Update for 76901HEAD main

author: pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org> 2025-09-20 09:22:03 -0700
committer: pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org> 2025-09-20 09:22:03 -0700
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76901 ***</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</span></p>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+<p>Some minor changes to the text are noted at the <a href="#transnote">end of the book</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp70" id="cover">
+<img alt="Original cover" class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg">
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1>
+BIRTH CONTROL LAWS
+<br>
+<span class="fs70">
+SHALL WE KEEP THEM<br>
+CHANGE THEM OR<br>
+ABOLISH THEM<br>
+</span></h1>
+<p class="noindent center p2">BY</p>
+<p class="noindent center p2 wsp">MARY WARE DENNETT</p>
+<p class="noindent center">
+<i>One of the Founders of the National Birth Control League,<br>
+Formerly Director of the Voluntary Parenthood<br>
+League, Author of “The Sex Side of Life”</i><br>
+</p>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp58" id="titlepage" style="max-width: 5em;">
+  <img class="w100 p2" src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="Publisher Logo">
+</figure><br>
+<p class="noindent center p2 fs120 lsp2">FREDERICK H. HITCHCOCK</p>
+<p class="noindent center gothic">The Grafton Press</p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">NEW YORK</span>
+<span style="float: right; margin-right: 1em;">MCMXXVI</span>
+
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[ii]</span></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center fs85">
+Copyright, 1926<br>
+By MARY WARE DENNETT<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[iii]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">The scope of this book does not include any general discussion
+of the merits of birth control, or its sociological
+and racial ramifications. That has been amply undertaken
+in recent years by many able people; and the birth
+rate in all high-grade communities and groups clearly indicates
+that the subject, per se, is not now to any extent a
+moot question. Birth control is not an if. It is an actuality.</p>
+
+<p>But what does need further discussion and thinking
+through to a sound conclusion is the question as to whether
+laws affecting birth control are necessary in the United
+States, and if so, just what the provisions of those laws
+should be. We have laws on the subject already, and have
+had them,—the same ones,—for over fifty years. They are
+increasingly unenforced, and are generally acknowledged to
+be unenforceable. But it is not wise to wait their slow and
+complete dissolution from disuse, because the diseased and
+dying body of these laws creates a most unsanitary morale
+in this fair land of ours.</p>
+
+<p>The question is shall they be done away with altogether,
+or shall they be modified, and if so, how? This is a matter
+which potentially affects every family in the country. The
+theory of laws in a democracy is that they reflect the wishes
+of the people. This book therefore raises the question as
+to what they really want, and tries to answer it, or at least
+to give to the public in condensed and convenient form the
+facts on which an answer may be based.</p>
+
+<p>In this field at present, there is much muddled reasoning,
+much jumping at conclusions, much substituting of emotion
+for thought, and much general assumption that reformers
+who agitate for birth control must necessarily also be wise<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span>
+law-makers on the subject. To help clarify public thought,
+and to help crystallize public responsibility as to the legislation
+which is inevitably a part of the birth control question
+so long as the present statutes remain on the books, is the
+aim of this volume.</p>
+
+<p>The book is presented to American citizens in the hope
+that it may be a useful service. It makes no pretense at
+literature and it is not propaganda. It is not a legal brief
+nor a piece of academic research. It simply talks over the
+subject in an untechnical fashion, from the human standpoint,
+with the idea that most thinking, well-meaning people
+want our laws to represent common sense, justice and practicability;
+and that they want them to harmonize with our
+heritage of American ideals of freedom and self-government.
+Although informal in its presentation, every effort
+has been made to include only statements for which there is
+authority from original sources. The main points are given
+in the body of the book, and the appendices give detail and
+authorities, for the use of those who are interested to check
+up and be more thorough in their consideration.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of the book explains just what our present
+laws provide, and how they happened to be the way they
+are. The second part analyzes the various propositions that
+have been made for changing the laws, and the reasons offered
+by their advocates. The third part makes an effort
+to show the basis on which to differentiate between sound
+and spurious legislation, and the tests by which it may be
+determined what the people really want, underneath their
+upper layer of careless acquiescence, inhibition or inertia.
+If the author did not have an abiding faith in the fundamental
+sound sense, good intentions and latent ideality of
+the average American citizen, this book would not have
+been written.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">
+M. W. D.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+New York City<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">1926.</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center autotable">
+PART I<br>
+<br>
+WHAT SORT OF LAWS HAVE WE NOW?<br>
+</p>
+
+<table class="fs85 autotable">
+<thead>
+<tr class="fs75">
+<td colspan="2">CHAPTER</td>
+<td>PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Situation</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_ONE_Chapter_I">3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+The actual situation under federal and state law—Not even parents
+can lawfully inform their married children about how to space their
+babies—No doctor can lawfully or adequately study the control of
+conception—Provisions of the federal law—Scope of state laws—Clinics
+under state laws—Access to birth control information not
+only criminal, but classed with obscenity—Control of conception confused
+with abortion—Precise meaning of term birth control in
+modern application—Not a crime to control parenthood but a crime
+to find out how—What if that principle were applied to some other
+scientific knowledge, making automobiles, for instance?
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">How it Happened</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_ONE_Chapter_II">19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+How it came about that information concerning one item of science
+became a criminal indecency—Anthony Comstock’s blundering bequest
+to the people—Congress an unwitting partner—States hastily followed
+suit—United States the only country to class contraceptive
+information with penalized indecency—Legislation aimed at indecency
+but hit science—Europe laughs at our “Comstockery”—Documentary
+proof that Comstock and his successor, Sumner, did not expect laws
+to prevent doctors from giving and normal people from using contraceptive
+instructions.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">Is Enforcement Possible?</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_ONE_Chapter_III">46</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+Relatively few indictments in over fifty years—Ulterior motive in
+many of those—Post Master General Hays’s leaning toward revision—Post
+Master General Work’s gesture for enforcement—Clinic
+reports and medical research data unlawfully published and mailed—Misleading
+criminal advertisements go unpunished—Government
+itself breaks the law—Forbidden books found in Congressional
+Library—Senators and Congressmen willing to break law, but hesitate
+to revise it.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="center">
+PART TWO<br>
+<br>
+WHAT CHANGES IN THE LAWS HAVE BEEN PROPOSED?<br>
+</p>
+
+<table class="fs85 autotable">
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Two First Federal Efforts</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_TWO_Chapter_I">63</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+The big repeal petition of 1876 started by National Liberal League—Comstock’s
+obscenity exhibit wins again—Sanger arrests crystallize
+growing movement for repeal of law—National Birth Control
+League founded March, 1915, first organization of the sort in the
+United States—Repeal bills drafted—Petitions circulated—Noted
+English sympathizers help.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">Beating Around the Bush with State Legislation</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_TWO_Chapter_II">72</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+Interest caused by Mrs. Sanger’s arrests caused much activity despite
+war-time conditions—First repeal bill initiated by National Birth
+Control League in New York Legislature—Law makers mostly in
+favor privately, but publicly opposed or evasive—Dr. Hilda Noyes’s
+experiment in New York village proving that ordinary people want
+laws changed—Legislator justifies state repressive laws so long as
+federal law stands as example—Bills introduced in New York, California,
+New Jersey and Connecticut—The “doctors only” type of bill
+appears—Further limitations—Efforts toward freedom stimulate reaction
+toward stiffer repression in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Virginia—All
+fail—Fallacy that limited bills win legislators more than
+freedom bills.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">Going to the Point with a Federal Bill</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_TWO_Chapter_III">94</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+1919 sees first concerted effort to repeal federal law—Initiated by
+Voluntary Parenthood League, an outgrowth of National Birth Control
+League—Disbanding of earlier organization and merging of
+forces—Opposition from birth control advocates on “doctors only”
+basis arises later—The long hunt for a <ins class="corr" id="TN-0" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: sponsor—Cummins-Kissell">sponsor—Cummins-Kissel</ins>
+Bill introduced in January, 1923—Re-introduced in next Congress as
+Cummins-Vaile Bill—Survey of six-year struggle in Congress—Significant
+characteristics of Congressional reaction—Fear and embarrassment
+inhibit even those in favor of measure—Suggestions
+for keeping repeal “dark”—Alternate appeals to logic and humanity—Public
+opposition (mostly Catholic) relatively slight—Sponsor in
+Senate received 20 letters for bill to every one against.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">The Hearings on the Cummins-Vaile Bill, and the Aftermath</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_TWO_Chapter_VI">123</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+Delay in arranging <ins class="corr" id="TN-17" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: hearings analagous">hearings analogous</ins> to delay in sponsoring bill—Joint<br>
+hearings by Senate and House Judiciary Sub-Committees held
+on April 8 and May 9, 1924—Mr. Vaile in opening remarks pleads<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span>
+for restoration of American freedom to acquire knowledge, which
+was taken away 50 years ago—Birth rate in United States proves
+that people want and get some information in spite of law—Catholic
+speakers discuss birth control, not the bill—Wages of government
+employees quoted as reason for passing bill—<abbr title="Professor">Prof.</abbr> Field shows
+historically that suppression does not suppress—Mrs. Glaser argues
+for freedom for scientists to learn and teach regarding control of
+human fertility—Mrs. Carpenter shows how federal law operates
+to prevent Chicago Clinic—<abbr title="Professor">Prof.</abbr> Johnson gives eugenic view-point—Hearing
+reopened at request of Catholics—Lengthy irrelevancies—Congressman
+Hersey heckles the witnesses—Report of Senate Sub-Committee
+a sop to the workers for the bill—Unique effort to get
+vote of full Committee before adjournment, as aid to reducing inhibition
+in next Congress.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">V.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">Why Congress Has Been So Slow</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_TWO_Chapter_V">166</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+No one answer covers all reasons—Quiet request to Congress for
+repeal might have succeeded twenty years ago, before sensational
+law-breaking created prejudice—Laws defied without first attempting
+their repeal—Speeches and writings of early agitation not calculated
+to induce Congressional initiative—Struggle announced in
+advance as likely to be long and bitter “fight”—Shortage of funds
+for publicity on behalf of bill the second reason for slowness of
+Congress—Third and most dominant reason found to be general embarrassment
+over subject—Distaste, inhibition and fear, in varying
+degrees almost universal among Congressmen—Striking instances—Fears
+covered careers, colleagues, families and constituents—Fear on
+behalf of young girls greatest of all—Political opposition to birth
+control legislation misinterpreted by “radicals”—Abortive attempt in
+Harding presidential campaign to use his tentative interest in this
+bill against him—Club women afflicted with inhibitions similar to
+those of members of Congress—It is leaders, not members, who hold
+back endorsement by large organizations—Organized labor women
+endorse repeal ahead of club women.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">A “<ins class="corr" id="TN-1" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: Doctor’s Only">Doctors Only</ins>” Federal Bill</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_TWO_Chapter_VI">200</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+“Doctors only” federal bill followed straight repeal bill just as
+limited bills in states followed straight repeal bills—Advocated on
+Margaret Sanger’s initiative—Provides medical monopoly of extreme
+type—Arguments in its behalf analyzed and answered—Proponents
+of “doctors only” bill do not live up to own demands for limiting
+contraceptive instruction to personal service by doctors—Birth control
+periodical carries thinly veiled advertisements for contraceptives—Improved
+type of “doctors only” bill drafted by George Worthington—Not
+so many loopholes and inconsistencies as in first bill proposed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span>
+but still a special-privilege bill, and still leaves subject classed
+with obscenity—Worthless as means of curbing abuse of contraceptive
+knowledge—Clause permitting “reprints” from medical and
+scientific journals practically breaks down all restriction—Makes pretense
+at limitation a farce.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+
+<p class="center">
+PART THREE<br>
+<br>
+WHAT SORT OF LAWS DO THE PEOPLE REALLY WANT?<br>
+</p>
+
+<table class="fs85 autotable">
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">Do Physicians Want a “Doctors Only” Bill?</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_THREE_Chapter_I">219</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+Probably most physicians have not yet thought what sort of laws
+they want—Resolutions by medical associations depend largely on
+way subject is presented and by whom—Doctors have no interest
+in retaining obscenity connection, as such—Only few want “doctors
+only” bill for mercenary reasons—Endorsement proposed for American
+Medical Association in 1920, side-tracked in department—President
+of A. M. A. cordial to idea of straight repeal—American
+Institute of Homoeopathy and various local medical associations
+endorse Cummins-Vaile Bill—Only two medical associations have
+endorsed “doctors only” bill—New York Academy of Medicine took
+“doctors only” stand on recommendation of small sub-committee when
+many members are for straight repeal—Conferences of doctors and
+lawyers in Chicago and New York advise against all limited legislation—Dr.
+Pusey, President of American Medical Association in
+1924, warns against “silly legislation”—Straight repeal the only
+recommendation of conference of doctors and lawyers—Unfair to
+attempt to hold medical profession legally responsible for moral use
+of contraceptives—Doctors on the whole more interested in professional
+prestige and credit for devising contraceptive methods than in
+any exclusive control of their use.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">What Do the People Want?</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_THREE_Chapter_II">241</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+People’s first individual want is reliable contraceptive information—Strong
+probability that people prefer decent enforceable laws to those
+which are dirty and unenforceable—Choice can not be put up to
+United States town-meeting fashion—Reader asked to make own
+choice by elimination of what he does not want—Do you consider
+contraception indecent?—Should laws penalize the decent majority
+in order to reach the depraved few?—Should the control of conception
+itself be made a criminal act by law?—Abstinence as method
+of birth control has no legal standing in the U. S.—Do you want
+unenforceable laws?—Can “doctors only” laws accomplish their own
+aims?—Are they enforceable?—Do all contraceptives require personal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span>
+medical instruction?—Proponents of “doctors only” bill admit
+that they do not—English birth control organizations disapprove
+“doctors only” stand—Best known English authority on birth control
+is biologist, not M.D.—Are laws to curb improper advertising of
+contraceptives practicable?—Average citizen too occupied to analyze
+legislative proposals—Proponents of limited legislation backward
+about explaining their bills to the public—They refuse to debate
+openly or confer privately with proponents of freedom bill.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td><span class="smcap">Can the People Get What They Want?</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#PART_THREE_Chapter_III">262</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td class="tdlj lht">
+Congress will do what the people want if the request is made clearly
+and forcibly enough—Inhibitions are waning—Later generations
+will not bless birth control workers or Congress if legislation is
+bungled now—Danger of blundering as Comstock blundered—Those
+who mean well regarding legislation must do well—Present laws
+unconstitutional—First class legal opinion deems all “doctors only”
+laws unconstitutional also—Time to discard governmental distrust
+of the people.
+</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Appendices</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#APPENDICES">267</a></td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak lsp" id="PART_ONE">PART ONE<br>
+WHAT SORT OF LAWS HAVE WE NOW?</h2>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_ONE_Chapter_I"><span class="smcap">Chapter I</span><br>
+
+THE SITUATION</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>The actual situation under Federal and State law: Not even
+parents can lawfully inform their married children about how to space
+their babies: No doctor can lawfully or adequately study the control
+of conception: Present provisions of Federal law: Scope of State
+laws: Clinics under State laws: Access to birth control information
+not only criminal but classed with obscenity: Control of Conception
+confused with abortion: Precise meaning of term birth control in
+modern application: Not a crime to control parenthood, but a crime
+to find out how: What if that principle were applied to some other
+scientific knowledge, making automobiles for instance?</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap">It is a crime under the Federal law for a mother to
+write to her daughter a letter such as this:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">Daughter dear</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>It wrings my heart to know that you are so terribly worried.
+I have felt for a long time, that something was troubling you. You
+are absolutely right in your determination to know all there is to be
+known about how to have your babies when you want them and not
+otherwise. Now that your own doctor has failed to give you practicable
+advice, I realize more than ever that I should have raised
+heaven and earth to see to it that you had adequate information when
+you were first married. Somehow I blindly hoped that you would
+never have to go through what I did, that you would be sure to find
+out what I never properly knew in my married life, and that you
+would be spared the terror of living in fear that the love which brings
+you and your husband together should bring your babies so rapidly
+that you can not possibly take care of them. I blame myself that
+I let my inhibitions stand in the way of finding help for you long
+ago, so that now you could help yourself.</p>
+
+<p>But I will do my best to make up. There must be no more
+worry and uncertainty for you in this crisis. Now that he has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>
+lost his job and his health at the same time, you must be sure that
+no more babies are started for, say four years. I hope and believe
+that by that time you may be able to have your fourth child in
+safety. But until then you and he will need every atom of your
+vitality to make the little bank balance tide you over to better times.</p>
+
+<p>Now here is help. (It makes my blood boil that your doctor
+should have been so helpless when you took your problem to him,
+but there is no use berating him, for it is probably not wholly his
+fault that he knows so little on this subject. The laws won’t let
+him study the matter.) I am sending you a wonderfully clear
+explicit pamphlet which tells the best and simplest methods for regulating
+conception. It is written by Doctor —— who has made
+a business of studying this problem, law or no law, for over twenty-five
+years. The methods recommended in it are practically the same
+as those taught by the best authorities abroad.</p>
+
+<p>I am not stopping to tell you how I got the pamphlet. But I
+was a “criminal” according to our State law when I got it. And I
+am a “criminal” again according to Federal law, now that I am
+mailing it to you. But I am willing to be that kind of a criminal
+a thousand times over if only I can at this late date make up for
+letting you go so long uninformed, and if only I can now put your
+poor tormented mind at rest.</p>
+
+<p>With boundless love,</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Mother</span>.<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>For writing such a letter and for sending the pamphlet
+to which it refers, this mother could be sent to jail for five
+years and fined $5000. That she would not be discovered
+is probable. It is also likely that if discovered she would
+not be indicted. But that would be due, not to the law but
+merely to the fact that the authorities are almost wholly
+negligent in enforcing the law. The Federal law makes no
+exceptions whatever. It is a crime for any one, even for
+the best of reasons and in the greatest need, to send or to
+receive by mail anything that tells “where, how or of whom”
+information may be secured as to how conception may be
+controlled. The number of unarrested “criminals” of the
+type of this mother is beyond knowledge or computation, but
+they are everywhere. Many of them could not tell exactly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>
+what the law is. They simply know that the whole subject
+is under a cloud, that doctors are mostly unsatisfactory when
+asked for instructions, and that whatever one learns has to
+be learned secretly.</p>
+
+<p>Here is another kind of letter which it would be a crime
+to mail. A Philadelphia physician writes to an Iowa physician:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">Dear Doctor</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>I can not answer your letter as I ought, because of the fool laws,
+but I will do the best I can. I sympathize most heartily with you
+in your need for authoritative data on the control of conception.
+My experience has matched yours precisely, in that patients are asking
+more and more for advice on methods. After some very humiliating
+and disastrous experiences several years ago because my patients
+acted on the half baked instructions I gave them, those being
+all I then knew,—I determined to study the subject as thoroughly
+as I could. Fortunately my trip abroad stood me in good service
+at the time, for I was able to visit several of the scientists who
+have made a special study of the subject and whose research covers
+a period of many years. I got most of my material in England and
+Germany. By sheer luck on my return, the customs officials did
+not inspect the books and the notes I had on the subject. But they
+could, and indeed they should under the law, have seized and destroyed
+them. The most comprehensive of the books is by Dr.
+——<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> of London, a biologist of note who has done some exceptional
+research work. The book is printed by the well known medical
+publishers, ——. You might try ordering a copy, but the chances
+are that it would not come through, and that you would be only
+wasting your time and money. So I will send you my copy by
+today’s mail, insured, parcel post, and wrapped very securely. Let
+me have it back inside of a month if you can, for it is much in
+demand here. I am also sending with it a copy of some particularly
+useful items from my notes based on the experience of <abbr title="Doctors">Drs.</abbr> ——
+and ——, also a pamphlet which you may find more helpful than
+any other one thing, this latter being the work of an American
+physician, Dr. —— of ——. It can’t be signed of course on
+account of the laws, and it has to be circulated secretly. I find it
+excellent not only because of its brevity and soundness, but because<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>
+it serves very well as a handbook of information for my patients, to
+supplement the instructions I give them personally. I think you
+will find yourself wanting a quantity for distribution, especially
+among your patients who ask your advice by letter, and who do
+not live near enough to come to your office.</p>
+
+<p>Of course you realize that I am a deliberate law-breaker in sending
+you this letter and parcel, but I would rather take a chance on
+being held up for it than to have you repeat my experience of advising
+people without adequate knowledge as to method. According to
+the law you will be just as bad as I, when you “knowingly” take
+from the mail the parcel I am sending. And worse yet, your State
+of Iowa has a law which makes it a crime to <em>have in your possession</em>
+any instructions for contraception! So be cautious.</p>
+
+<p>Let me know if I can be of any further use.</p>
+
+<p>With best wishes, as ever</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+(Signed)....................<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Another bit of human “crime” is an actual instance which
+occurred in the experience of a Washington man who has
+been active in the campaign to change the laws regarding
+birth control knowledge. It was several years ago, when
+the effort to introduce a bill into Congress was still new.
+He dropped into the office of a certain Congressman whom
+he knew well, his errand being on another matter, but in
+passing he mentioned the work of the organization which
+had proposed the first Federal bill on this subject, and inquired
+if he had yet met the Director. Instantly the Congressman
+was alert. “No, but I would like to, and you are
+just the man I want to see right now. I want you to tell
+me how to get all the best information there is on this question
+of regulating the growth of a family. I need it.” He
+outlined his own situation. He had four splendid youngsters,
+all of them wanted and welcomed. But since the
+birth of the last one his wife had not been well, and it was
+far from wise for her to have another one soon, certainly
+not for several years. Also he was not a man of means.
+He could not afford to rear a very large family. The question
+of control had never been pressing before. Now it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>
+was imperative. Strange as it might seem he was practically
+without reliable information as to methods. Would
+Mr. —— be so mighty kind as to put him in the way
+of getting proper instruction? He would, and did. But
+it was utterly unlawful. However he was a cordially willing
+criminal, and the Congressman likewise cordially appreciated
+the friendly criminality. “Of course you can
+count on me to vote that bill when it comes up in Congress,”
+he said with emphasis that was most sincere.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious from the foregoing examples, which might
+be multiplied indefinitely, that the present status of our laws
+is profoundly at odds with the beliefs and the needs of the
+people. What then do the people need or want in the
+way of laws, if they need any at all, on this subject? A
+necessary preliminary to answering that question is to take
+account of the stock of laws we already have, to inspect
+them open-mindedly, and then to add or subtract from them
+whatever common sense, justice and self-respect may require.</p>
+
+<p>First of all we have the Federal law which affects the
+whole country. Then we have State laws in all the States
+but two, which either directly or by inference form a legal
+barrier between the people and this knowledge. In just
+half of the forty-eight States there are specific prohibitions.
+In all but two of the other half, the same prohibition is
+feasible under the obscenity laws, by virtue of the precedent
+of the Federal obscenity law and the obscenity laws of half
+the States, for it is in these obscenity laws that the prohibition
+of the circulation of contraceptives is found. The
+Federal law was passed first and is the model on which all
+the State laws are framed.</p>
+
+<p>The Federal Criminal Code contains five separate sections
+dealing with the subject, as follows. They are given
+in sequence according to Section numbers, not according to
+the date of their enactment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Section 102</i> penalizes any government employee who
+aids or abets anyone who violates the law which forbids the
+“importing, advertising, dealing in, exhibiting, or sending
+or receiving by mail obscene or indecent publications or representations,
+or means for preventing conception or producing
+abortion, or other article of indecent or immoral
+use or tendency.” Note the word “tendency,” and consider
+the scope and power which it gives to government officials
+with a penchant for suppressions.</p>
+
+<p><i>Section 211</i>, the parent of all the United States obscenity
+laws, declares unmailable any information or means for
+preventing conception. The prohibition is well nigh limitless
+in scope, for it forbids any information whether given
+directly or indirectly, and even includes any “description
+<em>calculated</em> to induce or incite a person to use or apply” any
+means for the prevention of conception.</p>
+
+<p><i>Section 245</i> covers the same ground, but applies to
+transportation by express or any other common carrier,
+from one state to another or to or from any foreign country.</p>
+
+<p><i>Section 312</i> applies to the District of Columbia, which
+is under the direct control of Congress. It is one of the
+most sweeping of all the laws. It forbids any one to lend
+or give away any published information, or even to “have
+it in his possession for any such purpose,” or to write where,
+“how or of whom” information may be secured. Some of
+the extraordinary infringement of this section by members
+of Congress and officials at the Capitol will be described
+later in the book.</p>
+
+<p><i>Section 305</i> of the Tariff Act of 1922 prohibits the importation
+from any foreign country of any contraceptive
+information or means. Any such may be “seized and forfeited.”</p>
+
+<p>The maximum penalty for infringements of these Federal
+statutes is five years in jail or a fine of $5000 or both.</p>
+
+<p>The wording of all these laws is very similar, and like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>
+most laws from the view-point of the layman, very repetitious
+and involved. It is hardly worth while to reproduce
+them here in full, but it is well for the reader to take the
+trouble to wade through the disagreeable verbiage of one
+of them, in order to realize the essential factors in the question
+under discussion. The now notorious Section 211 is
+the most representative one. It is the unfortunately prolific
+parent of the mass of legislation which has come to be
+called the Comstock laws, because it was Anthony Comstock
+who saddled them on to the United States, beginning in
+1873 with this original Section 211. It reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Every obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and every filthy book, pamphlet,
+picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or other publication of an
+indecent character, and every article or thing designed, adapted, or
+intended for <em>preventing conception</em> or producing abortion, or for any
+indecent or immoral use; and every article, instrument, substance,
+drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner
+calculated to lead another to use or apply it for <em>preventing conception</em>
+or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose;
+and every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet,
+advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information directly
+or indirectly, where, or how, or of whom, or by what means
+any of the hereinbefore-mentioned matters, articles or things may
+be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation of
+any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done
+or performed or how or by what means <em>conception may be prevented</em>
+or abortion may be produced, whether sealed or unsealed; and every
+letter, packet, or package, or other mail matter containing any filthy,
+vile, or indecent thing, device or substance and every paper, writing,
+advertisement or representation that any article, instrument, substance,
+drug, medicine, or thing may, or can be, used or applied, for
+<em>preventing conception</em> or producing abortion, or for any indecent or
+immoral purpose; and every description calculated to induce or incite
+a person to so use or apply any such article, instrument, substance,
+drug, medicine, or thing, is hereby declared to be a non-mailable
+matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from
+any post office or by any letter carrier. Whoever shall knowingly
+deposit or cause to be deposited for mailing or delivery, anything
+declared by this section to be non-mailable, or shall knowingly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>
+take, or cause the same to be taken, from the mails for the purpose
+of circulating or disposing thereof, or of aiding in the circulation or
+disposition thereof, shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars,
+or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now as to the State laws. They are very similar in
+import and phraseology to the parent Federal law, Section
+211, but they deal with other ways of circulating contraceptive
+knowledge and means than transportation by mail
+or express. The 24 States which have specific prohibitions,
+variously forbid publishing, advertising or giving the information.
+Fourteen States prohibit any one to tell. (Fancy
+trying to enforce such a law!) In most of these States the
+statute is similar to that in the District of Columbia, which
+even forbids the <em>telling</em> of anything that “will be <em>calculated</em>
+to lead another” to apply any information to the prevention
+of conception, and also makes it a crime to have in one’s
+possession any instructions to lend or give away. That is,
+the most ordinary channels for human relationship,—private
+conversation and the sort of help one friend or relative
+naturally gives to another,—become criminal where
+this subject is concerned. In several States private property
+and personal belongings can be searched by the authorities
+for “contraband” instructions. Colorado forbids anyone
+to bring contraceptive knowledge into the State. (The
+hold-up of traffic on the State line if that law were enforced,
+would be amazing to contemplate.) But Connecticut surely
+deserves the booby prize, for it has the grotesque distinction
+of being the one State to penalize the actual utilization
+of contraceptive information; in other words, the Connecticut
+law makes it a crime not only to find out how, but
+actually to <em>control</em> conception. The enforcement of that
+law fairly staggers the imagination. What could have been
+in the minds of the legislators who passed it is a question.</p>
+
+<p>New York has a unique sort of post-script to its State
+law, passed in 1881, eight years after the first law. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>
+main statute (Section 1142 of the Penal Code) is of the
+most sweepingly suppressive variety. The added provision
+(Section 1145) declares that “An article or instrument used
+or applied by physicians lawfully practicing, or by their direction
+or prescription, for the cure or prevention of disease,
+is not an article of indecent or immoral nature or use.”
+Just how an <em>article</em> can have an immoral or indecent <em>nature</em>
+has never been explained. However, this section has within
+the last few years been judicially interpreted to mean that
+the giving of contraceptive advice by a physician to a patient
+who was diseased or seriously threatened with disease
+is not an act of criminal indecency. And under this interpretation
+a Clinic has been established in New York City by
+the American Birth Control League. It is now (1926) in its
+third year of service and reports that during its first year it
+gave contraceptive instructions to 3000 patients. Similar
+service is creeping gradually into a few of the New York
+Hospitals, but it is being rendered quietly, indeed almost
+furtively, so pervasive is the effect of the general legal
+taboo. As recently as 1919 thirty of the chief hospitals in
+the city officially stated that no preventive instructions would
+be given even to seriously diseased women.</p>
+
+<p>These prohibitions, in the 24 States where they exist,
+are a part of the <em>obscenity</em> statutes, just as is the case in the
+Federal statutes. They appear under such headings as
+“Obscene literature” and “Indecent Articles.” In California
+the prohibition comes under a general chapter heading,—“Indecent
+Exposure, Obscene Exhibitions, Books and
+Prints, Bawdy and Other Disorderly Houses.” None of
+the laws define contraceptive information as, per se, obscene,
+indecent, immoral, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or any of the
+other revolting things named in the statutes, but they list
+it along with these things, in most cases there being no
+more separation from them than that which a comma affords.
+Section 102 of the Federal law makes a still closer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>
+connection of idea, for it prohibits “importing, advertising,
+dealing in, exhibiting, or sending or receiving by mail obscene
+or indecent publications or representations or means
+for preventing conception or producing abortion, or <em>other</em>
+article of indecent or immoral use or tendency.” This
+knowledge is thus definitely classed as one among “other”
+things of indecent or immoral use.</p>
+
+<p>Science and indecency are in fact hopelessly jumbled in
+the whole mass of law affecting this subject. There is not
+the slightest differentiation between what is scientific truth,—a
+part of the world’s store of knowledge, and things
+which are the expression of sexual depravity and perversion.</p>
+
+<p>To add to the mess, the laws link contraceptive knowledge
+so closely with instructions for abortion that in some
+of the statutes there is not even a comma between the two.
+In California the prohibition of contraceptive information
+occurs in a statute entitled “Advertising to produce miscarriage.”
+Of course the two ideas are actually separated
+by an abyss that has no bottom. To control the inception
+of life must forever remain a fundamentally different thing
+from the destroying of life after it exists. Abortion may
+be birth control, but birth control is not abortion.</p>
+
+<p>Just here it may be well to state precisely what is meant
+and what is not meant by the term birth control in its modern
+application. <em>It means the conscious, responsible control of conception.
+It does not mean interference with life after conception
+has taken place, but consists solely in the use of intelligence
+and scientific hygienic knowledge to determine the
+wise times for conception to occur, and to limit the possibility
+of conception to those occasions.</em> It seems unfortunate
+that the term birth control was ever popularized, for
+the more correct term is conception control. However birth
+control has now become an accepted part of the language,
+and it is less and less misleading as time goes on.</p>
+
+<p>Another extraordinary factor in our laws regarding this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>
+subject is that (with the absurd single instance of Connecticut)
+the act of controlling conception is nowhere declared
+a crime. It is only <em>finding out how</em> conception may
+be controlled that constitutes the crime. To regulate the
+incidence of parenthood and the growth of one’s family is
+a perfectly lawful procedure. Having once secured the
+knowledge, which act is unlawful, one may then lawfully
+utilize it ad <abbr title="infinitum">infin.</abbr> The preposterousness of such a principle
+as a basis for law is satirically set forth in an article in the
+<cite>Birth Control Herald</cite><a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> (<abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 12, 1923) from which the
+following is quoted:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The futility as well as the hypocrisy of standing for laws that
+make it a crime to secure knowledge which it is not a crime to use
+after it is secured, shows up beautifully if one applies the idea to
+some other phase of scientific knowledge than that concerning the
+control of conception. Take for instance the principles upon which
+the mechanism of the automobile is based.</p>
+
+<p>Fancy some obfuscated back-number in Congress, with a violent
+personal prejudice against the whole notion of automobiles, and who
+might love to make eloquent speeches about how man was intended
+by God to be a horse-drawn creature, that come what might, he
+himself would go about in his own victoria behind his own span
+of noble steeds; and that moreover he would do his utmost to see
+to it that everyone else should likewise adopt what he considers Nature’s
+true plan for transportation,—the horse.</p>
+
+<p>Picture him then, as he sees the whole world tending to the
+ambition to own at least a Ford, introducing a bill a la Comstock,
+which would make it a crime to circulate any “book, pamphlet, picture,
+paper, letter print or other publication” showing how automobiles
+may be constructed, or any “article or thing designed, adapted
+or intended” to aid in such knowledge, or “anything which is advertised
+or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use
+or apply it” to the making of automobiles, or “giving information
+directly or indirectly how, where or of whom or by what means,
+any of the hereinbefore mentioned matters, articles or things may be
+obtained,” etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>And while he could he could not help witnessing the daily increase</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>in automobile traffic, and while he might now and then, when
+unobserved, use a taxi himself when circumstances made it desirable,
+he certainly would not let that mar his feeling of righteous loyalty
+to his general conviction that the spread of knowledge as to the
+making of automobiles ought never to be sanctioned by the laws
+of our great and glorious nation.</p>
+
+<p>“Blithering idiot” would be about as complimentary an epithet
+as such a Congressman, if he existed, would receive from his fellow
+members. But because the Comstock law deals with science pertaining
+to sex instead of science pertaining to motors, some Congressmen
+do not yet quite recognize the innate stupidity as well as the
+injustice of any governmental attempt to put a “no admittance” sign
+over any department of knowledge.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>As above stated, we have 24 States in which there is a
+specific prohibition of the circulation of contraceptive information
+or means. Now what is the situation in the other
+half of the States? In all but two of them,—North Carolina
+and New Mexico,—there are obscenity laws modeled
+very closely upon the Federal laws, but unlike them in that
+they do not mention by name the subject of contraceptive
+information or means. But just because the Federal laws
+and the laws of half the States do name the subject among
+the penalized obscenities, these 22 other States have the
+strongest possible legal precedent for prosecuting, <em>as an obscenity</em>,
+if they so desire, the circulation of any sort of contraceptive
+information whatever, as something which is
+against public policy. And just because obscenity itself has
+never been defined in law, but can mean all sorts of things
+to all manner of officials, judges and juries, there could be
+nearly as much opportunity to prosecute those who give
+contraceptive information in the relatively free States as in
+the States which have specific prohibitions.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed this is what has recently happened in the State
+of Illinois. The Chicago Parenthood Clinic was organized
+in the fall of 1923 by a special Committee and Council of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>
+well known public spirited men and women of which Mrs.
+Benjamin Carpenter was the Chairman. Funds were raised
+to support it; Dr. Rachel Yarros of Hull House was engaged
+as the <ins class="corr" id="TN-2" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: physican">physician</ins> in charge; a building was equipped;
+and everything was ready to function when Health Commissioner
+Bundensen refused to allow a license to be issued.
+In stating his reasons for holding up the project, Dr. Bundensen
+indicated that he was actuated not only by his personal
+disapproval of birth control but that he felt amply
+justified in his position because of the precedent of the Federal
+law. He said that “advocating prevention of conception
+is contrary to public policy, as clearly indicated by
+—— act of Congress.”</p>
+
+<p>The conservative and humanitarian purpose of the
+Clinic as outlined by Mrs. Carpenter’s committee was “to
+extend advice and treatment to married people only, and
+where the conditions are such as to make the bearing of
+children dangerous or prejudicial to the health and welfare
+of the wife or child; to prevent in every manner rational
+and proper, recourse to abortion, now too prevalent, and
+to avoid as far as is humanly possible, the burdening of the
+community with defective children, and the ruination of the
+health of countless mothers.” In an interview Dr. Yarros
+stated that the sponsors of the Clinic were “opposed to
+sensational methods, and intended to present both negative
+and positive information (that is to help overcome difficulties
+which prevented parents from having children as well
+as to instruct those who needed to avoid or postpone having
+children) and to inspire ideals of family life and happiness.”
+Dr. Bundensen was adamant, however, and he was backed
+by a considerable amount of vehement Roman Catholic opposition
+to the Clinic.</p>
+
+<p>The case was taken to Court, and the decision of Judge
+Harry M. Fisher of the Circuit Court of Cook County was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>
+in favor of granting a license to the Clinic. But the opposition
+appealed the case. The decision of the higher court
+in March, 1924, was that the granting of a license was entirely
+within the discretion of the Health Commissioner.
+There could hardly be a clearer instance showing the influence
+of the precedent which the Federal law affords, to suppress
+contraceptive knowledge in States which have no law
+against the giving of verbal personal instructions. Had
+there been no legal precedent outside of Illinois, in the absence
+of any suppressive law within the State, the Health
+Commissioner would have had no basis for his action except
+his personal opinion. That alone would, in all probability,
+not have been deemed sufficient basis for suppressing the
+Clinic. However, as it was only because the Clinic was to
+give <em>free</em> service that it required a license, the charging of
+a small fee enabled the same people to arrange for the
+same clinical service under the name “Medical Center,” and
+two of these are now operating in Chicago with marked
+success. Shorn thus of his opportunity to suppress this
+service through his licensing power, the Health Commissioner
+apparently does not consider it worth while to institute
+proceedings against the Medical Center, as he still
+might do if he wished to press the Federal precedent into
+use again,—especially as the report of the first year’s work
+of the two medical centers has now been published. (The
+substance of this report is given in <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_3">Appendix No. 3</a>,—expurgated
+sufficiently to avoid making this book “unmailable”
+under Section 211 of the Federal Criminal Code.)</p>
+
+<p>The question has often been asked why publishers do
+not sell books on scientific contraceptive methods, in the 24
+States where there are no local laws to forbid it. There is
+great demand for such books, and the present secret way of
+circulating the relatively few authoritative ones in existence
+is most inadequate for the people’s need. As there are
+nearly 50,000,000 people in these 24 States, why not give<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>
+them what they need and want now, without waiting for
+the slow and uncertain action of Congress in repealing the
+Federal prohibition? The answer is very illuminating.</p>
+
+<p>This is the situation which a publisher or book seller
+would be up against, if he were to consider such a thing
+practically. He might think first of importing a stock of
+books from England, for instance the well-known little volume
+by —— (the law prohibits naming it) which is so
+popular over there that it is now in its ninth edition. But
+the Federal law would prevent that at the very start. For
+the statute reads, “Whoever shall bring or cause to be
+brought into the United States from any foreign country
+any ... book ... giving information directly or indirectly,”
+etc. He could be fined $5000 or jailed for five
+years for even trying it. Well then, how about printing a
+special edition for, say Illinois, to be sold only in that State?
+It sounds hopeful. But just as soon as he got the book
+printed the trouble would begin. For he could not mail
+any announcement of the book to anyone anywhere. He
+could not put a single advertisement in any newspaper or
+magazine, because they are mailed to subscribers, and the
+Federal law prohibits all mailing. He might put the books
+on sale in the larger book shops, say in Chicago, but if he
+did so without having them announced or advertised, they
+would not sell enough to pay for publishing. However if
+they were also on sale in the shops of other cities and towns
+of the State the aggregate sale might be worth while from
+the point of view of human welfare if not from that of
+the publishers’ purse.</p>
+
+<p>But even that would be impracticable because the books
+could not be shipped from the bindery to any other town
+either by mail or by express or freight, or by any sort of
+common carrier. The Federal law prohibits all that. So
+there would be no way to get those books into circulation,
+except for one person to tell another that they could be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>
+bought, and for them to be transported from city to city by
+private vehicle or messenger; or to advertise them by
+posters and handbills distributed personally to individuals,
+which of course is an exorbitantly expensive method.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion is inevitable that the only practical thing
+to do is to repeal the Federal prohibition, which is the root
+difficulty that lies in the way of any adequate circulation of
+the knowledge, anywhere in the United States.</p>
+
+<p>For a digest of the provisions of the State laws, see
+<a href="#APPENDIX_NO_1">Appendix No. 1.</a></p>
+
+<p>For the effect of Federal law upon State laws, see Chart
+<a href="#APPENDIX_No_2">Appendix No. 2</a>.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_ONE_Chapter_II"><span class="smcap">Chapter II</span><br>
+
+HOW IT HAPPENED</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>How it came about that information concerning one item of science
+became a criminal indecency: Anthony Comstock’s blundering
+bequest to the people: Congress an unwitting partner: States hastily
+followed suit: United States the only country to class contraceptive
+information with penalized indecency: Legislation aimed at indecency
+but hit science: Europe laughs at our “Comstockery”: Documentary
+proof that Comstock and his successor, Sumner, did not expect laws
+to prevent doctors from giving and normal people from using contraceptive
+instructions.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">“The evil that men do lives after them,”—likewise their
+stupidity and blunders. For over half a century the
+people of the United States have been the victims of a great
+error which Anthony Comstock and Congress unwittingly
+committed in connection with their commendable effort to
+free the young people of the country from contamination by
+those who were then trafficking extensively in smutty literature
+and inducements to sex perversion.</p>
+
+<p>Their error in judgment was to include in Section 211
+of the Penal Code the two words “preventing conception.”
+In their eagerness to abolish the promotion of the misuse
+of contraceptive knowledge in connection with morbid and
+irregular practices, they rashly framed the law so as to forbid
+all circulation of any knowledge whatever, thus making
+it in the eyes of the law just as much a crime for high-minded
+responsible married people to learn how to space
+the births in their families wisely, as for the low, vicious or
+perverted few to spread information about how to abuse this
+knowledge in abnormal, unwholesome ways.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Congressional Record of the short session of Congress
+which ended on March fourth, 1873, shows beyond
+any reasonable doubt that Anthony Comstock himself had
+no intention of penalizing <em>normal</em> birth control information.
+He was simply so bent upon wiping out the shocking commerce
+in pornographic literature which disgraced that period
+that he rushed headlong into the question of legislation without
+due consideration as to the results, which have made the
+United States the laughing stock of Europeans, and which
+have even prevented the lawful circulation of medical works
+for the medical profession.</p>
+
+<p>The Record reveals the fact that the first draft of the
+bill contained the following exemption after the prohibition
+of all information as to the prevention of conception or as
+to abortion, “except from a physician in good standing,
+given in good faith.” Why this exemption was later omitted
+does not appear in the Record, but its original existence
+proves that there was at least some glimmering of realization
+somewhere that a wholesale prohibition was not the
+aim of the statute. There is wide spread evidence that present
+day public opinion would not be at all satisfied with any
+such exemption, even if it had been left in the bill, because
+contraceptive knowledge is part of general hygiene and education,
+and not a physician’s prescription as for disease,
+though of course the knowledge emanates naturally from
+the professional scientists who have made a study of this
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>A little sober forethought would not only have spared
+the country from the unique disgrace of this careless legislation,
+but it would to a considerable extent have spared the
+country from the need for a birth control movement,—an
+advantage of no mean proportions!</p>
+
+<p>Not one of our Senators is in Congress now who was
+in Congress then, not even the most venerable of them, but
+it would seem that the least which this present Congress can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>
+do is to redeem the record of their predecessors with all
+possible grace and speed.</p>
+
+<p>The Comstock bill was introduced on February 11,
+1873, passed by both Houses and signed by President Grant
+before the close of the session on March fourth.</p>
+
+<p>The chronology of the history of the Bill in both Houses
+is very brief. There was practically no discussion on the
+subject matter. There were no speeches delivered, until
+<em>after</em> the bill was passed. The measure was granted unanimous
+consent action in the Senate, and was passed under
+a suspension of rules in the House. There was no roll
+call on the passage of the bill in either House. It slipped
+under the wire for the President’s signature on the very
+last day of the session. And Comstock went home happy.</p>
+
+<p>The sequence of events was as follows:</p>
+
+<p>The bill was sponsored in the Senate by Senator Windom
+of Winona, Minnesota, and introduced on February 11th.
+The measure was referred to the Committee on Post Offices
+and Post Roads, and reported out without amendment two
+days later, on February 13th. No public hearings were
+held.</p>
+
+<p>On February 14th the bill was recommitted to the Committee
+on motion of Senator Buckingham of Connecticut
+who thereafter took charge of the bill on the floor. It
+came promptly back the next day, amended and approved
+by the Post Office Committee, but neither the bill nor the
+amendment was discussed. The writer has personally inquired
+whether there is an official report on the bill in the
+files of the Post Office Committee, and was told that there
+is none. Senator Buckingham asked unanimous consent to
+take up the bill, saying, “I think there will be no objection
+to it.” Senator Thurman of Ohio protested that it was
+too important to vote on without deliberate investigation,
+and asked that it go over. It did, for two days.</p>
+
+<p>On the 20th, by unanimous consent the business of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>
+“morning hour” was extended for ten minutes to permit
+discussion of the bill. But the discussion was remarkably
+unilluminating as to the merits of the bill. Senator Buckingham
+offered an amendment which omitted the clause providing
+exemption for contraceptive information on prescription
+of a duly licensed physician, given in good faith. Two
+Senators asked Senator Buckingham to explain the difference
+between the amended version and the previous version.
+He evaded explaining.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Hamlin of Maine urged that the measure be
+accepted as approved by the Committee and “not to tinker
+with it on the floor.” Senator Conkling of New York insisted
+that the bill be printed as amended, “in order that we
+may know something at least of what we are voting upon.”
+He said, “For one, although I have tried to acquaint myself
+with it, I have not been able to tell, either from the
+reading of the apparently illegible manuscript in some cases
+by the Secretary, or from private information gathered at
+the moment, and if I were to be questioned now as to what
+this bill contains, I could not aver anything certain in regard
+to it. The indignation and disgust that everybody
+feels in reference to the acts which are here aimed at may
+possibly lead us to do something which, when we come to
+see it in print, will not be the thing we would have done if
+we had understood it and were more deliberate about it.”</p>
+
+<p>When Senator Conkling thus cautioned the Senate to
+be careful in the framing of the Comstock bill, he had what
+might be called almost feminine intuition. For as history
+has conclusively proved, the Senate did precisely that thing.
+It prohibited what it had no intention of prohibiting,—the
+spread of scientific education of the wise spacing of births
+in the human family.</p>
+
+<p>But the warning was unheeded and there was no further
+discussion. The next day, February 21st, the bill was called
+up and passed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span></p>
+
+<p>The history of the bill in the House is even more brief.
+On February 22nd a message was received from the Senate
+that the bill had been passed and the concurrence of the
+House was requested.</p>
+
+<p>On March first Representative Merriam of Locust
+Grove, New York, moved to suspend the rules and “take
+from the Speaker’s table and put upon its passage the bill
+(S. 1572).” Mr. Kerr of Indiana moved its reference to
+the Judiciary Committee, saying, “Its provisions are extremely
+important, and they ought not to be passed in such
+hot haste.” Mr. Cox of New York inquired if debate was
+in order. The Speaker ruled that it was not. Mr. Merriam
+moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill. The necessary
+two-thirds vote to suspend the rules were polled, and
+the bill was passed without a roll call.</p>
+
+<p><em>After the passage of the bill</em>, Mr. Merriam obtained
+leave to print remarks on it in the Congressional Record.</p>
+
+<p>Can any candid reader of the record of how this measure
+was presented to Congress and passed by the members
+without debate, possibly assume that the bill was aimed at
+the complete suppression of access to scientific knowledge
+for normal use?</p>
+
+<p>If that had been the aim of the bill, surely some of
+the members would have been more insistent than they were
+upon discussing the provisions of the bill. It is interesting
+in this connection to note how John S. Sumner, Comstock’s
+successor, has attempted to refute the criticism that the
+Comstock bill was passed in careless haste. In a letter
+which he wrote to Senator Cummins on January 23, 1923,
+protesting against the Senator’s bill to repeal the Comstock
+blunder, he gives as his first proof that “this bill was thoroughly
+considered by some of the most brilliant members of
+the Senate at that or any other time,” the opening paragraph
+of Mr. Merriam’s “leave to print” remarks, and
+states that it was “in the House of Representatives on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>
+March 1, 1873” that the Congressman said them. We can
+give Mr. Sumner the benefit of the doubt that he read the
+Congressional Record so carelessly that he did not notice
+that the bill was passed before the Senate could possibly
+have read Senator Merriam’s arguments urging its passage.
+But it is also noteworthy that in this letter to Senator Cummins,
+he omits to state the date (March first) on which the
+bill was passed. He simply says that it was “subsequently
+passed by the Senate.” It is also significant that Mr. Sumner
+puts the Merriam (unspoken) speech at the head of
+page of excerpts he quotes from the Congressional Record,
+when as a matter of fact it was the last occurrence in the
+Senate. It took place after the bill was enacted, and was
+therefore no factor whatever in its enactment.</p>
+
+<p>For some years previous, excellent publications containing
+contraceptive instructions of a dignified and scientific
+sort had been increasingly circulated in the United States,
+notably the book by Dr. Trall which was sold in such quantity
+in the sixties that it would rank well as a “best seller”
+in present days. It would also still rank high as authoritative
+teaching regarding the control of conception if it could
+be published in full today.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that the control of conception was not once
+mentioned by any member on the floor of either House is
+most convincing evidence that their minds were not taken
+up with that question, but that they accepted on faith the
+general aim of the measure, which was to suppress gross
+indecencies. In this connection a further quotation from
+Sumner’s letter to Senator Cummins is noteworthy. Although
+he attempts to convince the Senator that the Comstock
+bill had ample attention from Congress and was thoroughly
+understood before it was passed, and that it was
+also backed by the press of the country, he was unable to
+muster a single quotation from a member of Congress or
+from the press that so much as named the control of conception,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>
+much less discussed whether information regarding
+it should be banned in the law. His contention has no more
+strength than the mere statement that “each time the bill
+came before Congress it was described as a measure for the
+suppression of trade in and circulation of obscene literature
+and articles of immoral use.” Nor are the few press
+items he quotes any more specific. He tried to make them
+so by underlining the word <em>articles</em> in each one. But as
+there are various “articles” used or usable in abnormal sex
+practices, the mention of “articles” does not connote the
+control of conception, and certainly not the use of contraceptives
+in normal life. So his contention is flimsy to the
+last degree. Congress knew that it had voted to suppress
+indecent matter, but it did not know it had also voted to
+suppress scientific knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>People who well remember Comstock’s procedure during
+the short session of 1873 have described his very effective
+way of getting support for his bill. He simply
+showed to the members of Congress whom he interviewed,
+specimens of the disgusting pictures and publications which
+were then in circulation and from which the publishers were
+deriving large profits. The stuff was so obviously outrageous
+and it was so revolting to know that it was being
+diligently spread among the youth of the country, that the
+response of the Congressmen to his proposed bill for making
+the matter unmailable was immediate. This is the outstanding
+fact which accounts for the ease with which the
+bill was put through without debate. In writing of his own
+work afterward, Comstock said, “I am positive I personally
+presented the full facts to the large majority, both in the
+Senate and House.”</p>
+
+<p>Below are extracts from the <em>only</em> speech made in behalf
+of the Comstock bill, and that speech was <em>never spoken on
+the floor of the House</em>. “Leave to print” speeches have
+long been a peculiar and questionable characteristic of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>
+American legislation, and this instance is of exceptional peculiarity
+in that the “speech” was made <em>after</em> the bill was
+passed.</p>
+
+<p>In the whole long document of which only a brief portion
+is given here, there is only one mention of the words
+“preventing conception” and that is in a letter which Mr.
+Merriam quotes from Comstock and this <em>one mention is
+solely in connection with indecencies and perversions</em>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“Mr. Speaker, the purposes of this bill are so clearly in the best
+interests of morality and humanity that I trust it will receive the
+unanimous voice of Congress. It is terrible to contemplate that more
+than 6000 persons are daily employed in a carefully organized business,
+stimulated to activity by all the incentive that avarice and wickedness
+can invent, to place in the schools and homes of our country
+books, pictures and immoral appliances, of so low and debasing a
+nature that it would seem that the brute creation itself would turn
+from them in disgust.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>With this, his opening paragraph, Mr. Merriam proceeded
+to express his confidence that Congress would so act
+and that “the outraged manhood of our age” would condemn
+this traffic which sought to make “merchandise of the
+morals of our youth.” Recent revelations had shown that
+no school or home was safe from these “corrupting influences”
+and that “the purity and beauty of womanhood has
+no protection from the insults of this trade.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Merriam said further that this trade was worse
+than war, pestilence or famine. Only this subtle influence,
+now revealed, could explain the “crime and depravity in this
+our day.” He then praised the revelations made by “one
+young man in New York whose hand with determined and
+commendable energy is falling heavily upon the workers in
+this detestable business,” referring to his exhibit of over
+15,000 letters received by dealers in this literature from students
+of both sexes in all parts of the country. These and
+other letters in the Dead Letter Office had exposed a regular<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>
+circulating library of obscene books and pictures. Most of
+the book plates had been recently seized and destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>With the object of placing all the facts before Congress
+and the country, Mr. Merriam placed in the Record as part
+of his remarks a long letter which he had received from
+Anthony Comstock of New York. The letter is dated January
+18, 1873, and its first paragraphs are as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“Dear Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your
+favor of the 12th instant in which you ask for a statement from me
+in reference to the traffic in obscene literature.</p>
+
+<p>“There are various ways by which this vile stuff has been disseminated.
+First, by advertising in the above named papers. Some
+weeks there is not a single advertisement in some of these papers that
+is not designed either to cheat or defraud, or intended to be a medium
+of sending out these accursed books and articles. For instance, I
+have arrested a number of persons, one in particular, who advertised
+a musical album to be sent for fifty cents. I sent the fifty cents, and
+received back a catalogue of obscene books with the following card
+attached: ‘The album is only a pretense to enable us to forward you
+a catalogue of our fancy books. Should you order these books your
+fifty cents will be credited.’</p>
+
+<p>“It is needless to say I ordered, then arrested him, locked him
+up in the New Haven Jail, and he has been indicted by the grand
+jury in the United States Court of Connecticut and now is held in
+bail for trial. In the same way, by advertising beautiful views or
+pictures of some celebrated place or person, men receive answers from
+innocent persons for these pictures, and among the pictures sent will
+be one or more of these obscene pictures and catalogues of these
+vile books and rubber goods. For be it known that wherever these
+books go, or catalogue of these books, there you will find, as almost
+indispensable, a complete list of rubber articles for masturbation or
+for the professed <em>prevention of conception</em>. (The italics are ours.)</p>
+
+<p>“Secondly: The abominations are disseminated by these men first
+obtaining the addresses of scholars and students in our schools and
+colleges and then forwarding these circulars. They secure thousands
+of names in this way, by either sending for a catalogue of schools,
+seminaries, and colleges, under the pretense of sending a child to
+attend these places, or else by sending out a circular purporting to
+be getting up a directory of all the scholars and students in schools
+and colleges in the United States, or of taking the census of all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>
+unmarried people, and offering to pay five cents per name for list
+so sent. I need not say the money is seldom or never sent, but I
+do say that these names, together with those that come in reply to
+advertisements, are sold to other parties so that when a man desires
+to engage in the nefarious business he has only to purchase a list of
+these names and then your child, be it a son or daughter, is as liable
+to have thrust into its hands, all unbeknown to you, one of these
+devilish catalogues.</p>
+
+<p>“You will please observe that this business is carried on principally
+by the agency of the United States mails, and there is no law
+by which we can interfere with the sending out of these catalogues
+and circulars through the mail, except they are obscene on their
+face; and there are scores of men that are supporting themselves and
+families today by sending out these rubber goods, etc., through the
+mails, that I cannot touch for want of law. There are men in
+Philadelphia, in Chicago, in Boston and other places who are doing
+this business, that I could easily detect and convict if the law was
+only sufficient.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Merriam then concluded as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“With the passage of this bill I shall have performed a most uninviting
+duty. No man even when compelled by a conscientious conviction
+of official duty, goes willingly down into the gutters of human
+depravity to act as scavenger to root out moral deformities. He
+fights to advantage who knows his enemy. The good men of this
+country who regard their homes as their sanctuaries, warned by this
+exposure, will act with determined energy to protect what they
+hold most precious in life, the holiness and purity of their firesides.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>So much for the story of how the Federal statutes happened
+to be fastened upon American law. The example was
+contagious. A veritable epidemic of State legislation in
+similar phraseology ensued, until ere long, there were only
+two States without obscenity statutes which echoed the Federal
+law and which, in many instances, went much further
+than the Federal law in suppressive policy. American laws
+in this regard stand unique among those of the nations of
+the world. In various countries there are obscenity statutes
+and regulations, but in none save the United States is contraceptive
+information, <i lang="la">per se</i>, classed with penalized indecency.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>
+In no other country is science reduced to the level of
+obscenity in the law. Bernard Shaw said twenty years ago,
+“Comstockery is the world’s standing joke, at the expense
+of the United States.”</p>
+
+<p>Some degree of praise and a deluge of denunciation has
+been poured upon Anthony Comstock for the legislation he
+initiated, the arrests and suppressions which he accomplished,
+and for the spying methods he used, to entrap those whose
+activities he considered criminal. Any final or complete
+estimate of his qualities, and the value of his work to the
+people of the country would be out of place in this book,
+but it may be of use, in considering what sort of legislation
+the country should have, to get at something of the <em>why</em> of
+Comstock’s efforts. The fairest way to arrive at an unprejudiced
+conclusion about him would seem to be to let
+him speak for himself, by quoting from his own books describing
+his major work, and then to give the reader representative
+glimpses of his work and his psychology through
+the words of both his ardent supporters and his adverse
+critics.</p>
+
+<p>But first it is essential to bear in mind that the dent
+Anthony Comstock made in American life was considerably
+due to the fact that he was given special power both by
+Congress and by the New York State Legislature to act as
+a government agent in securing arrests. This power, coupled
+with the almost unparalleled energy of the man, made his
+career exceptional. Had it not been for these two factors,
+it might perhaps seem clear that his psychology was not so
+very different from that of many less well known folk of his
+day and our own,—the perfectly respectable, and to all outward
+appearance normal people, who see sex as something
+innately nasty and dangerous: the only difference being that
+while Comstock, armed with his governmental power, translated
+his feeling into prodigious activity in the way of suppressing
+people, the others, lacking his official power and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>
+his energy, have remained rather inert. They have not
+therefore become conspicuous characters. The Comstock
+psychology, in modified and milder form, appears to be not
+at all a rarity.</p>
+
+<p>The way in which Comstock got his special power to enforce
+the Federal law is described by his biographer, Rev.
+C. G. Trumbull in his book, “Anthony Comstock, Fighter,”
+as follows: “Immediately after the patience-taking passage
+of the bill in Congress ..., Senators Buckingham, Windom,
+Ramsey, and Representative Merriam united in asking
+Post Master General Jewell to appoint Comstock a special
+agent of the Post Office Department to enforce the laws.
+The Post Office Bill was still pending; the Post Office Committee
+offered this proposition as an amendment, and it was
+passed with the bill.” The Post Master General agreed
+to make the appointment, if an appropriation were voted for
+the salary and per diem expenses. Comstock went before
+the Committee on Appropriations and opposed the salary,
+on the ground that the position would thus be kept out of
+politics. He was appointed and held the office for thirty-three
+years. The Y. M. C. A. paid him $100 a month “to
+compensate him for the time lost from his business.” He
+was still ostensibly a grocery clerk. When Cortelyou was
+Post Master General, he insisted that Comstock should take
+a salary and be a government employee on a regular basis.
+At this time also his title of “Special Agent” was changed
+to “Inspector.” This occurred in about 1910. The duties
+of the office, as given by the Postal Laws, include the following:
+the “investigation of all matters connected with the
+postal service,” “alleged violations of law” and “when necessary
+to aid in the prosecution of criminal offenses.” Postal
+employees are “subordinate to post office inspectors when
+acting within the scope of their duty and employment.” “Inspectors
+are empowered to open pouches and sacks to
+examine the mail therein.” When authorized by the Post<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>
+Master General, they are empowered to “make searches
+for mailable matter transported in violation of law,” to
+“seize all letters and bags, packets or parcels, containing
+letters which are being carried contrary to law on board any
+vessel or on any postal route.”</p>
+
+<p>Comstock’s special power under New York State law
+was in connection with his position as Secretary of the Society
+for the Suppression of Vice. This Society was incorporated
+by the New York Legislature in May, 1873,—within
+six weeks of the passage of the Comstock bill by
+Congress. Section 3 of the Act of Incorporation states the
+object of the society to be “the enforcement of the laws
+for the suppression of the trade in and circulation of obscene
+literature and illustrations, advertisements, and articles of
+indecent and immoral use, as it is or may be forbidden by
+the laws of the State of New York or of the United States.”
+Section 5 contains an extraordinary provision, which reads
+this way: “The police force of the city of New York, as
+well as of other places, where police organizations exist,
+shall, as occasion may require, aid this corporation, its members
+or agents, in the enforcement of all laws which now
+exist or which may hereafter be enacted for the suppression
+of the acts and offenses designed in Section 3 of this Act.”
