1
10
4
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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
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Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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
American Birth Control League
British Eugenics Society
Carnegie Hall,
International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference, 5th
Person
Cox, Harold
Wells, H. G.
MacBride, Ernest William
Keynes, John Maynard
George V (England)
Dawson, Bertrand E.
Place
Egypt
China
New York, NY
Hawaii
New York,NY
Near East
Kyoto, Japan
Italy
Austria
United States
London, England
France
Tokyo, Japan
Honolulu, HI
England.
Japan
Peking, China
Kobe, Japan
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>Japs Formed Birth Control Clinics, Says Mrs. Sanger</h4>
<p class="dateline">New York</p>
<div class="section">
<h4 class="sub-heading">Back from Propaganda Trip, Tells of Warm Welcome in Foreign Lands</h4>
<p>"American missionaries of all religious denominations are practicing birth control in Japan, but in China they have large families," <span class="BDE">declared Mrs. Margaret Sanger, founder of the American Birth Control League, who has just returned from a propaganda trip of several months, during which she visited Hawaii, Japan, China, Egypt, Arabia, Austria, Italy, France and England.</span></p>
<p>"I was warmly welcomed everywhere, especially in Japan, once I obtained admission to the country," <span class="BDE">said Mrs. Sanger.</span> "My lectures were well attended and committees on birth control established. I established a league in Tokyo with a clinic and branches in Kobe and Kyoto; also in Peking and Honolulu."</p>
<p>"The difficulty I had in entering Japan was due to the fact that the Government had an idea I was sent by the United States to reduce Japan's birth rate and so weaken her army. The present population of Japan is 57,000,000 and the military party wants a population of 100,000,000. However, when I made it clear that my own Government took the same attitude towards me and that my object was to reduce the birth rate in every country in the world, they let me in. My meetings were called under the auspices of the best educated and most cultivated Japanese and through an interpreter I lectured on the population in Japan and all nations."</p>
<p>"In London I acted as president of the general section of the International Conference on Birth Control, where delegates from all countries assembled to discuss ways and means to make birth control a legal and social factor in family life in every country in the world."</p>
<p>"H. G. Wells presided at the public meeting of the Conference, and others who took a prominent part were Lord Dawson, the King's physician; Harold Cox, former M.P.; Prof. John Maynard Keynes, the well-known economist, and Prof. E. W. MacBride, who officially represented the British Eugenics Society."</p>
<p><span class="BDE">Mrs. Sanger will be welcomed home at a meeting in Carnegie Hall, Manhattan, on Oct. 30.</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
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Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Margaret Sanger
Spatial Coverage
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New York,NY
Date
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1922-10-11
Identifier
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msp#422069
Source
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<span class="article">"Japs Formed Birth Control Clinics, Says Mrs. Sanger,"</span> <em><span class="newspaper">Brooklyn Daily Eagle</span></em>, Oct. 11, 1922, p. 24
Subject
The topic of the resource
China--birth rate in
Japan--birth control clinics and leagues
Japan--birth control in
conferences--international
Sanger, Margaret--tours--1922 (Japan)
Sanger, Margaret--tours--1922 (World)
Title
A name given to the resource
Return from World Tour
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published Statement
-
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 211
Crane Decision
Organization
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
Nieuw Malthusiaansche Bond
Japan Government
New York State Court of Appeals
Clinical Research Department
Roman Catholic Church
The Vatican
Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops
Vatican
New York Academy of Medicine
Holy Name Society
Person
Gosnell, Harold Foote
Simon, Mr.
Reuter, Edward Byron
Damon, Cornelia Huntington
Taylor, Paul Schuster
Swen, Mr.
Wright, Phillip Green
Thomas, Warren Simpson
Smith, Thomas Vernor
Knowlton, Charles
Besant, Annie
Mensinga, Wilhelm
Coats, Robert Hamilton
Kuczynski, Robert Rene
Okada, Mr.
Hooker, Mr.
Yarros, Rachelle
Gini, Corrado
Smith, Mr.
Baker, John Randal
Simpson, ??.
Chaddock, Robert Emmet
Schultz, Samuel Johnson
Rich, Mrs.
Schuman, ??
jacobs, Aletta
Wright, Mrs. Quincy
Hayes, Patrick J.
Pius XI (Pope)
Fairchild, Henry Pratt
Steiner, Jesse Fredrick
Taylor, A. E.
McLean, Mrs.
Crane, Frederick E.
Huntington, Ellsworth
Burch, Guy Irving
Wright, Sewall
Freund, Ernst
Kiessling, Oscar Edward
Lyon, Leverett Samuel
Ross, Edward Allsworth
Ogburn, William Fielding
Crocker, Walter Russell
Comstock, Anthony
Rutgers, Johannes
Wright, Quincy
Pearl, Raymond
Stehlc, Mr.
Malthus, Thomas Robert
Nasu, Shiroshi
Bradlaugh, Charles
Taylor, G.
Dawson, Bertrand E.
Place
Bristol, England
London, England
Barcelona, Spain
Yokohama, Japan
New York
United States
Netherlands, the
Amsterdam, Netherlands, the
Boston, MA
New York, NY
Germany
Chicago, IL
France
Austria
Japan
England
Saranac Lake, NY
Spain
Europe
Honolulu, HI
Berlin, Germany
The Hague, Netherlands, the
Publication
Family Limitation
"Liberty"
Webster’s
"The Fruits of Philosophy"pamphlet
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>Round Table Discussion of Preventive Checks to Population Growth</h4>
<p class="dateline">Chicago, IL</p>
<p><span class="WRIQU">The Chairman: This afternoon our subject is Preventive Checks to Population Growth, and our leader is Mrs. Margaret Sanger, who will open the discussion.</span></p>
<p>Mrs. Sanger: "Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I first want to express my appreciation to the Chairman and the Committee for the invitation to attend this conference; and also for the privilege of having this question of birth control or preventive checks discussed here this afternoon, and especially do I wish to say that I have appreciated so much the opportunity of listening to the discussion on population problems by such distinguished experts."</p>
<p>My part this afternoon is going to be very insignificant, because I want to cover the first part of this outline down to question 3 and leave these questions for the discussion of those here."</p>
<p>"I feel that there is one significant fact in the birth control movement that must have recognition, and that is that it is one of the very few social movements in modern life which needs no missionaries. It is different from the other movements, such as the eugenic or social hygiene, or the other movements, because no one has to go to the mass of the people to tell them what they should do. The people in almost all of the countries, especially of the so-called civilized countries, are ready and eager to get information, to control the size of their families. That to me is an important fact."</p>
<p>"I think, too, that it seems almost a tie-up with that fact that almost at once people recognize the meaning of the words “birth control”. For instance, when I was going to Japan in 1922, I was met at Yokohama by a number of representatives from the government, and not altogether welcoming me to Japan, and after the newspaper men with their clicking of cameras and so forth had departed, a group of women, about twenty or twenty-two, came forward through the gangway, and one of them was pushed forward to welcome me to Japan. She spoke English in a very charming and most accurate manner and made an address something like this:"</p>
<p>"She Said:" <span class="UNK">We represent the modern, the new, the forward-looking women of Japan. We have much difficulty,</span> "she said," <span class="UNK">we have been for years trying to explain the importance of the women of their gaining political freedom.</span> "She said," <span class="UNK">They were not interested. We have tried to tell the women of the importance of gaining their economic freedom; it has been difficult for them to understand</span>, "and she then enumerated the other trials and tribulations the modern woman has had in Japan and then she ended up by saying that" <span class="UNK">When the message of birth control came from Honolulu </span>, where we had stopped and made some addresses, she said, “<span class="UNK">like lightening the women understood</span>, "and I believe that also has a significant bearing on the subject and foreshadows the progress that this movement is bound to make."</p>
<p>"Lord Dawson, that glorious churchman and statesman, a few years ago went before the bishops at Lambeth and plead with the churches to take up this idea to try to help the younger people and the younger generation mold their lives on a sensible basis; and he said," <span class="DAWBE">You may shake your heads and disclaim the right of knowledge of birth control, but you might just as well try to push back the ocean with a broom, because it is here, and it is here to stay</span>, "and I think that a great many people today, especially those who are thinking of the question of population and the future of the race, agree that Dawson was right."</p>
<p>"Naturally, I look upon the question of birth control as not only a health and economic expedient, but I look upon it as a very great social principle, and that principle is interlocked with the progress of the nation and the future of the race. I think too, that it represents a new moral responsibility on the part of our people, and especially of the younger generation, and that responsibility is shown in the consciousness of accepting responsibility for their conduct, for their acts, not only for their own children who are born, but also a responsibility for those who are unborn."</p>
<p>"I think, too, that these preventative checks that we know now, while they come over rather a long distance from the preventive checks such as infanticide, or abortion, that birth control or preventing conception is the logical outcome of this long attempt on the part of human beings to control the size of their families."</p>
<p>"We claim that the definition of birth control is best when we say it is the conscious control of the birth rate by means of preventing conception."</p>
<p>"I like to emphasize the consciousness of our acts, because I think that there is a difference between the old laws or the attitude that there was no consciousness in birth, that God sent the children and he sent the food to feed them. I think today we have a different attitude when we say that it is the conscious control of the birth rate."</p>
<p>"We say also to prevent conception, which we say does not mean interruption, does not mean interference, but it means prevention, and I take issue with the group who claim that to prevent conception is an interference with life. I say that if it is an interference with life, it is no more an interference than continence or remaining single is, and if that is an interference with life, then I say all right, we have got to make the most of it."</p>
<p>"Another fact that we place great emphasis on in our educational work is that control does not necessarily mean limitation. When you control it means a letting out or a letting in, you do not necessarily put out desire when you control it, or necessarily shut off your engine when you control it. Control, I consider, is a word that means more and is a more progressive word, a more progressive attitude for us to take than limitation."</p>
<p>"The birth control movement aside from what we might call the Malthusian movement, which I won’t dwell upon here, but the modern birth control movement which in my estimation differs considerably even from the neo-Malthusian movement in England, began after the publication written by a doctor in Boston, Dr. Knowlton. That <span class="pamphlet">"The Fruits of Philosophy"pamphlet</span>, the first one, I believe, was published in 1833, went its way around the world for more than 40 years. I don’t quite know what effect the information in that pamphlet had upon the birth rate, but nothing particularly striking happened until 1877, when it found its way into a bookseller’s shop in England in Bristol, and it came just about the time when there were a few champions of the freedom of the press and freedom of speech, Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant and a number of people that belonged to the secular movement. This book, this pamphlet, which gives means and methods of contraception, was perhaps one of the first of that kind of pamphlet that had been published in the English language."</p>
<p>"The book dealer who was selling that pamphlet was arrested, and it was claimed the pamphlet came under the obscenity law of England."</p>
<p>"Besant and Bradlaugh would not allow that arrest to go unchallenged, and they took the case out of the bookseller’s hands and challenged the law themselves. They made quite a time about it, published over 40,000 of the pamphlets, slightly revised, and then went into the court and spent-–I believe the trial took three days, and Bradlaugh, who was his own attorney, and Besant threshed out the question and came through fairly victorious. They won, it is true, on technicalities, but, nevertheless, that information to prevent conception has not from that time to this day been considered in the obscenity class in England."</p>
<p>"When in 1914 I came upon the horizon of my maternal and domestic background, I had previously been working in the nursing field where anyone who had eyes could not help but recognize that the large families were tied up very fundamentally with most of our social problems. You looked out and saw that your large families went hand in hand with the problems of poverty, infant and maternal morality, ignorance, slums, overcrowding, and almost all of them problems that most of the social workers and the medical profession were trying to solve. The only way they had in solving them was mainly through charities, or through palliative philanthropies."</p>
<p>"On the other hand, if you were observant, you saw that the small family had very much of the best of it; it was not the children from the small families that were going into the fields and factories to labor for a mere existence."</p>
<p>"I realize there is no use taking this up with you, because you doubtless recognize it too, but those were the conditions that I met and I became cognizant of the fact that there was something fundamentally wrong with the generation, my own generation, that was not trying to do something fundamental about it."</p>
<p>"I saw day after day and practically month after month women who were living about us, that most of the energies of the nurses, and doctors and social workers would be spent in helping, doing what they could to alleviate the immediate suffering and going away feeling that our task was fairly well done, come back in another month or two, or after two or three months to find the same condition meeting us again, and especially is that so so far that women’s lives were concerned, and as far as abortions were concerned."</p>
<p>"We spent a few years of time in bringing women out of septicemia, which were conditions that unwanted pregnancy had put them in, and then to come back in a few months and find them pregnant again, and you would go through it over and over again. Such a waste of mother power, of woman power, of child life that was going on at that time, one who had been brought up individually, could not help but revolt at the conditions they saw, and it seemed as if there was nothing more to do than to challenge the laws that surrounded us in the United States."</p>
