Commissioner Lewis established a precedent in American prison annals by
ordering her forcibly fed, the first woman to be so treated in this
country. He stated optimistically to the press how simple the process
was, consisting of merely rolling her in a blanket so she could not
struggle, and then having milk, eggs, and a stimulant forced into her
stomach through a rubber tube. He stressed how healthy she continued to
be, how little opposition she offered, how foolish the whole thing
appeared to him anyhow; he was going to charge her for the expense
incurred in calling in an expert to feed her.
As soon as I heard my sister was “passive under the feeding” I became
desperately anxious about her; nothing but complete loss of strength
could have lessened her resistance.
After one interview Commissioner Lewis had barred all reporters and
given out a statement of his own. “I have not much patience with Mrs.
Byrne’s efforts to get advertising for her cause, and I won’t help such
a campaign along by issuing bulletins.”
But bulletins were being issued, nevertheless—and printed.
From prearranged sources I was receiving messages and notes each
evening, and reports on Ethel’s pulse and temperature. Thus I learned
her vision was becoming affected and her heart was beginning to miss
beats, due to lack of liquids. “Going without water was pretty bad,” she
said herself. “At night the woman whose duty it was to go up and down
the corridors to give the prisoners a drink if they wanted it stopped
right by my cell and cried, ‘Water! Water!’ till it seemed as if I could
not stand it. And on the other side of me was the sound of the river
through the window.”
Nobody was allowed to visit Ethel but J.J., who, as her lawyer, could
not well be refused. But reporters have their own mysterious ways of
getting what they want. The _World_ man succeeded in reaching her. It
was not on the whole a successful interview, because she did not know
who he was, but it did have one important result—it confirmed at first
hand our statements as to the seriousness of her condition.
In the midst of my anxiety over Ethel, my own trial opened January 29th
in the same bare, smoky, upstairs Brooklyn court in which she had
appeared. Justices John J. Freschi, Italian, Moses Herrmann, Jewish, and
George J. O’Keefe, Irish, sat on the bench. Judge Freschi, a rather
young man, presided, and on him we pinned our hopes. We did not expect
anything of old Judge Herrmann except that, because he was Jewish, he
might be broad-minded. As to Judge O’Keefe we had no illusions.
No less than thirty of the mothers of Brownsville had been subpoenaed by
the prosecution, but about fifty arrived—some equipped with fruit,
bread, pacifiers, and extra diapers, others distressed at having had to
spend carfare, timid at the thought of being in court, hungry because no
kosher food could be obtained near by. Nevertheless, all smiled and
nodded at me reassuringly.
Formerly, a few women of wealth but of liberal tendencies had been
actively concerned in the movement, but now some who were prominent
socially were coming to believe on principle that birth control should
not be denied to the masses. The subject was in the process of ceasing
to be tagged as radical and revolutionary, and becoming admittedly
humanitarian.
In this room, side by side with the ones to be helped, sat new helpers.
Among them was Mrs. Amos Pinchot, Chairman of the Women’s Committee of
One Hundred, formed to lend support to the defense. Her reddish hair
betrayed a temper quick and easily aroused in the cause of justice.
Aristocratic of bearing, autocratic by position, she was one to command
and be obeyed, and was easily a leading personality in the philanthropic
smart set of New York. Among her valuable services was the bringing into
the fold of the mothers and aunts of the present active Junior Leaguers.
Mrs. Lewis L. Delafield’s limousine stood in front of the doors at
almost every trial and it meant a great deal to the defendants to have
the wife of one of the most eminent members of the New York bar in the
courtroom. By her very demeanor and looks—white-haired, a fragile
countenance—you knew she could touch nothing that was not fine, and that
she had the spiritual courage to stand by her ideas and ideals in both
her public and private life. Always she opened her home and her heart
and her arms to those she loved.
Fania was called first. She was a girl with a pale and delicate face,
and was too worried to bear the strain. She should not be punished for
co-operating, and I told J.J. to notify the court that she was not well,
though I strictly forbade him to say anything about my health. Her trial
was brief, narrowing itself down to whether _What Every Girl Should
Know_ was to be classed as indecent. A few days later she was found
guilty and sentenced to fifty dollars’ fine, a decision which was
eventually reversed on appeal.