+Note that the police force was to aid the Society, not the
+Society the Police. An almost incredible further provision
+in the original Act of Incorporation was that “One half
+the fines collected through the instrumentality of the Society,
+or its agent, for the violation of the laws in this act
+specified, shall accrue to its benefits,”—a provision which
+fortunately was soon repealed.</p>
+
+<p>This unusual sharing of official responsibility for law
+enforcement between government officials and private citizens
+was carried still further, by the enactment, two years
+later, of Section 1145 of the New York Criminal Code,
+which under the general heading of “Indecency” is subtitled,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>
+“<em>Who may arrest persons violating provisions of this
+article</em>” and reads thus: “Any agent of the New York Society
+for the Suppression of Vice upon being designated
+thereto by the sheriff of any county in the State, may within
+such county make arrests and bring before any court or
+magistrate thereof having jurisdiction, offenders found violating
+the provisions of any law for the suppression of the
+trade in and circulation of obscene literature and illustrations,
+advertisements and articles of indecent or immoral
+use, as it is or may be forbidden by the laws of this State
+or of the United States.” According to John S. Sumner,
+the present secretary of the Society, Comstock “<em>was always
+deputized</em>” by the sheriff. “He liked the arresting and all
+that sort of thing,” said Mr. Sumner with a rather tolerant
+smile; “I don’t care much for it, myself.”</p>
+
+<p>This special power with which Comstock was vested by
+the State was questioned, but never with sufficient force to
+revoke the act which conferred it. Mr. Courtlandt Palmer,
+a lawyer of distinction, made a most earnest criticism of the
+Comstock laws in the New York Observer of April 26,
+1883, in which he said, “These laws tend to confine administration
+to certain classes. The district attorneys are the
+only democratic prosecutors of the cases under consideration
+by the Society for the Suppression of Vice.” He spoke of
+the Society as endeavoring to “supplement and supplant the
+regular process of law by confiding the machinery of justice
+to special and irresponsible associations upon whom is conferred
+the unrepublican power not only of prosecution but
+of arrest.”</p>
+
+<p>In selecting representative passages from Comstock’s
+own words, space forbids the giving of any large number.
+Choosing is a bit difficult, because Comstock’s style of expression
+was so redundant, so abounding in detail, that concise
+quotations are not easy to provide. Selections pertinent
+for our present use are first those which indicate his general<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>
+psychology,—the mental background on which he built his
+career, and then those which show the place he gave in his
+own mind to the subject of the control of conception.</p>
+
+<p>The titles of his two sizable books are “Frauds Exposed”
+and “Traps for the Young.” They constitute his
+life story in his own words. He was proud of having arrested
+3873 persons, of whom 2911 were convicted. Satan
+was to him a very live foe. He dramatized the combat
+with this enemy to the highest degree. His reports of his
+adventures in making arrests read, not like the recapitulations
+of a dutiful officer or of a trained welfare worker,
+but rather like the dime novels which he so roundly denounced.
+He wound up the story of one of his captures in
+Boston with the exuberant exclamation, “Then ho for the
+Charles <abbr title="Street">St.</abbr> Jail!”</p>
+
+<p>Satan to him was apparently the representative of obscenity;
+and obscenity, if not completely synonymous with
+sex, was very nearly so. At any rate the idea of obscenity
+as an enveloping enemy permeated every other subject that
+Comstock touched upon. It seems as if he felt that practically
+all roads led to obscenity, and that it was his duty
+to block all the roads. In the opening chapter of “Traps
+for the Young,” after describing in detail box traps, fox
+traps, partridge snares, bear traps, rat traps, etc., he says:
+“Satan adopts similar devices to capture our youth and secure
+the ruin of immortal souls ... the love story and
+cheap work of fiction captivate fancy and pervert taste ...
+rob the child of the desire to study.... There are grave
+questions in the minds of some of our best writers and of
+our most thoughtful men and women, whether novel reading
+<em>at its best</em> does not tend downward rather than upward....
+Light literature then is a devil trap to captivate the
+child by perverting taste and fancy.” (The italics are ours.)</p>
+
+<p>Fear was apparently as great a factor in Comstock’s
+make-up as his vigor. He seemed to have little trust in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>
+self-reliant virtue of people of any age and almost none at
+all in young people. Here is another bit from the “Traps”:
+“Drop into the fountain of moral purity in our youth the
+poison of much of the literature of the day, and you place
+in their lives an all pervading power of evil. A perpetual
+panorama of vile forms will keep moving to and fro before
+the mind, to the exclusion of the good. <em>Evil influences burn
+themselves in.</em> Vile books and papers are branding irons
+heated in the fires of hell, and used by Satan to sear the
+highest life of the soul. The world is the devil’s hunting
+ground, and children are his choicest game.”</p>
+
+<p>The Chapter headings which Comstock chose for the
+“Trap” book are indicative of his mental trend. This is
+the list:</p>
+
+<table class="autotable fs85" style="margin-left: 15%">
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I.</td>
+<td>Household Traps (light literature)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td>Household Traps continued (newspapers)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td>Half-dime Novels and Story Papers</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+<td>Advertisement Traps</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">V.</td>
+<td>Gambling Traps</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+<td>Gambling Traps continued</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+<td>Gambling Traps continued</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+<td>Death Traps by Mail (Obscenity)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+<td>Quack Traps</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">X.</td>
+<td>Free Love Traps</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XI.</td>
+<td>Artistic and Classical Traps</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XII.</td>
+<td>Infidel and Liberal Traps</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIII.</td>
+<td>More Infidel and Liberal Traps</td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+<p>In a letter read on the fortieth anniversary of his Society,
+Comstock said, “Let me emphasize one fact, supported
+by my nearly forty-two years of public life in fighting
+this particular foe. My experience leads me to the conviction
+that once these matters (obscenity) enter through the
+eye and ear into the chamber of imagery in the heart of a
+child, nothing but the grace of God can ever blot it out.”
+One wonders how lively Comstock’s faith in the grace of
+God may have been, inasmuch as he was willing to give it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>
+so few chances to function. His own words and his actions
+seem to invite the conclusion that his fear was considerably
+larger than his faith.</p>
+
+<p>In an interview with Comstock by Mary Alden Hopkins
+in Harper’s Weekly of May 22, 1915, he asserted that the
+“existing laws are a necessity in order to prevent the downfall
+of youth of both sexes.... To repeal the present laws
+would be a crime against society and especially a crime
+against young women.” Apparently he felt that young
+women were especially weak in their power of resistance to
+obscenity. In the same interview, speaking of the Federal
+law, Miss Hopkins asked, “Does it not allow the judge considerable
+leeway in deciding whether or not a book or a picture
+is immoral?” “No,” replied Mr. Comstock, “the highest
+courts in Great Britain and the United States have laid
+down the test in all such matters. What he has to decide
+is whether or not it might rouse in young and inexperienced
+minds, lewd or libidinous thought.”</p>
+
+<p>Here we have at least one key to Comstock’s attitude.
+It is evident from the passages already quoted and from his
+record as a prosecutor of many persons of fine standing,
+good taste and high ideals, that the things which he thought
+could arouse lewd or libidinous thought were legion, and he
+detected that quality in all manner of instances when it was
+not at all evident to others. For example, he describes on
+page 163 of the “Traps,” how he made an arrest at what
+he called a “free love convention.” He said he slipped into
+the hall unnoticed, and “looked over the audience of about
+250 men and boys. I could see lust in every face.” If ever
+anyone had a sturdy belief in the fall of man, it would seem
+to be Anthony Comstock. Human nature to him was innately
+corrupt, or at least so large a part of it was corrupt
+that, in his view, it warranted suppressive laws applying to
+everyone whether clean minded or depraved. This attitude
+was plainly indicated in a later part of the above mentioned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>
+interview with Miss Hopkins. She says, “I was somewhat
+confused that Mr. Comstock should class contraceptives
+with <ins class="corr" id="TN-3" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: pornagraphic">pornographic</ins> objects which debauch children’s fancies,
+for I knew that the European scientists who advocate their
+use have no desire at all to debauch children. When I
+asked Mr. Comstock about this he replied,—with scant patience
+for “theorizers who do not know human nature.”
+“If you open the door to <em>anything</em>, the filth will all pour in
+and the degradation of youth will follow.” (The italics are
+ours.)</p>
+
+<p>That he dramatized himself as a hero and a martyr
+seems quite evident all through his career. When the Hearing
+was held on the petition to repeal his laws shortly after
+they were passed by Congress, he describes the scene thus:
+“As I entered the Committee room, I found it crowded with
+long-haired men and short-haired women, there to defend
+obscene publications, abortion implements and other incentives
+to crime, by repealing the laws. I heard their hiss and
+curse as I passed through them. I saw their sneers and
+looks of derision and contempt.... It was not the blackening
+of my reputation that weighed me down, so much as
+the possibility that one of the most righteous laws ever
+enacted should be repealed or changed.”</p>
+
+<p>His faculty for reading into things what was in his own
+mind was never more clearly demonstrated than by his description
+in “Frauds Exposed,” of the work of the National
+Liberal League, an organization formed in 1876, one of
+the chief objects of which was the repeal of the Comstock
+laws. He devoted a long chapter to it, writing in great detail
+of how “Infidelity” had “wedded Obscenity.” At the
+first convention of this League, Comstock says, they
+“espoused the cause of nastiness” and “considered means to
+aid and help the vendors of obscene publications.” He asks,
+“Do infidelity and obscenity occupy the same bed? Are
+they appropriately wedded?” He declared that at this convention<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>
+they “proclaimed the banns between Infidelity and
+Obscenity in the following resolution, which he quotes as
+overwhelming proof of the nastiness of the organization:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><em>Resolved</em>, that this League, while it recognizes the great importance
+and absolute necessity of guarding by proper legislation against
+obscene and indecent publications, whatever sect, party, order or
+class such publications claim to favor, disapproves and protests against
+all laws which by reason of indefiniteness or ambiguity, shall permit
+the prosecution and punishment of honest and conscientious men for
+presenting to the public what they deem essential to the public welfare,
+when the views thus presented do not violate in thought or
+language the acknowledged rules of decency; and that we demand
+that all laws against obscenity and indecency shall be so clear and
+explicit that none but actual offenders against the recognized principles
+of purity shall be liable to suffer therefrom.</p>
+
+<p><em>Resolved</em>, that we cannot but regard the appointment and authorization
+by the government of a single individual to inspect our
+mails with power to exclude therefrom whatever he deems objectionable,
+as a delegation of authority dangerous to public and personal
+liberty, and utterly inconsistent with the genius of free institutions.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Therefore,” says Comstock triumphantly, “I charge
+that they defended obscenity for the love of it.”</p>
+
+<p>A welter of adjectives was an outstanding feature of
+Comstock’s books. He gives his reader very little opportunity
+to judge for himself as to the character of the crimes
+his prisoners committed, for he does not state concretely
+what they were, but he uses phrases about them such as
+“diabolical trash,” “carrion,” “leprous influences,” etc. On
+only two pages opened at random in the “Traps” book, were
+noted the following words and phrases: “moral vulture,”
+“terrible talons,” “cancer,” “damns the soul,” “frightful
+monster,” “homes desolated,” “whited sepulchres,” <ins class="corr" id="TN-4" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: putrefying sores,”">“putrefying
+sores,”</ins> “immense cuttlefish,” “turgid waters,” “jackal,”
+“pathway of lust,” “lust is the boon companion of all other
+crimes.” In the light of modern psychology, this choice of
+language carried to such extreme, betrays fear and sex obsession
+to a degree that would hardly seem to fit a man for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>
+sound service either as a law maker or as an enforcer of
+the law.</p>
+
+<p>However, now let us take a look at Comstock through
+the eyes of others. His biographer, Rev. C. G. Trumbull,
+wrote of him thus toward the close of his career: “Mr.
+Comstock today likes to dwell upon what he calls the wonderful
+goodness of God in those early days of the fight for
+purity. And it <em>is</em> a story of God’s work, not man’s, when
+we remember that it was an unknown clerk, twenty-eight
+years old, who had hardihood to go to the national capitol
+with the idea of getting his own convictions put into legislative
+action; that finding there two or three other bills
+pending in the same field (one regarding the District of
+Columbia instigated by the Washington Y. M. C. A., the
+other by <abbr title="General">Gen.</abbr> Benjamin F. Butler, amending the inter-state
+commerce law to prohibit sending obscene matter from one
+State to another) he stuck to it till all were merged in a
+single bill of five comprehensive sections; that he prayed his
+bill through both houses in the strenuous closing hours of
+the winter session, and that he returned home under appointment
+as a staff officer of a cabinet officer of the United
+States!” Dr. Trumbull adds that the Y. M. C. A. “gladly
+paid the expenses of the Washington campaign.”</p>
+
+<p>That is the viewpoint of a friend and admirer. Now
+we turn to the slant from which Comstock was viewed by
+one of his most severe critics, D. M. Bennett of New York,
+editor of “<cite>The Truth Seeker</cite>” and a leader in the agnostic
+and liberal group known as the National Liberal League.
+Comstock alluded to this organization as “debauching the
+public conscience,” and as “this pestilence which drags down
+and never builds up.” Comstock secured the arrest and
+conviction of Bennett on an obscenity charge, and Bennett
+wrote at great length several articles to prove that Comstock’s
+real animus against him was religious intolerance,
+and that the obscenity charge was a subterfuge. Bennett<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>
+served a sentence of several months in the Albany jail. In
+his pamphlet, “<cite>Anthony Comstock,—His Career of Cruelty
+and Crime</cite>,” published in 1878, Bennett says: “Far be it
+from the writer to deny him any of the good he has performed,
+though the means by which he reaches his ends, and
+by which he brings the unfortunate to punishment, are not
+such as good men approve. Among a certain class of vile
+publishers, he has accomplished a reform that must be
+placed to his credit, but the system of falsehood, subterfuge
+and decoy-letters that he has employed to entrap his victims
+and inveigle them into the commission of an offense against
+the law is utterly to be condemned.</p>
+
+<p>“The want of discrimination which he has evinced between
+those who were really guilty of issuing vile publications,
+and whose only object was to inflame the baser passions,—and
+those who published and sold books for the
+purpose of educating and improving mankind, has been a
+serious defect with this man. While he suppressed much
+that is vile, he has to a much larger extent, infringed upon
+the dearest rights of the individual, thus bringing obloquy
+and disgrace upon those who had a good object in view.
+And upon those who in a limited degree were at fault, he
+has been severe and relentless to a criminal extent. He has
+evinced far too much pleasure in bringing his fellow beings
+into the deepest sorrow and grief; and under the name of
+arresting publishers of and dealers in obscene literature,
+he has caused the arraignment of numerous persons who
+had not the slightest intention of violating the rules of propriety
+and morality.”</p>
+
+<p>Further on in the same pamphlet, Mr. Bennett says:
+“Being questioned at a public meeting in Boston, May 30,
+1878, where he was endeavoring to organize a branch of
+the Society for the Suppression of Vice, he was asked the
+following question by the Rev. Jesse H. Jones, a Congregational
+minister: (1) ‘Did you, Mr. Comstock, ever use<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>
+decoy letters and false signatures?’ (2) ‘Did you ever
+sign a woman’s name to such decoy letters?’ (3) ‘Did you
+ever try to make a person sell you forbidden wares, and
+then when you had succeeded, use the evidence thus obtained
+to convict them?’ To each of these questions Comstock
+answered, ‘Yes, I have done it.’”</p>
+
+<p>One of the best known instances of Comstock’s decoy
+system for securing arrests was that of William Sanger. As
+described by Mr. Sanger in a written statement prepared
+for his trial and which the judge allowed him to present
+only in part, the circumstances were these. On December
+18, 1914, a man had come to his studio, saying that his
+name was Heller, that he was a dealer in rubber goods and
+sundries, that he had read Mrs. Sanger’s booklets “What
+Every Girl Should Know” and “What Every Mother Should
+Know,” that he had enjoyed reading them and was in sympathy
+with her work. He then asked for a copy of the
+pamphlet on family limitation. Mr. Sanger said he had
+none. The man insisted, asked if Mr. Sanger could not find
+one around somewhere for him, as he wanted to reprint it
+in several languages for distribution among the poor people
+he worked with and with whom he did business. Mr.
+Sanger took the trouble to hunt about among his wife’s belongings
+and found a single copy of the booklet, which he
+gave to the man. A month later Anthony Comstock appeared
+and arrested him for having given contraceptive information
+contrary to the New York law. The man who
+came to him as Heller, was in reality Comstock’s spy. His
+real name is Bamberger and he is still in the employ of the
+Society for the Suppression of Vice. Mr. Sanger stated
+that Comstock on the day of his arrest had offered to get
+him a suspended sentence if he would plead guilty. Mr.
+Sanger declined and he was sentenced to thirty days in the
+workhouse, which sentence he served.</p>
+
+<p>This leads logically to the next consideration, namely,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>
+the place which Comstock gave in his own mind, and thus
+in the laws he framed, to contraceptive knowledge. And
+again let him first speak for himself. In a letter which he
+wrote on April 28, 1915, to Mrs. Clara Gruening Stillman,
+Secretary of the National Birth Control League (the first
+national birth control organization in this country) he said:
+“A letter dated April 23, 1915, purporting to have been
+sent out by you as Secretary of the Birth Control League,
+has been referred to this office. In this letter you say, ‘The
+law, both State and Federal at present makes it a crime
+even for physicians to give information as to methods, no
+matter how essential such knowledge may be to the physical
+and economic well-being of those concerned.’ There is not
+a word of truth in this statement, and you cannot find a
+single case, since the enactment of these laws, to justify such
+a statement on the part of your League.” Further on in
+the same letter he says: “I challenge your League to produce
+a single case where any reputable physician has been
+interfered with or disturbed in the legitimate practice of
+medicine. Do not make the mistake, however, of classifying
+the quack, and the advertiser of articles for abortion and
+to prevent conception, with reputable physicians.</p>
+
+<p>“You cannot safeguard the children on the public streets
+by turning loose mad dogs, neither can you elevate their
+morals by making it possible for them to sink themselves to
+the lowest levels of degradation, by furnishing them with
+the facilities to do so.... I shall be very happy to meet
+a representative of your League at any time and show the
+laws in detail and the necessity for their existence precisely
+as they are; and I can assure you that they will not be
+changed either by the Legislature or by Congress.”</p>
+
+<p>Again in the interview with Comstock by Mary Alden
+Hopkins, from which quotation was made above, he responded
+to her question, “Do not these laws handicap physicians?”
+by this reply, “They do not. No reputable physician<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>
+has ever been prosecuted under these laws.... A
+reputable doctor may tell his patient in his office what is
+necessary, and a druggist may sell on a doctor’s written
+prescription drugs which he would not be allowed to sell
+otherwise.”</p>
+
+<p>This is a baffling sort of mind to deal with. For either
+he did not fully realize the meaning of the laws which he
+himself framed, or else he hopelessly confused the actual
+wording of the laws with his personal choices as to the
+people to whom they should apply. For the Federal law
+as enacted by Congress and as it stands to this day contains
+no exemptions or qualifications whatever, as to the giving
+of contraceptive information. It is just as criminal for a
+conscientious doctor to send needed contraceptive instructions
+to a patient, as for a sex pervert to send an advertisement
+of contraceptive means with his depraved literature.
+And in the District of Columbia and in at least seventeen
+States it is just as criminal for a reputable doctor to instruct
+a patient, even verbally in the privacy of his own office, as
+it is for any low-minded person to peddle pornographic stuff
+containing contraceptive directions. The language of these
+laws is perfectly plain; they are flat, sweeping prohibitions
+and apply to everybody alike. It would seem almost incredible
+that Comstock should have dared to assert that
+they did not forbid physicians, or to assume that because
+neither he nor the government officials chose to enforce the
+laws on all offenders, that the laws, therefore did not apply
+to all offenders. But perhaps his mind was so focussed on
+the fact that he had not himself prosecuted any physicians
+whom he considered reputable, that he assumed the impossibility
+of their being prosecuted by any one.</p>
+
+<p>However, <ins class="corr" id="TN-5" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: it seem">it seems</ins> doubtful that he was quite so oblivious
+as to the plain import of the law’s words, as to sincerely
+think they did not mean what they said. It seems more
+likely that in planning laws as he did with their sweeping<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>
+prohibition, he was <ins class="corr" id="TN-6" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: instinctly acting">instinctively acting</ins> to provide himself and
+those who were involved in the enforcement of the laws,
+with an absolutely unhampered opportunity to decide who
+among the law-breakers were “reputable” and what was
+“obscene,” “immoral,” etc., and to pick out whatever offender
+they chose for prosecution. He knew of course that
+complete enforcement was utterly impossible, but to be able
+to make the law effective here and there according to his own
+will, was a use of power that was very evidently to his liking.</p>
+
+<p>Comstock’s moral code on this matter would seem then
+to boil down to about this, if he had presented it, shorn of all
+his adjectives and settings: some perverts use contraceptives,
+therefore the law should not allow any one at all to secure
+them or know anything about them, and besides, as most
+of those who are not perverts can’t be really trusted anyhow,
+hearing about or seeing contraceptives would be pretty
+sure to make them go to the devil, especially young people,
+so the complete prohibition is after all the safest; however,
+if you happen to be decent and you can manage to get a
+doctor to give you some information, I will not have the
+doctor prosecuted, that is, provided he is <em>my idea</em> of reputable.</p>
+
+<p>The question for present day citizens is as to whether
+they want to retain laws framed by a man holding such a
+concept, and which laws accurately reflect that concept, or
+whether they want to revise the laws to reflect the concepts
+held by the majority of the fairly normal wholesome-minded
+people of this country who have long ago proved their belief
+in the control of conception by practicing it,—that is,
+as best they can under the handicap of the laws.</p>
+
+<p>While Comstock’s successor, John S. Sumner, still echoes
+the Comstock code, it is a considerably fainter echo than
+it was a decade ago. Sumner’s expression of his views is
+much less hectic and denunciatory than was Comstock’s. He
+concedes more than Comstock ever did, and a good bit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>
+more than he did himself, when he first fell heir to Comstock’s
+mantle. There are many New Yorkers who recall
+the crowded meeting at the Park Avenue Hotel when Sumner
+was one of the speakers in a symposium on birth control,
+and how he asserted that there was no need for birth
+control knowledge in the world, because if there got to be
+too many people, there would always be war, famine and
+disease to counteract overpopulation, and how he was hissed
+for saying it. Contrast that attitude of mind with what he
+wrote some eight years after, in his previously quoted letter
+of January 23, 1923, to Senator Cummins, in which he said,
+“There is no disputing the fact that parents should use
+judgment in bring children into the world. Questions of
+health, heredity, environment and economic situations make
+this desirable.... The ever increasing number of social
+and medical organizations and combinations of the two that
+have to do with the welfare of the people are and will be
+more and more in position to refer the individual family to
+the proper authoritative sources of contraceptive information,
+under the present laws, namely to the proper maternity
+hospital or physician.” Of course Mr. Sumner knows quite
+well that “under the present laws” in many of the States
+this information could not be lawfully given as he describes,
+and he also knows that no physician anywhere in the whole
+country could lawfully send any such instructions to a patient
+by mail. Later in the same letter is this sentence: “The
+imparting of information regarding this subject should be
+confined to reputable physicians after personal investigation
+of the particular case.” (Just how the laws could be expected
+to operate to compel the persons to whom the information
+is imparted by the physician to keep it a dead secret,
+Mr. Sumner does not state.)</p>
+
+<p>These quotations suggest several important points for
+discussion in connection with propositions for revising the
+laws, but their usefulness for the moment is to provide<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>
+documentary evidence that both Comstock and Sumner, the
+latter more than the former, have not looked upon the present
+laws as a means of preventing doctors from giving and
+normal people from using contraceptive information. That
+they would prevent it, if enforced, they could not deny, but
+that only proves conclusively that the present laws are very
+ill-framed, even from the view points of Comstock who
+initiated them, and of Sumner who, as yet, does not want
+them changed.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_ONE_Chapter_III"><span class="smcap">Chapter III</span><br>
+
+IS ENFORCEMENT POSSIBLE?</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>Relatively few indictments in over fifty years: Ulterior motive
+in many of those: Post Master General Hays’s leaning toward revision:
+Post Master General Work’s gesture of enforcement: Clinic
+reports and medical research data unlawfully published and mailed:
+Misleading criminal advertisements go unpunished: Government itself
+breaks the law: Forbidden books found in Congressional Library:
+Senators and Congressmen willing to break law, but hesitate to revise
+it.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">As noted in the last chapter, it was admitted by Comstock
+that the law as he framed it, was essentially hypocritical
+with regard to the giving of contraceptive information.
+According to his own records, relatively few of the many
+arrests he procured, were for giving contraceptive information,
+and a very small part of those were for that thing
+pure and simple, but usually because contraceptive information
+was involved in other matters or when it was the most
+convenient means of “getting” a person, whose arrest was
+wanted for other reasons. Apart from the prosecutions
+instigated by Comstock and his successor John Sumner, the
+government officials in over fifty years have made almost
+no effort to indict those who have broken the law,—certainly
+no effort that is at all commensurate with the sweeping and
+unqualified character of the prohibition. Diligent search
+has been made for a complete list of the indictments in the
+United States for the giving of contraceptive information,
+but so far, no such list has been found, and to extract those
+few cases from the multitudinous court records would be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>
+almost a life work. But enough search has been made to
+amply warrant the statement that prosecutions have been
+few, and that infringements have now mounted into the
+millions. And, like Comstock, the regular government officials,
+have also been prone to utilize infringements of the
+contraceptive ban as an excuse for indicting people whose
+arrest was wanted otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>In Comstock’s own book “Frauds Exposed,” in which
+he recapitulates his forty years of work in jailing people,
+the space given to contraceptive cases is only about five per
+cent of the whole book. His greatest emphasis and the
+bulk of his effort went to suppressing general obscenity,
+gambling and fraud. A similar proportion is found in his
+later book, “Traps for the Young.” In D. M. Bennett’s
+pamphlet on “Anthony Comstock,—His Career of Cruelty
+and Crime,” 27 cases of prosecutions initiated by Comstock
+are chronicled. Of these only 5 are indictments involving
+the giving contraceptive information. In Theodore
+Schroeder’s monumental volume, “Obscenity and Constitutional
+Law,” which reviews obscenity prosecutions covering
+several generations, there are found to be less than ten in
+which contraceptive information was the probable main
+factor in the case. <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_4">Appendix No. 4</a> gives a list of 23 more
+or less well known cases of prosecutions with the disposition
+of each case. Several of them were instances where the
+birth control issue was obviously used as a cloak for an
+ulterior motive in causing the arrest.</p>
+
+<p>This was notably true in the recent case of Carlo Tresca,
+the editor of an Italian paper, “Il Martello,” published in
+New York City. The facts in the case were, briefly, these:
+In the absence of Mr. Tresca the advertising manager of
+the paper printed a two-line, small-print advertisement of a
+pamphlet on birth control methods, by an Italian physician,
+a publication which has been very popular and which has
+been considerably advertised in other Italian papers; the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>
+Post Office notified “Il Martello” that the advertisement
+rendered the paper unmailable as it was an infringement
+of Section 211 of the Federal Criminal Code; the two lines
+were accordingly deleted and the edition was mailed; but
+shortly afterwards the advertising manager was arrested
+and imprisoned for the infringement; Tresca also was arrested,
+though he had not known of the advertisement at
+the time it was printed; he was sentenced to “a year and a
+day” in the Federal penitentiary at Atlanta. During and
+after his trial some illuminating testimony was brought
+forth, showing that the birth control charge was merely a
+handle for political persecution; it seems that Tresca in
+his paper and otherwise had vigorously opposed the Mussolini
+regime in Italy, and the Italian Ambassador while making
+a dinner address in Washington had stated that there
+was a certain Italian paper in New York which ought to
+be suppressed; “Il Martello” was subsequently subjected
+to many petty annoyances from the Post Office, culminating
+in the arrest of the editor on the birth control charge, <em>after</em>
+the offending advertisement had been promptly deleted in
+accord with the Post Office notification; during the trial the
+prosecuting attorney admitted that the complaint against
+the paper regarding the advertisement had come from the
+office of the Italian Ambassador.</p>
+
+<p>These facts became widely known. Many letters of
+protest from well known citizens were sent to the Attorney
+General and President Coolidge, with the result that the
+President commuted the sentence to four months.</p>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that Tresca’s original sentence was the
+longest of any on record in recent years, perhaps in any
+years, for this sort of offense. The maximum of five years
+in jail and $5000 fine seems never to have been imposed
+since the law was enacted. In the 23 cases listed in <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_4">Appendix
+No. 4</a>, the imprisonment terms were as follows: one for
+a year and a day, one for six months, two for sixty days,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>
+four for thirty days, three for fifteen days, and seven were
+freed or their cases were dismissed. As to fines,—there was
+one of $1000, one of $100, three for $25 and one for $10.
+It is told of a judge in the middle west that he imposed a
+fine of <em>one cent</em> in a case of this sort; the prisoner was
+guilty under the law, so the judge did his duty, but he apparently
+also took occasion to register his opinion of the
+value of the law. Margaret Sanger, the best known among
+birth control “criminals,” has served but thirty days in jail,
+all told, though arrested four times. Her nine indictments
+under the Federal law in 1914 were dismissed. She was
+freed after arrest in Portland, Oregon, as was also the case
+when she was arrested at the Town Hall in 1921 in New
+York when the police broke up the meeting before any one
+had spoken at all. The charge in this instance was not giving
+contraceptive information, but disorderly conduct and
+resisting the police. The one sentence she served was that
+imposed for opening her “Brownsville” Clinic for giving
+contraceptive instruction in New York in 1916. For at
+least ten years past, the local police, the Post Office authorities
+and John Sumner, Comstock’s successor, have known
+that Mrs. Sanger was infringing both Federal and State
+law on a more or less wholesale scale, but there has been
+no prosecution. In a lengthy letter which Sumner wrote to
+all the members of the U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee
+on February 18, 1921, and in an almost identical letter
+which he wrote to Senator Cummins on January 23, 1923,
+in which he pleaded for the continuance of the present laws
+without change, he twice mentions the fact that Mrs. Sanger
+had “published a pamphlet entitled —— which described
+various methods and articles for the prevention of conception
+and their methods and use.” Yet he has not had her
+arraigned, as he would be in loyalty bound to do, if his
+belief in the present laws were thorough-going, as he assured
+Senator Cummins it was. In his letter Mr. Sumner<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>
+gives the title of the pamphlet, which makes him also an
+offender against the Federal law, Section 211,—which forbids
+anyone to mail any “written or printed card, letter, circular,
+book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind
+giving information, directly or indirectly, where, how or of
+whom or by what means conception may be prevented.”
+Mr. Sumner in his letter told the Senator “of whom,” and
+he did so “directly.” He knew he did not risk arrest for
+doing it even though his act was a <ins class="corr" id="TN-7" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: “crime.”’">“crime.”</ins> In all probability
+neither should we, if we were to print the title of
+the pamphlet; but as both the author and the publisher of
+this book are interested in the discussion of sound legislation
+on this subject rather than in possibly precipitating one more
+indictment under this good-for-naught law, we discreetly
+leave the title blank.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion seems quite obvious, judging by the light
+penalties, the few prosecutions, and the blinking at infringements,
+that the government, like most citizens, takes this
+law very lightly and has no idea of living up to its obligation
+to enforce it. There has been one Post Master General
+however in recent times who has made at least a gesture
+toward enforcement, and another who made at least a gesture
+toward a common-sense revision of the laws.</p>
+
+<p>The latter was Post Master General Hays, and had he
+not resigned his position to go into the moving picture business,
+perhaps the United States laws on this subject would
+now be renovated so as to be more a reflection of the
+people’s beliefs and more true to American ideals. The
+circumstances in the summer of 1921 were most propitious.
+Mr. Hays had made several public statements that he was
+convinced that the Post Office should not operate a censorship
+system. He had put himself on record in unmistakable
+terms, and his words had been widely published by the newspapers.
+So in August of that year, an interview with Mr.
+Hays was secured by the Director of the Voluntary Parenthood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>
+League, and the question laid before him as to whether
+the time was not more than ripe to remove this particular
+censorship from the laws which govern the Post Office. He
+received the suggestion with marked cordiality, saying that
+it was very timely, for he had about reached the conclusion
+that it was his duty to submit to Congress a recommendation
+for the revision of all the Post Office laws which had any
+bearing on censorship. He asked for a résumé of all pertinent
+data on the laws affecting birth control knowledge,
+and he also asked for specimens of good books and other
+publications on the subject such as are used abroad. On
+being told that it would break the law (Section 211) to mail
+such publications to him, he said, “Oh no, I wouldn’t want
+that done, send them by express.” “Can’t be done,” was
+the answer, “because Section 245 forbids that also.” “Well
+then,” said the Post Master General, with an appreciative
+smile, “by messenger.” The parcel was forthwith delivered
+to him by that method. But even that was unlawful, for
+according to Section 312, it is a crime in the District of
+Columbia to “lend or give away,” or to have in one’s “possession
+for any such purpose, any book, pamphlet,” etc.
+Mr. Hay’s plan to submit a revision to Congress was never
+carried out, perhaps because his retirement from office followed
+too shortly after to make it practicable. And apparently
+he was not of a mind to leave his plan behind him
+as a recommendation to his successor, Dr. Hubert Work,
+former President of the American Medical Association.
+Judging by later developments, it would have been futile
+for him to have done so.</p>
+
+<p>When Dr. Work took office, he lost no time in making
+his gesture about the enforcement of the obscenity laws;
+for only a few days after he became Post Master General,
+the following official Bulletin was conspicuously posted in
+all the Post Offices of the Country:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span></p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="p2 noindent center">IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE</p>
+
+<p class="noindent center"><span class="smcap">To Send or <ins class="corr" id="TN-8" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: Recive">Receive</ins> Obscene or Indecent Matter by Mail or
+Express</span></p>
+
+<p class="p2">The forbidden matter includes anything printed or written, or
+any indecent pictures, or any directions, drugs or articles for the
+prevention of conception, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The offense is punishable by a <em>Five Thousand Dollar Fine or
+Five Years in the Penitentiary or Both</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Ignorance of the law is no excuse.</p>
+
+<p>For more detailed information on this subject read Sections 480
+and 1078 of the Postal Laws and Regulations, which may be consulted
+at any post office.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The <cite>Birth Control Herald</cite> of July, 1922, commented as
+follows on this Bulletin:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>If Dr. Work intends to enforce the laws, it does him credit.
+But suppose he undertakes to prosecute all infringements? The relatively
+low birth-rate in well-to-do families indicates wholesale breaking
+of this law. How is he going to enforce it? Will he trail these
+several million respectable, influential parents till it is discovered
+how they learned the science of family limitation?</p>
+
+<p>There are about twenty-five million families in the country and,
+roughly speaking, ten million of these are the well-to-do—those above
+the income tax exemption. Suppose a tenth of these can be convicted
+of having secured by mail or express the contraceptive information
+on which their own family limitation is based. The authorities
+would hardly imprison a whole million. It would mean “standing
+room only in the jails.” An alternative would be to fine them.
+One million law breakers, fined $5000 each would provide Uncle
+Sam with a handy five billion in these days, when the national debt
+stands at about eight billion. But, like the jail idea, this might be
+a bit impracticable! What alternative is there then? The million
+malefactors might be <em>acquitted</em>,—but that would make the officers
+of the law look silly. So,—there it is, a large problem staring at
+the new Postmaster-General. How will he meet it?</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Work’s Bulletin says “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
+Similarly also, difficulty of enforcement is no excuse for him. So long
+as the law stands he and the Department of Justice must carry it out,
+or else be unfaithful and inefficient public servants.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span></p>
+
+<p>Possibly Dr. Work might welcome a practical suggestion, namely,
+that he promptly request Congress to change this futile law which
+has encumbered the Statute books since Anthony Comstock got it
+passed in 1873. Any law that can’t be generally enforced should be
+repealed.</p>
+
+<p>How about the families below the income tax exemption? There
+are over ten million of these also,—and they are the ones against
+whom this laws works successfully. Their ignorance and poverty
+prevent their securing the knowledge which the well-to-do get in
+spite of the law.</p>
+
+<p>This Bulletin of Dr. Work’s may well serve as a reminder that
+common fair play for these ten million families demands that Congress
+shall change the laws at once. Perhaps also this Bulletin will
+rub it into the minds of the well-to-do parents that the knowledge
+by which they space their own babies and regulate their own family
+birth rate is legally classed as “obscene and indecent.” How much
+longer do decent people care to submit to this governmental insult?</p>
+
+<p>Several of the best doctors who have done years of research work
+on methods of controlling conception, are ready <em>now</em> to write books.
+One of the foremost publishing firms of America, with offices in London
+also, is ready to bring out an American edition of the excellent
+book on the control of conception, by a famous British scientist,—a
+book which has gone through five editions in England, and is the
+generally accepted text-book on the subject. Our law prevents.</p>
+
+<p>It is time to do something beside talk. It is time to <em>end the need
+for the birth control movement</em>, by demanding that Congress change
+the laws.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>However neither under Dr. Work’s administration nor
+that of his successor has there been evidence of any effort
+even remotely approaching a genuine attempt at enforcement.
+In fact infringements seem to be blinked at more and
+more as time goes on. Very significant and interesting recent
+infringements are the publication and circulation of the
+reports on contraceptive methods used in the clinic operated
+by the Research Department of the American Birth Control
+League (Dr. James F. Cooper, speaking at the recent
+Hearing on a bill to amend the New York law stated that
+5000 copies of this report had been sold to physicians);
+also the report by Dr. —— of the research work on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>
+contraceptive method, carried on by the New York Committee
+on Maternal Health, and published in the “American
+Journal of —— and ——.” The latter report makes
+a survey of all the chief methods in use at present both here
+and in Europe, with descriptions, and an estimate of their
+relative merit. In neither instance has there been any prosecution
+or suppression, though the publishers are forthright
+and knowing breakers of the law. If the well known physician
+who wrote the article in the above indicated medical
+journal and the also well known medical publisher who
+issues the magazine can break the law so frankly, and not
+be arrested, it would seem as if we might well do likewise
+and give their names, but we leave them blank, not only
+to avoid the remote possibility of arrest, but to give the
+reader one more means of realizing that the present laws
+are legal nonsense.</p>
+
+<p>Another striking feature of the present situation is the
+blatantly misleading advertisements of publications which
+contain no contraceptive information, but which are advertised
+as if they did. Margaret Sanger’s book, “Woman
+and the New Race” has been repeatedly advertised by book
+dealers who lean to sensationalism, as if it contained instruction
+in positive methods of birth control. Various garish
+phrases have been used, such as “This daring woman
+has at last told the real truth about birth control,” etc.
+The little pamphlet, “Yes,—but,” published by the Voluntary
+Parenthood League, to answer the objections and misunderstandings
+which were current several years ago, was
+reprinted by a sensational publisher without permission, and
+advertised as if it gave contraceptive information. Thousands
+of poor worried parents have bought these books,—some
+of them, as the writer well knows, having spent very
+hard earned pennies to do so,—only to find that they had
+bought another “gold brick.” The book did not give the
+one thing they wanted, and which was their sole reason for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>
+ordering it. One of the worst of such instances is an advertisement
+which appeared recently in one of the popular
+humorous <ins class="corr" id="TN-9" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: weaklies">weeklies</ins>. It is exactly reproduced below:</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="image055" style="max-width: 25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image055.jpg" alt="Woman with her hand to her head">
+  <figcaption><p class="noindent"><em>DON’T MARRY</em>
+until you have read our wonderful book on
+Birth Control. Tells simply and clearly all
+about <b>Birth Control</b>, Marriage; etc. Discusses
+the following vital subjects: “<b>Private
+Advice to Women</b>; <b>Birth Control</b>;
+<b>Too Many Children</b>; <b>Determination of
+Sex</b>; <b>Race Suicide</b>.” Over 200 pages, cloth
+bound. <b>Also</b>, for a limited period only,
+“What Every Mother Should Know,” by
+<b>Margaret Sanger</b>, great Birth Control Advocate.
+<b>SEND NO MONEY.</b> Pay postman $2.50
+and postage for the two books.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em"><b>PUB. <abbr title="Company">CO.</abbr></b>,</span>
+<span style="float: right;margin-right: 1em"><b>Broadway, N. Y. C.</b>,</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent center"><em>WHY PAY THE PRICE?</em></p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The writer took the trouble to go to the address given,
+and to inspect the book. It contained no contraceptive information
+whatever. It distinctly <em>did not</em> tell “all about
+birth control.” The man in charge of the office, and who
+had been responsible for the advertisement, admitted its
+deliberately fraudulent character, and frankly said he used
+this method to make the book sell better, that personally he
+did not like sensationalism, but “one must make a living
+somehow.” The writer also inquired of the publisher of
+the paper in which the advertisement appeared, as to how
+they dared and why they cared to publish this sort of thing.
+Apart from the question of taste, it would seem as if the
+advertisement warranted indictment for obtaining money
+under false pretenses for one thing, and for another that it
+gave “notice” ... “directly” ... “where” to obtain
+(contraceptive) birth control information. The result of
+the inquiry was a letter from the publisher’s office saying
+that the contract for the advertisement would not be renewed.
+It also stated that every advertisement that had
+ever appeared in their paper had “first had the endorsement
+of the U. S. Postal authorities.” This last is surely an
+amazing statement. If the Postal Authorities are willing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>
+to approve such crass, vulgar and fraudulent advertisement
+of birth control information under the present laws, it would
+seem not a wild thing to demand a change of the laws, so
+that advertisements could be open, dignified and honest, as
+they may be in England, for instance. One of the largest
+and most reliable of the British chemists advertises its service
+by the simple words, “All birth control requirements,
+—— and <abbr title="Company">Co.</abbr> —— London.” One of the best known
+medical publishers of England announces the important new
+book on the control of conception by Dr. ——, with the
+natural straightforwardness that belongs to any scientific subject.
+One of their advertisements reads as follows (except
+for the omissions compelled by our laws):</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="noindent center">ITS THEORY, HISTORY AND PRACTICE</p>
+
+<p class="noindent center">A Manual for the Medical and Legal Professions</p>
+
+<p class="noindent center">
+By ——, D.Sc., Ph.D.,<br>
+(Fellow of University College, London)<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Contents</i>:</p>
+<div class="pad2">
+Author’s Preface<br>
+Introduction by Sir William Bayliss, F.R.S.<br>
+Introductory Notes by Sir James Barr, M.D., Dr. C. Rolleston,
+Dr. Jane Hawthorne and “Obscurus.”<br>
+</div>
+
+<table style="margin-left: 0" class="autotable">
+<thead>
+<tr>
+<td>Chapter</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I.</td>
+<td>The Problem To-day.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td>Theoretical Desiderata—Satisfactory Contraceptives.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td>Indications for Contraception.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+<td>Contraceptives in Use, Classified.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">V.</td>
+<td>Contraceptives in Use, Described and Discussed.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+<td>Contraceptives in Use, Described and Discussed. (cont.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+<td>Contraceptives for Special Cases.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+<td>Some Objections to Contraception Answered.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+<td>Early History of Family Limitation.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">X.</td>
+<td>Contraception in the Nineteenth Century.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XI.</td>
+<td>Contraception in the Twentieth Century.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XII.</td>
+<td>Contraception and the Law in England, France and America.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIII.</td>
+<td>Instruction in Medical Schools</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIV.</td>
+<td>Birth Control Clinics.</td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+<p class="noindent">Index.<br>
+Description of Plates.<br>
+Plates I to IV.<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Sir William Bayliss says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="noindent">“It cannot fail to be a real service.”</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. Rolleston says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="noindent">“I predict a great success for the work, and I wish to record
+my thanks to the author for her pioneer work in preventive
+medicine.”</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><em>This Book Is the First Manual on the Subject and Is Packed with
+Both Helpful and Interesting Matter, and Much That Is New and
+Noteworthy.</em></p>
+
+
+<p>Order from your Bookseller or direct from the Publishers:</p>
+
+<hr>
+</div>
+
+<p>Just so long as our laws remain as they are, just so long
+will they induce and encourage an atmosphere of hectic
+unwholesome excitement about a subject that should be
+merely a part of the general fund of hygienic knowledge
+which humanity utilizes for its welfare. And just so long
+will that unwholesome atmosphere be reflected in vulgar advertisements,
+which can not be properly antidoted by dignified
+decent advertisements of the proper sources for contraceptive
+information and means.</p>
+
+<p>Our government not only blinks at the numerous infringements
+of the laws which ban birth control information,
+but the government itself breaks the law. Government
+officials themselves are guilty of flagrant violations,
+but no one puts them in jail. There are some very striking
+instances.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Library of the Surgeon General in Washington,
+which is open to the public, has received and is loaning to
+readers the November issue of the American Journal of
+—— and —— published by the —— Company of
+——. It contains a report by Dr. —— on methods
+of controlling conception. To mail the magazine from
+—— where it was published, and to receive and loan it
+in Washington, are criminal acts under the law.</p>
+
+<p>The Congressional Library has received from England
+and has loaned to readers the volume entitled —— by
+Dr. ——, published —— London. It is the previously
+mentioned manual for the medical and legal professions
+and is considered one of the best and most comprehensive
+works on the subject in the world. To pass the
+book through the customs, to transport it to Washington,
+to list it in the Library catalogue and to lend it to readers
+are all criminal acts under the law. This same volume has
+been borrowed by several members of the Judiciary Committee,—again
+a criminal act. But not a single government
+employee has been apprehended for these “crimes,” although
+the offenses were clean cut infringements of the law.
+Dutiful and full enforcement would mean the jailing for
+a five-year term of a score or so of the government employees
+who are involved.</p>
+
+<p>A still more significant fact is that members of Congress
+who have vehemently opposed the Cummins-Vaile Bill (to
+remove the words “preventing conception” from the obscenity
+laws) have actually had the presumption to ask the
+writer of this book (while working for that measure) to get
+for them copies of “some of this forbidden literature.”
+One of them added, “I’ll see that you are not prosecuted.”
+An instantaneous refusal brought a rather shame-faced expression
+to his countenance. He was a member of the Judiciary
+Committee, to which the bill had been referred. It
+would be interesting to know whether this member, who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>
+has flatly said he would vote against the bill, would be willing
+to confess before the Committee that he was quite willing
+to break the law, but unwilling to change it, and equally
+unwilling to insist on its enforcement.</p>
+
+<p>Enforcement is all too evidently a farce, and will never
+be anything else so long as the present laws are retained.
+A legal house-cleaning seems the only hope for putting the
+country on either a self-respecting or a democratic basis,
+so far as this subject is concerned. An editorial in the Washington
+Post has said what needs to be said on how to have
+laws respected:</p>
+
+<p>“<em>The enforcement of all law is necessary to the existence
+of the States and the United States. The alternative is
+anarchy. But all law must be constitutional, in accordance
+with the people’s expressed will. The first duty of all citizens
+and of Congress is to ascertain the will of the people.
+The second is to enforce and obey it.</em>”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak lsp" id="PART_TWO">PART TWO<br>
+
+WHAT CHANGES IN THE LAW HAVE
+BEEN PROPOSED?</h2>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_TWO_Chapter_I"><span class="smcap">Chapter I</span><br>
+
+THE TWO FIRST FEDERAL EFFORTS</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>The big repeal petition of 1876 started by National Liberal
+League: Comstock’s obscenity exhibit wins again: Sanger arrests
+crystallize growing movement for repeal of law: National Birth
+Control League founded March, 1915, first organization of the sort
+in the United States: Repeal bills drafted: Petitions circulated:
+Noted English sympathizers help.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">Three years after Congress enacted the Comstock bill,
+thousands of citizens started a petition for its repeal.
+The number has been variously estimated at from 40,000
+to 70,000. Comstock credits it with the latter figure in
+his book, “Frauds Exposed.” The petition was initiated
+and the signatures collected by the National Liberal League.
+There was much publicity concerning it, and mass meetings
+were held in various cities. It was presented to Congress,
+early in 1878 by a Committee of Seven, consisting of Robert
+G. Ingersoll of Illinois, Chairman, Charles Case of Indiana,
+Darius Lyman of Ohio, J. C. Smith of Massachusetts,
+Jonathan B. Wolff of New York City, W. W. Jackson
+of Washington, D. C. and J. Weed Corey of Penn Yan,
+N. Y., Secretary.</p>
+
+<p>The petition was a comprehensive protest against the
+whole spirit and content of the Comstock laws, as un-American,
+unjust and unwise. Section 4 of the Petition read
+in part as follows: “Your petitioners further show that
+they are convinced that all attempts of civil government
+whether State or National, to enforce or favor particular<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>
+religious, social, moral or medical opinions, or schools of
+thought or practice, are not only unconstitutional but ill-advised,
+contrary to the spirit and progress of our age, and
+almost certain in the end to defeat any beneficial objects
+intended.</p>
+
+<p>“That mental, moral and physical health and safety are
+better secured and preserved by virtue resting upon liberty
+and knowledge, than upon ignorance enforced by governmental
+supervision.</p>
+
+<p>“That even error may be safely let free, where truth is
+free to combat it. That the greatest danger to a republic
+is the insidious repression of the liberties of the people.</p>
+
+<p>“That wherever publications, pictures, articles, acts or
+exhibitions directly tending to produce crime or pauperism
+are wantonly exposed to the public, or obtruded upon the
+individual, the several States and territories have provided,
+or may be safely left to provide, suitable remedies.</p>
+
+<p>“Wherefore your petitioners pray that the statutes
+aforesaid may be repealed or materially modified, so that
+they cannot be used to abridge the freedom of the press or
+of conscience.”</p>
+
+<p>The petitioners asked Congress for action on the petition,
+and the Committee of Seven requested a Hearing on it.
+After more or less prodding, the House Committee on the
+Revision of Laws, granted a Hearing. Comstock’s characteristic
+version of the insistence by the Committee of Seven
+on being heard, was: “After six weeks of plotting and
+scheming they at last secured a hearing.”</p>
+
+<p>Comstock and Samuel Colgate, one of the earlier officials
+of the Society for the Suppression of Vice were the
+only ones appearing against the petition. Comstock described
+the event in his book “Traps for the Young,” and
+says that the House Committee reported its belief that the
+“statutes in question do not violate the Constitution, and
+ought not to be changed.” He also wrote of it in his letter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>
+of April 28, 1915, to Mrs. Clara Gruening Stillman,
+Secretary of the National Birth Control League, from which
+quotation was made in Chapter Two of Part One. This is
+the way he pictures it: “When the National Defense Association
+in 1876, secured a petition 2100 feet long, containing
+60,000 names, and presented it to Congress, following
+it up with the most infamous attacks upon the efforts to enforce,
+all that was required, in the face of all their opposition,
+supported as they were at that time by the public
+press throughout the country, was to lay the facts before
+the Congressional Committees and submit to them the circulars
+which showed to them the system of the business
+then being carried on, cursing the boys and girls of this
+country and leading them from the paths of virtue, and both
+committees reported against any repeal or change whatever.”
+This decision of the Committee was made on May
+1, 1878.</p>
+
+<p>If it was true, as Comstock says, that the press of the
+country at that time was with the petitioners for the repeal,
+it is a point worth bearing in mind. Evidently the actual
+sight of a collection of smutty circulars describing sex depravity
+stampeded the Committee on the Revision of Laws
+in the same way that it had the Committee on Post Offices
+and Post Roads, when it reported favorably on the Comstock
+bill three years previously, so that it blotted out of
+mind every other consideration, except that obscenity must be
+made unmailable. It prevented any serious thought about the
+injustice of depriving the normal majority of access to scientific
+knowledge. All sorts of strange things are done under the
+impetus of alarm, and fear can upset the judgment of the
+best of men on occasion. But now that the country has had
+the benefit for over half a century of the fears which
+Comstock so successfully planted in the Congressional mind,
+the question is how quickly can there be a restoration of
+calm judgment, and of democratic faith in the people.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span></p>
+
+<p>After the failure of this petition, many years elapsed before
+any concerted effort was again made to have Congress
+correct the Comstock blunder. In the meantime, of course the
+laws were increasingly broken and increasingly unenforced,
+so far as the circulation of contraceptive information was
+concerned. Comstock utilized the laws for his campaign
+to suppress fraud and general obscenity, and he occasionally
+included a prosecution against someone for giving contraceptive
+information, but that offense, per se, and uninvolved
+with obscenity or liberalism, formed a very small
+part of his total activity. However it was two of these
+latter arrests which touched off the <ins class="corr" id="TN-10" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: park that flamed">spark that flamed</ins> into
+what has been called in late years, the American birth control
+movement. These were the arrests of Margaret Sanger
+and of William Sanger, her husband. In September, 1914,
+Mrs. Sanger was indicted on nine counts under the Federal
+law, for mailing her pamphlet on family limitation.
+Mr. Sanger was arrested the following January, by means
+of Comstock’s decoy system, for giving away a single copy
+of the pamphlet, as already described in Part One of this
+book. Previous to Mrs. Sanger’s arrest, there were many
+people who had become tremendously interested in her activity
+and who were deeply stirred by her righteous indignation
+that the poor mothers among whom she had worked
+as a district nurse, were without any sort of adequate scientific
+information on the control of conception, and by
+her burst of generous impulse when she determined to get
+the information to the working people on a large scale, no
+matter what the laws forbade, and no matter what hardship
+it might involve for her. Some of the specially interested
+people helped Mrs. Sanger with funds for her
+project and by securing mailing lists and so forth. She
+compiled such information as she could find, and a very
+large edition of the pamphlet was sent out. She then went
+to Europe in order to find out more about contraceptive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>
+methods in Holland and in England, and to publish some
+new revised pamphlets before facing trial under Federal indictment.</p>
+
+<p>During this period the conviction was rapidly growing in
+the minds of many who had been moved by Mrs. Sanger’s
+gallant zeal, that the time had come to remedy the situation
+fundamentally by organizing a movement to get the laws
+revised. Mrs. Sanger’s arrest added greatly to the strength
+of this conviction. To tolerate the necessity for a succession
+of martyrdoms such as appeared likely to occur as the sequel
+of Mrs. Sanger’s spirit and her notable defiance of the law,
+seemed folly, if by dint of vigorous concerted effort the laws
+could be changed, so that no one would have to brave martyrdom.
+This conviction crystallized into action in New
+York City in March, 1915, when a meeting was held at the
+home of Mrs. Clara Gruening Stillman at which the National
+Birth Control League was organized. Mrs. Sanger
+was then abroad. On her return shortly afterward, she was
+invited to be a member of the Executive Committee of the
+League. She declined, stating that she did not think it wise
+to be officially a part of any organization, as she was likely
+to have to go to jail, and she did not want her mishaps to
+involve the activity of others, also that she felt it to be her
+particular function to break the laws rather than to spend
+effort at that time in trying to change them. Her point of
+view was characteristically expressed in her leaflet called,
+“Voluntary Parenthood,” which was published by the
+League. Describing her feeling at the sight of the suffering
+due to unintended and unwilling motherhood, she said, “I
+felt as one would feel if, on passing a house which one saw
+to be on fire and knew to contain women and children unaware
+of their danger, one realized that the only entrance
+was through a window. Yet there was a law and penalty
+for breaking windows. Would anyone of you hesitate, if
+by so doing you could save a single life?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span></p>
+
+<p>The declaration of principles adopted by the National
+Birth Control League read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>“The object of the Birth Control League is to help in
+the formation of a body of public opinion that will result in
+the repeal of the laws, National, State or local, which make
+it a criminal offense, punishable by fine or imprisonment, or
+both, to print, publish or impart information regarding the
+control of human offspring by artificial methods of preventing
+conception.</p>
+
+<p>“The Birth Control League holds that such restrictive
+laws result in widespread evil. While they do not prevent
+contraceptive knowledge of a more or less vague or positively
+harmful character being spread among the people,
+these repressive laws do actually hinder information that is
+reliable and has been ascertained by the most competent
+medical and scientific authorities, being disseminated systematically
+among those very persons who stand in greatest
+need of it.</p>
+
+<p>“This League specifically declares that to classify purely
+scientific information regarding human contraception as obscene,
+as our present laws do, is itself an act affording a
+most disgraceful example of intolerable indecency.</p>
+
+<p>“Information, when scientifically sound, should be readily
+available. Such knowledge is of immediate and positive
+individual and social benefit. All laws which hamper the
+free and responsible diffusion of this knowledge among the
+people are in the highest degree pernicious and opposed to
+the best and most permanent interests of society.”</p>
+
+<p>The National Birth Control League then, constituted
+the first organized and sustained effort in America to concentrate
+on the repeal of the specific prohibitions regarding
+the circulation of birth control knowledge. The petition to
+Congress in the seventies, had included contraceptive knowledge
+in its protest, but was not circulated for that reason
+alone. It was a protest against the general content of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>
+Comstock laws. The National Birth Control League at
+once set about the publication of literature urging the repeal
+of the laws, and circulated petition slips for the amendment
+of both State and Federal laws, which read as follows:</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">
+<i>TO THE STATE LEGISLATURE</i><br>
+</p>
+
+<p>As a voter of this State, I hereby urge you to secure the amendment
+of the penal law, so that giving information concerning methods
+of birth control by the avoidance of conception may no longer be
+classed as a crime in the laws of this State.</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">
+Name ...............................<br>
+<br>
+<span class="pad2">Address ..........................</span><br>
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES</i><br>
+</p>
+
+<p>As a voter, I hereby urge you to secure the amendment of the
+Federal Penal Code so that the transportation of information concerning
+methods of birth control by the avoidance of conception may
+no longer be classed as a crime in the laws of this country.</p>
+
+<p class="pad2">
+Name ...............................<br>
+<br>
+<span class="pad2">Address ..........................</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A committee of three lawyers, members of the National
+Birth Control League, drafted the amendments which the
+League advocated for the Federal statutes and for the New
+York State statutes. The provision was similar in both
+cases. It first removed from the obscenity statutes the words
+“preventing conception” wherever they occurred; then added
+a clause to the effect that information as to or means for
+the control of conception are not, per se, obscene or of
+indecent use. For Section 211 of the Federal law, this
+added clause read as follows: “But no book, magazine,
+pamphlet, paper, letter, writing or publication is obscene,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>
+lewd or lascivious, or of indecent character, or non-mailable
+by reason of the fact that it mentions, discusses or recommends
+prevention of conception, or gives information concerning
+methods or means for the prevention of conception;
+or tells how, where, or in what manner such information or
+such means can be obtained; and no article, instrument, substance
+or drug is non-mailable by reason of the fact that it
+is designed or adapted for the prevention of conception, or
+is advertised or otherwise represented to be so designed or
+adapted.” (The statutes with the proposed amendments in
+full are given in <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_5">Appendix No. 5</a>.)</p>
+
+<p>It was not only within the United States that interest in
+amending our laws grew apace. The matter got the attention
+of a very thoughtful and distinguished portion of the
+British public also. When Mrs. Sanger was in England,
+she met Dr. Marie C. Stopes (subsequently the founder of
+the first birth control clinic in England) who was deeply
+indignant at the situation threatening Mrs. Sanger by virtue
+of the American law. This feeling found expression in a
+letter which Dr. Stopes wrote and sent to President Wilson,
+and which was signed by several other well known English
+citizens. It reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">
+September, 1915.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+To the President of the United States,<br>
+<span style="padding-left: 1em">White House,</span><br>
+<span class="pad2">Washington, D. C.</span><br>
+<br>
+<span class="smcap">Sir</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>We understand that Mrs. Margaret Sanger is in danger of criminal
+prosecution for circulating a pamphlet on birth problems. We
+therefore beg to draw your attention to the fact that such work as
+that of Mrs. Sanger receives appreciation and circulation in every
+civilized country except the United States of America, where it is still
+counted as a criminal offense.</p>
+
+<p>We in England passed, a generation ago, through the phase of
+prohibiting the expressions of serious and disinterested opinion on a
+subject of such grave importance to humanity, and in our view to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>
+suppress any such treatment of vital subjects is detrimental to human
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, not only for the benefit of Mrs. Sanger, but of humanity,
+we respectfully beg you to exert your powerful influence in the interest
+of free speech and the betterment of the race.</p>
+
+<p class="pad4">
+We beg to remain, Sir,<br>
+<span class="pad6">Your humble servants,</span><br>
+</p>
+<p class="pad4" style="text-indent: -2em">
+(Signed by): Percy Ames, L.D., F.S.A., Sec., <abbr title="Royal">Roy.</abbr> <abbr title="Society">Soc.</abbr> <abbr title="Literature">Liter.</abbr>, London<br>
+William Archer, Dramatic critic and author<br>
+Lena Ashwell, Actress Manager<br>
+Arnold Bennett, Author and Dramatist<br>
+Edward Carpenter, Author of “Towards Democracy,” etc.<br>
+Aylmer Maude, Author of “Life of Tolstoy”<br>
+Gilbert Murray, M.A. Oxford, LL.D. Glasgow, D.Litt. <abbr title="Professor">Prof.</abbr> Greek, Oxford<br>
+Marie C. Stopes, D.Sc., Ph.D., Fellow and Lecturer, U. Coll., London<br>
+H. G. Wells, B.Sc., J.P., Novelist.<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In this connection it may be added that the nine Federal
+indictments against Mrs. Sanger were presently dropped.
+Whether it was due in part to the weight of such messages
+as this, is not definitely known. But the fact remains that
+the prosecution for the most forthright, intentional and
+wholesale defiance of the Federal law that had ever been
+undertaken up to date was not carried through to a conclusion.
