"and that is the kind of success we witness today. I am not pleading for the substitution of a Woman-made World. For we have had quite enough of exclusively masculine adventure, enough romantic destruction, chaos and confusion. Rather do I look forward to a Future created by the unified, harmonious endeavor of women and men working together as equals.</p>
<p>But before this can be accomplished the pendulum must swing back to get its balance, and in doing that Woman as a creative entity must liberate herself in the constructive work of the world. She must give voice to her female longings, her intuitions, her wishes and desires. She must thrust her energies into the laboratory of experience, just as a scientist goes to find the secrets of the unknown in the mystery of experiment.</p>
<p>Thousands, nay millions of women have in the past sacrificed their lives in devotion to religious creeds. They have abandoned their beauty, interest, education, talents, ambitions, love and motherhood in order to dedicate themselves to their Faith. Is it not time that this same force, idealism and devotion be turned to Science, to the building of a New Civilization? If one thousand women were to offer themselves to Science (as millions have uselessly offered themselves to religion) as to the Laboratory of Life, with their creative and intuitive powers at full speed, we would forge tremendously ahead in Human Progress.</p>
<p>There are three purposes in this Human Laboratory:</p>
<ul>
<li>1st, Give themselves, their bodies and intelligences, to Scientific Research.</li>
<li>2nd, Put their own creative faculties to developing Science.</li>
<li>3rd, Become creative instruments to bring a New Race into being.</li>
</ul>
<p>The solidarity of Woman is as noble as the brotherhood of man.</p>
<p>In the life of every woman come other women, less fortunate, less enlightened, many of them crushed under the burden of poverty and child-bearing. They are too inarticulate to cry out, too poor to have influence, too weak to demand their liberties. The very fact that they have come into your life gives you a spiritual responsibility toward their emancipation. Sympathy is not enough, palliative emergency help is not enough, philanthropy is not enough–-nothing less can you do than help to set them free. Free that they may help themselves. Free that they may grow in wisdom and enlightenment.</p>
<p>Just as the physical sight developed in the body, so shall our spiritual vision unfold as we move upward and onward into that current of life we call consciousness. When we become conscious of our acts, conscious of our responsibility, we shall be conscious of the greatest of all responsibilities-–that of handing on the precious yet mysterious gift of life.</p>
<p>In this let us at least pass it on in a body as fit and perfect as it can be made. Then will the soul that is summoned have at its command an instrument suitable for its highest development.</p>
<p>Only through Birth Control (I assert with all the vehemence I can summon) will women ever gain control of their bodies or develop their souls. Only through knowledge can they ever unlock the great gates to a Future in which joy and happiness will prevail. Only through a new consciousness of birth can Humanity at large ever extricate itself from the man-made muddle in which it is grounded today.</p>
<p>Instead of a world created by irresponsible hordes in hatred and antagonism, free woman shall guide us into a future created by all-embracing love through the consciousness of birth control.</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
1933-09-03
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Margaret Sanger delivered this speech at the International Congress of the World Fellowship of Faiths in Chicago, Illinois.</p>
<p>Additional versions of this speech can be found on the Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Smith College Collections, S71:445, 460, and 477, and on the Margaret Sanger Papers on the Library of Congress Microfilm, LCM 131:463B and 441. Shortened versions were published in <em><span class="journal"><span class="italics">Unity</span></span></em>, Nov.27, 1933 (Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Smith College Collections, S71:325); in the <em><span class="book"><span class="italics">Proceedings of the International Congress of the World Fellowship of Faiths</span></span></em>; and in Charles F. Weller, ed. <em><span class="book"><span class="italics">World Fellowship Addresses and Messages by Leading Spokesmen of All Faith, Races and Countries.</span></span></em> New York, 1935, pp.293-304.</p>
<p>Handwritten corrections by Sanger</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#236166
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Smith College Collections, </span>S71:492
Subject
The topic of the resource
abortion--birth control and
abortion--frequency of
birth control--access to
birth control--and the Bible
birth rate--increase in
England--birth control in
India--birth control in
Japan--overpopulation
Japan--population policies
mentally disabled and diseased--and birth control
physically disabled and diseased--and birth control
population growth
sex and sexuality
sterilization--candidates for
war--and birth control
women and girls--freedom and rights of
women and girls--responsibilities of
Title
A name given to the resource
Woman of the Future
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Typed draft speech
-
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
Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress (LCM)
Description
An account of the resource
LCM ######
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.
Law
United States Immigration Act of 1924
Organization
Roman Catholic Church
United States Children's Bureau
United States Government
National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control
Person
Starr Myers, William
Pius XI (Pope)
Mussolini, Benito
Place
California
Germany
Europe
Manchuria, China
United States
Italy
South America
England
Japan
China
Canada
New York, NY
Australia
Colorado
France
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<p class="byline">Mrs. Margaret Sanger, Chairman of National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, 17 W. 16th St., New York City.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, Ladies & Gentlemen:</p>
<p>In this day of great world upheaval it is natural that there should be drawn up variousplans and proposals as to the means of world peace. My way to world peace is not the way of moratoriums, reparations, or tariffs; it is not the way of Versailles treaties; my way to peace is the way of the people. My way is to direct and control the populationthrough birth control.</p>
<p>There is probably no other subject that has such a practical significance,<span class="addition">which</span> at the same time cuts so deeply into the foundations of social evolution and world peace, as birth control. Birth control is a keynote,-–it is asignal of a new moral awakening; a moral responsibility, not only for those children who have already been born; a responsibility not only for those that are <span class="underline">about</span> to be born;but for those who have not yet been conceived. It is not only a health and economic expedient; it is a great social <span class="line-through">measure</span> <span class="addition">principle</span>, and that <span class="line-through">measure</span> <span class="addition">principle</span> is interlocked and interwoven with the spiritual progress of therace, and its future.</p>
<p>The definition of birth control is "the conscious control of the birth rate by means that prevent conception of human lives." When you prevent the conception of human life, you do not have to destroy human life. You do not destroy,-–you do not interfere with the development of human life, because there is no life to interfere with or to destroy. It is no more an interference with life to prevent conception than to remain single orto live in celibacy. We say "<span class="underline">control</span>." When you control the birth rate you do not have to limit it, any more than when you control your own furnace; you do not put out the fire. You merely adjust its temperature to the requirements of the weather, <span class="line-through">(you do not have to put the fire out)</span> <span class="addition">considering the time of the day and the season</span>. When you control your automobile, you do not necessarily have to stop the engine. And when you control the size of your family, you do not have to <span class="underline">limit</span> yourself to one or two children, but you control <span class="line-through">it</span> <span class="addition">the number</span>; first according to the state of the mother’s health affecting the possible inheritance of the child; second, according to the father’s earning power; andthird, according to the standards of living that you wish to maintain. <span class="line-through">When w</span>e say conscious control-–I wonder if any of us can imagine what it is going to mean when the human <span class="line-through">voice</span> <span class="addition">race</span> is conceived <span class="addition">consciously</span>, not just as a result of casual accident--the reckless abandon of the moment--<span class="line-through">but</span> <span class="addition">when it</span> is consciously <span class="line-through">planned for</span><span class="addition">desired</span> and <span class="line-through">consciously</span> conceived <span class="addition">consciously</span>. I tell you my friends, we <span class="line-through">don’t know what is</span><span class="addition">can only glimpse the wonders that will be be</span> before us, when that possibility becomes a reality.</p>
<p>You hear people say, "Why control the birth rate? There is plenty of room in the world and in this country <span class="addition">for unlimited population?</span> What we need is a more equal distribution of the necessities of life, <span class="addition">a new social system."</span> <span class="line-through">The control of nature is not the control that we desire today, because there are only two ways of controlling the population in that way; either by increasing deaths, or by decreasing births.</span></p>
<p>Let us regard this. Population has always been controlled. From the beginning of time,--back as far as we know anything about the human race, there has been control of <span class="line-through">numbers</span> <span class="addition">population</span> by the <span class="line-through">control</span> <span class="addition">methods</span> of Nature. <span class="addition">his</span> is not the control we desire today. There are only two ways to control population-–either <span class="line-through">increase </span><span class="addition">to decrease</span> the birth rate or <span class="line-through">decrease</span> <span class="addition">to increase</span> the death rate, and all through the history of mankind, population has been controlled by <span class="line-through">the death method</span> <span class="addition">increasing the death rate</span>. Nature has been the most ruthless advocate of birth control <span class="line-through">through</span> <span class="addition">by</span> this method. She has accomplished it through famines, pestilences, diseases, floods and wars. Nature thrusts to the wall the old, the weak, the maimed, the mentally deficient, until she perfects her type. Only the fit and strong are able to survive through the way of nature.</p>
<p>This <span class="line-through">might have been</span> <span class="addition">doubtless is</span> an excellent way <span class="addition">for Nature</span> to perfect <span class="addition">our </span>civilization. But today, whether we like it or not, we no longer <span class="addition">allow</span> control <span class="addition">of</span> the population through nature’s method of increased death rates. Civilization has progressed beyond that. <span class="line-through">Now</span> With the <span class="line-through">development</span> <span class="addition">advance</span> of Christianity; with the <span class="line-through">development</span> <span class="addition">organization</span> of Charity and <span class="addition">development of</span> Humanitarianism, we have <span class="addition">thrust</span> aside the hand of nature, we have interfered with nature’s methods, we will not allow these methods to operate. Civilization takes <span class="line-through">into the race</span> <span class="addition">care of</span> the old, the feeble, <span class="addition">the diseased, the insane, the morons</span> the mentally deficient, and makes it almost imperative for them to <span class="line-through">exist and</span> increase <span class="line-through">their numbers</span> <span class="addition">and multiply</span>. Defectives are <span class="line-through">now </span><span class="addition">fast breeders.</span> <span class="addition">The feeble minded woman is </span>three times as <span class="line-through">fast</span> <span class="addition">fertile</span> as normal <span class="line-through">mothers</span> <span class="addition">woman</span>. This constitutes a real menace to our civilization. There is no doubt that those privileged to carry on the torch of civilization are <span class="addition">comparitively</span> lessening <span class="addition">in</span> numbers <span class="line-through">than those who have become [illegible] on the race</span> <span class="addition">while at the same time they carry the financial burdens of the unfit</span>.</p>
<p>We find, according to psychological tests made by Professor William Starr-Meyer a few years ago, that only 15,000,000 out of a population of 165,000,000 could be classified as intellectuals and it was found that 85,000,000 had the minds of juveniles under fourteen years of age, 45,000,000 were just average and 15,000,000 were known to be feeble-minded. The great majority of the feeble-minded, the degenerates and the morons do not live in institutions but are <span class="line-through">mothers</span> living in homes and multiplying rapidly. Is America then, safe for democracy? In this country, the feeble-minded, if they are twenty-one years of age, have the power to vote and their vote is just as good as that of the fifteen percent who are intellectuals. Isn’t it time to do something about this?</p>
<p>We have today what <span class="line-through">is</span> <span class="addition">scientists</span> call a differential birth rate: <span class="addition">or</span> in other words <span class="addition">a difference in the birth rate of two groups in our population</span>, For the last <span class="line-through">two</span> generations <span class="line-through">perhaps</span>, a certain number of people, mainly the fifteen percent intellectuals have been controlling their birthrate-–that is the group with the small families. They have, perhaps, two or three or four children, but in that group, the greatest number of children achieve maturity. Here, consideration is given to the mother’s health, <span class="addition">to the child's</span> education and to the possible development <span class="addition">of talents</span> of the children.<span class="line-through">and</span> It is from this group <span class="addition">that</span> we find the <span class="line-through">most</span> children going to <span class="addition">high</span> schools <span class="line-through">the longest. Their children go</span> to colleges, universities and eventually <span class="line-through">they fill</span> <span class="addition">filling</span> the best positions in society.</p>
<p>The other group <span class="addition">of large families</span> struggles in poverty and in ignorance. Here we find that poverty and <span class="line-through">ignorance</span> <span class="addition">lack of birth control</span> go hand in hand. We find the mothers broken on the wheel of <span class="line-through">poverty</span> <span class="addition">maternity. Everywhere they ask</span> what they can do to prevent bringing another human being into this world. The fathers become desperate <span class="line-through">when unemployed,</span> <span class="addition">& discouraged</span>. <span class="line-through">They become over-burdened and morally unfit.</span> It is in this group that we have almost all the great social problems of the day. You have slums, over-crowding, high maternal and infant morality, child labor, illegitimacy, illiteracy. Many in this group are not only unemployed, but unemployable, I found, while working among this group, that it is not their fault that they have more children than they can decently provide for. I found an awakening consciousness on the part of these <span class="line-through">women to</span> <span class="addition">mothers and a desire to</span> have only the number that they could decently take care of, but, because of their poverty, they <span class="addition">have</span> found every door closed against them.</p>
<p><span class="addition">Because</span> these <span class="line-through">are the</span> mothers <span class="line-through">who</span> have to go to public institutions, hospitals, etc., for medical advice and care, and <span class="line-through">when</span> they are taken to the hospital to have their babies or to have abortions performed,<span class="addition">when</span> they as what they can do <span class="underline">not</span> to have any more <span class="line-through">and</span> they are told that it is against the law to give them this information; <span class="addition">or</span> that it is immoral and against the laws of nature. Yet, allthe time, the wives of the professional classes are obtaining information to enable them to limit their families.</p>
<p>What do we do about these <span class="line-through"> evils of society</span> <span class="addition">problems</span>? We do not like them; we try to legislate them out of existence. We have been trying for over fifty years to do away with child labor, yet, have we done it? A few years ago, we had several million children under fifteen years working <span class="addition">at gainful occupations</span> in the United States. <span class="line-through">Mainly, </span>These children are taking the place <span class="addition">of adults</span> and competing with their fathers and mothers in industry <span class="line-through">just</span> <span class="addition">mainly</span> for <span class="addition">a</span> daily existence. Behind them are more and more children forced out of schools and homes, little children who should be getting their education <span class="line-through">for the sake of</span> <span class="addition">in preparation for</span> the future of the race. It is a long story, that of child labor. Go to the beet fields of Colorado or to the cotton fields of the South and you will see the devastating effects of ignorance <span class="line-through">on these people</span> <span class="addition">of birth control & child labor</span>. The child labor committee worked valiantly to try to legislate this evil out of existence, but it cannot succeed until Birth Control Clinics are in operation in these sections; until the mothers of these children have the proper scientific information necessary to control their power of fertility.</p>
<p>One can go through almost all of <span class="line-through">these</span> <span class="addition">our</span> social problems and <span class="line-through">you</span> can see at a glance how they are interwoven <span class="line-through">and how they</span> <span class="addition">with and</span> pivot around the question of birth control. Let us consider together two more problems connected with the welfare of the race. Take the simple question of maternal mortality. Every physician will tell a mother who has heart disease or kidney disease that she should not go through child-birth again. If she <span class="line-through">does</span> <span class="addition">should</span> become pregnant <span class="line-through">again</span>, according to <span class="line-through">the laws</span> <span class="addition">medical ethics</span>, it is legal to interrupt this condition <span class="addition">to save her life</span>. But instead of <span class="addition">then</span> instructing her in the means of contraception, she is sent back to her home with only a <span class="line-through">statement that the doctors will not be responsible for her life if she should</span> <span class="addition">warning not to</span> get into that condition again. She then goes back to her <span class="line-through">children</span> <span class="addition">home</span> in a fearful and nervous condition with a death sentence hanging over her head. <span class="line-through">and in a weakened state of mind</span>. Can you imagine the effect <span class="addition">that</span> this <span class="addition">fear</span> creates in a home and what itmeans to the husband and children? Every <span class="line-through">sick</span> mother should be protected by the best information available.</p>
<p>We move from the mother problem to the infant problem. There we find conditions just as bad; there the mortality is even larger. Approximately 200,000 little children never reach their first birthday; ninety-five percent of them are unwanted and the large majority of them die from causes <span class="line-through">of</span> <span class="addition">due to</span> poverty and neglect. There is not one person here who believes that we can do away with this problem next year or the following year--and yet the state allows these mothers to remain in utter ignorance of how to prevent the coming of 200,000 more lives next year and the next year, who are doomed in advance to die from causes of poverty and neglect.</p>
<p>Our Children’s Bureau tells us <span class="line-through">that</span> <span class="addition">from</span> some of their statistics <span class="line-through">with</span> <span class="addition">that</span> this question of <span class="line-through">unfit</span> <span class="addition">infant</span> mortality <span class="line-through">has</span> <span class="addition">is concerned with</span> three <span class="line-through">very</span> vital factors. The first is the father’s wage. As it goes up, a larger number of the children survive--if it goes down,a larger number of children die. Second, is the spacing of children in a family. <span class="line-through">In other words,</span> Where two or three years elapse between the birthdays of children, they have a better chance to survive and develop. The mother has had an opportunity to recuperate and rebuild her health. The family income has been stretched out over the intervening period of years to meet the family needs. We know that the spacing of children determines their chances of survival--that the second child has a better chance to live than the fifth, and the fifth a better chance to live than the twelfth, certainly. We have the astounding statistics that sixty percent of all the twelfth children born in this country are doomed to death before they reach their first birthday. In other words, about six out of every ten children who are twelfth in their family <span class="line-through">are doomed to</span> die before they breathe their first breath. What a waste of child life! <span class="line-through">And</span> <span class="addition">Waste</span> of mother power! <span class="line-through">Which</span> <span class="addition">Both of these</span> might have been put into the constructive forces <span class="line-through">in this world</span> <span class="addition">of race building</span> instead of making <span class="line-through">of our</span> women <span class="line-through">only</span> incubators or child-bearing machines, which is, what women <span class="line-through">have been throughout the ages</span> <span class="addition">become when they are ignorant of birth control</span>.</p>