<p>"Well, you know that they say fools rush in where angels fear to tread, so I shot out and decided to challenge the constitutionality of the Federal law, under the assumption that all people are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I challenged the Federal law, Section 211, which perhaps copied the old English law-–not exactly, because in England the laws there did not mention the prevention of conception, it was simply the interpretation of the judge who had a right to include anything in that statute, but in this country through the efforts of Anthony Comstock the words 'and prevention of conception' had been carefully put in Section 211, the obscenity law, so that there was no question of what it meant."</p>
<p>"It was not a question of opinion, it was a question of facts."</p>
<p>"To make a long story short, I brought out 100,000 pamphlets called “<span class="book">Family Limitation</span>,” giving information on preventing conception. I challenged the law by saying that I was perfectly willing to go to jail, but if I was going to go I was going to go for doing something, and I thought 100,000 pamphlets would have a little effect upon relieving the conditions which distressed me considerably. So these went forth through the country, and there were seven indictments, which would have cost me about forty-five years in jail had convictions taken place, but then I am pleased to say after a fight of about a year or so, that case was dropped and so there has been no further work on the Federal bill. The Federal law stands exactly as it did, in spite of the fact that 100,000 pamphlets went through the mails and have continued to go through to a certain degree since that time."</p>
<p>"When I first began the issuance of these pamphlets, I believed that the question of birth control was one of the freedom of press and speech. I had known very little of the Besant-Bradlaugh trial until after 1914, when I went to England and of course knew very much more about it then, but I believed it was a question of free speech and free press, and under that assumption challenged the law. After I had been to Holland, however, in 1916, I reversed my opinion."</p>
<p>"In Holland up to 1914 there were fifty-four birth control clinics; they had been established and had been the outcome of the Besant-Bradlaugh trial. At this trial the medical profession in Amsterdam had sent a physician or two physicians to sit through the trial in London and out of that came Dr. Jacobs who established the first birth control clinic in the world. This was in Amsterdam."</p>
<p>"Dr. Jacobs, after she had established that one clinic and saw the conditions around that clinic, within a region of so many miles, tremendously improved, summarized the story at a considerable length in her memoirs. Not only was there less deaths of mothers, less deaths of infants, children went to school, but there were better conditions altogether."</p>
<p>"After that a group of enthusiastic people got together in Holland and formed the Neo-Malthusian League, and up to 1915 they had constantly and continuously established these various clinics."</p>
<p>"Now, the word 'clinic' differs when you use it in Europe from the meaning that we have for it here; nevertheless, when I say fifty-four clinics, those were places with either doctors or nurses and mostly nurses, who were in charge giving individual contraceptive advice and instruction. I visited, myself, in 1915 more than twenty of these clinics and saw, myself, largely through Dr. Rutgers, the technique of contraception."</p>
<p>"Then I spent three months at The Hague."</p>
<p>"So I came back from Europe at that time and had to change my opinion, that it was not a question of free speech, it was not a question of freedom of the press, but it was question of technique, and it was a question of having, inasmuch as the modern methods of contraception depended upon some physiological means, that it was necessary to have somebody who knew the physiology and anatomy of the human body, and that meant the medical profession, and that has been our work from 1916 up to the present time. We have been directing the movement through the channel of the medical profession, not trying to originate more methods, but to provide the best kind of methods to be employed suitable to the individual concerned."</p>
<p>"In this country we have twenty-four states in which there is some limitation, not only to the average individual in obtaining information, but even for the physician. In New York State the law allows the physician to give contraceptive advice for the cure or prevention of disease only. We are not at all satisfied with that, because it seems that if a woman or man comes to us, brought to us from one of the charitable associations, and that individual has been unable to support himself even for the last ten years, or support his family, and we can find no definite disease or ailment, it seems that individual has to be turned back or sent away from the clinic, or from the doctor in charge, and told to go back home until he or she gets a proper disease, or she has a few more children, and come back and get some information, and then the absurdity of it is simply unthinkable. Yet that is the status of the law in New York State."</p>
<p>"In many of the other states, in fact, in twenty-four states, there is some sort of limitation even on the medical profession, but I believe throughout the United States that there is no state that will not allow the physician to give information for the cure or prevention of disease. I think New York has set the precedent for that, and not only in the law and amendments to the law, but also in a decision that was rendered, in which the judge of the Court of Appeals stated that a physician actually practicing could give information for the cure or prevention of disease, and he did not take the medical dictionary’s interpretation of the word disease, but <span class="book">Webster’s</span>, so that is rather broad, and we hope that will be interpreted in a broader sense in some of the other states, especially the Western states, than it is at this time."</p>
<p>"Now, as for clinics, the first clinic that was established in New York City, even under this restriction, has up to the present day had 13,000 women who have come to it and applied for information. Far more than 13,000 really have applied because almost one-fourth of that number have been sent away because of the restrictions of the law. But 13,000 have come and have been examined by the physicians, and a larger percentage of those have got information."</p>
<p>"We are at present making a survey of the case histories of 10,000 of these women, and I will give you just some of the facts, just a little later, that we are finding in the conditions of these case histories."</p>
<p>"Since that first clinic has been established in the United States, there have since that time been about twenty-one others, so that altogether we have twenty-two, if not more than that, because you almost have to put mucilage on your feet to keep track of the birth control movement these days, it develops so rapidly."</p>
<p>"In England the last time I heard of the development there, it was also growing very rapidly; there being twenty-five or twenty-six clinics in England. Germany has three in Berlin. There are some twenty in Austria, and Holland has the same number of clinics today that it had in 1914. There are various reasons why they have been, perhaps, cut in half. One on account of the new radical element coming in to take charge of the work, believing that the birth control movement and the whole idea of contraception belong to the workers, so that there have been various conditions there altering the situation."</p>
<p>"The most of the clinics give information for the same reasons. We started off at first by saying that anyone who has a transmissible disease, syphilis, insanity, feeble mindedness, and various other transmissible diseases, should not have children; the second is that women suffering from temporary disease, such as tuberculosis, heart or kidney trouble should not have children or have more than they already have until the disease is cured; and in the third place we claim that there should be a spacing out of children, there should be a time between the births for the woman to recuperate from the birth of one child, and try to rest and try to prepare for the coming of another child; and fourth, we claim that the couple who already have subnormal children should not have more children, even on the possible chance of having a normal child, because we know that it takes all the care and the attention human beings can give to children that are subnormal. At least we discourage their having more children."</p>
<p>"In the fifth place, we say that couples should not have children, and especially the mother should not have children, until she has finished her adolescent development, That is the age from the fourteenth to the twenty-second year. We believe that, while there is a large percentage of us perhaps who have been born of young mothers, we consider that it is a very much better thing for the mother and for the child if she is fully developed first, both mentally and physically, before she takes up the burden of pregnancy and of motherhood."</p>
<p>"We further state that the couple who is not able to support themselves and not able to support two children should not have ten more. People, many people, may differ with that, but, nevertheless, that is part of our educational plan; and then, last, is the belief and the encouragement of young people after marriage to wait a year or two years before they undertake the responsibility of parenthood."</p>
<p>"We believe that marriage after all today in its modern sense is not as easy of adjustment as it was in the old days, when woman had to take the man’s word as gospel. Things have changed considerably, and that adjustment isn’t so simple. When you put a marriage certificate in the hands of your young people and throw a few pounds of rice after them, it is by no means certain that they are going to live happily ever after, as our divorce records and other records show."</p>
<p>"So we ask our young people to take a period of a year or two years to strengthen the bonds between them and make the development of the woman so and of the man so, and to make the development of marriage something before parenthood, and we believe that this practice will not only make for a more permanent and happier marriages, but it will make for bigger families; that if pregnancy is not an accident, if it is planned for, if there is a possibility of recuperation after the ordeal of a birth, that there is a very much better chance of that couple having their children slowly and spacing time, of having more children than there would be if they should come along by accident, and by chance, and they had to make the best of it."</p>
<p>"Now, there are three we will say, groups of methods, continence, sterilization and the chemical or mechanical means of prevention. You will all probably recognize that the first one, of continence, there is very little objection to, as far as the opposition of this work is concerned. The churches all stand back of that and applaud it, in fact, even the Roman Catholic Church, which is opposing the movement quite vigorously in all countries, claims that it has no quarrel with the principle of birth control, but with the methods of contraception; that when continence is employed, it is perfectly willing to agree that that is alright."</p>
<p>"So that after all even the opposition has recognized that there is a necessity for a limitation of the family, or for control of the birth rate."</p>
<p>"Sterilization, of course, belongs to the province of the medical profession, and I think that there is no doubt it is coming to play an important, a large part in the whole question of the prevention of disease."</p>
<p>"But the real fight and the real war seems to be waged around the third group or the chemical and mechanical means of preventing conception. As I stated before, we placed this in the hands of the medical profession because we believe that is where it belongs. We know that every woman is different in her construction and anatomy, and particularly after she has had children; the woman who has had seven or eight or nine or ten children and had no particular care, who has had to go back to work three days after the birth of a child, is quite likely to have a condition differing from the woman who has only had one or two children. The economic condition makes a difference. So, after all, the methods of contraception have to be individually applied. The economic and physiological condition of the individual, and in many cases even the mental condition of the individual, determine to a certain extent the methods of birth control applied to the woman even more than considering the application to the man, because we have found that the methods that are known, especially those discovered by Mensinga, and that have been down to the present day more generally used, we might say by applying them to the women, are more economically applied, are easier of adjustment, more satisfactory as to the results in all ways than methods used by men."</p>
<p>"Now, as to our work in the Research Bureau, perhaps it would be of some interest to you: The 10,000 case records are being analyzed and will be ready perhaps for distribution sometime about the first of the year, and I should be most pleased if anyone here is interested in having a copy of this record, I should be most pleased to have you send for it or give me your name and address, and it will be sent to you when it is ready,--of course, it was impossible to take the 10,000 records, so we took 200 cases out of 10,000. These ran from January 8, 1926, to May 2, 1926, taken in sequence from the files and fairly exhaustively studied."</p>
<p>"In the 200 cases, at lease 29 months had elapsed since the first visit, and mentioning that in passing, with regard to these cases, many women returned to the clinic many times, returned for supplies, returned to give an account of themselves and of their condition, so that we have a pretty good method of follow-up on most of these cases."</p>
<p>"Of these 200 cases, 198 were examined by one doctor and advised accordingly. It was fortunate at this time that we had but one physician, now we have eight, so that it will be a little more difficult to have the same consistency perhaps in questions and in the conditions as it was with these first 200 cases."</p>
<p>"Only eleven women out of the 200 in this preliminary report stated they had never used any contraceptive methods and the remaining 189 used not only one contraceptive method, but more than one kind. Of the 200 women reported, there were 674 pregnancies, and 93 of these had more than two pregnancies; 167 of these were abortions and 93 of these had more than one abortion, and an interesting thing which is going to show up rather badly perhaps for the medical profession is that 78 per cent of these abortions had been induced by the medical profession, by doctors and midwives. 172 of these patients totaled 546 ailments, 440 were gynecological, and 97 were general medical."</p>
<p>"I just want to emphasize that, that these women who came into this clinic do not know of the restrictions of the law; a large majority of these women come and do no know that it is necessary for them to have a disease or some ailment in order to get instruction. They think they are quite all right, they do not know they have something the matter with them, in the great majority of cases, and yet, you see, of these 175 had ailments of which they were unconscious."</p>
