expensive, because it was made with a chinosol and Irish moss base, and
the price of the former was prohibitive in preparing it for poor women.
Dr. Stone and Dr. Cooper, therefore, devised a formula for a jelly with
a lactic acid and glycerine base, which was within our means. Most of
their cases, however, were sufficiently grave for them not to feel
justified in using it alone experimentally. Consequently, they took the
precaution of having a double safeguard by combining the chemical
contraceptive with the mechanical—jelly with pessary—which proved
ninety-eight percent efficacious.
At this time we could not import diaphragms directly. Although I had
given various friends going to Germany and England the mission of
bringing them in, this could not be done in sufficient quantity.
Furthermore, since bootlegging supplies could not continue indefinitely
I had to find out how they could legally be made here.
Two young men came to help in whatever way was most necessary. Herbert
Simonds, who had been in advertising, began to investigate the
possibility that some recognized rubber company should make our
supplies. When one and all were fearful, he and Guy Moyston, who did
some publicity for us, concluded they would form the Holland-Rantos
Company, selling only to physicians or on prescription. They spent their
own time and thousands of dollars personally on research, in the end
perfecting a quality of rubber that could stand the variations of
climate in the United States—hot houses and cold winters, Florida
dampness and Western dryness.
Meanwhile, Julius Schmid, an old established manufacturer, had been
importing from his own concern in Germany a few diaphragms, but only on
a modest scale because he did not want to run afoul of the Comstock law.
As soon as he saw a potential market in the medical profession he
fetched from the Fatherland several families who had been making molds
there, gave them places to live in, and set up a little center,
expanding gradually until eventually he sold more contraceptive supplies
than any firm in the world.
But this was all in the future.
Soon after we had developed an organization in which economists,
biologists, and other scientists could be articulate, they came into the
movement. Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a tuberculosis specialist, who had been
one of the first to greet me when I came out of jail, never missed an
opportunity to contribute articles to medical journals and to write
letters. Professor Edward Alsworth Ross’s books continued to popularize
the sociological and economic aspects. Professor E. M. East of the Bussy
Institute of Harvard University published a study of population titled
_Mankind at the Crossroads_, which obtained wide circulation. His
one-time pupil, Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins, was carrying on the
same work showing exactly how much food a certain number of acres could
produce at what cost. Universities generally began to show an interest;
students wrote asking for scientific and historical data upon which to
base their theses.
Young people in colleges, partly because their ideas were not yet
biased, offered a fallow field for my personal campaign of education
through lecturing. I particularly enjoyed their quickness and alertness
and their interludes of comic relief. Nowhere has this combination been
more apparent than in a recent visit to Colgate University. Four boys
met me at the station and somehow or other we all squeezed into an
automobile which shortly deposited me at the home of one of the
professors for tea and to meet the faculty. “This is house-party night,”
he told me. “The girls are here, and most of the boys won’t get to bed
until daylight. We’ll have to rout them out to hear you at chapel
tomorrow.” He added that during his twelve years in the University no
woman had spoken on that platform.
“Have they prejudices against women speakers?”
“Oh, no, no. There’s just no subject a woman can deal with better than a
man.”
Well! I thought, if the boys will all have been out to parties and I’m
the first woman speaker, here is a challenge! No sociology or dull
population figures for them from me.
The next morning, determined to make them take notice, I ransacked my
bag for my smartest dress, adjusted my lipstick, and carefully set my
hat at an angle. Nevertheless, I was a bit ill at ease. My anxiety was
not allayed when Norman Himes, professor of sociology, said, “Now, Mrs.
Sanger, we probably shan’t be able to hear you in this hall. The
acoustics are very bad. They can hardly hear me and I have a big voice.”
This was even less encouraging. I felt I was likely to be the last as
well as the first woman at Colgate. However, I replied bravely, “I can
speak up and we can have some wave if they can’t hear me. Anyhow, there
probably won’t be many; why can’t they be moved up front?”