+A fair interpretation of this act would seem to be
+that the government itself did not deem the Comstock laws
+in this regard, as worth enforcing.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_TWO_Chapter_II"><span class="smcap">Chapter II</span><br>
+
+BEATING AROUND THE BUSH WITH STATE LEGISLATION</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>Interest caused by Mrs. Sanger’s arrest caused much activity
+despite war-time conditions: First repeal bill initiated by National
+Birth Control League in New York Legislature: Law makers mostly
+in favor privately, but publicly opposed or evasive: Dr. Hilda Noyes’s
+experiment in New York village proving that ordinary people want
+laws changed: Legislator justifies State repressive laws so long as
+Federal law stands as example: Bills introduced in New York, California,
+New Jersey and Connecticut: The “doctors only” type of
+bill appears: Further limitations: Efforts toward freedom stimulate
+reaction toward stiffer repression in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Virginia:
+All fail: Fallacy that limited bills win legislators more than
+freedom bills.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">The year 1915, as noted in the preceding chapter, saw
+the lines laid down for the repeal of the Comstock
+blunder. The next four years saw considerable progress in
+the way of rolling up expressed approval of amending the
+law, also considerable fumbling around as to just how to go
+about it. The fact that these four years included the war
+period had a good deal to do with the latter. All social
+and civic projects suffered a similar sort of stalling. Sporadic
+bursts of agitation were easier and more in keeping with
+the general disorganization of life than was any steady,
+constructive, fundamental, organized activity. That so
+much was accomplished under such untoward circumstances,
+is indication of the vital hold which the idea of doing something
+about the birth control situation, had upon the thinking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>
+public. Or perhaps one might better say the feeling
+public, for if as much force had gone into thinking as has
+gone into feeling on this subject, the question of repressive
+legislation would have been settled long ago.</p>
+
+<p>However, there can hardly be doubt that the great wave
+of emotional interest which grew apace after the first Sanger
+arrests, and particularly after Mrs. Sanger’s second arrest
+for opening her contraceptive clinic in 1916, was useful in
+that it developed a ferment from which presently some clear
+consistent procedure might be forthcoming which would end
+the need for agitation. Local birth control organizations
+sprang up in many parts of the country, many of them being
+the results of Mrs. Sanger’s lecture tours. It was but natural
+that local groups should tackle State laws first, as most
+of the associations were loosely or feebly organized and
+slimly financed, and Washington seemed far away and Congress
+formidable. The National Birth Control League was
+somewhat in this status also. Its headquarters were in New
+York, and most of its active members lived there, though it
+had members scattered all over the country, and there were
+co-operating committees in several cities.</p>
+
+<p>So it happened that its first actual legislative move was
+a State bill undertaken in Albany in the winter of 1917. It
+was a straight repeal bill to remove the words “preventing
+conception” wherever they occurred in the obscenity statutes,
+and to add a new clause providing that contraceptive information,
+per se, was not to be deemed obscene, and that
+means used for the control of conception were not, per se,
+to be deemed of indecent use. (See <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_5">Appendix No. 5</a> for
+the full wording.) The subject of the scientific control of
+conception was thus to be rescued from its legally formed
+association with obscenity, and to be safeguarded against the
+possible assumption that the subject was in itself obscene,—an
+assumption which judges or juries of certain mental caliber,
+might well make, in view of its long connection in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>
+law with indecency. The bill was introduced both by a
+Democratic and a Socialist member of the New York Legislature,—an
+obvious disadvantage in an overwhelming Republican
+body. A Hearing was held, but the bill was killed
+in Committee. The pattern of the reaction of the legislative
+mind to this sort of proposition, which afterwards
+was to become so familiar to those working for the repeal
+of these laws, was for the first time clearly visible. The
+reasons for the levity, the stupidity and the irrelevance of
+the legislators were not so well understood then as they
+came to be a few years later.</p>
+
+<p>But in this very first legislative try-out, the incongruity
+which in subsequent legislative efforts become most striking,
+was already evident,—namely, that what the various legislators
+said one by one in conversation with those who went
+to Albany to work for the bill, was quite different from what
+they said for publication or in the Committee room. Individually,
+a large proportion of them readily admitted that
+birth control already existed, that the laws were not enforced
+and could not be enforced, and each one thought
+that it would not hurt <em>him</em> to know all there was to be known
+about the subject; but they were far from willing to say anything
+of the sort publicly, or to take that stand actively in
+the Legislature. Instead they went far afield with all sorts
+of hypothetical conjectures, and professed all manner of
+deep convictions that this knowledge, if lawfully accessible
+would be dangerous to morals, a menace to the race and an
+assault upon religion. This incongruity will be more fully
+dealt with in a later chapter on “Why Congress has been
+slow to act.” For the moment, it is enough to give a mere
+glimpse of legislative reaction to birth control bills. The
+divergence between private opinion and public action was
+again accentuated the following year when the National
+League sent a set of queries to all the New York candidates
+for Congress and the legislature, regarding their opinion of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>
+the proposed change in the laws. The replies showed many
+more in favor of the bill than had been found in Albany
+the preceding year. In fact not a single adverse answer was
+received. And of those who replied eight per cent were in
+favor, eleven asked for more light on the subject, and only
+three side-stepped the question.</p>
+
+<p>Yet that rather encouraging indication did not prevent
+a repetition of the same incongruous actions when a year
+later, the National Birth Control League made another effort
+in Albany. It had to be checked off to educational
+work, for it did not result even in the introduction of the
+bill. The Legislators of the majority party, the Republicans,
+shied off from sponsoring the bill, apparently because,
+in part at least, it had previously been introduced by a Socialist
+and because some of the speakers at the Hearing
+had been “radicals.” This served as a first rate excuse, in
+the days when any excuse was a good excuse. However,
+the educational work of that session was worth while both
+for the Solons and for the proponents of the bill. It was
+particularly illuminating for the latter, as subsequent events
+will show. The writer of this book had charge of the work
+in Albany that year, and a picture of the situation there is
+given in the following extracts from an article she wrote at
+the time for “The Birth Control Review” (March, 1919).</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The Legislators of New York seem to be par excellence the
+leisure class. They have achieved a six hour week! In these days
+of battling for forty-eight and forty-four hour weeks, that is something
+of an achievement.</p>
+
+<p>They convene Monday evening, usually with a two-hour session,
+and on the three succeeding mornings, with sessions from one and
+one-half hours to ten minutes in length. When out of session some
+few of them are in committee but the majority are fled—it is hard
+to know where.</p>
+
+<p>For the ordinary citizen with a bill in hand which it is desired
+to have introduced, such a situation is a problem. The whole session
+is only ninety days—and with legislative week-ends lasting from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>
+Thursday noon till Monday evening, the time available for interviewing
+members and securing desirable sponsors for the bill is reduced
+to an appalling minimum.</p>
+
+<p>However, like the public, the legislators are surely moving on
+toward an understanding of what the Birth Control movement really
+means. Out of the twenty-seven members interviewed in the last few
+days, only one declared himself positively opposed to the bill, and
+he decided after ten minutes’ discussion, that he might perhaps be
+open-minded after all.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to take about three-quarters of an hour to answer all
+the objections the average legislator can think of, and leave him
+wondering what he can do next to live up to his preconceived notion
+that he was opposed. More often than not, they end by cordially
+admitting that they really have no arguments against the bill—merely
+a vague aversion to the consideration of the subject as a
+matter of public or legislative responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>They mostly ask the same questions and voice the same fears
+about removing the law which tries (so vainly) to suppress birth
+control information.</p>
+
+<p>They say, “Yes, but if everybody knows how to avoid having
+children, there won’t be any children!”</p>
+
+<p>Then we carefully iron out their fears by showing them that
+prophecies as to how it <em>might</em> work out are not worth so much as
+testimony on how it <em>does</em> work out. We tell them of Holland and
+New Zealand, the two prize birth control countries of the world,—how
+Holland has had a ratio of increase in population next to that
+of Germany and Russia—that New Zealand is a garden country
+for babies, that they make a fine art of motherhood there, with their
+wonderful chain of maternity hospitals, and that Holland and New
+Zealand have the lowest general and baby death rates in the world.</p>
+
+<p>With the race suicide bogey out of the way, they go on to their
+next fear, which is that there will be a terrifying drop in moral
+standards if contraceptive information is easily available. Then
+again we reassure them by citing the other countries which have no
+shocking repressive laws like ours, but which nevertheless do not
+show any records of general promiscuity and unbridled excess, or of
+sexual laxity among the young. We go further, and remind them
+that if it be true that the mass of our American young people would
+have so little moral anchorage that we should fear to trust them
+with knowledge, then something is awfully the matter with us of
+the older generations who have reared them, and that it is for us
+to hasten to develop a keener sense of responsibility for the education<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>
+of <em>all</em> young people, as well as those of our families. And they
+all respond to this appeal. They would obviously feel ashamed
+not to.</p>
+
+<p>Another idea they advance with confidence is that “practically
+everyone can now get the information who really wants it.” And
+we reply, “Well if that be true, and the law is already so much of
+a dead letter as that, then why hesitate a moment to repeal it?” But
+we tell them, of course, that it is not true that everyone has the
+information who wants it, as is proven by the incessant stream of
+desperate, ill and unhappy people who clamor for it, also that much
+of the information which is now illegally and secretly circulated,
+especially that which is verbal, is inadequate, unscientific and even
+harmful, and that it is bound to be so till the medical schools include
+this subject in their curricula and until the doctors can give
+the information without evading the laws.</p>
+
+<p>Then they resort to the cynical conclusion that it wouldn’t do much
+good to repeal the laws anyway, because the rich who oughtn’t to
+use the information would do it even more than they do now, and the
+result would be still fewer children, while the “ignorant poor,” who
+ought to use it, wouldn’t, and the horde of “undesirables” would go
+on increasing just the same.</p>
+
+<p>And again we present the instance of Holland where the rich
+average larger, and the poor, smaller families than any other country
+in Europe. And we gently remind them that the use of contraceptives
+can never be made compulsory, nor can anyone frame legislation
+which will open the eyes of the selfish rich to the joys and
+values of parenthood. These results can come from education, not
+from legislation. All that the laws can do is to give freedom of
+access to knowledge, but the wise use of knowledge is a matter of
+mental, moral, and spiritual growth.</p>
+
+<p>And they admit that too.</p>
+
+<p>They look very serious and responsible by the time they arrive
+at saying, “Yes, but what methods do you propose to teach?” Some
+of them even assume that somehow or other we think the law itself
+can <em>establish good methods</em>! Whereupon we make it plain that the
+question of methods is the sphere of the medical scientists, that it
+is not for us laymen to presume to teach, and much less is it possible
+for the laws to determine methods. All the laws can do is to give
+freedom to the scientists to give the world the knowledge that has
+been locked in their brains and only given out surreptitiously on occasions.
+And all we ask is the opportunity to help to make the knowledge
+of the scientists accessible to all who need it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span></p>
+
+<p>Their final question is “who wants these laws changed, where
+is the demand?” We tell them that practically everyone wants it
+who understands it, and that brings up a most significant phase of
+the birth control movement, which has a unique psychology, in that
+the mass of people who want information and want the laws changed
+so they can get it, do not and will not shout their wishes from the
+housetops. The nature of the subject is one which largely inhibits
+an <em>articulate</em> demand. But that the majority of the people want it,
+and are ready to say so, if they can do it without being conspicuous
+is remarkably well proven by the article elsewhere in this issue,
+entitled: “Do the People Want It?”</p>
+
+<p>We never fail to impress it on the legislative mind that in the
+last analysis the present laws are absolutely inconsistent with the
+principle of freedom to know, to think and to do, on which this
+country is supposed to be founded and that it is outrageous that the
+government should attempt to place any barriers between the people
+and knowledge; that the government may rightly discipline people
+whose abuse of knowledge infringes upon the rights of others, but
+there it must stop. It can not curb the freedom of citizens to know
+all there is to know.</p>
+
+<p>And they admit that, too.</p>
+
+<p>They are amusing in their demands upon us as to the proper way
+of winning the change of the laws. Some tell us, “You just show
+us enough demand for this thing and it will go through. If the
+people want it, let them speak up.” Others say, “Now, if you
+would only see that this thing is <em>quietly</em> accomplished, with no noise,
+no public hullabaloo, no newspaper headlines, no publicity, etc., it
+would be a simple matter for us to put this bill right through as
+a matter of obvious public welfare.”</p>
+
+<p>At a guess, probably two-thirds of those already interviewed will
+vote in favor of our bill.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the light of much subsequent experience with the
+workings of the legislative mind the writer considers that
+last sentence an innocently rash prediction. It should
+have said “are in favor of our bill,” rather than “will vote
+for our bill.” For this has proved to be one of the questions
+on which belief and voting, also private practice and
+public statement, can be poles apart.</p>
+
+<p>There could perhaps be no more fitting place than here<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>
+to quote the above mentioned article “Do the People Want
+It?”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Here is a slice of public sentiment out of the middle of New
+York State.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Hilda Noyes, an expert on eugenics and baby feeding, and
+incidentally the mother of six splendid intentional children, went to
+a district in Oneida County, where she did not personally know
+the people, chose at random two streets at right angles to each other
+and visited fifty married women in succession.</p>
+
+<p>She explained to them just how the New York law reads which
+prohibits Birth Control information. Most of them did not know
+that it is a part of the obscenity laws and is entitled “Indecent Articles”
+or that it is utterly sweeping in its provisions, so that even
+a mother can not legally inform a daughter on her marriage as to
+how to have her children come at intelligent intervals. They only
+knew in general that whatever one knew about this subject must
+be learned secretly.</p>
+
+<p>She told them how it was proposed to change this law, and asked
+them if they preferred to let the law remain as it is and has been
+for over forty years, or to change it.</p>
+
+<p>Forty-eight out of fifty said “change it.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>By far the most significant bit of experience gleaned from
+the legislative effort of that year was what one of the more
+thoughtful members of the New York Legislature said,
+when he was asked to consider introducing the bill. “Why
+do you come up here asking us to consider a bill of this sort
+when our National laws set us the example they do on this
+subject? You say yourself that Congress decided that this
+information was not ‘fit to print’; very well then, go down
+to Washington and get Congress to reverse itself, and then
+you will have a talking point when you come to us.” It
+may have been merely his particularly clever form of excuse
+for not doing anything, but there is no gainsaying that he hit
+upon a rather unanswerable point. It was undeniably true
+that the action of Congress in passing the Comstock bill in
+1873 had influenced practically all of the States to follow
+suit. The fact that the New York law on this subject preceded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>
+that of Congress by a year, only indicates that Anthony
+Comstock happened to live and do his work in New
+York. Both he and his biographer, the Rev. C. G. Trumbull,
+said emphatically that his campaign of suppression
+would have been a relatively futile effort without a comprehensive
+Federal law. Comstock used keen sense when he
+determined to secure not only the particular power to suppress
+the transportation of obscene literature that a Federal
+law would give, but also the very great impetus to his whole
+campaign which the Federal example would stimulate in the
+States, for further means of suppression.</p>
+
+<p>The seed thus planted bore fruit within three months,
+by the organization of a new association, the Voluntary
+Parenthood League, the immediate object of which was the
+repeal of the Federal prohibition. And within six months
+the Congressional work was started in Washington. The
+story of the Federal bill is however the subject of the next
+chapter.</p>
+
+<p>The purpose of this chapter is to survey the attempts
+at State legislation which have been made both before and
+after the work on the Federal bill was begun, and to make
+an appraisal of their value toward the securing of freedom
+of access to contraceptive knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>More endeavors have been made in New York than in
+any other State. The efforts which preceded the campaign
+for the Federal bill have already been noted. Following
+that time, Committees, acting under the leadership of Mrs.
+Sanger, went to Albany, during the legislative sessions of
+1921, 1923, 1924 and 1925. Bills were introduced in the
+three latter years, and the ones introduced in 1923 and 1925
+reached the stage of a Hearing. No bill came to a vote on
+the floor of either the Senate or the Assembly.</p>
+
+<p>This series of bills beginning in 1921 initiated a marked
+change in the policy of the legislation. Instead of a straight
+repeal act, limited bills began to appear, that is with qualifications<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>
+which would restrict those who could give contraceptive
+information to certain groups only, and those who
+could receive it to certain classes only. And another very
+striking change appeared also, namely that the subject of
+the control of conception was not removed from its classification
+with indecency, but the bill was framed to permit
+certain people to give and to receive the information without
+being subject to the penalties for indecency that would still
+apply to all others who give it. That is, the right of access
+to knowledge as a fundamental principle was abandoned and
+was replaced by the idea of permits and privileges; and the
+platform that scientific truths are not per se indecent was replaced
+by the inference that scientific facts are decent only
+when stated by certain people and are otherwise indecent,
+or are at least classed with prohibited indecencies.</p>
+
+<p>This is the proposed legislation which has come to be
+called, for short, the “doctors only” kind of bill. But other
+limitations than those applying to doctors have been included.
+With these successive efforts in the New York Legislature,
+restrictions were added almost every year that a
+bill was introduced. The measure first put forward in 1921
+limited access to contraceptive information to that given by
+physicians or registered nurses; then the nurses were
+dropped out, and no doctor could give information unless
+the individual applied to him personally for it; and by 1923
+the still further restriction was added that access to the
+knowledge was lawful only for those who were married or
+who had secured a license to marry. These later New York
+bills were drafted by <abbr title="Professor">Prof.</abbr> Samuel McCune Lindsey of the
+Legislative Bureau of Columbia University. The full wording
+of the latest draft is given in <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_6">Appendix No. 6</a>. All of
+them leave the main body of the obscenity statutes just as
+it stands with its blanket prohibition of the giving of contraceptive
+information by anyone to anyone, in any way
+whatever; the amendment in each of these bills is an addition<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>
+to the release act of 1881, Section 1145 of the Penal
+Code, which states that an article prescribed by a physician
+to cure or prevent disease is not “of indecent or immoral
+nature or use”; these added parts merely declare the doctor’s
+act in giving information or in making a prescription
+for a preventive to be “not a violation of this article.” In
+other words the old law of 1881 whitewashed the thing prescribed
+by the doctor, and the proposed amendment whitewashes
+the doctor for prescribing it. But it leaves the whole
+subject of knowledge about the control of conception, still
+in the category of crime and indecency. The doctor merely
+becomes a privileged character within this category.</p>
+
+<p>Under the same leadership, similar bills have been introduced
+into the legislatures of Connecticut in 1923 and 1925
+and of New Jersey in 1925. In Connecticut the bill, beside
+restricting access to information to those who get it directly
+from a doctor or a registered nurse, contained a section to
+repeal the old law which forbids the <em>use</em> of contraceptives,
+the law which has been the prize joke of the American birth
+control movement. <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_7">Appendix No. 7</a> gives the wording of
+the Connecticut bill. The wording of the New Jersey law
+is notably absurd, in that it forbids anyone to be obscene
+“without just cause,” and then adds a clause forbidding anyone
+even to make a recommendation <em>against</em> the use of contraceptives,
+or to give information in any way as to how or
+where “any of the same may be had or seen or bought or
+sold.” The amendment proposed by the American Birth
+Control League merely adds this sentence: “The contraceptive
+treatment of married persons by duly practicing physicians,
+or upon their written prescription, shall be deemed
+a <em>just cause</em> hereunder.” <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_8">Appendix No. 8</a> gives the wording
+in full. Hearings were held in both Connecticut and New
+Jersey but in neither State was the bill allowed to reach a
+vote in the Legislature. In Connecticut the Committee advised
+against changing the laws “at this time.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span></p>
+
+<p>In California, a bill was introduced in 1917 by Senator
+Chamberlain and Assemblyman Wishard to remove the
+words “prevention of conception” from Section 317 of the
+Penal Code, which is entitled “Advertising to Produce Miscarriage.”
+Dr. T. Perceval Gerson was head of the citizens
+committee which initiated the effort. A hearing was held,
+but the bill died in Committee, although it had excellent
+endorsement from some of the women’s organizations and
+from the Los Angeles Obstetrical Society, which passed the
+following resolution:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><em>Resolved</em>, that it is the sense of the Los Angeles Obstetrical
+Society that the effort being made in California by intelligent men
+and women on behalf of scientific birth control is worthy of support
+by all having the best interests of society and its individuals at heart.</p>
+
+<p><em>Resolved</em>, that the attention of the public be strongly drawn to
+the fact that this movement for scientific birth control has no relation
+to the production of abortion or miscarriage, which in fact it aims
+to eliminate.</p>
+
+<p><em>Resolved</em>, that this Society composed of physicians and surgeons
+earnestly engaged in discussing those aspects of medical science chiefly
+in the domain of obstetrics, gynaecology and pediatrics, respectfully
+petition the California Legislature to amend by elimination that
+portion of Section 317 of the Penal Code, reading, “or for the prevention
+of conception.”</p>
+
+<p><em>Further be it resolved</em>, that this Society at this date, go on record
+as unqualifiedly approving such propaganda for birth control by
+scientific contraceptive measures, because of the universal benefits
+that will accrue.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that this Resolution by doctors did not
+take a “doctors only” stand. A loop-hole in the California
+law has allowed the establishment of a “Mother’s Clinic.”
+It started its service in Los Angeles early in 1925 with Dr.
+H. E. Brainerd, former President of California State
+Medical Association as Medical Director, and a clinical and
+consulting staff of eight other physicians. The California
+statute forbids anyone to <em>offer</em> his services in any way, to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>
+aid in the prevention of conception, but it does not forbid
+the giving of information if <em>asked</em>.</p>
+
+<p>In three states effort has been made to introduce laws
+when none existed before, forbidding the giving of contraceptive
+information, or to make existing laws still more repressive.
+Illinois and Virginia were instances of the former,
+and Pennsylvania of the latter sort. These bills all died
+in Committee, thanks to the strong protests they aroused
+from representative and influential citizens.</p>
+
+<p>The Illinois measure was modelled upon the New York
+law, and was introduced in the winter of 1918. Professor
+James A. Field of Chicago University and Dr. Charles
+Bacon of the Chicago Medical Institute, both of them
+representing the Chicago Citizens Committee (for birth
+control) appeared at the Hearing against the bill. The
+Illinois Medical Society also sent Dr. C. L. Taylor and Dr.
+Deal to oppose it. Effective lobbying was done before the
+Hearing, and by the time that was held, the interest was so
+great that the session was carried over into the evening.
+In conversation with members of the Legislature individually,
+it was evident that they had no idea that the passage
+of the measure would mean that it would be unlawful for
+anyone, even themselves to get the simplest and most commonly
+used sorts of preventive such as are sold at all drugstores.
+Professor Field and the physicians enlightened them
+on this and many other points, with the result that the bill
+was not reported out. It is significant that the way a measure
+of this sort is presented to a legislator makes such a
+difference in his opinion of its merit. A proposition to make
+obscenity less prevalent wins sympathy at once, and if there
+is no mention made of the fact that it also will forbid the
+securing of scientific hygienic information for utilization in
+normal private life, the obscenity point carries the legislator
+along to approve of the bill. But when he sees the real
+facts about such legislation, he thinks twice, and thinks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>
+sanely. It seems like a sound guess that Congress would
+likewise have thought sanely, if Comstock and those who
+rushed his bill through had given the members a chance to
+know the actual scope of the bill, and think twice. What a
+pity that no Professor Field and no level-headed doctors
+were on hand at the time to have saved the day in Washington
+in 1873, as they did in Illinois in 1918!</p>
+
+<p>The effort to put Virginia into the black list of states
+which prohibit contraceptive knowledge and means, was a
+very recent one. In the legislative session of 1924 a bill
+was introduced which, according to the <cite>Birth Control Review</cite>,
+would make it “unlawful to sell, give away or possess
+any appliance or instrument for the prevention of conception.”
+The Committee on Moral and Social Welfare to
+which it was referred received <ins class="corr" id="TN-11" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: may protests">many protests</ins>. So also did
+the sponsor of the bill, Mr. Ozlin, with the result that he
+withdrew it from the calendar, before it was discussed at all
+in the House.</p>
+
+<p>In Pennsylvania there have been two attempts to make
+the law more suppressive than it already was, which was
+quite bad enough, for Pennsylvania is one of the states
+which make it a crime to tell any one, to have in one’s
+possession, to publish or to advertise contraceptive information,
+and it prohibits the circulation of contraceptive means.
+The first effort was in 1917, the Stern bill, which far surpassed
+any previous legislation in comprehensive suppression,
+for it even prohibited “attempting to impart” any
+“knowledge or information <em>tending</em> to interfere with or
+diminish the birth of human beings.” If opinions have differed
+widely as to what constituted obscenity, fancy how
+they would differ on what “tended” to diminish human
+birth. Isador Stern, the sponsor of the bill, told Mrs. Alice
+Field Newkirk of the Main Line Birth Control League,
+that he wanted to “make it impossible to discuss birth control
+anywhere in Pennsylvania,—in parlors or in public<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>
+halls.” The bill was quietly moved along through legislative
+routine till it passed both houses and it was not until
+the eleventh hour that many people knew of its existence.
+Then protests began to pour in to Governor Martin Brumbaugh,
+urging him to veto it. This he did with a very strong
+and forthright letter, in which he called it “one of the most
+reactionary enactments attempted in years.” The veto is
+here given in full, as it contains several points of importance
+in considering the question as to what kind of laws on this
+subject Americans may want:</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent center">COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA</p>
+
+<p class="noindent center"><i>Executive Chamber</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">
+<span style="padding-right: 1em;" class="smcap">Harrisburg, July 16, 1917.</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<p>I file herewith, in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth,
+with my objection, House Bill No. 1643, entitled “An act
+forbidding the advertising, publishing, selling, distribution, or otherwise
+disseminating or imparting, or attempting to disseminate or
+impart, knowledge or information tending to interfere with or diminish
+the birth of human beings in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania;
+defining it as a misdemeanor and defining its punishment.”</p>
+
+<p>The bill forbids the publishing or otherwise disseminating of any
+information by anybody concerning birth control in this Commonwealth.
+The existing laws judiciously concern themselves with this
+matter. This bill does not. It is by far the most drastic bill in
+regard to birth control in this country. It is, by like token, one of
+the most reactionary enactments attempted in years.</p>
+
+<p>The popular mind is filled—if I may judge this mind from the
+many letters and telegrams before me—with all sorts of misconceptions
+concerning the provisions of this bill. It is not a bill to regulate
+the size of families, but an attempt to prevent anyone from
+doing anything “to interfere with or diminish the birth of human
+beings in this Commonwealth.” Just how anyone could diminish
+birth is not made manifest. The language is viciously vague and
+indefinite in the extreme. The bill might be construed to punish
+those that oppose the marriage of the insane or feeble-minded. Indeed
+the Commonwealth’s own acts in segregating these unfortunates
+in institutions like Laurelton would come under the penalties of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>
+this bill. It is, in other words, counter to the whole current of
+modern social endeavor, and as has been pointed out, could be made
+a convenient club for the black-mailer. It would deny a physician
+the duty, in defined cases, of advising his patient. It would seal
+the lips of mothers and fathers in counselling their children. It is
+an attempt to do by legislation what should be done by education.
+It would be a law more honored in the breach than in the observation.
+It is impracticable and unenforceable.</p>
+
+<p>For these reasons the bill is not approved.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="padding-right: 1em;" class="smcap">Martin B. Brumbaugh.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>While it is not feasible to agree with Governor Brumbaugh
+that “existing laws judiciously concern themselves”
+with this matter, one may well forget that sentence in his
+letter in view of the forceful truth of his last three lines.
+In differentiating the proper sphere of education from that
+of legislation, he rendered a signal service. So also when
+he emphasized the folly of proposing laws which are unenforceable.</p>
+
+<p>Two years later, the very same bill was re-introduced
+into the Pennsylvania legislature, by Representative Hickernell.
+But it did not become a law this time either, thanks
+to the vigorous work of Mrs. Newkirk and some of the
+Harrisburg members of the National Birth Control League.
+The bill had been referred to the Committee on Health and
+Sanitation, of which a physician was chairman. He was of
+the opinion that such efforts to stamp out birth control belonged
+in the class of “freak legislation,” and he let his
+opinion be known in the Committee. The bill was never
+reported out.</p>
+
+<p>Just as limited or “doctors only” bills were proposed
+after the first freedom bills were introduced in the states,
+so also were they proposed for Federal legislation after the
+trail was first blazed to Congress by a Federal freedom bill.
+The special import of the “doctors only” idea in Federal
+legislation will be discussed in the next chapter in connection
+with the story of the Federal bill, through fundamentally<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>
+the same considerations apply both to state and to Federal
+law. At this point it may be clarifying to take a look at
+certain happenings when the “doctors only” bills were being
+urged upon the state legislators, and when the public was
+being urged to support them.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have pushed these efforts to achieve limited
+legislation have repeatedly asserted that if the giving of
+information were restricted to physicians, and possibly to
+nurses, and given only to the married, and only on individual
+application, the legislators would be much more likely to
+pass the measure than if it were an “unlimited bill,” that is,
+a bill which would place this knowledge on just the same
+basis as any other knowledge so far as the law is concerned.
+But prophecy is one thing and history is another, and the
+facts in this case do not seem to bear out the prophecy.</p>
+
+<p>When the first of the “doctors only” bills was proposed to
+the Albany Solons in 1921, two years after the second
+straight repeal effort of the National Birth Control League,
+the pattern of legislative objection was not altered one whit.
+The situation was precisely the same as it was when the bill
+asked for freedom for all instead of special privilege for
+a group. Then and at every subsequent effort in any state,
+the newspapers have reported the same old set of remarks
+made by the few articulate objectors,—that it meant race
+suicide, that it was the same thing as abortion, that it would
+induce immorality, and that it was against religion. As late
+as the Hearing of 1925 the legislators were still offering
+the objections of “race suicide,” and that it would “increase
+immorality.” But in the later years the race suicide bogey
+has become rather less prominent,—perhaps because Holland
+and New Zealand were so often quoted that the legislators
+were obliged to concede that birth control and large
+increase in the population were compatible and often coincident.
+In every single instance there has been the same vulgar
+levity on the part of a few legislators, the same noisy objections<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>
+from another small portion of them, and the same
+favorable or tolerant opinions on the part of the majority,
+but privately expressed rather than publicly, and the same
+hesitation to let their votes in Committee or in the legislatures
+reflect either the facts in their own private lives or
+their real opinion.</p>
+
+<p>What is chiefly in the mind of the legislators is not the
+terms of the bill at all, but the thought, “What will it do
+to me and my career if I have anything to do with such an
+embarrassing subject as this?” These reactions are admitted
+as true and are so reported, even by those who have
+been working for the limited legislation. For instance, in
+the <cite>Birth Control Review</cite> of May 1921, the “Legislative
+Committee formed by the Margaret Sanger group to push
+a measure or amendment affecting the present birth control
+laws in the State of New York” reported their effort to
+secure a sponsor for the “doctors only” bill drafted by
+Professor Lindsay. The report reads in part, as follows:
+“The Chairman of the Health Committee seemed the most
+logical and best informed man to approach and he was also
+a member of the medical profession. He stated his absolute
+opposition to the repeal or amendment of the Birth
+Control laws and his determination to fight any such
+measure.”</p>
+
+<p>So the “Doctors only” concession was quite wasted on
+him. The report continues: “Several of the important men
+of the Assembly assured us of their approval of this class
+of legislation, but did not care to introduce the amendment.”</p>
+
+<p>The “doctors only” bait did not tempt them either. But
+hope was rewarded, the report says, for</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>On a second visit to Albany, W. F. Clayton of Brooklyn expressed
+his approval and belief in the great benefit of such measure....
+He would sponsor the amendment he said.... After three
+weeks’ delay and two more visits to Albany, a letter was received
+from him saying: “I very much regret, but after consulting with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>
+some of the leaders of the Assembly, I have been strongly advised
+not to offer your bill. I am told it would do me an injury that I
+could not overcome for some time. Now, while I am more or less
+in favor of your bill and if you can get someone else to favor it,
+and they are able to get the bill out of Committee, I am strongly
+inclined to think that I would be one to vote for it, providing it
+had a ghost of a show. I regret that I have had this bill so long,
+but I sincerely hope my keeping the bill this length of time will not
+in any way prevent you from finding someone to introduce it.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>So the “doctors only” idea was no help here. The
+report proceeds:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Our next effort was to get sufficient and important backing from
+the medical profession of the State to influence Dr. Smith of the
+Assembly to sponsor the amendment. We did get the Health Board
+of the Academy of Medicine of New York City to endorse it. (The
+Academy later denied having endorsed this particular bill.) Doctors
+of national reputation wrote urging Dr. Smith to introduce it.
+Thousands of slips were signed urging the measure. The amendment
+in the form of petitions, was signed by doctors, judges, economists,
+editors, department of health officials, nurses, settlement
+workers, prominent philanthropists, clubs and club women and many
+hundreds of voters in the State of New York. All these data were
+presented as a background to the lawmakers. <em>Dr. Smith refused on
+the ground of levity from his associates.</em></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It seems to take more than a “doctors only” inducement
+to offset the psychology which envelopes any proposition to
+legislate on birth control. The report concludes as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Mrs. Sanger and the Committee approached Mr. Jesse of New
+York, a very able and prominent member of the Assembly and also
+conversant with the righteous and urgent need of such legislation.
+He considered the question and finally decided that he could not
+sponsor the amendment. This decision was given after he had consulted
+party leaders in New York. Personally many of these law
+makers believe the measure of great benefit, but the party whip cuts
+too deeply for courageous action. The Session drew to a close without
+the introduction of the amendment.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Again when the Connecticut limited bill (restricted to
+doctors and nurses) was up for its first Hearing, the newspapers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>
+were full of the same old pattern remarks from the
+objectors, and again the <cite>Birth Control Review</cite> reported
+that the objections were that it “was against the law of
+nature, that it was atheistic, that it struck at the foundations
+of Christian family life, and that it was an insult to womanhood.”
+There was no sign that the objectors lessened or
+modified their opposition in any way because the proposed
+bill was a limited one.</p>
+
+<p>In 1923 when the Rosenman Bill, the most limited of
+any yet proposed, was defeated by the Committee on Codes,
+Mrs. Annie G. Porritt, managing editor of the <cite>Birth Control
+Review</cite>, made this comment in the magazine:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“How can I wait for the laws to be changed? It means my life
+now. If I don’t get help in a few years I shall be dead.” This is
+the cry that comes to Mrs. Sanger from all parts of the United
+States. But this cry had no effect on the Codes Committee of
+Albany, when in executive session they killed the Rosenman Bill
+only a few minutes after they had heard the most convincing arguments
+for its passage. If the action of our legislators were swayed
+by reason there could have been hope for a better outcome; but it
+is not reason but politics to which the Assemblymen were giving
+heed.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The alleged persuasive character of the “doctors only”
+bill over the freedom bill was still undemonstrated, even
+with a married-persons-only clause thrown in for good measure
+in the way of limitations. The men were still afraid
+to stand for that or any other bill on the subject. “Politics”
+was still afraid. And the cause of the fear seemed clearly
+not to be that the bill provided this that or the other, in
+regard to birth control information, but that the bill brought
+up the question of birth control at all. That is the persistent
+sticking point with the man in politics,—nothing else.
+He feels embarrassed by the whole subject. He feels that
+it may possibly “queer him” or be used against him by his
+opponents in some way. And if he reaches the point where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>
+he admits the reasonableness of amending the laws to make
+them reflect the actual practice of the people, and decides
+that he might as well sponsor a bill for that purpose, then
+his more wary political associates, his party leaders, step in
+with restraining advice,—not because they have any really
+profound convictions on the question, or because they have
+any sincere opposition, but just because, as a very frank
+member of Congress explained it, “We have plenty of
+troubles of our own,—why should we add to the complications
+by queering ourselves with birth control?” And just
+here lies the crux of the whole legislation problem.</p>
+
+<p>However even if all propositions for the amendment of
+State laws were straight freedom bills, and even if the State
+legislators began to lose their fears enough to act there is
+one outstanding reason why it is folly to try to correct the
+conditions in the United States by a series of State bills.
+There are too many states. And even under fairly favorable
+conditions it would take too long, not to mention the
+effort and money needed to make twenty-four separate legislatures
+go through all the motions involved. Laws do
+not amend themselves. Many people have to work and
+work hard to get it accomplished. From the view-point of
+efficiency alone, State legislation is wasteful, so long as the
+Federal law remains unchanged; State legislation at best
+would be a slow enough process, but with the precedent of
+the Federal law still extant, it would be bound to be slower
+still. From the view-point of human suffering and ignorance,
+<ins class="corr" id="TN-12" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: State legislatlon">State legislation</ins> without Federal action also, is hardhearted
+and unintelligent; why break down the barriers to
+information slowly a state or two at a time and keep struggling
+worried parents in all the other states waiting for the
+information much of which they might have quickly by the
+passage of the Federal bill? And why keep scientists waiting
+all over the country for the right to import and otherwise
+order from publishers the books which only the passage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>
+of the Federal bill will let them secure lawfully, and
+subject them to picking up information locally or secretly?
+From the point of view of public morals, legislating a state
+at a time, even with straight repeal bills, is dabbing at a
+national blemish instead of wiping it out. All of which
+considerations point directly to the need for Federal legislation.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_TWO_Chapter_III"><span class="smcap">Chapter III</span><br>
+
+GOING TO THE POINT WITH A FEDERAL BILL</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>1919 sees first concerted effort to repeal Federal law: Initiated
+by Voluntary Parenthood League, an outgrowth of National Birth
+Control League: Disbanding of earlier organization and merging
+of forces: Opposition from birth control advocates on “doctors only”
+basis arises later: The long hunt for a sponsor: <ins class="corr" id="TN-13" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: Cummins-Kissell">Cummins-Kissel</ins>
+Bill introduced in January, 1923: Re-introduced in next Congress
+as Cummins-Vaile Bill: Survey of six-year struggle in Congress:
+Significant characteristics of Congressional reaction: Fear and embarrassment
+inhibit even those in favor of measure: Suggestions for
+keeping repeal “dark”: Alternate appeals to logic and humanity:
+Public opposition (mostly Catholic) relatively slight: Sponsor
+in Senate received 20 letters for bill to <ins class="corr" id="TN-14" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: every one against:">every one against.</ins></i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">The chief answer to the query “What changes in the laws
+have been proposed?” is that in the summer of 1919 a
+major move toward redeeming the whole United States
+from the Comstock blunder of 1873 was made by taking
+the question to Congress and demanding a repeal of the
+words “preventing conception” from the five Federal obscenity
+statutes wherever they occur. This move was the
+culmination of four years of agitational, educational, experimental
+and more or less handicapped work, first by the
+National Birth Control League, and then by the Voluntary
+Parenthood League, which was started in the spring of
+1919, with the primary aim of accomplishing this federal
+action. As described in the previous chapter, the experience
+for two years with efforts at State legislation was sufficient
+to demonstrate clearly that the one time-saving, fundamental<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>
+act was the revision of the Federal laws on which
+all State laws were modelled, and which was originally and
+has ever since been the legal source of the disrepute in which
+the subject of birth control has been held.</p>
+
+<p>The initiation of this move to take the matter directly
+to Congress was a direct outgrowth of the preliminary work
+done by the National Birth Control League in circulating
+thousands of petition slips, and much literature showing the
+need for amending the laws. The Voluntary Parenthood
+League was in fact formed by members of the National
+League, and they differed from the Executive Committee
+of that organization only in that they felt the time to act
+had come, instead of being in the distant future. They
+argued that Washington was only two hours further away
+from the Headquarters than Albany, and that convincing
+Congress was only a slightly bigger task, numerically speaking,
+than convincing the New York Legislature, and that
+precisely the same motions had to be gone through in either
+case; but that the great difference was that for approximately
+the same effort, success in the one case would mean
+altering the laws of only one state, and success in the other
+case would mean altering the law which affects the whole
+nation. That argument won; and within six months the
+National League had practically disbanded and most of its
+members had joined the Voluntary Parenthood League.</p>
+
+<p>This union of forces into one active national organization
+lasted until November, 1921, when the American Birth
+Control League was organized, of which Mrs. Sanger was
+president, and the limited State bills began to appear,
+coupled with opposition to the Federal bill. This opposition
+was not officially stated in the platform adopted by the new
+League but was obvious from the statements of the leaders,
+the refusal to co-operate and from various editorials in the
+<cite>Birth Control Review</cite>, which became the official organ of
+the new League. <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_10">Appendix No. 10</a> gives some of the concrete<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>
+indications of this opposition. Presently, however,
+the opposition was modified to the extent of approving some
+Federal legislation, that is, a “doctors only” bill which was
+announced in March, 1924. An analysis of this proposed
+bill will be made further on, but at this point a condensed
+story of the Federal repeal bill is in order.</p>
+
+<p>This first concerted practical measure to rescue the
+whole United States from the effects of the Comstock blunder
+has involved a six-year struggle in Congress, and at the
+present writing, the end is not yet. The preliminary interviews
+with members of Congress and the scouting for a
+sponsor for the measure began in July, 1919. A sponsor
+was secured the following March,—Senator H. Heisler
+Ball of Delaware, who had been a practicing physician
+before he became Senator. After delaying his promised
+introduction of the bill for nearly three months, he broke
+his word and allowed Congress to adjourn without presenting
+the measure.</p>
+
+<p>The sponsor hunt continued during the next session,
+the short and last one of the 66th Congress. A succession
+of Senators all of whom favored the bill took it under consideration.
+Each thought it better for some one else to do
+it. Their various delays in deciding carried the sponsor
+hunt over to the new Congress which convened in December,
+1921. Meanwhile the question was carried to Post
+Master General Hays who seriously considered including
+this amendment with his proposed recommendation to Congress
+that all the laws relating to Post Office censorship be
+revised. His consideration lasted from midsummer to the
+following March when he retired from the office to go into
+the moving picture business. His recommendation was
+never made in Congress.</p>
+
+<p>So the sponsor hunt was again continued, and lasted until
+January, 1923, when Senator Albert B. Cummins, President
+Pro-tempore of the Senate, agreed to introduce the measure.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>
+He was the sixteenth Senator who had been asked to
+sponsor the bill. He made good on his promise promptly,
+and the bill was introduced on January 10th. On the same
+day the bill was sponsored in the House by Congressman
+John Kissel of Brooklyn, who answered what was practically
+an advertisement for a “volunteer” statesman to render this
+service. A letter had been sent to each member of the
+House asking if he were willing to take the lead in the
+House to correct the Comstock blunder. Mr. Kissel responded
+at once and with serious approval.</p>
+
+<p>The bill was a simple straight repeal of the words “preventing
+conception” wherever they occur in the five Federal
+obscenity statutes, as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<i>Criminal Code</i>,<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Section 102, <em>which penalized any government employee who aids
+or abets</em> in the violation of any law “prohibiting importing, advertising,
+dealing in, exhibiting, or sending or receiving by mail,” any
+obscene publication, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Section 211, <em>which makes unmailable</em> all obscene publications,
+writings, etc., and all articles used for obscene purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Section 245, <em>which prohibits bringing into the United States or
+sending by express or any public carrier</em>, all the obscene things listed
+in Section 211.</p>
+
+<p>Section 312, <em>which penalizes anyone who “shall sell, lend, give
+away, or in any manner exhibit, or shall otherwise publish or offer
+to publish ... or shall have in his possession for any such purpose</em>,
+any of the obscene things listed in Section 211. (This section applies
+only to territory under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal government).</p>
+
+<p><cite>Tariff Act of 1922</cite>, Section 305, <em>which prohibits the importation</em>
+of any of the obscene things, listed in Section 211 of the Criminal
+Code.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The introduction of the bill was during the short session
+of Congress with the usual congested Calendar. There
+was fairly definite reason to believe that a majority of the
+Judiciary Committee to which the bill was referred were
+in favor of it, but they were unwilling to vote it out, that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>
+is they evaded voting on it. The session ended without
+action.</p>
+
+<p>The bill was reintroduced by Senator Cummins in the
+next Congress on January 24, 1925 and on the following
+day it was introduced in the House by Congressman William
+N. Vaile of Colorado. (Congressman’s Kissel’s term of
+office had expired with the previous Congress, hence the
+need of a new sponsor in the House.) The bill this time
+carried an additional section providing that no contraceptive
+instructions or means could be transported by mail or by
+any public carrier unless they were certified by at least five
+lawfully practicing physicians to be “not injurious to life
+or health.” The full wording of the entire bill is given in
+<a href="#APPENDIX_NO_11">Appendix No. 11</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Two Hearings on the Bill were held on April 8 and
+May 9, 1924, before joint meetings of the Senate and
+House Judiciary Committees. As in the previous year,
+there was probable majority in both Committees in favor of
+the bill, but as before there was great hesitation to act;
+the few opponents were not aggressive enough to want to
+have the measure reported out adversely; they merely
+wanted it pigeon-holed in Committee. And those who
+favored the bill or who took a tolerant attitude about it were
+not sufficiently energetic to do anything except to acquiesce
+in the pigeon-holing of the bill.</p>
+
+<p>Some progress was made however during the next session,
+the last one of the sixty-eighth Congress. For on
+January 20th the Senate Sub-Committee of three decided
+to report the bill to the full Committee “without recommendation.”
+Senator Norris was and always has been unqualifiedly
+in favor. Senator Overman has always heard
+the arguments for the Bill with sympathy and seems to have
+no objection to it, other than a lingering fear that access
+to knowledge may encourage immorality. He did not wish
+to hold back action on the Bill, and therefore stood for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>
+reporting it “without prejudice.” Senator Spencer when first
+interviewed regarding the Bill expressed his general approval
+of its aim. Later he brought up various points about
+which he had reservations. He decided, however, that
+they should not prevent him from joining with the other two
+members in a report that would make procedure possible.
+But no report was made by the full Committee before Congress
+adjourned on March 4, 1925. The bill died, as do
+all pending bills which are not enacted when the last session
+of a given Congress adjourns.</p>
+
+<p>So much for a bare outline of the six years of effort in
+Congress. This book is not the place for a full story of
+work, with its many interesting ramifications. For the
+benefit of those who are interested in the actual chronology
+of the events in this unique struggle, <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_12">Appendix No. 12</a> gives
+a tabloid story of the successive happenings. But it will
+perhaps be a useful contribution to the basis for an answer
+to the question as to what sort of laws the people really
+want, to give the reader some extracts from the mass of
+recorded material about this Congressional campaign; to
+turn the search-light upon certain significant bits of it, with
+a view to utilizing the experience of the past as a guide for
+the demands made upon Congress in the immediate future.</p>
+
+<p>The aim of the writer is to put the reader in a position
+to determine whether the trouble is with the bill, or with
+the way the Congressional mind reacts to the bill, and what
+factors there may be that have aggravated the situation so
+as to produce such an absurd incongruity as that a body of
+men who have themselves achieved family limitation and
+who represent constituents who likewise have to a great
+degree achieved family limitation, should fuss around for
+six years over the simple act of removing a statute that does
+not represent American life “as is.”</p>
+
+<p>The facts submitted in this survey of some of the high
+spots of the campaign in Congress are for the most part<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>
+gleaned from the writer’s personal experience in Washington,
+in direct conversation with the members of Congress.
+Where otherwise it will be so stated. Being director of the
+work for the entire six years gave an opportunity for first-hand
+observation of the vital factors in the situation, and
+especially of those that were behind the scenes.</p>
+
+<p>The outstanding characteristic notable throughout the
+whole period has been a general acknowledgment of the
+reasonableness of the bill, coupled with fear to act. This
+fear has been occasionally admitted frankly, but has mostly
+been covered over with all sorts of “rationalizing.” And
+it has been almost as evident among the men in Congress
+who were for the bill as among those who have opposed it,
+or those who have stayed on the fence. Thorough-going
+opposition to the bill has from the very beginning been almost
+nil, that is, in the sense that a man believed in the
+prohibition of contraceptive knowledge enough to want it
+applied to <em>himself</em>. No such member of Congress has yet
+been discovered, though there have been a few found who
+have said they thought the law as it stands is eminently suitable
+for application to <em>other</em> people.</p>
+
+<p>The first man interviewed when the work began in the
+summer of 1919 was Congressman Andrew Volstead, then
+Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to which
+Committee the bill would be referred, when introduced.
+He was instantly alarmed, said the bill could never be introduced;
+that if it were, the Committee would never report
+it out; that if they did, no one would ever vote for it on the
+floor, and so forth. He added however that he would
+arrange to give the bill a hearing if it should be introduced.
+He was sure that the only way to accomplish what we
+wanted was to revise the penal code and “quietly omit it”
+(the prohibition of contraceptive knowledge).</p>
+
+<p>Later several of the Senators made similar suggestions
+that a bill be introduced without a specific title, merely a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>
+bill to amend certain sections of the Criminal Code, and
+simply omit the offending parts, without explaining what
+was being done. Their idea was to let the bill appear to
+be new legislation to suppress indecency, which would sound
+commendable, and not say anything about the control of
+conception, nor bring it up at all for discussion. As put by
+one of the Senators who was not going to stand for re-election,
+“Most Congressmen are too lazy to investigate
+reasons. If the words presented look plausible, they will
+vote aye,—and let it go without bothering.” The members
+who advised in this vein said that what the men would object
+to was not so much doing the act of repealing this prohibition
+as having to discuss it or having any one know they
+did it. The subject was “disagreeable.”</p>
+
+<p>A related phase of fear, and one met with repeatedly,
+was that they would be made conspicuous in the newspapers
+if they got “mixed up” with any of this “birth control talk.”
+They had a horror of the possibility of flaming headlines
+that would somehow drag them into “sensationalism.”
+They had a stiff aversion to “the whole business.” Some
+of them had no other knowledge of the birth control movement
+than that a woman named Sanger had “made a
+rumpus” and gotten jailed, and that when they went up to
+New York for week ends, they saw the sight-seeing automobile
+man point out “the birth control woman on Broadway,”
+meaning Kitty Marion, who has become a familiar
+figure selling the Birth Control Review on the New York
+streets. Some of them confessed to a sneaking desire to
+get one of those magazines to see what was in it, but they
+didn’t dare. They assumed that it contained contraceptive
+information,—so little did they know about what the laws
+really permit.</p>
+
+<p>The fear that they would be exploited in the newspapers
+was assuaged as far as was possible by the assurance that
+they were not being interviewed for publication, that what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>
+was wanted was the quickest and quietest possible action
+by Congress, and that if they would simply introduce and
+pass the bill, a large part of the impetus to and need for
+agitation would be done away with, and then there would
+be no “noise” to fear, and they would have the satisfaction
+of having done a decent, needed act in a dignified way that
+would greatly redound to their credit. This assurance
+helped perceptibly in many instances, particularly in making
+them discuss the bill in private conversation without embarrassment
+or discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>The policy of not exploiting the views of the individual
+members of Congress in the newspapers, and especially of
+not giving the names of the few opponents who have made
+themselves ridiculous in interviews has been adhered to
+throughout the work. When they have put themselves on
+record as some of them did in discussion at the public Hearings
+on the bill, that is quite another matter. Also when
+the bill at the end of six years of effort was allowed to die
+in Committee, a report of the stand of each member of the
+Judiciary Committees was published in the <cite>Birth Control
+Herald</cite> for the information of those who had supported the
+campaign to pass the bill.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until February, 1922, that any newspaper
+articles on the work in Congress were sanctioned. Then a
+feature article was written for the New York (Sunday)
+Times and reprinted by arrangement in the <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Louis Globe
+Democrat. The following excerpts from it shed light on
+the situation as it was reported up to that date:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The initial interviews served two purposes: one to give the
+Congressmen a realization that knowledge about the control of
+parenthood is just the same simple human necessity for all the
+people as it is for themselves and their own families; the other to
+enable us to find an advantageous sponsor for the measure.</p>
+
+<p>Most members were quite ignorant to the exact provisions of the
+present law and the way Anthony Comstock had originally lobbied
+the measure through. They didn’t know that his proposition had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>
+been the suppression of pornographic literature and pictures primarily,
+and that there had been no discussion on the floor of the inclusion
+of contraceptive knowledge in the bill, and that Congress as a whole
+did not know it had voted for a law to suppress it.</p>
+
+<p>Some members needed to be assured that Congress is not being
+asked to sanction the interference with life after it has once begun,
+but merely to free the knowledge as to how the starting of new
+human life may be controlled. This distinction relieved many Senatorial
+minds. A fairly frequent worry among the Congressmen has
+been “race suicide,” but they seemed relieved when told such facts
+as that Holland, with its fifty-two birth control clinics and its established
+contraceptive instruction which has been going on for more
+than forty years, had—up to the war—the second highest ratio of
+increase in population in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>A somewhat common type of Senator is he who fears that making
+contraceptive knowledge legally accessible will result in its abuse,
+particularly by the young. But he usually responds quite nobly to
+such queries as: “If young people are safe only when ignorant, what
+happens when somehow they get knowledge, as may occur any moment?”
+“If American young people, as a whole, are prone to go
+to the devil as fast as they acquire an understanding of this subject,
+whose fault is it?” “What is the matter with us elders who have
+reared them so poorly?” “Isn’t knowledge on all subjects capable
+of abuse, and doesn’t safety lie on the far side, not on the near side,
+of education?”</p>
+
+<p>However, the attitude of the large majority of those interviewed
+is fairly represented by the letter President Harding wrote when
+he was a member of the Senate Health Committee, in which he said,
+“I have not had time to study carefully the provisions of your bill,
+but at first reading find myself very much in its favor.”</p>
+
+<p>The one most arresting fact which the Congressmen were asked
+to face, and which none could deny, was that Congress itself, like
+any other group of well-to-do men in the United States, already
+represents the achievement of family limitation despite the laws.
+The “Who’s Who” section of the Congressional Directory does not
+report Congressmen with families of eight, ten or twelve. Quite
+otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks of quiet but energetic sampling of senatorial opinions
+brought us to the point of choosing as the desired sponsor one
+of the only two physicians of the Senate, a man who had heartily
+indorsed the bill from the beginning and whose cultured dignity
+would insure right handling for the measure. But it took him nearly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>
+three months to reach the conclusion that he was too occupied with
+other important issues to do this measure justice. Even then he did
+not refuse, but merely said he could not yet see his way and urged
+that someone else be asked. This refusal to refuse has been characteristic
+of nearly all the fifteen Senators who have been invited
+in succession to sponsor the bill. All of them believed in it, but in
+their various ways, they have “passed the buck”—some convincingly,
+some transparently, some gracefully, some awkwardly, but all of
+them insistent that it was a job better suited to someone else.</p>
+
+<p>Several were “too busy”—among these was one who was not a
+member of any major committee, who had introduced no public-interest
+bills, and who, as observed from the Senate gallery, sits for
+hours on end in undisturbed quiet. One assured us he was “too
+old,” another was sure he was “too ignorant of the subject—it needs
+a man who can give all the data in debate, as I can’t.” We promised
+him a perfect arsenal of material all classified and condensed,
+but he felt sure he wasn’t “equal to doing it well.” Another said
+he was interested, but better not be the sponsor as—“well, candidly,
+I shall be up for re-election next year, and you see, ...”</p>
+
+<p>And still another who is considered one of the pillars of the
+major party in Congress, a physically big man, standing something
+like six feet three, announced to the relatively small woman who
+invited him to render this bit of public service,—“Really, I’d be
+afraid to introduce that sort of bill.” On being told that he “hardly
+looked the part,” he spent an energetic five minutes trying to blot
+out the picture of himself as a coward.</p>
+
+<p>One man assured us that he was not “important enough in the
+Senate. I don’t count,” he said. When the task was put up to one
+of the <em>leading</em> men, his answer was, “What you need for sponsor of
+a bill of this sort is a man who isn’t active, someone who has nothing
+to lose, someone whose bill wouldn’t be specially noticed.” Other
+similar advice was to “get a lame duck to do it” in the short session,
+that is some man who “is going out of politics anyway.” This advice
+is a reminder of what Senator Thomas of Colorado said, in a
+speech after his defeat, “the only independent Senators are those
+just defeated or those just elected.”</p>
+
+<p>The short sessions being those which allow the “lame ducks” to
+legislate just as if they had not been defeated for re-election, has
+been dubbed the “don’t-care-a-damn” session, and it is generally considered
+the heyday for “freak” legislation. This bill is placed in
+that class by the scornful. But all the while the members were
+acquiring a better understanding and a more obvious respect for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>
+measure. Almost every one who was consulted responded to our
+suggestion that, apart from their individual views on the measure,
+they would do everything possible to insure for the discussion of
+the question in the cloakrooms, in committee and on the floor an
+atmosphere of dignity and seriousness which the subject deserved.
+An influential representative of the old guard Republicans said:
+“This is a new idea to me as a subject for legislation, and I must
+give it more thought, but I can see its social importance, and certainly
+I can assure you right now that I will do my utmost to see
+that a proper atmosphere for the discussion is established.” (This
+was the Senator who turned the tide of refusals, and introduced the
+bill the following year, Senator Albert B. Cummins of Iowa.)</p>
+
+<p>More and more men were found whose attitude was like that of
+a Middle Western leader, who said, “I see no reason why I shouldn’t
+support it.” The interviews frequently developed into perfectly good
+“mothers’ meetings.” Even the “busy” men often settled down in
+the big leather chairs of the Marble Room and grew domestically
+reminiscent. One told how he himself had been “an unwanted baby,”
+a fourth child born when the family lived in one room, and how
+several of them died, and he became the main support. “And so,”
+he said, “you see there may sometimes be a place for the unwanted
+ones after all.” “Indeed, yes, because brave humans will always
+struggle to adjust and triumph, but would you, because of that, deliberately
+perpetuate the ignorance which keeps on producing unwanted
+babies?” And he answered unhesitatingly, “No, certainly
+not.”</p>
+
+<p>The men with rural constituents have been specially interested
+in the need of the country people for good reliable books on the
+control of parenthood. The mothers and fathers who live miles
+from a railroad, and who find the only doctor in the nearest village
+unable or unwilling to give them useful instruction as to how
+to space their babies, are very real characters to them, and it doesn’t
+take much argument to make them see what our Federal measure
+will do for <ins class="corr" id="TN-15" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: these pople">these people</ins>, and how simple it will make it for them to
+order by mail, from book stores in the big cities, practical books by
+the world’s best authorities.</p>
+
+<p>The few instances of hot antagonism became more and more exceptional.
+Our prize enemy even became friendly enough to suggest
+easy ways of bringing the measure to vote. But in our first
+interview he had blurted out remarks such as these, gleaned from
+our notebook: “You ought to be ashamed, an intelligent American
+woman like you.” “You ought to stay at home and take care of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>
+your children” (shades of the early suffrage days!). He refused
+to be diverted from personal abuse by statistics from the Children’s
+Bureau about the high baby death rate where wages are low and
+families too large. His answer was that statistics lied and he
+“wouldn’t read ’em.” He scoffed at the idea that children needed
+a fair chance for education. “This education business is overdone.
+What children need is work.” He countered all facts and all logic
+with “I decline to argue.”</p>
+
+<p>On being invited to read a booklet giving the main reasons for
+our measure he replied, “I will not. I don’t need to,” and he wound
+up with the stentorian advice, “Young woman, you better go home
+and pray for a clean heart.” But within a day or so he sent the
+following note:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+“My dear ——:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>“... Perhaps I was a little hasty with you when you called
+this morning. You took me somewhat by surprise. If you should
+happen over this way again, and could catch me when I am
+not very busy, I should be glad to talk over matters with you
+more fully, and get your viewpoint more clearly.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+“Yours very truly,<br>
+<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">“——.”</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>And lo! the next time he was gentle and receptive. He chuckled
+over the query as to whether the farmers in his State sowed wheat
+as thick as the soil would hold it, and whether they planted potatoes
+4 inches apart or over 2 feet apart, and if babies didn’t need
+space just like crops. He answered, “That’s so, that’s so,” and
+presently he was advising us to get the Health Committee to commend
+the bill to the Judiciary Committee, which would undoubtedly
+act on the advice.</p>
+
+<p>Our next most spontaneous and unique antagonist was one of
+the leading orators of the Senate, who delivered this little speech on
+the mere sight of our card bearing the name “Voluntary Parenthood
+League”: “All these leagues and welfare organizations, no
+matter how fair they look on the outside or how well they speak
+or write, are all ‘Bolsheviks’ at heart, and what they really want is
+to overthrow the Government of the United States.” The mild
+suggestion that it might be rash to generalize brought a smile and
+the remark, “Why, yes, that’s fair,” and he pocketed the offered
+literature and promised to “investigate.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span></p>
+
+<p>Speaking of “Bolshevism,” here is another item from the interview
+notebook:</p>
+
+<p>M. W. D.—“Can the country expect level-headed citizenship
+from the man whose maximum wage isn’t over $20 a week, and
+whose family has increased annually for several years, whose wife is
+sick, and whose babies are hungry and ailing?”</p>
+
+<p>Congressman X.—“No, certainly not. Those men get desperate.
+They are ready to take up with any wild ideas.”</p>
+
+<p>It was just this point of view, plus the unemployment situation,
+which led one of the foremost conservatives of the Senate to consider
+for three weeks the sponsoring of our bill. He became convinced
+that “when father is out of a job it is no time for mother to
+have a baby,” and while he felt concerned that the rich don’t have
+more children, he thought that was no excuse for victimizing the
+poor by laws which try to keep them ignorant as to family regulation.
+However, he begged off from shouldering the bill, saying he
+couldn’t undertake it for so long that in fairness to us we should
+ask some one else to introduce it. He was the fourteenth Senator
+asked, and by that time the always sympathetic Chairman of the
+Health Committee said we reminded him of Diogenes, except that
+instead of hunting for an honest man we were merely hunting for
+a courageous man!</p>
+
+<p>An outstanding independent of the Senate, one of the truly
+“busy” members, frankly explained what ailed most of them. “Congressmen
+are such cowards,” said he. “Believe in it? Of course
+they do, and privately they will all say so, but that’s mighty different
+from sponsoring the bill. I know. I’ve been here twelve years.”</p>
+
+<p>A Catholic Congressman from an industrial district crowded
+with mill workers, listened soberly to the figures of the baby death
+rate in his home town (130 per 1000, as compared with New
+Zealand’s world record of 50 per 1000). The conversation went
+about like this: “Suppose we look at this thing practically. Do any
+mills in your district raise a man’s wages every time he has a new
+baby?” “No.” “Do you see any legislation ahead that will put
+wages on that basis?” “I do not.” “Don’t most mill workers reach
+their maximum wages at about the age of 30?” “I should say so.”