<p>"As to the religious composition of these people, 37 per cent were Jewish, 34 per cent were Protestants and 24 per cent Catholics, and in this early study that is a little difference than that which we believe will show in a full record, because we have practically every reason to think they go along more nearly one-third; in a different report we will show 33, 32 and 31 per cent for the religions."</p>
<p>"Twenty-six per cent of them came from social agencies, 37 per cent came from former patrons that had told their neighbors or their relatives, and they came along, 31 per cent came from publicity. Three-quarters of the wives and husbands were of foreign parentage, and one-half of them were foreign born. The average income of this number studied was rather higher than we had anticipated; it was $43 a week, it averaged that. While one-fourth of the number had an income of less than $35 a week; another one-fourth, had an income of more than $75 a week; and we found that much of it came from the wife’s work outside of home, so while the income of some of these was large, it meant a double income from husband and wife, when the combined income was that amount."</p>
<p>"Now, this is just a brief survey of this question and of the work done there, but I hope it may be of interest to you."</p>
<p>"Now, I consider, just to conclude, it was very interesting to me the last few days, especially yesterday, to hear the demolishment, you might say, of the theory of Malthus, that the pressure of food supply governs population. As far as America is concerned, it seems we do not have to wrestle with that problem in the immediate future, but I do believe there is a second problem that confronts civilization, and especially confronts us in this country where we have such a heterogeneous population, and that is the reconciliation of humanitarian efforts for race improvements. I believe that is one of the great problems that confronts us in this country, when you recall that in 1927, nine billions of dollars were spent on defectives and delinquents and dependents and that is no more than nine billion dollars foolishly spent to let a certain number of people live and propagate and to increase the needs for more billions in the next five or ten years."</p>
<p><span class="underline">The Chairman:</span> <span class="WRIQU">Mrs. Sanger has presented this subject in a way which I am sure will suggest many questions. I believe that Mrs. Sanger suggested that the third topic on the outline which is before you would be the most suitable to raise questions about. The floor is open for general discussion.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Ross:</span> <span class="ROSED"> Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mrs. Sanger if such information is given to the unmarried.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "In our clinic it is not given to the unmarried, first, on account of the laws; and, second, because we are making a study of the subject and we are rather careful. On occasions women do not come to us saying they are about to be married, in many cases the man comes with them, and they say that they are to be married, and they would both like to have any instructions given; and in many other cases the mother comes with a daughter saying that her health is thus and so and she should not have children immediately, but we have not given information to the unmarried."</p>
<p><span class="ROSED"> Is it given to those who are married where there is no reason why they should not have children, but where the woman, for example, for one reason or another, wants to sidestep maternity entirely?</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "You mean in case where she does not wish to?"</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Ross:</span> <span class="ROSED">Yes, in other words, if she wishes not to have children, is that conclusive, or do you use your own judgement whether she is entitled to sidestep children?</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "In this case it has to be given on disease in our clinic. A woman in coming to our clinic there has to have something the matter with her physically or mentally, some ailment in order to get information."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Ross:</span> <span class="ROSED">Would that be true elsewhere in the United States.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "No, not at all. I think in Chicago and in almost every one of the other clinics, I think they would perhaps-–Dr. Yarros is here and will probably give you some information upon the clinics in Chicago, how they are conducted, but I think there is a much broader interpretation of the needs in the other clinics than there is in ours."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Huntington:</span> <span class="HUNEL">Mrs Sanger, I would like to ask, since the clinic began, has there been any change in the social status of the people who come? Naturally, such things begin with a higher level and is there any evidence that birth control is going down to the lower levels?</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "As to the kind of people who come to the clinic?"</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Huntington:</span> <span class="HUNEL">Yes.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Very definitely; very definitely, there is a change. In fact, if we should have our clinic supported so that we didn’t have to depend upon it, we do try to make it self supporting, but if we could have it supported from the outside, we can devote the entire time of our seven doctors to giving attention to people who come from the charities and from the associations, who are dependent upon outside help for their existence."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Huntington:</span> <span class="HUNEL">Are you making any special effort to reach those who are dependent?</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Oh, yes, a very great effort, but I say we don’t have to, we have more people coming to us than we can take care of."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Huntington:</span> <span class="HUNEL">Are you making any effort to reach them more than to reach others? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Well, I think it is safe to say all of our--we call it propaganda--is directed to what we call the unfit, or those who should have it for eugenic or other considerations.</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Ross:</span> <span class="ROSED"> Mrs. Sanger, are the lines of the Catholic Church holding firm, or are some of the priests beginning to shake a little?</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Yes, I think we have had, in the last year several women come to us who have been sent by one Catholic priest in New York, and even some of the Catholic charities, and their social workers have brought us cases to give instruction to. I think there is a gradual giving way on the part of the Catholic Church, especially part of the church, at least some of those in the church."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Baker</span>" <span class="BAKJO">May I ask, Mrs. Sanger, as to the percentage of individuals who have not individually practiced contraception, I forget it. It seemed very significant; it does not seem to be a means for disseminating information, but merely of disseminating better information.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Yes, eleven women out of 200. I don’t think I gave the percentage, only eleven had never used any contraception; 189 had used more than one contraceptive method."</p>
<p><span class="underline">The Chairman:</span> <span class="WRIQU">Does that include abortions, that 189?</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "It would include abortions, yes. I mean sometimes the contraceptive method fails and would result in abortion."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. Fairchild</span> <span class="FAIHE">In reference to that inquiry of Dr. Ross’ about the Catholic Church, Mrs. Sanger, I would like to suggest a qualification. An amount of the Catholic literature, it is perfectly true, a good deal of Catholic literature seems to me, all the way up from the pater dicta by the bishop, but there is also other authentic Catholic literature in pater dicta, that protests against any family limitation, no matter how achieved, on the ground that it interferes with the maximum number of people to furnish a world which is pleasing to divinity. There is, however, a good deal of Catholic literature that seems to leave the way open for family limitation by continence.</span></p>
<p><span class="FAIHE">If any of you care for a complete reference on that, I can give you one or two references that give the foremost Catholic authorities on the subject of the predetermination of the family of the married couples, the weight of authority is that it is contrary to the Catholic doctrine.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span>"Dr. Fairchild, may I ask you if there has ever been a pronouncement from the Vatican, for instance?"</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Fairchild:</span> <span class="FAIHE">The most empathetic statement that I have in mind on this movement is in a book by a Catholic priest, which bears the sign manual of Archbishop Hayes, and the signet of the official censor, in which the statement is very positively made, another which I recall at the moment is the fact that a publication some few years ago issued as a rule of conduct for, I think the Holy Name Order, an argument for large and holy families, which was a matter of the subject of an editorial in one of the leading Catholic magazines. That does not necessarily say that large and holy families means the largest possible families, but there is no doubt at all that the implication was that Catholic families, to meet the standards set up by the Pope, were to be as large as possible. That was a doctrine which, I believe, bears the technical name of an interpretation. </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. Burch:</span> <span class="BURGU">Mr. Chairman, I think perhaps I might be able to throw a little light on that subject, in the Forum of the Academy of Medicine about a month ago, one of the speakers was a priest, and there are certain passages from various Councils and various pronouncements of the authorities in Rome condemning birth control. That was supposed to be the word of an official from Rome.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Ross:</span> <span class="ROSED">Mrs. Sanger, do you know whether in this country the priest is at liberty in the confessional of women to inquire as to why there have been no children born for two or three or four years? I understand in France public opinion obliged them to abandon that entirely, they do not inquire into that, but I know in some parts of this country they are doing that right now. Do you know how that is? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Yes, I think I do, they do ask that here, I have heard that they do, that is a question that is asked."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Huntington:</span> <span class="HUNEL">I know that they do and Catholic neighbors of mine told my sister so; this neighbor already had a large family of four or five and she said that the priest said she ought to have more, and that was a family of fairly well to do people.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. P. S. Taylor:</span> <span class="TAYPA">Mr. Chairman, may I ask the basis of that statement, that birth control sometimes meant more children per family, do I understand Mrs. Sanger to say that? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Yes, I do; I do think that birth control when it is properly disseminated is likely to mean more children in many cases than if the individuals had to bring children into the world by chance. We have had in a good many cases, and there are records of women who became perhaps after the birth of one child, nervous, irritable, on the verge of a divorce or separation, and after an adjustment and after four years’ time there has been an increase in the family and plans of more in the future. We have records of that, but I cannot give them to you now on account of this very limited record, but they will show up, I think, quite well in our larger study."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Fairchild:</span> <span class="FAIHE">Did you urge that as a compensation, that that would be the total social effect?</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "I don’t know as I would urge it as a compensation, but I believe it will make its appearances in many families. I think it will make an increase in many families that would not otherwise have had the same number."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. Ogburn:</span> <span class="OGBWI">May I ask Mrs. Sanger about the selection of these 200 cases. You had how many thousand, ten thousand cases which you studied? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span>"Yes."</p>
<p><span class="underline">>Mr. Ogburn:</span> <span class="OGBWI">You selected for study 200 cases about which you are reporting this afternoon? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span>"Yes."</p>
<p><span class="underline">>Mr. Ogburn:</span> <span class="OGBWI">How did you select these? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Well, we took just the first 200 in the record, we took them out from March 8 to May 2, 1926, just in one year, because one physician was taking care of all the cases over the period of that time, of two years, of 1926. They might have been any other 200 cases, they pick them out, and he took them out in sequence."</p>
<p><span class="underline">>Mr. Ogburn:</span> <span class="OGBWI">Took them out in sequence because they were at a particular time when a particular physician handled them? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span>"Yes."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. Ogburn:</span> <span class="OGBWI">Did you believe these 200 samples were representative of the whole 1,000, or if not in what way would they be considered?</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span>"Well, I think they are fairly representative except in this way: That as the movement advances, I mean since 1926 to the present time, we have in the first place I think poorer patients who are coming to us, this may change that in some degree. I think that any piece of work done by one person is likely to give a little more consistency perhaps than by several people, I mean in the examination by several doctors. That may make a little change but not material, it will not have any great effect. I think the whole change will probably be as far as the individuals are concerned, assisted, a higher percentage from the various organizations, and also lower social status."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. P. G. Wright:</span> <span class="WRIPH">I should like to ask one question of Mrs. Sanger: I have heard it stated that one of the problems at the present time was the fact the well to do class already practiced birth control successfully to a great extent, but the lower class did not, and that, therefore, there was a disturbing movement in the population to an inferior racial type. Have you anything to say on that question?</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Well, I think that that is probably true, I think that is so. We can tell to a certain extent from our birth rate that there has been a certain group of the natives, those that are better able in the country, who have been having fewer children, and I think this, and that is my reference to the contingencies affecting the differential birth rate, I believe that it can be brought about, I think it can be quite effective upon the differential birth rate, if this movement is properly directed. I believe that is what appears today to be more than anything else its direction."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. P. G. Wright:</span> <span class="WRIPH">And one of the advantages would be an economical one.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Yes, particularly with what I would call a hook-up with the social agencies. The social agencies in this country are well organized, they come in contact with all of the people in the conditions that are having large families, which we say they should not have, either way they are not able to maintain them and not able to take care of them, and I think that could be done within a generation, I should say, I believe there could be a tremendous change in the differential birth rate if that were done."</p>