“Yes, that’s what we’d better do.”
We went in to find the chapel jammed. Some of the students were standing
in the door, others against the walls.
Professor Himes introduced me at the top of his lungs. “Louder! Louder!”
The boys waved their hands. The more he tried to make himself heard, the
more restless they became. When I stood, however, they had to listen if
they were to hear me. There was no waving, no calling. They roared with
laughter and clapped at everything I said. This seemed fine, but I
suspected that I could not have really made so profound an impression as
to deserve so much applause.
Someone afterwards commented to Professor Himes, “We’ve never seen the
boys so appreciative.”
“Oh,” he remarked, “they thought if they could keep Mrs. Sanger talking
long enough they wouldn’t have to go to their examinations.”
From the time I started lecturing in 1916 I have appeared in many
places—halls, churches, women’s clubs, homes, theaters. I have had many
types of audiences—cotton workers, churchmen, liberals, Socialists,
scientists, clubmen, and fashionable, philanthropically minded women.
Once in Detroit Mrs. William McGraw, Sr. had organized a public meeting
and luncheon at the Statler Hotel. When I arrived I encountered a
situation which might well have embarrassed a less doughty hostess. She
had invited a dozen of the most prominent women in the city to sit at
the speaker’s table. Mrs. A. had asked, “Will Mrs. B. sit there also?”
Mrs. B. had inquired, “Will Mrs. C. be next to me?” Each wanted social
support. Mrs. McGraw had blandly refused to tell them; consequently not
one had accepted. Although five hundred came, only two places were set
at the great banquet table on the platform. Mrs. McGraw and I ate in
solitary splendor with nothing but the floral decorations for company.
All the world over, in Penang and Skagway, in El Paso and Helsingfors, I
have found women’s psychology in the matter of childbearing essentially
the same, no matter what the class, religion, or economic status. Always
to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an
invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver
Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing.
My letter of instruction told me what train to take, to walk from the
station two blocks straight ahead, then two to the left. I would see a
sedan parked in front of a restaurant. If I wished I could have ten
minutes for a cup of coffee or bite to eat, because no supper would be
served later.
I obeyed orders implicitly, walked the blocks, saw the car, found the
restaurant, went in and ordered some cocoa, stayed my allotted ten
minutes, then approached the car hesitatingly and spoke to the driver. I
received no reply. She might have been totally deaf as far as I was
concerned. Mustering up my courage, I climbed in and settled back.
Without a turn of the head, a smile, or a word to let me know I was
right, she stepped on the self-starter. For fifteen minutes we wound
around the streets. It must have been towards six in the afternoon. We
took this lonely lane and that through the woods, and an hour later
pulled up in a vacant space near a body of water beside a large,
unpainted, barnish building.
My driver got out, talked with several other women, then said to me
severely, “Wait here. We will come for you.” She disappeared. More cars
buzzed up the dusty road into the parking place. Occasionally men
dropped wives who walked hurriedly and silently within. This went on
mystically until night closed down and I was alone in the dark. A few
gleams came through chinks in the window curtains. Even though it was
May, I grew chillier and chillier.
After three hours I was summoned at last and entered a bright corridor
filled with wraps. As someone came out of the hall I saw through the
door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses. I waited
another twenty minutes. It was warmer and I did not mind so much.
Eventually the lights were switched on, the audience seated itself, and
I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak.
Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure
that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual
vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my
address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I
were trying to make children understand.
In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished
my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were
proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally
through it was too late to return to New York. Under a curfew law
everything in Silver Lake shut at nine o’clock. I could not even send a
telegram to let my family know whether I had been thrown in the river or
was being held incommunicado. It was nearly one before I reached
Trenton, and I spent the night in a hotel.
In Brattleboro, Vermont, my audience was made up of another slice of
America—honest, strong, capable housewives who made their pies and
doughnuts and preserves before they came. When I had finished there was
not a murmur of commendation from the three hundred. The minister of the
church where the meeting was held had asked me to stand beside him to
say how-do-you-do when they came out. They just went by, eyes straight
ahead.