<p><span class="line-through">While</span> <span class="addition">We know </span>All of <span class="line-through">this</span> <span class="addition">these statistical facts</span> <span class="line-through">we know</span>, and we <span class="line-through">should</span> try to alleviate some of the conditions but our efforts are only palliative. We can correct them only to a certain degree. We give free lunches<span class="addition"> to children</span>, educational care, do everything possible to keep them alive. You rescue a child <span class="line-through">to live</span> <span class="addition">& bring it</span> through its first years, <span class="line-through">and</span> then <span class="line-through">you</span> <span class="addition">we</span> have to battle again to carry <span class="line-through">them</span> <span class="addition">it</span> through the succeeding years and <span class="line-through">then</span> when it becomes fourteen, it secures working papers and starts to compete with his father in industry thereby creating labor problems. Thus all workers become their own rivals in <span class="line-through">trade</span> <span class="addition">the labor market. The law of supply & and demand dominates their existence</span></p>
<p>How stupid the labor organizations have been to recognize the power of limited numbers in a union, but <span class="line-through">not</span> <span class="addition">to fail</span> to recognize <span class="line-through">how illogical it is to permit themselves to become their own rivals</span> <span class="addition">the same principle in their families</span>.</p>
<p>It seems to me there is no greater cruelty than bringing a child into this world <span class="addition">when the parents are diseased or</span> when there is no provision for its care <span class="line-through">when the parents are diseased</span>. <span class="line-through">When studying law or when preparing</span> <span class="addition">In contemplating</span> <span class="line-through">to take</span> <span class="addition">training</span> the robe of priesthood or entering <span class="line-through">even</span> <span class="addition">law or</span> the least of the professions, <span class="line-through">you have to</span> <span class="addition">one must</span> study carefully to fit <span class="line-through">yourself</span> <span class="addition">oneself</span> for <span class="line-through">your</span> <span class="addition">one's</span> duties. But anyone can become a father or mother. It makes no difference how unprepared <span class="addition">or how unfit</span> one <span class="line-through">might</span> <span class="addition">may</span> be-–no difference what one can earn–-one can have <span class="line-through">as large a</span> <span class="addition">any</span> number of children <span class="line-through">as wanted</span>. Let us consider the children born of diseased parents. If we know we had to pass through other human bodies in order to reach another world, would we <span class="addition">not</span> be most particular and careful to choose the kind of parents we should have? We would be more than particular, so why should we not be just as particular about our obligations to the children we expect to bear?</p>
<p>It is not only a personal question; not only a question affecting family welfare but <span class="addition">it</span> is also a question affecting world affairs.</p>
<p>In 1924, the United States Government came to the realization that there was a serious population problem in this country. We were not so much concerned about the number of people as about the quality of the population. The United States Government therefore put a ban on immigration. No alien could enter who had certain diseases or was feeble-minded, <span class="addition">or</span> illiterate, or who came here for the practice of prostitution. There is a very long list of undesirable <span class="line-through">aliens who cannot come into</span> <span class="addition">qualities which ban aliens from</span> this country. Furthermore, <span class="line-through">in case</span> <span class="addition">If in case</span> some of them <span class="addition">who</span> do get in, these undesirable qualities are indicated within five years, these individuals can be deported. This is a good law. We do not want undesirable types to stain the blood stream of the Nation, but, if it is <span class="addition">right that</span> undesirables, <span class="line-through">that they</span> <span class="addition">shall not</span> come <span class="addition">into the country</span> from without, then why isn’t it equally important that they <span class="addition">not</span> increase and multiply <span class="line-through">from</span> within the country? They propagate the same undesirable qualities that we are trying to keep out <span class="line-through">of</span> <span class="addition">by</span> our immigration laws. These laws of the United States Government caused a great upheaval in Europe and have disturbed the flow and flux of population throughout the whole world. Since we have had a selective quota of population, you can imagine what it has meant to some of those countries that had free entry into our country for so many years. Let us consider two countries that are no longer able to find a place for their surplus population in the United States.</p>
<p>There are two countries that we must call danger spots in the world: Italy and Japan. These two countries have a very acute population problem. Japan is a country mostly mountainous with a population of 67,000,000 of people and with a territorial area not quite as large as California. She cannot possibly feed her population and has never tried to reduce her birth rate and density of population which is very heavy indeed. There are only about 148 square miles and over 400 human beings are crammed into each square mile. It means that Japan, not being able to expand in other countries who would not have her<span class="addition"> people</span>, had to look for other outlets for her large over-population. South America was willing to take care of part of thissurplus population, but not all the ships that Japan has could take her surplus population to South America. Japan cannot accommodate them all at home and South America can only accommodate a small percentage.</p>
<p>Japan has an inadequacy of the most important natural resources, <span class="line-through">but</span> <span class="addition">and although</span> she has a good water power and a <span class="addition">large</span> textile industry <span class="line-through">which however, is</span> <span class="addition">even these are</span> insufficient for that great population for which she must provide. Manchuria had all that China wanted and lacked in raw materials, and at the first opportunity she marched right into Manchuria at the psychological moment when the rest of the world was busy at home with its own problems, and it seems that there she will stay. She has <span class="line-through">acclaimed</span> <span class="addition">proclaimed</span> that "Might is Right", and says: "What are you going to do about it?"; <span class="line-through">and</span> it is now indeed too late to do much about it.</p>
<p>Now let us look at Italy who has 119 square miles with a population of 41 millions of people, with over 340 people to a square mile. In 1921 the population was 28 millions at the rate of 156 people per square mile, and in 1922 the population was 40 millions at the rate of 548 people per square mile. The birth rate in 1921 was 30.4, and in 1927 it was 26.4. On top of this population which she could not provide for with the world against her immigration, she had 4 to 5 thousand additional human beings being born into her population annually. Over 25% of Italy’s natural increase was coming into this country every year. France received 6 or 7 percent of Italy’s increase, but France has curbed this percentage because of her unemployment problems. Italy is unable to till her own home areas. She has low standards of living and a slight margin of life. Her water power might be developed but at a great expense. She has very little iron ore and other raw materials. If she <span class="line-through">would</span> <span class="addition">should</span> build up her textile industry she would have strong competition <span class="line-through">in</span> <span class="addition">from</span> Japan.</p>
<p>Neither the industrial nor the agricultural possibilities of Italy can provide for her people, yet we know that Italy is increasing; that her dictators call upon her to increase and multiply; and I read <span class="addition">that</span> there is now a law in Italy providing that every woman must report to a health station periodically to show cause why she has not had a baby every two years. However, this condition of population today <span class="line-through">have</span> <span class="addition">has</span> not been brought about by dictators alone <span class="addition">and although</span> we have only recently become conscious of the importance of birth control and its relation to over-population, with the facts of science and knowledge that we have today, it seems to me that any dictator who insists upon increasing the population by force, <span class="line-through">such a person</span> should be made to account for it at the world court of human justice.</p>
<p>Other countries are doing their best to adjust their populations. Germany is today doing all possible to keep her birth rate down and avert a re-occurrence of the conditions of 1914. France is now trying to compete with Germany by boosting up her birth rate. France increases her numbers fearing that Germany will come across the border to invade her. It is absurd for France to thus compete with Germany whose proportionate majority is so great that France will not catch up to her even in 10 years. France’s death rate--both infant and maternal--is very high, and she should decrease this death rate instead of trying to increase the present population.</p>
<p>England also had an acute problem of over-population and unemployment, so she decided to send her surplus people to some of her colonies in order to remedy the situation. But it did not work out properly. These people were not happy in the wilds of Australia and Canada because of the different environment and climatic conditions. They did not have the resistance and vigor to withstand the climate. The colonies were therefore obliged to send them back to England saying: "We can’t use your slum population. They can’t stand the rigors of the climate."It all comes back to the "quality" of the human being.</p>
<p>My way of peace is a way of birth control. It can be applied in three ways: First, by continence--not marrying. This however, should not be recommended because it implies the abandonment of the natural marriage relationship <span class="line-through">which</span> <span class="addition">and</span> very often results in the break-up of family life. Second, by sterilization. This method is recommended by physicians only in extreme cases where other forms of contraception are not possible. <span class="addition">It is</span> for those who have not the mental equipment or moral character to use means of contraception, and yet who should be given help to prevent their bringing more children into the world. There you have chemical and mechanical methods over which the whole controversy on birth control has been waged.</p>
<p>It is to these methods that the Roman Catholic Church objects. An analysis of the Pope’s recent Encyclical, "<span class="article">On Chaste Wedlock</span>" reveals that they countenance <span class="line-through">intercourse</span> <span class="addition">marital intimacies only for propagation or</span> under certain conditions wherethere can be no possibility of conception.</p>
<p>Now, my way to peace is to apply the same constructive knowledge to this subject that has been applied to industry and to the world of life itself.</p>
<span class="gap"></span>
<p>This is part of the program that we are trying to bring about now. We hope that a falling birth rate will do its part to avert future wars, and to maintain world, as well as international, peace. We want to make it possible for people to have the best scientific information available. We want the medical profession to take this responsibility and to distribute information in <span class="line-through">their</span> public and private practice. We want women to be free from the fear of pregnancy. We want children to be<span class="addition">conceived and</span> born in love, and <span class="addition">to</span> be given heritage of a sound body and a sound mind.</p>
<p>We believe that through Birth Control, untold millions can be relieved of misery andunhappiness. We believe this is the first and most important step we must take if we would bring peace on earth and good will to men and scatter it over the face of the world.</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
Margaret Sanger Papers Project
Japanese Government
Unknown
Rose, Florence
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
1932-02-19
Description
An account of the resource
<p>This is a revised version of Sanger's Jan. 18, 1932 speech ""My Way to Peace." It is not clear if this version was ever delivered or published. Handwritten interlineations were made by Margaret Sanger. At least one page is missing. It is possible this is a draft version of Sanger's speech to the Oklahoma Junior League on Nov. 23, 1933.</p>
<p>A handwritten note attached to this draft reads: "If this can be cleaned up. It will do for our files."</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#129035
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="speech">"My Plan for Peace,"</span> <span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress,</span> LCM 130:201.
Subject
The topic of the resource
birth control--class-based
birth control--definitions of
birth control--mainstreaming of
birth control methods
birth control movement--goals and strategies
birth rate--differential
child spacing
family size--class-based
immigration restriction
mentally diseased or disabled--as social burdens
mentally diseased or disabled--birth rate of
Italy--overpopulation
Japan--overpopulation
population growth--regulation of
population size--and birth control
population size--and war
religion--and birth control
United States--population of
Title
A name given to the resource
My Plan for Peace
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Typed draft speech
-
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
Newspapers
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
Japan, Department of Medical Affairs
Japan, Department of Home Affairs
Kaizo
Japan, Foreign Office
American Birth Control League
Japanese Consulate
Person
Russell, Bertrand
Kaji (or Kato), Tokijiro
Kato, Shidzue Ishimoto
Yada, Shichitarō
Place
Germany
California
Tokyo, Japan
India
Netherlands, the
United States
England
Japan
San Francisco, CA
New York, NY
Asia
China
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>Japan Won't Admit Mrs. Sanger, Head of Birth Control League</h4>
<p class="dateline">San Francisco, 17 Feb. 1922</p>
<p>The Japanese Consulate here late to-day announced that instructions had been received from Tokyoto refuse a visa to a passport of Mrs. Margaret Sanger, of New York, of the Birth Control League, who is in San Francisco preparing to start on a tour of the Far East. Lack of the visa will prevent her landing in Japan, it was said.</p>
<p>The Japanese Department of Home Affairs, through the Foreign Office, issued this order according to Consul General S. Yada. He said Mrs. Sanger would be allowed to book passage upon a Japanese steamship, but that she could not set foot on Japanese soil.</p>
<p>Mrs. Sanger to-day, not having the proper passport visa, was refused a ticket on the Japanese steamer Taiyo Maru, sailing from this port February 21. Mr. Yada indicated to-night there was no objection to the steamship company selling her a ticket.</p>
<p>Mrs. Sanger announced that she intends to sail aboard the Taiyo Maru whether her passport is vised or not, and take chances of being able to effect a landing in Japan.</p>
<p>"Without a doubt the Japanese government feels my lectures in their universities would be in direct opposition to their theories of militarism which they have fostered in the past and still continue to foster," <span class="NYTR">Mrs. Sanger said.</span></p>
<p>Consul General Yada asserted that the Japanese government for some time have been opposed to propaganda "of the sort Mrs. Sanger is reported to spread." He said he presumed that was the reason he had been ordered not to vise her passport.</p>
<p>A few days before departing for San Francisco Mrs. Sanger gave out a statement here in which she said the Japanese government had decided to take steps against "the yellow peril" by instituting a national birth control policy. Mrs. Sanger said she had been in conference with Dr. Kato, chief of the Department of Medical Affairs of the Japanese government,who had been making a study of the birth control movement in the United States, England, Holland, and Germany.</p>
<p>"Dr Kato told me," Mrs. Sanger said, "that the Japanese government is convinced it must establish birth control as a nation-wide movement or at once fight a war of aggression on the next generation. Dr. Kato points out the population of Japan is now 57,000,000 in an area the size of California and that it is increasing at the rate of 800,000 a year."</p>
<p>"For more that a year I have been receiving visits from representative of the Japanese government sent out to study birth control. There have been twenty-five of these visits in all, representing various departments of the Japanese government."</p>
<p>"Dr. Kato told me last week that the majority of the Japanese government were nowconvinced of the wisdom of birth control and that it only remained for the principle to be intelligently communicated to the Japanese people. It has been recognized that over-population is the basis of 'the yellow peril.'"</p>
<p>[Additional quotes from the <span class="newspaper"><span class="italics"><em>Oakland (CA) Tribune</em>.]</span></span></p>
<p>The Kaizo, an organization of young Japanese thinkers, modern to their very finger tips, invited me to visit Japan. They are the same faction that invited Bertrand Russell here. They realize as I do that Japan with 67,000,000, as opposed to our 110,000,000 has her most serious menace in over-population.</p>
<p>This tremendous population is crowded into a country about the same size as California. Added to this handicap, their increase far out totals their death rate. Such advanced thinkers as Baroness Ishimoto, who have sponsored my teachings in Japan and who have asked me to lecture to the Japanese social workers, realize just what this over-population means. It means war, nothing more or less.</p>
<p>[Additional quotes from the <em><span class="newspapers"><span class="italics">San Francisco (CA) Chronicle</span></span></em><span class="newspapers"><span class="italics">]</span></span></p>
<p>"'The entire circumstance of that government refusing to allow me to visit their country has arisen through misunderstanding. I feel quite sure,' the lecturer said, and when the real aim and underlying purpose of my teachings are understood by the Japanese I am certain that my tour will not be interrupted."</p>
<p>"At any rate, I shall sail on schedule time and if I am not allowed to land in Japan I can at least go to China and India and present my lectures there," she continued. "Those governments have placed no obstacles in my path, but signed my passports this morning."</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
New York Tribune
Yada, Shichitarō
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Margaret Sanger
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
San Francisco, CA
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1922-02-17
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Sanger spoke to reporters after her application for a visa to lecturein Japan was denied by the Consul General in San Francisco.The text below comes from the <span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">New York Tribune,</span></span> with additional portions taken fromthe <span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">Oakland (CA) Tribune</span></span> and thethe <span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">San Francisco (CA) Chronicle.</span></span></p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#422009
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="article">"Japan Won't Admit Mrs. Sanger, Head of Birth Control League, </span><em><span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">New York Tribune</span></span></em>, Feb. 18, 1922;<span class="article">"Sanger Tour to Japan Stirs Up Row on Lecture,"</span><em><span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">Oakland (CA) Tribune</span></span></em>, Feb. 18, 1922; and <span class="article">"Birth Control Leader Fights Japanese Ban," </span><em><span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">San Francisco (CA) Chronicle</span></span></em>, Feb. 18, 1922
Subject
The topic of the resource
Asia--birth control in
Asia--overpopulation and
birth control--propaganda and publicity
Japan--birth control in
Japan--censorship in
overpopulation
overpopulation--threat to peace as
Sanger, Margaret--speaking tours--1922 (Japan)
Title
A name given to the resource
Statement on Denial of Japanese Visa
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published statement
-
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
Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Collected Documents Series
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
Law
United States Criminal Code, Section 245
United States Criminal Code, Section 211
United States Criminal Code, Section 312
Organization
Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America
United States National Recovery Administration
United States House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary
United States Postal Service
Senate Judiciary Committee
United States Children's Bureau
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
United Kingdom House of Lords
National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control
University of Arizona
United States National Labor Board
Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops
Latz Foundation of Chicago
Georgetown University
United States Congress
Denver Birth Control Clinic
International Reform Federation
United States Post Office
Person
Wolman, Leo
Soloman, Mr.
Bergdorfer, Fritz
Gibbs, Cornelia McQueen
George V (England)
Pierce, Walter M.
Logan, Marvel Mills
Burton, Hiram Ralph
Wilson, Prentiss
Latz, Leo J.
Willson, Prentiss
Boorde, Thomas
Moore, Mrs. H. G.
Dawson, Bertrand E.
Edin, Karl
Spengler, Joseph J.
Cattell, W. Henry
Wilson, Clarence True
Woodbury, Robert Morse
Guthrie, L. R.
RYAJO
Coughlin, Charles E.
GUTL?
Ryan, John Augustine
Morgan, William Gerry
Walshe, F. M.
Neely, Matthew Mansfield
Chase, William Sheafe
Thompson, Warren
Hastings, Daniel O.