<p>The remarks by by Dr. Yarros were omitted by the editors.</p>
<p>Portions of Mr. Lyon’s comment were omitted by the editors.</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. Lyon</span>: <span class="LYOLE">What I am anxious to know is whether you think the question-–I suppose I am not giving any information on that matter that you do not have–-as to whether you think there is probably real danger now from that sort of thing, not on the question of there being too much freedom of speech unless you consider all advertising too much freedom of speech, but whether there is a danger of a restrictive sort through the facilities of the law apparently permitting a commercial enterprise, making it possible to obtain this sort of thing without any clinical examination or clinical service, in view of what seems to be happening in the neighborhood drug stores, for we are talking about a few clinics where that information can be obtained. I wonder whether it may get us in a position where we have as much concern about controlling and preventing information as we have had in the past about disseminating it.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Of course, that same condition applies to European countries in England they seem to have all the devices for contraception in book shops and not in the drug stores, and certainly in Holland it is much the same, except in Holland they try to direct people to go to the clinics and receive some instruction as to the application and the kind of method used. I think the only answer to promiscuous information is that it is on a par with getting your glasses at the ten cent store. If we get people to recognize it is a personal application, just as the proper shoe fitted to your feet, then I think the matter is safe, but it is very interesting what you tell about Chicago. I had not imagined it was going to grow as fast as that."</p>
<p>Remarks by Dr. Yarros was omitted by the editors.</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Huntington:</span> <span class="HUNEL">In this connection, I had a question I was going to ask. On the train coming here this morning I picked up a copy of <span class="journal">"Liberty"</span>. I don’t read "Liberty" very often, but in that copy I found an advertisement of a birth control device which was veiled, but it was perfectly clear what it meant. There we have a direct challenge of the National law about carrying things through the mails, so it looks to me in view of what has just been said, as if things were going so rapidly that the difficulty soon might be to prevent birth control information from being given in the wrong way. What do you think? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Well, I think it needs direction. I certainly agree that it does need it, and in fact to me that is the whole thing, that we have simply got to give the direction, we have got to have clinics and have it established in the organizations and institutions where it would be accessible to those who applied. I think if there were more easily accessible proper information for the people that they would prefer to go there, where it is given in the proper way than to take it hit or miss. I think that is especially so far as women are concerned."</p>
<p><span class="underline">The Chairman:</span> <span class="WRIQU">I wish we might have some of the questions relating to the influence of birth control on the solution of social problems suggested in the third question, and suggest that to Dr. Kuczynski.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Kuczynski</span> <span class="KUZRO">I should like very much to enter into this question whether birth control is the best means of restriction of population, but I think we have not yet clarified the question whether birth control is altogether a means of limiting the number of births, since Mrs. Sanger and Dr. Yarros said that in many case birth control led to increasing the number of children, and told us about those women that were on the verge of divorce and then employed contraceptive methods and after taht became happy again and had many children.</span></p>
<p>Other portions of Dr. Kuczynski's remarks were omitted by the editors.</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. P. G. Wright:</span> Portions of Mr. P. G. Wright’s comment was omitted by the editors.</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. P. G. Wright:</span> <span class="WRIPH">It would seem to me, and I should like Mrs. Sanger's opinion, that we may say this: Birth control in itself is not an automatic adjustment for fitting population to the means of subsistence. Of course, taking the history of world as a whole into consideration, population always is in proportion to the means of subsistence, by some means or other. To say the population can exceed the means of subsistence is a contradiction of terms. It always has been fitted and always presumably will be fitted.</span></p>
<p><span class="WRIPH">The methods that have been employed are all well known, war, pestilence, infanticide, abortion, and so forth, which I distinguish from birth control. Therefore, this problem involves itself with another which will be discussed, and that is the optimum of population.</span></p>
<p>Portions of Mr. P. G. Wright’s comment was omitted by the editors.</p>
<p><span class="WRIPH">Now, perhaps the chief thing to make such an adjustment is to have this general sentiment broadcast, that it is an obligation for a man and woman to have as many children as they feel they can bring up to an economic status a little better than their own. That would seem pretty nearly adjusting population to means of substance, if it were carried out by widespread public sentiment. I should like to have Mrs. Sanger’s opinion on that. </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "Yes, I quite agree. I should like to have Professor Ross answer Dr. Kuczynski’s question. It seems to me, as I have seen in families, and I don’t know why it should not apply to a nation or to a population, that it seems more like a question of absorption in the family. I mean four children can come to a man and woman with great rapidity before they are adjusted, before they have the equipment to take care of four children, but if these same four children come over a long period of time with more experience, with better organization of the home, having more equipment to look after four children, without pushing down their standards, I believe, and I have seen it, that these four children are not only more welcome, but are an asset to the family, and I don’t see why the same thing would not apply to a nation."</p>
<p>"Dr. Ross, will you answer Dr. Kuczynski’s question?"</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Ross:</span> <span class="ROSEL">Well, I would like to say that Mrs. Sanger wouldn't claim that any more than ten or fifteen per cent of the cases receiving knowledge of birth control resulted in the birth of more children, than if it had notcome to their knowledge. That is a factor, to be sure, but in the largr number of caes birth control operates to limit the size of the family.</span></p>
<p>Other comments by Dr. Ross, as well as Dr. Kuczynski, Mr. P. G. Wright, The Chairman, Dr. Yarros, Dr. Huntington, Dr. Schultz, Mr. Ogburn, Dr. Thompson,Dr. Fairchild and Mr. Chaddock were omitted by the editors.</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Kuczynski:</span> <span class="KUCRO">I think the question of income is not so essential in this connection. The essential and the interesting point is: does the more efficient-–with birth control--have more children than the less efficient? If this is the case, it would, of course, be in contradiction to what we have usually assumed, that is, that the so-called proletarians have the largest number of children while the more successful have less children. But if birth control has the effect that it will bring about a stronger increase among the superior class we should be aware that it is only a small minority of the population, which are really efficient, and it would, of course, have a very strong numerical effect if in the future the ten per cent efficient would have a family of three surviving children, and the ninety percent inefficient, and probably those who have not taken an academic degree would be still less than efficient--would have one child only. From the standpoint of eugenics birth control would then certainly be most welcome, but it would certainly very greatly diminish the total number of the population.</span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> :May I suggest that I brought up the question on that point about some of the cases having more children, because I think Dr. Fairchild-–Dr. Fairchild, you read the case, and you suggest I relate this, because of some of the cases."</p>
<p>"We had dinner in New York, a money raising scheme, and we had some of the women themselves come there and tell about their own family conditions, and many people were much impressed with the fact that one young Russian woman got up and said that she, I think, had been born just previous to the outbreak of the war, and had tuberculosis, and she came to this country and had to go to Saranac, or some such place, she was very much in love with a young man who was working his way through the university, she had been told on account of the tuberculosis she must not marry, to have children would endanger her life, and she heard about birth control, she came to get information, went to one of the doctors and got information and was eventually married and was eventually cured of tuberculosis, and she now had her baby and turned around to her audience and said, “<span class="UNK">I have a baby and I am going to have another, but I want to have a little time.</span>”. That was quite impressive to the people there."</p>
<p>"It might be interesting also, the number of children recorded at this clinic. Twenty families of unskilled laborers had seventy-four children, 3.7 per family, I think that is about what you would expect; twenty-five families in a small trade group; eighty-six children, 3.7; sixty-four families, 127 children, or two per family; seventeen families in the transportation group had thirty-six children, or two per family; eight families in the domestic group, eleven children, or 1.3 per family; twenty-nine families in the big business group, thirty children or one per family; miscellaneous group had one."</p>
<p><span class="underline">The Chairman:</span> <span class="WRIQU">That would be the reverse: Dr. Huntington’s group was chosen from university graduates, this was from the whole population. </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs Sanger:</span> "You must recognize that in the clinic after all, we do have a more selective group, we have to take those who have something to matter with them, so there is something different. I would like to ask Professor Smith, is your objection to the medical profession on grounds of education or on technical grounds?"</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. Smith:</span> <span class="SMITH"> Oh, not technical, but we were talking here of an optimum population and the medical profession hasn’t any standard, individual or collective, and I wouldn’t expect it to have a standard at the present time. </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "I think as far as the birth control movement is concerned, the whole point, and I think Dr. Yarros will bear me out, is that were are not asking the medical profession to judge for us how many children we may have, as much as what methods would be most suitable for us to use for success."</p>
<p><span class="underline">The Chairman:</span> <span class="WRIQU"> This Round Table cannot last very much longer. I should like to give an opportunity to everyone who has not spoken yet who wishes to say something. </span></p>
<p>Comments by Mr. P. G. Wright, Dr. Huntington, The Chairman, Dr. Kuczynski, Mr. Ogburn, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Fairchild, Dr. Simpson and Dr. Nasu were omitted by the editors.</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. Crocker:</span> <span class="CROWA">Mr. Chairman, I think I would like to enter the into this discussion. I am not clear on Dr. Thompson's point. It seems to me Dr. Kuczynski's point of view may be sound, but does not answer why the birth rate had declined in Spain about five per thousand in a century. It is difficult to believe in Spain birth control is responsible for that, nor does it explain why in Japan the fertility rate is three or four per thousand, nor does it eplain why in France the birth rate is higher in the cities rhan it is in the country.</span></p>
<p>Comments by Mr. Ogburn were omitted.</p>
<p><span class="underline">Dr. Kuczynski:</span> <span class="KUCRO">As to Spain, I don’t see any reason, in fact, I know there is a good deal of birth control, and I wonder why in the city of Barcelona, which is their most modern city, there should not be birth control. We have just heard that in Japan there is after all also birth control. In France there are more births in cities than in rural districts, because for more than a hundred years there has been a new law which compels every farmer to divide his land among his children. </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "You are quite right about Spain, because I was there in 1915, and there was a lot of information going through there, which was quite a surprise to me."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. Ogburn:</span> <span class="OGBWI"> I would like to ask Mrs. Sanger if she would make a guess, if she doesn’t know the answer to this question, what percentage of families in England have knowledge of contraception, about what percentage? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "I should say within the last five years that it is safe to say over sixty per cent."</p>
<p><span class="underline">Mr. Ogburn:</span> <span class="OGBWI">And how about a state like New York, for instance? </span></p>
<p><span class="underline">Mrs. Sanger:</span> "That might be less."</p>
<p>Comments by Mr. Thompson, Dr. Kuczynski and Dr. Fairchild were omitted by the editors.</p>
</div>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
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Unknown
Kuczynski, Robert Rene
Ross, Edward Allsworth
Fairchild, Henry Pratt
Ogburn, William Fielding
Crocker, Walter Russell
Taylor, Paul Schuster
Lyon, Leverett Samuel>
Wright, Quincy
Wright, Phillip Green
Margaret Sanger Papers Project
Huntington, Ellsworth
Smith, Thomas Vernor
Burch, Guy Irving
Baker, John Randal
Dawson, Bertrand E.
