insistent that I go to Calicut, and I finally gave in. I was glad I had
done so, because this city of forty thousand, ringed around a bay on the
Malabar Coast and caressed by gentle breezes, was a beautiful spot with
forests of palms. The almost-black women wore saris of vari-colored
blues and greens, violets and yellows, with garlands of jasmine about
their necks, plump, formal bouquets of roses in their hands, and in the
center of every forehead was a circular red caste mark.
The meeting was held in the courtyard of a Buddhist temple. The sun was
setting and part of the shell-pink sky was melting into deep carmine,
like a flower. Directly in front sat three priests, each with shaved
head, orange robe, and thick stave. Hundreds of rooks were chattering
and other birds twittering in the trees, children were shouting at their
games, the shrill chant of pilgrims walking through the streets
saturated the dust-filled dusk. Mainly you heard the tinkling of the
bullocks going up and down the road. The audience sat in utter silence
surrounded by all these sounds.
Two days later we motored through the heavy woods to Mysore. Joseph,
still coughing until it racked his frame, had rejoined me. I took my
little drug shop and administered Vitamin A and D tablets, curing him
and achieving thereby a reputation. Other Indians began hunting up colds
and asthma and pains, and coming to me to give them some American
medicine, in which they had much faith.
Soon I was on the train to Bangalore, again as state guest. The Dewan of
Mysore, Sir Mirza Ismail, knew everybody in Europe, was well informed on
Western methods of health, and was full of ideas about public buildings,
roads, streets, industries, and the great dam which was to furnish
electricity for the state. He was the first person in India who inquired
after Katherine Mayo. I had been expecting to meet antagonism because of
_Mother India_, which I myself now considered misleading. Certainly the
conditions when I was there seemed vastly different from those she had
depicted only a few years earlier.
The British believed every word true, but most of the Indians I saw
looked upon Miss Mayo as having gone into their homes and then betrayed
their confidences. They claimed she was definitely prejudiced, and, like
the clever craftsman she was, had fixed her statistics. For example,
when she discussed the age of marriage, she made sweeping statements and
quoted on page so and so of such and such a report; you turned there and
they were correct, and that was the reason for the astounding acceptance
of her book. Nevertheless, she had violated the spirit, because two
pages further in the same report followed an explanation of, or
exception to, her conclusions.
Mirza Ismail, a Mohammedan, thought she had benefited Indians by shaking
them awake, and that the facts she had brought out, even if not true of
all the country, should be corrected; that India had to defend herself
was good for her.
After visiting Hyderabad, which was pleasant and social, and after
seeing this startling landscape in which the mountains seemed to have
been smashed by a giant maul into enormous pieces, I started towards
home. India was a land of dramatic contrasts—the highest mountains, the
hottest plains, the densest jungles, the most violent rains. The
loveliest architecture in the world was set against a background of
nauseating squalor. Wealth beyond calculation existed alongside poverty
that was living death, dazzling mental attainments beside an ignorance
utterly abysmal. I could not tell precisely what the results of the trip
had been; these rarely came immediately. And, if you had to hammer away
and hammer away for years in the United States, you had to do it ten
times over in India.
A terrific change in temperature froze me at Hong Kong; the poor huddled
around little fires in the streets. Dr. Arthur Woo, a Rockefeller
Foundation protégé, enthusiastic, full of energy, like magic procured
quarters for me in one of the crowded hotels on the top floor, quiet and
restful but, oh, how cold!
According to my schedule I was to remain twenty-four hours, into which
were to be crammed a lunch, a tea, a lecture, a Chinese supper, and a
public meeting. Then I decided to stay over a day for a medical
gathering. Ho Kum Tong, a wealthy Chinese, provided another luncheon in
his beautiful home.
In Hong Kong I heard rumors of a practical scholar in eugenics, in which
the Chinese were very much interested. He was said to have, in addition
to a wife, thirty concubines, by each of whom he had had three children.