Place
Germany
Europe
New York
Corydon, KY
New York, NY
Colorado
France
Maxwell, IA
England
Japan
Denver, CO
Memphis, TN
Baltimore, MD
Chicago, IL
Louisville, KY
Netherlands, the
Washington, DC
United States
Italy
West Virginia
Philadelphia, PA
Kentucky
Greeley, CO
Publication
"Contraceptive Practices"
Federal Interference with the Administration of State Laws
New Republic
"Rhythm"
Catholic Medical Guardian
Evansville Press
"Sex Rhythm"
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div id="Published-Testimony">
<h4>STATEMENT OF MRS. MARGARET SANGER, PRESIDENT NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LEGISLATION FOR BIRTH CONTROL INC.; DIRECTOR, <name type="org" reg="Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau">BIRTH CONTROL CLINIC RESEARCH BUREAU</name>, <name type="place" reg="New York, NY">NEW YORK CITY</name></h4>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Mrs. SANGER</strong>.</span> Mr. Chairman, this bill, S. 1842, concerns, in my estimation, the 32,612,792 women of child-bearing age in this <name type="place" reg="United States">country</name>. I believe that it concerns that number of women, because every woman, when she becomes of adult age, naturally looks forward to the time when she may be married and become a mother. There are 20,441,719 married women of child-bearing age in this country.</p>
<p>I have had the privilege of coining the term by which this bill is likely to be known, "birth control" legislation. I would like to say that birth control means the control of the birth rate, by means that prevent conception. It does not mean that it interferes with the development of life; it does not mean that it interrupts the process of life nor that it takes life. The prevention of conception is not any more an interference with the process of life than remaining single or living in continence or celibacy. In the control of the birth rate we do not mean that we must limit the birth rate. It means to control the size of the family, but it does not mean limit it to 1 or 2 or to any specific number of children. We want the first consideration to be of the health of the mother; then the consideration of the health of the children that are already here; then consideration of the father's ability to earn a living for his family and the standard of the living that the parents wish to maintain for the cultivation and the education of the family. I would just like to make that definition clear for that is what we are talking about in using the term "birth control," as it may be used by other speakers.</p>
<p>Some years ago as a trained nurse, I found that I could not discuss this question with mothers; that I was unable to get information to assist them, even after they had been told by the doctors that another baby would cost them their lives. We found that the main thing in the way of doing that was <name type="law" reg="United States Criminal Code, Section 211">sections 211</name> and <name type="law" reg="United States Criminal Code, Section 245">245</name> of the Penal code, passed by the <name type="org" reg="United States Congress">Congress</name> 61 years ago.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, in looking over the record and the history of that law and the way it was placed upon the statute books, I contend and believe that Congress at that time never intended that persons should be deprived of knowledge by which they could reasonably rear and care for their children. The whole law and all the discussion around it at that time, as we find it in the record, has relation to obscene literature coming to this country that was being circulated among young people. The intention of the law was to stop the circulation of indecent literature, and the prohibition of information to prevent conception never was intended in the sense of its rightful use. I cannot believe that any Congress then or today would want to deprive mothers of knowledge they rightfully should have for the benefit of the family and really for the benefit of the community and the country.</p>
<p>The law as it is set forth in sections 211 and 245 makes no exception. It does not exempt the medical profession or permit them to use the mails or common carriers. It make no exception for scientific or medical literature, to permmit such to go through the mails or by common carriers. We feel that the <name type="org" reg="United States Postal Service">United States mails</name> should be opened for information on this subject to those qualified to make proper use of it for the good of the country</p>
<p>I have here, Mr. Chairman, the laws to which this bill pertains and a small leaflet that we brought forth on Federal interference with the administration of State laws, with which we contend this law does interfere; and also a brief summary of the State laws which allow an exempton to the medical profession and a general exemption in certain cases. In <name type="place" reg="">New York</name> State, through my spending 30 days in jail, I was able to have a court decision that interpreted one of the laws of our State, by which the physician could give information for the "cure and prevention of disease." Many of the other States have similar laws. Some of the States give the right to anyone; other States allow teaching of the subject in medical colleges and universities, and so on.</p>
<p>If you will permit it, I would like to place this in the record, as indicating what has been done in the way of Federal interference with the administration of these State laws.</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Senator Logan</strong>.</span> You may do so.</p>
<p>(The statement of the present law and summary of the State law referred to was marked "Exhibit B"; and the pamphlet entitled "<span class="book">Federal Interference with the Administration of State Laws</span>," was marked "Exhibit C"; both of which appear at the close of the statement of this witness.)</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Because of these State laws and under the authority and the right of State laws, people who are interested in this subject and are connected with social and civil work in the communities have established over 150 of what we call "birth-control clinics" throughout the country. Those are legally established centers, but they have to bootleg their supplies from New York and <name type="place" reg="Chicago, IL">Chicago</name>, where the large manufacturing concerns are located. That is the situation today, and it is a situation that, to my mind, is very reprehensible and that we hope to change through this bill, S. 1842, by allowing the physicians, licensed clinics, and hospitals the right to use the United States mails and common carriers for that legitimate and rightful purpose.</p>
<p>Section 211 also makes it a crime for anyone to tell anyone else where such information may be obtained. In other words, these clinics that are legally established in various States not only have to bootleg their supplies but also bootleg any proper modern information than concerning contraception. Many of the doctors have no more information than the people had 40 or 50 years ago, which should belong in the ark. In order to get any new, scientific information, they have to bootleg it. Most physicians do not like to put themselves in that position.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, I have had a million letters from women in this country, from the time I began this campaign of education up until about 4 years ago. I have had a million personal letters about the hardships of some of these women. I have had to jeopardize my freedom, run the risk of a $5,000 fine and five years in prison for violating section 211, by telling these women where in their own States they could obtain that which they were legally entitled to under their own State laws.</p>
<p>That is what we are fighting for. We want to do away with this bootlegging. Representative <name type="person" reg="Pierce, Walter M.">Pierce</name> told you about that article in the <span class="journal">New Republic</span> called "<span class="article">Birth Control's Business Baby</span>." He did not ask you to put it in the record. With your consent, I would like to leave it for the record, because it does show the things we are trying to do away with; that these things are surreptitiously done; that the manufacturers of commercial products are producing them at very high prices because of the laws which have created this situation.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Logan</span></strong>. That may be incorporated in the record.</p>
<p>(The document referred to was marked "Exhibit I", and is printed in full at the close of the statement of this witness.)</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger</span>. There is no particular avenue or direction for these people to go in which to get the right information. They have to go to the drug store and have it whispered over the counter that this or that will do. And we know from our recent research that many of these products are not effective. We have purchased 100 so-called "contraceptives" and put them through scientific tests. We put them through laboratory tests and had clinical tests, and submitted them to physicians, and we found that 43 out of the 100 were practically of no use whatever. Purchasing those things has caused many women serious injury. We have not gone into that very thoroughly yet, because we have just tested them as to their efficaciousness, and 43 out of 100 were of no use. It means a fraud is being perpetrated upon the public. This is a brief statement of the results of our research that I would like to have go into the record.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Logan</span>.</strong> That may be incorporated in the record.</p>
<p>(The document referred to was marked "Exhibit E", and is printed in full at the close of the statement of this witness.)</p>
<p><strong>Mrs. Sanger</strong>. If I may stress this, by way of a little explanation when we talk about the question of preventing contraception we claim there are three methods of preventing conception. The first is continence. No one objects to continence. We have no objection whatever to certain religious orders claiming that is the only method the church can sanction. There is nothing in the law against it. They may practice it, and we say that this is their own affair, their own individual right.</p>
<p>The next is sterilization. Sterilization is for people who have to responsibility toward parenthood or toward children. It is becoming more and more prevalent, as you know from reports from <name type="place" reg="">England</name>, <name type="place" reg="">Germany</name>, and other countries. We have in this country over 24 states that have sterilization laws, allowing certain authorities to advise sterilization in special cases where there are transmissible diseases or certain transmissible ailments. That is not a part of our provision.</p>
<p>Then there is the chemical or the mechanical means of contraception, which is one that places in the hands of the parties involved the legal right to use means to prevent contraception, and it is around that group that most of the discussion seems to be centered.</p>
<p>There is nothing mandatory about this bill. We are not imposing any method upon anybody. We are not claiming that every family must obtain this information, but we do say for those who wish to use some means they should have the legal right to do it, and those who wish to use one particular means or no means at all should not have the right to impose that upon the whole community. We claim that we have a perfect right to use such method as our Physician indicates is the right one for the individual.</p>
<p>As we have stated, we are making no claim that any one means or method is a panacea for all. Various women differ. They differ as to the number of children, and their physical conditions become different. The economic situation is also different. We want to place the giving of information in the hands of those who can disseminate it properly, so that those desiring it may receive instructions and necessary scientific advice from those who are qualified to give it. It is just the same as the 10-cent pair of glasses in a 10-cent store. That is no way for people who need to have them to have glasses fitted. We want this subject removed from the 10-cent store and the gasoline stations and placed in the hands of those who are qualified in every way to explain the relations of parenthood properly.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, we have had to go through many difficulties in connection with this subject since 1914. Some of us have served time in jail, We have been arrested time and again, just because we wished to exercise the right of freedom of speech and help educate those who were in need of help. We have been able to get some decisions from the courts that have in a way interpreted these laws in different ways, especially in the States. Members of Congress have said to us:</p>
<p><span class="UNK">You will never get anything through Congress. Why do you not go to jail and get your court decision?</span></p>
<p>I say Congress should be ashamed to compel us to go to such extremes and to resort to such methods for our laws. Why should we have to go to the courts to have our laws made? That is what Congress is for. People have a right to look to Congress and to bring these questions before it. We should not have to go to the expense of lawsuits and go to courts to have our laws made. I think you will all agree with that.</p>
<p>Now, then, as to the clinics: There are 157 birth-control clinics in this country. I have a statement here of the number of those clinics and the location, but I do no know whether I can put that in the record or not. There may be some question of a violation of section 211.</p>
<p><span class="LOGMA"><strong>Senator Logan</strong>. That may be filed with the committee, and we will treat it as a privileged communication.</span></p>
<p>(The document referred to was marked "Exhibit F", and is filed with the committee.)</p>
<p><strong>Mrs. Sanger.</strong> I want to talk a little about the waste of life, a fact which brought me into this cause more than anything else. First, I was to refer to the terrific number of abortions that are going on, which is a colossal number. I think we can show from the record that it runs over a million a year, and that does not begin to tell the story. There is the waste of women's lives, the waste of child life, and the terrible suffering of women. No woman can keep her health and continue to go through these operations with increasing pregnancy every year, especially when it is done surreptitiously. The condition of those nervous and unhealthy women is something really beyond our belief or understanding, and it is terrible that we should have to make it necessary for the women of America to go into these dangerous conditions and live under those conditions which I would call an underworld of suffering. It seems to me to be a state of barbarism.</p>
<p><name type="person" reg="Woodbury, Robert Morse">Dr. Woodbury</name>, of the <name type="org" reg="">United States Children's Bureau</name>, published some very interesting data where he clearly shows that too short an interval between childbirths markedly affects the infant death rate. Where the interval between births is 3 years, the infant death rate is 80.5 per 1,000 births; when the interval is 2 years, the rate is 98.6; and when it is only 1 year, the infant mortality goes up to 146.7. Certainly that is a very striking increase.</p>
<p>In homes, for instance, where the average number of persons per room is less than 1, the infant death rate is 52.1; where it is 2 or more persons per room the death rate is 135.7. Furthermore, in families where the per capita income from the father's earnings was less than $50 the infant mortality rate was 215.9, as compared with a rate of only 60.5 where the per capita amount averaged #400 or over. These figures clearly and strikingly indicate the influence of family over-crowding upon family well-being.</p>
<p>I would like to read this little thing about Jimmy. Nobody wanted Jimmy, but he was born anyhow, and died three weeks later. His mother was sick with worry before he came. Childbearing in 1925, 1927, 1929, and 1931 had left her in miserable health, with bad varicose veins. his father was a $25-per-week mechanic working part time. Which of us, under such circumstance, would look forward to the birth of Jimmy? The community did not want him. <name type="place" reg="Philadelphia, PA">Philadelphia</name>'s relief burden in 1932 was approximately $11,000,000.</p>
<p>Yet this community gave his mother prenatal care, which amounted to $6.75. A social agency boarded his 4 brothers and sisters over 13 weeks, at a cost of $170.50. His mother was in the hospital 20 days, at a cost of $80. The layettte for the baby cost $7. He contracted meningitis at home and was given medical care and nursing by the city, at a cost of $15.25. He died and was buried free by the community, which cost $30. So his short and painful life cost the community $309.50.</p>
<p>Ask yourself, was it fair for Jimmy to be born at this time, with no chance for a happy childhood? Was it fair to his brothers and sisters when the father made enough money for food only, with no money for rent or clothing? Was it fair to the community which is now supporting over 70,000 families?</p>
<p>We believe that a child's first right is to be wanted. We believe that hunger and fear cannot create a wholesome home for a baby. We believe that during this crisis the community cannot now keep in health and decency the children who are here.</p>
<p>I also have some interesting statistics submitted by Prof. <name type="person" reg="Spengler, Joseph J.">Joseph J. Spengler</name>, <name type="org" reg="">University of Arizona</name>, in relation to conditions in <name type="place" reg="">Colorado</name>, to which I should like to call attention to very briefly.</p>
<p>In Weld County, <name type="place" reg="Greeley, CO">Greeley, Colorado</name>, the county commissioners pay for birth-control supplies. The cost of supplying the patient with birth-control supplies is approximately $1.50. The cost of the indigent woman either through a confinement case or through a miscarriage, which averages about once a year, in each case was $50 for hospitalization, nursing, and pre-natal and post-natal care. This is the actual cost to the county and does not include the cost of caring for the child later.</p>
<p>The county estimated that there are about 200 such cases yearly, making a total cost of $10,000 per year. For $300 it was possible then to save $10,000.</p>
<p>We wish to point out, however, since this clinic is a branch of <name type="org" reg="Denver Birth Control Clinic">the Denver clinic</name>, and obtains birth-control supplies from the Denver clinic, that we find the country breaking the Federal laws by having birth-control supplies shipped through the mails.</p>
<p>I have just two or three letters here that I would like to call you attention to. The first is from <name type="place" reg="">Corydon, KY</name>., and reads as follows:</p>
<p><span class="UNK"> you will only tell me I will do anything in the world for you I can.</span></p>
<p><span class="UNK">Pleas</span><em>I read your address in the <span class="journal">Evansville Press</span>, and I wonder if you could help me any. I have two children. My mother has 10. I am only 20 years old, I live in fear all the time for I never know when I will get that way again. My oldest child is hairlipped and we want it fixed; part of it has been fixed but haven't the money to do any more. My husband only makes $10 a week so you see it is all we can do to live. I will never forget it if you will tell me how to keep from having children. I will tell my mother; her youngest child is younger than mine. It is terrible; if</em>e.</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">Yours truly.</span></em></p>
<p>This woman could have been sent to <name type="place" reg="Louisville, KY">Louisville</name> where there is a birth-control clinic. We could have had a social worker take her there. It would pay the people of <name type="place" reg="">Kentucky</name> to pay her carfare to that point and take care of her. In order to try to save that woman I had to jeopardize my freedom and run the risk of a $5,000 fine to tell her where she could go to get decent information to protect herself.</p>
<p>Here is another letter from <name type="place" reg="Memphis, TN">Memphis</name> along the same lines, which I should like to read:</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">In regard to Birth-control bill S. 1842, how I wish all those people, priest and all that are so bitter against birth control, had to have babies every 9 months and know what it is to see little children hungry and cold, not to say anything about the slave life the poor mother is living and the suffering she goes through. I will do all I can for the cause. I haven't any money--we are sure having a struggle these days to make ends meet. Only hope the bill goes through for we poor women need help if anything or anybody does.</span></em></p>
<p><span class="UNK"><em>I worry so much. I have such a hard time.</em> <em>Oh, I don't want any more babies--am half crazy - am half tempted to leave my husband, but then how would I get along, and there are the children, and we all love one another, and he doesn't want any more babies either, so write my, dear unseen friend.</em></span></p>
<p>Here is one from <name type="place" reg="Maxwell, IA">Maxwell, Iowa</name>. I should also like to read this into the record: <br /><br /><span class="UNK"><em>I have been married 10 years and during that time have given birth to 5 children: 3 girls and 2 boys. After the third one was born, I suffered a severe breakdown in health. It weakened my heart and stomach to such an extent that I am unable to do a big day's work. Whenever I do, I am so tired and exhausted I cannot sleep for hours. I have lain awake many and many a night, so tired my heart just pounded and thumped.</em> <em>Oh, but it is terrible. No one knows what it is like unless they have it to go through with. The children are so close together. They are all just like babes yet and are so noisy and fight and fuss till I am almost crazy. The oldest one died, so I have only four living but that is enough. I did not act right when the last one was born. I just had to gasp for breath and had such a strangled feeling. If we had lots of money I might get along better than I do, but my husband is a laboring man and there is no money to pay expensive doctor fees and laundry bills, and so forth. If I could do something harmless to</em> <em>keep from raising any more children my husband and I both would consider it a godsend. e cannot take proper care of the ones we have, let alone any more. My baby is 2 months old and I want to find out something to do before I have the chance to get pregnant again.</em></span></p>
<p><span class="UNK"><em>Miss Sanger, if you know of anything to help me stop all this, please inform me, for I am getting desperate. I have been tempted to commit suicide many a time. If I had good health, it would not be so bad but I wish you</em> <em>could see me. I married when I was 16. I will be 27 my next birthday and I look older than my husband and he is 35. And I feel older than I look. Everybody speaks about how tired I look and I am tired. So tired, nervous, and worn out I feel like I could drop in the floor and die without a single shudder.</em></span></p>
<p>What would this law do? In the first place, it would place the proper responsibility for the giving of information upon the medical profession and hospitals where women go to have their babies, and to these maternal wards in the hospitals. It would give the poor women, who are unable to go to the hospital, the opportunity to go to some member of the medical profession, who has a right to judge such matters. If she could go to the hospital to have her baby, she should be able to get proper information there. It gives the poor woman the right that only the well-to-do have had.</p>
<p>We should like to do more than this law asks for, and I hope before long we can ask for more an appropriation for this work in various States, especially in mountainous sections where women have a difficult time getting to a hospital. We would like to have regular Federal birth-control clinics, maternal-health clinics, where these women may get advice and where they may get proper attention. We hope before long that we may ask for just such an appropriation from the Federal Government.</p>
<p>In closing, may I saw there are many aspects of this question that are beyond our scope to deal with today. in my estimation, the placing of information in the hands of qualified persons and permitting them to give out such information would be very beneficial. I would like to see such information given out, regardless of whether there is overpopulation or underpopulation; regardless of whether there is a high birth rate or a low birth rate; regardless of whether there is going to be more or less baby carriages or baby bottles sold.</p>
<p>Regardless of all these commercial and material interests, I would like to see the mothers themselves receive consideration, and we must trust the mother that she is, going to use that advice, not only for the benefit of her child and her family but for the benefit of the community and the country. I believe that we should consider, under the <span class="article" reg="United States Constitution">Constitution</span> of this country, that every woman should have the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and I ask you favorable consideration of this legislation. [Applause]</p>
<p><span class="LOGMA"><strong>Senator Logan.</strong> Thank you, Mrs. Sanger.</span></p>
<div class="section">
<h4>FURTHER STATEMENT OF MRS. MARGARET SANGER, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION FOR BIRTH CONTROL, <name type="place" reg="Washington, DC">WASHINGTON D.C.</name></h4>