Latin
Creator
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Margaret Sanger
Spatial Coverage
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Chicago, IL
Date
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1926-06-21
Description
An account of the resource
<p>This roundtable discussion, led by Margaret Sanger included John Randal Baker, Guy Irving Burch, Robert Emmet Chaddock, Robert Hamilton Coats, Walter Russell Crocker, Henry Pratt Fairchild, Ernst Freund, Corrado Gini, Harold Foote Gosnell, Mr. Hooker, Ellsworth Huntington, Oscar Edward Kiessling, Robert Rene Kuczynski, Leverett Samuel Lyon, Mrs. McLean, Shiroshi Nasu, Fielding William Ogburn, Mr. Okada, Raymond Pearl, Edward Byron Reuter, Mrs. Rich, Edward Allsworth Ross, Margaret Sanger, Samuel Johnson Schultz, Mr. Schuman, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Smith, Thomas Vernor Smith, Mr. Stehlc, Jesse Fredrick Steiner, Mr. Simon, Mr. Swen, Mr. A. E. Taylor, Mr. G. Taylor, Paul Schuster Taylor, Warren Simpson Thompson, Phillip Green Wright, Mrs. Q. Wright, Sewall Wright, Rachelle Yarros, Quincy Wright.</p>
<p>The discussion focused on three points: 1. The general principles underlying the practice of birth control; 2. The extent and growth of birth control in England and the United States, including effects on the birth rate, laws, and clinical studies of birth control clinic patients; and 3. The role of birth control in the problems of population, including a more even distribution of wealth, increases in production and control of the birth rate. Other points raised were whether birth control practice was an inevitable result of civilization and whether population growth rate can be lowered without birth control</p>
<p>Portions of the transcript that did not include the participation of Sanger were omitted by the MSPP.</p>
Identifier
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msp#421048
Language
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Latin
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="testimony">Norman Wait Harris Memorial Foundation, Sixth Institute: Population and Migration, Round Table on 'Preventive Checks to Population Growth,"</span>, June 21, 1929. Norman Harris Foundation Records, Box 5, pp. 203-253, University of Chicago Library
Subject
The topic of the resource
abortion--frequency of
Austria--birth control in
birth control--access to
birth control--class-based
birth control--definitions of
birth control--distribution of information about
birth control--health benefits and risks
birth control--lack of knowledge of
birth control--medically controlled
birth control clinics and leagues
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau--records
birth control laws and legislation--Comstock Laws
birth control laws and legislation--state
birth control methods
birth control methods--sexual continence
birth control movement
Catholic Church--and birth control
censorship--in England
censorship--in United States
child spacing
England--birth control in
England--birth control clinics
eugenics
family size--class-based
family size--and poverty
Germany--birth control clinics in
Illinois--Chicago--birth control in
marriage--and birth control
mentally diseased or disabled--and reproduction
mentally diseased or disabled--as social burdens
mentally diseased or disabled--unfit to reproduce
Netherlands, the--birth control in
Netherlands, the--birth control clinics in
New York--birth control laws and legislation
physically disabled and diseased--and birth control
physicians--and birth control
religion--and birth control
Sanger, Margaret--as a nurse
Sanger, Margaret--tours--1922 (Japan)
sterilization
unfit to reproduce--definitions of
working classes--and birth control
Title
A name given to the resource
[Roundtable discussion on Preventive Checks for Population Growth]
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published Testimony
-
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Deity
God
Organization
Washington Naval Conference
Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference
International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference, 5th
Middle Western States Birth Control Conference
Brownsville Clinic
British Museum
United States Government
Kaizo
Drake Hotel
Peking National University
Birth Control League of America
American Birth Control League
Japan Consulate
Person
Einstein, Albert
Byrne, Ethel Higgins
Higgins, Anne Purcell
Bonaparte, Napoleon
Bridges, Horace
Lane, William Arbuthnot
Higgins, Michael Hennessey
Wells, H. G.
Russell, Bertrand
Bennett, Arnold
Hanohawa, Mr.
Schroeder, Theodore
Ellis, Havelock
Sachs, Sadie
Freschi, John J.
Edward VIII (England)
Sachs, Jake
Mindell, Fania
Dawson, Bertrand E.
Place
London, England
Brooklyn, NY
Peking, China
Portland, OR
China
New York
United States
Netherlands, the
Sweden
New York, NY
Germany
Chicago, IL
San Francisco, CA
Illinois
France
Mexico
Japan
England
Norway
Corning, NY
Europe
Spain
Honolulu, HI
Canada
India
Publication
New Republic
Family Limitation
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>Address of Welcome</h4>
<p class="byline">MRS MARGARET SANGER</p>
<p>Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is my pleasant duty to express a cordial welcome
on behalf of the American Birth Control League to you all, and especially to
the delegates, the friends and others who have come from the various cities to attend
this conference and to assist us by their counsel, wisdom and experience. I also want to
take this opportunity to thank the Chairman, Mr. Horace Bridges, and I must say that I
have never heard an address given so briefly, so exquisitely, so beautifully, and covering the subject so comprehensively as he has done in his few minutes of
introduction. I wish there were more people who could hear him.</p>
<p>Great and significant events have occurred in the world since the first Birth Control League
was formed in the United States something less than ten years ago. I have been asked by friends recently coming to the
movement, and by some friends who have long been in the movement, to tell you to night something of the vicissitudes, something of the early struggles, something of
the barrier, that we have had to fight in order to bring this subject of Birth Control before the American people for discussion, and it seems to me that this might
be a fitting occasion to do this, because tomorrow and the next day the various sessions of this
conference shall be devoted to the discussion of the subject from various angles. There shall be presentation of papers by
some of the most distinguished men and women in the country. So that it seems to me that I might take you with me, if you will bear with me and be tolerant of the
pronoun "I", which must be interjected into the details of this evening's discourse.</p>
<p>It is a well-known historical fact that the idea of Birth Control is as old as history itself. Far back through the ages, through the various stages of barbarism,
savagery, and even in civilization, there has always been an attempt on the part of man to control the size of his family, to control the number of people in the clan,
in his tribe. The methods that were used were not those that we wish to tolerate today. These were the methods of infanticide, the abandonment of children, the killing of babies, and
foeticide. Civilization as we know it today does not believe in those methods of controlling the population, and at the same time civilization does not supplant an
alternative which makes these conditions and these methods necessary.</p>
<p>The only means that have been used today are agencies that are legislative and
ameliorative. These agencies have been established for the purpose of reducing the
misery, the unhappiness and the squalor, the disease, that is here with us. But I do not
believe that either of these agencies are effective in producing or bringing about the
most desired results. I believe that only through birth control, or the knowledge of how
to prevent conception, can the most effective measures be brought about. For birth
control is the key to the greatest of human problems, the problem of reconciling
humanitarianism with greatest improvement.</p>
<p>Today we know that this great, fine impulse of humanitarianism brings about a dysgenic
effect, where, with the application of birth control, it could produce a eugenic effect.