One of the Negro offspring—tall, kinky-haired, and oblique-eyed—was a
most extraordinary-looking youth; he did not appear to belong anywhere.
The daughters were much larger of stature than the average Chinese; all
were educated and doing excellent work. Not only the features of the
cultured types on the Island, but even those of the coolies, the
longshoremen, struck me as growing less Oriental and more Anglo-Saxon,
the foreheads fuller, the eyes less slanting.
When I reached Japan I found that Westernization had leaped ahead. Tokyo
was not the same city I had seen in 1922—automobiles and wide-paved
streets, many bicycles, many men and small children in European dress.
Everywhere also was an atmosphere of tenseness on account of the
assassination of the cabinet members about ten days before. Telephone
communication in English was forbidden; people in Yokohama were unable
to get to Tokyo because all transportation was cut off. War seemed
inevitable. Baroness Ishimoto told me the activities of her organization
had been curtailed, but articles and discussion and the spreading of
knowledge had continued. The dissemination now was as it had been in
France—from house to house, family to family, by word of mouth instead
of under proper auspices.
At the end of a dismal voyage to Honolulu, I had hardly registered at
the hotel when I heard a feminine voice in my ear, “Are you Mrs.
Sanger?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Muriel Cass, as this welcoming committee turned out to be, knew that
I was recently out of a hospital, and disappeared for a few moments to
telephone for a doctor. When he arrived she said, “All we want of you is
to give Mrs. Sanger something to keep her going. She’s got eight
lectures to deliver.”
I felt like a poor old war horse being fed the last measure of oats. I
had a horrible memory of two weeks of fog and rain and cold at Memorial
Hospital in Hong Kong, and now here I was to die in Honolulu.
But Dr. Cass, an efficient, self-sacrificing manager, did the most
amazing things for me. She ordered the telephone operator to switch
every call to her. There I was, quite alone. Nobody could see me or even
talk to me; I must conserve my strength for the meetings. Repeatedly she
rushed me to and from halls, put me in cars, and trundled me off to bed.
Really I was better after each lecture than I had been before. When I
left Honolulu she herself was so worn out she had to take a vacation,
but I was nearly well.
The hospitality and luxuriance of this Pacific paradise were almost
indescribable. Hula-hulas at the hotels, bathing on the beaches,
outriggers swooping in, the native women in great flowered Mother
Hubbards twining leis, the songs they sang, the air of leisure and fun
and play, these made Honolulu a city apart. It was the sounding board of
the Orient, people going, people coming back, but all there to enjoy
themselves.
In Honolulu I repacked and, to save space, stuffed Grant’s tiger skin in
the trunk around my box of Darjeeling tea. When, four weeks later, I
ripped off the cover at Willow Lake, it was reeking with camphor. I
tried to aerate the leaves, dry them out, fumigate them with sunshine,
but it remained moth ball tea. One package I had given away before I
discovered the tragedy. Its receipt was ignored. No thank-you letter, no
mention of it. The other friends to whom I had planned to present this
choice gift had to go without.
I spent the summer at Willow Lake and in the winter, remembering Arizona
from the time I had been there with Stuart, went out again in response
to the summons of the desert. My husband and I found a house near Tucson
of adobe, trimmed in blue. The mountains, not distant or aloof or
towering over all, reached into the sky, but they were also somehow
intimate, cupping the town gently on all four sides.
You settled there in the Catalina foothills and felt such a part of the
whole. The first thing when you opened your eyes, before actual dawn,
you beheld the gold and purple and then the entire sky break into color.
In the evening the sunsets were reflected on the mountains in
pink-lavender shades; sometimes the glow sprayed from the bottom upward,
like the footlights of a theater, until the tips were aflame. Sunset
vanished as quickly as sunrise, never lingering long.
When the marvel of spring came to the desert, you saw the cactus and the
flowering, saw the brown floor change to delicate pale yellow, stood in
awe of nature daring to live without water. You were reminded of the
futility of wearing out your life merely providing food and raiment.