It surprised me that in my trial the prosecution should be carried on so
vehemently, because the prosecutor had little to prove. To me there
seemed to be no argument at all; the last thing in my mind was to deny
having given birth control advice. Certainly I had violated the letter
of the law, but that was what I was opposing.
I grew more and more puzzled by the stilted language, the
circumlocutions, the respect for precedent. These legal battles, fought
in a curiously unreal world, intensified my defiance to the breaking
point. I longed for a discussion in the open on merit and in simple,
honest terms.
I thought I might have my wish when Judge Freschi, holding up a cervical
cap which the prosecuting attorney had put in evidence, said, “Who can
prove this is a violation; the law states that contraception is
permitted for the prevention of disease. May it not be used for medical
reasons?”
This question raised my hopes high. At last the law might be interpreted
according to the definition I so desired; ill health resulting from
pregnancy caused by lack of its use might be construed as disease.
Then one by one the Brownsville mothers were called to the stand to
answer the District Attorney. “Have you ever seen Mrs. Sanger before?”
“Yess. Yess, I know Mrs. Sanger.”
“Where did you see her?”
“At the cleenic.”
“Why did you go there?”
“To have her stop the babies.”
The witness bowed sweet acknowledgment to me until she was peremptorily
commanded to address the court.
“Did you get this information?”
“Yess. Yess, dank you, I got it. It wass gut, too.”
“Enough,” the District Attorney barked, and called another.
Time after time they gave answers that were like nails to seal my doom,
yet each thought she was assisting me.
J.J. saw how their testimony could be turned to our advantage.
He asked, “How many miscarriages have you had? How much sickness in your
family? How much does your husband earn?” The answers were seven, eight,
nine dollars a week.
At last one woman more miserable and more poverty-stricken than the rest
was summoned. “How many children have you?”
“Eight and three that didn’t live.”
“What does your husband earn?”
“Ten dollars a veek—ven he vorks.”
Judge Freschi finally exclaimed, “I can’t stand this any longer,” and
the court adjourned over the week-end.
J.J. was jubilant, because he said there was nothing for him to do; the
court was arguing his case for him.
I myself was feeling a little conscience-smitten. A mass meeting of
sympathizers had been organized by the Committee of One Hundred for that
evening in Carnegie Hall, and I went straight there from the courtroom.
I had a speech ready in which I said we were being persecuted, not
prosecuted; that the judges were no better than witch-burners. It was
unfortunate, but copies had already been released to the press and the
wording could not be changed.
Helen Todd, the Chairman, a grand person who had been trained under Jane
Addams, had given the mothers of Brownsville places of honor on the
platform to let everybody see what kind of women we were fighting for.
She asked for twenty volunteers to follow the example of the English
suffragettes who had gone on hunger strikes en masse, but no women whose
names registered socially in the public mind were willing thus to join
in protesting against the law; only working girls came forward.
Three days later Jessie Ashley and I took the train for Albany with Mrs.
Pinchot, who was a close friend of Governor Charles S. Whitman, to ask
him to appoint a commission to investigate birth control and make a
report to the State Legislature. The Governor, who was fair and
intelligent, quite distinctly representing a class of liberal
politicians, received us cordially.
Ethel and her hunger strike had been front-page news for ten days; in
the subway, on street corners, everywhere people gathered, she was being
discussed. In Washington and Albany congressmen and legislators were
sending out for the latest details. Governor Whitman naturally asked
about her, and we seized the opportunity to try to impress on him the
outrageousness of making her suffer for so just a cause. He said
directly her incarceration was a disgrace to the State. He was entirely
out of sympathy with the courts and judges, and offered a pardon
conditional upon her ceasing to disseminate birth control information.
But I had not come to ask that favor.
“My sister wouldn’t take a pardon,” I replied, much to the distress of
Mrs. Pinchot. However, I accepted gratefully his letter to the warden at
Blackwell’s Island authorizing me to see her.