+“Is it fair, then, for the government to deprive these fathers of the
+knowledge by which they can keep their families somewhere near
+in proportion to their wages?” He looked pained and said: “It is
+surely a serious question. I want to think it over.”</p>
+
+<p>Very few Congressmen have even the partial excuse of belonging
+to a church which disapproves the scientific control of parenthood.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>
+In this connection it is interesting to note that a Catholic member
+who began by saying, “Even if I had no religion at all I should
+oppose your outrageous idea,” ended by asking for our literature and
+admitting he was relieved to find that we did not seem to be, as
+he had thought, an immoral lot who were assaulting marriage and
+the home; and he recognized the fact that our proposed change in
+the law was merely to make access to information legal, not to compel
+people to use it, and that, therefore, the change would not be
+an intrusion upon any one’s religious faith.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Sound argument and indisputable facts made very perceptible
+headway for the bill as the interviews accumulated.
+But the one snag which has always entangled the best of
+logic is the fact that the nature of the subject embarrasses
+Congress and therefore inhibits action, even though reason
+urges action. Over and over again have suggestions been
+made by members of Congress for trying to accomplish the
+repeal without having it show. Some of these suggestions
+have already been noted. Another came from one of the
+Republican leaders in the House who said, “If only you
+could think some innocuous <em>other</em> way to <em>amend</em> the present
+statutes, you could slip your clause <em>out</em> at the same time and
+it would go easily.” Another prominent member of the
+House advised, “Get your action at the same time that the
+proposed amendment is presented to add moving picture
+reels to the list of articles proscribed in the obscenity laws.
+While they add films, you quietly subtract ‘preventing of
+conception.’” A very well known Senator thought it might
+be “slipped through” as an amendment to the proposed bill
+to extend Post Office censorship to race track betting news,
+if that measure should reach the floor. (It died in committee.)</p>
+
+<p>None of these indirect methods has seemed wise procedure,
+partly because the little subterfuge would not work,
+and when once discovered would produce a situation even
+less to be desired than that induced by plain lack of courage
+to introduce the straight bill, but chiefly because indirection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>
+seems inherently unworthy, when it is devised to cover an
+attitude that is not in itself thoroughly creditable. Very
+great effort has been made to divert the members of Congress
+who are suffering from this undue embarrassment by
+urging them to give impersonal consideration to the justice
+and wholesomeness of the bill, and by emphasis on the fact
+that the bill does not deal with a new and untried idea but
+only reflects a condition in American life that has long been
+an actuality.</p>
+
+<p>For instance in 1920 it was pointed out to every member
+of the Judiciary Committee that if the bill dealt with anything
+which was “advanced” or ahead of the times or out of
+harmony with the lives of the average person, it would not
+have happened that one of the largest of the women’s
+magazines (with a circulation of over two million copies,
+and an advertising rate of $6000 per page) would have
+published a feature article entitled “Has a Mother the Right
+to Decide How Many Children She Will Have?”; nor
+would that magazine have spent thousands and thousands
+of dollars as it did, to advertise this special article in the
+newspapers of many large cities, using full and half pages
+for the advertisements; for the editor of a popular magazine
+is always canny enough not to give his readers anything
+which is very far in advance of wide-spread public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>They were told also that this same magazine followed
+that article with an editorial asking the opinions of the
+readers on the laws relating to birth control. A digest of
+the replies was made, and the proportion of those who were
+in any way opposed to the change of the laws was only sixteen
+out of a thousand who unqualifiedly wanted them
+changed.</p>
+
+<p>To help the members of Congress to displace their own
+sense of discomfort in merely considering this “disagreeable
+subject” with a sense of the actual suffering of others whose
+ignorance made them the victims of the present laws, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>
+Voluntary Parenthood League followed Comstock’s own
+method in Congress for the correction of his blunder, that is
+by submitting sample instances showing the need for the
+legislation proposed. The exhibit of 1873 was smut. The
+exhibit of 1923 was pitiful suffering.</p>
+
+<p>The following petition was sent to every member of
+both Houses of Congress, and was inserted in the Congressional
+Record of February 8, 1923, by Representative John
+Kissel, the Sponsor of the Bill in the House:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">To the Members of the Senate and House of Representatives.</span><br>
+<br>
+Gentlemen:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Just fifty years ago this month, Anthony Comstock showed to
+your predecessors specimens of the revolting, smutty literature which
+was then being circulated by conscienceless publishers among the
+young people of this country.</p>
+
+<p>The Bill he proposed for the suppression of this traffic got almost
+instant support, as the abuse was flagrant and the proposed
+remedy a natural one. But by an obvious blunder the Bill was
+drawn to include all knowledge of contraception, when the aim of the
+Bill was only the suppression of this knowledge in connection with
+sex-perversions—a blunder which has meant injustice, hardship and
+insult to millions of parents ever since.</p>
+
+<p>Now Congress is asked to correct that blunder, and just as Comstock
+showed your predecessors samples of the disgraceful traffic of
+the seventies, so we present to you herewith samples of the letters
+which the League constantly receives in great quantity from suffering
+parents whose lives are being made miserable by the error that was
+unwittingly made fifty years ago.</p>
+
+<p>Just as Congress responded to the need presented to them in
+1873, we ask you to respond to the need now presented to you in
+1923, and to correct the blunder with as much speed as that in which
+it was originally made.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Yours very truly,</span><br>
+Voluntary Parenthood League.”<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent center">(The original wording and spelling is given in these letters.)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>You have no idea how bad I need your help. I am 38 years old
+and am the mother of 6 living children and one dead. Have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>
+married twice. I have had a good many mis-carrages and in the
+last 6 years I have had 4 children and when your letter came I
+was in bed from a misshap. Now I am a poor woman live out on
+a farm 7 miles from no one and if ony you could just visit my home
+you would not hold back the information. Pleas do be kind and
+tell me just some little thing that would help me out. I will
+promish not to tell no one about it. I have not been able to leave
+this house for 2 years now and see hardly no one if ony I could
+talk to you in person.</p>
+
+<p>We had only two milk cows and one of them brote a calf and
+died so we have all the children to feed on the one cow and that
+cows calf. I kno there is no one that needs any more help in this
+world than we do to save the children we have without more coming.
+Please write and tell me how much money you want as if I
+can help myself I must do so at once. I will go hungry for the
+money to pay you if ony you will help me.</p>
+
+<p>I would love to send $2.00 but am not able to do so but I wont
+to read and have others read your leaflets. I do beleave that I need
+the help that I want of you as bad as eny one on earth but I am
+a poor woman and I gess it hant for the poor to have eny help
+on this earth.</p>
+
+<p>I beleave it must be stoped and I want to join you. It’s the
+most needed help on earth. Pleas send me all the papers you can
+spare and I will let my friends kno about you by giving your papers
+to them to read. Do pleas write and tell me what you want for
+a little truth and help. I will promish never to give you away so
+that the law will ever get a hold of you through no falt of mine.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Good by for this time<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>I was just reading a book called the Sex Searchlights and Sane
+Sex Ethics, and in this book I found your address and seeing that
+you will give people information on the topic you have in this book,
+about helping people to keep from becoming mothers. If they increase
+too rapidly. My case isn’t this. I have a little boy and
+the doctors tell me not to have any more or I will not be here any
+longer. I asked them how I was going to prevent this. All they
+said was find out. My baby was taken with instruments and I
+was between life and death.</p>
+
+<p>Hoping you will send me information on this topic at once,</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Yours truly,<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">My dear Friends</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Will you please tell me some simple remidy to prevent conception.
+I am the mother of 6 children and soon to become the mother
+of another. It is sapping my life and breaking down my health. If
+you cannot give the information please tell me where I can get the
+information.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Yours truly,<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Dennett</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>All of the literature received by me from the V. P. L. strikes
+an answering chord in my heart. I had so hoped that the Federal
+bill would be passed early enough for me to get and pass on the
+much needed information to the rural mothers, who are being broken
+down by child bearing and hard work.</p>
+
+<p>As a Graduate Midwife delivering eight or ten babies a year, in
+the course of my Public Health work I realize more than most
+nurses the pressing need of contraceptive information. I came to
+this work June 1st, 1918, and am leaving March 1st of this year
+because the doctor has told me I ought not to finish out this year if
+I’m to keep my own health.</p>
+
+<p>In these four years I have delivered six mothers of two children
+a piece and one mother of four, twins the 1st June, 1918 and one
+<abbr title="October">Oct.</abbr>, 1919, the fourth <abbr title="Februrary">Feb.</abbr>, 1921. This woman is 23 years old and
+the mother of six children. Naturally she is already breaking down
+and the children can’t get proper care. It is pitiful! There are
+three other women who have borne children so rapidly that they
+are on the verge of physical or nervous break down. If I send them
+to their family doctors they are given a tonic and told that they
+“will come around all right.” They do, in about nine months with
+another baby.</p>
+
+<p>If you can devise any way to help us please do so and believe me
+your grateful friend,</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+V. P. L.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Rec’d your pamphlets, thank you ever so much. So sorry you
+couldn’t give me the information I wanted so bad. For God’s sake,
+can’t you help me somehow. Am married three years, I have a baby
+two years old another five months old, and I am pregnant again.
+Can you imagine anything more awful. If I could only devote the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>
+next five or six years of my life to the raising of my darlings I am
+sure God would reward anyone who would tell me.</p>
+
+<p>I swear if I become pregnant a fourth time I will do something
+desperate. What I would say about my husband had better be left
+unsaid. Please, please cant you give me the information I crave,
+just one little line. I will pray for you every night of my life.
+May God bless you and help you along in the wonderful work you
+are doing. I thank you for anything you will tell me, and if you
+will not I thank you just the same. Once more I ask for our dear
+Lord’s sake please, please help me.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+One discouraged mother,<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+Voluntary Parenthood League:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>I have received the literature you sent and wish to thank you
+although it cannot help me at present. I may be able to help some
+other poor sufferer. I would like to become a member or be able
+to send some money but it is impossible at present. We are four
+months in arrears in our rent, the children have scarlet fever, and
+my husband was out of work for six months, then he invested the
+little we had in a business but we cannot keep up with our bills. And
+now this other expense coming again.</p>
+
+<p>I love little children but don’t like to see them suffer from lack
+of attention and care.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Sincerely yours,<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>I am writing to see if you can help me any. I have two children
+whom we adore and I am living on the prairie, forty miles from a
+reliable doctor, and no crops for five years.</p>
+
+<p>Before I married for several years I suffered with rheumatic
+arthritis terribly, but was free from it for several years. When my
+baby was two months old (two years ago) we took the “flue.” My
+husband took it first and I struggled around to look after the others.
+It was 45 below and we would have frozen to death if the fires
+went out. I was so weak was only able to put on a handful at a
+time and dare not take off my shoes or undress at all. My husband
+was inclined to violence and was just crazy. We managed to put out
+a flag but it was not seen for three days. At last help came after
+we had been sick about ten days. The neighbors (men) took it in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>
+turns to watch and nurse us in twos. Women are scarce here but
+one would come in now and again as they could. I had pneumonia
+and dysentry and I was unable to move in bed. Baby was taken
+away. She was nearly starved to death unable to get any nurse
+from me and I did not know it, poor little mite. We were able to
+get a nurse when we were getting better but our kind friends said
+they had never seen anyone so sick and live.</p>
+
+<p>I had been up a couple of weeks when I was taken with rheumatic
+fever, every scrap of my hair came off and I’ve had rheumatism
+ever since, and I have been unable to do the washing or
+clean the floors. My husband has had to do it all and he is about
+run of his legs with his own work. My right arm is crooked at
+the elbow, my right hand all drawn out of shape and both wrists
+stiff. Oh if you could only help me. I am terrified of the idea of
+having another baby when I can so ill look after those we have,
+besides giving them a share of my ailment.</p>
+
+<p>With my very best wishes for the noble fight you are making.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Yours sincerely,<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Dennett</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>After a long time that I have been looking for some one to help
+me, I finally found a friend of mine, whom gave me your address,
+and hoping you will be of great help to me. I am a girl of 25 years
+of age. Been married four and a half years. Had two babies, both
+with critical instrument cases. It meant either the child or my
+death. So there for I was never able to see either one alive for they
+were dead before I had opened my eyes, and confined to bed for 4
+weeks after. Am not in good health yet. If my last dear one was
+living it would be one year old the last of this month. It was a
+little girl, and the first one a boy. But you see I was left empty
+handed both times. Now the doctor tells me if I should have another,
+it would mean my life, as my bones are very small and wont
+give. And yet they wont tell me how to prevent it. All they say
+is its against the law. And if they would help me its very expensive,
+they say, as my husband is working and his dayly wages will not
+permit us to spend to much. So will you please advise me what
+to do. Of course its against the law. But I don’t see why it would
+be in a case like this.</p>
+
+<p>If you do help me, it will be very much appreciated by me. I’ll
+remain</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Yours truly,<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span></p>
+
+<p>In contrast with the struggles of the ignorant on whom
+the laws are still an intolerable burden, the members of Congress
+were asked to consider their own status, as revealed by
+themselves in the biographies which the members provide
+for the Congressional Directory.</p>
+
+<p>The biographies in the Congressional Directory are not
+uniform in the facts presented about the members, but a
+survey of those biographies which mention the children at
+all, shows clearly that a restricted and controlled birth rate
+is the general custom.</p>
+
+<p>The average number of reported births is found to be
+2.7 per family. The largest family recorded is 11, and
+these children were born during a period of 23 years. Successive
+annual births simply are not found.</p>
+
+<p>In the 225 Congressional families noted, the number of
+children is as follows:</p>
+
+<table class="autotable fs85">
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+<td> family has</td>
+<td class="tdr">11</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">2</td>
+<td> families have</td>
+<td class="tdr">10</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+<td> family has</td>
+<td class="tdr">9</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">3</td>
+<td> families have</td>
+<td class="tdr">8</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+<td> family has</td>
+<td class="tdr">7</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">7</td>
+<td> families have</td>
+<td class="tdr">6</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">16</td>
+<td> families have</td>
+<td class="tdr">5</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">22</td>
+<td> families have</td>
+<td class="tdr">4</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">40</td>
+<td> families have</td>
+<td class="tdr">3</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">80</td>
+<td> families have</td>
+<td class="tdr">2</td>
+<td>children</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">46</td>
+<td> families have</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+<td>child</td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+<p>Many of the Congressional families are smaller than the
+eugenists usually consider desirable. But however much the
+members of Congress, like others of the “fit” class, may be
+open to adverse criticism by students of race progress, the
+fact remains that the old Comstock law to enforce ignorance
+as to the control of parenthood, has long ago been frustrated
+by Congress itself.</p>
+
+<p>Alternation of logic with appeal for simple fairness and
+human interest has characterized the whole period of work<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>
+in Congress. No single approach to the subject affects all
+men alike. And while no appeal has thus far overtopped
+the towering inhibition which has held them back from acting,
+the combination of the different appeals has apparently
+prevented them from being willing to kill the bill outright.
+Almost no one in Congress wants to go on record against it,
+but they squirm at going on record for it.</p>
+
+<p>The special reason for giving here some of the specimen
+appeals that have been made, is in order to better facilitate
+an understanding of the cause of the inhibitions. For in
+that understanding lies the clue to their demolition. Toward
+the close of the session in the winter of 1923, when every
+effort was being made to bring out at least from the Senate
+Judiciary Committee a favorable report on the bill, and
+when there was only one day left on which the committee
+would meet before the end of the session, the following
+letter was sent to each member:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">To the Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>In again urging you to report out the Cummins Bill (S4314)
+next Monday (February 26th), on behalf of my league, I beg you
+to think of the request in the most simple and human way possible.</p>
+
+<p>The Bill is <em>simple</em> because it merely rectifies a blunder made by
+Congress 50 years ago. It was contraceptive knowledge in connection
+with sexual depravity that the original statute aimed to suppress,
+not the knowledge for normal use. The proof of this statement
+has previously been submitted to you.</p>
+
+<p>The logic of the measure is also <em>simple</em>, for the application of this
+knowledge in controlling conception is not a crime, therefore it is
+absurd to maintain a law which deems it a crime to learn what that
+knowledge is.</p>
+
+<p>I beg you to be <em>human</em> about it. Act on this measure as if the
+need for knowledge were your own, instead of that of millions of
+poor people. Suppose you were a young man on a small wage, with
+a frail wife and more children already than your pay could support,
+would you be patient on hearing that your Senators were “too busy”
+to spend the five minutes it would take to send this Bill on its way
+to passage? Suppose you had any one of the many good reasons
+that millions of parents have for needing desperately to get this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>
+knowledge in decent, scientific, reliable form, instead of <ins class="corr" id="TN-16" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: from heresay">from hearsay</ins>
+and in abominable underground ways, wouldn’t you put that
+need first? Would you stop to debate about the French birth-rate,
+or any other irrelevant question?</p>
+
+<p>Without speaking personally of individual Senators, it is entirely
+justifiable to assume what Senators <em>really</em> think about this question,
+for the average birth-rate in their families and their children’s families
+has proven it long ago. Can you then be any longer callous
+to the needs of millions of your poorer fellow citizens who, unlike
+you, are struggling with poverty and the whole train of worries
+induced by poverty?</p>
+
+<p>And most of all, can you not break through the <em>fear</em>, which has
+held many of you back from acting promptly; fear not of public
+opinion but of each other, the flippant, facetious comment that comes
+easily to the lips of many men, even good and fine men—in their
+instinctive effort to cover the embarrassment they feel because this
+question touches upon sex? Many members have admitted that they
+were inhibited by this fear. But can you not forget it, through sympathy
+for the suffering of others? Isn’t it more precious to you to
+be just and generous to your fellow citizens than to further indulge
+this fear, which in the last analysis could never be a source of real
+pride to you as a servant of the public?</p>
+
+<p>Gratitude and respect await your favorable action.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="margin-right: 3.5em;">Yours very truly,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">Director of the V. P. L.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>What followed is reported in the <cite>Birth Control Herald</cite>
+(March 8, 1923).</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>As soon as possible after the Committee adjourned on the twenty-sixth,
+we found Senator Cummins and said, “Well, please tell us
+the worst.” He threw up his hands and replied, “I simply could not
+get it brought up. When they were discussing the constitutional
+amendment which was the subject of the meeting, I gave notice that
+as soon as that was settled I should bring up the Birth Control Bill,
+and by the time the amendment was disposed of they had simply
+faded away.” “Leaving you like Casabianca on the burning deck
+alone?” “Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>We asked what members were present and he told us frankly.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>
+So we know who “faded away.” And we know who did not attend
+at all. The nearest approach to an excuse that any had who
+were in favor of the Bill, is that some of them were not present at
+the moment that Senator Cummins announced that he would ask
+the vote of the Committee. But they all knew beforehand from us
+that the Senator was going to ask the vote on that day, so the record
+stands squarely as one of evasion. It is quite true that most of the
+Judiciary members were genuinely busy, some of them very busy
+during the last few weeks of the session. But that five minutes
+could not have been found for allowing the probable favorable majority
+to vote to report out the Bill is taxing credulity farther than
+most people are willing to stretch it.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed Senator Cummins was quite candid in saying, “They
+simply don’t want to vote on it.” We inquired if it was not chiefly
+because the subject embarrassed them, and he assented. We discussed
+a bit with him this curious fact that human sympathy did
+not overcome embarrassment enough to just vote. We did not ask
+them to talk, merely to act. The Senator granted that the effort
+had been very educational. He added, “And, now as the farmers
+would say, you will have to spit on your hands and go at it again.
+And next time you will win.”</p>
+
+<p>We asked Senator Dillingham if anything mitigating could be
+said regarding the statement of Senator Cummins that the Judiciary
+members had “faded away” when they knew the vote on the Bill was
+to be called for. He said, “No, Senator Cummins was absolutely
+accurate. That is what they did do, fade away. And yours was
+not the only Bill they did that to either. They did it to some of
+mine also.” He said he was very sorry for our disappointment, and
+that the postponement was inevitable in view of the fact that they
+all had so many other irons in the fire, each one having a lot of
+special interests of his own that absorbed most of his time, and that
+on top of their preoccupation with other matters was their sheer distaste
+for a Bill of this nature.</p>
+
+<p>We reminded both him and Senator Cummins that the “busy”
+excuse was nothing new, that we had had that hurled at us at the
+very beginning of the first session of the present Congress. But
+they both agreed that with our bill introduced early in the next session
+and a Hearing held we should be in a position to expect results
+in a fairly short time. That many members of Congress anticipate
+the efficacy of our persistence is indicated by a chance remark about
+another Bill that was going hard, “Better get the birth control
+people to push it!”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span></p>
+
+<p>While the inhibition which has prevented action on this
+bill is still powerful in Congress, the maintenance of it has
+become increasingly awkward for the members, because the
+demand from citizens for the passage of the bill have been
+so very much greater than the demands for the retention of
+the present law. Two weeks after the first introduction of
+the bill, in 1923, Congressman Kissel, its sponsor in the
+House was asked, “How about letters in opposition?”
+Pointing to the pile of letters he had received, he answered,
+“Not a single one yet.” This fact was presently published
+in the <cite>Birth Control Herald</cite> and elsewhere, with the result
+that fifty-six letters in opposition came to the Congressman.
+Most of them were obviously from Roman Catholics, and
+a large proportion of these were in stereotyped phrases almost
+identical in wording. Some half dozen of them were
+alike word for word, all written in the same writing, but
+signed with different signatures, and without addresses.
+When Congressman Vaile introduced the bill, he had a similar
+experience. One group of such letters came from a
+middle western city in which the dictation from the shepherd
+of a church flock had evidently been acted upon with
+absolute literalness, for the wording was precisely the same
+in all, though some were on white and some on pink, some
+on large and some on small sheets. All were hand written,
+and all were signed by women. The formula for these letters
+was the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: Believing that the purpose of the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill is directly antagonistic to all Christian principles inasmuch as
+it would legalize practices which are a perversion of the divine object
+of marriage, and a direct insult to motherhood of America, I therefore
+urge you to do all in your power to defeat this bill.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Respectfully yours,<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">____.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The <cite>Birth Control Herald</cite> published the above letter
+with the following editorial comment:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>What is the matter with the Catholics? Can’t they think or
+speak for themselves, or can’t they be trusted to do so? Must they
+be dictated to, even to the “respectfully yours”? And what is the
+matter with the oracle who did the dictating? He seems to have
+issued his directions without knowing what the provisions of the
+Cummins-Vaile Bill are. There is nothing in the bill or back of
+it which is “directly antagonistic to all Christian principle.” Quite
+the contrary inasmuch as the bill merely aims to enable people to
+find out what is true about the control of conception. And was it
+not the initiator of Christianity who said, “Ye shall know the truth
+and the truth shall make you free”? The bill takes no stand whatever
+on the application of this knowledge. It leaves that entirely
+to the conscience and judgment of the citizen. Catholics will be
+free to do as they are taught. Others will be free to do as they
+think best.</p>
+
+<p>Again the Catholic oracle is in error about the bill, when he says
+“it would legalize practices that are a perversion of the divine object
+of marriage.” He obviously means the control of conception.
+But the control of conception is entirely legal now in the United
+States, everywhere, except in the State of Connecticut. The passage
+of the Cummins-Vaile Bill will not affect its legal status a particle.
+The only thing that is now illegal the country over is the
+circulation of information as to how conception may be controlled.
+That is, the act of controlling parenthood is no crime, but finding
+out how is a felony.</p>
+
+<p>The bill a “direct insult to the motherhood of America.” How
+so? Are mothers insulted by having an opportunity to gain knowledge?
+And conversely, are they honored by being kept in compulsory
+ignorance?</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Roman Catholics who spoke in opposition to the
+bill at the Hearings in 1924, claimed to represent several millions
+of individuals, but none of them gave any evidence that
+the individuals had been consulted, or had taken any mass
+action in conventions, meetings or the like. Leaders simply
+spoke for the members of the church, en masse, and assumed
+their opposition to the Cummins-Vaile Bill because the
+Church teaching has been that the control of conception is
+wrong. They discussed the question of birth control rather
+than the issue of the bill, which is only the right of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>
+citizen to be able to find out, lawfully, what birth control is.
+It does not necessarily follow that Catholic citizens, who
+may most conscientiously believe and act upon what the
+church teaches regarding the utilization of birth control
+knowledge, are therefore opposed to freedom of access to
+the knowledge. Indeed there are some striking examples
+to the contrary, including a Catholic United States Senator.
+And the fact remains that the Church as such has not officially
+taken any stand against this bill. It has merely
+preached against birth control. It is interesting in this connection
+to note that in the last Congressional election, one
+of the leading Catholic clergymen in Denver openly advised
+his congregation to vote for the re-election of Mr. Vaile as
+he was valued far more for his stand on some other questions
+than he was disliked for his stand on this one question.</p>
+
+<p>During the month which followed Senator Cummins’
+first introduction of the bill, he received but one protest
+against the measure and that was from Anthony Comstock’s
+successor, John S. Sumner. The <cite>Birth Control Herald</cite>
+had this to say regarding the letters the Senator received:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Senator Cummins’ Secretary has courteously allowed the Voluntary
+Parenthood League officers to review the letters which the
+Senator has received regarding his Bill. It is a remarkably representative
+collection containing commendation from every sort of
+American citizen. The letters range from intellectual sociological
+appreciation to stark human appeal. Some are on important organization
+letterheads, and others are on poor paper in cramped handwriting.
+They come from doctors, lawyers, clergymen, educators,
+social workers, fathers, mothers, teachers, and just folks,—the normal
+thinking responsible-citizen sort of people. The happy mothers
+write, who are proud of their wisely spaced families, and they urge
+the Senator to push his Bill hard so that all the other mothers may
+have the knowledge that they have. The mothers who have been
+wrecked by their own ignorant parenthood write too, and say
+pathetically, “this Bill will help mothers of the whole country.” And
+the one most insistent message in most of the letters, in one form
+or another, is that the <em>thinking</em> people want this Bill passed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span></p>
+
+<p>At the bottom of the pile appears the eleven page letter from
+John Sumner, consisting of elaborate irrelevancies, and many inaccuracies,
+and, permeating it all is the revelation of his own cynicism
+regarding the moral character of the mass of the people, particularly
+the young people, who according to his idea, should be kept
+as ignorant as possible on this subject, because he is sure they can
+not be trusted with the knowledge. If John Sumner thinks to
+inspire the young by thus handing them a wholesale insult, he will
+perhaps meet an illuminating surprise ere long.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A large batch of the letters Senator Cummins received
+after his second introduction of the bill were similarly reviewed,
+and the proportion of letters for the bill to those
+against it was twenty to one.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_TWO_Chapter_IV"><span class="smcap">Chapter IV</span><br>
+
+THE HEARINGS ON THE CUMMINS-VAILE BILL AND
+THE AFTERMATH</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>Delay in arranging hearings analogous to delay in sponsoring
+bill: Joint Hearings by Senate and House Judiciary Sub-Committees
+held on April 8 and May 9, 1924: Mr. Vaile in opening remarks
+pleads for restoration of American freedom to acquire knowledge,
+which was taken away 50 years ago: Birth rate in United
+States proves that people want to get some information in spite of
+law: Catholic speakers discuss birth control, not the bill: Wages
+of government employees quoted as reason for passing bill: <abbr title="Professor">Prof.</abbr>
+Field shows historically that suppression does not suppress: Mrs.
+Glaser argues for freedom for scientists to learn and teach regarding
+control of human fertility: Mrs. Carpenter shows how Federal law
+operates to prevent Chicago Clinic: <abbr title="Professor">Prof.</abbr> Johnson gives eugenic
+view-point: Hearing reopened at request of Catholics: Lengthy irrelevancies:
+Congressman Hersey heckles the witnesses: Report of
+Senate Sub-Committee a sop to the workers for the bill: Unique effort
+to get vote of full Committee before adjournment, as aid to
+reducing inhibition in next Congress.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">The Hearings on the bill, and the circumstances connected
+with them offer further light upon the workings
+of the Congressional mind, or rather the reaction of Congressional
+feeling concerning this subject. With all due allowance
+for the fact that the Congressional calendar is always
+“crowded” and that most legislation in the nature of
+things under the present system may, and usually does, move
+very slowly, there has been every evidence that the impulse
+to postpone committee consideration and action on this bill
+as long as possible was most compelling in the Judiciary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>
+Committee of both Houses. It was a replica of the hedging
+about sponsoring the bill, which had characterized the few
+preceding years, when the various desired sponsors “passed
+the buck” by saying at the beginning of a session that they
+were so very busy getting their “important” projects started
+they could not stop to consider taking on this measure too,
+and toward the close of a session they were similarly so
+driven finishing up their “important” projects that they
+couldn’t think of anything else, and in the middle of a
+session they were just as able to find “alibis” as at any other
+time. As Senator Cummins has repeatedly said, “The men
+dislike the thing so!”</p>
+
+<p>The last introduction of the bill was made fairly early
+in the first session of the new Congress, that is on January
+30th. Yet it was not until the middle of March that the
+Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee could be persuaded
+to appoint the necessary sub-committee in order that
+a hearing might be held. And it was not till a week later
+still that the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
+decided as to which of the three standing sub-committees he
+would refer the bill. The first Hearing was held on April
+8th, jointly by the Senate and House sub-committees as a
+time saving arrangement. The Sub-committee chairman declined
+to ask their committees for a vote on reporting the
+bill until after the testimony given at the hearing should be
+printed. Weeks of delay followed before the printing was
+achieved. During this time it became obvious that some
+plan was holding things up and presently it appeared. The
+hearing was to be reopened at the request of the Roman
+Catholics. At the first hearing the chairman had made the
+usual inquiry, “Is there any other opponent of the bill that
+desires to be heard?” There was no one. The opposition
+had exhausted its resources with five speakers, so the hearing
+continued with the testimony of the remaining four out
+of the ten speakers in favor of the bill.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span></p>
+
+<p>At the second hearing which did not come till May 9th
+no new points were made, but a very long paper was read
+elaborating the Roman Catholic arguments against birth
+control and emphasizing the fact that the Catholics were
+not willing to trust their own people if access to contraceptive
+information were made lawful. This delay carried
+over consideration of the bill by the sub-committee so late
+into the session that they claimed it would not be possible to
+make a report and have it acted upon by the full Judiciary
+Committee previous to adjournment. And the relief of some
+of the members over once more putting off action on “the
+birth control bill” was plainly evident. This relief was
+covered (in many instances unconsciously so) by all sorts of
+argument which was quite irrelevant to the bill, but which
+served well enough as a means of making the question seem
+vastly complicated and one over which a conscientious law
+maker must ponder long and hard. In the strenuous effort
+which was made to secure at least a committee report before
+the adjournment of Congress, the following appeal to
+stick to the point was sent by the Director of the Voluntary
+Parenthood League to every member of the Judiciary Committee:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Judging by conversation with members of the Judiciary Sub-Committee,
+there seems to be a great temptation to discuss the
+Cummins-Vaile Bill emotionally rather than logically. As all the
+members are lawyers, I hope it will not be taken amiss to urge
+that, at the meeting to decide on reporting the bill, the discussion
+will be strictly limited to the <span class="smcap">Law</span> points.</p>
+
+<p>I respectfully venture this suggestion because of the short time
+remaining in which to act during the present session, and not because
+the ramifications of the subject of the bill are not important.
+They are indeed. And we, who are specially voicing the public
+need for this bill are, in common with the members of the Sub-Committees,
+deeply interested in the problem of population, sex
+education, the morality of the young, and all other questions allied
+to the control of parenthood. But we realize that they are outside
+the practicable and legitimate field of legislation. They are problems<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>
+in sociology and education. They therefore should not be
+entangled at this time with the very simple reasons for reporting
+out this bill at once.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>(A brief résumé of the reasons followed which is not
+given here because a similar and more comprehensive one is
+to be given later.)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Congress might be excused for not repealing these defunct laws
+long ago, on its own initiative. But now that large numbers of citizens
+have, for five years, been definitely asking Congress to act, there
+can be no tenable excuse for not making an immediate and favorable
+report.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the temptation to postpone decision and to befog
+the issue with irrelevancies won for that session, and the bill
+had to go over to the short session the following December.</p>
+
+<p>The Hearings Report gives many significant side lights
+as to the psychology of those who appeared for and against
+the bill, and of certain members of the Judiciary Committee.
+It is impracticable to quote lavishly here from the
+seventy-nine pages of the document. But a few of the
+remarks which bear most pertinently on the salient points
+for the bill and some which indicate the attitude of the committee
+members may well be noted.</p>
+
+<p>The members of the Senate Sub-Committee were Senators
+Spencer of Missouri, Norris of Nebraska and Overman
+of North Carolina, and the members of the House
+Sub-Committee were Congressmen Yates of Illinois, Hersey
+of Maine, Perlman of New York, Larson of Minnesota,
+Thomas of Kentucky, Major of Missouri and O’Sullivan of
+Connecticut. Senator Spencer presided.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Vaile in his opening remarks said: “These bills
+do not propose any new or strange legislation, and these
+bills themselves do not propose to teach birth control.” He
+was at once interrupted by Mr. Hersey who asked, “You
+said that this is no new matter. Is there any legislation of
+this sort that has been passed hitherto?” To which Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>
+Vaile replied, “The legislation on this matter consists of
+our statutes classifying contraceptives as obscene of themselves.
+We are the only country in the world having this
+legislation. We did not have it prior to 1873. The bill,
+therefore, proposes no new or affirmative doctrine. It
+simply proposes to make lawful what was lawful in the
+United States prior to 1873. It does not propose to do
+this by any new or affirmative legislation, but by simply striking
+those provisions from five sections of our Penal Code.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let me, at the outset, refer to a question which immediately
+bobs up in the minds of everybody with whom you
+discuss this subject. They say, “It will promote immorality.”
+Let me ask the committee, in all fairness, if the morality
+of this country is strikingly superior now to what it was
+before 1873. You can not pick up a daily paper, you can
+not go into a church, you can not hear a subject of public
+morals discussed to any great length by any speaker but
+what you will be advised that we are at a lower stage of
+morals than we were 50 years ago. Fifty years ago we
+did not have such a statute on our books. Certainly the
+insertion of this proviso in our statutes has not noticeably
+increased the morality of the United States. It is common
+knowledge that methods of contraception are used by the
+educated, the well-to-do classes of the community. Would
+anybody say that these classes are conspicuously less moral
+than those who can not obtain this information and have
+no knowledge of it? I think that would be a great reflection
+on many people, with certainly a highly developed civic
+consciousness, people prominent in every good work of the
+community, all of whom as a matter of common knowledge,
+of which this committee can take judicial notice, do have and
+use this information....</p>
+
+<p>“I submit, in all fairness, by merely removing the provisions
+which we put into the code 50 years ago, and which
+did not exist theretofore, we won’t be rushing on a downward<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>
+path, so far as we can judge by our own experience
+of that of any other country.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, that raises another question. Is lack of knowledge
+the best method or even a safe method to prevent vice?
+Would you insult your daughters by insinuating to them
+that it is only because they can not get such information as
+this that they remain good? Of course you would not.
+Why, then, pass that insult to every other daughter in the
+United States?</p>
+
+<p>“And, furthermore, if this knowledge can be obtained,
+though unlawfully—and we all know that it can be obtained
+unlawfully, or at least without the sanction of law—if it can
+be obtained, why, then, merely to make it illegal is a very
+poor way to protect anybody’s morality, because they can
+certainly get the information.”</p>
+
+<p>At the close of his remarks Mr. Vaile introduced the
+writer, who in turn introduced the other witnesses for the
+bill. Her own remarks included the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>If agreeable to the gentlemen of the committee, we will divide
+the testimony that we will present to you under two different categories.
+One, the direct reasons for the passage of this bill from the
+point of view of law and the rights of citizens. The other bits
+of testimony that we are ready to present to you if you desire and
+if agreeable to you, are certain evidences that the utilization of
+this knowledge in this country and throughout the world has tended
+toward racial and individual welfare.</p>
+
+<p>This is not logically and directly speaking necessarily an argument
+for the passage of this bill, but it is distinctly reassuring, I
+should say, to Congress when it stands for this measure, to know
+that the action is in harmony with what has been generally considered
+by all impartial observers as something which makes for
+race progress and race betterment.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with the logic, which is less human but possibly more
+convincing to a committee made up exclusively of lawyers; the continuance
+of the five statutes which this bill proposes to amend seems
+to us not tenable, either on grounds of justice or public policy,
+because first, the majority of the people do not approve of the suppression
+of knowledge of the regulation of parenthood by the control<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>
+of conception. When I make this somewhat dogmatic statement
+I offer to you the best and most conclusive proof there is,
+namely, the official figures on the birth rate of our country. The
+birth registration area, if I am correctly informed, covers 22 States,
+but presumably the population of those 22 States is of about the
+same character as the population of the remainder of the States, and
+therefore the birth rate, so far as is recorded, is an exceedingly valid
+argument.</p>
+
+<p>The birth rate for the country, averaging those States, stands
+at 22.8 a thousand. A birth rate that I might call natural, that is
+unguided by the mind of man and simply resulting from instinct
+and physical impulse, would run from 50 a thousand up, and 50 is
+an exceedingly conservative figure. Therefore, family limitation by
+intention has already long been in the world, and for a very long
+period, in spite of the fact that we have maintained for half a
+century laws which theoretically keep our entire population in absolute
+ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>No citizen, so far as I know, has yet come to Congress and said
+this to his Representative or Senator: “Will you please keep these
+present laws as they stand now? I personally consider the control
+of conception rightly classed as indecency. I have no knowledge
+on the subject, and I don’t want any. Moreover, I wish my ignorance
+legally perpetuated because I do not think I should be
+trusted with it. I need to have my Government protect me from
+the temptation to misuse it.”</p>
+
+<p>No citizen, I take it, has thus far come to you with that plea
+on his own behalf. The protests—and you have received some
+against this measure—have seemed to be wholly on the ground that
+access to this forbidden knowledge would be dangerous for somebody
+else, not for the people who themselves protest. Unless it can
+be proved that there are more citizens who deliberately ask to be
+kept in ignorance than there are those who want access to this
+knowledge there can be no justification for not passing this measure.
+In view of the proof which the birth rate gives, that the majority
+believe in, because they achieve family limitation, it is hardly likely
+that those who want to be kept in ignorance can be anywhere near
+a majority. Asking that others be kept in ignorance is not a valid
+argument for any legislation.</p>
+
+<p>The abuse of knowledge should be handled in some other way
+than attempting to maintain ignorance on the part of the population.
+The present laws as they stand are predicated on distrust by the
+Government of the mass of its citizens, which is an intolerable principle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>
+for laws in a supposed democracy. It is a principle, for instance,
+which no Member of Congress would care to expound, I
+think, let us say, in a pre-election campaign. Fancy a Senator or
+Congressman making a campaign address in which he would state
+that he deemed his constituents too weak morally to be trusted with
+scientific knowledge about sex matters. It is incredible. We do not
+ordinarily cast a wholesale insult upon our fellow citizens. We
+think too well of the average American to do that, and certainly no
+such insult should be found in our laws.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Reverend John A. Ryan</i>, speaking on behalf of Catholics
+in general said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>We regard these practices about which information is proposed
+to be given as immoral—everlastingly, essentially, fundamentally immoral,
+quite as immoral as adultery, for instance, or rather a little
+more so, because adultery, whatever may be its vicious aspects, does
+not commit any outrage upon nature, nor pervert nature’s functions.</p>
+
+<p>We maintain that these practices are detrimental to the family;
+that they are not in the interest of better families; that they mean
+the promotion of selfishness within the family and a great reduction
+in the capacity to endure, the capacity to face hardships, the capacity
+to do little things, to do the things of life without which there is
+no consistent achievement or any kind worth while.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Lawrence Litchfield</i>, former President of the State
+Medical Society of Pennsylvania, testified that he had</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="noindent">practiced medicine for 36 years. I have been interested in international
+movements for the control of and the abating of venereal
+diseases, child labor, and tuberculosis. All of these problems for
+the benefit of the human race bring us back one after another to
+the necessity for intelligent birth control. The human race has the
+same right and need for scientific development that other animals
+have. We have many laws and many books and many theories that
+control the breeding of animals, but the breeding of human beings
+is left entirely to chance.</p>
+
+<p><i>Senator Spencer</i>: Is there any law in Pennsylvania against a
+physician freely communicating to his patients?</p>
+
+<p><i>Doctor Litchfield</i>: Yes. If a patient of mine whom I believe
+would be seriously injured by not having the information to prevent
+conception wrote me for such information I am legally unable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>
+to send it to her. If she comes into my office and the doors are
+locked, I tell her what I think is wise.</p>
+
+<p><i>Senator Spencer</i>: Do the doors necessarily have to be locked?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: The information can not be given publicly.</p>
+
+<p><i>Senator Spencer</i>: But I mean, there is no law in Pennsylvania
+is there, which prevents a doctor from communicating information
+of this sort to his patients?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: There is, as I understand it. I might say,
+further, as a side light on this question, last summer in Europe my
+wife and I found a book which we read and thought would be a
+very good thing for our young married daughter to have, and I decided
+to import some of these books and give them to my patients
+who were recently married. I send an order to England and received
+an answer that the book could not be imported, because it
+was regarded as obscene.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. S. J. Bronson</i>, Secretary of the Voluntary Parenthood
+League spoke for the bill from the practical standpoint
+of the wage earner, and said in part:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Congress need look no further than to the vast arm of Government
+employees to find ample reason for the immediate passage
+of this measure. The human story revealed in the pages of dry
+figures of the official register is most compelling. It shows that in
+the Federal civil service alone there are 548,531 employees. The
+addition of State and municipal employees would carry the figure
+into the millions for the whole country. There seems to be no official
+statement of what the average Government salary is; but the
+director of the Voluntary Parenthood League has made an illuminating
+estimate by taking 100 names in alphabetical sequence from the
+directory in the official register. (It does not include Members
+of Congress, the Army or Navy, or post-office employees.) These
+hundred employees includes clerks, guards, charwomen, draftsmen,
+attendants, teachers, firemen, laborers, machinists, accountants, customs
+inspectors, watchmen, foremen, supervisors, a harness maker, a
+seamstress, and a judge. The average salary proves to be $1605.
+There were only 5 who get over $3000, and there were 18 getting
+below $1000. It is a fair guess that any other 100 names taken
+from the book at random would tell about the same story.</p>
+
+<p>Now, is it fair play for the Government to retain laws which
+try to keep its own direct employees in utter ignorance as to how
+to regulate their families somewhere in proportion to their earnings?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>
+As the Government can never provide unlimited wages for its servants,
+it ought at least to allow them legal access to the knowledge
+by which they may, if they choose, safeguard themselves against
+unlimited families.</p>
+
+<p>Please also bear in mind some representative facts about non-Government
+wage earners. In the peak of what was called war
+prosperity the average wage in the shipyards was only $1411, nearly
+$300 short of the standard set by the War Labor Board. The
+average wage of the railroad workers in the same period was $1137.
+Dr. P. P. Claxton, former commissioner of education, gave $630
+as the average school teacher’s salary in 1918. The average weekly
+wage of the New York factory workers before the after-war slump
+was $23.10, and in 169 sorts of factory work in Massachusetts during
+the first year of the war only a little over one-seventh of the
+adult males were earning about $25 a week.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time health authorities agree that a growing child
+should have a quart of good milk a day. Also that there is no adequate
+substitute for milk. At 15 cents a quart the bill for milk
+alone for six children would be over $6 a week. Of course, a man
+earning $25 a week can not provide that and all the other necessities
+too, and so his babies are puny. Or if they pull through it is at the
+expense of the parents’ vitality, or else charity steps in to save them.
+And when the children reach adolescence, the age when most of all
+they need alert, intelligent parents, the father and the mother—especially
+the mother—are worn out and dull, unfit to take a strong
+hand in rearing a race that will have brains and brawn and character.</p>
+
+<p>The point I urge is fair play for the millions. These, and other
+millions to follow, will for an indefinite period make up the actual
+majority in this country. They can not be left out of consideration.
+They are “the people.”</p>
+
+<p>We are bound to believe that on the whole they are decent,
+normal, responsible folks, who naturally love children and want as
+many as they can wisely rear; but they can not afford so very many,
+nor have them so close together that the family welfare depreciates
+beyond redemption. That parents and children should be crushed
+by the very things which ought to be the cause of their deepest
+happiness is too ironic. Congress surely has the heart to look at
+this matter humanely.</p>
+
+<p>All too often young married couples start out in life with an
+inadequate income even for the preparation of the first child, and
+the young wife finds she must continue working for the first year<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>
+at least in order to help meet the expense which the birth of a baby
+involves. No decent, self-respecting woman wants to become the
+object of charity.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, I ask you in particular to bear in mind the great
+army of these young married people, who are facing life and parenthood
+with high hopes and ambitions, and who have no background
+of financial security, with nothing but their individual earning power
+to safeguard themselves and their children. It is somewhat the
+fashion nowadays to decry the young people, and doubtless some
+of the worry is warranted, but also there are unnumbered thousands
+who long for and are working for everything that is fine and beautiful,
+including families of sturdy, well-born, and well-bred youngsters
+who will make the next generation. On behalf of these young
+people I beg you to enact this bill, so they may have free and proper
+access to whatever help science can give them in the vital task that
+is ahead of them.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Secretary of the National Council of Catholic
+Women, <i>Miss Agnes G. Reagan</i>, claimed that the bill requested
+Congress “to open the gates that information ruinous
+to Christian standards of family life may stream through
+the mails and flood the land.” She asserted that birth control
+methods are “all contrary to the moral law and forbidden
+because they are unnatural,” that they were “intrinsically
+wrong,—as wrong as lying and blasphemy.” As to
+the effect upon young people, she said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>I speak from a rather wide and perhaps a sad experience in
+investigating conditions among young people who have become delinquent,
+and in many cases their delinquency was due to the fact
+that they could secure at the present time information concerning
+such practices; and that that information will certainly be much more
+widespread if this bill should be passed no one who has had dealings
+with young people has the slightest doubt. The United States in
+opening the mails to this sort of literature will do something that
+would be fatal to our young people.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Professor James A. Field</i> of Chicago University, speaking
+for the bill, gave some historic proofs that legal attempts
+to suppress knowledge, especially that connected with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>
+sex, only serve to stimulate thought, increase curiosity and
+promote education. He instanced the situation in England
+about fifty years ago when obscenity prosecutions were instituted
+for circulating two hitherto relatively unknown
+pamphlets (both as it happened written by Americans,
+“Moral Physiology” by Robert Dale Owen who was a member
+of Congress from Indiana, and “Fruits of Philosophy”
+by Dr. Knowlton of Boston). And then what happened?
+The case (against Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant)
+came before the greatest and highest court in England.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>What would happen if the same high jurisdiction in this country
+took up a little pamphlet that nobody had heard of and such a
+pamphlet were taken up and challenged as destructive to public
+morals? Everybody would want to know what the pamphlet was
+all about. Well, that is what happened in England. There the
+pamphlet had sold to a small extent, really negligible in its extent,
+for 40 years. During the progress of the trial it sold to the extent
+of 125,000 copies.</p>
+
+<p>The solicitor general prosecuted the case and admitted those
+figures. He apologized to the jury; he said the case was a mischievous
+case in its origin and bound to be mischievous in its results.
+He said he was really sorry he had anything to do with it.</p>
+
+<p>The chief justice, in summing up, said everybody that had followed
+the case would agree on that, that no more ill-advised and
+injurious case had ever been brought before a court in his opinion.</p>
+
+<p>A competent observer remarked that that prosecution had
+put the agitation forward by 25 years; and, in fact, so far as a great
+many people were concerned, it created the situation as an agitation.
+A great many people would never have known of it except for this
+and do not know that except as having this origin.</p>
+
+<p>How about this country? There have been isolated cases, but
+so far bringing it to the attention of the people generally in the last
+ten years or so, that is due to what happened in New York within
+a decade. A nurse was working among the poor in New York and
+she was shocked to find that the mouths of physicians were stopped
+from giving advice to women about avoiding the sort of misery into
+which they had fallen. She found herself against the law. She
+started to publish what she thought were messages of health for
+women, but she found that was an infringement of the Federal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>
+postal laws, and her publications were suppressed. She then withdrew
+to England, which had passed this state of prosecution. She
+came back to this country with new enthusiasm, and before the
+storm was over she started a clinic. That was against the law of
+New York. Her sister was imprisoned in that connection, and they
+had a hunger strike, and all this appeared on the front page of the
+papers for 14 days or some such time, and the thing flared over the
+country. And out of that has come definite organization, definite
+propaganda, which I think quite frankly and calmly we should not
+have at all in this country if it had not been there was legal opposition
+against which people felt moved to organize. Now, what
+has this law, 50 years of it, and of the State laws that have copied
+it—what have they accomplished in this country?</p>
+
+<p>They have not stood in the way of birth control, which is widely
+spreading, and a very widely approved practice; they have not stood
+in the way of the sale of instruments of birth control. I think it is
+fair to say that anybody that is aware of what is going on knows that
+traffic flourishes for whoever chooses to take advantage of it, in spite
+of the laws. But the law makes it relatively more difficult, for
+people who are without reputation or character to get the sort of
+information and medical advice, and sort of chance to think about
+these things for themselves which the other people have.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>An exceptionally pertinent presentation of salient points
+was made by <i>Dorothy Glaser</i>, who spoke also for her husband,
+Dr. Otto Charles Glaser, who is the head of the department
+of biology at Amherst College:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>It seems to me that there is a slight misunderstanding on the
+part of the various religious organizations here represented, especially
+the Catholics, about the Vaile bill, and I would like to discuss
+it from the scientific point of view. I feel that we only stand on
+our rights as American citizens on this proposition.</p>
+
+<p>We do not object to the teachings of the Catholic faith on this
+subject for their own people. But we do feel that it is up to their
+own priests to advise them, instruct them, and keep them in order.
+They have no right to ask Federal aid to help the priests in matters
+of church discipline. I would make the same reply to any other sect.
+Suppose, gentlemen, that the Christian Scientists came to you and
+said that they could not keep their people from using doctors. Would
+you then pass legislation to do away with medical knowledge at the
+request of these Christian Scientists? We have no objection to their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>
+taking any attitude on this matter, but we do object to their method
+of forcing it on others. We wish to be free to create scientific values
+without their interference. This is very difficult in the field of
+birth control, because under the present law the scientist is not free
+to work in this particular field. In every other than the human
+species there is freedom. The United States Bureau of Fisheries
+have a corps of scientists who work across the road from us in the
+department’s laboratories at Woods Hole. They carry on experiments
+at Government expense with huge tanks of eggs and sperm.
+They limit the birth of the fish until such time as the temperature,
+season, and other environmental conditions are right, so that the
+young fish may have a square deal. But then America wants the
+best possible fish. The Bureau of Animal Husbandry is carrying on
+work in fertility, and I have a letter from Doctor Cole, the chief
+of this department, indorsing the Vaile Bill. Now, however, if some
+one is very much interested in problems of fertilization in his own
+species and wants to work in this field, to create new material for
+the use of the medical profession, what happens? He goes to his
+laboratory; and suppose he makes a discovery; if he then tells anybody,
+if he publishes what he has discovered, or whispers it through
+the keyhole, he is in the position of Galileo, about 400 years ago.
+He is likely to go to jail for giving his scientific knowledge to the
+world. In fact, the law tells him that it is obscene. He can, however,
+publish it in any other country in the world, except the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, we can not agree with the point that has been made
+this morning, that it is an interference with nature, nor grant that
+that is a logical argument. For scientific discovery and all medicine
+is an interference with nature, as are electric lights and plumbing.
+In fact, it is when we do not know how to interfere with her that
+many of our worst calamities befall us. The flu came so suddenly
+that science could not help, and few of us enjoyed letting nature
+run her course. In the case of yellow fever the Government scientists
+stepped forward and through birth control of the mosquito, a
+rank interference with nature, removed one of the greatest menaces
+to the South.</p>
+
+<p>Again, I would like to emphasize the right of every American
+to all the scientific information that we can give him and to insist
+that no group have the right to keep it from him. The scientist has
+not found that ignorance is bliss. Is it, then, unreasonable for him
+to ask why his Government, which stands for free education and the
+public-school system, should write into a law in this instance a faith<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>
+in man’s ignorance about himself? I plead, then, for the removal of
+this law which would restrict man’s knowledge about himself. Have
+we not faith enough in the people to let them have such information
+as we possess, or are some fields of science to be kept for the favored
+few?</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the point of restriction of experimentation, had it come
+up in other relations, would have been a serious thing for all of us.
+As an example, the man who discovered insulin, the only known control
+for diabetes, could never have made this discovery had he been
+prevented by law from having free access to the material and work
+done by others before him. There is much valuable material being
+published in European laboratories. If, however, any scientist or
+physician brings this material into our country for use in our laboratories
+that we may advance our knowledge in this field, he is likely
+to go to jail by reason of the fact that the law tells us it is obscene
+literature. It can only be done on the boot-legging basis.</p>
+
+<p>We have at present students at Amherst going into all professional
+fields, many to medical schools, but they may not be given
+any information in relation to this subject, even though they may
+ultimately want to use it for the control of venereal disease among
+their patients. They, like the rest of us, must just find out what they
+can as best they may.</p>
+
+<p>One other point I should like to touch on in regard to the scientific
+point of view: We hear a great deal about “interference with
+nature” and the “right of the child to be born.” To speak perfectly
+frankly, for a scientist this is nonsense, for in the light of the facts
+it leads to the reductio ad absurdum. I am sorry if I shocked the
+reverend father, who has just told us that these are things not even
+to be mentioned among Christians. The scientist must face all facts,
+sex included. The recent studies of bubonic plague in China have
+been unsavory and have been made at great personal risk. But some
+one must have the courage to face all of life, not selected sections
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>It has been found that every human female has 3600 eggs and
+every male liberates 2,500,000 sperm at a time. Now, if the “right
+of the child to be born” means anything at all it must mean, then,
+the right of the egg to be fertilized, for it does not become a child
+until it does. Which, then, gentlemen, is the sacred egg? I would
+say that it is that egg which is fertilized at a time when both parents
+are in a position to give it a square deal; to give the child food, care,
+and the sort of environment which goes to the making of a decent
+American citizen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span></p>
+
+<p>I say again, we have no antagonism to the churches. The scientist
+would simply like to be left free to investigate his material and
+to put it at the disposal of all the American people, without church
+interference. We simply want the American people trusted with
+the best information that we can give them about this matter; that
+all, not some, may have the right to use it or not, as they see fit.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Benjamin Carpenter</i> showed how the precedent
+of the Federal law had been utilized by the courts to suppress
+the Parenthood Clinic in Chicago, even though Illinois
+has no State law prohibiting the giving of verbal information,
+as elsewhere described in this book. Her closing
+words were:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>I ask you, gentlemen, is it not a shameful thing that when women
+are anxious to have children, and ask only for information as to
+how to space their children so that they can recover from one pregnancy
+before they are plunged into another one; or when they feel
+that they have had all the children they can possibly bring up as good
+citizens—and it is the women who bear the children—they want
+information, and it is refused them; in this twentieth century is it
+not shameful that any scientific information should be classed as
+obscene?</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The point of view of the eugenicist was vigorously upheld
+by <i><abbr title="Professor">Prof.</abbr> Roswell Johnson</i> of Pittsburgh University,
+formerly investigator in experimental evolution for Carnegie
+Institute, and teacher of biology in the University of
+Wisconsin and Harvard University:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>I wish to call your attention to the very great importance of
+this legislation for the future American racial composition. In my
+opinion only the immigration law and the projects for international
+comity can compare with this bill in so far as they affect the future
+of this American stock.</p>
+
+<p>There are two kinds of children—welcome children and unwelcome
+children. This bill will reduce to an important extent the
+number of unwelcome children. It will increase to a considerable
+extent the number of welcome children.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if the individual himself will cooperate in this matter,
+why should we not seize on that opportunity?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span></p>
+
+<p>We talk in the eugenics movement of coercive legislation, of
+sterilization, of segregation, and of the regulation of the marriage
+laws; but here is a case where the individuals themselves, many
+inferior individuals say, “I won’t have this child if you will show
+me how not to have it.”</p>
+
+<p>So I urge you not to continue the present law, which will mean
+absolutely and certainly a large continued contribution of inferiors
+to our stock.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, this is an urgent matter. If you let this go over
+for two years, into the next Congress, you are bringing on a very
+large number of inferior births that can be avoided. You know
+the number that are concerned in the immigration bill now pending—367,000
+a year; 367,000 a year is no more than you are dealing
+with here. Now, do you deliberately want to add to the American
+people 367,000 individuals, we will say roughly, who will be, on
+the average, inferior?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: How do you prevent that—how does this bill
+prevent that?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: This bill will make it possible for individuals
+who have difficulty in getting access to efficient birth-control literature
+to get it. At present 80 per cent of the married women are
+trying one way or the other to achieve birth control. The less-informed
+women are blundering along with inadequate methods that
+they employ for lack of better, but which they can not rely on.
+Therefore by throwing open the distribution of literature, putting
+this on a scientific basis, like any other science, anybody can go
+and get material from authoritative sources and thus make it possible
+for the individual of limited opportunities to get that reliable
+information.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Do you not think that that information, if admitted,
+would be found by the bad stock and good stock just the
+same?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: Yes.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: And are you not getting the proportion of good
+stock really lower by this method instead of increasing it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: No; I do not admit that. Take Wellesley
+graduates, for instance. Their birth rate is already very low. The
+existence of birth-control methods has already had its effect. The
+scientific group as a whole knows now relatively reliable methods.
+What we plead for is their improvement and equalization of methods
+throughout the population.</p>
+
+<p>The American stock is getting worse to-day, in my opinion, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>
+that is a very serious thing. But in view of the great disparity in
+birth rates which we have relatively between the superior and inferior
+stock—</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i> (interposing): I want to know the practical side.
+You claim this bill will increase the population in the matter of
+superior stock and decrease it in the matter of inferior stock. Now,
+how can you accomplish this by this bill?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: It is accomplished in this way: If you decrease
+the proportion of inferiors in the population you increase the general
+economic and social welfare of the whole population.</p>
+
+<p><i>Senator Spencer</i>: You increase the relative number of superiors?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: Yes: and absolutely also. If we increase the social
+welfare, then the superiors are willing to have more children and
+will have more children. One of the things that prevents superiors
+from having more children is the excessive reproduction of inferiors.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The appraisal of the merit of any proposed legislation is
+often facilitated by an inspection of the objections offered to
+it, and by consideration of the circumstances under which the
+objections are made. But to reproduce here the whole
+fifteen pages of closely printed words that constituted the
+testimony of the chief opposition speaker for whom the
+Hearing on the Cummins-Vaile Bill was reopened a month
+later, would be quite as much of an imposition on the reader
+as it was upon the Committee who had to listen to it, and
+upon the government which had to print it. It is estimated
+that it costs 50 cents a word to print the Congressional
+Record. Reports cost presumably about the same. But in
+view of the grave inhibition as to action which afflicted the
+Judiciary Committee, it may be that they felt grateful rather
+than imposed upon, for the delay involved and the time consumed;
+it put off the responsibility of doing anything just
+so much longer. It may be significant that the Chairman of
+the Hearing said at the close of this interminable statement,
+“We are very glad to have heard from you,” and no such
+similar appreciation was expressed to any of the other
+speakers.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances under which this second hearing was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>
+held are noteworthy. It came on May 9th. Ten days
+previous it was discovered that the reports of the first hearing
+were all ready to print, but were being held on official
+order. On May 3rd the Director of the Voluntary Parenthood
+League was told by the Secretary of the Chairman of
+the House Sub-Committee that the Chairman of the full
+Committee wished some additional material added to the
+Hearing Report, and that the printing would be delayed on
+that account. As several written statements had been filed
+as part of the testimony which there had not been time to
+have read at the Hearing, the assumption was that this material
+was another such statement. But by May 7th it was
+learned that the Hearing was to be reopened on the 9th.
+There was no publicity on the announcement and it was only
+at the eleventh hour that Mr. Vaile himself was notified.
+Fortunately friends of the bill came on telegraphed call, to
+be on hand to answer the opposition or the queries of the
+Committee.</p>
+
+<p>Another noteworthy fact in the circumstances is that the
+chief speaker for the opposition at this second Hearing was
+a young Catholic woman, a social worker, Miss Sara E.
