In the year 1877 Mrs. Annie Besant and Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, two firm
and honest advocates of the doctrine of Malthus, were prosecuted and
sentenced to imprisonment for publishing a book entitled “The Fruits of
Philosophy,” which presented the physiological aspects of birth control.
The trial lasted several days, and aroused a greater interest in the
subject than had been known since the days of Malthus. The English Press
was full of the subject; scientific congresses gave it their attention;
many noted political economists wrote about it; over a hundred petitions
were presented to Parliament requesting the freedom of open discussion;
meetings of thousands of persons were held in all the large cities; and
as a result, a strong Neo-Malthusian League was formed in London.
Interest in the subject did not confine itself to England, however, for
the following year at an International Medical Congress in Amsterdam the
subject was discussed with great enthusiasm. A paper prepared and read
by Mr. S. Van Houten (later Prime Minister) caused a wider interest in
the subject, and a year later the Neo-Malthusian League of Holland was
organised. Charles R. Drysdale, then President of the English League,
attended the Conference.
As is usual in such causes, many of the better educated and intelligent
classes adopted the practice at once, as did the better educated
workers; but the movement had as yet no interest among the poorest and
most ignorant. The League set to work at once to double its efforts in
these quarters. Dr. Aletta Jacobs, the first woman physician in Holland,
became a member of the League, and established a clinic where she gave
information on the means of prevention of conception free to all poor
women who applied for it.
Naturally, this action on the part of a member of the medical profession
aroused the animosity of many of its members against her; but Dr. Jacobs
stood firm in her principles, and continued to spread the necessary
information among the peasant women in Holland in the face of
professional criticism and gross misunderstandings.
All classes, especially the poor, welcomed the knowledge with open arms,
and requests came thick and fast for the League’s assistance to obtain
the necessary appliances free of charge. The consequence has been that
for the past twelve years the League has labored chiefly among the
people of the poorest districts. Dr. J. Rutgers and Madame Hoitsema
Rutgers, two other ardent advocates of these principles, have devoted
their lives to this work. Dr. Rutgers says that where this knowledge is
taught there is a reciprocal action to be observed: “In families where
children are carefully procreated, they are reared carefully; and where
they are reared carefully, they are carefully procreated.”
The Neo-Malthusian League of Holland has over 5,000 men and women in its
membership, and more than fifty nurses whom it endorses.