<p><strong>Mrs Sanger.</strong> Mr. Chairman, I would like to cover just one point of rebuttal and, if you will allow me, I would like to have <name type="person" reg="Willson, Prentiss">Dr. Prentiss Willson</name> speak later.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, there seems to be a good deal of confusion concerning this law and the amendment that is proposed. As <name type="person" reg="Stevenson, Adlai">Stevenson</name> said, "<span class="STEAD">condemnation is misunderstanding</span>." I should like to feel that is exactly the situation here, that it is misunderstanding. In the first place, the amendment that we are proposing and that is under discussion is not the law. The laws are already on the statute books in sections 211, 245, and <rs reg="United States Criminal Code, Section 312">312 of the Criminal Code</rs>. They were enacted by Congress over 60 years ago.</p>
<p>All the conditions our opponents claim would happen in case this bill or this amendment passes are taking place with the law as it is now and as it has been for over 60 years. All that we ask is that this amendment exempt the medical profession, hospitals, and clinics from the penalties of the law. The amendment is simple, it is comprehensive and it is in plain English, so it seems to me any one should understand it.</p>
<p>Now, the reason, in my estimation, that there is this confusion and all the conflict going on that none of us like to see is because there has been such confusion between the State and Federal laws. Forty-seven States allow the physician to give the contraceptive instruction for the "<span class="CRAFR">cure or prevention of disease</span>;" other States do not mention the physician at all or do not mention or limit the giving of information to the physicians; and other States allow the medical colleges to instruct.</p>
<p>And so it varies in all of the States. In 24 States they have no restriction whatsoever. We claim that the licensed physicians, hospitals, and clinics are proper sources of information in every State, and we are trying to educate the public accordingly.</p>
<p>All that we are trying to do, I repeat, is to pass this amendment, which affects only the United States mails and common carriers in regard to physicians, hospital and clinics all licensed by their respective State laws. It does not affect these circulars and these things that are already in existence and that have already been forwarded through the mails. We all are opposed to these objectionable things. But one of the reasons they are circulated is because there is no control over this particular kind of literature.</p>
<p>No physician is going to give contraceptive advice on the telephone nor is a physician going to use the United States mails to instruct a patient. It is absurd to even think of it. What the physician is going to do, is to get through the mails and common carriers better instruction and information himself, as well as necessary supplies, which he has not been able to have because of this law. As we have shown in the hearing, medical publishers will not publish articles in medical magazines nor in books, nor will they print textbooks on contraception for the medical profession, because of this law. they will not distribute copies or circularize copies of their magazine which might get them into a row by publishing something that is against the law. The consequence is that the medical profession has not, so far, had the advantage of obtaining up-to-date contraceptive information that is freely permitted them in other countries. Not only that, we know from our experience in clinics and our studies and research that advice alone is not enough, there must be some device, either a mechanical or medical means to carry out the doctor's instruction for the patient as he prescribes.</p>
<p>I don't know anything else I can say about these laws. This bill will not permit information to be given indiscriminately, to make it more clear and definite. We must go back to the States and place the responsibility squarely up to the States as to the physician who misuses the law. We will have nothing to do with that. That is a matter for the physicians themselves, to control, and, as the bill states, he must be a legally licensed physician to practice medicine. Now, if the State or Territory is going to license that physician, it is supposed to find out what kind of a doctor he is, and if they give him the right to practice medicine within the proper limits of the law then certainly he should have the same right to use the mails and common carriers.</p>
<p>We have already put into the record the laws, so I won't discuss them in detail, but bear in mind that they have already been admitted. They have gone into the record to show exactly what the State laws are.</p>
<p>The confusion seems to be that because there are obscenity laws in the various States, that they must include also the prohibition on contraceptives, which is not true. We are placing the information in the hands of physicians who are licensed to practice under the State laws. I wish we could get that clear, because I think it is very much to the advantage of all to understand this point.</p>
<p>The other day there were a good many questions asked about the other countries. I think it might be of interest to state that there are two other countries in the world that have laws concerning or prohibiting the dissemination of birth-control literature - <name type="place" reg="">Italy</name> and <name type="place" reg="">France</name>. These laws have only been in operation since 1918, or since the close of the war. But in neither of these countries is there such a law as we have here in section 211. Their laws do not affect the physician and they do not prohibit the physician from advising the use of contraceptives in his medical profession. They simply do not allow the promiscuous use of articles and advice and information to be hawked on the street corners and in the shops.</p>
<p>The same may be said about England. Very recently there was a bill before the <name type="org" reg="United Kingdom House of Lords">House of Lords</name>, proposed by <name type="person" reg="Dawson, Bertrand E.">Lord Dawson</name>, who is the <name type="person" reg="George V (England)">King</name>'s physician. In England there has never been any restriction on contraceptive advice or information since 1876. Now Lord Dawson has asked the House of Lords to pass a bill which will not allow the sale of contraceptives on the street corners, or hawked on the streets. The Lords passed the bill 46 to 6; with only 6 of the members against it, because they wanted no restriction whatsoever. There was no question of restricting the physician or medical practice, but those six Lords wanted no restriction whatever because they felt that was not the way to go after abuses, but that necessary reforms had to go further down into the moral conscience of the individual.</p>
<p><span class="HASDA"><strong>Senator Hastings.</strong> I suppose it is you contention, Mrs. Sanger, that freedom in England has not destroyed the morality of the youth of the nation?</span></p>
<p><strong>Mrs. Sanger</strong>. That is my contention. It is the same with <name type="place" reg="Netherlands">Holland</name> and the other countries. In Holland, for instance, birth control has been better organized than any other country in the world. Over 60 years ago they had placed it in the hands of midwives and nurses and doctors and had the practice of contraception properly directed. They followed up their death rate, and if the child died they sent a nurse into the homes to find out why it died, and in this way they attempted to decrease the death rate. Consequently they have earlier marriages and a large increase in population, which is a very interesting point because , as you can see from their statistics, they have a lower death rate than any country in <name type="place" reg="">Europe</name>, so much lower death rate than <name type="place" reg="">Japan</name>, for instance, that their survival is practically the same. In other words, Holland has protected its women, has protected all of its women and children, and has done away with, you might say useless, needless deaths of its mothers; and they have more of a population increase proportionately. I think that is a very interesting point in answer to <name type="person" reg="Ryan, John Augustine">Dr. Ryan</name>'s point made here as to the question of decreasing population which I will refer to later.</p>
<p>There are one or two points which I would like to include, among which are the following:</p>
<p>Here is a book that has been brought out entitled <em><span class="book" reg="The Rhythm">Sex Rhythm</span></em> published with "ecclesiastical approbation" by the <name type="org" reg="">Latz Foundation of Chicago</name>, and under the heading of <span class="LATLE">"Consequences of contraception"</span> there is this question:</p>
<p><span class="LATLE">Question. Are all Catholic doctors in agreement as to the serious physical consequence of contraception?</span></p>
<p><span class="LATLE">Answer. Very few have had the occasion to express themselves on this subject in print. Probably the majority of Catholic practicing physicians would subscribe to Dr. <name type="person" reg="Walshe, F. M.">F. M. Walshe</name>'s statement in the <span class="journal">Catholic Medical Guardian</span> of July 1927--</span></p>
<p>And so on. I would like to include that, if I may. It says:</p>
<p><span class="WALFM">"<em>Hence, however great our forebodings as to the physical evils which may be associated with birth-control practices, we cannot decently initiate an active medical campaign against them, and remain inactive and silent where a much greater evil obtains.</em>"</span></p>
<p>Then, under the heading of procreation in the same book it says:</p>
<p><span class="LATLE">"<em>Question. Are married people obliged to bring into the world all the children they can?</em></span></p>
<p><span class="LATLE"><em>Answer. Far from being of obligation, such a course may be utterly indefensible. Broadly speaking, married couples have not the right to bring into the world children whom they are unable to support, for they would thereby inflict a grievous damage upon society.</em>"</span></p>
<p>I would also like to include that.</p>
<p>I would also like to present a statement by Dr. <name type="person" reg="Wolman, Leo">Leo Wolman</name>, chairman of the <name type="org" reg="United States National Recovery Administration">Labor Advisory Board of the N.R.A.</name> and a member of the <name type="org" reg="United States National Labor Board">National Labor Board</name> of <name type="place" reg="Washington, DC">Washington D.C.</name>, as an economist and a man of vision and experience.</p>
<p><span class="NEEMA"><strong>Senator Neely.</strong> You may do that; you may put them all in.<br /><br />[<em>The statement by Leo Wolman was omitted by the MSPP editors.</em>]</span></p>
<p><span class="NEEMA"><strong>Senator Neely.</strong> Your time is getting short; 15 minutes has gone.</span></p>
<p><strong>Mrs. Sanger.</strong> I have 20 minutes?</p>
<p><span class="NEEMA"><strong>Senator Neely.</strong> Yes; but you have used 16 minutes now.</span></p>
<p><strong>Mrs. Sanger.</strong> I only have a little more.</p>
<p>Here is a ruling from the Post Office Department for a booklet called <em><span class="journal">Contraceptive Practices</span></em> addressed to <name type="person" reg="Moore, Mrs. H. G.">Mrs. H. G. Moore</name>, stating that the use of mails was prohibited.</p>
<p><reg resp="MSPP">[<em>The letters from the Post Offic Department was omitted by the MSPP editors.</em>]<br /><br /></reg><span class="NEEMA"><strong>Senator Neely</strong>. All of these documents may be printed in the record, without taking your time to discuss them; but if you wish to discuss them, you may proceed.</span></p>
<p><strong>Mrs. Sanger</strong>. Thank you very much. Those are some of the various statements [handing papers to Senator Neely].</p>
<p><reg resp="MSPP">[<em>The statements provided by Mrs. Sanger were omitted by the MSPP editors.</em>]<br /><br /></reg><strong>Mrs. Sanger.</strong> I would like Mr. Chairman, before Dr. Wilson speaks, to read one letter written to me, because it is about a woman who came here from <name type="place" reg="">West Virginia</name>.</p>
<p><name type="person" reg="Guthrie, L. R.">"Mrs. Guthrie</name><em> has authorized me to furnish you a report of my findings in her case. Mrs Guthrie, many will remember, came as the miner's wife from West Virginia, a mother of 12 children; and here is a summary of her case as we found it when she came here:</em></p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">The patient is a white woman in late middle life who gives her age as 43, though her physical characteristics are those of a woman at least 10 years older. She states that she hs given birth to 12 children and has had two miscarriages.</span></em></p>
<p><em>I find it goes on to tell the condition of this woman, and the doctor says:</em></p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">"I have seldom seen such a deplorable pelvic condition in any woman. Unquestionably it is due to her too-frequent bearing of children."</span></em></p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">Mrs. Guthrie must be, without delay, subjected to extensive pelvic surgery. Above all things her precancerous condition must be remedied at once. In addition to her rectocele should be repaired, her uterine support reestablished, and a surgical sterilization should be performed in order that the bearing of more children may not undo this extensive work of surgical repair.</span></em></p>
<p><em>Here is a woman who came here to testify on behalf of the other miners' wives, and she was found to be in such a deplorable state of condition. We have a letter from this woman today, who pleads for the support of this bill, and concludes her letter as follows:</em></p>
<p><em><span class="GUTLR">As the mother of 12 children I will have to close and get ready to go to the hospital, asking the prayers of every religious person. As I believe in <name type="deity">God</name> I also believe in birth control for humanity's sake.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span class="GUTLR">Mrs. L. R. GUTHRIE"</span></em></p>
<p>Father Ryan stated:</p>
<p><em><span class="RYAJO">"I call attention to the obvious fact that unemployment and depression could not be attained to any appreciable extent through birth-control practices for 15 or 20 years."</span></em></p>
<p>He overlooks the factors of human distress and mental anguish of millions of mothers living in constant fear of pregnancy, which could be immediately removed by the passage of this bill. Furthermore, families who are at present on the relief rolls of this country, of which there are approximately 4,000,000 today, and those now on the border line, who would be placed on relief if another child were born into that family, could secure immediate relief, if able to go to public-health care clinics and secure information to limit the size of the family during this period of depression and unemployment.</p>
<p>To quote further from the book <em><span class="book" reg="The Rhythm">Rhythm</span></em>, by <name type="person" reg="Latz, Leo J.">Dr. Leo Latz</name>, published with "Ecclesiastical approbation":</p>
<p><em><span class="LATLE">"Burdens that test human endurance to the utmost limit and to which all too many succumb will be lightened. I speak of economic burdens, the burden of poverty, of inadequate income, of unemployment which make it impossible for parents to give their children and themselves the food, the clothing, the housing, the education, and the recreation they are entitled to as children of God."</span></em></p>
<p>Father Ryan says:</p>
<p><span class="RYAJO">Every well-informed person is aware that the change in the Penal Code proposed by this bill would not substantially increase the knowledge or the use of birth control by any class of the population. Prof. <name type="person" reg="Thompson, Warren">Warren Thompson</name> admits this fact in the statement put into the record of the hearings before the <name type="org" reg="United States House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary">House of Judiciary Committee</name>, the 18th of last January.</span></p>
<p>I quote the passage referred to:</p>
<p><span class="WARTH">"<em>I do not believe that keeping the laws as they are will have any appreciable effect in preventing the decline of the birthrate. * * * I regard contraception as one of those great movements toward human freedom and the rationalization of life. * * * If the Members of Congress could only be made to feel the inevitability of this great movement toward human freedom they would certainly not oppose it.</em>"</span></p>
<p>Obviously there is nothing in Professor Thompson's statement to warrant Father Ryan's assumption.</p>
<p>When Father Ryan stated that there was a decline in the birth rate from 1921 to 1932 he failed to mention that during these very years the population increased nearly 20 million in the United States. As the population grows larger, the rate of increase must slow down. This has been true for the last 100 years. He should take into consideration the decrease in the general death rate and the infant-mortality rate, lessening human suffering and waste of human life.</p>
<p>Father Ryan challenged the statement that the general practice of birth control would stimulate the birth rate in the educated classes. We reply, it has been shown in the cities of northern and western Europe that the democratic practice of birth control has stimulated the birth rate of the educated classes, and they are now having more children per family than the poorer classes (<name type="person" reg="Edin, Karl">Edin</name> and <name type="person" reg="Bergdorfer, Fritz">Bergdorfer</name>).</p>
<p>Father Ryan criticized our criticism of <name type="person" reg="Coughlin, Charles E.">Father Coughlin</name> who said it was a biblical injunction to <span class="BIB">be fruitful and multiply.</span> Our criticism was that Father Coughlin by his celibacy had failed obey this injunction. Father Ryan's explanation is that 30,000 priests and 80,000 nuns in this country would not effect the population increase, for if they married they would provide only 275,000 children or about 2 1/2 to each. Our answer is that if 80,000 nuns were not practicing birth control they could be potential mothers of 800,000 children, providing they did not interfere with the Divine command to <span class="BIB">increase and multiply.</span> Father Ryan states that the contention of the proponents of this bill is that <span class="RYAJO">the duty of providing for the poor rests upon themselves rather than the State--by foregoing normal family life or by having no children or very few children.</span></p>
<p>Yes, we do contend that self-respecting people "poor" or "near poor" prefer to help themselves and keep free from public or private charity, by bringing into the world only the number of children they can decently provide for. The practice of birth control through the passage of S. 1842 will enable such families to live normal sex lives. It will make possible the natural relations of family life by bringing a family of 10 or 15 children to become a public charge on the community often becoming inmates of prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, or public institutions.</p>
<p>When Father Ryan claims that <span class="RYAJO">a change in the law now would be tantamount to a public declaration that the long-established legal attitude and policy were wrong</span>, he made the weakest point in his long chain of weak arguments. We believe that it was never right to couple contraception with abortion, indecency, and obscenity. Congress made that blunder 60 years ago. It will amend this law as it repealed the eighteenth amendment, when public opinion demanded it.</p>
<p>Finally, Dr. Ryan says:</p>
<p><span class="RYAJO">"<em>We oppose any change in the law which we believe and know to be intrinsically and profoundly immoral--the natural law which forbids contraception.</em>"</span></p>
<p>To what law does he refer? It is a natural law for man to use his reason, his intelligence, and "inborn" intuitive faculties, drawn from Nature herself. It is natural to desire children. It is natural to desire only the number of children one can decently provide for. It is also natural for people endowed with a sense of responsibility for their children to use their natural intelligence to apply scientific knowledge to their problems, for the welfare of their children, the community, and the country as a whole. Intelligence is a part of nature as well as the animal function of reproduction.</p>
<p><name type="person" reg="Gibbs, Mrs. Rufus">Mrs. Gibbs</name>' testimony should be disregarded as an opponent to bill S. 1842. Her position is ridiculous.</p>
<p>She stated that she had borne four children in 6 years. For 20 years she has had an ophthalmic goitre, and has had no further pregnancies, her physician having advised her how to avoid further childbearing. How selfish and hypocritical to oppose the granting of similar information to other mothers. Mrs. Gibbs is fortunate to live in <name type="place" reg="Baltimore, MD">Baltimore</name> and have the means to obtain proper information which has safeguarded her health and life. Yet she would deny the right to less fortunate women to receive the same advice. Her case proves to be one of our contentions that pregnancy may jeopardize the life of women.</p>
<p><name type="person" reg="Burton, Hiram Ralph">Mr. Burton</name> introduced <name type="person" reg="Chase, William Sheafe">Reverend Chase</name> as representing the <name type="org" reg="">International Reform Federation</name>. This is incorrect. We have already filed a statement from <name type="person" reg="Wilson, Clarence True">Rev. Clarence True Wilson</name>, vice president of this organization, which states that the International Reform Federation has taken no action on the legislation. The statement of Reverend Chase is merely his personal opinion.</p>
<p>Canon Chase infers the <name type="org" reg="Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops">Lambeth Conference of Bishops</name> went on record as opposed to birth control, which is untrue. We take exception to this statement and quote herewith a paragraph from this statement of Lambeth Conference which reads as follows:</p>
<p><span class="LC">If there is a good moral reason why the way of abstinence should not be followed, we cannot condemn the use of scientific methods to prevent conception * * *</span></p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4>WHAT THIS CHANGE IN THE LAW WILL DO</h4>
<p>First, it will give the doctors, hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, public, State, and county health agencies the right to order and receive, through the mails and common carriers, the articles needed to protect the health of these women who need such protection.</p>
<p>It will place the giving of this information in the hands of qualified persons who will be responsible for its dissemination.</p>
<p>The opponents did not refute nor can they refute the scientific facts, medical and economic, as presented by the proponents of this bill. They did not deny that maternal health is jeopardized by too many births; that abortions are the result of too frequent pregnancies,; that physicians should have the legal right to give contraceptive advice when necessary.</p>
<p>They admit that 47 States allow the dissemination of contraceptive information.</p>
<p>They admit that the laws as they stand today are violated on a wholesale scale.</p>
<p>They admit that the whole subject is out of control of the law, contraceptive articles being scattered promiscuously, regardless of their need or proper use.</p>
<p>On all major facts we are in agreement.</p>
<p>To the proponents it is a question of national health, economic responsibility, and individual liberty.</p>
<p>The opponents have thus far not produced a distinguished scientist, either economist or sociologist, eugenicist, or population authority, at any of these hearings, nor have they had representatives of any non-Catholic organizations, except Mr. Ralph Burton, their chairman.</p>
<p>While non-Catholic individuals have opposed this bill, they each and every one have proclaimed they represented no organization. Mrs. Rufus Gibbs; Dr. <name type="person" reg="Morgan, Gerry">Gerry Morgan</name>, dean of medical school of <name type="org" reg="">Georgetown University</name>, a Catholic university; Rev. <name type="person" reg="Boorde, Thomas">Thomas Boorde</name>, Canon Sheafe Chase; Dr. <name type="person" reg="Cattell, W. Henry">W. Henry Cattell</name>; <name type="person" reg="Soloman, Mr.">Mr. Soloman</name>--all others represent Catholic organizations and thus attempt to impose their "beliefs" upon the American people.</p>
<p>We could respect and understand, though profoundly disagree with, our opponents, if they came here and said:</p>
<p>This is our conception of morality. It is our religious belief that birth control is wrong. We cannot concede to any interference with the laws of Nature and we prefer slums, overcrowding, disease, filth, maternal, and infant mortality, child labor, prostitution, illiteracy, unemployment, crime, imbecility, national decadence, and wars to any change in these laws--</p>
<p>But we cannot respect the attitude, the loose thinking, and the hypocrisy of those who oppose birth-control practices and offer no practice alternative to take its place.</p>
<p>They base their entire case on Catholic morality, and would impose this upon the American people, which is an arrogant assumption of authority.</p>
<p>I wonder if Dr. Wilson would tell us something of the medical conditions, or the consequences.</p>
<p>[<em>Statement of Dr. Prentiss Wilson, M.D. was excluded and not transcribed</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Mrs. Sanger.</strong> Dr. Cattell mentioned in his letter the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, as to their stand on birth control. Here is a pamphlet that was brought out by the Committee on Marriage and <name type="org" reg="Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America">Home of the Federal Council</name> which I would like to put into the record. It contains excerpts from statements made by religious leaders. I think it has not gone in as yet.</p>
<p><span class="NEEMA"><strong>Senator Neely</strong>. If it is in the record, we will not duplicate it. It apparently seems to have been lost. Is that all, Mrs. Sanger? </span></p>
<p><strong>Mrs. Sanger</strong>. Yes.</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
Crane, Frederick
Ryan, John Augustus
Logan, Marvel Mills
Walshe, F. M.
Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops
Unknown
Guthrie, L. R.
Neely, Mathew Mansfield
Bible
Coughlin, Charles E.
Latz, Leo J.
Thompson, Warren
Hastings, Daniel O.
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>Sanger gave testimony on behalf of the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control before the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of S. 1842. The following excerpt includes only Margaret Sanger's testimony and the questions she answered. The chairman of the meeting was Senator Marvel Mills Logan.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#300449
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="book">Birth Control: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate</span> Seventy-Third Congress Second Session on S. 1842, March 1, 20, and 27, 1934. (Washington, 1934), pp. 14-21 and 149-163
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Collected Documents Series</span>, C15:833
Subject
The topic of the resource
abortion--laws and legislation
birth control--access to
birth control--definitions of
birth control--distribution of information
birth control--lack of knowledge of
birth control--morality of
birth control clinics and leagues
birth control laws and legislation--Congressional bills--S. 1842 (1934)
birth control laws and legislation--Criminal Codes
birth control laws and legislation--doctors-only laws
birth control laws and legislation--Postal Codes
birth control legal cases--Crane Decision or People V. Sanger
birth control methods--chemical contraceptives
birth control methods--sexual continence
Catholic Church--and birth control
family size
mortality rates--infant
Netherlands, the--birth control in
physicians--and birth control
Sanger, William--arrests, trial and imprisonment
sterilization
women and girls--reproductive choices and decisions
Title
A name given to the resource
Testimony Before the United States Senate on S. 1842
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
Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Collected Documents Series
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.
Law
Section 211 of the United States Criminal Code
Organization
International Birth Control Conference (7th, Zurich 1930
William Wood & Co.
Mount Pleasant Congregational Church
Cambridge University
American Medical Association
United States Department of Justice
Cleveland Maternal Health Association
Oxford University
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
The Johns Hopkis University
Person
Austin, Warren Robinson
Hastings, Daniel
Moses, Bessie L.
Clinchy, Russell J.
Wood, Gilbert C.
Stone, Hannah M.
Mensinga, Wilhelm
Place
Chicago, IL
Europe
England
France
Germany
Zurich, Switzerland
Chicago, ILL
Rotterdam, Netherlands, the
Washington, DC
Baltimore, MD
United States
The Hague, Netherlands, the
Netherlands, the
New York, NY
Amsterdam, Netherlands, the
Publication
The Practice of Contraception: An International Symposium and Survey">proceedings
Text
Any textual data included in the document
BIRTH CONTROL Friday, June 24, 1932 Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 o'clock a. m. in room 107, Senate Office Building, Senator Austin presiding. Present: Senators Hastings and Austin.
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Mrs. Sanger, the committee wanted to resume these hearings in order to get more definite information bearing upon the precise question of what the immediate necessity is for the passage of this act, and there were certain ideas the committee wanted to develop. Perhaps you have others also, but if you do not mind, I would like to ask you a few questions which would indicate our objectives and the kind of evidence we would like to get. In the first place, I would like to ask you about the practical side of this thing. What knowledge is there that would be available that is not now available, regarding the use of contraceptives, if this act were passed?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> As to the practical side, perhaps, it may be of interest to the committee to know that until 1915 the information they had in this country at that time applied only to the use by the male. Practically nothing was known on the whole general subject of contraceptives. I say it with a certain amount of pride, personally, that when I began to study this question as a trained nurse, and realized that the people we were trying to help most were the ones where the husbands were not so concerned about helping the women. I, therefore, started to make a general survey of the whole subject. I went to Europe and studied in 1915 and 1916, and in Holland I found that it was almost an old subject. They had proper information. They had different devices entirely, not depending upon the use by the male, but by the woman herself, placing the responsibility of the birth of a child mainly upon the woman’s shoulders, and Doctor Mensinga and another doctor invented a kind of pessary, which was harmless. This pessary was fitted to each individual. They made plaster of Paris casts of the different women until they got a certain number of pessaries of different sizes.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> How many?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> They have different kinds. When I was there I saw at least 15 different kinds, with at least 20 different sizes in Holland. They had been giving contraceptive advice; instructions in such a normal, natural way; it was part of their whole general economic living.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> May I interrupt you and ask if those pessaries were used with gelatin?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Not at that time.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Was their use accompanied by a douche?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Douches, in most of those countries are rather difficult. They do teach them a cleansing process of a douche, a spray douche, but it was not necessary. They teach them cleansing with toilet paper, or cotton, or some means of cleansing, but the pessary was washed in soap and water. They use soap and water a great deal. It was very primitive, and they had to teach the women to use the things in the home because of the expense.</p>
<p>In France, douching is more prevalent and more applied there than in Holland, but speaking of Holland, they have for 40 years used these contraceptive appliances which are removed so that the woman’s organs are kept healthy and in a normal condition. I found there that the infant mortality rate had gone down in proportion, that the birth rate had gone down, but the survival was very much higher than in any country in Europe. The infant mortality rate was the lowest at that time, in the cities where they had clinics, The Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam--those cities had the lowest rate in the world. I was interested to discover how their practice of contraception would affect the morality of the people, and I went to the central bureau of statistics at The Hague, and told them what I wanted. I was practically challenged to find a native woman living in prostitution--a native woman. They said, “<span class="UNK">We have prostitutes in Holland, but you will not find a Dutch woman living in prostitution.</span>” I said, “Why, is there any difference in human nature?” and they said, “Our family life is different.” “<span class="UNK">We begin earlier and encourage early marriage among our younger people, and in that way when the girl and boy in our districts, in the butter and cheese districts, or in other districts are encouraged to marry early, they both work for one or two years after the marriage,</span>” and the question of having a baby was considered very practical, for instance, in the light of or on the basis of purchasing a piano, or any other expense.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> You do not mind if I interrupt you?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> No.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> We have one hour to try and find out a great deal here. Of these various types of devices, are there any that are not available in this country at the present time?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Yes, indeed: some very important ones.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> What are they?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong"> Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> There is a pessary which is of a special form, a special shape which they have in Holland and other countries, which protects the woman. In Holland, Germany, and in England there are no types of women that can not be protected, but we have to depend on those bootlegged here.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Are they all made of rubber?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Yes.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> And the ring principle with the diaphragm involved in all of them?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Yes; but all of them are different. Each woman has to be examined, and the kind that would fit one woman may not fit another.</p>
<p>I would like to emphasize the fact that there is no one thing that we are pushing. We have no interest whatsoever in any particular device.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Is there any device excepting the pessary that they have in Europe which is not available here?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Different kinds of pessaries! They are investigating, I think, experimenting with some interesting things there. There are three experiments. One is a serum that they believe will immunize the female from conception for a certain period of time.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Is that a sort of emulsion?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> No; I believe it is an injection of a special serum, like an antitoxin. That is an experiment.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Taken in the blood?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong"> Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Yes; in the blood.</p>
<p>The next is the vitamin E, which they are experimenting with, which they claim has a definite effect on sterility or fertility of the male or female.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Is that permanent?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> No. They are experimenting, but they want them to be temporary. Where vitamin E is, there is a certain high fertility or low fertility in its absence, and then there is another extract made from the corpus lutem with which they are experimenting. All these new experiments are going on open and above board in Oxford, Cambridge, and in Europe. The plan will be of great importance and significance to the whole population.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Are there any other mechanical devices which you have suggested which might be available if this law were changed, that are not now available?</p>
<p><strong>Mrs. Sanger:</strong> Well, I should think mainly, as far as I know, they are the pessaries of different kinds and different types. Of course, jellies are also combined with the pessaries today, and chemicals are used. The intrauterine pessaries are advised by physicians, but that is in an experimental state. We leave it entirely to the physician to advise with the patient, and we do not desire to interfere with what he or she wishes, but simply to inform them, and they do the rest.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> About the gelatins, are there numerous, different types of gelatins available?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Yes.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Are they available in this country now?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> They came from Europe--the original formula came from Germany, and, of course was sent back for a time, and finally the formula was sold to a manufacturing chemist in this country. When it was sold, it was not sold for contraceptive purposes, but mainly for some ailment like leucorrhea. That is mainly how these jellies are able to be sold today, for prevention of disease, but the market is being flooded in a dangerous way, because there is no control over them.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Are these gelatins available in tubes, with devices for employing them?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Yes. Most of them are.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> What about the medical lore on this subject? Do you know whether the state of medical science here in America is up to the standard of that science abroad on this subject?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Doctor Moses is here with us, and I would like for her to go into that.</p>
<p>[<em><span class="italics">A brief conversation between Dr. Moses and Senator Austin about her qualifications, followed by Moses' explanation of how diaphragms are fitted, was omitted by the MSPP editors.</span></em>]</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Is the reason why you do not get these things [medical supplies] by automobile or private carrier because of the cost?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Dr. Moses:</span></strong> I do not think we ever considered that.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> The Cleveland clinic does that. They send a messenger to Chicago or New York.</p>
<p><span class="italics">[<em>A brief exchange between Bessie Moses and Senator Austin about her experience with medical societies and the training of physicians in birth control was omitted by the MSPP editors</em>.]</span></p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin.</span></strong> Do you not think the physicians of this country have learned these things already, and realize that one woman will be spared by one thing, and another by another?</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Doctor Moses</strong>.</span> No; I do not think so. I think they are extremely weak on the subject, and they themselves will tell you that. I know prominent gynecologists at Johns Hopkins who know absolutely nothing about this whole field. The reason I know it is because they come and talk to me, want to know what the methods are, and learn about it.</p>
<p>There have been books published recently, and also "<span class="book">The Practice of Contraception: An International Symposium and Survey" proceedings</span> of the conference on contraception which was published by Mrs. Sanger and Doctor Stone. They gave the good and bad types of various devices that may be used. It is against the law to mail those books in this country. I suppose they are sent by express.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Yes.</p>
<p>I have here letter trying to the the proceedings on contraception, which I will read.</p>
<h6>"October 2, 1930. William Wood & Co. New York City<br /><br />Dear Sirs: I have recently come from an international conference on birth control, held in Zurich, Switzerland, on September 1 to 5.<br /><br />The Proceedings of this conference are bound to be of importance to the medical profession, and I wonder if you would consider the publishing of this report. All the papers were written by physicians or scientists, and the discussions by physicians and scientists only. The only scientists who took part were biochemists and biologists from Edinburgh University, Oxford, and Cambridge, men of good standing and who are doing excellent work along biochemical lines.<br /><br />I should very much like to talk to you about publishing this report, if you are at all interested. Would you kindly let me know.<br /><br />Sincerely, Margaret Sanger."</h6>
<p>I have many letters of that kind, like Wood & Co., even medical publications refusing to review one of these books because they said it was against the law and they did not want to be involved.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin.</span></strong> That is right?</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Doctor Moses</strong>.</span> Yes.</p>
<h6>"William Wood & Co., Publishers, New York, October 8, 1930</h6>
<h6>Mrs. Margaret Sanger. New York City</h6>
<h6>My Dear Mrs. Sanger</h6>
<h6>Thank you very much for your letter of October 2. Until the laws of this country have been changed, it is quite impossible forme to consider the publication even of accepted reports in England on this subject of birth control. You have talked with me a number of times about this, but I wish to keep out of jail.</h6>
<h6>Thanking you for your consideration, I am,</h6>
<h6>Sincerely yours, Gilbert C. Wood."</h6>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Just before I came I looked in our book, and at our clinic in New York we have had 700 physicians come there to us to learn he technique of contraception.</p>
<p>[<em><span class="italics">An exchange between Austin and Moses on contraceptive jellies has been omitted</span></em>]</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> What is the type of physician, what kind of men?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> A great many southern men. They have come to New York to a conference or something, and physicians have sent them to us, a large number of gynecologists or obstetricians. They want to know just what to do, and the physicians send them down to our clinic, and the same in Washington. When they come here they are sent to the clinic at Baltimore to Doctor Moses.</p>
<p>[<em>A<span class="italics">nother brief conversation between Bessie Moses and Senator Austin about the difficulty in obtaining contraceptive supplies due to legal bans was omitted by the MSPP editors.</span></em>]</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> Can you not obtain these supplies without breaking the law?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> Not by common carrier, or express or mail.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> You have an option as to whether you can do it one way or another.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> There is only one way. I suppose they get supplies from New York and Chicago. Unless you have a manufacturing center of these pessaries in every community, you have to violate the law. This section says express companies and common carriers, and not only that, but it is violating section 211 for us to tell another person where to go and give her the address where contraceptive information may be obtained. I have been written to by the Department of Justice where complaints have been made that I gave the address of this clinic at Baltimore to a person who was a decoy, and that was all, gave no information, said “go to the doctor there, and they will probably give you such advice.”</p>
<p>[<em><span class="italics">A brief conversation between Bessie Moses and Senator Austin on the education of physicians on contraceptive methods was omitted.</span></em>]</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> I was going to say, as far as the physicians are concerned in this country, we have had to help the poor people. Where a poor woman writes to us, and especially to me, and asks what she can do, I advise her to go to a physician in her community, a physician who has come in and taken a course in technique, and these physicians are glad to help. We often pay her fare to the doctor’s office, and the doctor will giver her advice free. We get in contact with social workers and tell them to tell her to go to the doctor. I have letters from physicians asking me if I can tell them about the law. They say they do not want to break the law; they want to do the right thing, but the doctors are confused as to the law.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> I want to ask a question, and you need not answer it if you do not want to. Have you had any evidence that the medical profession generally regards your activities as an intrusion into their particular sphere?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> I think at first they did, as a layman. Just a trained nurse. I think that was very much resented by them, my intrusion, first, because I was a layman, and they had a guilty conscience themselves. They knew every word about the conditions were true, and I had found means of contraception that were safer than any, and there was resentment.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> If it were true the American Medical Society at its last meeting tabled this suggestion very abruptly and declined to act upon it one way or the other, what would your reaction be to that? What would you think that indicated?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong"> Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> To me it would indicate the natural trend of events of the history of the medical profession as an organization. All throughout their history they have declined to take up certain things, and gradually the public conscience pushes them into it and they have taken it. I was not surprised at all. The division of gynecologists and obstetricians did come out with a statement concerning our objects, and this whole group of the American Medical Association, most of whom are general practitioners--very few of them are gynecologists or obstetricians-- are not brought face to face with this issue. It looked controversial and something that thy were divided on. Certain elements get into the organization, and I was not at all surprised at that.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin:</span></strong> I am glad to see you do not attribute any selfish or ulterior motive.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger:</span></strong> No. I do not consider it in that way.</p>
<p>[<em><span class="italics">A conversation between Moses and Austin on one thr the trustees of the American Medical Association was omitted by the editors. Also omitted was a short statement by Dr. Russell J. Clinchy, minister of the Mount Pleasant Congregational Church.</span></em>]</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Senator Austin</strong>.</span> Do you think if this law were passed it would be any more legitimate for letting the girl getting this information than before.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Doctor Clinchy.</span></strong> That would depend entirely upon the doctor. This is entrely in the hands of doctors.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin.</span> </strong>You think it would be asier for her to get it?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Doctor Clinchy.</span></strong> Dependent upon her circumstances.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin.</span></strong> But not any more lawful.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> </strong>I should not think it would be so easy. In a case where young, unmarried people are living together, they are not using this sort of pessary. They can not use it without a medical examination; in other words, if this law had some provisions for the physician to legitimately give proper advice 20 or 25 years ago, I believe we would not have our young people bootlegging it over the counter and getting anything at all.</p>
<p>When our young men went to war there were two things that they were taught. The physicians taught our men two things, that they must not impregnate a girl in Europe and they must not run the risk of a venereal disease, and they were taught the use of condoms; that is mostly what these people are using. As soon as we can educate them not to take such risks and not to violate the sanctity and beauty of sex we will be accomplishing a great deal. Condoms are generally unsafe.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin.</span></strong> They are unsafe?</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Mrs. Sanger.</strong></span> They may be unsafe as they get them over the counter.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin.</span></strong> They still may conceive?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Yes; there is no 100 per cent safety, but there is a possibility of 99 per cent safety when properly taken care of. I believe firmly that we are working in the right direction for clinics and physicians to instruct women and to have them go to qualified physicians to receive this information.</p>
<p>[<em><span class="italics">A brief conversation between Bessie Moses and Senator Austin about giving giving contraceptive information to unmarried women was omitted.</span></em>]</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Today with the laws as stringent as they are, with no leeway, no exemption, we are having this terrific condition. We are trying to improve it.</p>
<p>You asked a question about the immediate necessity. I believe there never has been the time that it is so necessary as it is today. We have had a number come to us who were ready to commit suicide, husbands out of work two or three years, and these women having the double burden, not only the economic burden but the constant worry and fear of the possibility of another pregnancy, when they do not know what they are going to do. A woman came in a few days ago and said that her husband is home all the time, not working. What are we going to do--the anxiety and nervousness?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Senator Austin.</span></strong> You are imparting information to these people?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> We can do it in New York for the prevention of disease.</p>
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
Austin, Warren Robinson
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
1932-06-24 and 30
Description
An account of the resource
<p>S4436 was a bill to "amend Section 305(A) of the Tariff Act of 1930, and Sections 211, 245, and 312 of the Criminal Code as Amended." This excerpt from the complete hearings includes only Margaret Sanger's testimony and questions put to her. For testimony of May 19 and 20, 1932, see Testimony before the United States Senate on Senate Bill 4436.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#300447
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="book">Birth Control: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Seventy-Second Congress, First Session on S4436</span>, June 24 and 30, 1932 (Washington, 1932) pp. 1-12.