+Laughlin of Philadelphia, who three years previously had
+joined the Voluntary Parenthood League, with professions
+of great interest. She had paid regular annual membership
+dues, which act, according to the membership blanks, constitutes
+endorsement of the objects of the League, the first
+of which is the removal of the Federal law which prohibits
+the circulation of contraceptive information.</p>
+
+<p>Most of her testimony was discussion of the morality of
+birth control rather than the question of the right of the
+citizen to have access to the knowledge, which is the point of
+the bill. It was a general denunciation of the birth control
+movement and the procedure of its advocates. The following
+excerpts are characteristic of the whole:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Miss Laughlin</i>: Mr. Chairman, in this instance I am representing
+the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae. That organization<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>
+is exactly what its name implies—a federation of the
+alumnae of the Catholic academies and colleges of the United States
+and some other countries.</p>
+
+<p>I am here to-day because I am in the position at present of chairman
+of the bureau of girls’ welfare in that organization, and therefore
+I must be concerned about such matters of public welfare as
+are involved in this bill.</p>
+
+<p>Because of a difference in training and a belief in the conserving
+value of a decent reserve, we are not nearly so vocal as the proponents
+of this bill, but see it as our duty to become more so, as it
+seems that this is necessary to safeguard the moralities which we
+believe to be involved in this question.</p>
+
+<p>Partly through the activities of the Voluntary Parenthood League
+and the Birth Control League, sex relations and allied subjects were
+removed from their proper place in medical textbooks and necessary
+instruction in right conduct by proper authorities to each new generation,
+and have become in many quarters matters of general conversation
+even in mixed gatherings. As a professional social worker
+who has dealt with a number of girls, I can not state too strongly
+the unfortunate effect of this general stimulation of discussion of
+sex matters, about which everybody admits from a scientific point
+of view very little is known.</p>
+
+<p>Just as we have never shirked considering any phase of human
+nature when human interests were to be served, we do not now evade
+our obligation to state publicly our point of view on the proposed
+measure, however much we regret the necessity.</p>
+
+<p>You are asked to “redeem the United States from the odium of
+being the only country to penalize birth control as indecency.” We
+think this is not an odium, but shows a wise concern for the mental
+and moral health of our people. We think it preferable to the English
+problem of recalling indecent and improper literature after it
+has once been released.</p>
+
+<p>We do not advocate the dissemination of this knowledge any
+more than we would advocate the dissemination of doses and methods
+of administering deadly poison. This sort of knowledge is in the
+possession of all physicians. We do not feel that we are discriminated
+against because it is not made readily accessible to us.</p>
+
+<p>You are told that doctors advocate the passage of this bill because
+they are not told about the control of conception in a medical school,
+and their patients keep asking them for this instruction. You are
+told frequently, too, that doctors are giving this instruction. Yet
+you are told that they do not have it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span></p>
+
+<p>You are told that “millions of self-respecting parents resent the
+legal insult by which the information as to control of conception is
+made unmailable.” We ask you to give your attention to the
+millions who are grateful for this provision, because they are convinced
+of the grave danger which would attend its removal.</p>
+
+<p>If we were concerned only for our own welfare, we would not
+raise our voices now in opposition, but by refusing to discuss the
+measure lend our passive assistance to its enactment.</p>
+
+<p>We belong to an organization which has stood the test of time
+better than any other organization the world has seen.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Yates</i>: Meaning—</p>
+
+<p><i>Miss Laughlin</i>: Meaning the Catholic Church. We could assume,
+therefore, if we could be guilty of such callous indifference to
+the effect on our fellow citizens, that this was a providential measure
+intended to enable us to inherit the earth. Following this line
+of reasoning, we could conserve our efforts and devote our time to
+keeping our people as free as possible from this pernicious propaganda,
+and reap the material rewards. Such a procedure would be
+contrary to the spiritual and ethical principles we have accepted,
+and abhorrent to any body of Christian people.</p>
+
+<p>I can not, as the organization proposing this measure presumes
+to do, speak for millions, but I can speak from personal knowledge
+of hundreds of mothers in whose homes I visit year after year in the
+course of work with their children. They do not want this information
+for their own use, and they do not want it circulated to be
+used as an insidious snare for their children when they have reached
+maturity.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Compare this last statement about not speaking on behalf
+of millions, with the seventh item from Miss Laughlin’s
+testimony quoted above in which she asks the Committee to
+consider “the millions” who are, she asserts, “grateful for
+this provision” in the present law which denies them access
+to knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>Compare also her statement of her individual experience
+with “hundreds of mothers” who “do not want this
+information” with the experience of both the New York and
+the Chicago Clinics, in which the proportions of Catholic
+women who request contraceptive instructions is sizable.
+The New York Clinic reports the percentage as thirty-two,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>
+and the Chicago Clinic as thirty. However, any divergence
+of testimony that there may be as to whether Catholics
+want or will utilize contraceptive information is rather beside
+the point so far as Congress and the bill are concerned.
+The issue is not as to whether individuals or groups want
+this knowledge but as to whether anyone who does want it
+shall have his right to get it recognized by law.</p>
+
+<p>The Chairman of the Hearing allowed a rebuttal to
+the Catholic testimony by the Director of the Voluntary
+Parenthood League to be filed as part of the Hearing
+report. It reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The question in the bill is not the control of conception but the
+right of the citizen to have access to scientific knowledge. The
+utilization of that knowledge is left entirely to the individual.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the testimony presented by the Catholic speakers is irrelevant.
+They argued the question of birth control, which is not
+per se before Congress. If the Catholics could persuade some one to
+introduce a bill which would make the control of conception a crime,
+the arguments against birth control would be genuine, but without
+such a bill they are not.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem doubtful as to whether leaders in the Catholic
+Church would wish, on second thought, to put themselves on record
+as opposed to the principles of freedom as to belief and action in
+private life. As they wish to conserve these principles as applied to
+their own right to teach and preach their beliefs, they may well take
+thought about trying to utilize law to suppress the right of others
+to do the same.</p>
+
+<p>There are about 18,000,000 Catholics in this country. As,
+therefore, they form less than one-sixth of the population, their protest
+against the Cummins-Vaile bill amounts to a demand that the
+laws of the country should be made to reflect the religious creed
+of a small minority.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, their protest against the bill implies a distrust of
+their own church people that will prove embarrassing to the leaders
+if persisted in. Since the teaching of the church is against the use
+of contraceptive knowledge, are the leaders to announce thus publicly
+that they have so little faith in the efficacy of church teaching
+and so little trust in the moral rectitude of the church members
+that they would wish to invoke the arm of the law to keep the people<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>
+in ignorance. If the church people can not be assumed to have the
+loyalty and strength to live up to their own beliefs, it is surely stretching
+the bounds of reasonableness for the Catholic leaders to suggest
+that the non-Catholic population, which is five-sixths of the whole,
+should go without this knowledge in order to protect the Catholics
+from their own weakness.</p>
+
+<p>The inappropriateness of the Catholic attitude is well brought
+out by the following excerpts from a recent letter from a member of
+our league to the chairman of the Senate Sub-committee of the Judiciary:</p>
+
+<p>“You would not agree that, at the behest of the Methodists,
+or the Elks, or the Young Men’s Hebrew Association there should
+be passed a Federal law to apply to the whole American public,
+which law represented merely a belief. You can not then, believe
+that a law should fail to pass merely because it does not accord with
+the Catholic belief. A law, being a rule of action, should not stand
+for what is simply an article of faith. The Cummins-Vaile Bill
+does not enjoin any action or the refraining from any action. It
+simply will give legal status to certain scientific knowledge and means
+which are now proscribed. No one will be compelled to learn the
+knowledge; no one will be compelled to use the means. No belief
+will be interfered with; no rule of action will be laid down. The
+principle of making laws to satisfy a religious group, crystallizing
+religious beliefs into rules of action for all the people, went out of
+this Government with the adoption of the United States Constitution.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Various inaccuracies in Miss Laughlin’s statements regarding
+the publications of the Voluntary Parenthood
+League were answered at the Hearing, but that part of the
+report is not germane to the subject of this book, except as
+to the correction on one point which led to a series of question
+and answers which give light on the working of the
+minds of some of the Committee.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: There are one or two other inaccuracies that
+it is worth while to comment upon. One was that this knowledge
+is already in the possession of all physicians. That is not the case.
+We have here the president of one of the State medical associations,
+who will be glad to give you further facts in regard to it. The fact
+that we receive quantities of letters from physicians asking us to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>
+provide them with such knowledge from our headquarters—a thing
+we can not do legally,—of course, is sufficient to refute that statement.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: You have just made a statement denying that this
+knowledge of birth control, if that is the proper term, is in the
+hands of the physicians of America to-day?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: On account of the laws, primarily.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Well, some one has got it. What proportion of
+the physicians of America have that information now?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: It is quite impossible for us to tell. I do not
+know that any survey has been made.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Who has thorough information upon this subject?</p>
+
+<p><i><ins class="corr" id="TN-18" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: Mrs. Dennet">Mrs. Dennett</ins></i>: Nobody, so far as I have yet heard, in the medical
+profession, or among students of biology, claims to have final and
+complete information.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Does the organization for birth control which you
+represent possess the information that you want disseminated now
+to the public?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: The organization consists of thousands of members.
+Do you mean all the members, or the officers, or what?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Any part of your organization.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: It has some information, certainly.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Is that information perfect information? Do you
+know anything about the remedy that you are asking for?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett:</i> It is not claimed to be absolutely perfect. No.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Do you know what you are asking this committee
+to do, madam? You are asking us to do this: To report out a
+bill here, assuming from evidence before this committee that this
+committee has definite information that there exists at the present
+time, in somebody’s mind, this information that you say is so precious,
+to be disseminated among the people, and which we know nothing
+about. We have no evidence that anybody possesses the perfect
+remedy for this evil of which you complain—the bearing of children.
+You do not claim to have it yourself, and your organization does not
+claim to have that perfect information. You can not point us to a
+doctor who has it, and to whom we could go for the information.
+You ask us to say that there is such a thing that the people can have
+if we pass this bill. You can see the spectacle that we would make
+of ourselves in the House if Members should get up and ask this
+committee: “Do you know anything about this matter that you are
+asking us to adopt; whether it is a remedy for this evil of childbirth,
+or whether it is simply some quack that wants to sell something, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>
+wants us to remove the bar, which is the United States law, against
+sending this knowledge through the mail or disseminating it among
+the people? You want us to allow that information to be made
+public, through some one who claims to have it, and you have not
+even an endorsement of the American Medical Association that there
+is such a thing as a perfect remedy for the evil of which you complain.”</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: It would be, from our point of view, the height
+of absurdity to expect busy committees in Congress to be themselves
+authorities on questions of science; and for us to demand the passage
+of a law that will allow scientists to perfect their own knowledge,
+which now they can not perfect, because of the law—</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i> (interposing): Why not perfect their knowledge?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: Because the law prevents.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: No; it does not. Somebody has this knowledge,
+perfected or not perfected. Is it perfected or not, now?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: It can not be perfected until scientists are legally
+free to study it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: You must have your remedy before you can send
+it through the mail. You are asking us to send through the mail
+something that is not perfected.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: Research work can not be carried on legally on
+this subject so long as the laws stay the way they are. That is the
+point.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Then, you claim that the research work has not
+commenced yet on this matter?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: I do not. It has gone on sub rosa, illegally,
+and on a bootlegging basis. That is a most undesirable basis for
+scientific research work. There are no exemptions for the medical
+profession to these Federal laws—none whatever—and I should be
+glad to submit to the committee the statement in writing from the
+solicitor for the Post Office Department, that there are no exemptions
+for individuals or groups of any sort. The medical profession,
+therefore, is most seriously handicapped.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Well, why does not the American Medical Association
+at its annual meetings, recommend that Congress pass a bill
+like this to relieve them of that difficulty? Why do they not go on
+record? Why is it necessary for your organization of women to
+come in here, without knowledge of what you are asking for?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Vaile</i>: May I make a statement, Mr. Chairman?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Yes; I should be glad to have you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Vaile</i>: My understanding is, that there is reliable information<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>
+at present—not claimed to be very great, but reliable, as far as
+medical science can get reliability at the present day—which we
+want to be able to send through the mails.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Where is it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Vaile</i>: Mrs. Dennett can tell you, I think.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: I wish she would.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: There are admirable publications upon the subject
+abroad. They can not be legally brought into this country.
+There are some publications in this country being illegally circulated
+by well known medical authorities, without the names attached.
+Their names can not be attached until the law allows. Otherwise
+they are criminal, indictable under the present laws.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Do you think there is some man of high medical
+standing in America to-day who has this information?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: There are a great many.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Is it possible for you to find one of those medical
+men of high standing in the profession to come before this committee
+and say that his experience has shown that this remedy that he has,
+even if secret, is all right?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Dennett</i>: We have one here to-day, and I will gladly
+yield to him—Doctor Litchfield of Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: We will be glad to hear from him. This legislation
+asked for is to make available to the people something that will
+prevent conception?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: There is not any one thing asked for. We ask
+for the freedom of the mail to give suitable information to suitable
+cases of methods that are applicable and desirable.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Vaile</i>: If the Chair will excuse a suggestion, I understand
+that it is against the law in the District of Columbia, following and
+going a little further than the Federal statute, to give, even verbally,
+information concerning birth-control methods.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: I am not asking for the information itself. I am
+asking this doctor, who is presented here as a witness, as an expert,
+if he knows—</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i> (interposing): I know several methods of contraception
+that are reliable, harmless, and desirable in suitable cases.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: And you claim that you are about the only man in
+your profession who has that knowledge?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: Not at all. There are millions that have. I
+studied in Europe, as a large majority of the profession do.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Then your idea is that most physicians in practice
+know what you know, is that it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: No; I would not say that.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: The best physicians would know it, would they
+not?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: Those who have studied abroad, and who have
+been interested in this phase of preventive medicine, know it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Is there anything in the law that you understand
+prevents you from talking with a brother physician and giving him
+your knowledge?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: Certainly there is. In some states you are forbidden
+to give contraceptive knowledge to any one, either verbally
+or through the mail.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Your remedy is effective, is it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: Certainly; yes.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Are you the only one in Pittsburgh that knows
+about it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I do not know about that.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Where did you get this information?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I got it in Europe.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: How many kinds of information have you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I suppose there are a dozen different remedies.
+Perhaps there are four, five, or six that are approved by those of
+experience. Most of the methods would be covered by two or three.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Have you tested your method?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I said I have; yes, sir.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Have you found them all right?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I found them harmless and desirable. I will not
+say that they are all right. Nothing is perfect in medical science yet.
+We are progressing, and we want to progress still further, not only
+for doctors, but biologists and scientists.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: If this legislation is passed removing this ban, would
+you publish your information?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: It would not be necessary for me to publish it.
+Others directly interested in that work would publish the information.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Do you not think there would be more money in
+it for you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: If I were looking for money, I would not be here
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Who is going to publish the information?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: The physicians have been writing books on this
+subject, devoting themselves to these particular branches of medicine,
+and will publish the books as soon as the ban is removed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Are you a member of the American Medical Association?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I am.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Why have you not succeeded in getting them to
+adopt this?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: The medical society has been very busy, but
+they will do this eventually. The president of the American Medical
+Association told me so. I met him in conference at Atlantic City,
+and he said all the members were in favor of birth control, and it
+was only a question of time that we should have it. I am not
+authorized to give his name, but he stands as the first man in American
+medicine.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Where you felt you had a patient bearing a child,
+who would be in danger of her life, there is nothing in the law at
+present that would prevent you from pursuing your remedy, is there?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: There is something in the law of my State that
+prohibits me.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: The proponents of this measure contend, as I
+understand, that some of them do not want to have the trouble with
+the child, they do not want to have the child on account of the
+annoyance.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: No; the statement that was made this morning
+that morality depends on opportunity for conception is an insult to
+American women. I have been practicing medicine for 25 years,
+and I do not figure that the morality of the young American women
+would be influenced in the slightest degree if contraceptive methods
+become public property. I think morality is something higher, and
+I do not think Congress is asked to pass statutes in favor of morality
+any more than they are asked to pass a law that everybody should be
+a Roman Catholic.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: When was this ban fixed?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: 1873.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>(For five years Mr. Hersey like all members of Congress had
+been receiving literature and data frequently, which gave the history
+of the Comstock law, and all the pertinent facts concerning it.)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: And the immediate thing desired here is the repeal
+of the prohibition of the use of the mails for these methods? If this
+law were passed you would be confronted by your State.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: We would have to have the State laws changed.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Do you mean to say that at the present time you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>
+are prohibited by your State law of advising a patient or communicating
+through another doctor methods of birth control?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: Yes, sir.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Major</i>: Do you not think that the main trouble in this
+country now is lack of children, instead of having too many?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: Too many children in a certain strata is very
+undesirable.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Major</i>: I remember the old poem, “There was an old
+woman who lived in a shoe, who had so many children she didn’t
+know what to do.” There was another old poem, “There was a
+woman who lived in a shoe, who didn’t have any children; she knew
+what to do.” I have heard that all my life.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I do not think that knowledge will prevent the
+average woman from having children.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Major</i>: But they do not have many children. I can remember
+my grandmother and her three sisters, four women married before
+they were 18, who raised over 11 children and lived to be over 80
+years of age. There are seven in my family. I have a daughter with
+two children. If it keeps on, her daughter will not have any children.
+That looks to be the trouble; the people that ought to have
+children do not. A bill like this, to put this information around in
+news stands, where it can be picked up anywhere, as these women
+say, I do not know how you feel about it, but I have always felt the
+very fear of consequences. I have felt that it would promote immorality.</p>
+
+<p>I want to say another thing to you, Doctor. I was State’s attorney
+in my court and my county, which is one of the best in the
+world, for six years, and during that time I suspect I had at least
+four seduction cases a year. There has not been a seduction case
+there now for 20 years. That looks like this information is leaking
+out in some way.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: It is not getting in the right hands.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Major</i>: It is getting out. I do not think human nature is
+changing, but those cases are only heard of when there is pregnancy
+in a seduction case, and there has not been a seduction case there
+for 20 years. When you go into different courts you do not hear
+of it, and it used to be of frequent occurrence, and the only explanation
+in my mind is that these people are securing from some source
+the knowledge to prevent conception, and the effect of it is that the
+people that ought to be having families, and I mean like the lady
+that spoke this morning—my idea about the best people in this country
+is that they should not bring up one or two spindley children<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>
+that do not know how to take care of themselves. They do not
+have families any more where the girls hand down one dress to
+another. That is past in this country.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>(The English in the above is unedited. It is reprinted exactly
+as it appears in the government report of the Hearing.)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I agree; but for every case of seduction there are
+over 100 cases of worthy, industrious, virtuous, loving mothers who
+are having their children too close together, and if they had the
+knowledge to space their children and conserve their own health
+it would be better than to raise such terribly big families and themselves
+be broken down in middle life by too frequent pregnancy. We
+are not working for the profligate who becomes easily seduced and
+becomes pregnant. They are an inconsiderable number compared
+with the worthy people that should have the protection that science
+can give them. The enormous number of women who die before
+middle life on account of too frequent pregnancy, whose health is
+broken down, so that they leave a large family of motherless children,
+could be done away with.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Yates</i>: Does that frequently occur?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: Yes.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Yates</i>: I have a daughter who had four babies, and she is
+fatter and prettier now after having the four.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: She did not have one each year?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Yates</i>: No. Now, the question I have had in mind that has
+been troubling me—would it not happen, if we removed the prohibition
+of the use of the mail—in other words, if the mails were
+thrown open would it not happen that every cheap publication in
+the country could advertise to send 50 cents and they would get
+this information; would not that be an evil, to have these things upon
+the news stands, in depots, and places like that?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I do not think so.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Yates</i>: I am referring to the masses. That is what I am
+talking about.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: I feel that legitimate sources of information will
+be the recognized source. I do not think that it will be a thing
+peddled on the news stands.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: What will hinder it?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: If it is peddled on the news stand it will not
+do as much harm by reaching the immoral as good will be done by
+the worthy, well-meaning, industrious citizens. The people deserve<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>
+health and protection, and the knowledge of science will give them
+that protection. I got a book in England that I wanted to send my
+daughter, and I was forbidden to bring it into the country because
+of the mails. They would not allow it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Could not you instruct your daughter without the
+book?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: No sir; my daughter is a citizen of Holland. I
+would like to give this book to all young friends, patients of mine
+who are about to be married.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Why not give it to the members of the committee?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield:</i> The custom-house will not let it come in.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: I would like to submit it to my home physician
+whom I trust.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: Would you like me to smuggle a copy in? I
+know how.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: You are asking us to pass something that we do
+not know anything about.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: We want the freedom to use the mails.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Using the mails would bring it in?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Litchfield</i>: But we are liable to get caught.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>(If the reason for the verbal fencing on the part of the
+writer under the heckling of Congressman Hersey is not
+readable between the lines, it is well to say that it was for
+two reasons, one the natural hesitancy of a layman to make
+specific claims as to just what the medical profession knows,
+as such statements should come from the physicians themselves;
+the other a desire to avoid being led into giving
+any information which would render the reports of the
+Hearing unmailable, under Section 211.)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: It has been stated that this is a distasteful subject.
+Gentlemen, it seems to me that even if true it is irrelevant.
+The Judiciary Committee must deal with many things, distasteful.
+But I do not believe it is true. How can anything which
+deals so fundamentally with one of the three fundamental things
+of life be distasteful? That is an utter inconsequential consideration.</p>
+
+<p>I wish to call attention to the fact that there is in some States
+a law that says that a refusal to cohabit for one year is a ground
+for divorce.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span></p>
+
+<p>A method of control of reproduction, which is sanctioned by a
+large number of people, that by the “natural” method—that is, abstinence
+at periods in the monthly cycle—is also prohibited as to
+dissemination by the mails by this law.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: You are giving us the secret?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: That is one of the methods, and is considered
+“natural” and hence not opposed by the opponents of this law.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Known to every woman in the world.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: Yes; and it is very unreliable.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Is it as reliable as your method?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: No.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Do you know the method advocated here?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: Yes; there are several methods.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Hersey</i>: Better than that one?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. Johnson</i>: Why, of course.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Although Congressman Hersey was the one Committee
+member at the Hearings who talked at length, his mental
+processes were by no means representative of the Judiciary
+Committee as a whole. Most of the others evinced clearer
+thought and a more wholesome view-point. But many of
+them were willing enough to let Mr. Hersey “go on.” Some
+confessed to getting amusement from it, and some were
+apologetic about his “surprising ways,” but all of them who
+preferred postponement to acting on the bill derived comfort
+from knowing that Mr. Hersey’s antagonism would
+furnish excuse for further “consideration” for quite some
+time. And it proved to be serviceable in this regard, for at
+last accounts he was still saying that the bill would never
+be reported out of Committee if he could help it; and the
+sixty-eighth Congress adjourned without seeing the bill reported,
+that is, not by the House Judiciary Committee,
+though the Senate Sub-Committee did give it a unanimous
+report “without recommendation.”</p>
+
+<p>During the next session when every effort was being made
+to produce a vote on the bill from the two full Judiciary Committees,
+the advocates of the bill were offered <em>still further
+hearings</em>. This offer was made by the Chairman of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>
+House Sub-Committee and also by a member of the Senate
+Judiciary Committee, both of whom gave as excuse for not
+coming to a conclusion on the bill after five years of consideration,
+that they were so “terribly busy”; the calendar in
+this short session was so “jammed with important legislation”;
+there was so much “stuff” to read about endless bills,—“I
+sent my secretary for the data on one the other day,
+and would you believe it, Mrs. Dennett, there were seven
+volumes,” implying that he had not had time to read the
+report of the hearings on this bill. Yet they offered more
+hearings, by way of still further congesting their own calendar.</p>
+
+<p>No one can deny the existence of a legislative jam in
+every session of Congress, or that business piles up appallingly
+in every short session. Three weeks from the end of
+the last session of the sixty-eighth Congress, Senator Stanley
+said on the floor of the Senate, “Congress has before it
+in the present session 17,946 bills, resolutions and joint
+resolutions. As in most Congresses, the large majority of
+these bills relate to private or local matters like individual
+pensions, buildings bridges, etc., and relatively few deal with
+public questions or national welfare.” The conduct of
+members of Congress under these circumstances, and the
+choices made by the steering committees as to which measures
+shall be scheduled for attention, and allowed a chance
+on the floor, and also the number and character of the unscheduled
+measures which are taken up and passed by unanimous
+consent, make serious food for thought for citizens
+with inquiring minds.</p>
+
+<p>Near the close of the session, it was obvious that the
+Cummins-Vaile bill would not be allowed any sort of a
+chance by the Senate steering committee even if reported
+out by the full Judiciary Committee in time for a vote on the
+floor without discussion. In fact the leading member of the
+steering committee was quite explicit in saying so. It looked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>
+as if the report (“without prejudice” as at first suggested by
+Senator Overman, and “without recommendation” as finally
+filed by Senator Spencer) had been only a sop to those who
+had labored for the bill, a safe tribute to their “patience”
+and “hard work.” However, the proponents of the bill,
+because of the inescapable conviction that the chief reason
+for Congressional inaction had been the “general distaste”
+of members for dealing with it openly, decided upon a plan
+for possibly getting a favorable vote from the full Judiciary
+Committee of Senate before adjournment, as a means of
+helping to break down the inhibitions of the other members
+of the Senate, and so to pave the way in the next Congress
+for easier and quicker passage of the bill.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Cummins, then Chairman of the Judiciary Committee,
+said he would call for a vote of the Committee on
+the bill at any time before the end of the session if a majority
+were willing to vote for a favorable report. It would
+require nine votes to win the report. The plan adopted was
+an unusual and informal one, a sort of layman-citizen’s way
+of cutting through the tangle of business. There were but
+twenty-six days left in the session including Sundays. The
+carrying out of this plan was described as follows in The
+<cite>Birth Control Herald</cite> (March 10, 1925) under these headlines:
+“A Mental Daily Dozen Prescribed for the Judiciary
+Committee by the V. P. L. as an Aid to Action on Cummins-Vaile
+Bill; Method Urged as Congressional Minute-Saver
+in Legislative Rush Toward Close of Session”:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Not to Walter Camp’s records, but to the tune of facts and reasoning
+arranged by the Voluntary Parenthood Director, the members
+of the Judiciary Committee in both Senate and House, were urged
+to stimulate healthy thought on the Cummins-Vaile Bill, with a
+view to reaching a Committee decision by the time the twelfth mental
+exercise was finished.</p>
+
+<p>This dozen of “setting up” exercises were prescribed as an aid
+toward overcoming the paralysis of the reasoning faculties, induced
+by the embarrassment of sex consciousness, which seem to rise to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>
+surface in the minds of most of the members, when dealing with
+the “birth control” bill.</p>
+
+<p>The “dozen” consisted of a daily sequence of notes to each member,
+each note covering a single point for the bill, and so short that
+it would take no more than two minutes to read. The plan was
+offered as a first aid to minute-saving in the legislative rush toward
+the close of the session. One reason a day keeps the “no-time-for-consideration”
+argument away. There are spare minutes despite the
+legislative jam,—observation from the galleries proves it, says Director
+Dennett, after her long experience in watching the members of
+Congress write, talk with each other, swap jokes, or have forty winks,
+while their colleagues deliver themselves of their views, at great
+length on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The twelve notes are given below. To save space the introductory
+and closing words of each note are omitted.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 6, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT ONE.</i>—Accepting the probability that there will not be
+time, before the close of the present session, to have the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill discussed at length, either in the Judiciary Committee or
+on the floor, we are asking each member of the Judiciary Committee
+to consider <em>informally</em>, the very few simple points in the bill, with
+a view to securing, if possible, a vote in committee without appreciable
+debate.</p>
+
+<p>We sympathetically recognize the fact that, under the existing
+Congressional system, <em>thorough</em> consideration for all bills is a physical
+impossibility for the individual Congressman, no matter how
+conscientious he may be; also that group consideration in Committee
+or by the whole House, is subject to great limitation.</p>
+
+<p>For these very reasons we ask that, as practicable procedure, a
+decision on this bill be arrived at by the above suggested method of
+informal discussion, with us and with other committee members, one
+by one, as leisure moments during House sessions permit.</p>
+
+<p>Just as we sympathize with you in your impossible legislative
+obligations, we assume your sympathy with us, a group of representative
+citizens, who after nearly six years of effort, are rightly asking
+action from the only body that can give it. So we ask your
+tolerant and cooperative reception of the memoranda of single points
+which will be presented to you in sequence during the next ten days.</p>
+
+<p>The first one is given herewith, namely, the marked article in the
+enclosed paper, showing that the main principle involved in the
+Cummins-Vaile Bill has been previously well argued by two distinguished
+members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.</p>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>
+
+<p>(The enclosure was a copy of the <cite>Birth Control Herald</cite> of
+January 20, <ins class="corr" id="TN-19" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: giving exerpts">giving excerpts</ins> from the arguments of <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Borah and
+<abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley on suppressing information about betting. See <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_13">Appendix
+No. 13</a>.)</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 7, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT TWO.</i>—Constitutionally guaranteed, old-fashioned
+American liberty is the issue in the bill. “Birth control” is not.
+The latter is properly a question for individual decision in private
+life. The bill simply removes the legal barrier to knowledge as to
+what birth control may be. In other words, it is a question of
+freedom of speech and of the press.</p>
+
+<p>Members of the Judiciary Committee are credited with judicial
+minds, and the ability to disassociate relevant from irrelevant argument.
+Much of the previous discussion, both informally and at the
+two Hearings, has been irrelevant; i.e., about birth control.</p>
+
+<p>The few facts which constitute the relevant arguments, have, so
+far as I know, never been denied by any member of the Committee.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 9, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT THREE.</i>—No law exists which defines information as
+to the control of conception as, per se, obscene, indecent or in any
+way immoral.</p>
+
+<p>This information therefore should not be legally classed with
+penalized obscenity, indecency and immorality. The Cummins-Vaile
+Bill removes it from this classification. But the bill leaves the five
+statutes in question, amply empowered to suppress any particular instance
+of this information, which is given in a way that warrants
+judicial decision that it is obscene, indecent or of immoral import.</p>
+
+<p>The existing laws originally aimed at obscenity, not at science,
+but because of hasty enactment, the scientific information was prohibited
+also. The Cummins-Vaile Bill removes the error.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 10, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT FOUR.</i>—The control of parenthood by the utilization
+of contraceptive knowledge is an act which is entirely lawful,
+throughout the whole United States (with the single exception of
+Connecticut, where an obsolete law making it a crime still remains
+on the books,—the only instance of the sort in the world).</p>
+
+<p>But <em>to secure or to give</em> this knowledge, via any public carrier,
+is a crime under Federal law (and also under the laws of twenty-four
+States whose obscenity statutes have been modelled closely on the
+Federal statutes).</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span></p>
+
+<p>To deny to citizens the use of public carriers to convey knowledge
+regarding an act which is in itself lawful, is a legal abnormality that
+should long ago have been corrected. The Cummins-Vaile Bill will
+do it.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 11, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT FIVE.</i>—There is no denying that the control of parenthood
+is already a general practice among educated Americans, including
+of course members of Congress, as it is among educated
+people in all countries.</p>
+
+<p>Our prohibitive laws obviously therefore do not reflect the policy
+of what we call our best people. When the universal trend of intelligent
+people is to get and make use of the contraceptive knowledge
+which the laws forbid,—that is, to become lawbreakers,—is it
+not high time to change the laws?</p>
+
+<p>The Washington Post, in an editorial recently said, “The first
+duty of Congress is to ascertain the will of the people. The second
+is to enforce and obey it.”</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 12, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT SIX.</i>—The portions of the present laws which the
+Cummins-Vaile Bill will repeal, are unenforced and unenforceable.</p>
+
+<p>The prohibition of the dissemination of contraceptive knowledge
+is probably the most broken of all the laws on the statute books.
+The existing traffic in contraceptives is appalling, from the point of
+view of law enforcement.</p>
+
+<p>If Congress does not believe in the existing laws enough to even
+protest against the utter laxity of the authorities, whose duty it
+is to enforce the laws, it surely should hasten to remove from the
+authorities the obligations which they will not and can not fulfill.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 13, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT SEVEN.</i>—One of the most shocking features of the
+unenforceability of the present laws prohibiting the circulation of
+contraceptive knowledge is the great and rapidly increasing volume
+of underground information and means which circulates despite the
+laws.</p>
+
+<p>This information is almost wholly unauthorized by reputable scientists,
+is largely unreliable and inadequate, is considerably harmful
+and dangerous, and alas, is even vulgar and smutty in its form. The
+means, which are camouflaged as for other purposes, are an opportunity
+for conscienceless profiteering, and, like the information, are
+uncertified by proper authorities.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span></p>
+
+<p>The only effective antidote possible is to make the circulation
+lawful, so that it can be properly inspected and made subject to the
+Drugs Act; and so that the first class medical experts may have a
+lawful and decent opportunity to denounce the quacks and profiteers,
+and to supplant their abominations with dignified, reliable, scientific,
+hygienic information.</p>
+
+<p>The Cummins-Vaile Bill opens the way for this tremendously
+needed effort on the part of our best doctors, who are now tied hand
+and foot by the laws, or are obliged to resort to the undignified process
+of boot-legging their scientific teaching.</p>
+
+<p>The doctors can save the day, if they are given a chance. Is it
+fair for Congress to hinder any longer?</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 14, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT EIGHT.</i>—The <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Louis Times recently published the
+leading editorial, which follows:</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center noindent">“<i>A Bill for Moral Health</i></p>
+
+<p>“Nothing comes closer to the minds and hearts of healthy Americans
+than the begetting, bearing and rearing of children. Unfortunately
+<ins class="corr" id="TN-20" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: this subjest">this subject</ins> has been relegated to the limbo of the unclean,
+the indecent, the nasty jokesmith; and much teaching and thinking
+has made it so.</p>
+
+<p>“A long step toward cleansing the people’s minds and hearts
+of the prevalent false standards, clearing the visions and correcting
+conclusions, has been taken by the Voluntary Parenthood League.
+But it has taken this organization of influential citizens five years to
+overcome the paralyzing fears that beset both rulers and people, and
+get the Cummins-Vaile bill into Congress.</p>
+
+<p>“Honorable physicians and scientists have been blocked from circulating
+wholesome information on contraception. Nevertheless,
+charlatans flourish like weeds. Practically every boy and girl can
+talk glibly of the subject, and their misinformation has come principally
+from foul sources.</p>
+
+<p>“It is time to protect physicians and social workers, and save our
+children from false, foolish and foul ideas of life, to make the human
+body and its functions clean subjects of definite knowledge and control.</p>
+
+<p>“Congress should pass the Cummins-Vaile Bill unanimously in
+the interest of public health, morals and decency.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span></p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 16, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT NINE.</i>—As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee
+has recently brought up a point which frequently occurs in
+discussion, it may be well to call it to the attention of the other
+members; i.e., that the control of parenthood can be achieved without
+the utilization of any scientific knowledge,—merely by abstinence
+from the relationship which results in conception.</p>
+
+<p>This is offered as a reason for retaining the law which bans
+knowledge of scientific methods.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from the question of the constitutionality, justice or propriety
+of such prohibitive legislation, it must be remembered that in
+the marital relation abstinence does not have the sanction of law.
+In many States refusal to cohabit, as an element of desertion or of
+cruelty and indignity is ground for divorce. Hence abstinence thus
+penalized is no free or practicable alternative for the compulsory
+ignorance decreed by the statute.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it follows that the only sort of parenthood which has the
+thorough sanction of American laws is the irresponsible, unintentional
+sort,—parenthood of no higher standard than that of the wild animals.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not high time to make the laws catch up with civilization?</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 18, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT TEN.</i>—Government officials themselves are guilty of
+flagrant violations of statutes prohibiting circulation of contraceptive
+knowledge. But they are not indicted for their crimes,—one
+more evidence that the government makes no valid effort to enforce
+the laws on this subject.</p>
+
+<p>The following recent instances are noteworthy:</p>
+
+<p>1. The Library of the Surgeon General has received and is loaning
+to readers the November issue of the American Journal of ——
+published by the —— Company of ——. It contains a report
+by Dr. —— on methods of controlling conception,—the report
+being the result of research by the New York Committee on ——.</p>
+
+<p>To mail the magazine from —— to receive and loan it in
+Washington are criminal acts under the law.</p>
+
+<p>2. The Congressional Library has received from England and
+has loaned to readers the new volume entitled —— by Dr. ——,
+published by —— London. It is a “Manual for the Medical and
+Legal Professions,” and is considered one of the best and most comprehensive
+works on the subject in the world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span></p>
+
+<p>To pass the book through the customs, to transport it to Washington,
+to list it in the library catalogue, and to lend it to readers
+are criminal acts under the law.</p>
+
+<p>The same volume has been borrowed by several members of the
+Judiciary Committee,—again a criminal act.</p>
+
+<p>3. In considering these instances of official crime it is well to
+note the recent utilization of the laws on this subject, to secure the
+imprisonment of Carlo Tresca, who published in his Italian paper
+in New York a two line advertisement of a book on birth control.
+He was notified by the post office that his paper was thereby made
+unmailable. The two lines were deleted and the edition was mailed.
+But he was subsequently convicted for the offense. President Coolidge
+yesterday commuted the sentence, after reviewing evidence showing
+that Tresca had first been arrested on another charge instigated
+by those who objected to his political views, but who, unable to
+jail him for those, resorted then to the charge of violation of the
+laws prohibiting circulation of birth control knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>Do not such facts point conclusively to the obligation of Congress
+to repeal these laws which are not and can not be justly enforced?
+To accomplish this repeal is the object of the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>: The names of the publishers and authors in the above letter cannot
+be printed without infringing the Federal law.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 19, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT ELEVEN.</i>—Fear to trust the people, especially young
+people, with access to contraceptive knowledge, is practically the only
+objection now offered to this bill, by members of Congress.</p>
+
+<p>Can it possibly be a sound objection in view of the following
+points:</p>
+
+<p><i>a.</i> This country is founded upon faith in the people. Does Congress
+wish to maintain laws which repudiate that faith.</p>
+
+<p><i>b.</i> Can any member of Congress who expects, and rightly, that
+the people should have faith in him to the extent of electing him, turn
+around and distrust them? Surely every member of Congress would
+trust himself with any known or yet to be discovered facts as to the
+control of conception. Surely also he would not consider himself
+unique in such trustworthiness. The American people can not be
+divided into sheep and goats in this matter, with the assumption that
+the majority are goats.</p>
+
+<p><i>c.</i> One member of the Committee recently gave it as his opinion
+that the large majority of young women in this country refrain from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>
+illicit sexual relations only from fear of pregnancy. On being asked
+if he would be willing to state this opinion publicly to his constituents,
+he answered, “No, I do not think it would be wise to do so.”
+Does not the fact that alarm is felt almost exclusively in regard to
+young women and does not include young men, indicate that the
+concern may be merely for conventions instead of for character?</p>
+
+<p><i>d.</i> Even if the assumption were tenable that most young women
+are “straight” through fear only, the indictment would fall primarily
+on the parents, clergy and teachers who would have to stand convicted
+of failure as sources of education, example and inspiration.
+Can any member of Congress seriously hold an utter distrust of the
+educational and moral facts in our civilization?</p>
+
+<p>As an opportunity for clean faith in the people this bill is unexcelled.
+Can you be counted on to be one who will meet it squarely?</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+February 20, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>POINT TWELVE.</i>—It has been repeatedly stated by many
+members of Congress that the main reason why action on the bill has
+been delayed is because of distaste for legislating on any subject that
+brings sex considerations to mind. Granted the existence of a certain
+embarrassment, does the Judiciary Committee wish any longer
+to stand before the public as a body which will permit embarrassment
+to displace reason and responsibility to the people?</p>
+
+<p>Members have told us that dread of being conspicuous in this
+matter has inhibited them. Such feeling is somewhat natural, and
+may have been more or less excusable as a reason for not acting when
+this legislation was first proposed in 1919. But now in view of all
+the data submitted, the long delay, and the fact that no substantial
+arguments against the bill have been advanced by anyone, is it not
+time to cast aside feeling and let common sense win? “Eventually,
+why not now?”</p>
+
+<p>We wish to honor each member of the Committee with the assumption
+that he will prefer to base his stand upon a courageous
+sense of decency and justice to the people, rather than on either
+embarrassment or fear.</p>
+
+<p>Regardless of whether there may or may not be opportunity for
+action on the Floor during the session, are you not willing now
+to state whether, in your individual opinion, the bill should have
+at least favorable report from the committee on the merit of the
+question?</p>
+
+<p>We respectfully request your statement as to what your own
+stand is, and enclose for your convenience, a slip and an addressed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>
+envelope. If our twelve points for the bill, which have been submitted
+in single notes since February 6th, are not now at hand, and
+you wish duplicates of any or all of them for review, we will gladly
+supply them on your request. The series will be made public, together
+with a report on the stand of the members of the Committee.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+<i>The Enclosure</i>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>I stand for a favorable report on the Cummins-Vaile Bill
+(S. 2290 H. R. 6542).</p>
+
+<p>I am opposed to a favorable report on the Cummins-Vaile Bill
+(S. 2290 H. R. 6542).</p>
+
+<p>I am not ready to state my stand on the Cummins-Vaile Bill
+(S. 2290 H. R. 6542).</p>
+
+<p>(Kindly mark which line represents your opinion.)</p>
+
+<p class="right" style="margin-right: 2em;">
+Signed .......................<br>
+</p>
+<p class="right" style="margin-right: 1em;">
+Member of Judiciary Committee.<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The nine necessary votes in the Senate Judiciary Committee
+could not be marshalled before the close of the session.
+One of the chief reasons was that word had gone the
+rounds, emanating apparently from the small group which
+controls the Senate program, that this bill was not to be
+included among those scheduled for attention at this session,
+so the Judiciary members felt little concern about deciding
+their own position on the legislation. Above everything was
+the sheer distaste which most of the members feel for dealing
+with this bill, officially. It touches upon sex, which induces
+embarrassment, which creates inhibition, which resulted
+in leaving the bill “on the table” where it was placed
+after the report “without recommendation” by the Judiciary
+Sub-Committee of three, before whom the two Hearings
+were held last Spring.</p>
+
+<p>In the House Judiciary Committee the situation was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>
+about the same. The Chairman of the Sub-Committee before
+which the Hearings had been held stated that he was
+sure that “not a single member of his committee <em>wanted</em>
+to vote on the bill.” He did not undertake to say whether
+they approved or disapproved the bill, but merely that they
+did not want to vote on it. He said he was not ready to
+express his own opinion on this measure, that he had not yet
+made up his mind, and was “too busy” to do so. But he
+offered to arrange <em>another</em> Hearing if it were desired. He
+was entirely agreeable to anything except action. But as to
+that he said, “I don’t see the use of trying to make reluctant
+men act.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_TWO_Chapter_V"><span class="smcap">Chapter V</span><br>
+
+WHY CONGRESS HAS BEEN SO SLOW</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>No one answer covers all reasons: Quiet request to Congress for
+repeal might have succeeded twenty years ago, before sensational law-breaking
+created prejudice: Laws defied without first attempting
+their repeal: Speeches and writings of early agitation not calculated
+to induce Congressional initiative: Struggle announced in advance
+as likely to be long and bitter “fight”: Shortage of funds for publicity
+on behalf of bill the second reason for slowness of Congress:
+Third and most dominant reason found to be general embarrassment
+over subject: Distaste, inhibition and fear, in varying degrees almost
+universal among Congressmen: Striking instances: Fears covered
+careers, colleagues, families and constituents: Fear on behalf of young
+girls greatest of all: Political opposition to birth control legislation
+mis-interpreted by “radicals”: Abortive attempt in Harding presidential
+campaign to use his tentative interest in this bill against him:
+Club women afflicted with inhibitions similar to those of members of
+Congress: It is leaders, not members who hold back endorsement by
+large organizations: Organized labor women endorse repeal ahead of
+club women.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">No one comprehensive answer can be given to the question
+as to why Congressmen have not yet acted on
+the removal of the chief of a set of laws which all of them
+know will inevitably be removed, and which all of them
+admit are not enforced now and never could be, and which
+they themselves, like most of the educated and privileged
+folk everywhere, have proceeded to break with impunity.</p>
+
+<p>However, the answer is not a complicated one. Part
+of the answer probably is that Congress was not quietly
+asked to do this thing many years ago, say fifteen or twenty,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>
+before the birth control movement had become a defiantly
+agitational matter, abounding in spectacular law-breaking,
+denunciatory meetings, jail sentences, hunger strikes, and
+general hullabaloo of the sort toward which most men in
+politics feel a stiff aversion if not actual antagonism. The
+birth control movement, as most of the Congressmen of
+the present generation have witnessed it, did not begin with
+any request for a change in the laws, but burst into flame
+about ten years ago with a sensational campaign to induce
+defiance of the laws on a large scale. It cannot be wondered
+at, since no one went to Washington then and concretely
+asked that a bill be introduced to change the laws, that Congressmen
+did not step forward on their own initiative and
+offer to do it. Their minds did not work that way. Instead,
+they merely looked upon all the “noise,” so far as they
+thought about it at all, as something with which they wanted
+to having nothing to do.</p>
+
+<p>It seems a fair guess that if in 1905 or thereabouts,
+when the effort of the seventies to repeal the entire Comstock
+obscenity statutes was well in the past, some group of
+“solid citizens,” lawyers, doctors, ministers and the like,—had
+gone to Washington and laid before Congress the fact
+that Comstock had obviously blundered when he included
+contraceptive information in the obscenity law, and that it
+was a very simple matter to correct the blunder,—it might
+have been done forthwith, without any particular self-consciousness
+or any struggle. But, of course, such a guess is
+incapable of proof, since no one tried the experiment at that
+time. And when it was tried in 1919, the later developments
+in the birth control movement had already stimulated
+and aggravated the aversion and inhibition on the part of
+the members of Congress which has ever since been the most
+serious barrier to progress.</p>
+
+<p>In looking back at some of the writings and utterances
+which appeared a decade ago, it is perhaps not surprising<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>
+that many members of Congress looked askance when in
+1919 they were asked to tackle the birth control question.
+For instance, “The Woman Rebel,” the paper which Margaret
+Sanger published and edited in 1914 in New York as
+her first message to the public, contained the following editorial
+announcements:</p>
+
+<p>“The aim of this paper will be to stimulate working
+women to think for themselves and to build up a conscious
+fighting character.</p>
+
+<p>“It will also be the aim of the Woman Rebel to advocate
+the prevention of conception and to impart such knowledge
+in the columns of this paper.</p>
+
+<p>“As is well known, a law exists forbidding the imparting
+of information on this subject, the penalty being several
+years’ imprisonment. Is it not time to defy this Law? And
+what fitter place could be found than in the pages of the
+Woman Rebel?”</p>
+
+<p>These items were in the opening issue of the paper and
+were unaccompanied by any request to Congress or the
+New York Legislature to change the laws, or any appeal to
+the public to try to have them changed. The launching of
+this message was also linked with other matters, which were
+far from an inducement to average legislators to volunteer
+to remedy the laws relating to birth control. For example
+in that same first issue of the paper was this by the editor:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>A Woman’s Duty.</i>—To look the whole world in the face with
+a go-to-hell look in the eyes; to have an ideal; to speak and act in
+defiance of convention.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Also this: “<i>The Rebel Women Claim</i>:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="pad4 noindent">
+The right to be lazy,<br>
+The right to be an unmarried mother,<br>
+The right to destroy,<br>
+The right to create,<br>
+The right to love,<br>
+The right to live.<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span></p>
+
+<p>And this by a contributor, J. Edward Morgan:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot pad4">
+<p style="text-indent: -1em;">
+<i>My Song</i>—a prose poem.<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I dwelt apart in a world of song,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But did not sing.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Biding my time, I listened to all</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">songs that I might sing, when my soul</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">should find its song.</span></p>
+<hr class="tb" style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 1em;">
+<p class="noindent">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One note clear, pure, lucid,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">telling all, answering all, unanswerable,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Song of Songs,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My Song,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Song of the Bomb.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This issue also published the I. W. W. preamble, which
+in those days had more power to alarm than it has had since.
+The July number contained “A Defense of Assassination”
+by Herbert A. Thorpe. Also this editorial:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The rich man places his wife on a pedestal and serves her with
+docility in order that she may be admired and he, be envied. He
+has raised her to the rank of queen. This deified woman is one of
+the new idols at whose feet plundering plutocracy lays the shining
+gold wrung from the sweat and blood of the toiling long-suffering
+masses....</p>
+
+<p>If we do not strike the fetters off ourselves, we shall be knocked
+about till we forget the fetters.... We have done with your civilization
+and your gods.... Let us turn a deaf ear to the trumpet-tongued
+liars clamoring for Protection, Patriotism, Prisons, Police,
+Workhouses and Large Families. Leave them to vomit their own
+filth, and let us take the good things mother earth daily offers unheeded,
+to us her children.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the July issue there was also the announcement of
+the forming of a Birth Control League, one of the objects
+of which was “to agitate vigorously for the repeal of State
+and Federal laws against the spreading of knowledge relative
+to methods for the prevention of conception.” But no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>
+officers were announced other than a secretary; no later
+notice of a program appeared; and the organization seems
+never to have functioned enough even to begin carrying out
+any legislative program. The magazine lasted less than a
+year, and over half the issues printed were declared “unmailable”
+by the Post Office authorities.</p>
+
+<p>The strident tone which had characterized this publication
+was somewhat modified by 1917 when Mrs. Sanger
+started the Birth Control Review and became its editor, but
+her chief message was still to break the laws rather than
+to get them changed. For instance in the opening number
+of the new magazine, two signed editorials contained these
+statements:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>No law is too sacred to break. Throughout all the ages, the
+beacon lights of human progress have been lit by the law-breaker.</p>
+
+<p>The law to-day is absolute and inexorable.</p>
+
+<p>The race has progressed but the law has remained stationary—a
+senseless stumbling block in the pathway of humanity, a self perpetuating
+institution, dead to the vital needs of the people.</p>
+
+<p>Against the State, against the Church, against the silence of the
+medical profession, against the whole machinery of dead institutions
+of the past, the woman of to-day arises.</p>
+
+<p>She no longer pleads. She no longer implores. She no longer
+petitions. She is here to assert herself, to take back those rights
+which were formerly hers and hers alone.</p>
+
+<p>If she must break the law to establish her right to voluntary
+motherhood, then the law shall be broken.</p>
+
+<p>Shall the millions of women in this State bow their heads to the
+yoke of slavery imposed by this law?</p>
+
+<p>Shall we sit quietly with folded hands and wait,—wait for our
+gentlemen law-makers to consider our right to voluntary motherhood?</p>
+
+<p>Shall we not instead violate so brutal a law and thereby teach
+our law-makers that, if they wish women to obey their man-made
+laws, they must make such laws as women can respect?</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Assailing and defying the laws without taking steps to
+change them, naturally induced a more dramatic situation
+than any quiet business-like expedition to Washington or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>
+Albany could have brought about. And as it is drama which
+attracts newspaper publicity, it was inevitable that the birth
+control movement should have developed an atmosphere of
+violence. And it was inevitable too, that Congressmen,
+without having any accurate or consecutive knowledge of the
+events in this drama, should sense the atmosphere of it, and
+stiffen accordingly, and should retain an impression which
+was very difficult to antidote later, when they were asked
+to use their common sense about repealing the law. Common
+sense does not readily over-leap prejudice.</p>
+
+<p>Another factor in the atmosphere of the movement
+which was developed at this same time, and which also seeped
+into Congress, and with quite as much damaging reaction,
+was the cultivation of the idea that the struggle was bound
+to be a very long and bitter one. In launching the Birth
+Control Review, Mrs. Sanger addressed this broadside “To
+the Men and Women of the United States:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Birth control is the most vital issue before the country to-day.
+The people are waking to the fact that there is no need for them to
+bring their children into the world haphazard, but that clean and
+harmless means are known whereby children may come when they
+are desired, and not as the helpless victims of blind chance.</p>
+
+<p>Conscious of this fact, heretofore <em>concealed from them by the
+forces of oppression</em>, the men and women of America are demanding
+that this vitally needed knowledge be no longer withheld from them,
+that the doors to health, happiness and liberty be thrown open, and
+they be allowed to mould their lives, not at the arbitrary command
+of church or State, but as their conscience and judgment may dictate.</p>
+
+<p>But those to whose advantage it is that the people breed abundantly,
+well intrenched in our social and political order, <em>are not going
+to surrender easily to the popular will. Already they are organizing
+their resistance and preparing their mighty engines of repression to
+stop the march of progress while it is yet time. The spirit of the
+Inquisition is abroad in the land. Its gaunt hand may even now be
+seen reaching out over bench and bar, making pawns of clergy and
+medical profession alike.</em></p>
+
+<p><em>The struggle will be bitter. It may be long. All methods known
+to tyranny will be used to force the people back into the darkness
+from which they are striving to emerge.</em></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span></p>
+
+<p>The time has come when those who would cast off the bondage
+of involuntary parenthood must have a voice, one that shall speak
+their protest and enforce their demands. Too long have they been
+silent on this most vital of all questions in human existence. The
+time has come for an organ devoted to the <em>fight for birth control in
+America</em>....</p>
+
+<p>If you welcome this Review, if you believe that it will aid you in
+<em>your fight</em>, make it yours....</p>
+
+<p>Raise your voice, strong, clear, fearless, unconditionally to the
+protection of womanhood, <em>uncompromisingly opposed to those who,
+to serve selfish ends, would keep her in ignorance</em> and exploit her
+finest instincts.</p>
+
+<p>(The italics are ours.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The work of the birth control movement was here laid
+down in terms of “fight”; bitterness and tyranny were predicted;
+the picture of a long struggle was outlined. These
+were the days when Mrs. Sanger at her many meetings was
+saying, “I have dedicated my life to this fight.” The newspaper
+headlines were quick to reflect the tone of this kind
+of thought. It unconsciously became more or less the habit
+of mind of the thousands who read the newspapers, particularly
+of those whose reading was limited mostly to headlines.
+And it was not at all unnatural that it also became
+the view-point of many of those who were active in the
+movement. For, sad but true, the world not only “loves a
+lover,” but loves a fight. The instinct to dramatize life is
+so compelling and so universal that it often leads to the
+overstating and even mis-stating of a situation, and to action
+that produces excitement and complication, which tends to
+postpone rather than facilitate a solution. The leaders of
+movements as well as play-wrights are sometimes not immune
+to the temptation to make a four act play out of a
+one act plot.</p>
+
+<p>To appeal for preparations for a “long-fight” against
+the tyranny of the “man-made laws” before the law-makers
+had been so much as asked specifically to change the laws
+would seem to be not only the cart before the horse, but a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>
+fairly sure way of prejudicing the case in advance in the
+minds of the law-makers. And this tendency was strengthened
+by the fact that so much was read into the retention
+of these old Comstock laws that was not really there.
+Granted that the attitude of legislators on this subject has
+warranted severe criticism, ever since 1919, when it was
+first put squarely up to Congress to do the thing that was
+fundamentally needed, it was simply “seein’ things” in 1917
+before any legislative effort had been made at all, except
+the feeblest sort of a beginning in New York legislature to
+describe the retention of the Comstock laws, as evidence
+of the “forces of oppression” which were “organizing their
+resistance and preparing their mighty engines of repression
+to stop the march of progress,” and to predict that “all the
+methods known to tyranny will be used to force the people
+back into the darkness from which they are striving to
+emerge.”</p>
+
+<p>The actual average legislator, when talked with face
+to face, proved to be the farthest removed from Mrs.
+Sanger’s vision of the “spirit of the Inquisition” whose
+“gaunt hand may even now be seen reaching out over bench
+and bar, making pawns of clergy and medical profession
+alike.” Instead he was merely repelled by the racket of the
+birth control movement, prejudiced because it had been
+linked with revolutionary “radicalism” in general, and embarrassed
+by the fact that the subject touched upon sex.
+Moreover he was found to be ridiculously ignorant as to
+just what the Comstock laws provided anyhow. It never
+occurred to him to demand their enforcement, and he was
+quite willing to infringe them himself, if his personal need
+required it. He did not in any way match up to the picture
+of an “oppressive force.” He was just a man immersed in
+politics, who had never been directly asked to repeal the
+Comstock laws, and had never dreamed of doing it by himself
+without being asked, and who when asked, hastily shot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>
+off all the “rationalizing” he could think up, to protect himself
+from having to take any responsibility about a “disagreeable
+subject.” That was about all there was to it. He
+would make a very poor showing in the rôle of an aggressor;
+in fact many of them have shown rather absurd indications
+of wanting to run. They were not in the least interested
+in the enforcement of the law. They just wanted to let it
+alone, not because they approved it, but merely because
+they found it uncomfortable to do anything about it in any
+way.</p>
+
+<p>A demonstration of law-breaking has unquestioned effectiveness
+as advertising for an idea; but its efficacy would
+seem more wisely utilized as a protest against a refusal to
+change the law than as a publicity appeal before any request
+for the change had been made.</p>
+
+<p>It seems regrettable that the experiment was not at least
+tried of asking for the change of the laws first, and saving
+up the law-breaking demonstration until either the legislators
+had refused or had delayed, beyond reason, to act.
+However, it was not arranged that way in 1916, and one
+may only guess at what might have happened if it had been.
+Perhaps the illegal clinic and the jail sentences might all
+have been avoided, and legal freedom for contraceptive
+knowledge through all the natural channels for its circulation
+might by to-day have become a matter of course. Who
+knows?</p>
+
+<p>However, circumstances being as they were, there was
+no choice but to adjust as might be to them, and antidote,
+as rapidly and thoroughly as possible, the prejudices which
+had been established. The writer’s first experience in trying
+to do this was in Albany, when one of the evasive legislators
+had suggested conferring with a leading official in the State
+Health Department. The latter was not averse to the idea
+of a revision of the Comstock law. In fact he admitted all
+the arguments. But he was adamant when it came to recommending<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>
+the Legislature to act; for he could not make
+himself disassociate the reasons for the repeal from his
+violent prejudice against the “wild” words and actions of
+the birth control advocates. The things he “knew” about
+Mrs. Sanger far exceeded anything the facts warranted: he
+had not stopped to find out the truth, but had a settled conviction
+that could not be budged, until at the very end of an
+hour’s earnest talk, when he managed to admit that the
+proposition to revise the laws should be considered on its
+own merit, regardless of anything else.</p>
+
+<p>Similarly in Washington, when various members of Congress
+cited the “wild radicals” who had “agitated about this
+thing,” they had to be laboriously diverted to the consideration
+of the fact that there was nothing wild at all about
+the control of parenthood, that the most conservative classes
+were those who had achieved it first and most, and that
+Congress was being asked only to correct Comstock’s blunder
+of banning science along with indecency, so that the law
+would reflect the belief and practice of the educated normal
+men and women of the country. It was far slower and
+harder work than it would otherwise have been, just because
+of the “fighting” psychology which had been established in
+the birth control movement.</p>
+
+<p>All of which leads to the second part of the answer to
+the question as to why Congress has been so slow to act, and
+that is, that the group working for the Cummins-Kissel and
+Cummins-Vaile Bills did not have adequate funds for the
+constructive publicity work necessary to offset the prejudices
+and dissipate the inhibitions of the members of Congress.</p>
+
+<p>But the third and last part of the answer is by far the
+dominant part, and that is, as had doubtless been evident
+through all the previous pages of this book, that the subject
+is embarrassing. It brings sex considerations and sex consciousness
+to the surface. And this creates varying degrees
+of fear and inhibition. It would have done that to a certain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>
+degree, no doubt, even if the proposition had come to Congress
+before the birth control movement flared into a sensational
+affair ten years ago. But with the background of the
+modern movement as it has been, the tendency has been
+greatly augmented, so that the fear of being conspicuous in
+the matter has been the outstanding obstacle. The inhibition
+has been very powerful in many instances. But there
+is much reason for concluding that the six years of effort
+directly with the members of Congress, together with the
+greatly increased articulateness of the public, has worn the
+inhibitions so thin and lessened the fears so much that they
+should evaporate in the very near future, and let the latent
+common-sense of the majority of the members have an unimpeded
+chance to function.</p>
+
+<p>An assertion of this sort, that sex consciousness and fear
+have been the chief reason for the delay in Congress, needs
+the backing of proof, especially as one dislikes to believe it
+and would prefer to assume it to be impossible. It must be
+said at the outset, that probably the same reaction would
+have been found among any other 435 men, if placed in a
+similar position. The members of Congress are presumably
+representative of American life and feeling. They are not
+unique. The attitude of almost any average citizen with regard
+to birth control is that he wants the information, but
+he does not want to make himself conspicuous in getting
+it. Just so with members of Congress. And the sticking
+point with them was that they would have to be conspicuous
+in regard to it, if they sponsored the bill or voted it out of
+Committee.</p>
+
+<p>In giving various instances of the evidence of the fear
+and distaste which have been so chronic among the members
+of Congress it is best, for the purposes of this book,
+that they shall stand just as instances, without names. It
+makes relatively little difference what particular Senator or
+Representative said or did this or that. The only matter of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>
+consequence is that this inhibition has been notably prevalent,
+and that it is the one thing which has chiefly held back
+the bill from passage.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The general policy of the Voluntary Parenthood League has been
+to report in its paper the character and episodes of the blockading
+of the bill, and all official action regarding it, but not to make
+public the revealing interviews with the individual members of Congress.
+The one exception to this custom was at the close of the
+68th Congress in March, 1925, when a report on the stand of each
+member of both Judiciary Committees was given in the <cite>Birth Control
+Herald</cite> (March 10). It was prefaced as follows:</p>
+
+<p>“The following résumé of the stand of the members of the Senate
+and House Judiciary Committee on the Cummins-Vaile Bill is compiled
+from their own statements either in interviews or in letters.
+The interviews have been promptly and carefully recorded immediately
+after their occurrence, and are now on file in three volumes
+in the office of the Voluntary Parenthood League.</p>
+
+<p>“When the League began its work in Congress in the summer
+of 1919, no publicity was given to the interviews with the various
+members. It seemed a wise policy at that time, for many reasons.
+But now that nearly six full years have elapsed, and Congress still
+chooses to delay action on the bill, and is willing to be a party to
+the maintenance of laws which misrepresent the established practice
+and policy of the people, it seems only fair to those who have
+given their support to the bill, to present to them the record of
+the Committee members up to date, so that responsibility, praise and
+blame may be the more accurately allocated.</p>
+
+<p>“Since the first introduction of the bill, each member of both
+Judiciary Committees has received from the V. P. L. about fifty
+separate letters or publications in regard to the bill, beside the many
+letters and telegrams which have been sent by individuals from all
+parts of the country. They have all received the Report of the two
+Hearings on the bill. They have all been interviewed, some of them
+so repeatedly that the records cover many pages in the interview
+books.” (<cite>The Birth Control Herald.</cite>)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Senator Cummins, as noted in a previous chapter, repeatedly
+said that undue sex consciousness was the reason
+the men on the Committee tried to shelve the bill and to
+avoid a vote on it. Senator Dillingham, who died in 1923,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>
+said there was no question but that embarrassment was the
+major difficulty which prevented the men from doing justice
+by the bill. Space forbids even the jotting down of all the
+indications of this fact, which were accumulated in the observation
+of Congress in six years, but the following bits
+will serve as examples.</p>
+
+<p>The two Senators who returned literature sent to them,
+and marked it “Refused.” The Senator who declined interviews
+on the ground that he “would not discuss this bill
+with any <em>woman</em>.” The Senator who evaded interviews for
+over two years, and who then vibrated between declaring
+that he would not “say a word previous to a public hearing,”
+and explaining his general fear of the whole question of
+birth control, and who wound up a hectic dissertation on the
+subject, with this remark: “If I were the Creator and were
+making the universe all over again, I would leave sex out.