The next morning I appeared again before the court. During the three-day
interim the effect of the mothers’ testimony had evidently been effaced
from the judges’ minds, and they were infuriated by my Carnegie Hall
denunciation. But far more detrimental to my hope of a new
interpretation was the prosecution’s introduction of a Federal agent who
had once confiscated a copy of _Family Limitation_ in which was the
picture of this same cervical cap; he read aloud my advice to women to
use it as a means of preventing conception. Not even the most friendly
judge could get away from the fact that I had intended a far broader
definition than any permitted by the existing law.
The prosecution argued further that the constitutionality of Section
1142 could not be challenged, because the exception for physicians in
Section 1145 already guaranteed “liberty” to citizens. And, since I was
not a physician and consequently did not come under the exception, the
court must, in any event, find me guilty. This they did.
The day had been so full that I was not able to avail myself of Governor
Whitman’s permit to visit Ethel until evening, when Mr. and Mrs. Pinchot
took me in their car to the Workhouse. I remember how cold it was; the
trip on the ferry seemed to go on forever. But when we finally arrived,
at the name of Pinchot, the friend of the Governor, doors swung open;
officialdom turned polite and courteous and salaamed us on our way.
The Pinchots remained below while I was sent up to Ethel’s cell, where
she was lying on her iron cot, dressed in readiness for her release. Her
appearance shocked and horrified me. She had grown thin and emaciated,
her eyes were sunken and her tongue swollen, high red spots stood out on
her cheeks. She could not see me even across the narrow cell, knowing me
only by my voice. Hers was muffled as she whispered me to come nearer,
her mind confused. “Liberty,” she kept repeating, “I want my liberty.”
Her life was all that mattered to me now. I had to eat humble pie, and
said to the matron I was going to telegraph Governor Whitman that she
was too ill to accept the conditions of the pardon for herself, but I
would promise on her behalf. I was told that he had already signed the
pardon, was on his way to New York, and to wait downstairs, please.
After about half an hour we were informed Mrs. Byrne was coming down. I
went along the hallway to meet her. She was being held up by two
attendants, the matron following with wraps. Her head was rolling from
side to side, and I could see from the pallor of her face, especially
from the pinched look of her nose and mouth, that she was losing
consciousness. I protested to the matron, but orders had been given and
were being obeyed; Commissioner Lewis wanted the newspaper pictures to
show her coming out on her feet.
Running back to the room where the Pinchots were sitting, I exclaimed,
“She’s fainting!” Then Mrs. Pinchot clapped her hands imperiously and
directed the attendants to lay Ethel down immediately and bring a
stretcher. A command from her worked like magic. She wrapped her own fur
coat around the pathetic figure and, as soon as Ethel felt the softness
and warmth, she knew she was safe. We carried her over to my apartment
to begin the protracted period of recuperation. Only after a year’s
convalescence was she able to take up a normal life again.
Being the real instigator, I had every reason to expect a longer term
than Ethel. Logically, her hunger strike had served its purpose; that
form of strategy was closed. But personally I decided that, if I should
receive a year, I should do the same. On the other hand, if I were given
three months or less, I could study and make use of my time. J.J. had
heard on reliable authority that if I were to change my plea to guilty,
I could have a suspended sentence. To his mind freedom alone meant
victory, and he urged me to accept it if it were offered.
This, it developed, was the intention of the court when on Monday I was
called back for sentence. Having Ethel off the front page had brought a
sigh of relief of almost national scope. But all the publicity had had
its effect on public opinion, and doubtless influenced the judges also
to a certain extent. Since they could not agree to change the
interpretation of the law, they had been obliged to find me guilty, but
they did not really want to inflict punishment.
They were, however, extremely suspicious of our assertion that we were
going to carry the case higher. Jessie Ashley, Ida Rauh, and Bolton Hall
had all been let off with fines on the understanding they proposed to
appeal, and then they had not done so. Courts were beginning to assume
this was just a trick of birth control advocates, not meant in good
faith.
I sat listening to what seemed an interminable discussion between J.J.
and Judge Freschi over whether the appeal were going to be prosecuted in
a quick and orderly fashion, until I was nearly lulled to sleep.
Suddenly my attention was caught by hearing J.J. declare that I would
“promise not to violate the law.”