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Collected Documents Series, </span> C15:814
Subject
The topic of the resource
birth control--distribution of information about
birth control--health benefits and risks
birth control--lack of knowledge of
birth control methods
birth control methods--condom
birth control methods--diaphragm
birth control methods--douche
birth control methods--efficacy of
birth control methods--pessaries
censorship--in United States
conferences--International Birth Control Conference-- 1930 (7th)
Europe--birth control in
France--birth control in
mortality rates--infant--Netherlands, the
Netherlands, the--birth control in
women and girls--freedom and rights of
Title
A name given to the resource
Testimony before the United States Senate on Senate Bill 4436, 24 June 1932.
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
Margaret Sanger Microfilm Edition, Collected Documents Series
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
Lord
Law
United States Tariff Act, Section 305
Immigration Act of 1917
United States Criminal Code, Section 211
Organization
National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control
International Birth Control Conference, 7th
United States Congress
United States Children's Bureau
Edinburgh University
United State Customs Service
United States House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means
Cambridge University
Roman Catholic Church
American Medical Association
United States Postal Service
United States Census Bureau, Department of Vital Statistics
Walworth Women's Welfare Centre
Johns Hopkins University
United States Government
White House Conference on Child Health and Protection
Oxford University
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
Person
McCormack, John William
Crisp, Charles Robert
Stone, Hannah Mayer
Ryan, John Augustine
Meyer, Adolf
Samuel (Biblical)
Jesus Christ
Sarah (Biblical)
Kelly, Howard Atwood
Woodbury, Robert Morse
Stuart, H. C.
Comstock, Anthony
Jacobi, Abraham
Hancock, Clarence
Isaac (Biblical)
Virgin Mary (Biblical)
Esau (Biblical)
John the Baptist (Biblical)
Rebekah (Biblical)
Norton, Mary Hopkins
Joseph (Biblical)
Chase, William Sheafe
Hoover, Herbert
Hannah (Biblical)
Canfield, Harry Clifford
Wesley, John
Caruso, Enrico
Rachel (Biblical)
Jacob (Biblical)
Pusey, William Allen
Butler, Lily C.
Place
Lake Erie
Chicago, IL
England
Scotland
France
London, England
Germany
California
Los Angeles, CA
Israel
United States
New York, NY
Zurich, Switzerland
Mississippi
Italy
Publication
Medical Journal and Record
Bible
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<div>
<h4>STATEMENT OF MRS. MARGARET SANGER, NATIONAL CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LEGISLATION FOR BIRTH CONTROL</h4>
<p class="dateline">New York City</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, first may I thank you in the name of our committee for your kindness and consideration in giving us so much of your valuable time this morning.</p>
<p>I also wish to assure you that were it not for our deep conviction that the bill we are trying to persuade you to enact into law, means so very much to millions of women in the country, we would not worry or trouble you to give us time at this particular period of mental distress, in the hurry of your own work.</p>
<p>This bill directly affects 25,000,000 married women of child-bearing age in this country. It indirectly affects the health and the future development and the education of 45,000,000 children in this country, of which 10,000,000 are handicapped, mentally or physically, according to the reports given at the White House conference called by President Hoover last year.</p>
<p>More than 1,400 experts reported that those 10,000,000 handicapped children were handicapped because of conditions of poverty, ignorance, or neglect. And yet, Mr. Chairman, no fundamental cure was offered to prevent the coming of 10,000,000 more children who will eventually be handicapped, from causes of ignorance, poverty, and neglect.</p>
<p>Because of the controversial nature of this subject, commonly known as birth control, I wish to tell you something about its general application.</p>
<p>This movement in its modern state began in this country in 1914. I myself, as a mother of 3 children, a member of a large family of 11, and a trained nurse, early came to the conclusion from my own experience in the slum districts of New York City, that this was one of the most vital factors in maternal health and in the health of children.</p>
<p>I found everywhere women who were seeking some means, some knowledge of what they could do to prevent the coming of other children whom they knew, owing to their physical defects, they were unable to bring into the world in a healthy condition; or, owing to their husband's economic circumstances, they would be unable to provide for.</p>
<p>So I began to wonder if we could not do something about this law, which was passed by Congress in 1873, nearly 60 years ago. With all the advance that women have made and with all the advance of our charities and our philanthropies and with all the billions that are spent upon disease and defects, delinquency, and dependency, we still allow-–in fact we almost force married persons who continue in their normal, marital lives, to bring into the world children for whom they themselves could not provide.</p>
<p>So, in order to stir up interest in this question and to get this law changed, it was necessary to organize public sentiment, which has now grown into the birth-control movement.</p>
<p>Birth control is the conscious control of the birth rate by means that prevent the conception of human life. We emphasize “prevent”; not interrupt, not destroy. It does not mean abortion. It does not mean the interruption of life after conception occurs. There is no more an interruption of life or a destruction of life in preventing conception than in remaining single or living in abstinence or celibacy. Physiologically speaking, there is no difference.</p>
<p>We say “control.” When we control, we do not have to limit any more than when you control your furnace you have to put the fire out. We control the furnace according to the heat that we desire to maintain in the home, according to the season, according to the hour of the day or night. You control your motor car, but you do not have to stop the engine.</p>
<p>So, in controlling the size of the family or controlling the birth rate, we control it in accordance with the mother's health, in consideration of the quality of inheritance that we are going to pass on to our children, in consideration of the father's income and his earning capacity.</p>
<p>This law, Mr. Chairman, was put upon the statute books at a time when there was very little recognition of the value of the practice of family limitation, when there was very little knowledge of the technique of contraception.</p>
<p>Birth control or prevention of contraception was classed in the obscenity clause with abortion, pornography, and indecency; and it does not belong there.</p>
<p>There was no exemption for physicians. There was no exemption for hospitals or dispensaries.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, when that law was passed, it practically closed the avenues of knowledge to the medical profession in this country; it closed out knowledge of research that has been going on in other countries.</p>
<p>It has left us, in so far as the control of child bearing is concerned, practically as in the days of barbarism or savagery. Furthermore, to all intents and purposes, the day that law was passed, women were placed into the category of child-bearing machines. Under this law they practically become conscript mothers.</p>
<p>President Hoover in his address before the White House conference said:</p>
<p><span class="HOOHE">“Let no one believe that these are questions which should not stir a nation; that they are below the dignity of statesmen or government. If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated, and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish. We would assure ourselves of healthier minds in more vigorous bodies to direct the energies of our Nation to yet greater heights of achievement. Moreover, one good community nurse will save a dozen future policemen.”</span></p>
<p>There are altogether seven very definite reasons-–perhaps more--but I shall take up only seven, why we claim that birth control should be practiced.</p>
<p>First. Wherever there is a transmissible disease, either the husband or wife suffering from insanity, feeblemindedness, epilepsy, or any other form of transmissible disease, neither of those persons should consider being a parent.</p>
<p>Second. In conditions where the mother or the woman has a temporary disease, such as tuberculosis or a heart or kidney disease, pelvic deformity, goiter, and various other conditions, pregnancy becomes a great hazard to the woman's life. We claim that mother should be protected by having contraceptive information so that she can regain her health before she takes upon herself the burden of pregnancy.</p>
<p>Third. Where parents though seemingly normal themselves, yet have already given birth to defective children, children with cleft palates, children that are subnormal, that are deaf and dumb, we claim that just for the good of the State those parents should refrain from further child bearing, even in spite of the great desire and hope for a normal child.</p>
<p>Fourth. Every mother should safeguard her health as well as that of her unborn child by spacing the births of children for a period of from two to three years.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the days are past when it was a very easy matter for women to give birth to children, as it was two or three generations ago. Today it is known that the whole organism of a woman's life, her nervous organism, is quite different from what it was in her grandmother's days, and child bearing is a greater hazard today than it ever was before. In many, many cases, it leaves her not only in a precarious condition at the time, but often in a damaged condition for the future.</p>
<p>We ask that she be able to recuperate from that ordeal, to take the time to enjoy her baby and to take the time to prepare herself physically and mentally and spiritually for the coming of the next child she may wish to have. That means a spacing from two to three years between children.</p>
<p>Doctor Woodbury, of the United States Children's Bureau, published some very interesting data where he clearly shows that too short an interval between childbirths markedly affects the infant death rate. Where the interval between births is three years, the infant death rate is 86.5 (per 1,000 births); when the interval is two years, the rate is 98.6; and when it is only one year, the infant mortality goes up to 146.7. Certainly a very striking increase.</p>
<p>Fifth. There are economic considerations. We believe that it is unfair, that it is not right, for people to have children for whom they cannot provide, and it is just as unfair for a man and a woman to have children that society or the community or their older children have to provide for as it is for one country to spill over the other country's border. It is just the same morally.</p>
<p>We know that in our work we have had women come to us who 10 years ago were unable to provide for 4 or 6 children and who today have 12 or 15 which the community has been providing for and taking care of.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, we found in our records that most of these children have to go out to work, have to compete with their father in the labor market just as soon as they get old enough to get a labor certificate from the community.</p>
<p>We claim that our young people, while they may marry, and it might be advisable for them to marry early, should wait until they are fully complete in their development, through the adolescent period, before they become parents. We believe it would do away with a great many questions of immorality, promiscuity, and various other questions that concern us all today if this were more encouraged on the part of society.</p>
<p>Sixth. The adolescent period must be considered. We are learning a great deal about the adolescent boy and girl. In the old days the Greeks advised their young men not to marry until their twenty-fifth year. There was something very important in that. Perhaps they did not know it scientifically, but today we know that a man does not become really a man until his twenty-fifth year and that the woman does not become a woman, she is a girl, practically, until after the twenty-third year.</p>
<p>This is illustrated by other findings of Doctor Woodbury. In homes, for instance, where the average number of persons per room is less than 1, the infant death rate is 52.1; where it is two or more per room, the death rate is 135.7. Furthermore, in families where the per capita income from the father's earnings was less than $50 the infant mortality rate was 215.9, as compared with a rate of only 60.5 where the per capita amount averaged $400 or over. These figures clearly and strikingly indicate the influence of family over-crowding upon family well being.</p>
<p>Seventh. Adjustment.-– A point on which many may disagree with us. I believe it is very important to our young people's future that they should take at least two or three years after marriage just to get acquainted. Marriage is more today than just a question of providing for children. When there is a fine companionship in marriage between men and women, a spiritual development results. We believe that if two people have a chance to get acquainted, a chance to adjust themselves mentally and spiritually and physically, before they become parents, we shall have happier homes, more permanent marriages, and eventually, when the fear of pregnancy is removed from the home,we shall have larger families. That is our belief, Mr. Chairman. We have seen it come true in the past 16 or 17 years since we have been advocating this idea.</p>
<p>There are three main methods of contraception or birth control.</p>
<p>The first is continence. There are no laws against it. Anyone who wishes to practice continence or to live in celibacy is legally free to do so. No one disagrees with their right to live in this way, if they wish.</p>
<p>The second is sterilization. There are 14 States in the Union today where there are sterilization laws. These provide for sterilization of certain types of persons who are morally irresponsible, who are able to bring into the world only progeny that will be a detriment to society.</p>
<p>The third is chemical or mechanical means of contraception around which most of this controversy is waged.</p>
<p>As you will see from this bill, we want the medical profession to direct the practice of contraception. We want no promiscuous distribution or scattering of knowledge of supplies as there has been in the past and there is today.</p>
<p>We want, for all time, to have this knowledge properly controlled and we believe that this bill provides for that. It places the responsibility of giving such information upon the medical profession. We have further found in the 28,000 cases that we have advised at the Clinical Research Bureau in the city of New York, which operates legally under the laws of the State of New York, which permit a physician to give information for the cure of prevention of disease, that knowledge of anatomy and physiology is necessary to instruct a woman properly according to her individual need. We have had 28,000 women who have come to us and who have been benefited by the advice given them, as their homes will show, as their children will show and as their own health will show.</p>
<p>We have found from these 28,000 cases, that every woman differs. You can no more claim that continence is the one and only method that should be practiced than you can say that every one should be sterilized. Every woman is different physiologically. Family conditions are different in each case and so it takes the trained physician with his knowledge of anatomy and physiology to advise that person, just as it takes a trained oculist to advise as to the proper fitting of eye glasses. We do not send our people to the 10-cent store nor to the corner druggist to get their supplies for contraception over the counter.</p>
<p>We want this thing to be put on a decent basis, to be handled in a scientific way. That is what we are asking.</p>
<p>This bill does not compel anyone to use such information. It does not compel any physician to give information. It simply permits contraceptive information and supplies to be sent to doctors or to hospitals and clinics from other countries and through the United States mails or by common carriers and permits supplies to be sent to druggists for use in their legitimate prescription business.</p>
<p>Many of you may say, “Well, is there not everything in this country that we may wish?” And I wish to say, “No.” There is a great deal of research going on in other countries, in Oxford and Cambridge in England, and in Edinburgh University in Scotland; a great deal of research is going on there which, according to the laws, can not come into this country.</p>
<p>I have here today a letter from the customs official of New York City saying that certain things were sent to me from Germany, two articles, that will be destroyed. I have sent a letter and asked that they be readdressed to the physician who is the medical director of our research bureau in New York City, stating that though they may articles to prevent conception, they also fulfill another function of preventing the spread of disease or protecting health. I asked that they be sent to one of our physicians. The answer was that they could not be sent to anyone and I would like to offer this letter, Mr. Chairman, if I may.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span></strong> You may put the letter in the record.</p>
<p>[<em><span class="italics">The correspondence between Margaret Sanger and H. C. Stuart of the United State Customs Service was omitted.</span></em>]</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> The law, section 305 (a) of the tariff act does not allow any article of that kind to come into this country, and we are thus denied the results of research. We are denying our medical profession the benefit of knowledge obtained in various other countries where a great deal has been going on in the way of research, where they are unlimited in their research. There are only two countries in the world that have laws such as ours and they were patterned after our laws, unfortunately. Those countries are France and Italy.</p>
<p>We have in this country nearly 100 clinics, birth-control clinics, that are legally operating in the various States. Forty-seven States allow the physician to protect the woman's health and to give contraceptive advice as he sees fit. At the same time these physicians, while they may give information orally, have to bootleg their supplies from New York or Chicago or some place where they are manufactured in order to do what they should to protect the health of the woman in their own State.</p>
<p>In the State of California, in Los Angeles, under the county medical department 11 birth-control clinics have been established. If I should write and tell a woman in Los Angeles where one of those clinics is, or send her the address or name of the director of those clinics, I subject myself to the possibility of five years' imprisonment and $5,000 fine under section 211; even to write her where she may go to obtain that information.</p>
<p>It is preposterous; it is absurd. This whole situation is preposterous. Our laws are tangled and confused and as long as they remain as they are on the books, the situation will continue to be as it is.</p>
<p>I myself have received over a million letters, a great majority of them from mothers. I am going to conclude by asking you if you will listen patiently to just a few of them, because I want to analyze them, to show you what the real condition is.</p>
<p>Here is one that says:</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">"I am the mother of 12 children, 6 of which are living. I have had 8 miscarriages in 20 years. I have been married and have a husband that does not support his family like he should. If you can and it is in your power, please tell me something to keep me from getting pregnant. I think I will die if I ever have another baby. So please help me if you can. And may God bless you as long as you live."</span></em></p>
<p>Now, that is a 50 per cent loss. That woman has had 12 children and only 6 of them are living. She has had 8 miscarriages. Think of the wasted time, think of the loss to that woman; think of the loss of the power of motherhood when we make this woman go through such a ghastly ordeal.</p>
<p>Here is another letter:</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">"I have six children, my youngest 2 months old, and I am just scared to death for fear I will get that way again, for I never can live to go through with it again. I came near dying this time. For three months before my baby was born, I could not get any shoes on my feet and I could hardly get my eyes open to see. I was bloated up so bad. The doctor wanted to take the baby away when I was 8 months, but I said no, I did not care if I lived or died and I did not have the least idea of living, but the Lord spared me probably so I could go through it all again. But I live on the banks of Lake Erie and just as sure as I get in a family way again I will end my troubles and be at rest. Now, if you can tell me of any way, I would bless your name forever."</span></em></p>
<p>That is another one. You can imagine that mother with that fear in her mind, with that sword hanging over her head.</p>
<p>I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that since this law was passed, 1,500,000 mothers have passed out into the great beyond from causes due to child bearing.</p>
<p>There is just one more that I want to read to you, because these are the women who are urging us to pass these laws to give them some relief from the evil condition from which they have been suffering.</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">"I just passed my 21st birthday August 5th (this year). I am already the mother of five little children, the oldest six years, and the baby three months. My husband has been out of work over a year and a half now. We would have starved to death long ago but for our relatives who, among them, gave us $5 a week. It's awful hard, Mrs. Sanger, to live like this, and my husband got so down and blue when he found I was that way last time, that he wanted to go away and live in another place, but his folks wouldn't let him do that. My children are well, thank God, but I'm awfully weak, only weighing 90 pounds. I do all the work, and if only I could get strong and not have any more babies, I'd take hope and so would my husband. Won't you help me, please? I know that God will bless you if you do."</span></em></p>
<p>One more. This is a classic:</p>
<p><em><span class="UNK">"I am only 34 years old and have given birth to 12 children, only 3 of them living. They die so quickly after they are born, it seems they don't have strength to live long. My husband is a good hard-working man, but the best he ever made was $1.50, and never for long. We're poor people, Mrs. Sanger, and the coffins of the last two are not paid for yet. It's hard on a woman to see them go like that, and I think that if I did not have any for a while I could keep the three I've got and give them better than we had."</span></em></p>
<p>Is there any man in the world that would continue a business that shows a 75 per cent loss? Of course not. And yet these mothers are not only losing live babies, but they are interrupting pregnancies, thereby sapping their health and strength.</p>