These measures, both legislative and ameliorative, or rather these agencies, could be
brought about and made of great use in the country and in the world, if there was
accompanied with them, going hand in hand, information to control birth, and it would
make the multiplication of the unfit and of the diseased cease.</p>
<p>When we look out upon the world today, we must recognize that there is already the
practice of birth control going on among us. It is as Lord Dawson said in the
London conference,
birth control is here to stay, and I say the only trouble with it is that it
is not practiced far enough. It is only practiced by one group in society, the group
that we must call the small family group. The other group, the large family group, has
not the benefit of this knowledge.</p>
<p>Up to 1912, when I first came into this work, there had been no group, and to my
knowledge no individual, who had attempted to bring this idea of family limitation into
the large family group, or to interest or advise its practice there. We know for the
last quarter of a century that the small family group has been perpetuating itself, but
also in that group we find conditions that we all approve of. We find there health,
wealth, comfort, leisure, possibilities of development. We find in that group, while
there are only a few children, two, three or four, these are the children that get the
best care, that are usually brought through to maturity, and are given the advantages of
state and of society. These are the children who eventually fill the universities and
the colleges, and it is from this group that every one is clamouring that they should
produce more of their children.</p>
<p>And, on the other hand, the large family group has also perpetuated its conditions. It
perpetuates from generation unto generation its misery, its ignorance, its poverty, its
disease. For there we see all of the problems that we have got today. We see the problem
of <span class="line-through">daily</span> <span class="addition">child</span> labor, we see the problem of slums, we see our infant mortality,
maternal mortality, we see practically every condition that we are trying to ameliorate,
that we are trying to legislate against, there snuggled closely in that group and
perpetuating themselves continually.</p>
<p>There is another condition there that to me is very serious, and that is that the women,
the mothers, in one group do not wish to have the large families that are forced upon
them. I found that they did not want to have more children than they could take care of,
any more than the women, the mothers, in the small family group. But because of
ignorance, because of the lack of knowledge, they had to resign themselves to either one
thing or the other, that is, to having children as fast as nature sends them, or to
resort to illegal operations. I found, especially in my work as a trained nurse, that
this condition was very prevalent. I found it was so prevalent that it was almost
abhorrent, and yet the women would come to me and say "<span class="UNK">What else can one do?</span>"</p>
<p>I happen to be born of a large family. I happen to be one of that large family group. My
own parents had eleven living children, so I knew something from the beginning of all
the problems that are constantly there perpetuating themselves with large families. I
lived in a small factory town, and there I saw
constantly girls and boys who came of my age, sometimes younger, year after year leave
school and have to take their place beside their father in the factory. Always behind it
was another baby that came into the family to force the older one out to compete with
his father for his daily bread.</p>
<p>I had a very peculiar childhood, because I came from parents who were Irish, and sometimes I think it is a very great burden to be given, two Irish parents (Laughter). Someway we are always wanting to change <span class="line-through">them</span> <span class="addition">things</span>. We never are quite
satisfied with things as they are. My father was a great philosopher. He was a
poet. He had the possibilities of a sculptor. And there was one thing that he taught his children, and that was to be true to themselves, to think their own thoughts,
to pray their own prayers to their own God. And last, to give back to society the benefit of your experience as you live in life. He also told us again and
again that the object of life was to hold fast to a dream, to get a dream and then make that dream come true. With this peculiar kind of a philosophy, this strange kind of a
religion, I was launched out upon the world to compete for my daily experience.</p>
<p>And so, after several years of nursing, after I had finished training, I found myself applying some of my father's philosophy to my life work. It was very difficult
for anyone to live among the working people, to see their agony, to see their misery, to see their unhappiness, and not to try to apply something to help
them remove it.</p>
<p>I found women in almost every walk of life, I saw them go through agony, needless agony, o bring forth dead children. I saw them go through that agony, and they
were glad and said "<span class="UNK">Thank God</span>" when they were told that their baby was born dead. And when you look about you and use your reason you realize
that they were right. This mother instinct knew in the first place that she had no moral right to have children that she could not take care of. Again and again
these women said to me "<span class="UNK">Why should I bring a child into the world when those I have already cannot be fed?</span>" And then sometimes they grew rebellious
with me, a social worker, and others who came to them, and they said "<span class="UNK">If you would tell us what you tell the rich women, we would be much happier.</span>"
(Applause)</p>
<p>It was impossible to go on, year in and year out, without coming to some conclusion about
these conditions. It was impossible for me to keep on going back and seeing these women
and finding what they were doing, and not be able to help them. And I shall never forget
the case that I had last. Some of you may have heard this before, but I am going to tell
it to you again. That was the last case I ever took in the nursing world, and I think
the last I ever shall take.</p>
<p>It was the case of a woman, who was a young woman, a
little over thirty years old; her husband was thirty-two. They were a kind and loving
couple and devoted to the three children, ages five, three, and one and one-half. They
lived in the congested quarter of New York, and lived
in two small rooms. The father at that time was earning Twelve Dollars and a Half a
week, which was a small wage even for those days. And this mother had repeatedly said to
her friends, to neighbors and others who had come to her, that it would be impossible
for her to get on if she had to have an increase in her family. And so when I was called
to her to look after her it was to rescue her out of a death bed. She had attempted to
perform an operation upon herself, and when I was called in it was a case of septicemia.
We had a very great struggle, the doctor and I, to bring this woman back to life, and
again and again neither of us thought it was possible. I remember of going eighty hours
without a wink of sleep, until the crisis was past. I slept partly on the floor, near
this woman, so that she would not be disturbed, and so I could keep track of her
pulse.</p>
<p>And then finally it was over and we had won the victory, and every one was glad. The
neighborhood rejoiced, and the day came when both the doctor and myself were dismissed.
But when we were going before we went, this woman, sitting there with her children, her
face pale and haggard and very much worried, had something on her heart and something on
her mind, <span class="line-through">and she</span> <span class="addition">had something to say but</span> did not know how to say it. But finally the Doctor,
who was very cheerful, very grateful to himself that he had brought this woman out of the valley of death, said to her "<span class="UNK">There is one
thing you cannot do, and that is to get into this condition again.</span>" And she said "<span class="UNK">Yes, I know it, but Doctor, what am I going to do?</span>"
<span class="UNK">What are you going to tell me so that I will not get that way again?</span>" And then the doctor patted her on the back and tried to make the
best of it, but nevertheless he went away without telling her what to do. And then she turned to me and said "<span class="UNK">Oh, you are a
woman, you have children, you know, you understand. Surely you will tell me what to
do.</span>" And I too, although I had been a trained nurse, I must confess that I was
very ignorant, I had no idea what to tell this woman or how to make it understandable.
And so I followed the doctor's attitude. I closed the door and left that woman there to
her misery and to her fate.</p>
<p>Oh, I wonder if any of you have ever been haunted, haunted by a face, haunted by remorse!
And as I went on in my work for the next two or three months, this woman's face would
come before me as I sat down quietly to read, or when I was unoccupied by other duties.
And then it was only a few months later that I was called again to the telephone, and
this anxious husband begged me to come as quickly as possible, that his wife was very
ill. And back I went, only to find that we were both too late, this poor little woman
had again become pregnant and had again resorted to one of the cheap doctors in her
neighborhood, and this time she could not make the fight. This time she lost. And then I
came there and I saw what really had happened. I saw a bed, these children being torn
away to orphan homes, I saw this poor, frantic young father,
who was just as innocent, just as ignorant as she was, and just as helpless. I saw that whole condition, and from that I saw the whole panorama of our
social life today, and I went home and I knew then, though that woman had died, that in
her death she had given birth to a new idea that was going to free other women from such
hardship. (Applause)</p>
<p>Now, it is all very well to have an idea, but the thing is, how to get that idea over to the people. In the first place, there was nothing that you could call it.
I hadn't any knowledge that there was such a League, or that this idea had been already formed into League, and that it was being carried
on as an educational work in other countries. But it was a most important thing for us or for me to find some <span class="addition">[name]</span>or handle
that could be used for this instrument to free <span class="line-through">womanhood</span> <span class="addition">womankind from maternal bondage.</span></p>
<p>Now, I found a little later that this idea in England was called
"Neo-Malthusianism." That didn't seem so easy. In France I found it was
called "Conscious generation," in Germany and in Holland it was called "New Generation,"
but none of these seemed to be words or names that would convey to an American headline public an idea rapidly.</p>
<p> So the first thing that it was necessary to do was to get a name, and to get a name that
would speak for itself. <span class="line-through">Now, that is not easy, because here we were, generations before me, and this thought had never been concentrated.</span>
For months and months I concentrated on what this should be called, how you could call out to the people and tell them what was happening, how you
could convey the idea in <span class="line-through">an item of</span> a few words to the public. <span class="line-through">Because</span> I felt that it was absolutely necessary to call out from
the housetops to the American people what I knew, what I saw and what I believed. And then one evening I gathered a few people together, just a little group of
men and women who were with me, who were interested in doing something to help get this thought over. It was not by any means an easy thing to do, although our friends
all agreed that something should be done.</p>
<p>It is not always so easy to do the thing that is before us. But after an evening's conversation, after juggling with words, after taking an inventory of everyone's
vocabulary, it came like a flash out of the nowhere into the here, the words "Birth Control." They came like lightening, as a bugler of the dawn, they came as a
battle cry.</p>
<p>Now, to me, the idea in the words "birth control" were the best that had been conceived,
because as our chairman said, it meant control, not limitation. When you say
"limitation" that narrows the idea, but "control" is a far bigger word, and I have never
been able to understand what the prejudice is against the word. I often think I would
like to have those persons who dislike the word psychoanalyzed and see what is the
matter with them.</p>
<p>At any rate it was one thing, and it seemed to me that was victory <span class="line-through">won</span> <span class="addition">one</span>, to get a name that would convey your thought, <span class="line-through">a victory won</span>.
But that was not, oh, half the battle. In the first place, having resolved to give up my work, it was not an easy matter to try to interest others to give money and <span class="line-through">half</span>
<span class="addition">help</span> financially and morally to put over an idea that was so new. It was not at all easy to do that. I went to ten of the most prominent women in
New York, and asked them if they would go on record with me to write a booklet or a pamphlet giving out this thought, and conveying the idea in
simple English to the American public.</p>
<p>Would you believe I could not find one woman in New York City who would do it? The answer came back "<span class="UNK">Wait until we get the vote.</span>" Wait, wait, wait.
Nobody said "do," everybody said "don't." Again, I asked different people if they wouldn't give something toward getting out a publication, and again my heart was filled
with hope by an attorney who wrote and said he would come to see me. He was very much interested in free speech, and
he believed that I had struck at the root of a great many of our social problems, and consequently he and I arranged for a meeting, where I thought, as he had a certain
financial backing, it might be possible to make short day of this. When I met him he went over the pros and cons of the matter with me, and he said
"<span class="SCHTH">Do you understand and realize that there are laws against conveying this idea to the public?"</span></p>
<p>Well, this was quite new to me. I said "Laws!" He said "<span class="SCHTH">Yes, there are laws in practically every state in the Union, as well as Federal laws.</span>" He said "<span class="SCHTH">Do you know that this means jail, means prosecution?</span>" Well, that didn't sound very well.