Like the challenge of death, which so many of the people there were
gallantly facing, the desert itself was a challenge.
_Chapter Thirty-nine_
SLOW GROWS THE SPLENDID PATTERN
“_There is no force in the world so great as that of an
idea when its hour has struck._”
VICTOR HUGO
Looking back at the past is like peering from some promontory upon a
varied landscape. The years run through it like a road winding through a
valley. With the passage of time you get a far-sweeping view, and the
small details become blurred and difficult to recall. I wonder whether
there should not be a school course to emphasize the importance of
keeping diaries, so that you would know the really momentous happenings
to put down. Mostly you scribble notes intended to call up a picture
rather than an actual account of what has happened—memoranda of dates,
engagements and events, leaving the results to recollection. Some
inequality in this chronicle as to what is significant and what is
not—some gaps in my remembrance of events—may have been the result.
It is strange what tricks the mind can play. My father, the person who
had done most in shaping my growth, died in 1926 at the age of eighty.
The day he was buried in Corning I was passing the bank on the corner of
the town square with my brothers Dick and Bob, and we chanced to glance
simultaneously at the clock tower. Faintly startled, we gazed at each
other and Dick exclaimed, “Look at that little tiny thing! I’ve always
thought it was as big as the Eiffel Tower!”
In all of our travels each of us had been convinced that nothing ever
was so tall as that tower. That can happen to so many youthful memories.
Months and miles that seemed so long then are so short later.
The same year that took my father summoned also my sister Mary, whose
cruel immolation at the shrine of family duty had obliged her to forego
marriage; even though I had seen her but seldom, she, too, had had an
important influence over me and remained a dear presence whose loss I
felt deeply. Out of eleven children seven are still living. Families
have a separate and distinct role in your existence. They are closer yet
more apart than friends, but often you discover that you have nothing
save the ties of childhood to keep you together.
What I have been able to contribute to the birth control movement has
been the result of forces which set a clear design almost from infancy,
each succeeding circumstance tracing the lines more sharply: my being
born into a family so large as to be in part responsible for my mother’s
premature death; my preparation as a nurse, which awoke me to the
sorrows of women; the inspiration of having come into contact with great
minds and having claimed many as friends. It may have been destiny as
some have said—I do not know.
To have helped carry the cause thus far has been at times strenuous, but
I have never considered it a sacrifice. Every conscious hour, night and
day, in any city, in any country, has brought its compensations. My life
has been joyous and exulting and full because it has touched profoundly
millions of other lives. It is ever a privilege to be a part of
something unquestionably proved of value, something so fundamentally
right.
From time to time wonder is expressed that so much has been accomplished
in so short a period. The fact remains that in an era when huge fortunes
have been spent in alleviating human misery progress has been painfully
slow. Countless women still die before their time because the bit of
knowledge essential to every life is still not theirs. Birth control
must seep down until it reaches the strata where the need is greatest;
until it has been democratized there can be no rest.
It is true that great advances have been made in the realm of theory.
You can almost tell people’s age now by their attitude towards birth
control. To the young it is merely one of the accepted facts; if
questioned, they assume the whole matter must have been settled long
ago.
Over and over again in the past a new epoch has adopted a concept
censured by the preceding one, and has wondered derisively how its
forefathers could have been so blind to anything so obvious. The use of
anesthetics for mothers in childbirth was once condemned as an unholy
attempt to escape the Biblical curse pronounced against all women, and,
similarly, evolution as striking at the roots of Christianity. Battles
over impiety, heresy, blasphemy, obscenity have been fought, temporarily
lost, and finally won. Science whittles away such obstructions little by
little. “The Moving Finger writes; and having writ moves on.” In
January, 1937, in that same Town Hall where fifteen years before I had
been forbidden to speak, and whence I had been haled into court, I was
honored with a medal. Pearl Buck said on one occasion, “The cause
conquers because youth is for you. I have lived in China so long, and
know what it is to wait until the old ones die and the young can do what
is necessary to be done.” I am glad both my sons are doctors with a
background of human interest to which has been added a scientific
quality of mind that can aid in pushing the horizon of service further
into the future.