<p>One woman is only 34 years old, the other is only 21. Can you see, gentlemen, what it means to look ahead? Can you see that these women have years and years ahead of them of child bearing, of hopelessness, of despair? Why, the very entrance of a smiling, loving husband is a terror to these woman. Is it any wonder that homes are broken up? Some of the speakers will tell you something about the attitude of men. The young husbands have their problems too. They are trapped. They do not know what it is all about. They do not know what to do. They do the best they can, and yet the only thing they can do when they find their wives in a pregnant condition, with their hopelessness for the future, is to abort. In many of our cases we have brought them back again so that we can teach the husband and wife that it is not necessary to continue to bring children into the world that they can not take care of, and we have made many of these homes happier by proper instruction.</p>
<p>These are the facts. These are the conditions; and there is just one thing that we must realize: The United States Government has already recognized that there is a population problem, at least as far as the quality is concerned, for you know that the Government has claimed the right to exclude immigrants whose condition is likely to be a serious danger to the well-being and happiness of the country. A very important law was passed, and there are now excluded by the immigration act of February 5, 1917 (39 Stat. 874), regulating immigration of aliens to and residence of aliens in the United States, which reads as follows:</p>
<p><span class="IA1917">Sec. 3. That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: All idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons; persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority; persons with chronic alcoholism; paupers; professional beggars; vagrants; persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living; persons who have been convicted of or admit to having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists, or persons who practice polygamy or believe in or advocate the practice of polygamy; prostitutes, or persons coming into the United States for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who directly or indirectly procure or attempt to procure or import prostitutes or persons for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who are supported by or receive in whole or in part the proceeds of prostitution; persons likely to become a public charge.</span></p>
<p>There are also provisions for the exclusion of illiterates, or of persons 16 years of age, physically capable of reading, but who cannot read English or some other language. All are refused admission into the United States of America.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, I think it is a good law, and all that we are asking is, that if such persons and such types are not good for the country, to come in from the outside, that they also, by birth control, be prevented from coming into the world. If these types are not good for a country, and are a source of danger to our well-being and happiness, then I say, shall we not have the right to have these types of persons in this country excluded from birth?</p>
<p>I thank you.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span></strong> Are there any questions?</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Mr. McCormack</strong>.</span> Mrs. Sanger, I was rather interested in your statement that you think a married couple should wait two or three years just to get acquainted after marriage. What did you mean by that--a probationary marriage or trial marriage? I think you ought to explain that.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> No; I mean a permanent marriage. I think marriages would be more permanent if there were a proper adjustment and opportunity for getting acquainted at the beginning.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> Suppose they do not become acquainted?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Of course we are going to give them a better chance to become acquainted; far better than they have today. If I may just digress a moment, what opportunity is there for young people to get acquainted? In the first year after marriage a woman's whole physiological condition is changed. There may be some opportunity for the man--he does not have to have his whole physiological condition changed, but for the woman who comes back from her honeymoon with headaches, morning nausea, and a new nervous strain-–not only is marriage a new condition for her, but the process and the possibility of motherhood entirely changes her whole being.</p>
<p>Now, I say that those young people have not the first chance to get really acquainted. The man never knows his wife as a woman. He only knows her as a girl before marriage, and then he knows her as preparing for motherhood. I say it is unfair to the relationship of marriage. It is unfair to the child that is about to be born, and we know that it makes a great difference, and that marriage can be more permanent if there is the opportunity to become adjusted.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> You made reference to some statements made by President Hoover. Did you intend thereby--I am sure you did not, but I would like to have it in the record one way or the other--did you intend thereby to let the inference be drawn that he was supporting this movement?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Not at all. I simply made a statement that he believes in a healthier childhood, and that children should be given the opportunity to be born well.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> Continence is the exercise of the affirmative mind, is it not?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Not always.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> What was that conference at which President Hoover made that statement?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> The White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, in 1931.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack. </span></strong>Continence is the exercise of the affirmative mind by the individual; that is true, is it not?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Not always the affirmative mind. It may be an exercise of a negative mind.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> But in an affirmative direction?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Not altogether. I think it is negative just as it is affirmative. It is denial.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> Well, denial. It has to be an exercise of an affirmative mind to deny themselves something that their inclination desires, does it not?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Well, it is a denial of a positive function, I should say.</p>
<p><span class="strong"><strong>Mr. McCormack</strong>.</span> Now, as to the chemical means of contraception, what is meant by drugs, or the use of drugs?I notice this bill says:</p>
<p>"Any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing that may be used for the prevention of conception."</p>
<p>What kind of drugs do you have in mind?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Chinosol, quinine, and various other things that may form a suppository which will kill the spermatozoa.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> What kind of instruments has this bill in mind?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Condoms and pessaries of various kinds.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span> </strong>Of course, the purpose of those is for use prior, with the purpose of preventing conception?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Absolutely; no interference afterwards.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span></strong> In other words, it is a means of affording self-satisfaction and preventing the consequences thereof by the use of artificial means?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> If you wish to put it that way.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. Canfield.</span></strong> Mrs. Sanger, in your statement you referred to “this law.” Which law do you refer to?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Sections 211, 245, and 312 of the Criminal Code and section 305 of the tariff law.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. Canfield.</span></strong> Is that the Comstock law which Congressman Hancock referred to?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Yes. They were enacted by Congress at the instigation of Mr. Comstock in 1873.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span></strong> We thank you, Mrs. Sanger, for your presence and your contribution to the hearings.</p>
<p>[<span class="italics"><em>The material submitted by Mrs. Sanger was omitted by the editors.</em>]</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p><strong>Further Statement of Mrs. Margaret Sanger</strong></p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I wish it had been possible, without going into the personalities, to take a vote and to have shown the number of children born to and reared by those who appeared for and against this bill. It would be amusing were it not tragic in its significance to see a childless woman who is a Member of Congress appear here against this bill when she herself, were she obeying the laws of nature, would probably be at home attending to her 10 or 12 children.</p>
<p>I have found in the arguments presented here that it as been a case of personal opinion against facts, theories against practical knowledge.</p>
<p>For instance, I can illustrate that with some of the remarks made by Dr. Howard Kelly. When he was asked about contraceptives he mentioned the use of a douche as a contraceptive. Why, everybody knows--everybody who knows anything at all about this subject--that a douche is not a contraceptive but a cleansing agent, used more for hygienic purposes than for contraception. It is an old fogey theory that a douche is a contraceptive. It means simply that Doctor Kelly has not been in school in the last 20 or 30 years, where he might have learned something of the modern technique of contraception.</p>
<p>That is a case illustrative of the point I wish to make, the opponents of this bill do not know the facts. Here is a man like Doctor Kelly who has made his reputation in medicine, through long years of great achievement, coming here and talking not on the merits of the bill, but on a defense of “morals.” That is amusing, particularly when taken in conjunction with the statement of Dr. John Ryan, who is a theologian, a representative of the Catholic Church, who comes to theorize on economics and the population aspect of this question.</p>
<p>That is all very right and proper. They may express their opinions, but, Mr. Chairman, the merits of the bill have not been discussed by the opponents of the bill.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, when you weed out the personal opinions expressed, no one has said that the physician should not have the right to use the United States mails and common carriers. No one has dared to say that the physician has not the right to give contraceptive information where he sees that it is right and where he sees that a woman really needs it.</p>
<p>That is the sum and substance of what this is all about.</p>
<p>Canon Chase made a statement for which I think he owes and apology to the Federal committee, when he said that this is a “<span class="SHEWI">crook's bill</span>.” I am not going to take the time to refute these stupid, senseless, futile, personal accusations. I want to say that he did say one good thing. He said, “<span class="SHEWI">No sensible person can oppose giving the trustworthy physician freedom to do what is necessary to protect the lives of women which would be endangered by another pregnancy if their husbands can not control themselves</span>.”</p>
<p>I thank him for that statement.</p>
<p>Some people have said here that this bill would infringe upon State rights. That is not true. We included a statement in the proceedings yesterday to show that there are 47 States that give the physician the right to give information on the prevention of conception. About 24 States do not classify the prevention of conception in the obscenity laws at all. That is, there are 24 States where any one could give information. We are trying to direct public opinion so that it shall look to the physician to get such information and we are trying to make it possible for the physician to have the best information to give. There is only one State where there is any doubt about it.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mr. Canfield</span>.</strong> What State is that?</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> Mississippi. This bill does not open the mails to promiscuous distributions so that anyone can have information. It simply asks that the physician shall have the right of the United States mails and the common carriers, and that licensed clinics and the hospitals shall have the same right.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, I do not know whether the bill as it has been amended has been offered or not. Mr. Hancock made some changes.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span></strong> Those changes are a part of this testimony and as the committee considers this measure they will consider all that has been said with reference to it.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong"> Mrs. Sanger.</span></strong> I want to say that the physician will not use the United States mails to advise or prescribe for patients. Let me try to make that clear to you. Every physician who knows his job at all will see the patient, will study the indications. He will advise her as to her personal needs and personal requirements. He will take into consideration not only her health but her whole gynecological formation and condition. He will take into consideration her economic situation, and he will advise her then, and that will come under the State law. But before he can advise he must have information, he must know what is available in the world in this regard. The medical schools of the past have not given this knowledge to him.</p>
<p>Not only shall the doctor advise the patient orally, but he must then give her a prescription by which she can get the articles recommended. That is why he must use the United States mail.</p>
<p>In many cases he himself will give her the article or device and in some cases he will give her a prescription for the drug store.</p>
<p>In my estimation this is the only way that the present promiscuous scattering of information and devices can be corrected. I consider this the sanest way of trying to correct the misuse of knowledge or misinformation that has been and still is so prevalent throughout the country and which both proponents and opponents deplore.</p>
<p>There are 150,000 physicians in the United States who belong to the American Medical Association. There is some difference of opinion among them. The American Medical Association as a whole has never gone on record for or against this measure, but a few years ago the section on obstetrics and gynecology and abdominal surgery did go on record by a resolution to the effect that they recommended “the alteration of existing laws whenever necessary so that physicians my legally give contraceptive information to their patients in the regular course of their practice.” That resolution, Mr. Chairman, was submitted in record yesterday and is printed elsewhere in full.</p>
<p>To give you a brief idea of how the medical profession regards this question, I shall cite from a questionnaire sent out by the <em><span class="journal">Medical Journal and Record</span></em> in 1927. Two hundred and seventy-three doctors replied and out of the 273, 248 were in favor of birth control or proper legislation leading thereto; 19 were against; 2 of them said they were unable to express an opinion. One said that he thought that contraceptive methods would be abused. One said that methods shall be advised only after consultation with a physician, with the sanction of the United States Government, and the <span class="book">Bible</span>; and one thought that this generation knows too much about such things, and that the poor would not avail themselves of this information.</p>
<p>Those in favor represent a pretty large proportion of the number that expressed themselves in this symposium.</p>
<p>Following that up, the <em><span class="journal">Medical Journal and Record</span></em> in 1929 sent out another questionnaire, and 118 doctors replied to that, of which number 99 said that they were in favor and only four said that they were not informed sufficiently to express an opinion. Fifteen were opposed.</p>
<p>I just mention this to show you that there is a division of opinion, but there is a very much larger number of physicians who are for this than are against it.</p>
<p>Evidence was presented yesterday of the large number of county and city medical organizations in favor of this particular legislation and also of many who are in favor of the principles of birth control.</p>
<p>Two ex-presidents of the American Medical Association have made statements in our favor--Dr. Abraham Jacobi and Dr. Allen Pusey.</p>
<p>It has been stated that contraceptive measures or practices left a harmful effect upon the pelvic organs upon the nervous system of those who practiced it.</p>
<p>Again these statements are made by people who have an opinion but who have not the facts. We have the facts. We have been following up cases not only in New York but throughout the country where there are a hundred or more clinics. There have been 28,000 patients in one clinic in New York, the Birth Control Clinic Research Bureau, whose case records reveal facts to the contrary. We have had the patients come back to us, and we have a detailed study and analysis made of the first 10,000 of those cases, a record which is too voluminous to bring here today; but we have the actual facts from which to substantiate our conclusions.</p>
<p>I am going to ask, Mr. Chairman, if I may, to present one case that I took at random as an illustration.</p>
<p>An Italian woman, 29 years old on first visit (married at 15 years). Diagnosed as “high-grade moron” with husband classified as “mental case.” Three children, youngest an infant; two miscarriages, both due to overwork. Five pregnancies in all. Clinical contraceptive advice now successful for four years. This family able to carry on without help from social agency by whom she was referred to us.</p>
<p>It seems to me that that tells something of what the actual practice of contraception can do; how it will relieve the tremendous and growing burdens of charity now resting on society.</p>
<p>Here is a report by Dr. Lily C. Butler, medical officer of the Walworth Woman's Welfare Center, presented before the Seventh International Birth Control Conference held last September in Zurich, which reads as follows:</p>
<p><em>"<span class="BUTLI">So much is stated by opponents of birth control as to contraceptives subsequently producing sterility that the figures we have obtained on going through our cards at Walworth and East London are interesting. We note that 101 patients have wanted another child after periods varying from one to five years, and in 98 of these cases they have become pregnant on discontinuing the use of the contraceptive.</span>"</em></p>
<p>That shows that when proper means are applied to protect the individual woman there is no question that it is helpful to her and that it does not make her sterile.</p>
<p>To answer Mrs. Norton's challenge regarding my statement that 1,500,000 women have died from causes due to childbearing since this Comstock law was passed, I wish to state that this estimate was based on the figures of the United States Census Bureau, Department of Vital Statistics.</p>
<p>I wish to refute directly one other statement made by Mrs. Norton. In a reference to the sale of contraceptives, Mrs. Norton used the words “<span class="NORMA">commercially profitable to their advocates</span>.” Never have I, nor to my knowledge have any members of the committee, of which I am the national chairman, been interested in contraceptives for commercial profit. Mrs. Norton has seen fit to say that several of the statements made by me and other witnesses appearing for this bill were not supported by fact. I wish to say the same regarding her statement which I have quoted.</p>
<p>There is one other phase of this matter that is rather amusing. I think it was briefly stated yesterday that the geniuses, the flower of the family usually came at the end of a long line of children in large families.</p>
<p>I have here a study of over 700 persons of personalities who have come down to us through history.</p>
<p>I will mention these briefly, and then if I may, I will put this list in the record.</p>
<p><strong><span class="strong">Acting Chairman.</span> </strong>You have that permission.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mrs. Sanger.</span> Ninety-six of these were the only child; 204 were the first child; 113 were the second; 64 were the third; 50 were the fourth; 43 were the fifth. This goes right on down until you get to the eighteenth and nineteenth. John Wesley was the fifteenth and Caruso was the eighteenth, but a pitiful number of the other children in these families had died in infancy.</p>
<p>There are only two or three among those men and women who can be classified as “great” who were born late in the family's life, while those that were second or third make up a much larger portion.</p>
<p>Insert Genius Study pdf</p>
<p>The further we look into these things, Mr. Chairman, the more there is to be said for the care and the consideration that parents can give to 1 or 2 children or 3 or 4 children according to their means, according to their health. Further evidence is found in the Bible:</p>
<p>Isaac, in whose seed all the nations were to be blessed, was an only child, born after long years of preparation. Sarah, his mother, was a beautiful, talented woman, whose counsel was highly valued. Isaac's only children were twins-– Jacob, the father of all of Israel, and Esau. Isaac's wife, Rebecca, was also a lovely woman of fine character, whose opinion was sought and valued. Joseph, the child of Rachel, was born late in her life, and she had but one other child. Samuel, who judged Israel for 40 years, was an only child, born after years of prayer and supplication on the part of Hannah. John the Baptist was an only child and his parents were well along in years when he was born.</p>
<p>Jesus was the first born of Joseph and Mary and had no children.</p>
<p>So that even on the question of the place of great men in the family, our position is much stronger than that of our opponents.</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, I want to yield the rest of my time to Doctor Meyer, because of the statement that has been made by the opponents with regard to the question of continence. Continence, Mr. Chairman, is something on which there has been recent study by a large group of medical men. They have come to know something about continence and its effects upon the human being and I now ask Dr. Adolf Meyer, professor of psychiatry in Johns Hopkins University, to take up that part of our presentation.</p>
<p><span class="strong">Mr. McCormack.</span> Mr. Chairman, if Mrs. Sanger is yielding to Doctor Meyer because of the limitation of time, I ask unanimous consent that she be given an additional five minutes.</p>
<p><span class="strong"> Mrs. Sanger.</span> Thank you, Mr. McCormack, but I think I have finished my statement and I would rather the committee heard Doctor Meyer.</p>
<p><span class="strong">The Acting Chairman.</span> Thank you, Mrs. Sanger, for your statement. We shall be pleased to hear Doctor Meyer.</p>
<p><span class="italics">The statement by Dr. Adolf Meyer was omitted by the MSPP editors.</span></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
McCormack, John William
Sheafe, William
Margaret Sanger Papers Project
Crisp, Charles Robert
Unknown
Norton, Mary Hopkins
Canfield, Harry Clifford
Immigration Act of 1917
Hoover, Herbert Clark
Butler, Lily C.