On the telephone afterwards, however, each was asking what the other
thought. The cases I had cited were typical of their own community. “Was
she referring to this one or that one?” they queried.
I returned two days later to lunch with a doctor and four or five social
workers, and was surprised to hear, “The women want to start a clinic.”
“But there wasn’t any enthusiasm when I suggested it the other morning.”
“The people around here don’t express much openly. They were moved to
quietness. But just the same they’re starting a clinic in Brattleboro.”
_Chapter Thirty_
NOW IS THE TIME FOR CONVERSE
Side by side with the clinic and education another project had been
stirring for some time in my mind. Internationalism was in the air, and
I wanted that outlook brought into the movement in the United States. To
this end I made plans for the Sixth International Malthusian and Birth
Control Conference, to be held in New York in March, 1925.
In the summer of 1924 I called a Conference Committee meeting of the
League. That is, in addition to the regular Board members, other
supporters were invited to attend. As soon as the matter was brought up
they expostulated, “You still have to ask for money to run the _Review_.
How can you pay the fares of the delegates and furnish them with
hospitality? Do you know how much it will cost?”
Since I wished to have the Conference important enough to make its mark
I replied promptly, “Not less than twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“Have you thought of how you are going to finance it?”
“Certainly I have.” I was certain that the interest of many of our
contributors extended beyond the magazine, and that they would see we
now had a broader field of activity. They had given before and would
give again. I knew money would come in.
Any five of the outside women present could have underwritten the
Conference, but they objected that funds were needed for other work. One
by one they left in a hurry; the inevitable appointments were waiting
for them. Their advice to the Board was, no Conference—and the wealthy
members of the Board concurred.
Nevertheless, I went ahead with the details of securing backers. Even
the letterhead on our stationery was significant. You could tell such a
lot about an organization—quality, standards, tone—from the names, often
more informative than the body of the letter. My intention was to make
people stand in public for what they believed in private, and at least
our list of sponsors was impressive enough—a brilliant and distinguished
array.
The success of any conference was determined in great measure by the
caliber of the men who took part in it. Results depended first upon the
concept animating it, and second, as had been proved before, on the
presence of an eminent figure to ornament the assemblage. I decided to
see whether I could induce Lord Dawson to be our main speaker, and,
hoping that personal persuasion might be more efficacious than written,
sailed for England in September.
Havelock came up from Margate to greet me, as usual far removed from the
hurly-burly of the world, aloof from the conflict of ideas which meant
so much to me. Yet to talk with him again was to return to the mêlée
with renewed inspiration. I managed to crowd in a motor trip to Oxford,
lunch at the Mitre, a walk through Brazenose and King’s, and a drive
back through Buckinghamshire, where the beeches were changing to bronze
and russet. I felt a regretful pang that so little of my life could be
lived in England.
Unfortunately for my purposes Lord Dawson was away shooting in the
North. With some temerity I dwelt upon the possibility of Lord
Buckmaster, the former Stanley Owen, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
Asquith Coalition of 1915, who had become one of the most finished
orators in the House of Lords. He had just returned from Scotland and
telephoned me to suggest we exchange views. He was about to present a
resolution that, under the auspices of the Ministry of Health,
restrictions on birth control instruction be removed for married women
who attended welfare centers. He was gathering practical information
from people who had had practical experience, and wanted to know how
methods in the United States differed from those in England and,
particularly, verification of their harmlessness.
When he came to my hotel one afternoon, I did not take time to mention
the Conference, because H.G., knowing the value of proper introductions,
had arranged one of his most brilliant dinners for that very evening, or
rather he had proposed it and Jane had arranged it. For H.G. to
entertain in behalf of a cause set the seal of approval on it. Jane had
invited literary luminaries and their wives: George Bernard Shaw, Arnold
Bennett, Sir Arbuthnot Lane, Professor E. W. MacBride of the Eugenics
Education Society, Walter Salter of the League of Nations, and Lord
Buckmaster.