My mind clicked. It was not in my program to bargain for freedom. J.J.,
knowing full well I would make no such promise, had planted himself in
front of me so the court could not see my belligerent face. He was
trying to act as a buffer and, at the same time, for fear of what I
might say, to avoid having me summoned to the stand. I tried to peer
around him, but he shifted from side to side, obscuring my view. I
tugged on his coat like a badly brought up child, but he took no notice.
Finally one of the judges interposed, “Your client wishes to speak to
you, counselor.” I could be ignored no longer, and was called. “Margaret
Sanger, stand up.”
History is written in retrospect, but contemporary documents must be
consulted; therefore I have gone to the official records for the facts.
After all, one courtroom is much like another, and the attitude of one
justice not so dissimilar from that of another. I was combating a mass
ideology, and the judges who were its spokesmen merged into a single
voice, all saying, “Be good and we’ll let you off.” This is what I
heard:
You have been in court during the time that your counsel made the
statement that pending the prosecution of appeal neither you nor
those affiliated with you in this so called movement will violate
the law; that is the promise your counsel makes for you. Now, the
Court is considering extreme clemency in your case. Possibly you
know what extreme clemency means. Now, do you personally make that
promise?
THE DEFENDANT: Pending the appeal.
THE COURT: If Mrs. Sanger will state publicly and openly that she
will be a law-abiding citizen without any qualifications whatsoever,
this Court is prepared to exercise the highest degree of leniency.
THE DEFENDANT: I’d like to have it understood by the gentlemen of
the Court that the offer of leniency is very kind and I appreciate
it very much. It is with me not a question of personal imprisonment
or personal disadvantage. I am today and always have been more
concerned with changing the law regardless of what I have to undergo
to have it done.
THE COURT: Then I take it that you are indifferent about this matter
entirely.
THE DEFENDANT: No, I am not indifferent. I am indifferent as to the
personal consequences to myself, but I am not indifferent to the
cause and the influence which can be attained for the cause.
THE COURT: Since you are of that mind, am I to infer that you intend
to go on in this matter, violating the law, irrespective of the
consequences?
THE DEFENDANT: I haven’t said that. I said I am perfectly willing
not to violate Section 1142—pending the appeal.
JUSTICE HERRMANN: The appeal has nothing to do with it. Either you
do or you don’t.
THE COURT: (to Mr. Goldstein) What is the use of beating around the
bush? You have communicated to me in my chambers the physical
condition of your client, and you told me that this woman would
respect the law. This law was not made by us. We are simply here to
judge the case. We harbor no feeling against Mrs. Sanger. We have
nothing to do with her beliefs, except in so far as she carries
those beliefs into practice and violates the law. But in view of
your statement that you intend to prosecute this appeal and make a
test case out of this and in view of the fact that we are to regard
her as a first offender, surely we want to temper justice with mercy
and that’s all we are trying to do. And we ask her, openly and above
board, “Will you publicly declare that you will respect the law and
not violate it?” and then we get an answer with a qualification.
Now, what can the prisoner at the bar for sentence expect? I don’t
know that a prisoner under such circumstances is entitled to very
much consideration after all.
THE COURT: (to the Defendant) We don’t want you to do impossible
things, Mrs. Sanger, only the reasonable thing and that is to comply
with this law as long as it remains the law. It is the law for you,
it is the law for me, it is the law for all of us until it is
changed; and you know what means and avenues are open to you to have
it changed, and they are lawful ways. You may prosecute these
methods, and no one can find fault with you. If you succeed in
changing the law, well and good. If you fail, then you have to bow
in submission to the majority rule.
THE DEFENDANT: It is just the chance, the opportunity to test it.
THE COURT: Very good. You have had your day in court; you advocated
a cause, you were brought to the bar, you wanted to be tried here,
you were judged, you didn’t go on the stand and commit perjury in
any sense, you took the facts and accepted them as true, and you are
ready for judgment, even the worst. Now, we are prepared, however,
under all the circumstances of this case, to be extremely lenient
with you if you will tell us that you will respect this law and not
violate it again.
THE DEFENDANT: I have given you my answer.
THE COURT: We don’t want any qualifications. We are not concerned
with the appeal.