I am often asked, “Aren’t you happy now that the struggle is over?” But
I cannot agree that it is. Though many disputed barricades have been
leaped, you can never sit back, smugly content, believing that victory
is forever yours; there is always the threat of its being snatched from
you. All freedom must be safeguarded and held. Jubilation is unwarranted
while the world is in warring turmoil, each political unit trying to
hold on to what it has—some threatening to take it away and others
looking covetously towards outlets in countries not yet completely
filled. The application of the movement to nations which should, in the
interests of peace, control their populations, must endure.
Before 1914 the world trend was towards unity and peace. But a typhoon
then caught us and turned us upside down. We began to whirl violently in
one direction—that of individual and national emancipation, until at
last the great wind blew crowns from the heads of Tsars and Kaisers,
sweeping power into the hands of the populace.
When that War had first burst upon a shocked world people everywhere
stood aghast and wept for the slaughter of men they did not know. But
after four years, in self-defense, they armored themselves against the
emotion which should be aroused by any cruelty, and became calloused and
hardened until the deaths of thousands left nations unmoved.
Then came the vortex, the center, of the storm, and we awaited
breathless the approach of the opposite edge. Everything had been lashed
down in readiness, the life lines had been strengthened. Finally, all we
had considered constant in rational thought, morals, ethics, started to
go with equal violence in the other direction towards dictatorship and
nationalism and race prejudice—a giving over of individual freedom. The
immediacy of the deaths of women in childbirth seemed so small in
comparison, of so little consequence; no longer were felt the pains of
problems which used to be of such deep concern.
Over and over again I hear, “How do you fit birth control into a world
in which dictators are clamoring for more and yet more people?” I can
only answer that momentum must now derive its power from some other
source than arousing sympathy. The present insensitivity is due to a
horror of hovering peril. Many will be swept away and destroyed but when
the battered hulls of the various ships of state emerge into calmer
seas, a lesson may have been learned, perhaps, whereby these vessels may
be made more seaworthy.
The Greeks, with their innate genius for dramatizing basic truths in
images of telling beauty, established of old the relay torch race, or
Lampadephoria, in honor of the Titan Prometheus, who had bestowed the
divine gift of fire upon humanity. The contest was held at night, the
great flambeaux being appropriately kindled at the altar of Eros.
Participation was not a distinction indiscriminately conferred; those
elect were fitted by discipline to hand on the vital flame, just as
parents need training before becoming eligible for their grave
responsibilities. The figures speeding around the course symbolize the
passing on of the spark of life from generation to generation. Each
runner must deliver his torch undimmed to his successor.
“Build thou beyond thyself,” said Nietzsche, and this the birth control
movement is doing. All peoples will in the future have greater regard
for the quality of the bodies and brains which must be equipped for the
task of building the future civilization; birth control will be the
cornerstone of that great structure.
INDEX
Abbott, Leonard, 74
Abortion, 89ff., 217, 285, 449, 450
Academy of Medicine, 181, 358, 404, 405, 410
Ackermann, Frances Brooks, 188, 260, 261, 392, 395, 417
Adams, Maude, 37, 38
Agra, 479
Albany, N.Y., 208, 292, 411
Aldred, Guy, 136, 274
Allahabad, 479
Allison, Van Kleek, 207, 211
American Birth Control League, 300, 359, 369, 392ff., 409, 415
American Civil Liberties Union, 309
American Federation of Labor, 78, 80, 421
American Medical Association, 416, 421, 430
American Public Health Association, 298
American Women’s Association, 413
Ankelsaria, Dr., 476ff.
Anti-Religious Museum, Leningrad, 440
Arizona, 459, 460, 491
Armory Exhibition, N.Y., 68
Ashley, Jessie, 71, 96, 100, 101, 207, 232, 234, 252, 264
Astor, Lady Nancy, 390, 391
Atlanta Ga., 413
Bamberger, Charles J., 176, 258
Barber, Billy, 434
Barber-Surgeons’ Hall, 462, 463
Barcelona, 154ff.