+It is too powerful, too dangerous.” The Senator who said,
+“The whole subject is so damn nasty, I can’t bear to talk
+of it or even think of it.” The Senator who said “This bill
+is practically an invitation to lechery.” The Representative
+who construed it as a personal insult that a digest had been
+made from the autobiographies in the Congressional Directory
+showing the average number of children in the families
+of the members of Congress, and who confessed in the
+middle of a long tirade, that the reason Congress didn’t act
+on the bill, was that the members were “afraid of it.”</p>
+
+<p>The evidences of fear were found to be numerous and
+various but all of them seemed quite clearly due, directly or
+indirectly, to some form or other of distrust of human
+capacity to integrate this phase of sex knowledge into life,
+with safety, to morals or regard for decorum. These fears
+were almost wholly in regard to or on behalf of other
+people, not themselves; and the range of the fears covered
+their colleagues in Congress, their families, their constituents,
+the Catholics, the public in general, but most of all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>
+young people. The high school girl who is guaranteed to
+go to the devil from learning what birth control information
+is, has been by all means the most vivid character in the
+whole realm of birth control phantasy. Judging by the
+extent of the expression of alarm felt on her behalf, it would
+seem as if she constituted about seven-eighths of the entire
+population. At any rate she has seemed to fill the whole
+horizon of many of the members of Congress. No such concern
+was expressed regarding the young boys.</p>
+
+<p>The one fear, however, which did relate to the member
+of Congress himself, was as to his own career, and the effect
+which taking an interest in the bill might have upon
+it. In discussing the extent of this fear, one of the senior
+Senators ventured the opinion that “there never was a man
+in public life who did not consider his career first,—he has
+to, if he is going to get anywhere.” More than one Senator
+refused to sponsor the bill on the ground that it would give
+too good an opportunity to political opponents to “have
+fun” at his expense. The type of “fun” they anticipated
+was apparently somewhat like that in which some of the
+Congressmen indulged when Mr. Kissel first introduced the
+bill. A story which then went the rounds of Congressional
+gossip was that “Kissel, being a lame duck, will be out of a
+job in two months and so he has introduced the birth control
+bill to pave the way for getting rich by manufacturing contraceptives.”
+Mr. Kissel shed the jollying with good grace,
+and when one of his colleagues inquired why he “wanted
+to do a thing like sponsoring that bill” he came back cheerfully
+with, “because there were 434 of you others who
+wouldn’t.” But there was a more serious side to the possibilities
+of this sort of fun, as recognized by one of the representatives
+who was facing a re-election campaign at the
+time when he was asked to consider sponsoring the bill. He
+was very candid in saying that he did not intend to be defeated,
+and that he knew he had political enemies who would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>
+not scruple to use this bill against him by circulating stories
+which it would cost him more to contradict and explain than
+he cared to spend. And he added, “Maybe you will call
+that political cowardice, and maybe it is, but anyway that
+is where I stand.”</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to be general agreement that “anything
+sexy” had special power to damn a man in public life. “I
+can’t afford to touch it” was an often heard remark, from
+men who thoroughly approved the bill. The dread of
+facetious or vulgar comment from other members of Congress
+was a very real and often indicated dread. A Senator
+who was defeated for re-election, was horrified at the suggestion
+that he might help the bill along as a service in
+the last session of his term. “If I were to vote for this
+bill, my people wouldn’t let me come home,” he said. Another
+Senator who sincerely wanted the bill to pass felt
+very cramped in his advocacy of it, because of the fears
+of his family, who thought the thing “not nice,” and that it
+was not good for his reputation to have anything to do with
+it. In the case of one Representative his fears loomed so
+large that they encompassed the whole population. “Why,”
+he said, “if Congress should do such a thing (as to pass
+the bill) the population would rise like a mob, and the only
+reason they are not doing it now is because they don’t know
+it is under consideration.” A Senator whose fear regarding
+“the fourteen year old girls” was well nigh an obsession
+and who said, “You want to make everybody prostitutes,”—was
+able when speaking seriously, to modify his fears only
+to the extent of saying, “If this information could be confined
+to the intelligent and cultured people, and kept out of
+the hands of the vicious and ignorant, it might be another
+matter, but that can’t be done.” From that, he argued that
+no one should be allowed to have it, although he had admitted
+previously in the same conversation that information
+did circulate anyway in spite of the law.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span></p>
+
+<p>The most striking element in the expression of all these
+fears has been the way in which the fear, and the sex consciousness
+which is back of it, <ins class="corr" id="TN-21" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: seeems to prevent">seems to prevent</ins> the use of
+the mind in an ordinary logical fashion. Two and two do
+not make four, but a hundred, or any preposterous number.
+No conclusion is too absurd to jump at, when impelled
+by this fuddled embarrassment and vague terror. Some of
+the most squeamish members have taken refuge in the stout
+declaration that they have never heard of the bill and don’t
+know anything about it, or about the subject of birth control;
+and this in spite of the fact that they had received
+many letters and much literature for over five years. They
+have been so occupied in devising ways to wriggle out of
+discussing the bill at all, that they failed to realize how
+they gave themselves away, within a few minutes after they
+knew “nothing about it,” by telling of how they had talked
+the matter over with other members and they all agreed
+that “nothing can be done about it in this session.”</p>
+
+<p>The general tendency of the members who have been
+beset with fear, has been to avoid all talk and consideration
+as much as possible. But one member of the House Judiciary
+Committee was an exception; he leaned to loquacity.
+As his remarks give a vivid picture of the lengths to which
+fear and super sex-consciousness can distort an otherwise
+reasonable mind, the substance of one of the recorded interviews
+with him is given here.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+“Hon. Mr. X of ——,<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>“I hear you are going to make a speech against the bill, Mr. X.”
+“Yes, if necessary I am, though I expect to kill the bill in Committee.
+But I shall make a speech on the floor if I have to.” “It is a great
+advantage to be a lawyer, if you are going to work against this bill,
+Mr. X.” He agreed heartily to that, said it was an advantage on any
+bill to be a lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, for you will have the sort of mind that whittles away
+all the irrelevant stuff, and puts attention on the real points of the
+bill, and those are very simple as well as important.” “I see what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>
+you are driving at, Mrs. D——, but to my mind the most important
+consideration is the danger which this bill would make for
+young girls, and I am against it for that reason.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you then really distrust the majority of young girls?” He
+thought he did,—that he had to, as a practical man, knowing the
+world and its ways.</p>
+
+<p>“If you had been a lawyer, as I have, and tried quantities of
+bastardy cases, you would see why.” Asked if he didn’t think a
+lawyer’s experience was like a doctor’s, limited largely to the pathological
+side of life, and that one had to consider the great fairly
+normal majority. Well, he felt the majority were weak and could
+be safeguarded only by their fear of “getting in a family way.”</p>
+
+<p>“Would you be willing to say that publicly, Mr. X? It is a
+pretty serious thing for a man in public life, representing the people,
+to say he distrusts them. I can understand your talking that way
+privately, but would you want to say it openly.” “Yes, I would,
+for I believe it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Suppose there were a public meeting in your district, Mr. X,
+and you stood before an audience of your own constituents, and told
+them that you believed that most of the young folks were better off
+ignorant than with knowledge on this subject, because they couldn’t
+withstand the temptation to misuse it, and so the laws that tried to
+keep them from knowing were good laws. Then suppose someone
+else were standing beside you, saying just the reverse, another Congressman
+who might say, ‘My dear young friends, I believe in you.
+I know you are human, with all the impulses that sway live people,
+and I know that some people are swayed when they ought not to be,
+but I believe the majority have the strength of mind and character
+to go right, even if they do know how to go wrong and cover it up,
+and so I am against all laws that try to keep knowledge away from
+you.’ Which man do you think would get the response of the
+audience?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, of course it would be the one who said he believed in them,
+that’s natural. They would want to believe in themselves, too, but
+think how it would be that night, when the young girl goes out with
+the boy, and she can’t help thinking, what difference will it make if
+nothing ever shows? And then she will forget all about character, and
+will let herself go, whereas if she was afraid of the practical results, she
+wouldn’t. Yes, there are thousands of girls that are held back just
+that way.”</p>
+
+<p>Then I asked if he didn’t know that there was such a lot of
+contraceptive knowledge in circulation—and most of it bad too—that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>
+the number of girls that could be protected by their ignorance
+was diminishing every hour, and that there was absolutely no effort
+at enforcement of the laws? He said people argued that way about
+enforcing the prohibition laws, but he thought it ought to be enforced
+and could be. He insisted he was “just being practical, that’s
+all.” I insisted that I was the more practical, as I had faith in
+knowledge and strength which were dynamic, and not in just fences,
+which are dead. “Well, you certainly are a pretty talker, Mrs.
+D—— and I may be wrong. Of course, if you can convince
+me....” “I don’t think I can convince you, but I think you can
+convince yourself, if you make a business of turning your face
+toward the light instead of to the darkness.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well anyhow, you think what would happen in all these government
+boarding houses over here,” pointing out the window to
+the wartime buildings which still house hundreds of women clerks,
+“a lot of them are confirmed old maids too, but I wouldn’t trust
+what would happen to them, if they all knew they could do what
+they pleased and no one would be the wiser.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The above instance is given, not because it represents
+the state of mind of the average member of Congress, for
+it does not. It is an extreme case. But it does give in
+exaggerated fashion, an indication of what is the background
+of feeling and thought among a very large number of members,
+though in a much milder and more dilute form. This
+particular Congressman may prove to be pugnacious to the
+last, but the majority show strong evidence that their fears
+and inhibitions can be melted away by the sunlight of wholesome
+public opinion, frankly expressed.</p>
+
+<p>It can not be too emphatically stated that the average
+member of Congress would probably much rather be reasonable
+in this matter than not, but he has not quite reached
+the point where it is as easy to be reasonable as it is to be
+evasive. However, it has not been altogether rare to find
+a perfectly untrammelled mind like that of one of the leading
+Senators, who sailed into brisk consideration of the bill,
+like a fresh breeze on a muggy day; “Of course, I don’t
+see how anyone could vote against it.” On being told that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>
+some of the Senators on the Judiciary Committee seemed
+too inhibited to want the bill reported out, he said, “H’m,—prudes,
+are they?” and ran his eye over the list of Committee
+members to locate the prudes. “There are Senator
+So-and-so, and So-and-so, surely they will be for it,—just
+plain common sense.” “And decency,” added the interviewer.
+“A combination of both, yes.” He would speak
+to some of the members. He saw “no reason on earth
+why it should not pass.”</p>
+
+<p>As the fear about the young people has been the most
+persistent of all fears expressed by <ins class="corr" id="TN-22" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: member of Congress">members of Congress</ins>,
+and the one about which their minds have been most rutty,
+a special answer to it was prepared and sent to every member
+of both Houses. <em>It</em> was entitled; “<em>Yes, but won’t it increase
+immorality? Isn’t letting down the bars dangerous?</em>”
+and the substance of it was as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>When Congressmen say, “Yes, but won’t this letting down the
+bars, mean that the unmarried and the young will have nothing to
+deter them from illicit relations?” We, in turn, make these queries:</p>
+
+<p>“Well, will it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you really believe that most people have no positive standards
+of conduct?”</p>
+
+<p>“Are they kept what is called ‘straight’ only by their ignorance
+of the fact that sex relations need not result in parenthood unless
+so intended?”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it your sober opinion that fear of ‘results’ and ignorance as
+the control of conception are the only deterrents from general
+promiscuity?”</p>
+
+<p>When a Congressman voices this wholesale distrust of his fellow
+citizens in regard to contraceptive knowledge, is it irrelevant to
+inquire if the expressions of faith in the people such as appear in
+pre-election campaign speeches are all mere platitudes: “If you do
+really consider most people intrinsically unworthy in this regard are
+you ready to go before your constituents and tell them so? Are you
+willing to explain to them that your hesitation about the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill is because you think they are so weak or so vicious that
+they would abuse contraceptive knowledge if it were made easily
+accessible?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span></p>
+
+<p>A fair test of the validity, and even the sincerity, for any such
+generalization as this, is to apply the idea to our own selves. Surely
+we assume that our own lives are decently guided by something
+beside mere fear of “consequences.” We can hardly consider ourselves
+unique in this regard, either. We cannot think that we have
+any personal monopoly of principles, moral standards or good taste.
+We surely cannot picture ourselves as standing alone in the world on
+a pedestal of superiority, with all the others below in a morass of
+moral obliquity. If we dare trust ourselves with this knowledge,
+and we know we do, must we not also dare to trust others?</p>
+
+<p>All these disconcerting inquiries are seldom pressed home, however,
+with most Congressmen, for they usually think twice rather
+quickly, and they admit that the tendency of a few to abuse knowledge
+is no reason for trying to keep the mass of people ignorant.</p>
+
+<p>They admit when they stop to think, that knowledge of all
+kinds can be abused and that it is abused every day by some people.
+Even reading, writing and arithmetic are abused, by forgers, embezzlers
+and the like, but that is no reason for not teaching these
+pre-requisites of civilization to everyone. The elements and natural
+forces can be dangerous for mankind as well as beneficent. Fire,
+water and electricity can all do frightful damage if they get out
+of hand, but under proper human control, they are blessings and
+fundamental necessities.</p>
+
+<p>But it is the case of the young that stays longest in the mind
+of the doubting Congressman as a cause of apprehension. Usually
+it is the young girl whose “virtue” he thinks can be safeguarded by
+keeping her ignorant. If he is asked, “Why the sex distinction?” he
+is apt to admit that what is being safeguarded is convention rather
+than virtue, as the girl’s lapse would become known while the boy’s
+need not.</p>
+
+<p>However he is almost certain to end by admitting that it is a
+poor kind of saint that does not know how to sin; that ignorance is
+not synonymous with character; that it is an insult to young people
+in general to assume that they cannot be trusted with knowledge;
+that if he would not so insult his own children, he should not be
+ready to insult other people’s children; that such protection as ignorance
+may provide is ephemeral, for knowledge may reach the
+young person any day; that it is primarily the fault of the older
+generation if children have been so poorly reared that they naturally
+“go wrong” instead of right; that finally it is better that those who
+insist on promiscuity should not further add to the situation by
+bringing innocent babies into the world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is becoming more and more evident that those people, young
+or older, who are strongly impelled to irregular relations are the
+sort who most readily find ways to secure the forbidden information,
+and it is folly to try to deprive the millions of wholesome, needy
+and responsible parents who should have this knowledge, in a vain
+effort to keep the irresponsible uninformed. Indeed, with birth control
+knowledge, the undesirable elements in the population will tend
+to die out faster than they otherwise would, by virtue of the fact
+that they will not be reproducing their kind.</p>
+
+<p>In the last analysis, might it not be better for the race, if birth
+control knowledge could be given to only one class of people, that
+it should be made available first of all to the generally promiscuous?
+They make very poor parents, and the sooner they die out the better.</p>
+
+<p>It can hardly be doubted that the people who bring up this immorality
+bogie, as an excuse for holding back contraceptive knowledge
+from the public, are unconsciously trying to divert their minds
+from their own sense of discomfort and uncertainty regarding matters
+pertaining to sex. They are advancing what the modern psychologist
+calls “good reasons but not real reason.” They are “rationalizing.”
+They can quite well fool themselves, too, into believing
+that they are animated by a disinterested concern for social welfare.
+But presently, if they are willing to think the thing through,
+they may see that what they are really doing is trying to avoid or
+postpone the responsibility which faces all normal adults, to meet
+the fundamental problems of life squarely, and to help educate the
+human race into a triumphant and thorough solution of them.</p>
+
+<p>The hope of the world lies on the far side, not the near side of
+knowledge.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A few years ago there was much heated assertion current
+among “radicals” about how church and State, and
+especially how “big business” wanted to suppress the knowledge
+of birth control; how the church (meaning mostly
+the Roman Catholic church) wanted more souls born, at
+no matter what cost, so they could be counted in the fold;
+how the militarists wanted more “cannon-fodder”; how the
+“interests” wanted more “wage-slaves” to exploit; and how
+the “government” wanted more millions of citizens to build
+up and fight for a State that would be dominant in the
+world; and how “politics,” the servant of all these “tyrannies,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>
+was the force which would hold birth control progress
+back, in any attempted effort at legislation.</p>
+
+<p>But “politics,” as represented by the men in Congress,
+whose views have been sampled in the last six years, does
+not act at all in accord with the pattern laid out for it by the
+“radical.” Politics, that is, political organization, re-acts
+just about as the individual men do. It squirms at the idea
+of any constructive service regarding the release of birth
+control information from legal ban, and the only use it has
+for the subject at all is a means of damning a political
+opponent, or rather to threaten to use it thus, in the event
+that other ammunition fails. If the hypothesis of the
+“radicals” had been sound, there would surely have been
+some evidence of it among the 435 men who constitute
+Congress. Some interest would have been shown in having
+the present suppressive laws enforced, but as a matter of
+fact, not a vestige of any such interest has been found,
+and there has been a general admission that the laws do not
+and cannot work. Occasional, feeble and ignorant remarks
+about race suicide are the nearest approach to an interest
+in making the laws effective, that has been discernible in
+Congress.</p>
+
+<p>An extreme example of this false assumption as to why
+politics has thus far balked at helping to repeal the suppressive
+laws, is found in an editorial signed by Margaret
+Sanger, in the Birth Control Review of May, 1921. It
+was written after the first short effort to induce the New
+York Legislature to pass a “doctors only” bill, and was
+apropos of the facts that one Assemblyman who had promised
+to introduce the bill had backed out, “after consulting
+with some of the leaders of the Assembly who strongly
+advised” him not to do it, as it would do him “an injury”
+that he “could not overcome for some time”; that another
+Assemblyman, who was a physician, had “refused on the
+ground of levity from his associates”; and that a third<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>
+had decided against doing it “after consulting with party
+leaders in New York.” Part of this editorial comment
+was as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>To expect aid or even intelligent understanding of birth control
+from the typical Albany politician; to be disappointed because of the
+ignorance of these so-called “legislators”; to be discouraged because
+of their failure to remove the coercive and criminally obscene
+insult to American womanhood from the statute books<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>—this
+would be to succumb to emotion rather than to profit by the invaluable
+knowledge we have gained from our experience at Albany.
+The great fact is this. We can expect nothing from the politician
+of today. If we must use the weapon of politics to further the
+progress of birth control, it must be the politics created by ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>When the first birth control clinic in America was declared a
+“public nuisance” by the courts, we were advised by well-meaning
+friends that the legal way, the political way, the legislative way, was
+the only safe and sane method of propaganda. This has now been
+put to the test. And we discover that the successful politician
+is not only mentally unable to understand the aim of birth control,
+but moreover he himself is the very product of those sinister forces
+we are aiming to eradicate from human society.</p>
+
+<p>Your successful politician is the demagogue who knows the best
+tricks to catch the greatest number of votes. He is the hypnotist
+of great, docile, submissive, sheep-like majorities. He is interested
+in number, not intelligence. Therefore to expect such masters,
+who by hook or crook, ride roughshod into public office or slide
+into seats of the State Legislature to understand or support a program
+which aims at the creation of self-reliant, self-governing,<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
+independent men and women, would be to neglect one of the
+most important factors among the resources of our opponents. But
+we did expect something more among men elected to public office
+than the embarrassed giggle of the adolescent, the cynical indecency
+of the gangster, in the consideration of a serious sexual and social
+problem.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Perhaps, moreover, we failed to take into consideration the vast
+power wielded today by the politician in control and administration
+of the public charities, hospitals, and “correctional” institutions
+for the support and maintenance of the victims of compulsory
+motherhood.</p>
+
+<p>“Our politicians today profit from human misery. They have
+an interest, direct or indirect, in the production through uncontrolled
+fecundity, of the unfit, the underfed, the feebleminded and the
+incurably diseased. Their interest, financially, is in the increase
+of our institution populations, with their insistent demands for
+appropriations from the City and State. Most eugenists dub the victims
+of our legal and social barbarism “the unfit.” The victims are
+not the “unfit” but these blind leaders of the blind—the politician,
+the profiteer, the war-making patriot, the criminal moralist, who
+is urging men and women to “increase and multiply.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Statements of this sort were repeatedly made at public
+meetings for a number of years. They came to be so widely
+circulated that they were generally accepted among many
+of the groups which were agitating for social revolution or
+reconstruction, without much of any analysis to find out
+whether or not they were an accurate interpretation of the
+opposition of “politics” to changing the laws affecting birth
+control information. It is perhaps not strange that this
+sort of talk became common, but it had two serious disadvantages,
+one that it shot wide of the mark, and the
+other that it served to increase the prejudice of law makers
+against the whole program for correcting the laws, and
+added perceptibly to their distaste for taking a personal
+part in that program.</p>
+
+<p>Every bit of direct experience with legislators augments
+the conclusion that the chief reason the individual legislator
+hangs back is because he is afraid it will “queer him” to
+stand for any action, and the reason that “political leaders”
+advise the legislators to let the subject alone is precisely the
+same. The subject is embarrassing, that’s all. As one of
+them advised another, “Whatever you do, don’t get mixed
+up in any sex stuff. No man in politics can afford that.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p>
+
+<p>A striking proof of the foregoing point was an occurrence
+in the presidential campaign in 1920. Senator
+Harding, when a member of the Public Health Committee
+of the Senate (since abolished) had written to the Director
+of Voluntary Parenthood League saying, “I have not had
+time to study carefully the provisions of your bill, but at
+first reading I find myself very much inclined in its favor.”
+This statement was given to the press. Presently it was
+taken up by some of the opposition campaign speakers who
+ran short of thunder, and they began spreading the news that
+if Harding were elected president, “government means would
+be used to enforce birth control.” No details were given
+but it was insinuated that the project would be an unheard
+of intrusion into private life. A representative from
+the Democratic Headquarters was sent to the office of the
+Voluntary Parenthood League to secure a photostat copy of
+the note which Mr. Harding had written. The young man
+who bore the message happened to be interested in the
+work of the League, and he frankly admitted that the
+errand was distasteful to him, as the distorted use it was
+planned to make of this note was such as would not only
+reflect discredit upon Mr. Harding, but upon the League.
+He said he considered it most unwise campaign tactics,
+and he was the more disturbed over it, because some of the
+campaign managers had admitted that they themselves
+approved the bill, but as they considered it a good handle
+for slurring Harding, they were perfectly willing to use it
+in that manner for campaign purposes. Their plan, however,
+was checkmated by some of the levelheaded women
+then active in the Democratic campaign; they instantly
+notified the men that it would never, never do. They
+reminded the men that no matter how relatively silent the
+organized women of the country might have been on this
+subject, there was no doubt whatever that they believed
+in controlled parenthood; obviously, for they had achieved<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>
+it; and any discreditable slam at birth control would be
+nothing but a boomerang for the Democratic campaigners.
+The whole idea was promptly abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>It has been frequently said, inside of Congress and out,
+that if the “club women” had endorsed the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill, it would have been passed by the last Congress.
+There is clearly no way to prove it, but there are certain
+facts to be stated which throw some light on the subject.
+In the first place the club women have not been completely
+silent. In the next place, it is just as obvious that the
+club women believe in the control of parenthood as that
+Congressmen do, and that they have not and will not observe
+the laws which forbid access to the information.
+The birth rate in both groups is prima facie evidence, which
+no candid person would deny, as it is out of the question
+to assume that the educated and more or less privileged class
+to which both groups belong, are made up of people who are
+for the most part either ascetic or sterile. The only possible
+inference is that control of the growth of the family has been
+achieved by the utilization of contraceptive knowledge.
+Congressmen are just as able to take note of this situation
+as any other observers, but when they talk of waiting for
+the club women to voice their opinions officially in a body,
+they are merely exercising their ingenuity in thinking up
+one more form of excuse for not acting.</p>
+
+<p>And the women, to the extent that have been backward
+about acknowledging what their lives prove, seem to be
+motivated by exactly the same sort of embarrassments and
+inhibitions as afflict the members of Congress. And similarly
+also, their inhibitions are wearing thinner all the time, and
+there is good reason to believe that ere long the organized
+women who belong to the more or less privileged class will
+follow the lead of the organized labor women who, in June,
+1922, passed the following resolution at the annual convention
+of the National Women’s Trade Union League:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i> the effect of certain laws of the United States, both
+State and Federal, is to withhold contraceptive information from
+the women of the working classes, while it is in most cases
+readily available to the well to do; and</p>
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i> it is important that in this, as in other matters, the
+best scientific information should be available to the peoples’ need,
+regardless of their economic standing: Therefore be it</p>
+
+<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we, the National Women’s Trade-Union League,
+in convention assembled, go on record as opposed to all laws,
+State and Federal, which in effect establish censorship over knowledge
+which, if open to one, should be open to all who care to secure it.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>However in fairness to the rank and file of the club
+women it must be stated that two years earlier, in June
+1920, they gave every evidence of being willing and even
+glad to pass a resolution of protest against the barriers
+to contraceptive knowledge, and it was only the timidity
+of the leaders which prevented their having full opportunity
+to do so. This circumstance occurred at the Biennial Convention
+of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs at
+Des Moines, and was reported as follows in the <cite>Birth
+Control Herald</cite>:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>At the Des Moines Convention in 1920, at the close of Mrs.
+Dennett’s address to the Health Conference on “Children by Chance
+or by Choice,” the delegates began a rapid fire of questions. Mrs.
+Dennett asked if she might put just one question to the delegates,
+namely, as to how many of them wanted the prohibitive laws of
+this country regarding contraceptive knowledge to remain as they
+are now without change. Not a hand was raised, whereupon
+Mrs. Dennett said “That is interesting in view of the fact that your
+Resolutions Committee has declined to report out a resolution on
+that question.” Instantly a delegate asked the Chairman, Mrs.
+Elmer Blair, to have the resolution read. The delegates listened
+hard. A second slow reading, was asked for. Then without pause
+someone moved the adoption of the resolution and it was carried
+<em>unanimously</em> with a rising vote of thanks to the speaker. Over 500
+delegates were present, constituting about a third of the whole
+Convention.</p>
+
+<p>The wording of the resolution was as follows:</p>
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i> one of the primary necessities for family and therefore<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>
+for public health, is an intelligently determined interval between
+pregnancies, to be secured by regulating the inception of life and not
+by interfering with life after it starts, and</p>
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i> the lack of knowledge as to how to secure such an interval
+frequently results in serious disaster for mothers and babies
+and indirectly for the entire family and community.</p>
+
+<p><i>Be It Resolved</i> that this Conference on Public Health urges
+the speedy removal of all barriers, due to legal restrictions, tradition,
+prejudice or ignorance, which now prevents parents from access
+to such scientific knowledge on this subject as is possessed by the
+medical profession.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of course it was evident that any resolution which was carried
+unanimously by a third of the delegates would carry
+by at least a good majority if submitted to all the delegates,
+and the rebuke thus administered to the resolutions committee
+created quite a bit of consternation among the officers
+of the Federation. But the resolution was not submitted
+to the whole convention, nor has one been allowed to come
+forth at any subsequent convention, although considerable
+effort has been made to have it done. The nearest approach
+to it has been the making of a recommendation by
+the officers, that the whole subject of birth control be
+“studied by the clubs.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>If, as some of the Club women say, the chief reason for not
+endorsing voluntary parenthood is because the Catholic members are
+opposed, it would seem a perfectly simple matter to remind the
+Catholic women in the first place that they are a very small minority,
+and in the second place, that there is nothing compulsory about
+the use of contraceptive knowledge. If Catholics wish to remain
+ignorant on the subject, they are, and should be entirely free to do
+so, but they should not seek to enforce ignorance on others. (<cite>B. C.
+Herald.</cite>)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is said that the Catholic Clubs have threatened to
+secede from the Federation if a birth control resolution
+were passed, and that the leaders are so concerned to keep
+up the membership in the federation that they, like the
+political party leaders, have put organization first and left<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>
+fair play to the mass of citizens to take care of itself as
+best it might. But there seems also evidence that the
+excuse about the Catholics is in part at any rate, a cover
+for the underlying excuse of embarrassment about dealing
+with the subject at all.</p>
+
+<p>Practically all roads of investigation in this matter
+lead back to this one difficulty. If that were overcome, the
+minor obstacles would seem inconsequential. A situation
+similar to that found in the women’s clubs has developed
+in public welfare organizations of many sorts. The
+members were ready to move, but the leaders and officials
+were full of doubts and excuses. Ever since 1918, various
+members of the Social Work Conference, which annually
+gathers together representatives from nearly all the public
+welfare organizations of the country, who have been
+clamoring to have the question of birth control placed on
+the official program of the Conference, but thus far it has
+been relegated to “side show” meetings. In 1922 the request
+was formally made in a resolution passed with but one
+feeble dissenting vote, at a meeting with several hundred
+delegates present, but the officers have still held back at
+all the subsequent Conferences.</p>
+
+<p>This inhibition of leaders has been so persistent that a
+definite effort was made by the Director of the Voluntary
+Parenthood League to try to help them break through it,
+and release their naturally helpful instincts so they could
+function without hindrance. It took the form of a semi-open
+letter, which was marked, “Not for publication—at
+present,” and read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+Dear Citizen:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>The Cummins-Vaile Bill has wide-spread, splendid and rapidly
+increasing endorsement. But there are still some persons of consequence,
+who believe in the aims of the legislation, who say, “I do
+not feel free to express my opinion, on account of my position.”
+They explain that as they are officially connected with this or that
+organization, they are obliged to forego giving any endorsement,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>
+though “personally in hearty sympathy.” They are fearful lest
+their individual opinions should be deemed official.</p>
+
+<p>This attitude is noticeably frequent among leaders of women’s
+organizations and welfare groups. They say, “Until my organization
+speaks, I cannot do so.” But large organizations, as such, speak
+their views only at annual, or even biennial conventions. So they
+are often precluded from giving timely assistance to important moves
+for social welfare. Thus the leaders are prevented from letting
+their individual opinions be of service at critical moments.</p>
+
+<p>Granted that it is a real problem for officials to determine what
+is absolute wisdom in working out the dual functions of personal
+and public life, is it not a mistake to assume that an officer of an
+organization is of necessity so submerged in the office, as to lose all
+personal identity and freedom of opinion? Officers are seldom
+chosen unless they are persons of significance <em>apart</em> from the position.
+Office-holding should not be allowed to obliterate that significance.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to removing the drastic laws which prohibit access
+to birth control knowledge, I believe there are very few leaders of
+fine mind and good heart like yourself, who can be satisfied to remain
+silent any longer, if they realize the good they may do by speaking
+out.</p>
+
+<p>And further, I believe that an analysis of the probable other
+reasons that doubtless account in many instances, for the silence up
+to date, may make it easier to help in this important matter.</p>
+
+<p>Are you willing to think it out with me?</p>
+
+<p>Looked at quite simply, it seems to be just matter of generous
+spirit.</p>
+
+<p>It is plain that not only leaders, but a large majority of members
+of social, civic and welfare organizations, are of the well-to-do
+educated class which has already obtained and utilized birth control
+knowledge, despite the laws. The birth rate in families of this class
+is clear proof that the majority believe in family limitation. Otherwise
+they would not so universally have achieved it. To assume
+that sophisticated people who have learned enough of this legally
+forbidden knowledge for the effective use in their own lives, are not
+willing to let the millions of unsophisticated poor have legal access
+to similar knowledge, is to assume a degree of conscious selfishness
+that is unwarranted. They would not shut their hearts against the
+multitudes of mothers, such as the wife of the rural delivery letter
+carrier, who writes as follows:</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“I have searched far and wide for knowledge. I have
+been given advice how to produce abortion, but life was too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>
+dear to risk that. So I have stumbled along hoping some day to
+gain the desired knowledge. In my thirteen years of married
+life I have given birth to eight children, beside one miscarriage
+following an attack of flu-pneumonia. I have five girls and two
+boys living, the oldest girl is past twelve, just ready to pass
+into womanhood. It makes me shudder to think of the possibility
+of her going through what I have. I have tried to
+find out from doctors some preventive measure, but a sneer is
+my answer. I am now only thirty-six years old, far from being
+too old for pregnancy, but I feel I cannot possibly bring any
+more into the world to suffer I know not what. If I had not
+had one of the best husbands God ever made, I believe I would
+not have been able to bear up under it all. With only an
+R. F. D. carrier’s salary for living, it has been a struggle for
+us both. But God willing, I am going to persevere till I find
+out how to prevent pregnancy occurring so often, not only for
+myself, but for my five girls, and also for countless other girls
+to take our places in the future.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The consciousness of belonging to the privileged class which
+has obtained at least some of this knowledge in spite of the laws,
+should be enough, I sincerely believe, to make the leaders who have
+till now held back their endorsement, feel that any further holding
+back is unworthy of their true responsibility as leaders. A leader
+is one who finding the way good and right opens that way to others.</p>
+
+<p>But something seems to inhibit this natural and generous response
+to human need, something beside holding office. What is it?</p>
+
+<p>Let me tell you the situation, as we who are shouldering this
+work for birth control legislation, have found it. I think that the
+elusive something may be discovered and the barrier eliminated.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place officers are by no means consistent in refusing
+to express opinions because subjects are outside the direct scope of
+their organizations. So is it not a reasonable inference that, when
+this excuse is offered in regard to birth control legislation, it is unconsciously
+used to cover some other reason?</p>
+
+<p>The leaders often tell us that they would have had this subject
+presented to their organizations, but they feel that “the time is not
+yet ripe,” that “the members are not ready,” etc. Yet they well
+know that the members believe in family limitation and spaced births,
+as they achieve both.</p>
+
+<p>Is not this inconsistency and excuse what the psychologists call
+a “defense mechanism”? And is not that mechanism unconsciously<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>
+built up to cover embarrassment? Sex taboo is still far reaching
+in spite of modern education. So it is not uncommon to find people
+who have long ago accepted and acted upon the principle of controlled
+parenthood in their own lives, but who shrink from the
+possibility of having that acceptance made publicly noticeable. They
+even dread a discussion of the dire need of contraceptive knowledge
+among the ignorant, lest it be too compelling.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, sex consciousness overwhelms conscience, which
+otherwise would be sensitive to human need and responsive to public
+welfare.</p>
+
+<p>If this seems to you a precipitate inference, just run over the
+following résumé of our experience in various organizations.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It has been repeatedly proved at conventions that the members
+were ready to adopt endorsing resolutions, if only the leaders would
+permit their being discussed and voted upon. The story of the ways
+in which organization opinion has been actually suppressed by leaders
+is a significant phase of social history in this country.</p>
+
+<p>At one great convention, when the large and representative
+resolutions committee had decided to recommend a resolution, the
+officers, by dint of prolonged effort into the small hours of the night,
+coerced the committee into reversing its decision. At another, when
+it became evident that a resolution would be carried if discussed on
+the floor, the officers, by appealing to administration loyalty, succeeded
+in preventing a vote to permit discussion. At another, after being
+refused by a small resolutions committee and the board of directors,
+the resolution was brought up from the floor when a full third of
+the delegates were present, and was carried unanimously. At
+another, after the resolution had been carried by a sizable majority
+of the members, the leaders manoeuvered a vote to rescind. At
+another, over six hundred delegates voted to ask their directors to
+put this subject on the official program of the next year’s convention.
+It has not yet been done, though two years have elapsed.</p>
+
+<p>Over and over at meetings of various sorts, the audience has been
+asked, “How many of those present want the laws suppressing birth
+control information retained.” And hardly a hand has been raised.
+“How many want them repealed?” And nearly every hand has
+come up.</p>
+
+<p>Ironically enough, on several occasions, the very leaders who
+have prevented any convention endorsements of legislation to free
+birth control knowledge or even the recognition of the principle
+of controlled parenthood, have not hesitated to come to the Director<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>
+of the Voluntary Parenthood League, with this sort of request. “Do
+you mind telling me what are the most up-to-date contraceptives,
+and what doctors give the best scientific instructions on methods?”
+They hasten to add that personally they are in full sympathy with
+our movement, and usually they want the information for a daughter
+or a friend, or some one near and dear, whom they wish to have the
+best knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>The above is a sad story, and the only reason for telling it
+is to understand what it implies.</p>
+
+<p><em>In the light of modern psychology</em>, it is understandable why
+groups, i.e., audiences and delegates, are ready to vote for a resolution,
+while leaders are loath to initiate or permit action. Whenever
+any question induces the sort of embarrassment that emanates from
+<ins class="corr" id="TN-23" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: sex conciousness">sex consciousness</ins>, it is inevitably easier to act as one of a group than
+to act by one’s self. Yet leaders, just because they are such, have
+exceptional opportunity to let their opinions be of service to humanity.
+And is not the obligation of mature minds to see to it that, so far as
+possible, such inhibitions are not allowed to interfere with being
+just and generous to one’s fellows?</p>
+
+<p>The Congressmen who are now being asked to pass the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill are tempted to move all too slowly, because they have
+precisely these same inhibitions that have afflicted the leaders of
+organizations. The one thing that will most easily inspire Congressmen
+to move quickly in this matter, is to be relieved in their own
+minds, by assurance from just such leaders as you, that they will be
+doing wisely and well to vote for this bill. By shedding your own
+inhibitions for the sake of others, you will distinctly help Congressmen
+to shed theirs.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The tests to which some of the leaders have been put,
+especially among the women’s organizations, have brought
+forth some ludicrous moments. For instance the National
+League of Women Voters has circulated “A Pledge For
+Conscientious Citizens,” written by its President, Mrs.
+Maud Wood Park, which included this item: “To obey the
+law even when I am not in sympathy with all its provisions.”</p>
+
+<p>This pledge, if applied to the laws prohibiting access
+to contraceptive knowledge, looks comic indeed, for the
+National League of Women Voters is made up of women
+who very obviously have not the remotest intention of abiding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>
+by those laws. They belong for the most part to the
+same general class as that which formed the basis of the
+report issued by the Bureau of Social Hygiene, of which
+Dr. Katherine Bement Davis is the executive secretary; this
+report gave answers to a questionnaire sent to 1000 married
+women, mostly college graduates, in which 74% said
+they used contraceptive methods.</p>
+
+<p>When a National Conference on Law Enforcement was
+called in Washington in 1924, in which representatives of
+all the leading women’s organizations took part, inquiry
+was made of the program committee as to whether there
+would be discussion of the enforcement of the law which
+is more broken than any other in the United States, not
+excepting the prohibition law, namely, the law forbidding
+access to contraceptive knowledge. The inquiry produced
+consternation. The enforcement of that law was not so
+much as mentioned on the program. The laxity of officials
+and the indifference and criminality of citizens regarding
+other laws came in for due attention, but not this one—horrors,
+no! It reminds one of the little girl who had been
+brought up in luxury, and who had never experienced any
+method of transportation except her little perambulator and
+the family limousine. She was making her first trip with
+her father in a street car, a very crowded one, and she piped
+up, “Father, there are too many people in this car.” “Yes,
+my dear, shall we get out?” “Oh, no, father, not <em>us</em>.”
+So the conscientious women wanted thorough-going discussion
+of law enforcement, but not that one. Perish the
+thought!</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_TWO_Chapter_VI"><span class="smcap">Chapter VI</span><br>
+
+A “DOCTORS ONLY” FEDERAL BILL</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>“Doctors only” Federal bill followed straight repeal bill just as
+limited bills in States followed straight repeal bills: Advocated on
+Margaret Sanger’s initiative: Provides medical monopoly of extreme
+type: Arguments in its behalf analyzed and answered: Proponents
+of “doctors only” bill do not live up to own demands for limiting
+contraceptive instruction to personal service by doctors: Birth control
+periodical carries thinly veiled advertisements for contraceptives: Improved
+type of “doctors only” bill drafted by George Worthington:
+Not so many loop-holes and inconsistencies as in first bill proposed,
+but still a special privilege bill and still leaves subject classed with
+obscenity: Worthless as means of curbing abuse of contraceptive
+knowledge: Clause permitting “reprints” from medical and scientific
+journals practically breaks down all restrictions: Makes pretense at
+limitation a farce.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">Four years after the first petition slips were circulated
+asking for the repeal of the Comstock laws which ban
+contraceptive knowledge the first “doctors only” bill was
+proposed. Three years after the first State repeal bill was
+actually introduced, the first State “doctors only” bill was
+introduced. A somewhat similar sequence occurred as to
+Federal legislation. The first petitions to Congress for a
+straight repeal were circulated in 1915, and the Federal
+“doctors only” proposition first appeared in 1924; the first
+bill for a straight Federal repeal was actually introduced in
+1923, and by the time these words are read a Federal “doctors
+only” bill may be before Congress. At the present
+writing it is announced as a definite plan. The limited legislation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>
+has in all these instances been initiated by Margaret
+Sanger.</p>
+
+<p>It is a wide reach from her position of ten years ago,
+when breaking, not correcting, the laws was urged, to her
+position of to-day when limited, permissive legislation
+is being recommended to State legislatures, to Congress
+and to the public. The former policy was one of
+vehement scorn of the indecent laws and the object
+was to get contraceptive information directly to the
+people in the quickest way possible by published information
+and clinical service,—regardless of the law; a striking contrast
+to the propositions of the last two years for laws to
+keep the subject of contraception still classed with obscenity
+and to let no one have it except those who personally apply
+to physicians and to let no one give it except physicians.</p>
+
+<p>To account for Mrs. Sanger’s extraordinary swing of
+the pendulum from revolutionary defiance of all law to advocacy
+of special-privilege class legislation is not germane
+to the aim of this book. So far as the public is concerned
+the explanation, whatever it may be, does not matter. But
+what does matter is that there is destined to be wide-spread
+appeal for this type of legislation, because the organization
+which is back of it has more funds for publicity than have
+ever been had before by any groups in this country working
+for birth control progress; and the time is at hand for
+American citizens to put on their spectacles and look
+thoughtfully at the basically different types of legislation
+which they are urged to support, and to decide what they
+want, with their eyes wide open.</p>
+
+<p>The main points for the straight repeal type of legislation
+have been given in the previous chapters on the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill which has been before Congress for over
+two years. The points for the proposed “doctors only” type
+will be given as far as possible by excerpts from the written
+or published words of the proponents, together with some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>
+comparisons which may be of aid to the reader in making
+a sort of mental parallel column for convenience in surveying
+the differences between the two types.</p>
+
+<p>The first formulation of a Federal “doctors only” bill
+was announced in the Birth Control Review of March,
+1924, as the official stand of the President (Margaret
+Sanger) and the Board of Directors of the American Birth
+Control League.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The Bill was drawn up for the League by Mr. Robert E. Goldsby
+with the aid of Dr. J. P. Chamberlin of the Columbia Law School.
+Its provisions cover communications from doctors to each other and
+to their patients, and also the transport of Birth Control material
+from manufacturer to dealer, and from wholesaler to retailer, and
+to physicians.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It adds to Section 211 of the Criminal Code the following
+amendment:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Any article, instrument, substance, drug, or thing designed,
+adapted or intended for preventing conception, or any written or
+printed information or advice concerning the prevention of conception
+is not non-mailable under this section when mailed by a duly licensed
+physician (a) to another person known to him to be a duly licensed
+physician or (b) to one of his bonafide patients in the course of his
+professional practice.</p>
+
+<p>Any article, instrument, substance, drug or thing designed,
+adapted or intended for preventing conception is not non-mailable
+under this section when mailed in the regular course of legitimate
+business by:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<ol type="a">
+<li>An importer to a manufacturer or wholesale dealer in drugs,
+or by a manufacturer or wholesale dealer in drugs to an
+importer;</li>
+<li>A manufacturer to a wholesale dealer in drugs or by such
+wholesale dealer to a manufacturer;</li>
+<li>A wholesale dealer in drugs to another such wholesale dealer
+or a retail dealer in drugs, or by such retail dealer to such
+wholesale dealer;</li>
+<li>A retail dealer in drugs to a duly licensed physician or to
+another person upon the written prescription of a duly licensed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>
+physician, or by such physician or person to such
+retail dealer.</li>
+</ol>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>The proposed bill contains similar provisions for the amendment
+of Section 245.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This bill would thus amend but two of the five Federal
+statutes which prohibit the circulation of contraceptive information
+or means. The Cummins-Vaile Bill amends all
+five (as shown on page <a href="#Page_97">97</a>).</p>
+
+<p>It leaves the control of conception still classed with
+obscenity but makes the information or means mailable under
+certain limitations, or as the bill puts it, makes them
+“not non-mailable.” The Cummins-Vaile bill entirely removes
+the subject, per se, from all legal connections with
+obscenity. The article in the Birth Control Review announcing
+the bill makes no mention of the fact that the proposed
+new bill leaves the subject still classed with indecency.
+Great emphasis is laid upon the advantages of making the
+doctors free to give the information, but nothing is said
+about the fact that while the bill would permit the doctor
+to dispense the obscene information without penalty, the
+person who received it could not send that same information
+to anyone else without being criminally indecent.</p>
+
+<p>This is frankly a “doctors only” bill of a most extreme
+sort, as it would not only render illegal for circulation all
+contraceptive information or means except such as were
+obtained personally from a physician or on his direct prescription,
+but would create a complete medical monopoly
+of the dispensing of the information; would give doctors an
+economic privilege denied to anyone else; would treat this
+one phase of science as no other is treated, that is, make it
+inaccessible to the public, except as doled out via a doctor’s
+prescription, as if the need for the knowledge were a disease.
+It is the greatest possible contrast to the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill which requires medical certification of methods,
+but creates no medical monopoly to teach or sell, and which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>
+frees this item of science so it can take its place in the world
+of science, like any other phase of hygiene.</p>
+
+<p>The editor of the Birth Control Review sets forth the
+reasons for preferring fences to freedom as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The American Birth Control League, from its inception, has set
+itself against the indiscriminate dissemination of so-called Birth Control
+information. It holds that responsible controlled motherhood
+can only be attained if women first receive practical scientific education
+in the means of Birth Control. Scientific education implies the
+individual treatment of each woman according to her physiological
+needs, and this is impossible if she depends on advertisements or
+printed matter which may or may not have been written with a thorough
+knowledge of anatomy and physiology, of the biological factors
+in conception, and of the nature and action of drugs and medicines.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The implication seems to be that the repeal of the Federal
+ban would release <em>only</em> unreliable information, whereas
+it would likewise release all the best and most authoritative
+information. All knowledge has to compete with ignorance,
+and no laws can prevent the struggle. What knowledge
+needs is an open field in which to make its effort to overcome
+ignorance.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Holding this view, the American Birth Control League was
+convinced that a campaign for the repeal of these Federal laws was
+of secondary importance until some educational work had been done.
+The first object was to remove in the public mind the idea that
+Birth Control implied one simple method that could be told by one
+person to another over the back fence, that it was the same for
+everybody, and that once told, nothing further remained to be done.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It would surely seem as though a better demonstration
+of the futility of unsuitable methods could be made if it
+were made lawful to discuss and compare methods than if,
+as at present, it is a crime to circulate anything which even
+names them.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>For the last two and a half years The American Birth Control
+League has been working by means of conferences and of the <cite>Review</cite>
+to educate the public in the many aspects of the subject—sociological,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>
+economic, social, biological, physiological and psychical. It has
+worked for the establishment of Birth Control clinics in New York
+State under the limitations of the New York law, which permits the
+giving of Birth Control information in cases of disease, and in other
+States where the State laws do not place this restriction on the
+medical profession.</p>
+
+<p>The Federal law does not affect the internal affairs of the individual
+States. It does not prohibit the establishment of Birth Control
+Clinics or the giving of advice and prescriptions by doctors in
+their public and private practice.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the Federal law does most emphatically “affect the
+internal affairs of the individual States,” by making a precedent
+for classing contraceptive information with obscenity.
+This precedent directly affects 24 States, as shown in Chapter
+One of Part I. The Chicago Health Commissioner
+held up the license of the Parenthood Clinic on this very
+precedent, as previously described.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The <em>object</em> of the League is that all over the United States there
+may be established clinics at which, under skilled medical supervision,
+Birth Control advice and instruction will be given to all women needing
+this care; and that the medical profession may be freed from the
+restrictions now placed upon it by State enactments, so that doctors
+may give Birth Control information both in their private and their
+public practice. The Federal laws do not directly affect this State
+legislation, and if all Federal restrictions on the use of the mails and
+on common carriers and express companies were removed, the medical
+profession would still, in all the States, having anti-Birth Control
+laws on their statute books, be legally prevented from giving oral
+Birth Control advice and prescriptions to their patients.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This statement fails to include the fact that the repeal
+of the Federal ban would be the greatest possible incentive
+to the 24 States having specific prohibitions, to follow suit
+and repeal their own repressive laws; and that without the
+repeal of the Federal law, the physicians in all States would
+be prevented from lawfully getting the books and other publications
+and data on which they must base their “oral
+advice” and their “prescriptions.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The result would be, that while women were debarred from
+real scientific knowledge of the subject, they might through the mails
+receive information entirely unsuited to their needs.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is an unwarranted assumption that instruction given
+personally would be guaranteed to be scientific, while that
+which came by mail in a book or a pamphlet might not be.
+The exact reverse might be the case in many instances. In
+any event the repeal of the Federal law would not in the
+least prevent anyone from securing personal instruction from
+any physician who was willing or able to give it.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>From certain points of view, it has seemed to the President and
+Directors of the American Birth Control League that little good
+and even possible harm might accrue at the present stage of development
+from an amendment of the Federal laws, eliminating all restrictions
+on the carriage of Birth Control information and materials;
+especially if this was done before sufficient data had been gathered
+to justify such action, and before campaigns of education had
+been carried on widely throughout the States, and especially before
+the establishment of at least a few model Birth Control clinics, which
+would serve not only as object lessons on the method of treating
+Birth Control, but also for the collection of data necessary for the
+use of the medical profession.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Why progress slowly under hard and unlawful conditions,
+instead of progressing rapidly as would be possible
+under freedom from legal restriction? The latter part of
+the foregoing quotation is a reminder of the famous official
+decision to build a new school house, and to use the materials
+in the old one for building the new one, and to occupy the
+old one until the new one was finished.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The removal of the Federal restrictions would almost certainly
+be followed by a flood of widespread advertising, of hastily written
+and probably misleading books and pamphlets purporting to give
+Birth Control information, and of supposed preventives which might
+or might not prevent and which certainly could not meet the needs
+of the numerous women who require personal physical examinations
+and personal prescriptions to suit their individual idiosyncrasies.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span></p>
+
+<p>Any hastily written, inadequate or spurious information
+that might be circulated would have to compete with all the
+best, carefully written authoritative publications from
+abroad, and all the writings of many excellent American
+physicians, who have long been ready to publish their wisdom
+on the subject. There are at least a dozen well known
+American physicians who have studied contraceptive methods
+for twenty-five years or so, and who are ready to do
+their part toward the education of the profession and of
+the public by publishing technical books and pamphlets for
+the physicians and simplified hygienic instructions for the
+laymen.</p>
+
+<p>The enactment of the Cummins-Vaile Bill would not prevent
+any one from securing direct advice from a physician,
+such as individual needs may require, but there would be
+every advantage in being able to supplement the instruction
+of a local physician by reading good books or pamphlets on
+the subject by some of the world’s best authorities, and vice
+versa. To argue as if the removal of the Federal ban would
+interfere with individual instruction is putting up a man of
+straw.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover if the opinion had been consistently held
+by the editor of the Birth Control Review that no one should
+receive any contraceptive instructions except those given to
+the individual by a physician making a “prescription to suit
+the individual idiosyncrasies,” and after making a “personal
+physical examination,” the Review would not have carried,
+as it did for many months, advertisements of contraceptives
+that were so thinly veiled as to deceive no one. They were
+advertised as antiseptics. Five such advertisements were
+in the very issue which contained the announcement of the
+new “doctors only” bill, and the arguments that no one
+should have instructions except personally from a doctor.
+Any reader of the magazine could order these contraceptives
+by mail from the firms which advertised them, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>
+the orders would be filled, with no “personal prescription”
+or “physical examination” and with no medical endorsement
+of the methods. All five of the methods thus advertised
+may be very inadequate unless used in certain circumstances
+and combined with other safeguards. Yet the Review allowed
+its readers to run the risks, and took the profit from
+the advertisements. These advertisements were presently
+discontinued, after the magazine had been seriously criticized
+for publishing them.</p>
+
+<p>And further, one of these contraceptives was recommended
+by name in Mrs. Sanger’s pamphlet on family limitation,
+in which she described various methods. Since 1914
+ten editions of this pamphlet have been sold or distributed.
+Many thousands of them have been sent through the mail.
+Mrs. Sanger herself stated at her Carnegie Hall meeting
+on her return from the Orient, that she had arranged to
+have an edition of this pamphlet printed in China. The
+Birth Control Review reported the publication of it in England
+also, and protested most vigorously because it had been
+suppressed under the British obscenity law. In all this
+widespread circulation of contraceptive advertisement and
+instruction, there was not even the endorsement of any physician
+quoted, say nothing of “personal prescription.” If
+the theory that there should be no information allowed except
+via a doctor’s prescription for the individual, has been
+so little adhered to by the very people who advance it, is it
+not futile to try at the eleventh hour to embody that theory
+in legislation? If the very people who advocate “doctors
+only” information are not willing to live up to it, who else
+could be expected to do so? How could anyone expect
+such legislation to be enforced?</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>To begin the work for Birth Control by campaigning for unrestricted
+use of the mails would seem more like sinking Birth Control
+to a hopelessly commercial and empirical level than establishing it
+on a firm scientific basis, with the prospect of ever-increasing developments<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>
+and improvements until the ideal contraceptives are obtained.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>As the government does not attempt to regulate by law
+what shall and what shall not circulate about other scientific
+subjects, there is no tenable reason why it should undertake
+to guide or protect this one part of science. Other scientific
+truths are not “reduced to a hopelessly commercial and
+empirical level” by being free from governmental barriers.
+A fair field and no favor is all that science needs.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Now the League has reached a point where some amendment of
+the Federal law may aid rather than hinder its work. It has not
+worked to have restrictions on the mails and express companies swept
+away. But it does desire to free the medical profession for the new
+duties that it is anxious to see the doctors undertake, by making it
+possible for them to communicate freely with each other concerning
+facts and data of Birth Control, and also by enabling them to secure
+the material necessary for their prescriptions.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Are laws made to “aid” the work of any particular organization,
+or are they for the benefit of the whole people?</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>To meet this new situation, which is developing out of the establishment
+of clinics in various States, it has secured the drawing
+up of a bill which, while not opening the mails to the commercial
+exploitation of Birth Control, would free the hands of the medical
+profession and enable the clinical data to be passed from one group
+of doctors to another.</p>
+
+<p>It would facilitate the establishment and working of Birth Control
+clinics, and it would aid the doctors in assuming the new duty
+of giving Birth Control advice and prescriptions.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>What does the medical profession really want, an opportunity
+for professional exploitation of birth control
+knowledge, or simply medical and scientific freedom?</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>It would leave the law as it now stands with regard to promiscuous
+dissemination of Birth Control advice and the advertising of
+supposed means of contraception.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span></p>
+
+<p>The use of the word “promiscuous” and the word “indiscriminate”
+(in the first paragraph of this article, as above
+quoted) seems to connote some other attitude than merely
+the desire that each person who needs it should have individual
+medical advice. These two terms have been frequently
+used by those who oppose or who are fearful about
+freedom of access to contraceptive knowledge. The use of
+such words seems markedly inappropriate in discussing contraceptive
+knowledge from the point of view of health.
+Contraceptive methods are a part of hygiene, and the public
+should have access to knowledge about them just as to
+any other phases of hygiene. Instructions as to certain
+methods of brushing the teeth or as to certain diets to produce
+certain effects, could just as rightly be termed “promiscuous”
+and “indiscriminate.” But no one would dream
+of using such language in that connection.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the text of this proposed bill. Under its
+provisions, no publishing of contraceptive knowledge or
+data would be practicable. A doctor would not personally
+undertake the expense of printing books and pamphlets, if
+he could send them only to other physicians or to his patients.
+Nor would publishers, medical or otherwise, issue
+books on the subject; because, being neither doctors nor
+“dealers in drugs,” they could not ship their books to customers,
+not even if the customers were physicians. A ridiculous
+situation in which the publishers couldn’t and the physicians
+wouldn’t publish the data, without which the medical
+profession as a whole can not adequately study contraceptive
+science. Physicians would be deprived not only of what
+American publishers are ready to print (when the laws will
+permit) but they could not import the excellent books which
+are published abroad. (Sec. 102 of the Criminal Code and
+Sec. 305 of the Tariff Act prohibit all importations and
+these sections are not amended by the proposed bill.)</p>
+
+<p>On detailed analysis the absurdity grows. The doctor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>
+could mail instructions, a prescription or a contraceptive to
+his patient, but patients could not recommend the doctor
+in a letter to any one else, for that would be an “obscenity.”
+No magazines, not even medical journals, could name the
+doctors who are good authorities on this subject, for that
+too would be “obscene.” No scientists or health authorities
+or welfare workers could write even privately to people
+in dire need, listing the physicians who have made a specialty
+of studying methods. No hospital or clinics could mail announcements
+of their contraceptive service, for it would all
+be “obscene.” The general public would have no way of
+ascertaining who the experts were except by the very limited
+way of verbal inquiry. The bill would permit importers,
+manufacturers and dealers in drugs to transport contraceptives,
+though the importer could not import them!</p>
+
+<p><em>But the final beneficiary of this traffic would be the
+physician.</em> The whole commerce would have no other
+lawful outlet than via the doctor’s prescriptions. If the
+dealers should fill retail orders for any one who is not a
+doctor or who does not present a doctor’s direct prescription,
+they would be criminals under the obscenity laws.</p>
+
+<p>Obviously the dealers would not keep their business
+within any such prescribed lines. Even under the present
+laws dealers sell contraceptives in ever increasing quantity.
+They are either camouflaged as protection against venereal
+infection and as treatment for local ailments, or are sold on
+a plain boot-legging basis. Any attempt to keep this traffic
+within the bounds of this proposed bill would be just so
+much paper. No responsible legislators could be expected
+to take it seriously. The country is burdened with enough
+unenforceable laws already.</p>
+
+<p>Not only will dealers sell contraceptives anyhow, but
+the one thing individuals can be counted upon to do is to
+spread the news as to what doctors give good advice, to
+repeat and copy their prescriptions ad <abbr title="infinitum">infin.</abbr> Information<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>
+exclusively by the doctor-to-patient system is ruined at the
+start. No possible laws could enforce it.</p>
+
+<p>Due either to the criticisms on this proposed legislation
+or to unaided sober second thought, this bill has recently
+been supplanted by another “doctors only” bill, which is
+now supported not only by the officers of the American
+Birth Control League, but by the New York Committee on
+Maternal Health, a group made up mostly of physicians
+under whose auspices, research work in contraceptive method
+is being carried on. Dr. Robert L. Dickinson is its Chairman.
+This new bill is somewhat less restrictive, and has
+fewer inconsistencies and loopholes than the first proposed
+bill, but is none the less a medical monopoly bill in intent,
+and is none the less class and special-privilege legislation.
+And like the first one, it leaves the subject of the control
+of conception still classed in the obscenities and penalized
+as a criminal indecency. It also has the same stuttering
+provision which makes contraceptive information and means
+“not non-mailable” under certain conditions. These conditions
+are, when they come from or are sent to a doctor,
+a medical publisher, an importer, manufacturer or dealer,
+and with a final provision that the retail dealer can not send
+anything of the sort to any one except a physician or some
+one who has a written prescription from a physician. It
+provides for importing and exporting under similar restrictions.</p>
+
+<p>This newest version of a “doctors only” bill has been
+drafted by George E. Worthington, Acting Director of the
+Department of Legal Measures of the American Social
+Hygiene Association. It reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Section 211, to be amended by adding the following:</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Provided that</i>:</p>
+
+<p>Standard medical and scientific journals and reprints therefrom
+and standard medical works which contain information with reference
+to the preventing of conception are not non-mailable under
+this section.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Provided further that</i>:</p>
+
+<ol>
+<li>Any article, instrument, substance, drug, or thing designed,
+adapted or intended for preventing conception, or any written or
+printed information or advice concerning the prevention of conception
+is not non-mailable under this section when mailed by a duly
+licensed physician to:
+<ol type="a">
+<li>another person known to him to be a duly licensed physician;</li>
+<li>one of his bonafide patients in the course of his professional
+practice;</li>
+<li>a printer or publisher, or by a bonafide printer or publisher to
+a duly licensed physician.</li>
+</ol>
+</li>
+<li>Any article, instrument, substance, drug or thing designed,
+adapted or intended for preventing conception is not non-mailable
+under this section when mailed in the regular course of legitimate
+business by:
+<ol type="a">
+<li>an importer to a manufacturer or wholesale dealer in drugs,
+or by a manufacturer or wholesale dealer in drugs to an
+importer;</li>
+<li>a manufacturer to a wholesale dealer in drugs or by such
+wholesale dealer to a manufacturer;</li>
+<li>a wholesale dealer in drugs to another such wholesale dealer
+or a retail dealer in drugs, or by such retail dealer to such
+wholesale dealer;</li>
+<li>a retail dealer in drugs to a duly licensed physician or to
+another person upon the written prescription of a duly
+licensed physician, or by such physician or person to such
+retail dealer.</li>
+</ol>
+</li>
+</ol>
+
+<p>Section 245, to be amended by adding the following:</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Provided that</i>:</p>
+
+<p>Any drug, medicine, article or thing designed, adapted, or intended
+for preventing conception, or any written or printed matter
+concerning the prevention of conception may be imported into, or
+exported from, the United States by a duly licensed physician, or may
+be transported in interstate commerce within the United States if
+consigned by a duly licensed physician:</p>
+
+<ol type="a">
+<li>to another person known to him to be a duly licensed physician,
+or
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span></p>
+</li>
+
+<li>to one of his bonafide patients in the course of his professional
+practice.</li>
+</ol>
+
+<p>Any drug, medicine, article or thing designed, adapted, or intended
+for preventing conception may be imported into or exported
+from the United States by a person, firm, or corporation, including
+a manufacturer, engaged in an established legitimate business of
+importing and exporting drugs, or may be transported in interstate
+commerce within the United States, if carried or shipped in the
+regular course of legitimate business, by:</p>
+
+<ol type="a">
+<li>an importer to a manufacturer or wholesale dealer in drugs,
+or by a manufacturer or wholesale dealer in drugs to an
+importer;</li>
+<li>a manufacturer to a wholesale dealer in drugs or by such
+wholesale dealer to a manufacturer;</li>
+<li>a wholesale dealer in drugs to another such wholesale dealer
+or a retail dealer in drugs, or by such retail dealer to such
+wholesale dealer;</li>
+<li>a retail dealer in drugs to a duly licensed physician or to
+another person upon the written prescription of a duly
+licensed physician, or by such physician or person to such
+retail dealer.</li>
+</ol>
+
+<p>Section 312, to be amended by adding the following:</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Provided that</i>:</p>
+
+<p>The sale, loan, gift, exhibition or offer thereof, of any article,
+drug, instrument or thing, designed, adapted or intended for preventing
+conception, or the giving, writing or supplying of any oral,
+written or printed information concerning the preventing of conception,
+by a duly licensed physician to:</p>
+
+<ol type="a">
+<li>another person known to him to be a duly licensed physician,
+or to</li>
+<li>one of his bonafide patients in the course of his professional
+practice;</li>
+</ol>
+
+<p class="noindent">shall not be an offense under this section, nor shall it be an offense
+for established wholesale or retail dealers in drugs to sell, lend, supply,
+give away, exhibit, possess, or transfer, to one another, in the
+regular course of legitimate business, or to a duly licensed physician
+or to another person upon the written prescription of a duly licensed
+physician, any article, drug, instrument, or thing, designed, adapted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>
+or intended for preventing conception. Any person obtaining any
+such article, drug, instrument, thing, or information in pursuance of
+this section may lawfully possess and use the same.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The vital difference between this bill and the previous
+one lies in the permission granted to medical publishers, and
+in the fact that “reprints” from “standard medical and scientific
+journals” are to be made “not non-mailable,” although
+they contain matter which is classed as obscenity in
+the law to which this bill would add amendments. This bill
+is technically much better drawn than the previous one, but
+while it has filled some of the gaps in the other one—such as
+the provisions regarding publishing and importing—and has
+ironed out some of the absurdities, it still contains phrases
+like “bona-fide patient” and “bona-fide printer or publisher”
+and “standard” medical works, no one of which is defined
+by law. The enforcement of such a bill, if enacted into law,
+would therefore be built upon shifting sands, which would
+be just about as hopeless to deal with as have been the
+multitudinous interpretations of “obscenity” by censors,
+judges and juries for generations. What is a “bona-fide
+printer”? And what constitutes a “<em>standard</em> medical or
+scientific journal”? Whose standard would the law sanction?