But before the evening was over I still wanted to go on with this work. And as strongly as he argued, as vivid a picture as was presented, I still felt that something
within one that drives you on and makes you go, and it was impossible to give up the idea. So finally the lawyer looked at me, very seriously, and he said
"<span class="SCHTH">I will back you with the publication if you will do something for me first?</span>" I asked him what it was. He said "<span class="SCHTH">If you will stay for
six months and by psycho-analyzed, I will stand behind you.</span>" My kind old father, who had been so anxious for me, in my youth, to have <span class="addition">a dream</span> and make
that dream come true, came on a visit to New York, the first in forty years, to take me home to put me in a retreat where I could rest from some shock he was sure I
must have had.</p>
<p>So it was that one had to fight every step of the way. There were no friends, there was
no one to help, there was no one to say "do." So I sold the little home I had, where my
children played, and I sent them on to a small boarding school, and I took the money and
I decided to study this subject from every angle before I launched a national campaign.
I went to Europe, I went to England, to France, to Holland, to Spain, and I studied in the
British Museum from the time the gates opened, which was 9:00 O'clock, until 7:00 O'clock at night, for more than
eight hours. I went to Holland and took a course of instruction. I went to Spain to see what they were doing there. I went to France,
and studied this subject from away back to the time of Napoleon.</p>
<p>So I came back equipped, not only with information but also with such distinguished men behind me as H. G. Wells,
Arnold Bennett, Havelock Ellis, and others. And then I was amused to find that with those
names behind one it was not half so difficult to find some American women who would go on record with <span class="line-through">one</span> <span class="addition">you</span>.</p>
<p>My first attempt at a publication was to discuss the theory of the subject. Yet only just
to talk about the subject in a theoretical way seemed to offend the government, and with
nine small publications, each of them was confiscated and each of them meant an
indictment. Now, at the Federal Court it means five years imprisonment with every
indictment, if you are convicted, so by the time I was through saying what I had to say
in even a small way, 45 years in the penitentiary hung over me.</p>
<p>Then again began a great deal of agitation to get the American public to see what one was
trying to do to enlighten them with the facts, and I am glad to say it was only a very
short time when the Federal government
dismissed the whole nine cases, because as a matter of fact they had nothing that was
illegal in those indictments. It was simply that they were afraid of the words and
hadn't themselves known the law.</p>
<p>Now, with 45 years of imprisonment wiped off the slate, you would think that one would go back into <span class="line-through">the</span>
<span class="addition">your</span> maternal corner and stay there. But having been to Holland I realized now as I had never realized before that all the discussion and talking,
and all the pamphleteering and the publications I could get to the people were not going to help the women that I wanted to help. Many of those women could not
read a pamphlet or a book, so that no matter what I did to get the Federal law changed, there were those <span class="addition">poor weary ignorant</span> women that would not benefit
by <span class="addition">that change of that law</span>.</p>
<p>Those women wanted someone to talk to. They had to be instructed personally. They had to
be taught. And I knew that many of them could not read, thousands of them could not read
English, and it takes <span class="line-through">too high</span> an intelligence to follow <span class="addition">printed</span>
plans and directions, <span class="line-through">and I knew that was not the way for me to work</span>
<span class="addition">while oral instruction is far simpler</span>. So, having found clinics established
in Holland, I decided that the thing was to show the government, and especially the
government of New York State, and the courts, that the establishment of a
clinic was the proper way to disseminate this information, and <span class="line-through">have</span>
<span class="addition">give</span> it there privately where women may come <span class="addition">for instruction.</span></p>
<p>And so I established a clinic in the District of
Brownsville, Brooklyn, in the midst of a very
thickly populated section. It was there where the infant mortality was highest, and it
was there where the greatest amount of money was spent for charity. It was only a short
time that this little clinic was allowed to stay, about ten days, but within that ten
days, 488 women came and applied and were personally instructed in means to prevent
conception.</p>
<p>We had to have <span class="line-through">that interpreted </span> <span class="addition">an interpreter
</span>, and we also had to have a trained nurse, <span class="line-through">and yet this did not
suffice</span>. There were baby carriages and women in line for nearly two blocks around this little place. We took their records, we took their names, we took
<span class="line-through">record</span> <span class="addition">record of</span> the wages <span class="line-through">that</span> their husbands made, the number of children they had already had, the number of miscarriages.</p>
<p>We had facts and data that, when they came before the court, made a profound impression upon the judges, and one of the judges refused to come up the next day
to try the case, he was so impressed. Nevertheless, the law was the law, and that was a distinct
challenge to the law. This was done openly and knowingly. One of the judges said "<span class="FREJO">If you will
promise not to go on with this work, your case may be dismissed. We want you to obey this law, reply that it was impossible for me, knowing the suffering that I
knew of, to respect such a law. It was impossible."</span> (Applause) And so thirty days in jail was not very much for the satisfaction of helping 488 women. And many of
those women have come to us since and told how much this has meant in their lives.</p>
<p>In one case there came to us a woman whose husband was about to leave her. She had grown
cold and indifferent. She was afraid of him, she was afraid of his caress, afraid of his
touch. She felt that something was going to happen to break up that little family.
Someone read in the paper that there was such a place <span class="addition">as the clinic and</span> sent
her there, and she came to us for help. Three years later she returned, her arm locked
in that of her husband, on their way to the moving pictures, and they said that they had
never been so happy, that their home life was happy, they had had no more children, and
they felt that they owed a great deal of their happiness to the establishment of that
little clinic.</p>
<p>From 1914 to 1917 were three years of constant agitation. Those of us who sat down to
think out this campaign decided that there were four stages through which to pass, four
courses to pursue: Agitation, education, organization and legislation. Those were four epois or four periods that we must pursue.</p>
<p>So those first years, with agitation, it meant imprisonment, jail, hunger strikes, it
meant meetings being stopped, it meant everything that was disagreeable, most
disagreeable. And then we began, from 1917 to 1922, a course of education. We had been
able to have some books and pamphlets reprinted. We established a magazine
to carry forth this message, and it jumped from 2,000 the first year to 10,000 within two years.
This has conveyed the message for our association or our league. We have since that time
created practically a literature in the United States. I do not mean that we personally
have done it, but I mean the agitation and the thought going out has brought back to us
an entirely new literature which was not in existence when we began in 1914.</p>
<p>From 1922 to 1925 is to be a special time for organization. Just a few years ago, after
that first little league had broken up on account of the war, we again formed another
league, which <span class="line-through">was</span>
<span class="addition">is</span> a national league with its headquarters in New York City. From that we
have gone out and organized similar leagues all over the world. We have a branch league
in Canada, another in Mexico, another in Honolulu, two in Japan, two in
China, and there are also similar leagues and organizations in
practically every country in Europe, although <span class="addition">some of</span> those were in existence
before we began this work.</p>
<p>Perhaps the greatest victory that I have been able to see was the invitation to go to
Japan and to bring the message of Birth Control to the Japanese people. It seemed to me
that that was indeed part of the dream coming true, because those who oppose this idea
almost always say "<span class="UNK">If the white race practices birth control, and the yellow race does not, it is going to mean the
wiping out of our civilization.</span>" So I was overjoyed when I received an invitation from a group called "Kaizo",
which means "Reconstruction" <span class="line-through">"Group"</span>, similar you might say to our <span class="journal">New Republic</span> group in America.
They asked me to come to Japan and deliver four lectures on the subject of "War and Population."</p>
<p>I of course was delighted to do so. When I heard that I had been preceded by Bertrand Russell, and that I was to be followed by
such distinguished persons as Einstein and H. G.
Wells, I felt greatly flattered that I was to go into such good company.</p>
<p>Everything seemed to go very well until I got to San Francisco. When I reached San Francisco and applied for a visa
to my passport, I was told most courteously by the Japanese Counsel that that morning he had received a cable from his
home office saying that if Mrs. Sanger, the birth control advocate, applied for a passage to Japan, that it
was to be refused her. So then I asked if it were possible to go without delivering the lectures, and he cabled back, and back again came the word
"<span class="UNK">No.</span>" So it seemed for a time as if it were impossible to get into Japan.</p>
<p>I heard, however, that the boat I was going on was sailing also to China, and that on
that boat were more than 150 representatives from the Peace Conference at Washington. These were
some of the most distinguished men of Japan. It seemed to me that it was absolutely
necessary to get into Japan, and at the same time to get onto that boat with these
delegates. So I booked my passage, not for Japan, but for China, and I was only on board
a few days when the Japanese Group came to me and asked if I would speak to them in the
first class passage or saloon. I of course was delighted to do this, and immediately
after this address had been given, Mr. Hanohawa,
who is now the Japanese representative in this country, cabled to his home office,
saying that he had heard this address, and he believed that the Japanese Government
would be making a very great mistake if it did not raise the ban <span class="line-through">over it
doors</span>, and also <span class="line-through">if it did not</span> listen attentively to the message
that was to be given. (applause)</p>
<p>I will not attempt to tell you all the pros and cons, and the difficulties that awaited
me in Japan, but needless to say, after a great deal of questioning by the authorities
who came out to meet me, I was finally allowed to enter Japan, and I was also allowed to
give thirteen lectures while I was there. There was only one other person who was better
known in Japan, who was an outsider, and that was the Prince of Wales.</p>
<p>Every paper throughout the entire Empire was filled with something about birth control.