Baroda, 479ff.;
Maharani of, 480, 481
Barr, Sir James, 272
Bass, Mrs. Robert P., 459
Batum, 455
Bavaria, 287ff.
Bedborough Trial, 135
Bell, George H., Commissioner of Licenses, 252
Bellamy, Edward, 268
Bellows, George, 74
Belmont, Mrs. O. P., 381
Benares, 476, 478ff.
Bendix, Dr. Kurt, 389
Bennett, Arnold, 186, 371
Berger, Victor, 83
Berkman, Alexander, 71, 314
Berlin, 1920, 280ff.;
1927, 388
Besant, Annie, 127, 142, 172, 485
Bijur, Justice Nathan, 252
Bird, Mrs. Charles Sumner, 460
Birth Control, history of, 125–129;
morality of, 298, 301;
origin of name, 107, 108
_Birth Control Review_, 252ff., 393, 395
Bland, J. O. P., 299
Block, Anita, 76, 96, 180
Blossom, Frederick A., 198, 210, 251, 253ff.
Bocker, Dr. Dorothy, 358ff.
Bombay, 466ff.
Borah, Senator William E., 420, 422
Bose, Sir Jagardis Chandra, 475
Boston, Mass., 207
Boyce, Neith, 96
Boyd, Mary, 362
Boyle, Gertrude, 208, 296
Bradlaugh, Charles, 127, 142
Brattleboro, Vt., 368
Bratton, Senator Sam. G., 420
Brevoort Hotel dinner, 187ff.
British Museum, 124f., 130, 142
_Brooklyn Eagle_, 221
Brooklyn, Raymond Street Jail, 221ff.
Broun, Heywood, 263, 293, 373
Browne, F. W. Stella, 129
Brownsville, clinic, 213ff.;
mothers, 231, 244, 414
Brunton, Paul, 462, 486
Brush, Charles, 417
Bryan, William Jennings, 39
Buck, Pearl, 495
Buckmaster, Lord, 370f., 398
Buckner, Emory R., 313ff.
Bullitt, Ambassador William G, 443ff.
Bundesen, Dr. Herman, 361
Bureau of Social Hygiene, 78
Burns Detective Agency, 406
Byrne, Mrs. Ethel, 95, 186f., 208, 216, 224–234
Byrne, Jack, 42
Cairo, Egypt, 352ff.
Calcutta, 471ff.
Calicut, 488f.
_Call_, New York, 74, 76ff., 109
Cap d’Ail, 380
Caraway, Senator Hattie, 422
Carlile, Richard, 114
Carpenter, Alice, 187
Carpenter, Mrs. Benjamin, 361
Carpenter, Edward, 121, 130f., 139, 186
Carr-Saunders, Sir A. M., 379
Cass, Dr. Muriel, 491
Catalans, 162ff.
Catholics, 19ff., 218, 294, 303ff., 411ff.
Catholic Welfare Conference, 415
Caucasus, 454ff.
Chance, Clinton, 359, 379
Chautauqua, 34, 39
Chicago Conference, 361
Chicago, speaking experience in, 196
Clapp, Elsie, 118
Claverack College and Hudson River Institute, 35ff.
Clayton, Judge, 186, 189
Clinic, anecdotes, 399ff.;
Brownsville, 213ff., 310;
Dutch, 143ff., 290;
English, 296;
Massachusetts, 211;
New York, 211, 298, 358, 398–407;
origin of term, 143;
plans to establish, 190f.;
Rutgers system, 146
Clinical Research Bureau, 360, 398
Clyde, Mrs. Ethel, 433, 437, 444, 455
Coghlan, Father, of Corning, 20, 21
Colgate University, 365f.
Columbia Colony, 61, 268
Committee of One Hundred, 229, 231, 300
Communism, Bavaria, 288ff.;
Russia, 436ff.