It had been my experience that personages gave little of themselves on
formal occasions. So many people expected these lions to roar bravely,
forgetting that they preferred to save their sparkling sallies for the
pages of their books. Moreover, when the English came together for an
evening they liked to have it light and amusing. I had received much
from the books of Shaw, who had advanced civilization by breaking down
barriers of all sorts, now almost nothing from him personally, although
he was very diverting, with funny quips upon life and America and birth
control.
I had by design been seated next to Lord Buckmaster, and after the meal
had been in progress for perhaps half an hour, H.G. leaned over and
whispered to me, “Have you got him?”
“I haven’t started yet.”
“You’re no true American. You ought to work faster. You’re missing out.”
Whereupon he focused his own attention on Lord Buckmaster, who, in
answer to his direct query, regretted that the date conflicted with the
opening of Parliament.
Before I could realize it the time came when I was due to sail from
Southampton. Lord Dawson had just returned and could see me at three
that afternoon. Promptly on the hour his secretary ushered me into his
library at Wimpole Street. A fire was burning cheerfully in the grate, a
gentleman, traditionally tall and handsome, was sitting leisurely on the
sofa as though my boat train did not leave Waterloo Station at
four-thirty, and endless days remained in which to talk about the
interesting subject of birth control. He was a grand seigneur such as
you rarely encountered in your travels, having a mind that could
understand and meet any discussion with knowledge, facts, and
comprehension. The approach, the surroundings, his courtesy, charm of
manner, and poise, proved him a great English aristocrat. He asked me
about the attitude of the medical profession in the United States,
desirous of knowing who had identified themselves with it. I recited my
past efforts to enlist the support of the leading physicians. The
minutes sped relentlessly away; I had to leave, and barely caught my
train. Having admired him so long from afar, I was glad to have had this
brief contact, even though he was unable to attend the Conference.
I was back in New York by the end of October, and soon came a letter
from Shaw cheering me with his point of view:
Birth control should be advocated for its own sake, on the general
ground that the difference between voluntary, irrational,
uncontrolled activity is the difference between an amoeba and a man;
and if we really believe that the more highly evolved creature is
the better we may as well act accordingly. As the amoeba does not
understand birth control, it cannot abuse it, and therefore its
state may be the more gracious; but it is also true that as the
amoeba cannot write, it cannot commit forgery: yet we teach
everybody to write unhesitatingly, knowing that if we refuse to
teach anything that could be abused we should never teach anything
at all.
Interminable correspondence began immediately with adherents and, in
many distant lands, possible delegates. I sent out telegrams to the
former and as fast as money arrived dispatched it to the latter for
their passage over, though I did not yet have enough to get them home
again. Languages and interpreters then had to be arranged for; in Europe
that was difficult enough, but here it was more than perplexing. Worst
of all was the eternal barrier of our laws. Topics that could be freely
discussed in London were forbidden in the United States, and we could
not afford to have the dignity of the occasion marred by another Town
Hall episode. I had to tell delegates what their papers were to be
about, and, when it was necessary to cut out a reference to
contraceptives, had to apologize and explain why.
I quickly found that visitors from seventeen countries could produce
more problems than statistics and theories proved. The committee sent to
meet Dr. G. O. Lapouge, a French eugenist, after vainly searching
through the cabins on the boat, went back to the pier whence all had
fled save one inconspicuous, desolate man sitting on top of his luggage,
reading, waiting patiently for someone to come for him—so
unimportant-looking that no one would have suspected him of being a
renowned scientist. The next morning the Hotel McAlpin, where the
convention was to be held, called me up to report that Dr. Lapouge had
been severely burned, and an interpreter was needed. Dr. Drysdale
hurried off to find the poor little man of seventy in excruciating pain
but carrying on a dissertation, highly amusing, about the hazards of
America’s much-advertised plumbing. Without understanding how to
regulate the shower he had stood under it and turned on the hot water.