MR. GOLDSTEIN: Just one other statement, your Honor, one final
statement on my part. Your Honor did well say that you didn’t want
anything unreasonable. With all due deference to your Honor, to ask
a person what her frame of mind will be with so many exigencies in
future, that is, if the commission did nothing or the Legislature
did nothing—
THE COURT: All we are concerned about is this statute, and as long
as it remains the law will this woman promise here and now
unqualifiedly to respect it and obey it? Now, it is yes or no. What
is your answer, Mrs. Sanger? Is it yes or no?
THE DEFENDANT: I can’t respect the law as it stands today.
THE COURT: Margaret Sanger, there is evidence that you established
and maintained a birth control clinic where you kept for sale and
exhibition to various women articles which purported to be for the
prevention of conception, and that there you made a determined
effort to disseminate birth control information and advice. You have
challenged the constitutionality of the law under consideration and
the jurisdiction of this Court. When this is done in an orderly way
no one can find fault. It is your right as a citizen.... Refusal to
obey the law becomes an open defiance of the rule of the majority.
While the law is in its present form, defiance provokes anything but
reasonable consideration. The judgment of the Court is that you be
confined to the Workhouse for the period of thirty days.
A single cry, “Shame!” was followed by a sharp rap of the gavel, and
silence fell.
_Chapter Nineteen_
THIS PRISON WHERE I LIVE
I sat in the front row while the court routine continued. The room
buzzed with conversation. J.J. was busy with formalities; reporters were
leaning over to ask me questions. Through the near-by doorway I saw
several young men awaiting their sentences like actors in the wings
listening for their cues. One was propped against the wall smoking a
cigarette. At the sound of his name he raised his head, signifying he
had heard, and yet kept on smoking. When it was called a second time an
attendant shoved him forward roughly. I could almost feel the hardening
of his soul under this brutal attitude and the physical handling. He
gave still another puff; then deliberately dropped the stub, stepped on
it, and sauntered leisurely forward to receive his sentence.
I was led into an anteroom where other prisoners were being put through
the regular fingerprinting procedure. I refused; there was a definite
connection in my mind between admission of guilt and fingerprinting;
both in their different ways placed me in the category of criminals. My
refractoriness was reported to the court. But the judges, poor dears,
had worn themselves out trying to avoid sending me to jail and were
exasperated and cross; one more rebellion was too much for them. “Don’t
bother us with that. It’s not our job. Take her away.”
We were then herded through the rear of the building into an open yard
where the van was standing. The careless youth who had answered the
court’s call with such unconcern was waving farewell to friends who
loitered outside.
“How long, Alf?” asked one.
“Five years,” and he laughed as he said it.
Two more boys, their arms fraternally flung across one another’s
shoulders, shouted, “Three!” and, “Four!” consecutively. Were they
normal? Could liberty be of so little account? The muscles in my throat
contracted as I pictured the maternal love once spent on their infancy,
and now the reckless disregard for freedom culminating in this ride.
Thirty days seemed to me the end of the world, but they made light of
marking time in life for years, calling this their “sleeping time.” They
paid no attention to me; I was entirely out of their realm.
The women huddled beside me were more serious. An hysterical and tearful
“one-monther” had been obliged to leave her small four-year-old son
sitting on the veranda watching for her return. She had not even been
allowed to go back to see him and arrange for his care during her
absence.
Some experiences, though unexpected, are nevertheless partially
anticipated in the subconscious. I had believed fully and firmly that
some miracle would occur to keep me from going to jail. There had been
no miracle. The doors banged shut, two blue uniforms stared stolidly at
each other, the automobile jerked forward.
The trip to Raymond Street was short. We were ushered into a waiting
room. A thin-lipped attendant of huge size callously pushed one weeping
girl through the door.
“Get ready there, you!” she tossed over her shoulder at me.
“For what?”
“For the doctor.” I sat still. She repeated, “Do you hear me? Go in and
get your examination!”
I resented this attitude with every fiber of my being and replied, “I’m
not being examined.”
“Ho, you’re not? You’re one of the fighting kind, are you? Well, we’ll
soon fix you, young lady!”
She swung her heavy, massive frame out the door, leaving me wondering,
but quivering with excited determination. I was not sure what would
happen to me. Within five minutes, however, she came back with an
entirely different manner and tone. “Oh, you’re Mrs. Sanger. It’s all
right. Come this way, please.”