+Standards vary widely at any given moment, and
+from decade to decade they vary prodigiously; indeed it is
+not so long ago that it was not “standard” to relieve the suffering
+of childbirth—it was not orthodox, it was “irreligious.”
+Perhaps there were some who deemed it “obscene.”
+Laws should contain explicit terms, and not those whose interpretation
+can vary so as not only to nullify the intent of
+the law, but so as to result in limitless injustice to the public
+and to the individuals against whom they are enforced.</p>
+
+<p>The inclusion in the bill of “reprints” from “standard
+medical and scientific journals” practically breaks down any
+sort of practicable restriction. For any one can make reprints.
+If reprints, as well as the books and journals themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>
+are made mailable, it means that almost any one who
+wants contraceptive information can get it, and anyone who
+wants to can give it. And if, as has probably been the case,
+there is any idea on the part of those who devised this form
+of legislation, that restrictions of this sort will prevent “the
+wrong people” from getting contraceptive information, or
+will prevent the abuse of contraceptive knowledge, they
+might as well abandon the idea at the start, as to try to
+inflict so unenforceable a statute upon American citizens,
+who are already staggering under a huge mass of unenforced
+and unenforceable laws. Those who are impelled
+to misuse contraceptives, and to abuse the knowledge are
+quite clever enough to utilize “reprints” from the best authorities
+on contraception. There would be no such thing
+as keeping the knowledge within what anyone’s notion of
+what proper bounds may be. There is no such thing now,
+even with our sweeping and unqualified laws.</p>
+
+<p>This proposed bill makes the effort to limit the accessibility
+of knowledge into a mere gesture. True it might
+fool many people who do not stop to think or to analyze
+the bill, and it may even deceive those who propose it; but
+can it fool all the people? And can it fool Congress? That
+is the question for the American public to decide. As such
+a statute could not possibly keep the information within the
+bounds of the medical profession and those to whom the
+doctors specially imparted it, and as information under such
+a statute would circulate about as much as if a straight repeal
+of the ban were made, why bother with a circuitous,
+undignified, impracticable law, when a simple straight-forward
+repeal is possible, one which involves no preposterous
+complications as to interpretation or enforcement, and one
+which puts the subject of the control of conception, so far
+as the law is concerned, on a clean and self-respecting
+basis?</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak lsp" id="PART_III">PART III<br>
+
+WHAT SORT OF LAWS DO THE PEOPLE REALLY
+WANT?</h2>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_THREE_Chapter_I"><span class="smcap">Chapter I</span><br>
+
+DO PHYSICIANS WANT A “DOCTORS ONLY” BILL?</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>Probably most physicians have not yet thought what sort of laws
+they want: Resolutions by medical associations depend largely on
+way subject is presented and by whom: Doctors have no interest in
+retaining obscenity connection as such: Only few want “doctors
+only” bill for mercenary reasons: Endorsement proposed for American
+Medical Association in 1920 sidetracked in department: President
+of A. M. A. cordial to idea of straight repeal: American Institute
+of Homeopathy and various local medical associations endorse
+Cummins-Vaile bill: New York Academy of Medicine took “doctors
+only” stand on recommendation of small sub-committee when many
+members are for straight repeal: Conferences of doctors and lawyers
+in Chicago and New York advise against all limited legislation:
+Dr. Pusey, Ex-President of American Medical Association warns
+against “silly legislation”: Straight repeal the only recommendation
+of doctors and lawyers: Unfair to attempt to hold medical profession
+legally responsible for moral use of contraceptives: Doctors on
+the whole more interested in professional prestige and credit for devising
+contraceptive methods than in any exclusive control of their
+use.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">Naturally the off-hand answer to such a question
+as “Do the physicians want a ‘doctors only’ bill?” is
+that some do and some do not. There is no accurate way
+of estimating the proportion of each kind, but there are
+some significant points to be surveyed as to the reasons
+offered by those who do stand for it. And it is even more
+significant that probably the large majority of physicians
+have not yet thought whether they do or do not. When
+asked individually, they are apt to say, as did a former<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>
+President of the California State Medical Association, when
+he was asked for advice in the framing of a Federal bill,
+“Oh, I am a physician, not a law maker. I must leave that
+to the experts.” But he emphatically believes in birth control,
+and in the responsibility of the medical profession
+toward the subject. In his retiring presidential address he
+said, “It is up to the profession to urge the repeal of the
+laws against birth control.”</p>
+
+<p>When the question of birth control legislation has been
+brought up at meetings of medical associations, it is perhaps
+safe to say that more resolutions have been killed in committee
+than have been submitted to the members for a vote,
+the reasons being about the same as those which have inhibited
+Congress, including “consideration” for the feelings
+of Catholic members. The vote on those which have been
+submitted has depended considerably on the way the resolution
+was worded, and somewhat on who proposed the resolution.
+This is no disparagement on medical associations.
+It might quite as truthfully be said of almost any sort of
+organization. It is a human failing to vote aye in meetings,
+on any proposition which has a generally good-sounding
+purpose, or which is introduced by some one in whom the
+people present have general confidence. It is only occasionally
+that resolutions are dissected with care by any large
+body of people and voted upon with full comprehension of
+their meaning. This human disability operates just as effectively
+one way as another, unless the question at issue
+is very clear-cut and the pro and con positions are very
+sharply defined.</p>
+
+<p>It seems more than likely that many medical associations
+would quite readily endorse such a bill as that
+drafted by Mr. Worthington and described in the last
+chapter, if some one were to present it with a speech emphasizing
+the need of the people to have reliable scientific information
+and to be protected from all manner of quackery<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>
+and commercialism, and if nothing were said about how the
+bill leaves the subject of contraception still a criminal indecency,
+and how such a law could not possibly be enforced to
+give the protection it is aimed to provide, or how it would
+establish a class privilege in the exploitation of birth control
+information. On the other hand it is just as likely that
+many medical associations would endorse the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill, if it were presented as a means for rescuing contraceptive
+science from all legal connection with indecency, and
+giving to the medical profession the opportunity it has long
+needed, to study and teach the control of conception, on the
+same basis that it teaches all other subjects which relate to
+health, that is, with freedom; and also an opportunity to
+put out of business, by critical publicity, the vendors of
+worthless or harmful contraceptives, who are now carrying
+on camouflaged or boot-legging operations. Indeed such
+endorsement has already been made by a number of medical
+associations, as well as by hundreds of well known individual
+physicians.</p>
+
+<p>While resolutions in general may usually be taken with
+a grain of salt, it is also fair to assume that neither medical
+associations nor any other groups of intelligent American
+citizens would naturally take a stand against the principle
+of freedom in education, if they once recognized the issue
+clearly.</p>
+
+<p>That there is a small percentage of the medical profession
+which is animated by a mercenary motive in regard to
+the giving of contraceptive instruction and would therefore
+stand for a “doctors only” bill must be regretfully admitted,
+but with the cheerful guess that it is a very small proportion.
+There is one leading obstetrician known to the writer who
+protested against his wife’s attending a parlor meeting on
+birth control, on the ground that “if you encourage that
+sort of thing, you know our income will be cut in two.”
+Instances are not unknown too, of physicians who have recommended<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>
+a “doctors only” law, and who have profiteered
+quite shockingly in the contraceptives which they sell at
+present unlawfully to their patients. The most forthright
+instance known to the writer was that of a physician who
+was very strenuous in advocating a “doctors only” law, so
+much so that he was the means of having that recommendation
+formulated officially by a local but large and important
+medical association. In private conversation he admitted
+all the reasons for a complete repeal of the restrictive laws;
+he granted that the subject was not obscene, that ignorance
+and half knowledge made wide-spread suffering and disaster
+in family life, that people should be able to get reliable
+scientific instruction, and get it quickly. Yet he stuck to the
+“doctors only” idea, in its most narrow form, that is, that
+no information should be available except by personal consultation
+with a doctor. He was fearful lest the repeal of
+the Federal ban would produce “a flood of quackery.”
+When asked if he did not have confidence that the medical
+profession would rise to the occasion, and to educate the
+public as it ought to be educated on this subject, just as it
+rose to the occasion when the war came and educated both
+the soldiers and the public on the matter of venereal disease,
+his answer was, “What do you take us for? We are not
+reformers. We are busy men with our livings to earn.”
+He was unwilling for the public to have a chance for quick
+education on this subject by means of authoritative books and
+pamphlets, but insisted upon their having it exclusively
+dependent upon the slow process of being informed one at
+a time by a visit to a doctor’s office. The first consideration
+was that nothing should lessen the doctor’s opportunity for
+earning his living.</p>
+
+<p>Contrasted with this attitude is that of physicians like
+Dr. Lawrence Litchfield of Pittsburgh, former President of
+the Pennsylvania State Medical Society, who spoke at the
+Hearings in Washington on the Cummins-Vaile Bill, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>
+whose remarks have been quoted in a previous chapter.
+Representative similar opinions are the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. George Blumer, of New Haven, Conn.—“It is better to enlighten
+people by education than by legislation. I do not feel as a
+matter of principle that the regulation of birth control should be
+entirely in the hands of physicians ... there are many cases where
+the problem is not a medical one at all.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. Jerome Cook of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Louis.—“No distinction should be made
+between this and other forms of medical knowledge, and no restriction
+should be placed upon the spread of knowledge....”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. Alexander Forbes of Harvard Medical School.—“The one
+thing I feel sure of is that the principle in the present law, classifying
+contraceptive knowledge as obscenity, is essentially hypocritical and
+unsound.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. A. B. Emmons 2nd, of Harvard Medical School.—“Education
+rather than water-tight legislation. Censorship of manufactured
+articles. A few good popular articles of sound advice and vigorous
+warning against dangers and quacks by leading medical authorities
+is about all that can be done. I believe in leading rather than prohibiting.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. Alma Arnold of New York.—“Enlightenment by education
+rather than by new laws. We have too many laws now. Logic
+and education of the individual must take the place of snoopery by
+appointed guardians.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. Charles S. Bacon of Chicago. “Any attempt to limit the
+teaching of contraception to a class will be, I think, useless. Worthless
+drugs and appliances will probably disappear in the course of
+time, because of disappointments resulting from their use. If laws
+regulating the sale of poisons do not suffice, they should be amended.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. J. E. Wallin, Director of Clinic for Subnormal and Delinquent
+Children, Miami University, Ohio.—“I am unalterably opposed
+to any sort of monopoly limited to any particular type of practitioner
+... who would be in a position to extort unreasonable
+fees.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. B. S. Oppenheimer, of Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York.—“No
+restrictive laws would work, and the education of the public by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>
+medical profession is the only way to get bad methods suppressed and
+good ones adopted.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that those who stand for the “doctors
+only” idea in legislation are on the whole remarkably unable
+or unwilling to state their case in any way that is analogous
+to that of those who stand for the principle of freedom of
+access to knowledge. Their reasons are hypothetical rather
+than specific, and seem to be based upon expediency rather
+than upon principle. For instance a “doctors only” physician
+was invited to present that side of the argument at an open
+meeting of the Voluntary Parenthood League, and the
+points made were these: that a “doctors only” law would
+better safeguard the public, though no proofs of the assertion
+were offered; that it would be more easily passed by
+Congress, though that also was an unsubstantiated assertion,
+and experience with “doctors only” bills in State legislatures
+certainly does not back it up; and that it would receive more
+general endorsement from the medical profession, which
+again was a supposition that has not been borne out by facts.
+The final point made by this “doctors only” proponent was
+the advice to get a limited measure through Congress first,
+and then to make a later separate campaign to remove the
+subject from the obscenity statutes. (It was promptly suggested
+that any one who was willing to propose <em>two</em> long
+hard campaigns on this project instead of one should be
+made chairman of a committee to finance them!)</p>
+
+<p>Another of the “doctors only” physicians has explained
+that he takes that stand for diplomatic purposes only, that
+he is really a firm believer in the ideal of clearing this subject
+from connection with obscenity, but because “it <em>sounds</em>
+so safe” to say, “keep it in the hands of the doctors,” he
+believes it better to work for that sort of law, that it would
+“reassure the public more,” and that the chief thing to do
+is to get “permission to circulate medical publications,” explaining
+how that had “a nice professional sound,” which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>
+would prevent alarm, but that “of course it would amount
+to about the same thing as an open law, only the worried
+folks wouldn’t know it.”</p>
+
+<p>The Chairman of the New York Committee on Maternal
+Health, Dr. Robert L. Dickinson, although he has
+given his written personal endorsement of the principle of
+a clean repeal on which the Cummins-Vaile Bill is based, has
+of late decided to accept as a working basis the “doctors
+only” bill drawn by Mr. Worthington, and is endeavoring
+to get it endorsed by national medical organizations, on the
+supposition that this is as far as they would be willing to
+go. It is noteworthy in this connection that the national
+medical organizations have not yet been given a chance by
+their officers to turn down the endorsement of a freedom
+bill. It would seem that the presentation of a limited bill
+might better follow than precede action on a freedom bill,
+as being a fairer treatment of the members of the organizations.
+If endorsement of the freedom bill were squarely
+refused after full and open discussion of its provisions, the
+proposal to endorse limited legislation might logically follow.
+That the reverse action seems to be the policy of
+some of the leaders is a reminder of the way the officers in
+the women’s clubs and some of the welfare organizations
+have held back the submission of any resolution to the members.</p>
+
+<p>In 1920 an effort was made to have a straight repeal
+resolution presented to the next Convention of the American
+Medical Association. Dr. Frederick R. Green, Secretary
+of the Council on Health and Public Instruction, at that
+time wrote to a physician member of the Voluntary Parenthood
+League,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>What is needed, I think, is not any positive legislation authorizing
+physicians to teach the public proper scientific facts on this subject,
+but rather the repeal of the needless legislation that has been
+enacted.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span></p>
+
+<p>In referring to Comstock as the source of this needless
+legislation, he said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Comstock was a fanatical social reformer who carried his views
+regarding purity to a ridiculous extent. In fact it is only in late years
+since Freud has shown the real workings of this type of mind, that
+we are able to understand the reason for some of Comstock’s efforts.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A few months later the Director of the Voluntary Parenthood
+League and a physician member of the National
+Council had a personal conference with Dr. Green with the
+result that he agreed to submit as a part of the tentative
+report of his Council on Health and Public Instruction a
+resolution favoring the removal from the obscenity statutes
+of the ban on contraceptive knowledge. If the five other
+members of the Council should approve of including the resolution
+in the report, it would then be presented to the Convention
+of the whole American Medical Association, and
+if accepted as read would stand as the endorsement of the
+Association. The resolution was worded as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i>, one of the primary necessities for family and therefore
+for public health, is an intelligently determined interval between
+pregnancies, to be secured by regulating the inception of life and
+not by interfering with life after it starts, and</p>
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i>, the prohibition of the circulation of information on the
+control of conception should never have been included in Federal
+or State “obscenity” laws,</p>
+
+<p><i>Be It Resolved</i>, that the House of Delegates of the American
+Medical Association recommends the removal of this prohibition from
+the “obscenity” statutes, and</p>
+
+<p><i>Be It Further Resolved</i>, that for the protection of the public
+against unhygienic information, new separate statutes be enacted, providing
+that all information circulated and all materials sold for the
+purpose of controlling conception, must bear specific endorsement by
+duly licensed physicians.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>For some unexplained reason the resolution disappeared
+from consideration. The only indication of a reason was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>
+one which hardly seems to be sufficient to be the whole cause,
+namely, that owing to a delay in printing the tentative report,
+the members of the Council on Health and Public Instruction
+received letters from interested physician members
+of the Voluntary Parenthood League, urging the adoption
+of the resolution, previous to their receiving from the
+Secretary of the Council copies of the tentative report containing
+the resolution. It seems unlikely that an unwitting
+mishap of this sort would be the only thing which prevented
+procedure, if procedure was what was wanted. Judging
+by letters from the interviews with members of the Council,
+there was general hospitality to the idea embodied in the
+resolution.</p>
+
+<p>When Dr. Litchfield spoke at the second Hearing on
+the Cummins-Vaile Bill in May, 1924, it will be remembered
+that he replied to Congressman Hersey’s question as to
+“why have you not succeeded in getting them (the American
+Medical Association) to adopt this?” by saying,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The medical society has been very busy, but they will do this
+eventually. The President of the American Medical Association told
+me so. I met him in conference at Atlantic City, and he said all
+the members were in favor of birth control, and it was only a question
+of time when we should have it. I am not authorized to give his
+name, but he stands as the first man in American medicine.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Dr. William Allen Pusey became President of the
+American Medical Association, he made a very forthright
+appeal for the utilization of contraceptive knowledge, as
+imperative for health and social welfare, and he is opposed
+to the retention of the Comstock laws. In his address at
+the last International Neo-Malthusian Conference, in New
+York, he said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The first prerequisite to satisfactory study of any subject is free
+access to the knowledge of it, and that necessitates the <em>unrestricted</em>
+interchange of experience and information among scientific men.
+That is not allowed now upon the subject of methods of birth control.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>
+We are not in a position where we can freely determine the
+merits and demerits of the subject. It is not that methods of birth
+control are not discussed and practiced; they are, everywhere. But
+the facts—and the fiction—are passed from individual to individual,
+ignorantly, crudely, unsatisfactorily and in ways that are often vicious.
+It is only scientific decent discussion of the subject that is prevented,
+the sort of discussion that is necessary and can only be had, when it is
+<em>untrammeled</em> among self-respecting men, who can bring to its consideration
+knowledge and wisdom.... To see that this is brought about <em>as
+quickly as possible</em> is a thing worthy of the vigorous efforts in that
+direction that are now being made.</p>
+
+<p>(The italics are ours.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The American Institute of Homeopathy, the national
+organization of the Homeopathic School of Medicine, has
+already passed a resolution in favor of the straight, clean
+repeal as provided in the Cummins-Vaile Bill. Several State
+and local medical associations have done likewise. And so
+far as the writer knows, there have been only two instances
+where a medical association has gone on record in favor of
+“doctors only” legislation. One was the Ohio State Medical
+Association, the other the New York City Academy of
+Medicine.</p>
+
+<p>The latter organization forms a rather striking instance
+of the way forceful leadership and minority opinions can
+be made to dominate a membership which is either passive
+or holds other views. Early in 1920, the Public Health
+Committee of the Academy was asked to endorse the
+straight repeal measure, which later became the Cummins-Kissel
+Bill. The Committee had twenty-nine members; the
+question was referred to a sub-committee of five, which
+presently reported against endorsing the bill, and the report
+was accepted by the Health Committee. The subcommittee
+did not approve,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>On the grounds that such amendment would remove every obstacle
+to the indiscriminate distribution of information relating to
+and advertisements of methods for prevention of conception, both<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>
+from lay and professional sources; but we are in favor of amending
+the existing law in such a way that it would contain the principle,
+that nothing in the obscenity law shall apply to duly licensed physicians,
+licensed dispensaries, and to the public health authorities in
+connection with the discharge of their respective duties in protecting
+the health of patients and of the community.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was known that there were many members of the
+Academy who were not accurately represented by this decision,
+and who did want the subject removed from the
+obscenity statutes, instead of merely permitting physicians
+to infringe the law without being subject to penalty; indeed
+some of the more prominent of the twenty-nine members of
+the Health Committee had previously signed the statement
+of endorsement which constituted the platform of the Voluntary
+Parenthood League, and which contains the following
+paragraphs:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>We desire to help in supporting a body of public opinion, which
+will lead to so amending the Federal and State laws that it will not
+be a criminal offense to give out information on the subject of birth
+control, and that such information will not be classed with obscenity
+and indecency.</p>
+
+<p>We believe that the question as to whether or not, and when a
+woman should have a child is not a question for physicians to decide—except
+when a woman’s life is endangered—or for the clergy or
+for the State legislators to decide, but a question for the individual
+family concerned to decide.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>For these reasons the Health Committee was asked to
+reconsider, but declined, although some of the members as
+individuals expressed sympathy with the broader aims of the
+freedom legislation.</p>
+
+<p>A few months later, the new protective clause of the
+Cummins-Vaile Bill, or at least the fore-runner of it, was
+formulated. This was to provide a separate statute, quite
+apart from the obscenity sections, to the effect that “no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>
+printed information as to methods of preventing conception
+and no ingredients compounded for the purpose of preventing
+conception shall be transportable through the mails or
+by any other public carrier in the United States except such
+as bear endorsement by duly licensed physicians or public
+health authorities.” It was thought by the officers of the
+Voluntary Parenthood League that such an addition to the
+bill would meet the views of those who wanted medical
+restrictions for the sake of protection to the public, at the
+same time that it was not class or privilege legislation, and
+it was consistent with the main part of the bill by which
+the subject was removed from the obscenity laws. So once
+more the Health Committee of the Academy of Medicine
+was asked to consider. The answer this time was that the
+Secretary did not “believe that the Committee would care
+to take up the matter of amendments anew.” In conversation
+later the secretary said that it was not the function of
+the Committee “to determine exact legal phraseology, but
+merely to express broad principles” which they had sufficiently
+done previously, when they adopted the report of
+their sub-committee. He did, however, express his own
+interest in the fact that the League seemed to have “come
+around” to the view of the Academy Committee. He evidently
+did not grasp the wide difference in principle and see
+that the Academy Committee recommendation would establish
+a medical monopoly of the distribution of information,
+while the new protective section proposed by the League
+would secure medical sanction for methods, but without the
+possibility of monopoly.</p>
+
+<p>In 1921, when the first “doctors only” bill was introduced
+into the New York legislature, as result of Mrs. Sanger’s
+effort, the newspapers and the Birth Control Review
+announced that the Health Committee of the Academy had
+endorsed the bill, but it was subsequently denied in the press.
+The original stand against freedom and for privilege and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>
+for retaining the obscenity classification seems to be the
+status quo, officially; but many of the members are also members
+of the Voluntary Parenthood League and are hearty
+endorsers of the freedom bill. And what is more significant
+still, is that many of the members of the Academy do
+not know what stand their own organization has taken on
+this legislation, and would be at a loss to define the difference
+between the freedom bill and the “doctors only”
+sort of bill.</p>
+
+<p>Such inattention to organization policy is by no means
+peculiar to this one medical society. It seems to be a very
+general characteristic of all sorts of organizations, including
+even those for birth control. People join organizations
+because of the general object, and their own general interest
+in that object, but that is not at all the same thing as taking
+careful note of the means propounded for achieving that
+object. So it happens that a few active members like chairmen
+of sub-committees can commit whole organizations to
+a policy that would never be adopted if the individual members
+had all the facts in hand and took the time to weigh
+the merits of differing propositions. And when once a decision
+has been officially adopted, it is considerably difficult
+to have it changed. Esprit de corps is often called in to
+back up a decision that has been adopted by the whole body
+without investigation upon the recommendation of a very
+small minority, with the result that the latent wisdom of
+the membership at large does not function on the question
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>In the instance of the New York Academy of Medicine,
+just described, the workings of this sort of esprit-de-corps
+conscience were not without a humorous side. The several
+members of the Health Committee who had previously
+signed an endorsement of the aim to remove the ban on
+birth control information from the obscenity laws, found
+themselves committed, by the adoption of the sub-committee<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>
+report, to the policy of leaving the subject in the obscenity
+laws. Moreover the endorsement they had signed had
+explicitly averred that “the question as to whether or not
+or when a woman should have a child is not for physicians
+to decide,” yet by the acceptance of the sub-committee report,
+they were committed to the idea of leaving the giving
+of contraceptive information to the discretion of physicians
+and health authorities. Loyalty to their organization superseded
+loyalty to their own judgment, and they proceeded
+to request the Voluntary Parenthood League not to quote
+them as endorsers. Some of them were careful to explain
+in private that they had not altered their views at all, but
+that it was not best for them to be quoted as having them
+or as having had them. Their request was acceded to;
+their names were omitted from subsequent lists of endorsers,
+but obviously they could not be withdrawn from lists circulated
+previously.</p>
+
+<p>All this occurred five years ago. Since that time a
+marked change has seemed evident in the medical profession
+as a whole. A much more keen feeling of responsibility for
+sound legislation has developed, especially within the last
+year. In the late autumn of 1924 some leading doctors and
+lawyers had conferences on the subject, and analyzed with
+care all the proposed sorts of legislation which had been
+devised to protect the public from harmful contraceptives
+and to render access to sound scientific information lawful
+and equitable. These conferences were called to determine
+whether wording of the protective section of the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill could be improved. One of them was held in
+Chicago, and one in New York. Dr. Pusey was present at
+the former.</p>
+
+<p>The consensus of opinion at both conferences was against
+all “doctors only” types of legislation and for straight freedom
+for science. The doctors as a whole were of the
+opinion that an unencumbered clean repeal of the contraceptive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>
+prohibition laws would give the medical profession
+a larger chance to serve the public well than any other proposed
+measure. The lawyers emphasized the fact that no
+possible statutes can guarantee sound instruction for the
+public, that only education can approximate that result, and
+law can not and must not prescribe education. The conferences
+even advised against the protective section of the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill, as inadequate and sure to be meaningless in
+many instances of its application. There was general opinion
+that the existing Food and Drug Act will apply effectively
+to suppress fraudulent contraceptives, when the ban
+against the circulation of contraceptives is removed. These
+conferences were reported in the <cite>Birth Control Herald</cite>,
+from which the following excerpts giving salient points are
+taken.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The “doctors only” type of legislation heretofore has had sincere
+approval from a considerable number of physicians who were
+unquestionably beyond the appeal of mere money making, in the
+giving of contraceptive instructions. They were bent upon having
+good methods taught, knowing full well how harmful and fraudulent
+methods are being secretly and illegally circulated at present.</p>
+
+<p>But now, while there is far more medical interest and conscience
+than ever before regarding the need for authentic instruction, there
+is also a very widespread conclusion that the so-called “doctors only”
+type of legislation would be not only futile as a means of accomplishing
+what the best doctors most want, but that it would actually
+stand in the way of their giving to the public the service they
+would like to render.</p>
+
+<p>The doctors have buckled down to considering the question of
+legislation as never before, and in co-operation with some of the
+best lawyers, the conclusion has been reached that the simple clean
+repeal of the words “preventing conception” is the best and biggest
+thing to be done, and that the Cummins-Vaile Bill should consist
+of just that and nothing more.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The physicians present at the Chicago conference were Dr.
+William Allen Pusey, President of the American Medical Association,
+Dr. Herman Adler, Dr. Charles Bacon, Dr. Raphael Yarros,
+Dr. John Favill, President of the Mississippi Branch of the American<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>
+Birth Control League, and Dr. Clara Davis, head of the Pediatric
+Division of the Mt. Sinai Hospital in Cleveland.</p>
+
+<p>Discussion was informal, but to the point. The boiled down
+sense of the meeting was in favor of the straight repeal to remove
+the subject from the obscenity statutes, leaving the protection of the
+public to education by the medical profession, and the Food and
+Drug Act.</p>
+
+<p>All the chief propositions for securing substantial protection by
+legislation were taken up and found wanting. They were turned
+down as illusive and inadequate, and even as stumbling blocks to
+progress.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Dr. Pusey, whose forthright views on birth control became widely
+known when he discussed the subject in his presidential address before
+the Convention of the A. M. A. last June, greatly aided clear
+thinking on the question of legislation. He said the main point in
+the Cummins-Vaile Bill was the chief thing to accomplish, that is,
+the removal of the subject from the obscenity laws. He did not
+wish to say definitely that no sort of protective legislation was a
+possibility, for he had not had the time to consider all the alternatives
+to the vanishing point.</p>
+
+<p>But he did lay down some general principles. He said the chief
+thing to remember is that all sorts of miserable, inadequate and even
+dangerous contraceptive information is going the rounds <em>now</em>, in spite
+of the absolutely sweeping prohibition of the Comstock law; that
+no real attempt is being made to stop it legally, and that no such
+attempt will ever be made. If there is such wholesale law-breaking
+now, it stands to reason that no sort of “doctors only” laws could
+be enforced. They would only serve to deceive the public. He said
+great care must be taken to avoid any more “silly laws” or laws
+that can not be enforced. “We have too many of those already.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Members of the Executive Committee and a representative group
+of doctors and lawyers, combined their efforts, in person and by
+letter at the Headquarters of the Voluntary Parenthood League, to
+solve the question of protective legislation.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>After discussion from all angles and earnest effort for the best,
+the conference voted to reaffirm the main point of the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill, i.e., the clean removal of the words “preventing conception”
+from the five Federal statutes where it occurs; and to recommend
+the withdrawal of the present five-doctor certification section;
+and to appoint a committee of three to re-investigate the present<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>
+Food and Drug Act, with power to draft an amendment specifically
+covering contraceptives, if such were deemed necessary. The Committee
+chosen was Mr. Engelhard, Chairman, Dr. D. George
+Fournad and Mrs. Dennett, thus representing the legal and medical
+professions and the League.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The Committee appointed by the Conference worked at once,
+and formulated a report based on a thorough investigation of the
+powers of the Food and Drug Act. The finding coincides with a
+previous legal opinion, written last year by Clarence Lewis, of New
+York, a lawyer who was formerly on the V. P. L. Executive Committee.
+The opinion is that there is ample power now in the Food
+and Drug Act to suppress all fraudulent contraceptives which contain
+drugs or chemicals.</p>
+
+<p><em>The pertinent parts of this Act are given in <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_14">Appendix No. 14</a>.</em></p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The Committee points out that while the Food and Drug Act
+can take care of fraud in drugs and compounds, neither it, nor any
+other legislation, can efficaciously apply to contraceptives as regards
+their harmlessness or harmfulness. For that depends upon the case.
+Some drugs are harmful if used in some ways, but not so in others.
+So also contraceptives which are not drugs or chemicals or compounds,
+but are articles. Their usefulness or harmfulness depends largely
+upon the conditions of their use. For discrimination as to methods
+in these particulars, the public would be dependent upon getting
+instructions from good scientific sources, just as they are in regard
+to any other matters of hygiene.</p>
+
+<p>It is not the business of the law to prescribe either methods
+in hygiene or to prescribe the sources from which the public shall
+receive instruction in hygiene. But it can and does protect the public
+from flagrant profiteering and fraud, in drugs and the like, by means
+of the Food and Drug Act.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Only one physician urged the old plea for “doctors only” legislation.
+The Conference was heartily with her in wanting people to
+have only the best instruction and to have it from competent doctors,
+but no restrictive legislation will achieve that goal. Proposals
+of this sort thus far have been open to the objection of being either
+class privilege, unenforceable, and inadequate even as a means of
+making knowledge available for the doctors themselves. She conceded
+that she could not herself devise any “doctors only” plan that
+would not be special privilege legislation. The next day she telephoned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>
+that she was convinced that education would have to be the
+main dependence.</p>
+
+<p>This doctor mentioned having consulted an English medical
+journal containing elaborate data on contraceptives, in the library
+of one of the New York Medical Societies. “But it was illegally
+put there,” said the conference members almost in unison. The law
+forbids all importation. “Medical boot-legging,” added the chairman.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Letters were read from distant physicians, some of
+whose opinions have already been quoted on page <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Dr. Udo J. Wile, Professor of Dermatology and Syphilology,
+University of Michigan, wrote, “I trust nothing will come out of the
+conference which will confuse the main issue, namely to get the
+Cummins-Vaile Bill passed. It appears to me that the matter under
+consideration (protective legislation) is of minor importance.</p>
+
+<p>“James F. Morton (lawyer) said that all the ‘doctors only’ laws
+would be unconstitutional anyhow, and that the only legislative
+choice lies between the present abominable, unenforced and unenforceable
+laws and complete freedom of access to knowledge.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Below is given a résumé of all the chief legislative proposals
+to protect the public from harmful and fraudulent
+contraceptives, and the reasons why they were turned down
+by the conference, and were not considered as material to be
+recommended for the Cummins-Vaile Bill.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="center noindent"><span class="smcap">Certification of Contraceptives by Five Licensed Physicians</span></p>
+
+<p>The protective section as it now stands in the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“The transportation by mail or by any public carrier in the
+United States or in territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof, of
+information respecting the means by which conception may be prevented,
+or of the means of preventing conception, is hereby prohibited
+except as to such information or such means as shall be
+certified by not less than five graduate physicians lawfully engaged
+in the practice of medicine to be not injurious to life or health.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The doctors themselves consider this a weak and unreliable safeguard
+because, unfortunately, medical opinions can be too easily<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>
+secured. The certification might therefore in many instances be
+meaningless.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. W. A. Pusey, President of the American Medical Association,
+in this connection said:</p>
+
+<p>“We are only human. So large a body as the medical profession
+would be bound to contain some undesirables.”</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent center"><span class="smcap">Certification by Boards of Health</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent center">(Suggested by <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Spencer and others.)</p>
+
+<p>Government health officials are not, as such, necessarily well
+informed as to the merits or demerits of contraceptives. A few might
+happen to have valuable judgment, but merely being a public official
+would be no guarantee.</p>
+
+<p>There is wide-spread disapproval of anything that smacks of
+“State medicine” or governmental administration of the practice of
+medicine.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent center"><span class="smcap">Certification by City Health Commissioners</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent center">(Suggested by one of them.)</p>
+
+<p>He admitted, however, that he had very little reliable information
+on this subject. Although a physician, he turned to a layman (the
+Director of the V. P. L.) for advice as to the best sources for
+knowledge about contraceptive methods. If one of our best known
+Health Commissioners could be but a beginner in this study, their
+group would hardly seem the right one to be given exclusive jurisdiction
+as to the circulation of contraceptives.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent center"><span class="smcap">Contraceptives Authorized by Medical Boards</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent center">(Suggested tentatively by <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Cummins and others.)</p>
+
+<p>This would be class legislation which is against American principles
+and would rouse the antagonism of scientists who do not belong
+to the medical associations, whose Boards would be given such
+jurisdiction.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent center"><span class="smcap">Certification by the Department of Medical and Chemical
+Research of the National Public Health Service</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent center">(Suggested at the Chicago Physicians’ Conference.)</p>
+
+<p>This received less opposition than any other proposition to vest
+authority in any group, but it was subject to more or less the same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>
+objection that held in regard to the proposal to vest authority in
+public officials or medical Boards.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent center"><span class="smcap">Margaret Sanger’s Proposed “Doctors Only” Legislation</span></p>
+
+<p>This is suggested Federal legislation by which the Obscenity
+Statutes would not apply to doctors giving contraceptive instructions
+or prescriptions to other physicians or to their bona fide patients, nor
+to manufacturers and dealers in drugs who execute the physician’s
+prescriptions. This proposition was disapproved on several counts.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>First</i>, because it leaves the subject of contraceptive science still
+classed with obscenity.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second</i>, it is merely a permit to physicians to do what would be
+a crime under the obscenity law, for anyone else to do.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third</i>, it would establish a medical economic monopoly of the
+circulation of contraceptive knowledge.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth</i>, it would substantially deprive the medical profession of
+the very opportunity it purports to provide, namely, to study contraceptive
+science for the benefit of the public and the perfection of
+methods.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fifth</i>, it does not make medical publishing on contraceptives any
+more practicable than it is under the present law.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sixth</i>, it would not permit the importation of scientific contraceptive
+data from abroad.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The conference took place before Mrs. Sanger had abandoned
+this form of “doctors only” bill in favor of the form
+subsequently drafted by Mr. Worthington, as described in
+the previous chapter. Some of these criticisms are not applicable
+to the Worthington draft, but the first and second
+ones do apply.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Testing out all these propositions in the light of Dr. Pusey’s
+warning that the United States should avoid any more “silly” laws
+on this subject, all but one are open to further objection in the
+ground of wholesale unenforceability. The present protective section
+of the Cummins-Vaile Bill is the least unenforceable, with its
+provision for certification of methods by at least five licensed physicians.
+Under that provision there would be relatively little temptation
+to evade the law. But all the others would be more or less
+unenforceable, the Sanger proposition most of all.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span></p>
+
+<p>Out of all the dust of discussion, the straight repeal
+emerges clear and clean. The doctors said it was the only
+practicable legislation and the lawyers that it was the only
+sound legislation.</p>
+
+<p>It has been noticeable that physicians in discussing birth
+control legislation if they have leaned at all toward laws
+to keep the imparting of information exclusively in medical
+hands, have done so with a view to safeguarding the people
+from harmful or fraudulent methods, and have not urged
+it as a means for regulating morals. But laymen, notably
+club women, quite frequently have jumped at a hasty and
+thoughtless conclusion that somehow if the knowledge is
+kept by law in the hands of the doctors only, and is given
+out by them according to their discretion, it will be kept
+from reaching those who want to utilize it in illicit relationships.
+This assumption is the flimsiest kind of self-deception.
+The notion that doctors as a whole can see to it
+that they give instruction only where the use of it will stand
+the highest test of ethics and wisdom is nonsense. The function
+of the medical profession is to cure and prevent disease.
+It is not to act as arbiter of morals and ethics. Any
+pretense that it should do so is built on shifting sand.</p>
+
+<p>It is utterly unfair to the doctors to expect them to serve
+in any such capacity, and to propose laws that would impose
+upon them any such responsibility. Occasionally, of course,
+the doctor is not only physician but friend to his patient, and
+is therefore in a position to give moral advice without intrusion,
+but that relationship is incidental to his profession
+and not inherent in it. Laws that would try to empower
+physicians to act as inquisitors into the private lives of their
+patients and to be responsible for the ethical use of contraceptive
+instructions, would be an imposition both upon the
+physicians and upon the people.</p>
+
+<p>There is no evidence that the profession wants any such
+spurious responsibility thrust upon it. Medical men in general<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>
+are sufficiently high grade human beings to have a high
+regard for morals, and as individuals they can make their
+influence felt, but that is an entirely different thing from
+foisting upon them as a class a law-imposed task of managing
+other people’s private lives. Legislators, citizens and
+physicians alike must recognize that the source of moral
+stability is individual character, and that no repressive or
+paternalistic laws can ever produce the desired results.</p>
+
+<p>There are many indications that medical men have an
+instinct for protecting the status of the profession as the
+natural source of scientific information on this subject, and
+it is not exceptional to find physicians who lean toward
+favoring a “doctors only” bill as a recognition of medical
+prestige, but this impulse is not at all synonymous with a
+mercenary desire to have exclusive control of the dissemination
+of knowledge. They quite naturally want credit for
+devising good contraceptive methods, but relatively few are
+interested to retain any monopolistic advantage in the utilization
+of them. The writer recalls a conversation with a
+physician who, after some years of experiment, had devised
+an extremely simple and very inexpensive contraceptive. His
+rather inexplicable reservations in talking about it led to the
+frank inquiry as to whether he planned to make money by
+controlling the sale of his compound. His answer was a
+most emphatic “No, certainly not.” But he added, “I do,
+however, want credit for it. I have worked on this thing
+for five years, and have proved that it is simple, harmless,
+efficacious and cheap. It has solved the problem for my
+own patients and will do the same for thousands of others.
+All I want is that the formula shall stand as a part of my
+professional record.” He solidly approves the freedom idea
+in legislation.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_THREE_Chapter_II"><span class="smcap">Chapter II</span><br>
+
+WHAT DO THE PEOPLE WANT?</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>People’s first individual want is reliable contraceptive information:
+Strong probability that people prefer decent enforceable laws
+to those which are dirty and unenforceable: Choice can not be put
+up to United States town-meeting fashion: Reader asked to make
+own choice by elimination of what he does not want: Do you consider
+contraception indecent? Should laws penalize the decent majority
+to reach the depraved few? Should the control of conception
+itself be made a criminal act by law? Abstinence as method of birth
+control has no legal standing in the U. S.: Do you want unenforceable
+laws? Can “doctors only” laws accomplish their own aims?
+Are they enforceable? Do all contraceptives require personal medical
+instruction? Proponents of “doctors only” bill admit they do not:
+English birth control organization disapproves “doctors only” stand:
+Best known English authority on birth control is biologist, not M.D.:
+Are laws to control improper advertising of contraceptives practicable?
+Average citizen too occupied to analyze legislative proposals:
+Proponents of limited legislation backward about explaining their
+bills to the public: They refuse to debate openly or confer privately
+with the proponents of the freedom bill.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">What do the people want? No doubt the first conscious
+want of most people so far as birth control
+is concerned, is simple reliable information about methods.
+It is largely their own needs and wants which have made
+people pay attention to and develop the birth control movement,
+or realize just how the laws forbid their getting what
+they want. On the latter point they are apt to be much
+more vague than on the former. Some people, and unfortunately
+they are numerous, having managed to get what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>
+they want in spite of the laws, are prone to forget the plight
+of others who are not sophisticated enough or lucky enough
+to be successful law-breakers, and thus they feel little direct
+responsibility about getting the laws revamped so that they
+shall not stand in the way of any one who needs access to
+the information. But on the whole, these careless and self-centered
+people would, if they stopped to think about it,
+agree with those who have a heart for others and are public
+spirited, and they too would prefer decent, just and practicable
+laws to those which are dirty-minded, unjust and
+unenforceable.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose a real conference of the whole people were
+possible, and they could put their minds on deciding what
+laws they wanted on this subject, after looking over the
+statutes we have now, and after scrutinizing all the proposals
+that have been made for revising them, what sort of
+a decision would they be likely to make? What would their
+conclusion be, if left entirely to their own devices, with no
+“experts” to tell them what to say, and with the whole responsibility
+on their own shoulders? They would doubtless
+be deficient in putting their ideas into legal phraseology—the
+technician might have to be called on for that; but
+would they be likely to vote any sort of suppression or
+restrictions upon themselves? Is there any precedent in
+history for a body of people ever doing that? Have people
+ever united to express their lack of faith in themselves and
+said, “Let us have laws to keep us from knowing this and
+that, as we can not trust ourselves to use the knowledge
+rightly”? On the contrary, whenever people unite in demands
+<em>for themselves</em>, are those demands not always for
+freedom rather than for repression?</p>
+
+<p>But since a United States town-meeting on this subject
+is a wild hypothesis, perhaps the next best thing would be
+for the reader to look upon himself as the one person upon
+whom the answer to this question rested—with the responsible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>
+knowledge that whatever he really wanted would forthwith
+become the law of the land; and realizing also that
+what he basically wants is, probably ten to one, what most
+everybody else wants too.</p>
+
+<p>The simplest way to reach a conclusion about this law
+question would seem to be by elimination. First then—do
+you want the laws related to birth control to remain as they
+are now? Do you approve the legal company the subject
+is in—under such law classifications as “Obscene literature,”
+“Indecent articles,” and entangled with such adjectives as
+“lewd,” “lascivious,” “filthy,” and “immoral”? No? You
+wish it rescued? Then the bill to repeal those two words
+“preventing conception” from all the obscenity statutes is
+what you want.</p>
+
+<p>But wait—it may not be so simple as that. How about
+those who do feel that the control of conception is more or
+less indecent, the people who have somewhat Comstocky
+minds, to whom <em>any</em> reminder of sex is a danger? Are they
+anything like a majority. If so, would you want to let the
+laws remain as they are in deference to their feelings?
+Though no one can prove it, they are probably nothing like
+a majority, but even if they were, should the normal, clean-minded
+people be penalized for their sake? And further,
+is it the proper function of government to maintain laws
+to protect people’s <em>feelings</em> about sex or anything else?
+Those who want to may feel as indecent as they please
+about the control of conception. They do not need laws to
+help them do it. The function of law is to protect people’s
+rights. As no one’s mere feelings are an intrusion upon
+another’s rights, it is no concern of the law to deal with
+them. The laws as they stand now are a gratuitous insult
+to the great mass of the people who do not consider the
+control of conception indecent. Do you want that legal insult
+maintained?</p>
+
+<p>Then how about those whose chief interest in the control<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>
+of conception is in connection with actual sex depravity
+and perversion and who wish the information for that purpose?
+Do you want the obscenity laws to remain as they
+are, for the sake of trying to make them apply to those
+people? Hardly, because they are undoubtedly a small
+minority anyway, and they are quite clever enough to break
+the laws successfully, besides; and further, any circulation
+of contraceptive information which is put in indecent language
+or involved with inducements for sex depravity would
+be just as subject to prosecution under the obscenity laws
+<em>after</em> the removal of the words “preventing conception” as
+it is now. The indictment would be for <em>obscenity</em>, and that
+can cover improper contraceptive information or anything
+else that the judge or jury in a given case choose to make it
+cover. Obscenity, throughout the whole history of law in
+modern times has been an extraordinarily pliable term.</p>
+
+<p>Is there then any propriety or justice in keeping this
+subject per se, legally enmeshed with penalized obscenity?
+If you agree that there is none and if you want it removed
+from the obscenity laws, what next?</p>
+
+<p>Do you, by any chance, think that the control of conception
+regardless of any connection with obscenity, should
+<em>itself be declared by law to be a criminal act</em>? This is a
+crucial question absurd as it may sound. There are many
+people who believe that the scientific control of parenthood
+is wrong, though not necessarily obscene. This has been
+the teaching of the Catholic Church, and on this ground
+Catholics have opposed the repeal of the legal ban on knowledge
+concerning it. They have not asked Congress to amend
+the Comstock law by making it a criminal act to control
+conception. But is not this the only logical thing for them
+to do, if they presume to, ask the government to continue
+to deny people access to the knowledge on the ground that
+the utilization of the knowledge is wrong? Ought not
+they and any others who are like-minded, to get themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>
+together and tackle this question straight from the shoulder
+in Congress? If they consider it at all appropriate to appear
+at a Hearing and urge Congress to try to keep the
+people from knowing about this wrong thing, is it not more
+fitting to ask for laws which will forbid the thing itself,
+instead of knowledge about the thing? They can perfectly
+well proceed on this course if they wish to undertake it.
+It is noteworthy that thus far, none of them have done so.
+No one has gone to Congress and pointed with pride to that
+unique statute in Connecticut, the only one of its sort in the
+world—which makes it a crime to control conception—and
+asked to have a Federal law of the same sort enacted. But
+if the Catholics and what few other opponents there are,
+do not wish to undertake this task, and if they persist in
+asking for laws to prevent others from learning how to do
+what they—the Catholics, et al., consider wrong, they
+will be treading upon ground which may menace the
+maintenance of their own liberty to teach and preach
+and practice what they believe to be right. The tables are
+likely to be turned upon them, so that they will have to
+fight for the same sort of liberty which they now seek to
+deny to others. Indeed this is what did happen in the case
+of the Oregon School law, which would be in operation today
+if the United States Supreme Court had not declared
+it unconstitutional. (<a href="#APPENDIX_NO_15">Appendix No. 15</a> gives further information
+on this subject.)</p>
+
+<p>In getting at an answer to the question as to what sort
+of laws are really wanted, it clears the air considerably to
+get rid of this point about the distinction between a law
+which prohibits an act and a law which prohibits <em>information
+about an act which in itself is perfectly lawful</em>. The latter
+is the sort of law we now have, and it is not good law either
+for those who believe in the control of conception or for
+those who do not. Both groups should join to repeal it.
+And then those who wish to have their belief that birth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>
+control is wrong incorporated into the law of the land would
+have an open field in which to make the effort. That they
+would fail is a foregone conclusion, and they know it of
+course, which no doubt accounts for their rash insistence
+on the retention of the present law.</p>
+
+<p>The next point to eliminate is that in regard to the application
+of the present law to the <em>one method</em> of birth control
+which is sanctioned by the Catholics and the few others
+who deem the utilization of scientific knowledge an affront
+to God or nature, namely, abstinence from sex relations.
+The writer has a letter from Rev. John A. Ryan, Director
+of the National Catholic Welfare Council in which he says,
+“There is no question of the lawfulness of birth restriction
+through abstinence from the relations which result in conception.”
+This assertion has been repeatedly made by other
+opponents, but that it is a mistaken assertion was pointed out
+by Congressman Vaile and by <abbr title="Professor">Prof.</abbr> Roswell Johnson at
+the Hearings on the Cummins-Vaile Bill. Mr. Vaile said:
+“If abstinence from the sexual relation were practiced,
+either spouse could get a divorce.” Abstinence itself is not
+sanctioned by law.</p>
+
+<p>According to common law precedent, the wife gives her
+“services” to her husband in exchange for her “necessaries.”
+“Services” are interpreted to mean household services and
+“consortium,” or sex-relations. “Necessaries” are interpreted
+to mean food, clothes and shelter.</p>
+
+<p>The law does not sanction a wife’s withholding her “services,”
+either household or sexual. If she does, it is deemed
+desertion, and in many States desertion is a ground for
+divorce.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it seems that abstinence is not only illegal, because
+it is a method of birth control, the giving of information
+about which is prohibited by law, but it is also illegal because
+it is withholding the “services” which a wife is by law
+bound to give in return for her “necessaries.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span></p>
+
+<p>In other words, so far as the law is concerned, there is
+no room for abstinence. It follows therefore that the only
+sort of family which is <em>legally</em> approved in these United
+States is that in which there are as many children as it is
+physically possible for the parents to produce. This legal
+situation constitutes a downright poser for the so-called
+“purists” who advocate the abstinence of marital sex relations
+except for procreation.</p>
+
+<p>For abstinence is one method of birth-control. It certainly
+prevents conception.</p>
+
+<p>To teach any method for the prevention of conception
+is prohibited by law throughout the United States. Yet the
+“purists” teach their method.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore the “purists” are guilty of breaking the law.
+Query: Why are they not prosecuted? This question then
+becomes a poser for the government. Silence has been the
+only answer.</p>
+
+<p>This leads to the next point to be cleared away, in the
+process of finding out what laws are really wanted or what
+ones it is worth while to want; that is, as to enforceability.
+Clearly the present laws are not enforced. The government
+has not the remotest idea of trying to enforce them. And if
+it tried, it would fail. It might mean jailing at least half the
+population. It simply can not be done. The knowledge is circulating
+whether or no. The cat is out of the bag, and it
+is quite useless to wave the empty bag any longer, as if
+somehow the cat could be persuaded back. Better cast the
+old bag aside, as it is full of holes anyway, and let the
+cat be given a decent home, instead of being obliged to
+skulk furtively in alleys and eat from garbage pails. Moreover
+it is a cat that has not only the proverbial nine lives,
+but more nearly ninety million lives. It can not be caught
+or killed, much less bagged. Do you, or does anybody
+really want unenforceable laws? The question answers itself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span></p>
+
+<p>If <ins class="corr" id="TN-24" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: the the principle">the principle</ins> of enforceability is a prerequisite
+for law, and if the present law is abandoned because it does
+not live up to that principle, is anything more needed than
+merely to put the old law in the waste basket, in other
+words, just to remove those two words “preventing conception”
+from all the obscenity statutes in which they occur?
+Is any further legislation needed? And if so, is there any
+sort which, first of all, meets this fundamental requirement
+of enforceability, and which also will achieve the ends for
+which it is desired? And if those ends are not achievable
+by laws which can be enforced, then they will have to be
+achieved, will they not, by some other agency than law?</p>
+
+<p>The two ends to be achieved for which other legislation
+has been proposed are, first, that only authoritative scientific
+contraceptive information shall be given to the people,
+and second, that all information on the subject shall be
+kept away, so far as may be possible from those who would
+misuse it, or who might be tempted to misuse it, so that
+immorality and depravity may not be thereby increased.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose, for the moment, that you feel so strongly about
+the desirability of both those ends that you are inclined
+to favor any legislation which is aimed to achieve them.
+Then bearing in mind the basic requirements of enforceability
+and efficacy, you scan with a fresh eye and a responsible
+spirit the legislation which has been proposed.
+You find in it two principles, one that all contraceptive information
+and means which are circulated shall bear authoritative
+medical certification that they be “not injurious to
+life or health,” that is, the certification shall be by lawfully
+practicing physicians; the other principle, that contraceptive
+information may lawfully emanate only from a certain
+class of the people, the medical profession, and be given
+only to people who qualify in certain ways, that is, those
+who are physicians or those who receive it personally from
+physicians as “bona fide” patients of the same, and that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>
+contraceptive means may be sold only to those who personally
+present a physician’s written prescription for the
+same.</p>
+
+<p>These two principles you find are very far apart. One
+requires medical sanction for methods, as somewhat of a
+protection to the public against harmful or fraudulent contraceptives,
+and while it by no means guarantees wholly satisfactory
+protection, as it would be subject to the possible inadequacies
+of the certifying physicians, it would be at least
+enforceable, and it establishes untrammelled freedom in the
+access to information and the securing of means.</p>
+
+<p>The other is class legislation, and establishes a monopolistic,
+monetary privilege for physicians in the dispensing of
+information and an impracticable restriction upon those who
+sell contraceptive means: in so doing it by no means guarantees
+protection against harmful or inadequate contraceptives,
+as it would protect only to the extent that individual physicians
+were competent and conscientious, and it would be even less
+enforceable than our present law. For if information now
+leaks through the bars of the present law to a very considerable
+extent, it stands to reason that the leakage would
+be greatly increased if the bars of the law are lessened at
+all, and if the bars are placed very far apart as they would
+be by the latest “doctors only” bill proposed (the Worthington
+draft as given on page <a href="#Page_212">212</a>) the leakage would be so
+great as to reduce the efficacy of the bars to the vanishing
+point. It would be patently absurd to expect such a sieve-like
+law to allow all the worthy people to get information
+and to keep it away from all the unworthy ones, or even any
+tiny proportion of the unworthy ones.</p>
+
+<p>So, if the final effect of this last proposed “doctors only”
+bill would be about the same as the freedom bill, so far as
+access to information is concerned, why go all round Robin
+Hood’s barn to achieve it, instead of doing it directly and
+simply? Why try to fool oneself or anybody else into thinking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>
+that any law can possibly be devised that will allow many
+millions of people to learn certain facts, and which will at the
+same time keep those facts a profound secret from the balance
+of the people? Does not such a proposition seem to be
+the outcome of mental processes somewhat akin to those of
+the man who cut two holes in the barn door, a big one for the
+old cat and a little one for the kitten?</p>
+
+<p>Glance back to the changes in limited legislation which
+have been proposed since 1881, when the first one appeared,
+long before the modern birth control movement. It was in
+New York State, and it permitted doctors to give any instructions
+(including by inference contraceptive instruction)
+to “cure or prevent disease.” In 1919 began the rapid succession
+of limited bills by which some of the legal bars were
+to be removed. First doctors and nurses were to be allowed
+to give information. Then the bars were thickened by eliminating
+the nurses, leaving the doctors in sole possession of
+the special privilege. Then to thicken the bars still further,
+the doctors could give it only to the married or to those
+having a license to marry. Then came the first Federal
+“doctors only” proposition, by which doctors could inform
+other doctors and their “bona fide” patients, and dealers
+could fill contraceptive prescriptions from doctors; but no
+publications or importation of publications were to be allowed.
+Then, as the force of criticism began to be felt,
+and the Cummins-Vaile Bill progressed to the point of being
+reported out by the Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee in Congress,
+the bars began to be thinned out again, and in 1925
+the Worthington draft appeared, which would permit doctors
+to inform each other and their patients, and allow
+dealers to fill physicians’ prescriptions, and would also permit
+medical and “scientific” publications, and “reprints”
+from the same. You find that these legislative proposals
+have swung all the way from a tight “doctors only” bill to
+a bill that is framed in the language of a “doctors only” bill
+but which actually would not function as such.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span></p>
+
+<p>The point has almost been reached when, by the removal
+of bar after bar in the “doctors only” type
+of bill, one might say that “things equal to the same thing
+are equal to each other,” inasmuch as the last version of the
+“doctors only” idea would be practically the same in effect
+as the Cummins-Vaile Bill, so far as the accessibility of contraceptive
+information is concerned. That being the case,
+is not the very fact that the limited bill proposition has been
+pared down till it would release information about as completely
+as a freedom bill, a most forceful reason for scrapping
+it now in favor of the freedom bill? If the restrictions
+are so riddled with exemptions as to be only the shadow and
+pretense of restriction, why go through the motions of keeping
+them? If such pretension at restriction should fool
+anyone into thinking they were genuinely efficacious, it would
+but serve to make the law an arrant hypocrisy. If they
+would not so fool anybody, why bother to try to put them
+into law? Is it not time to bear in mind Dr. Pusey’s advice
+to avoid framing “silly legislation,” as we have more
+than enough of that kind on the statute books already?
+Why add to the welter of laws we have, when we can better
+achieve what we want by merely <ins class="corr" id="TN-25" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: substracting errors">subtracting errors</ins> from
+the existing laws. As “Life” observed:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Thirty-eight thousand eight hundred and forty-four laws were
+proposed in the United States last year, of which 10,809 were actually
+enacted. Our national sport used to be baseball.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Probably most if not all of the “doctors only” proponents
+would be quite willing and even glad to have this
+subject removed from the obscenity classification in law, if
+they could see a feasible way to keep the “doctors only”
+provision at the same time. But that would force them to
+propose a law that would frankly be a legal permit for class
+privilege. It would be too obvious to attempt with decorum.
+So they try to accomplish the same end by the indirect
+method of providing exemptions for doctors under the existing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>
+obscenity statutes. But just as a rose by another name
+would smell as sweet, is not a wrong by another name just
+as offensive?</p>
+
+<p>This thought brings up the next point for consideration
+as to the sort of laws it is worth while to want. Even if
+the latest form of “doctors only” bill does break down the
+restrictions so that they would be a mere gesture rather than
+a genuine law, do you want any laws passed which are based
+on the idea of privilege? If so, would you be willing to
+be quite candid about it? Would you be willing to ask a
+member of Congress to introduce a bill which would be a
+legal permit for certain people to give contraceptive information
+and certain people to buy and sell contraceptives,
+and would forbid all other people to do the same? If you
+would shrink from such a blatant betrayal of democratic
+American principles as that, are you not in all conscience
+bound to stand for a law which would be true to those principles?
+If you were not willing to do openly and directly
+a thing which you knew to be unsound in principle, could
+you possibly persuade yourself to do it indirectly?</p>
+
+<p>Suppose then you have a healthy <ins class="corr" id="TN-26" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: scorn of pretentions">scorn of pretensions</ins>,
+legal and otherwise, and you find yourself averse to any
+legislation that could be rightly deemed double-faced, and
+you proceed in your survey of legislative proposals. You
+may find that the point about the need for personal prescription
+of contraceptives which is so stressed in behalf of
+the “doctors only” bills, still troubles you. You wonder
+perhaps, if there is not some sound way to make a legal
+provision that would work out so as to give the people just
+what they individually need in the way of contraceptives and
+protect them from means that are unsafe or ineffective.</p>
+
+<p>If so, there are these facts to consider. There is doubtless
+great advantage in having the personal advice of a thoroughly
+well informed physician as to contraceptive method.
+It is reassuring if nothing else, even if not imperatively<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>
+needed in most cases. For average individuals with normal
+physique a professional prescription is by no means always
+necessary. But exceptional physical conditions do need special
+attention, such as only the doctor or an experienced
+nurse can give. Under the present handicap of the laws,
+advice from a competent physician is of especial use because
+he can warn his patient against the many worthless and
+even harmful methods which are being secretly advocated.