The skin fairly peeled off his chest. Nevertheless, bandaged and oiled,
he undauntedly attended all the sessions.
The opening night we had a “pioneers’ dinner” over which Heywood Broun
presided. The Danish Fru Thit Jensen, blond, vivacious, was to relate
the troubles she had had in arousing interest in her own country. She
made her address in English courageously enough, but it was evident at
once that someone slightly familiar with American slang had helped her
out. She was describing a doctors’ meeting in Denmark and the first
words we heard were, “When I gave my greetings to those boneheads as I
am to you—” We all burst into laughter because they seemed to apply to
the guests present. Her face remained sphinx-like in its determined
immobility; she halted for us to subside, then continued. Almost
immediately the dignified gathering went off again into a fresh peal.
You no sooner recovered from one shrieking convulsion than she made
another remark equally ludicrous. After each outbreak she paused
resignedly before going on with her carefully prepared speech. The
hilarity finally got out of hand, so whether the end was funny or not
nobody knew or cared.
At every meeting Dr. Ferdinand Goldstein of Berlin, who was hard of
hearing, sat in the front row. The mention of any phase of population,
on which he was an expert, brought him promptly to his feet. Standing
directly in front of the speaker, he cupped his ear in order not to miss
a single word. The one discordant note occurred on the last day when the
committee declined to embody in its program any endorsement of abortion.
He not only left the Conference but went back to Germany without saying
good-by to anyone.
The Austrian delegates were Johann Ferch and his wife, Betty. This
Viennese printer had become interested in birth control through setting
up material on his linotype. He had informed himself of methods and in a
short time had several clinics started in Vienna. One morning when I
found them at breakfast in the dining room, great tears were rolling
down Mrs. Ferch’s face. I asked her what the trouble was and she said
she was weeping because the pot of coffee on the table, a simple bit of
food, cost thirty-five cents, and she realized what this amount of money
would buy at home; for the price of one meal in New York their starving
relatives could live for a whole day in luxury. Neither of them felt
entitled to indulge in such extravagance.
Dr. Aletta Jacobs walked along with me after one of the sessions. She
said the fact she had refused to see me in 1915 had been on her mind
ever since, and she desired to clear up the matter now; she had always
been against lay people taking part in the movement, and for that reason
had opposed the Rutgers method of training practical nurses and allowing
them to go out in the field after only two months’ instruction. She had
put me in the same category as those in her own country who had wanted
to establish clinics as a commercial venture. That afternoon she visited
our clinic and went over methods with Dr. Cooper and Dr. Stone. Here,
she said, with kindling eyes, was the system she had envisioned in the
Netherlands but had never been able to make come true.
The eugenists were given their opportunity to speak at the Conference.
Eugenics, which had started long before my time, had once been defined
as including free love and prevention of conception. Moses Harman of
Chicago, one of its chief early adherents, had run a magazine and gone
to jail for it under the Comstock regime. Recently it had cropped up
again in the form of selective breeding, and biologists and geneticists
such as Clarence C. Little, President of the University of Maine, and C.
B. Davenport, Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Station for
Experimental Evolution, had popularized their findings under this
heading. Protoplasm was the substance then supposed to carry on
hereditary traits—genes and chromosomes were a later discovery.
Professor Davenport used to lift his eyes reverently and, with his hands
upraised as though in supplication, quiver emotionally as he breathed,
“Protoplasm. We want more protoplasm.”
I accepted one branch of this philosophy, but eugenics without birth
control seemed to me a house built upon sands. It could not stand
against the furious winds of economic pressure which had buffeted into
partial or total helplessness a tremendous proportion of the human race.
The eugenists wanted to shift the birth control emphasis from less
children for the poor to more children for the rich. We went back of
that and sought first to stop the multiplication of the unfit. This
appeared the most important and greatest step towards race betterment.