Comstock, Anthony, 77, 176
Comstock Law, 77, 111, 130, 182, 414, 427
_Confédération Générale de Travail_, 101
Conference, Chicago, 361;
First National Birth Control, 298ff.;
Fifth International, 337, 354;
Los Angeles, 416;
Regional, 416;
Sixth International Malthusian and Birth Control, 369ff.;
World Population Conference, Geneva, 376–388;
Zurich, 408ff.
Connecticut, birth control legislation, 293f.
Content, Assistant District Attorney Harold A., 115, 120, 180ff., 189
Contraception, 104, 143, 290, 363f., 407ff.
Cooper, John M., Ph.D., 415
Copeland, Senator Royal S., 427
Cornell Medical School, 433
Corning, N.Y., 11, 19, 24, 27f., 43, 493
Corrigan, Magistrate Joseph E., 306
Coughlin, Father Charles E., 425
Courtney, Lieutenant Joseph, 313
Cousins, Margaret, 461
Cox, Harold, 172, 272, 296, 299, 303f.
Crane, Judge Frederick E., 292, 296
Crew, Dr. A. F., 380
Cummings, Attorney General, 428
Darjeeling, India, 475
Darrow, Clarence, 185
Dave, Victor, 100f.
Davenport, C. B., 374
Dawson, Baron, of Penn, 294f., 370f., 411
Day, Mrs. George H., Sr., 293, 396, 415
Debs, Eugene V., 69f., 351
Delafield, Mrs. Lewis L., 230, 304, 396
Dennett, Mary Ware, 180f., 189, 414, 416
Denver, Colo., 201
de Silver, Albert, 309
Detroit, 366
de Vilbiss, Dr. Lydia Allen, 298, 358
Dick, Mrs. Alexander C., 417
Dickinson, Dr. Robert L., 404f., 407, 430
Di Gregorio, John, 81
Dineen, Monsignor Joseph P., 304ff.
Dodge, Mabel, 72ff.
Dolphin, Martin W., 312ff.
Donohue, Captain Thomas, 304ff.
Drummond, Sir Eric, 379, 386
Drysdale, Bessie, 128, 290, 296
Drysdale, Dr. Charles R., 128, 143
Drysdale, Dr. C. V., 128ff., 178, 290, 296, 373
Drysdale, Dr. George, 128
Dunlop, Dr. Binnie, 129, 170
Durant, Ida Kaufman, 75
Durant, Will, 75, 434
Dutch Neo-Malthusian League, 143ff.
East, Professor E. M., 364, 387
Eastman, Crystal, 108
Eastman, Max, 182, 185
Eddy, Sherwood, 435, 448
Egypt, 352ff.
Ellis, Edith, 137ff., 176
Ellis, Havelock, 75, 94, 133–141, 166, 276ff., 286, 370
England, 1914, 122ff.;
1915, 169ff., 268ff.;
1922, 354f;
1924, 370ff.;
1927, 379, 381;
1936, 462ff.
Enright, Police Commissioner, 302
Equi, Dr. Marie, 205f.
Erie Railroad, 25
Ernst, Morris, 404, 406ff., 427
Esther, 36, 45
Ettor, Joe, 80, 83
Eugenics, 374f., 415
Fabian Hall address, 170
Fabian Society, Liverpool, 122
Fairchild, Professor Henry Pratt, 387, 420
_Family Limitation_, 112, 117, 119f., 121, 176, 182, 184f., 206, 232,
253, 262, 321, 342
Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, 411
Federal Legislation, 414–428
Feminists, 187
Ferch, Johann and Betty, 373f.
Feridoonji, Mrs. Rustomji, 481ff.
Ferrer, Francisco, 74, 123, 162f.
Ferrer School, 74
Fischer, Louis, 448
Fishbein, Dr. Morris, 417
Fishkill, 357
Fitzgerald, Adelaide, 54
Fitzpatrick, George, 68