That does not mean that everyone agreed with the idea. Not at all. But nevertheless
there was such a fine, liberal group there--that to me is the hope of Japan--that they
insisted upon making it possible for one to say one's say. And also out of the 101
magazines that came out the 1st of April, 88 of these magazines carried a principal
article on the population question. <span class="line-through">So that</span> It is said that <span class="line-through">while</span>
98 per cent of the population of Japan are literate, <span class="line-through">nevertheless</span>
<span class="addition">and</span> 95 per cent of the people know something today about birth control.</p>
<p>We also formed leagues there, and before the disaster the work was going on very
beautifully. The same with China, although there was not the same opposition. In China
the students from the Government University
<span class="line-through">begged</span> <span class="addition">requested</span> me to address them. And the interesting thing to me was the
difference in the two languages. In Japan, one had to stand three hours to deliver a one
hour address. In China, you stood a half an hour to deliver an hour's address, on
account of the difference of languages.</p>
<p>Naturally, I was nearly exhausted and worn out when I left Japan, but in China they
gathered together a large student body of 2500 persons, mostly men, as there were very
few women <span class="addition">students</span> in <span class="line-through">China</span> Pekin attending the university. Later on in the
evening the chancellor of the university held a meeting at his home, where there were some of the distinguished professors of Pekin, and that night before we left an
organization was formed, and a little pamphlet, called "<span class="book">Family Limitation</span>", that some of you might have heard of, was <span class="line-through">written</span>
<span class="addition">read</span>. Some of them stayed up that night and translated it into Chinese, and the next morning it was on the press, and five thousand of these pamphlets were
being distributed among the men and women of China. That shows quick action. It shows how an idea goes, is taken, and <span class="addition">quickly</span> <span class="line-through">act</span>
<span class="addition">acted</span> upon <span class="line-through">it so quickly</span>.</p>
<p>From China I went to London to attend the International Conference, and there it was indeed a most inspiring occasion, because there were delegates <span class="line-through">there</span> from every country
in Europe. There were such men as Lord Dawson and Sir <span class="line-through">William Archer</span> <span class="addition">Arbuthnot Lane</span>
attended the conference, and H. G. Wells held a reception for the delegates at his home, and we were all inspired and encouraged to go back to our various countries
and to carry forth the message in unison with those who were holding the conference in London.</p>
<p>By the way, at that conference we invited the next international conference to assemble
in the United States in 1925, and while Portland,
Oregon has been chosen as the place, some still believe that San Francisco
might be a better place. Already delegates from China, India,
Norway, Sweden, and from many other countries are
planning and preparing to attend.</p>
<p>Now, in conclusion I want to say that these have been disturbing times. I think, if the
war had not been on, that this work would have been far ahead of any other movement in
the United States. As it is, we are gaining headway constantly. We had made a tremendous
change in public opinion, even in the last three or four years, and we have here at this
conference represented many welfare organizations; but I am quite certain that there
could be a great improvement among the welfare organizations, as far as this idea is
concerned.</p>
<p>Again, we have the medical profession that still must be educated. (Applause) But from
the requests that have been sent in to attend the medical conference tomorrow night it
sounds encouraging, because there are more than six hundred requests for medical men and
women to come and attend the conference tomorrow night, where we will have discussed the
methods of contraception. That will be discussed tomorrow night, <span class="line-through">and our</span>
<span class="addition">the</span> audience is limited to the medical profession <span class="line-through">only</span>.</p>
<p>It is, after all, to the medical profession that we must look for the greatest benefit to
this work, because when it comes right down to it, it is a question of technique,
contraception technique. We cannot really bring about the best results with this idea or
with this work until the medical profession are ahead of us, as we have been ahead of
them in the past. The idea and the education of the public is far beyond the medical
profession's work today. By that I mean we are ready for birth control, and they are not
ready to give us what would make birth control practicable.</p>
<p>The only opposition that is left is the religious opposition. That is opposition that we
get here and there individually, but really we have broken down the great barriers of
opposition, with the exception of official religious bodies. The people themselves are
really with us.</p>
<p>Now, it may surprise you to hear me say that, but I want to tell you that at a research
clinic that was established in New York, we have a proportion like this: Thirteen Protestant women,
Twelve Catholic women, Eleven Jewish women, who come to us constantly for advice. Now,
this shows you that that is an idea that is going to stand, in spiteof race, color or
creed. (Applause)</p>
<p>And I think what Lord Dawson said is very applicable to the church. He said at this
London conference, he asked the church to approach this question of birth control in the
light of modern knowledge and the needs of a new world, unhampered by traditions that
have outgrown their usefulness. I think that could be applied to practically all
opposition today.</p>
<p> Now, friends, why are we here? Why are we holding this conference? We are holding it
because we are asking your help, just as women for the past ten years have been
appealing to me, so we come out here and appeal to you. I have had from the 1st of
January to the 1st of October 58,432 letters addressed to me personally from women
asking for information. Think of it! Twenty per cent of those women come from the State
of Illinois. Now, to me that is a sign of intelligence, high
intelligence, because only a woman who is intelligent and who is rising out of the
lowest depths of degradation and poverty and misery, who has the conscious
responsibility of controlling her offspring, will inquire.</p>
<p>Shall we not answer that call? Shall we thrust that woman back into degradation when she
is asking for help to get out of it? I think not. I think you will agree with me that
she should be helped, and that every hand in this state should be reached out to help
her help herself, because that is what she wants. These women ask in these letters for
health, for just a little time to space their children; they ask for a little time so
they can gain, as they say, their real strength.</p>
<p>Some of them say they have never known what it is to have one night's sleep from the
night they were married until the present day. Some of them call out and say, "<span class="UNK">My husband is leaving me, because I cannot
endure his presence or the sight of him while this fear of pregnancy hangs over me.</span>" Some of them say they
have never had a new dress; old clothes, old shoes, old things have been passed on to
them from others. Some of them say they have not been to the neighbor's house in five
years, that is only a half-mile away. They tell of the drudgery, of the enslavement that
they endure, and in reading those letters I am convinced that these women are enduring a
slavery that the black race of this country never endured. </p>
<p>You feel, when you finish reading those letters, that you are almost broken. And do you
know, it does break us. We have to keep on changing, because of course I cannot possibly
read all these letters. No human being could. My desk is piled high, in various groups,
some of one thing and some of another.</p>
<p>And do you know that we have had girls in that office who have broken down mentally and
physically just from reading those letters? One girl, 26 or 27 years old, came out to
Chicago. She couldn't endure it any more. Perhaps she is here tonight. She is working
now with the soldiers who have come back from war maimed and broken. She wrote back to
one of the co-workers in our office and she said: "<span class="UNK">As bad as this work is,
it is not as bad as you are doing there. Because here we have everyone to help these
men, societies, clubs, organizations, churches, everybody is reaching out a hand to
give to these men. But it broke my heart to see that no one was helping those poor
mothers.</span>"</p>
<p>That is the message I have for you here in Illinois. I have come to you to appeal to you
to help us. Help us help these women. Let us make a better world. Be the first on record
in this state to open clinics, not one but dozens of clinics, where we can tell these
women to come and be advised. Give them the hope that they are reaching out for. These
women are bent, they are bowed, they are broken, and they want your help.</p>
<p>Now, I believe that by birth control we <span class="addition">can</span> remove untold misery. I think that
through it we can remove poverty, we can do away with slums. I think we can have
children conceived in love and reared through the aid of science for the development of
humanity. I believe also that through it we can change not only the quality of the race,
but the thinking of the race, and bring about peace on earth, good will to men,
(Vociferous applause)</p>
</div>
Dublin Core
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
Unknown
Freschi, John J.
Schroeder, Theodore
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Margaret Sanger
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1923-10-29
Description
An account of the resource
<p>With this address, Sanger opened the Middle Western States Birth Control
Conference, held in Chicago at the Drake
Hotel. Handwritten additions by Sanger. </p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#143237
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress, LCM 122:0009
Subject
The topic of the resource
abortion--health risks
birth control--as a term
birth control--socio-economic benefits
birth control clinics and leagues--establishment of
birth control laws and legislation--Federal
birth control laws and legislation--state
birth control methods
birth control movement--history of
Brownsville Clinic
Brownsville Clinic--arrests, trials and imprisonment
child labor
client letters
conferences--International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference--1922 (5th)
conferences--Middle Western States Birth Control Conference--1923
Family Limitation
family size--and poverty
family size--class-based
Japan--birth control in
neo-Malthusianism
physicians--and birth control
race progress
Sachs, Sadie
Sanger, Margaret--biographical details
Sanger, Margaret--tours--1922 (China)
Sanger, Margaret--tours, 1922 (Japan)
Sanger, Margaret--as a nurse
Sanger, Margaret--family of
Sanger, Margaret--exile, 1914-15
Woman Rebel The--legal case
women and girls--enslavement of
women and girls--reproductive choices and decisions
Title
A name given to the resource
Middle Western States Birth Control Conference Welcoming Address
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Typed speech
-
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Organization
Pacific Club
International Conference on Planned Parenthood and Overpopulation, Fifth
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Watumull Foundation.
Person
Bonaparte, Napoleon
Mussolini, Benito
Fruto, Ligaya
Place
Egypt
New York, NY
Germany,
France
Italy,
Honolulu, HI
Japan
India,
Text
Any textual data included in the document
<div>
<h4>Planned Parenthood Held Answer to War Danger</h4>
<p class="byline">By LIGAYA FRUTO</p>
<p><span class="HSB">Birth control is the answer to war, according to Mrs. Margaret Sanger, the world's foremost exponent of
planned parenthood.</span></p>
<p><span class="HSB">Mrs. Sanger was in Honolulu Thursday on the
President Cleveland.</span></p>
<p><span class="HSB">She is on her way to Japan for the
Fifth International Conference on Planned
Parenthood and Overpopulation.</span></p>
<p>"We've seen the three countries which are overpopulated--Italy, Germany,
and Japan," <span class="HSB">Mrs. Sanger said at an interview at the Pacific Club, where a luncheon was given for
her by the Watumull Foundation.</span></p>
<p>"They had to branch out to other countries and finally move on to war."</p>
<p>"With the terrible lesson of war fresh in their minds, the peoples of these countries are
now looking for something like birth control so they will not be urged into another
war."</p>
<p><span class="HSB">Mrs. Sanger said that 22 countries from the East and the West will be represented in the planned parenthood conference in Japan.</span></p>
<p>"They are all interested in knowing what to do," she stated.</p>
<p><span class="HSB">Even Catholic countries like Italy are now receptive to the idea of birth control, according to Mrs. Sanger.</span></p>
<p>"In all the time that I have worked for birth control," she went on, "the greatest opposition that I have met has come from the
American Catholic groups in New York."</p>
<p>"Even in Italy, there is now a group of brilliant scientists and professional people that
is working to do away with the Mussolini laws."</p>
<p>"They never had a law against birth control until Mussolini made one, and you know what
Mussolini was."</p>
<p><span class="HSB">Mrs. Sanger emphatically asserted that she had never met with any hostility
in her work to propagate birth control.</span></p>
<p><span class="HSB">She said that birth control had been practiced "way back in old--Egypt" and in
France during the days of Napoleon.</span></p>
<p><span class="HSB">She expressed gratification at the success of the birth control program in India,
although it has been introduced in that country only in the last few years.</span></p>
<p>"In India, we are doing it with moving pictures," she said. "In the slums, we are doing
what we can do with children, showing the disadvantages when the parents cannot support
their children, and the difficulties to the family when children come too fast."</p>
<p><span class="HSB">The Japanese are not going to build birth control clinics, she said, but
utilize their midwives to teach birth control to the people.</span></p>
<p>"In Japan, they have so many midwives and not enough doctors," she explained.</p>
<p>"It will be the first country to use midwives to go into homes and teach the mothers."</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
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ligaya Fruto
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1955-09-22
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Sanger likely gave this statement in answer to a question during her "Speech to the Hagerstown Woman's Club" on Jan. 26, 1923
in Hagerstown, Maryland.</p>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
msp#422007
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<span class="article">Planned Parenthood Held Answer to War Danger,</span>,
<span class="newspaper"><span class="italics">Honolulu Star-Bulletin</span></span>, Sept. 24, 1955
Subject
The topic of the resource
birth control--and war
Catholic Church--birth control and
conferences--International Conference on Planned Parenthood--1955 (5th)
India--birth control movement in
Italy--birth control in
Italy--overpopulation in
Japan--birth control in
Japan--overpopulation in
midwives
Title
A name given to the resource
[Interview at the Pacific Club]
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Published interview