H. R. 11082
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
1932-05-19
Description
An account of the resource
<p>The following is an excerpt from the hearings, including only Margaret Sanger's testimony and her direct responses.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#300444
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm Edition: Collected Documents Series,</span> C15:762.
<span class="testimony">Birth Control: Hearings Before the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives</span> Seventy-Second Congress First Session on H. R. 11082 (Washington, 1932), pp. 6-16, 137-143.
Subject
The topic of the resource
abortion--birth control and
birth control--access to
birth control--distribution of information about
birth control--economic benefits and risks of
birth control--lack of knowledge of
birth control--opposition to
birth control--religion and
birth control laws and legislation--Comstock Act
birth control laws and legislation--Congressional bills--H.R. 11802 (1932)
birth control laws and legislation--doctors-only laws
birth control laws and legislation--Postal Codes
birth control laws and legislation--Tariff Acts
birth control methods
birth control methods--chemical contraceptives
birth control methods--sexual continence
birth control movement--history of
birth order
birth rate
Catholic Church--and birth control
client letters
family size
immigration restriction
mentally diseased or disabled--fertility of
marriage--and birth control
marriage--reforms
mortality rates--infant
physically disabled and diseased--and birth control
poverty--and family size
religion--and birth control
Sanger, Margaret--biographical details
sterilization
United States Congress
women and girls--health of
women and girls--reproductive choices and decisions
Title
A name given to the resource
Testimony Before the United States House of Representatives on H. R. 11082
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
Newspapers
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
Carnegie Hall
Person
Broun, Heywood
Bennett, Josephine
Goldstein, Sidney E.
DeVilbiss, Lydia Allen
Place
Japan
China
Washington DC
Germany
New York"
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>Mrs. Sanger Tells of Birth Control Spreading in Orient</h4>
<h4 class="sub-heading">Compared "Gross and Unthinking Stupidity Suffered in New York" to Courtesy Offered in Japan</h4>
<p>Mrs. Margaret Sanger returned home from eight months' trip around the world convinced that "the idea of birth control has now trumphantly circled the globe" and that the masses of all nations "are ready and eager for its practice," she told an audience of more than 2,000 in Carnegie Hall last night.</p>
<p>The occasion was a welcome home meeting given Mrs. Sanger by the supporters of the beliefs she promulgates. Her subject was "Birth Control in China and Japan."</p>
<p>Aside from the larger message forming her conclusions, Mrs. Sanger dealt chiefly with overpopulation problems in the Orient, likening the position of Japan to that of Germany before the war, and picturing China as the worst example of a people ignorant of birth control.</p>
<div class="section">
<h4 class="sub-heading">China Needs Birth Control</h4>
<p>"China," she said "does not need our religion. In exporting it to Asia, we are not doing much to bridge the chasm between the Occident and the Orient. Instead, we are developing misunderstanding. What China needs is our science, sanitation and birth control."</p>
<p>She encountered numerous government difficulties before she was permitted to enter Japan and speak there, she related, but once she had gained this advantage, through Japanese public opinion, she was received with the utmost courtesy. She continued:</p>
<p>"After battling in this country, and particularly in New York, with gross, unthinking stupidity, cloaking itself with the name of religion and democracy, it was a joy to be received, even by one's opponents, with intelligent respect and courtesy. I did not meet with vulgar leers and ribald laughs."</p>
<div class="section">
<h4 class="sub-heading">Lauds Japanese Officials</h4>
<p>"I could not help comparing the breadth and subtlety of the minds of the Japanese officials with the unspeakable vulgarity and leering crudity of the politicans in New York, when we tried to bring the problem of birth control to the attention of our state legislators."</p>
<p>Other speakers were Mrs. Josephine Bennett, Dr. Sidney E. Goldstein, Dr. Lydia Allen DeVilbiss, of Washington Heywood Bround was chaiman. A considerable number of policemen were present in the lobbies when the meeting began, but apparently only in anticipation of large crowds, as they left early. No one in clerical garb was observed in attendance.</p>
</div>
</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/.
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
1922-11-03
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
#434000
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="article">"Mrs. Sanger Tells of Birth Control Spreading in Orient,"</span> <span class="newspaper"><span class="italics"><em>New York Tribune</em>,</span></span> Nov. 4, 1922. p. 6.
Subject
The topic of the resource
China--birth control in
China--MS on
Japan--MS in
Japan--overpopulation
New York--birth control in
overpopulation
Sanger, Margaret--tours--1922 (World)
Title
A name given to the resource
Mrs. Sanger Tells of Birth Control Spreading in Orient
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published Article
-
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
International Neo-Malthusian Conference, 2nd
International Neo-Malthusian Conference, 3rd
American Birth Control League
International Neo-Malthusian Conference, 1st
International Neo-Malthusian Conference, 4th
International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference, 6th
Carnegie Hall
University of London
International Neo-Malthusian Conference, 5th
Person
Westermarck, Edward
Lankester, Edwin Ray
Potter, Charles Francis
MacBride, Ernest William
Bocker, Dorothy
Bennett, Arnold
Keynes, John Maynard
Buckmaster, Stanley
Wells, H. G.
Cooper, James F.
Shaw, George Bernard
Thurman, I. N.
Place
New York, NY
Paris, FR
Austria
Great Britain
Hungary
London, England
Germany
Liège, Belgium
India
France
Japan
Dresden, Germany
Asia
Hague, the, Netherlands, the
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<p>I <span class="line-through">believe</span> <span class="addition">know</span> that all of you must agree with me in my belief that such calm,
dispassionate research as Dr. Bocker's <span class="line-through">work</span> <span class="addition">statement</span> reveals will do much to awaken
not only the interest and respect of the people of the community but to awaken and stimulate the interest of
other scientists and physicians in the medical aspects of birth control.</p>
<p>Now I think that this is the most appropriate moment to announce a further victory for
the American Birth Control League. I consider it a distinct victory to be
able to announce to you tonight that the
6th
International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference is to be held here in
New York next March. This follows on the highly
successful conferences held in
Paris in 1901, in
Liege in 1905,,
the Hague
in 1910, in Dresden, 1911
and London 1922.</p>
<p>For the first time in its history the foremost authorities on the problems of population
are coming from every civilized country of the world as our guests. All of you who have shown your interest in this subject
by coming here tonight may take advantage of this great educational opportunity to see and hear our eminent speakers in
the various sessions.</p>
<p>We have already invited a large number of men preeminent in their chosen fields--men
like John Maynard Keynes, the economist, Sir
Ray Lankester, the great English
scientist; Lord Buckmaster, probably the
finest legal mind in Great Britain; Professor
MacBride the well known biologist of
London University;
Edward Westermarck, renowned as a profound
student of the institution of marriage; men like H. G. Wells,
Bernard Shaw and
Arnold Bennett. There are already acceptances of
delegates from Hungary, Austria,
Germany, France from the
Orient, India and
Japan.</p>
<p>The sessions during these five days will be a sort of temporary university on all the
deep problems of civilization--opening new vistas into the whole future of the human
race. Nothing so wide in its scope has ever happened in this country before.</p>
<p>But I am taking time from our next speaker who is going to tell you something of the
legal status of birth control. He will also tell you something more of this conference
and how we can all cooperate to make it a great success in the eyes of the world. It
gives me real pleasure to introduce to you Mr. I. N.
Thurman.</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
1924-12-06
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Sanger gave this introduction at a birth control meeting held at Carnegie Hall
in New York City. See her
opening remarks and her introductions for
James F. Cooper,
Dorothy Bocker and
Charles Francis Potter.
</p>
<p>For draft version, see <span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress,</span> LCM 131:60A.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#421003
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress,</span> LCM 130:703B
Subject
The topic of the resource
physicians--and birth control
birth control movement--international
conferences--International Neo-Malthusian and birth Control Conference--1925 (6th)
birth control--health benefits and risks
Title
A name given to the resource
Introduction for I. N. Thurman
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Typed Draft 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.
Law
United States Exclusion Act
Place
Australia
United States
Germany
Italy
Manchuria, China
Japan
Europe
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>The Foundation of World Peace</h4>
<p class="byline">by Margaret Sanger</p>
<p>In the past there have been many and diverse causes of War, but the economic factors and the pressure of population on the resources of a country are pre-eminently at the root of our modern wars.</p>
<p>It is an acknowledged fact that the big battalions of babies have made the working man’s life a constant battle to keep his productive or labor powers up to the need of his reproductive powers. We also know that the revolution in modern industry has made the necessity for man-power of less value than the ox or the dray horse.</p>
<p>The tragic difference is that the reproduction of the ox or dray horse is controlled and its numbers predicated on potential needs. While the man with only his labor power to sell proceeds to multiply and increase his numbers regardless of his own ability to provide for his offspring, or regardless of the social or economic needs of the labor that he has to sell.</p>
<p>There are two or three essential and fundamental factors to recognize at the beginning of any plan for National or International Peace:</p>
<ul>
<li>1. Normal marriage leads to offspring.</li>
<li>2. The normal couple can produce during the child-bearing years from ten to twelve children.</li>
<li>3. Unless death through disease, famines or other misfortune, takes off a large number of these children yearly, no social order known today can provide and maintain the multiplication and increase of such vast numbers in so short a period.</li>
<li>4. An acre of land is limited to the number of plants it can occupy.</li>
<li>5. The social factors, or returns to the State from slums and over-crowded territories decrease rather than increase our racial wealth.</li>
</ul>
<p>Populations have been kept down in the past by keeping the death rate almost equal to the birth rate. The survival rate was very low but it allowed for a healthy, fit population and enabled it to compete in the struggle for existence. Today we have changed all this. We cannot allow disease, floods, pestilence and famines to spread over a civilized land. The consequence is that we have greatly lowered our death rate while we have at the same time increased the longevity of adult men and women.</p>
<p>Both of these good factors have been obtained mainly through the lowering of our birth rate. Those Nations which fight against this civilized means of applying science to the control of population, become the danger spots to World Peace.</p>
<p>With these facts in mind, we know that the quality of a population is an equally important factor in its development and its progress. A population on any given territory must produce its own food or get food from other areas. Not only food, but the necessary means of maintenance which today means oil, iron, fuel and natural resources. If a Nation cannot maintain its population, the first effort, and the only way out, is through emigration. But when other countries close their gates against such emigrants they are then forced to remain at home. There are then but one of three remaining solutions to their problem:</p>
<ul>
<li>1. Reduce the birth rate.</li>
<li>2. Lower the standards of living.</li>
<li>3. Expand into other territory by force of arms and declare war.</li>
</ul>
<p>Japan recently has given us an excellent example of the fact of over-population. She has a population of approximately 60,000,000 according to the census of 1928. She has about 150,000 square miles of territory. Only one-sixth of this area is cultivable which brings her density of population up to 993 persons a square mile--the highest in the world. She has an enormously high birth rate of 34.8 and a death rate of 19.2--the second highest natural increase of any country today. Besides this she has an increase of 800,000 to 900,000 infants a year.</p>
<p>Japan has not the resources to feed this growing population. She has not been allowed free access to other lands as other European aliens. The world has closed its doors against her surplus population. Japan has not the natural resources of iron and coal to become a manufacturing or industrial nation which could be exchanged for food. Her silk industry cannot provide sufficiently for her needs. Her standards of living were fairly high. Japan’s population is highly intelligent and largely literate, which, like Germany in 1914, must have an outlet as well as a return on her output for educational facilities. She had three ways to settle the problem:</p>
<ul>
<li>1. To lower her standards of living and <span class="underline">increase</span> her death rate, which is abhorrent to every sense of decency in us.</li>
<li>2. Decrease the birth rate to a very low figure as quickly as possible to check the increase of numbers.</li>
<li>3. To acquire new territories where she can have ready access to fuel and mineral resources in order to create industries and provide for the needs of her present and future population.</li>
</ul>
<p>We know now which of the above Japan chose to do. She marched into Manchuria just as naturally as a chick pops out of its shell. She had little or no choice <span class="underline">after</span> she allowed conditions to drift until 1932. A farseeing government would have attempted to prevent the now inevitable catastrophe by encouraging a check on the birth rate back in 1910 when the U.S.A. Exclusion Act spread to Australia and other countries.</p>
<p>Italy is preparing herself to go the way of Japan. Already she has a population which she cannot feed from her own soil. The population in 1927 was 40,548,683, her birth rate 26.4, which had decreased as in other countries of Europe had since 1914. Her death rate of 15.5 had also decreased, giving her a material increase of 10.9 per thousand--far too high for the peace of Europe. She has not over 120,000 square miles of territory, less than that of Japan proper. As Italian emigrants are now practically barred from the U.S.A., it means that she must provide for the surplus of 90,000 Italians who came each year to this country and settled here more or less permanently before the war. Italy’s problem then is to absorb the 25% national increase, or an additional 500,000 persons, into her national economy each year. Her density of population is about 345 per square mile, which is the danger point for any nation in this day of modern industry with the craze for foreign markets. Italy, like Japan, has a choice of ways to meet the situation but, unlike Japan, she has deliberately set her face by the authority of Church and State and refuses to control her birth rate. Through this course of action, her policy of reckless breeding will bring about an international situation, the detriment of which can scarcely now be gauged.</p>
<p>There need be no excuse today for any nation overflowing its boundaries. Population increase must and should be controlled not only as to its births but as to its distribution. The death rate is already partially controlled through the administration of Public Health Agencies. The birth rate must likewise be regarded as fully important and given due consideration and responsibility if we would lay the foundation for World Peace.</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
1932-28-03
Description
An account of the resource
<p>For draft versions see <span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Papers Micrfoilm Edition, Smith College Collections,</span> S71:404. For copies of drafts of data on Japan and Italy which Sanger used that were probably redated, see <span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Papers Micrfoilm Edition, Smith College Collections,</span> S71:384 and 387.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#128125
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="mf">Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress,</span> LCM 129:490
Subject
The topic of the resource
Italy--population growth in
Japan--birth rate in
Japan--overpopulation
Japan--population policies
population control--government policies
population size--and emigration
population size--and expansionism
population size--and food supply
population size--natural resources and
Title
A name given to the resource
The Foundation of World Peace
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Typed article