+But when publications on the subject can be openly circulated,
+the difference between the good and bad methods can
+be made clear by authoritative spokesmen, and the general
+public can learn the main facts about this sort of hygiene in
+the same natural way that they learn about dental and
+dietetic hygiene, and so forth. There is no need to make
+a medical mystery of this knowledge, or to assume that the
+public will be lost in hopeless ignorance unless a doctor
+prescribes specially for each individual. The simplicity of
+some of the best methods makes such an attitude an absurdity.</p>
+
+<p>At the last Hearing in the New York Legislature
+on a “doctors only” bill, the Birth Control Review reports
+Mrs. Sanger as saying that “the Clinical Research Department
+of the American Birth Control League teaches methods
+so simple that once learned any mother who is intelligent
+enough to keep a nursing bottle clean can use them.”
+Dr. Robert L. Dickinson, head of the New York Committee
+on Maternal Health has said that the method most favorably
+regarded does not require the instruction of a physician
+preceding its use. “The New Generation,” one of the
+two outstanding birth control periodicals in England, and
+official organ of the Neo-Malthusian group of birth control
+advocates, published in January, 1925, the following editorial
+against the “doctors only” position.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span></p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="noindent center">MEDICAL MONOPOLY</p>
+
+<p>We deeply sympathize with our American friends in their difficulties
+with the Comstock Act, but we fear that Mrs. Sanger’s proposed
+compromise—to give the doctors a monopoly of knowledge—would
+only be a step from the frying pan into the fire. Mrs. Sanger
+thinks that contraception must in any case be a subject for medical
+experts, so it does not matter much whether they have a monopoly
+or not. There we differ from her. We cannot admit that contraception
+must necessarily be a medical question. We admit that the
+kind of contraceptive most fashionable at present has to be fitted
+by a doctor or nurse, but science may easily evolve a better one
+which will render doctors and nurses entirely needless. The results
+of eighteen months’ experiment in Mrs. Sanger’s own clinic are
+the best proof of this. One of the most successful devices employed
+there was a —— paste which needs no doctor to fit it. Its percentage
+of failure was as small as that of any other tried method.
+From the standpoint of the public it is devoutly to be hoped that
+some simple method which needs no doctors will turn out to be the
+best. But such a result would be directly opposed to the interests
+of the medical profession. If the doctors had a legal monopoly of
+knowledge, they would be under the strongest temptation to develop
+and improve those methods which demand the assistance of doctors,
+and to discourage all research which would make doctors unnecessary.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The official stand of the Society for Constructive Birth
+Control and Racial Progress, in England is also against the
+“doctors only” position. This is the Society of which Dr.
+Marie C. Stopes, founder of the first English birth control
+clinic, is the president.</p>
+
+<p>A striking bit of evidence which is related to this point
+is that the best known authority on this subject in England,
+and the one from whom many physicians both abroad and
+in this country have learned most of what they know about
+the control of conception and who has written a large volume
+of the subject, is a biologist, who has scientific degrees
+but who is not an M.D. So the framing of laws which
+would place the giving of information exclusively in the
+hands of physicians becomes an absurdity for that reason if
+for no other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Floods of advertisements” streaming through the mails,
+commercializing, cheapening and degrading contraceptive
+science—this is one of the bogies held before the eyes of
+the public by those who want limited legislation in place of
+freedom legislation. You may consider this a point well
+taken as a possible reason for “doctors only” legislation.
+Certainly decent people do not want any such thing to happen.
+The question is how to prevent it. Can it be achieved
+by law? If so, then would it not be better to have a separate
+statute on the subject of advertising contraceptives, than to
+try to accomplish the curbing of improper advertising in a
+round about back-handed way via a “doctors only” bill? Of
+course a blanket prohibition of all advertising would not be
+appropriate for that would rule out the publisher’s announcements
+of the “standard medical works and reprints
+therefrom” which are to be allowed according to the latest
+form of “doctors only” bill. It is hard to see where any
+line could be drawn, as “standard medical” and “scientific”
+publications are not defined by law. What conceivably
+might be done is to pass laws similar to the obsolete one in
+Holland which forbids the display of contraceptives in shop
+windows, and so forth. But on the whole would it not be
+best to have the laws simply provide an open field, and let
+the dignified authoritative scientists compete with the quacks
+and the spurious folk, with faith that eventually the best
+would win, very much as the increased public knowledge of
+general hygiene is steadily putting quackery into the background?</p>
+
+<p>The writer of this book believes whole-heartedly that
+the American public wants sound legislation on the subject
+of birth control. The difficulty in getting it lies in the fact
+that people in general are so concerned with each day’s doings
+that there is scant time or opportunity to dig out from
+all manner of sources the few facts that are the basis of
+sound legislation. The tendency of busy people is to “let<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>
+the experts decide.” The tendency of average citizens is to
+vote yes on any project that claims to carry out ideas to
+which he gives general approval. The tendency of birth
+control enthusiasts is to assume that the sincere and self-sacrificing
+leaders of an agitation are automatically wise at
+framing laws on the subject. But, as Heywood Broun said
+in the New York World, anent another subject and a different
+sort of organization:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>I am quite ready to be convinced that many of its members are
+dangerously sincere and are utterly convinced that the objects for
+which they work will save the Nation. What of it? Where on
+earth did the notion come from that sincerity was a sort of police
+pass which would admit the bearer through all restraining lines and
+permit him to pour kerosene on the conflagration? Would you have
+your appendix out at the hands of a sincere surgeon or ask a passionate
+architect to design the foundations of your cellar?</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>And one of the chief difficulties for the interested citizen
+in this particular matter is that the proponents of the
+“doctors only” legislation give such a small part of the
+salient facts to the public in asking for support for their
+bills. Much is omitted which might radically alter the response
+to the request for endorsement, if it were but known.
+For instance, the public is being asked in widely circulated
+appeals to endorse the bill drafted by Mr. George Worthington,
+which is to be introduced into Congress as soon as
+possible. It may very likely be before Congress by the time
+these words are read. The statement which accompanies
+the request for endorsement is this:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The object of this amendment (to Section 211 of the Penal
+Code) is to permit the mailing of contraceptive information and scientific
+reports by duly licensed physicians to bona fide patients, physicians
+and printers,—and to permit bona fide druggists, manufacturers
+and physicians to mail articles of contraception.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A copy of the Worthington amendment is given. That
+is all. There is not a word about the fact that this is an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>
+amendment to the obscenity law, and that the subject of
+birth control is still left, a penalized indecency in that law.
+There is no suggestion given that this amendment is permissive
+legislation for a class privilege. There is no inkling
+given that it is legislation that could not possibly be enforced
+so as to exclude others beside those listed from using the
+mailing privilege. There is no statement explaining that
+there is no such thing in law as a definition as to what constitutes
+a “bona fide” “patient,” or “printer” or “manufacturer.”
+The public is merely asked to say yes to what looks,
+at first glance, like a most desirable thing. And apparently
+the public is being counted upon to say it, without a second
+glance or a pause for thoughtful inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, on the part of some of the proponents of limited
+legislation there seems to be a definite intention not to
+let the public realize that there is or could be a choice as to
+the type of bills which our legislators are asked to pass. A
+striking example of this tendency has appeared in New
+Jersey. Circular letters are going the rounds asking the
+public to endorse a “doctors only” and married-people-only
+bill, as shown in <a href="#APPENDIX_NO_8">Appendix No. 8</a>. The State organizer of
+the American Birth Control League who has charge of this
+work, was asked if he had “ever considered submitting a
+choice of bills to the public” he was “circularizing to see
+which they would prefer asking the Legislature to pass, a
+limited measure or a simple repeal act?” He answered
+thus: “It is a hard enough job to educate the public to see
+the necessity for birth control as a general proposition, without
+confusing the issue by asking them to express an opinion
+or choice as between two possible measures, about neither
+of which they know very much. Even if such a questionnaire
+were possible, I would not make it.” It is noticeable that
+the letters which are being circulated asking for endorsement
+do not inform the New Jersey people much of anything
+even about the limited bill proposed. Yet the endorsement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>
+which these New Jersey citizens send in will be used to
+convince the Legislature that the people want this particular
+bill, as proved by their endorsements. It goes without
+saying that those who collect the endorsements will not
+then state that they did not trust the people to know what
+they wanted themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Further indication of unwillingness on the part of the
+“doctors only” group to have the public get a full and free
+comprehension of the two radically different types of legislation
+that have been proposed, has been the repeated refusal
+of the “doctors only” proponents to debate the subject
+in open meeting. The proponents of the freedom bill on
+the other hand have made many efforts to pool the points
+held in common between the two groups, and to iron out the
+differences so that a sound joint legislative platform would
+be the result. It may be illuminating to the reader to see
+the terms of a recent effort on the part of the proponents
+of the freedom bill to get together with the proponents of
+the exemption bill drafted by Mr. Worthington. They are
+embodied in a Memorandum which was sent by the freedom
+bill group to the exemption bill group preliminary to a proposed
+conference. The exemption bill group refused to
+confer. The Memorandum reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<ol>
+<li><em>Proposed legislation should be tested</em> for its <em>soundness</em> as law,
+its <em>enforceability</em>, and its <em>adequacy</em> to meet the people’s need.</li>
+
+<li>It can be assumed that everyone sincerely interested in the
+birth control movement, from whatever angle, will want all laws
+to meet these tests.</li>
+
+<li>Conversely, it can be assumed that no one would, wittingly,
+approve laws which are unsound, that is, unsuitable for a democracy,
+or untrue to the letter or spirit of the Constitution; or laws which
+are unenforceable, that is, which are a mere gesture, calculated to
+have a discretionary or educational effect on the public, but are not
+intended for genuine execution; or laws which are inadequate, that
+is, which do not permit the widest and speediest opportunity for
+the largest possible number of people to have access to contraceptive
+knowledge.
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span></p>
+</li>
+
+<li>It can be assumed also, that in the effort to find a legislative
+platform which the public and all who are specially interested in
+the birth control movement can be asked to support, there should be
+no provisions proposed which are based upon personal, organization,
+or professional partisanship; that the platform should represent only
+intrinsic merit, regardless of priority of effort, individual reputation
+in leadership, or of professional prestige.</li>
+
+<li>If all concerned will agree then, as to what <em>not to do</em>, they
+can the more readily determine what <em>to do</em>.</li>
+
+<li>The basic elements which all hold in common seem to be;
+
+<ol type="a">
+
+<li>Recognition that contraceptive knowledge is not obscenity
+and that it is all gain and no loss to remove it
+from that classification in law, and that the demand
+for a clean legal status for the subject is in itself a
+very valuable educational process for the public.</li>
+
+<li>Desire that all who need contraceptive instruction shall
+receive it from the best possible sources, and through
+the best possible channels. The best sources are generally
+conceded to be the medical and biological scientists.</li>
+</ol>
+</li>
+
+<li>Point <i>a</i> can easily and properly be achieved by legislation. It
+involves only striking out “Preventing Conception” from all the
+obscenity statutes, wherever they occur.</li>
+
+<li>But point <i>b</i> presents great difficulty if not impossibility of
+achievement via legislation, <em>not, however</em>, via publicity and a campaign
+of education.
+
+<p>Thus far no legislative proposal on this point <i>b</i> has successfully
+met any of the three tests named in the first paragraph of this Memorandum
+as fundamental necessities.</p>
+
+<p>They have either been class legislation, or permits for special
+privilege, or have been unenforceable, or inefficient as means for allowing
+the accomplishment of the desired aim.</p>
+</li>
+
+<li>Unless there is some genius who can now frame a law that is
+adequate to provide for point <i>b</i> and which at the same time is free
+from the serious legal sins noted above, is it not the part of wisdom
+for all who are working in the birth control movement, to join in
+approving legislation to achieve point <i>a</i> and then work in their many
+various ways to achieve point <i>b</i> by a vigorous publicity campaign,
+that will be so wide-spread and effective that all America will shortly
+know that the best way to get contraceptive instruction is to consult
+the best medical and biological authorities?
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span></p>
+</li>
+
+<li>People can be successfully advised and guided along paths
+that no laws can <em>compel</em> them to take.</li>
+
+<li>The <em>result</em> is what every one wants, that is <em>education</em>. Then
+why not concentrate on education straight, instead of trying to secure
+it by laws? <em>And why not depend on legislation for the simple
+purpose of removing the barriers to education?</em></li>
+
+<li>The obligation resting upon those who undertake to frame
+legislation is serious. They must see to it that the enthusiasm of
+the large groups interested in birth control is not wrongly capitalized.
+Most of these people are not innately law-makers, and, legally
+speaking, they think very superficially. They do not differentiate
+between enthusiasm for a humanitarian project and providing the
+legal processes that clear the road for the achievement of the project.</li>
+
+<li>Knowing as we all do, that large numbers of people will
+endorse any sort of proposed birth control laws out of sheer enthusiasm
+for the big cause, it behooves the few who devise legislative procedure,
+to hand to the legislators and to the public, propositions that
+are thoroughly sound, just and efficacious. We must carefully safeguard
+our country, at least so far as our movement is concerned,
+against the addition of any more laws that are superfluous, spurious
+or ineffective.</li>
+
+<li>We shall do well to bear in mind, that education is the great
+thing, but that it needs an open road in order to progress rapidly,
+which the repeal embodied in the Cummins-Vaile Bill would accomplish.</li>
+</ol>
+
+<p>If such a thing were possible that the people really
+wanted, knowingly, the enactment of a “doctors only,” special
+permit exemption bill, and also knowingly, did not want
+the enactment of a freedom bill, then they ought to have
+what they want. Democracy is government by the people.
+It is not necessarily good government. But at least the
+people should know what sort of legislation they are choosing
+when they sign endorsement slips and petitions. Many
+of these have been circulated in the past, and many are
+being circulated now. There is a notable difference between
+the two sorts. Those circulated in behalf of the freedom
+bill have plainly stated that the bill was to remove the ban
+from the obscenity laws, so that any one who signed could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>
+know that he was expressing his approval of that act. Those
+which are being circulated on behalf of the special-permit,
+exemption, “not non-mailable” bill <em>do not state</em> that the subject
+is being <em>left</em> in the obscenity laws. If the assumption
+is that the people would approve leaving the subject in the
+indecency classification in laws, then it would seem to be
+only fair and square to ask them to say so explicitly. For
+it is a good deal of an assumption. It needs proof before
+it can be believed. In justice to themselves also, should not
+the proponents of the limited legislation state clearly what
+their proposed law would do and would not do, in order that
+no one should have opportunity to charge them either with
+carelessness or with duplicity?</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_THREE_Chapter_III"><span class="smcap">Chapter III</span><br>
+
+CAN THE PEOPLE GET WHAT THEY WANT?</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot fs85">
+
+<p><i>Congress will do what the people want if the request is made
+clearly and forceably enough: Inhibitions are waning: Later generations
+will not bless birth control workers or Congress if legislation
+is bungled now: Danger of blundering as Comstock blundered:
+Those who mean well regarding legislation must do well: Present
+laws unconstitutional: First class legal opinion deems all “doctors
+only” laws unconstitutional also: Time to discard governmental distrust
+of the people.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap">The people can get just what they want from Congress
+and the State Legislatures regarding the birth control
+question, if they make their wants known definitely enough.
+If they leave it wholly to the relatively few citizens who
+take the trouble to go down to Washington and worry bills
+through Congress, they may wake later to find that misguided
+enthusiasm has done for this generation what Comstock
+did for his generation—enacted laws which were well
+meant, but which have worked ill. Some senator of our
+day may have to warn Congress as did Senator Conkling in
+1873, lest we “do something which when we come to see it
+in print, will not be the thing we would have done if we had
+understood it.” It is doubtful if any thoughtful members of
+Congress or any clear-headed citizens could be proud if it
+should happen that the laws affecting birth control were
+amended so as to create a special privilege in access to
+knowledge instead of freedom for all; if they established
+monopoly instead of equal opportunity; or if they created
+paternalism instead of democracy. No one in later years<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>
+would bless Congress for passing another batch of unenforceable
+laws. And it is safe to say also that American
+citizens would not bless any birth control advocates who,
+after endless talk and the expenditure of time and money
+which Congressional work requires, should persuade Congress
+to leave the subject of birth control still mired in the
+obscenity laws where Comstock (and Congress meekly acquiescing)
+placed it over half a century ago.</p>
+
+<p>Much water has gone under the bridge since birth control
+corrective legislation was first proposed. Congressional
+inhibitions have considerably lessened. The whole subject
+in press, pulpit, fiction and private life is on a more wholesome
+plane than ever before. The time is ripe to have that
+improvement reflected into sound legislative action. Congress
+will just as willingly do the fine thing as the flimsy
+thing, if the people demand it. Congress will help to take
+birth control out of the laws, instead of putting it into further
+spurious laws, if the people say so.</p>
+
+<p>It is up to the public to let the birth control workers
+know what is wanted, and for both the birth control workers
+and the public to let Congress know what is wanted—and
+wanted with the best that is in people’s minds and hearts,
+not what is dictated by their superficial fears, their doubts
+and their shames.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Raymond Pearl has said: “The cure for the
+defects of birth control, paraphrasing the old remark about
+democracy, is more and more democratic birth control.”
+And surely the cure for the defects of legislation regarding
+birth control is more and more democratic legislation.</p>
+
+<p>It has to be admitted that the American public has often
+been shockingly easy-going about responsibility for the sort
+of laws that its representatives enact, likewise that the public
+is often woefully pliant in accepting ready made opinions
+and policies without analysis. But it is to be hoped that
+there are enough citizens who are genuinely interested to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>
+help check misguided legislation and promote sound legislation
+on this subject, to prevent our country from making
+another great blunder in birth control legislation instead of
+correcting Comstock’s original blunder with a clean firm
+sweep. Standing up and being counted as a believer in birth
+control is not enough. Those who are on record in birth
+control organizations as adherents of “the cause” must see
+to it that their names are not linked to endorsements of bills
+which they do not approve. Birth control leaders, like
+members of Congress, will yield to public opinion, if it is
+clearly enough and forcibly enough expressed.</p>
+
+<p>It is time for every one who means well in this matter to
+do well also. The gist of the question is very simple and
+lucid. It has unfortunately been gummed up with all manner
+of excrescences. But they can all be readily scraped
+off by dint of the application of plain common sense and determination
+not to fool one’s self or to attempt to fool the
+public or the legislators.</p>
+
+<p>Also there is a considerable portion of the American
+public which cares about having the laws on this subject in
+harmony with the proud traditions of American ideals, the
+people to whom the guarantees of freedom of speech and of
+the press mean something, and who are keen to have the
+spirit of the Constitution lived up to, not so much because
+it is the Constitution as because those principles of freedom
+are vital to human progress and precious to human aspiration.
+There has always been a sizable body of opinion that
+all the Comstock laws are constitutional, as contrary to the
+United States Constitution and to the constitutions of the
+States. Forty-five of the forty-eight States in the Union
+have provisions in their constitutions or the Bill of Rights
+that “every man is given the right freely to write, speak
+and publish his opinions on all subjects, being responsible
+for the abuse of that privilege.” Twenty-six of the States
+give an additional safeguard providing that “No law shall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>
+ever be passed to restrain freedom of speech or of the
+press.” <ins class="corr" id="TN-27" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: Cortlandt Palrmer">Courtlandt Palmer</ins>, in 1883 wrote a vigorous article
+in the “New York Observer” in criticism of the Comstock
+laws, in which he said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Sometimes a mistaken method of preventing vice entails worse
+evils than the vice it would prevent. The Liberals oppose the
+methods of these postal laws (the Federal obscenity laws) because
+they regard them as an example of saving at the spigot and losing
+at the bung, an instance of expending a dollar to save a dime. The
+question straightway narrows itself into one issue, viz., that of
+method. It is agreed on all hands that obscenity should be checked,
+and if possible eradicated. The only point is <em>how</em>. We regard these
+laws as unconstitutional, useless, unnecessary, impolitic and immoral.
+They are unconstitutional, because the United States Constitution
+simply empowers Congress to establish post offices and post roads—no
+more. How then can these words be construed to authorize our
+representatives to sit in judgment on the moral quality of the parcels
+entrusted to the mails? The Post Office as we conceive it is a
+mechanical not an ethical institution. Judge Story says in his work
+on the Constitution that Congress can not use this power (viz., to
+establish post-offices and post-roads) <em>for any other ulterior purpose</em>,
+which means, if it means anything, that while the government may
+for postal reasons, or for the convenience and necessity of the service,
+exclude such articles as liquor and dynamite, it can not sit in judgment
+on the intellectual or moral quality of the communications entrusted
+to it.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It has many times been suggested that the matter of
+birth control legislation be settled by a test case taken to
+the supreme court on the ground of unconstitutionality. But
+in view of the fact that the Supreme Court declined to act
+on Margaret Sanger’s case when it was appealed from the
+New York courts, and in view of various other precedents,
+it has not seemed a promising way to get results, certainly
+not quick results. It might take several years at best to
+carry a case through, and in the meantime Congress might
+be only too glad to utilize the fact that a decision was pending,
+to postpone its own responsibility to act on the repeal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>
+bill on which it has been asked to act for six years past. The
+obvious fact that the ban on the circulation of knowledge in the
+Comstock law is contrary to the right of freedom of the
+press should alone be sufficient reason for its repeal by Congress.
+And both birth control advocates and Congress
+should pay attention to the fact that there is first class legal
+opinion that all the “doctors only” laws, if enacted, would
+also be unconstitutional.</p>
+
+<p>Above everything, is it not high time for Americans to
+discard these laws which are predicated upon the utterly undemocratic
+basis of governmental distrust of the people?
+Is it not a matter of deep concern to upstanding American
+citizens that they should be for over half a century the victims
+of the discreditable fear that animated a man like Anthony
+Comstock? Do not Americans trust themselves with
+knowledge? Are they longer willing to retain the mouldy
+laws which have stood for such a disgracefully extended
+period as a sign of distrust of the people? Are they not
+ready now to share the deep emotion of Walt Whitman who
+said, “There is to me something profoundly affecting in
+large masses of men following the lead of those who do not
+believe in men.” Are they not more than ready to demand
+that Congress and the State Legislatures shall make all haste
+in purging the statute books of these old blemishes, so that
+the pure white light of science may shine unimpeded upon
+the lives of all?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“Study, without reflection,” says Confucius, “is waste
+of time; reflection without study is dangerous.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDICES">APPENDICES</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_1">APPENDIX NO. 1<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">The Scope of the Various State Laws Is Given in the Following
+Compilation</span></h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center noindent"><em>The research work was done by Harriette M. Dilla, LL.B.,
+Ph.D., formerly of the Department of Sociology and
+Economics of Smith College.</em></p>
+
+
+<p>Twenty-four States (and Porto Rico) specifically penalize
+contraceptive knowledge in their obscenity laws.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-four States (and the District of Columbia,
+Alaska and Hawaii) have obscenity laws, under which, because
+of the Federal precedent, contraceptive knowledge
+may be suppressed as obscene, although it is not specifically
+mentioned. Obscenity has never been defined in law. This
+produces a mass of conflicting, inconsistent judicial decision,
+which would be humorous, if it were not such a mortifying
+revelation of the limitations and perversions of the human
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-three States make it a crime to publish or advertise
+contraceptive information. They are as follows:
+Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas,
+Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri,
+Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New
+York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania,
+Washington, Wyoming; also Porto Rico.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-two States include in their prohibition drugs and
+instruments for the prevention of conception. They are as
+follows: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi,
+Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey,
+New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Washington,
+Wyoming and Porto Rico.</p>
+
+<p>Eleven States make it a crime to have in one’s possession
+any instruction for contraception. These are: Colorado,
+Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey,
+New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wyoming.</p>
+
+<p>Fourteen States make it a crime to tell anyone where or
+how contraceptive knowledge may be acquired. These are:
+Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi,
+Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New
+York, Pennsylvania, Washington, Wyoming.</p>
+
+<p>Six States prohibit the offer to assist in any method
+whatever which would lead to knowledge by which contraception
+might be accomplished. These are: Arizona, California,
+Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma and Porto
+Rico.</p>
+
+<p>Eight States prohibit depositing in the Post Office any
+contraceptive information. These are: Colorado, Indiana,
+Iowa, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Wyoming.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>One State, Colorado, prohibits the bringing into the
+State of any contraceptive knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>Four States have laws authorizing the search for and
+seizure of contraceptive instructions, and these are: Colorado,
+Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma. In all these States but
+Idaho, the laws authorize the destruction of the things
+seized.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span></p>
+
+<p>Certain exemptions from the penalties of these laws are
+made by the States for</p>
+
+<div style="text-align: center">
+<table class="tdc autotable fs85" style="display: inline;margin-right: 5px">
+<thead class="tdc">
+<tr>
+<td><i>Medical Colleges</i></td>
+</tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody class="tdc">
+<tr><td>Colorado</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Indiana</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Missouri</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Nebraska</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Ohio</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Pennsylvania</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Wyoming</td></tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+<table class="tdc autotable fs85" style="display: inline;margin-right: 5px">
+<thead class="tdc">
+<tr>
+<td><i>Medical Books</i></td>
+</tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody class="tdc">
+<tr><td>Colorado</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Indiana</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Kansas</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Missouri</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Nebraska</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Ohio</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Pennsylvania</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Wyoming</td></tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+<table class="tdc autotable fs85" style="display: inline;margin-right: 5px">
+<thead class="tdc">
+<tr>
+<td><i>Physicians</i></td>
+</tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody class="tdc">
+<tr><td>Colorado</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Indiana</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Nevada</td></tr>
+<tr><td>New York</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Ohio</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Wyoming</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center noindent"><i>Druggists</i></p>
+
+<p>Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Wyoming.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Seventeen States prohibit any information which corrupts
+morals, 12 of them, as starred in the following list,
+particularly mentioning the morals of the young. This is
+an interesting point of view of the frequently offered objection
+to freedom of access to contraceptive knowledge,
+that it will demoralize the young. These States are: Colorado,
+Delaware,* Florida,* Iowa,* Maine,* Massachusetts,*
+Michigan,* Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas,* Vermont,* Virginia,* West
+Virginia,* Wisconsin* and Hawaii.</p>
+
+<p>Two States have no obscenity statutes, but police power
+in these States can suppress contraceptive knowledge as an
+“Obscenity” or “public nuisance,” by virtue of the Federal
+precedent. These States are: North Carolina and New
+Mexico.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX_No_2">APPENDIX No. 2</h3>
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="appendix2" style="max-width: 160em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/appendix2.jpg" alt="Infographic with information about which states allow contraceptive knowledge to be maiiled">
+  <figcaption><p class="noindent center fs120">EFFECT OF REMOVING THE PROHIBITION OF
+CONTRACEPTIVE KNOWLEDGE FROM
+THE FEDERAL OBSCENITY LAWS</p>
+
+<table class="autotable fs85">
+<thead>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" class="fs120 center">
+INFORMATION TRANSPORTABLE THROUGHOUT THE U.S.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+24 STATES<br>
+<i>and the Dist. of Col.,<br>
+Alaska and Hawaii</i>,<br>
+WILL REQUIRE<br>
+<span class="u">NO</span> FURTHER<br>
+LEGISLATION
+<td>
+24 STATES<br>
+<i>and Porto Rico</i><br>
+WILL REQUIRE<br>
+FURTHER<br>
+LEGISLATION
+</td></tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">
+<i>Alabama</i><br>
+<i>Arkansas</i><br>
+<i>Delaware</i><br>
+<i>Florida</i><br>
+<i>Georgia</i><br>
+<i>Illinois</i><br>
+<i>Kentucky</i><br>
+<i>Louisiana</i><br>
+<i>Maryland</i><br>
+<i>Michigan</i><br>
+<i>New Hampshire</i><br>
+<i>New Mexico</i><br>
+<i>North Carolina</i><br>
+<i>Oregon</i><br>
+<i>Rhode Island</i><br>
+<i>South Carolina</i><br>
+<i>South Dakota</i><br>
+<i>Tennessee</i><br>
+<i>Texas</i><br>
+<i>West Virginia</i><br>
+<i>Wisconsin</i><br>
+<i>Virginia</i><br>
+<i>Utah</i><br>
+<i>Vermont</i><br>
+<i>Alaska</i><br>
+<i>Hawaii</i><br>
+<i>Dist. of Col.</i><br>
+</td>
+<td class="tdr">
+<i>Arizona</i><br>
+<i>California</i><br>
+<i>Colorado</i><br>
+<i>Connecticut</i><br>
+<i>Idaho</i><br>
+<i>Indiana</i><br>
+<i>Iowa</i><br>
+<i>Kansas</i><br>
+<i>Maine</i><br>
+<i>Massachusetts</i><br>
+<i>Minnesota</i><br>
+<i>Mississippi</i><br>
+<i>Missouri</i><br>
+<i>Montana</i><br>
+<i>Nebraska</i><br>
+<i>Nevada</i><br>
+<i>New Jersey</i><br>
+<i>New York</i><br>
+<i>North Dakota</i><br>
+<i>Ohio</i><br>
+<i>Oklahoma</i><br>
+<i>Pennsylvania</i><br>
+<i>Washington</i><br>
+<i>Wyoming</i><br>
+<i>Porto Rico</i><br>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><em>It will then be legal to transport contraceptive information anywhere
+in the United States.</em></p>
+
+<p><em>It will then be legal to give verbal information in 24 states, the
+District of Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii, which, by precedent of the
+federal laws, have heretofore been justified in suppressing contraceptive
+information as “obscene.”</em></p>
+
+<p><em style="text-indent: 1em;">With this precedent removed, the probability of such suppression
+will be negligible; and physicians may begin at once to teach contraception
+both in private practice and in clinics, hospitals and dispensaries.
+There are over 46,000,000 people in these states.</em></p>
+
+<p><em>In the remaining 24 states and Porto Rico, where the laws specifically
+prohibit giving contraceptive information, the necessary repeal
+acts will be more easily accomplished because of this federal example.</em></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent center fs120">THIS IS THE LONGEST SINGLE STEP
+TOWARD ACHIEVING SELF-DETERMINED
+PARENTHOOD FOR THE UNITED STATES</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_3">APPENDIX NO. 3<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">The Annual Report of the Illinois League</span></h3>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>In 1923, when the League decided to open a free clinic,
+we had wonderful plans and high hopes which were all
+dashed by the refusal of the Health Commissioner to grant
+us the necessary license. We took the matter into Court
+and received a decision in our favor from Judge Fisher but
+the case was immediately appealed. After waiting for
+months for a decision from the Appellate Court, we temporarily
+abandoned the idea of a free clinic and opened a
+Medical Center which does not require a license as it is
+operated as a private office, a small fee being charged to
+each patient.</p>
+
+<p>When the decision was finally handed down it upheld
+Dr. Bundeson in his refusal, simply on the ground that the
+granting of licenses is a matter entirely in the discretion of
+the Health Commissioner. Our hopes of a free clinic being,
+therefore, definitely at an end, we opened in February,
+1925, a second office at —— Street, known as Medical
+Center No. 2. Each Center has a secretary and our Medical
+Staff consists of the Director, Dr. —— and three
+physicians:</p>
+
+<p class="noindent center">
+Dr. ......................<br>
+Dr. ......................<br>
+Dr. ......................<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">all of whom have given devoted service.</p>
+
+<p>There is a commonly accepted picture of our Birth Control
+work which represents us as standing in the midst of
+clamoring crowds, distributing information indiscriminately
+to all comers and handing leaflets and tracts destined to fall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>
+into the hands of high school children and unmarried girls,
+thereby doing unlimited harm. The true picture is very
+different. Our offices, one on the inside court of the ——
+Building, the other in a small house on a quiet West Side
+street, have very little publicity. We do not advertise. It
+is difficult to get any notice of our work in the newspapers.
+It is not spectacular enough. The result is that our patients
+come slowly. We have had to build up a practice.</p>
+
+<p>The first Medical Center was opened July 7, 1924, and
+during the first three months we had sixty patients, mostly
+sent to us by a few social agencies. In October we had some
+newspaper notices and our numbers jumped to seventy-four
+in one month. In November we had one hundred and
+twenty. From July seventh to date, ten months, we have
+had in all five hundred and forty patients. It may be interesting
+to hear some of the data on the first five hundred
+cases.</p>
+
+<p>We are constantly asked what nationalities we reach.
+It would be simpler to say what nationalities we do not reach.
+The exact figures are as follows:</p>
+
+<table class="autotable fs85">
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td>American</td>
+<td class="tdr">252</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Polish</td>
+<td class="tdr">58</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Hebrew</td>
+<td class="tdr">42</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>German</td>
+<td class="tdr">35</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Colored</td>
+<td class="tdr">26</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Bohemian</td>
+<td class="tdr">15</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Italian</td>
+<td class="tdr">14</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Swedish</td>
+<td class="tdr">11</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>English</td>
+<td class="tdr">8</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Irish</td>
+<td class="tdr">7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Norwegian</td>
+<td class="tdr">5</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Scotch</td>
+<td class="tdr">4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Hungarian</td>
+<td class="tdr">4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Slovakian</td>
+<td class="tdr">4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Canadian</td>
+<td class="tdr">2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Lithuanian</td>
+<td class="tdr">2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Austrian</td>
+<td class="tdr">2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Spanish</td>
+<td class="tdr">2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Belgian</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Croatian</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Greek</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Swiss</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Dutch</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Russian</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Mexican</td>
+<td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+<p>
+Of these, 304 were Protestants, or 6/10ths were Protestants<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">147 were Catholics</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">3 were Greek Orthodox, or 3/10ths were Catholics</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">46 were Jewish, or 1/10th Jewish</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span></p>
+
+<p>Women of all ages have come, from 16 to 40, the largest
+number (152) being between the ages of twenty-five and
+thirty. The young girls under twenty are not school girls,
+they are rather weary, discouraged little mothers with two
+or three children, who seem to us entitled to information
+which will give them a few years’ rest in which to recuperate
+before they bear more children.</p>
+
+<p>So much has been said about the selfishness of women
+and the growing desire of the modern woman to leave her
+home and go into industry that it is rather a surprise to
+find that 464 of the 500 patients gave their occupation as
+“Housewife” and only 36 were engaged in work outside
+their homes.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Of these, 13 were employed as stenographers or book-keepers,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em">7 were employed as teachers,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em">5 were still students,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em">5 were in social work,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em">6 were employed by the day, cleaning and doing housework.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In almost every case, the women were working to support
+their families because their husbands were either ill,
+or drank, or gambled. In a few cases the young couple
+were just married and living in one or two rooms and were
+both obliged to work in order to support themselves and
+of course felt that they must postpone all thought of children
+until they had saved enough to take care of them.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to classify the occupation of the husbands.
+They cover practically every employment:</p>
+
+<p class="noindent" style="margin-left: 3em">
+Engineer<br>
+Laborer<br>
+Carpenter<br>
+Bank Cashier<br>
+Gambler<br>
+Minister<br>
+Musician<br>
+Switchman<br>
+Teamster<br>
+Watchman<br>
+Lawyer<br>
+Coal-miners, etc.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span></p>
+
+<p>These people have come to us from many sources:</p>
+
+<p>
+282 through the newspapers<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">54 from the United Charities</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">36 from the Infant Welfare Society</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">80 from Social Agencies, Settlements, Dispensaries, Doctors, etc.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">48 from friends and patients.</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Of the women, 252 have used some forms of contraceptive,
+some of them harmful, most of them useless. Many
+have resorted to abortion. The reasons given for wishing
+information are as difficult to classify as are the occupations
+of the men. In almost every case, the foundation of
+the trouble is economic but there are usually other complications.
+For instances:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent">
+Four children in four years.<br>
+Instrumental deliveries—contracted pelvis and goitre.<br>
+Caesarean operation always necessary.<br>
+Wants to wait until stronger before having any more.<br>
+Wants children but husband is just starting in business.<br>
+Six children—all tubercular.<br>
+No home, husband traveling musician.<br>
+Nine miscarriages in ten years—retroversion—cannot carry to term.<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is also very interesting to note that we have had five
+cases of sterility, the women willing to do anything if only
+they might have children.</p>
+
+<p>But it means very little to read a list of reasons like this—too
+many factors enter into each individual case and perhaps
+the only way to get a real picture of the situation is to
+have a little story of some of these family tragedies. The
+cases divide quite sharply into three classes:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<ol type="I">
+<li>Young women just married who wish to postpone having children
+for a few years until they can make a home.</li>
+
+<li>Cases in which the health of either husband or wife makes
+children impossible.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>
+</li>
+<li>Those many cases of too large families and too little money
+to take care of them.</li>
+</ol>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">Here is <cite>Case No. 88</cite>—Referred—Newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>The man is 59 years old, a cashier. The woman 39
+years old, married at 37, Swedish-Protestant. Has had one
+child. Reason for wishing information is, that she has
+nephritis, had a difficult labor and convulsions and was unconscious
+for five days. The baby died at birth.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><cite>Case No. 451</cite>—Referred by Mental Hygiene Society.</p>
+
+<p>The man is 37 years old, cannot work. The woman is
+38 years old, American-Protestant, married at 26 and has
+had seven pregnancies, four children, ages ten, eight, six
+and four years. She teaches to support this family. The
+husband is insane—diagnosis dementia praecox—and has
+been sent home from the Elgin Asylum on probation. The
+wife is in terror for fear of another pregnancy.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><cite>Case No. 186</cite>—Referred—Newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>The man 30 years old, not working. The woman, 30,
+married at 21, American-Protestant, has had four pregnancies,
+two miscarriages and two children. The husband has
+spinal trouble. The woman is very nervous. One child has
+rickets and the other tubercular glands.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><cite>Case No. 3.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Quite a tragic case. Man 37 years of age. The woman
+36 years of age, married at 26, German-Protestant. In ten
+years she has had sixteen pregnancies, seven miscarriages,
+six induced abortions and three children. Reason—economic.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><cite>Case No. 31.</cite></p>
+
+<p>The man 62 years of age, factory sweeper. The woman
+31 years of age, married at 13, Italian-Catholic. In eighteen
+years she has had ten children, seven living, ages ranging
+from seventeen years to four months.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><cite>Case No. 413.</cite></p>
+
+<p>The man is 41 years old, elevated guard. The woman
+is 30 years old, German-Protestant, married at 19 and has
+had seven children, six living. Reason—all they can support
+on husband’s wages.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><cite>Case No. 59</cite>—Referred by United Charities and Municipal
+Tuberculosis Sanitarium.</p>
+
+<p>The man is 54 years of age, street cleaner, Colored-Protestant.
+The woman is 40 years of age, married at 20
+and in twenty years has had sixteen pregnancies. Of the
+fourteen children, whose ages range from seventeen years to
+eighteen months, seven died in infancy.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><cite>Case No. 241.</cite></p>
+
+<p>The man is 23 years old, laborer, no work. The
+woman is 19 years old, and was first married at fourteen,
+divorced after two months and married again at the age of
+sixteen. She has had three children, whose ages are four
+and two years and seven weeks. Reason—economic, and
+having children too fast.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><cite>Case No. 318</cite>—Referred—United Charities.</p>
+
+<p>The man is 28 years old, laborer. The woman is 20
+years old, German-Catholic, married at 19. Both feeble
+minded. One child feeble minded.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><cite>Case No. 471</cite>—Referred by United Charities.</p>
+
+<p>The man is 31 years old, hostler, not working. The
+woman is 29 years old, Irish-Catholic, married at sixteen and
+has had nine children, seven living, ages ranging from eleven
+years to six months. The husband is chronic alcoholic.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>This gives a clear record of the family history. The
+reason given by the mother for wishing information is <em>that
+she is too poor, worn out and very tired</em>. When one stops<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span>
+to think that this reason is given by a young woman of 29,
+it seems sad beyond words.</p>
+
+<p>It is this sort of story that our doctors listen to day after
+day. The cases are not exceptional, there are so many
+almost alike that it is hard to select them.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment there seem to be no legal obstacles on
+the horizon and we hope that we shall be able to go quietly
+on with our work which this year must include some meetings
+and talks on the West Side, in the Stock Yards’ Districts,
+and among the colored people, for the purpose of
+explaining what birth control really means. Most of the
+women are perfectly familiar with abortion but the idea of
+contraception has not yet reached those who need it most.
+We hope to establish more Centers and so to bring the information
+to the people who are not accustomed to coming
+to Michigan Avenue for medical advice.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_4">APPENDIX NO. 4<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">Sentences of Birth Control Advocates</span></h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent center"><span class="smcap">Federal</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<table class="autotable fs85">
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td>Margaret Sanger, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">1914 Federal case—dismissed, 9 indictments.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Mrs. Rhea C. Kachel, Philadelphia, Pa.</td>
+<td class="tdr">$25.00 fine</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Mr. Fred Merkel, Reading, Pa.</td>
+<td class="tdr">25.00 fine</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>William Sanger, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">30 days—workhouse</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Emma Goldman, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">15 days</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Joseph Macario, San Francisco</td>
+<td class="tdr">Freed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Emma Goldman, Portland, Ore.</td>
+<td class="tdr">Freed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Dr. Ben L. Reitman, Portland, Ore.</td>
+<td class="tdr">Freed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Margaret Sanger, Portland, Ore.</td>
+<td class="tdr">Freed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Carl Rave, Portland, Ore.</td>
+<td class="tdr">$10.00 fine</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Herbert Smith, Seattle, Wash.</td>
+<td class="tdr">25.00 fine</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Van Kleeck Allison, Boston, Mass.</td>
+<td class="tdr">60 days</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Steven Kerr, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">15 days</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Peter Marner, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">15 days</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Bolton Hall, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">Freed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Jessie Ashley, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">$100.00 fine</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Emma Goldman, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">Freed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Dr. Ben L. Reitman, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">60 days</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Ethel Byrne, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">30 days (Pardoned during hunger strike.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Dr. Ben L. Reitman, Cleveland, O.</td>
+<td class="tdr">6 mos. ($1000 fine and costs.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Margaret Sanger, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">30 days</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Kitty Marion, New York</td>
+<td class="tdr">30 days—workhouse</td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_5">APPENDIX NO. 5<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">Amendments to Federal and New York Law Proposed in 1915</span><br>
+<span class="smcap fs85">by the</span><br>
+<span class="smcap fs85">National Birth Control League</span><br>
+</h3>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="noindent center fs120">FEDERAL STATUTES</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I. A Bill to Amend<br>
+Section 211, the<br>
+Federal Penal Code.<br>
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Every obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and every filthy book, pamphlet,
+picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or other publication of
+an indecent character, and every article or thing designed, adapted,
+or intended for [preventing conception or] producing abortion, or
+for any indecent or immoral use; and every article, instrument,
+substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described
+in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for [preventing
+conception or] producing abortion, or for any indecent or
+immoral purpose; and every written or printed card, letter, circular,
+book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information
+directly or indirectly, where, or how, of whom, or by what
+means any of the hereinbefore-mentioned matters, articles, or things
+may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation
+of any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done
+or performed, or how or by what means [conception may be prevented
+or] abortion may be produced, whether sealed or unsealed;
+and every letter, packet, or package, or other mail matter containing
+any filthy, vile, or indecent thing, device, or substance and every
+paper, writing, advertisement, or representation that any article, instrument,
+substance, drug, medicine or thing may, or can be, used
+or applied, for [preventing conception or] producing abortion, or for
+any indecent or immoral purpose; and every description calculated to
+induce or incite a person to so use or apply any such article, instrument,
+substance, drug, medicine, or thing, is hereby declared to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>
+non-mailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered
+from any post office or by any letter carrier. Whoever shall
+knowingly deposit or cause to be deposited for mailing or delivery,
+anything declared by this section to be non-mailable, or shall knowingly
+take, or cause the same to be taken, from the mails for the
+purpose of circulating or disposing thereof, or of aiding in the circulation
+or disposition thereof, shall be fined not more than five
+thousand dollars, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
+<em>But no book, magazine, pamphlet, paper, letter, writing or publication
+is obscene, lewd, or lascivious, or of an indecent character, or non-mailable
+by reason of the fact that it mentions, discusses or recommends
+prevention of conception, or gives information concerning
+methods or means for the prevention of conception: or tells how,
+where, or in what manner such information or such means can be
+obtained: and no article, instrument, substance or drug is non-mailable
+by reason of the fact that it is designed or adapted for the prevention
+of conception, or is advertised or otherwise represented to
+be so designed or adapted.</em></p>
+
+<p class="noindent center">(Matter in brackets omitted; matter in italics new.)</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">
+II. A Bill to Amend<br>
+Section 245, The<br>
+Federal Penal Code.<br>
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Whoever shall bring or cause to be brought into the United
+States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof from any
+foreign country or shall therein knowingly deposit or cause to be
+deposited with any express company or other common carrier for
+carriage from one State, territory or district of the United States,
+or in place non-contiguous to, but subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
+or from any place in or subject to the jurisdiction of the United
+States through a foreign country to any place in or subject to the
+jurisdiction of the United States, any obscene, lewd or lascivious or
+any filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or
+other matter of indecent character, of any drug, medicine, article or
+thing designed, adapted or intended for [preventing conception or]
+producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use, or any written
+or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement or
+notice of any kind, giving information directly or indirectly, where,
+how, or of whom, or by what means any of the hereinbefore-mentioned
+articles, matters, or things may be obtained or made, or whoever
+shall knowingly take or cause to be taken from such express
+company or common carrier, any matter or thing, the depositing of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>
+which for carriage is herein made unlawful, shall be fined not more
+than five thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than five years or
+both. <em>But no book, pamphlet, paper, letter, writing, circular, advertisement,
+notice or print is obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy, by reason
+of the fact that it mentions, discusses or recommends prevention
+of conception, or gives information concerning methods or means for
+the prevention of conception: or tells how, where, or in what manner
+such information or such means can be obtained: and no drug,
+medicine, article or thing shall be for indecent or immoral use because
+it is designed, adapted or intended for the prevention of conception.</em></p>
+
+<p class="noindent center">(Matter in brackets omitted; matter in italics new.)</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="noindent center fs120">NEW YORK STATUTES</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">Penal Law.</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Section 1141.—A person who sells, lends, gives away or shows,
+or offers to sell, lend, give away, or who, or has in his possession
+with intent to sell, lend, or give away, or to show or advertises in
+any manner, or who otherwise offers for loan, gift, sale or distribution,
+any obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or disgusting book,
+magazine, pamphlet, newspaper, story paper, writing paper, picture,
+drawing, photograph, figure, or image, or any written or printed
+matter of an indecent character; or any article or instrument of
+indecent or immoral use, or purporting to be for indecent or immoral
+use or purpose, or who designs, copies, draws, photographs, prints,
+utters, publishes, or in any manner manufactures, or prepares any
+such book, picture, drawing, magazine, pamphlet, newspaper, story
+paper, writing paper, figure, image, matter, article, or thing, or who
+writes, prints, publishes, or utters, or causes to be written, printed,
+published or uttered any advertisement or notice of any kind, giving
+information, directly or indirectly, stating, or purporting so to
+do, where, how, of whom, or by what means any, or what purports
+to be any, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, disgusting or indecent
+book, picture, writing, paper, figure, image, matter, article, or thing
+named in this section can be purchased, obtained, or had or who has
+in his possession any slot machine or other mechanical contrivances
+with moving pictures of nude or partly denuded female figures which
+pictures are lewd, obscene, indecent or immoral, or other lewd, obscene,
+indecent or immoral drawing, image article or object or who
+shows, advertises or exhibits the same, or causes the same to be shown,
+advertised, or exhibited, or who brings, owns or holds any such machine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>
+with the intent to show, advertise, or in any manner exhibit
+the same, ... is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction,
+shall be sentenced to not less than ten days nor more than one year
+imprisonment, or be fined not less than fifty dollars nor more than
+one thousand dollars, or both fine and imprisonment for each offense.</p>
+
+
+<p>(Section 1141 will be unchanged by the proposed legislation.)</p>
+
+
+<p>Section 1141-b (New).—A book, magazine, pamphlet, newspaper,
+or other printed, typewritten or written matter is not obscene,
+lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent, or disgusting, or of an indecent
+character, within this article, by reason of the fact that it mentions,
+discusses, recommends, or gives information concerning prevention
+of conception or methods or means for the prevention of conception
+or gives information as to where, how or of whom advice concerning,
+or articles, drugs or instruments for the prevention of conception
+can be obtained; and an article is not of indecent or immoral use
+or purpose, within this article, because it is adapted or designed, or
+is advertised or represented to be adapted or designed for the prevention
+of conception.</p>
+
+<p>(Section 1141-b is all new matter.)</p>
+
+<p>Section 1142: <span class="smcap">Indecent Articles</span>.—A person who sells, lends,
+gives away, or in any manner exhibits or offers to sell, lend or give
+away, or has in his possession with intent to sell, lend or give away,
+or advertises or offers for sale, loan or distribution any instrument
+or article, or any recipe, drug, or medicine, [for the prevention of
+conception or] for causing unlawful abortion, or purporting to be
+[for the prevention of conception, or] for causing unlawful abortion,
+or advertises, or holds out representations that it can be so used or
+applied, or any such description as will be calculated to lead another
+to so use or apply any such article, recipe, drug, medicine or instrument,
+or who writes or prints, or causes to be written or printed, a
+card, circular, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind, or gives
+information orally, stating when, where, how, of whom, or by what
+means such an instrument, article, recipe, drug or medicine can be
+purchased or obtained, or who manufactures any such instrument,
+article, recipe, drug or medicine, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall
+be liable to the same penalties as provided in Section eleven hundred
+and forty-one in this chapter.</p>
+
+
+<p>(Matter in brackets omitted.)</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_6">APPENDIX NO. 6<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">Bill Introduced in New York Legislature in 1923</span>
+</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent center"><i>Drafted by Samuel McCune Lindsey of the Legislative Bureau of
+Columbia University</i></p>
+
+
+<p>Section 1145 of the Penal Code to be amended to read
+as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Physicians, Instruments and Advice.</span> An article or instrument,
+used or applied by physicians lawfully practicing or by their
+direction or prescription, for the cure or prevention of disease, is
+not an article of indecent or immoral nature or use, within this
+article. The supplying of such articles to such physicians or by their
+direction or prescription, is not an offense under this article. <em>The
+giving by a physician lawfully practicing, to any person, married or
+having a license entitling him or her to be married duly and lawfully
+obtained by him or her, of any information or advice in regard to the
+prevention of conception, on the application of such person to such
+physician; or the supplying to such physician or by any one on the
+written prescription of such physician to any such person of any
+article, instrument, drug, recipe or medicine for the prevention of
+conception, is not an offense under this article.</em></p>
+
+
+<p>Explanation. The portions in italics are new.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_7">APPENDIX NO. 7<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">The Connecticut Law and the Amendment Proposed by the
+American Birth Control League</span></h3>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The present statute, enacted in 1878, reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><em>General Statutes, Section 6390. Use of Drugs or Instruments to
+Prevent Conception.</em> Every person who shall use any drug, medicinal
+article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall
+be fined not less than $50.00 or imprisoned not less than 60 days
+nor more than one year or both.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The proposed bill would repeal the above section, and
+enact the following new section.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The giving by a physician licensed to practice or by a duly registered
+nurse to any person applying to him or her, of information or
+advice in regard to, or the supplying by such physician or nurse, or
+on a prescription signed legibly by him or her, of any article or
+medicine for the prevention of conception shall not be a violation of
+the statutes of this State.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_8">APPENDIX NO. 8<br>
+<br>
+
+<span class="noindent fs85">NEW JERSEY LAW<br>
+AND<br>
+<i>Amendment Proposed by the American Birth Control League</i>
+</span>
+</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>AN ACT to amend an act entitled “an act for the punishment of
+crimes (Revision of 1898), approved June Fourteenth, one thousand
+and eight hundred and ninety-eight.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Be it enacted</span> by the Senate and General Assembly of the State
+of New Jersey:</p>
+
+<p>1. Section fifty-three of the act to which this act is amendatory
+be and hereby is amended so as to read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>53. Any person who without just cause, shall utter or expose to
+the view of another, or to have in his possession, with intent so to
+utter or expose to view, or to sell the same, any obscene or indecent
+book, pamphlet, picture, or other representation, however made; or
+any instrument, medicine, or other thing, designed or purporting to
+be designed for the prevention of conception, or the procuring of
+abortion, or who shall in any wise advertise, or aid, or assist in
+advertising the same, or in any manner, whether by recommendation
+against its use or otherwise, give or cause to be given, or aid in giving
+any information how or where any of the same may be had or seen,
+bought or sold, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, <span class="u"><span class="allsmcap">THE CONTRACEPTIVE
+TREATMENT OF MARRIED PERSONS BY DULY PRACTICING PHYSICIANS,
+OR UPON THEIR WRITTEN PRESCRIPTION</span>, shall be deemed a
+just cause hereunder</span>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The underlined clause is the amendment desired by the
+American Birth Control League.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_9">APPENDIX NO. 9<br>
+<br>
+
+<span class="noindent fs85">CALIFORNIA LAW<br>
+AND<br>
+<i>Amendment Introduced in 1917 by Senator Chamberlain and
+Assemblyman Wishard</i></span>
+</h3>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The California law is Section 317 of the Penal Code
+under the Chapter Heading, “<span class="smcap">Indecent Exposure, Obscene
+Exhibitions, Books and Prints, and Bawdy and
+Other Disorderly Houses.</span>”</p>
+
+<p>The bill introduced by Senator Chamberlain and Assemblyman
+Wishard amended the Section by striking out
+the words “or for the prevention of conception.” The wording
+of the Section is as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>317. <span class="smcap">Advertising to Produce Miscarriage.</span> Every person
+who wilfully writes, composes or publishes any notice or advertisement
+of any medicine or means for producing or facilitating a miscarriage
+or abortion, or for the prevention of conception, or who
+offers his services by any notice, advertisement, or otherwise, to assist
+in the accomplishment of any such purpose, is guilty of a felony.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_10">APPENDIX NO. 10<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">Indications of Opposition of Birth Control Advocates to
+Removing Ban on Contraceptive Information from
+Federal Obscenity Laws</span></h3>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>At the first American Birth Control Conference when
+the American Birth Control League was organized in November,
+1921, the following resolution was submitted, but
+the Conference was not allowed to vote upon it:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i>, the proposition has been laid before Post Master General
+Hays by the Voluntary Parenthood League, that he recommend
+to Congress the revision of the Federal law so that contraceptive
+knowledge shall not be included among the penalized indecencies
+which are now declared unmailable.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Be It Resolved</i>, that this American Conference for birth control
+urges Post Master General Hays to act favorably on this proposition
+as a matter of postal progress and as a service to modern science,
+welfare and justice.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A “doctors only” proponent, speaking from the floor
+against allowing a vote on this resolution to be taken by the
+Conference said, “If we could have the Federal bill passed
+<em>to-day</em>, we would not want it.”</p>
+
+
+<p class="center noindent"><span class="smcap">Excerpts from an Editorial in the Birth Control Review of
+March, 1921</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>In contrast to the State legislation is the proposed repeal of the
+Federal law, aiming to open the United States mails to the distribution
+of birth control knowledge by amateurs.</p>
+
+<p>We are told that the repeal of the Federal law would be the
+quickest and shortest way to achieve our goal. But there is no such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>
+royal road! We might flood the country with tons of good books
+and pamphlets on the subject by recognized authorities on hygiene,
+psychology and sociology, but with no appreciable effect. (A poor
+woman once said to me, “I have read your book from cover to cover;
+and yet I am pregnant again.”) To offer a pamphlet to a woman
+who can not read or is too tired and weary to understand its directions,
+is like offering a printed bill of fare to a starving man.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the repeal of the Federal law would accomplish practically
+no more than this. Nevertheless, to some it seems of primary importance;
+and those who think so are best qualified to throw their
+energies into that work.</p>
+
+<p>Much as we wish that one fine gesture would sweep aside these
+obsolete and ridiculous anti-contraceptive laws, both Federal and
+State, experience has shown us the emptiness of legal and legislative
+victories unless followed up vigorously by concerted action. Remember
+that in England there is no law preventing the spread of birth
+control knowledge; yet we see there, that the removal of legal restriction
+in the use of the mails is not enough. Our interests and
+our activity must be positive, fundamental, dynamic, constructive.
+Let us beware of the futility of striving after vain victories and theoretical
+triumphs—which may, indeed, stimulate in us a fine glow
+of egotistical satisfaction, but also divert and distract our attention
+and interest from the hard, thankless, detailed work of helping overburdened
+mothers. Let us not be led into the trap of believing that
+the mere repeal of a Federal law will change the course of ancient
+human habits or the most deep-rooted of instincts.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_11">APPENDIX NO. 11</h3>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><span class="smcap fs85">Note</span>: The words “preventing conception” are removed from the five
+Sections of the Federal Statutes which appear in the Bill.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p style="float: left;margin-left: 1em">1st Session,<br>
+68th <span class="smcap">Congress</span>,</p>
+<p class="p1"><span class="fs200" style="margin-left: 3em">S. 2290</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">
+IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES<br>
+<br>
+<span class="smcap">January 28</span> (calendar day, <span class="smcap">January 30</span>), 1924.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Mr. Cummins introduced the following bill; which was read twice<br>
+and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.</i><br>
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="fs120 center noindent">A BILL</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="noindent" style="text-indent: -1em;margin-left: 1em;">To remove the prohibition of the circulation of contraceptive knowledge
+and means by amending sections 102, 211, 245, and 312
+of the Criminal Code; and section 305, paragraphs (a) and (b),
+of the Tariff Act of 1922; and to safeguard the circulation of
+proper contraceptive knowledge and means by the enactment of
+a new section for the Criminal Code.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><em>Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
+United States of America in Congress assembled</em>, That section 102
+of the Criminal Code be amended to read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>“<span class="smcap">Sec. 102.</span> Whoever, being an officer, agent, or employee of
+the Government of the United States, shall knowingly aid or abet
+any person engaged in violating any provision of law prohibiting
+importing, advertising, dealing in, exhibiting, or sending or receiving
+by mail obscene or indecent publications or representations, or means
+for producing abortion, or other article of indecent or immoral use
+or tendency, shall be fined not more than $5000 or imprisoned not
+more than ten years or both.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sec. 2.</span> That section 211 of the Criminal Code be amended to
+read as follows:</p>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>“<span class="smcap">Sec. 211.</span> Every obscene, lewd, or lascivious and filthy book,
+pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or other publication
+of an indecent character; and every article or thing designed, adapted,
+or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral
+use; and every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing
+which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead
+another to use or apply it for producing abortion, or for any indecent
+or immoral purpose; and every written or printed card, letter,
+circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving
+information, directly or indirectly, where or how or from whom or
+by what means any of the hereinbefore-mentioned matters, articles,
+or things may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act
+or operation of any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion
+will be done or performed, or how or by what means abortion may
+be produced, whether sealed or unsealed; and every letter, packet, or
+package, or other mail matter containing any filthy, vile, or indecent
+thing, device, or substance; and every paper, writing, advertisement,
+or representation that any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine,
+or thing may or can be used or applied for producing abortion,
+or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and every description calculated
+to induce or incite a person to so use or apply any such
+article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing is hereby
+declared to be non-mailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the
+mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier.
+Whoever shall knowingly deposit, or cause to be deposited for mailing
+or delivery, anything declared by this section to be non-mailable,
+or shall knowingly take, or cause the same to be taken, from the
+mails for the purpose of circulating or disposing thereof, or of aiding
+in the circulation or disposition thereof, shall be fined not more than
+$5000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. And the
+term “indecent” within the intendment of this section shall include
+matter of a character tending to incite arson, murder, or assassination.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sec. 3.</span> That section 245 of the Criminal Code be amended to
+read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>“<span class="smcap">Sec. 245.</span> Whoever shall bring or cause to be brought into the
+United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, from
+any foreign country, or shall therein knowingly deposit or cause to
+be deposited with any express company or other common carrier, for
+carriage from one State, Territory, or District of the United States,
+or place noncontiguous to, but subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
+to any other State, Territory, or District of the United States, or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>
+place noncontiguous to but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, or
+from any place in or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States
+through a foreign country to any place in or subject to the jurisdiction
+thereof, or from any place in or subject to the jurisdiction of
+the United States to a foreign country, any obscene, lewd, lascivious,
+or filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or
+other matter of indecent character; or any drug, medicine, article, or
+thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for
+any indecent or immoral use; or any written or printed card, letter,
+circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving
+information, directly or indirectly, where, how, or of whom or by
+what means any of the hereinbefore-mentioned articles, matters, or
+things may be obtained or made; or whoever shall knowingly take
+or cause to be taken from such express company or other common
+carrier any matter or thing, the depositing of which for carriage is
+herein made unlawful, shall be fined not more than $5000, or imprisoned
+not more than five years, or both.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sec. 4.</span> That section 312 of the Criminal Code be amended to
+read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>“<span class="smcap">Sec 312.</span> Whoever shall sell, lend, give away, or in any manner
+exhibit, or offer to sell, lend, give away, or in any manner exhibit,
+or shall otherwise publish or offer to publish in any manner, or shall
+have in his possession for any such purpose, any obscene book, pamphlet,
+paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture, drawing,
+or other representation, figure, or image on or of paper or other
+material, or any cast, instrument, or other article of an immoral nature,
+or any drug or medicine, or any article whatever for causing
+unlawful abortion, or shall advertise the same for sale, or shall write
+or print, or cause to be written or printed, any card, circular, book,
+pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind, stating when, where,
+how, or of whom, or by what means, any of the articles above mentioned
+can be purchased or obtained, or shall manufacture, draw, or
+print, or in anywise make any of such articles, shall be fined not
+more than $2000, or imprisoned not more than five years or both.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sec. 5.</span> That section 305, paragraphs (a) and (b), of the Tariff
+Act of 1922 be amended to read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>“<span class="smcap">Sec 305.</span> (a) That all persons are prohibited from importing
+into the United States from any foreign country any obscene book,
+pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture,
+drawing, or other representation, figure, or image on or of paper or
+other material, or any cast, instrument, or other article of an immoral
+nature, or any drug or medicine, or any article whatever, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>
+causing unlawful abortion, or any lottery ticket, or any printed paper
+that may be used as a lottery ticket, or any advertisement of any
+lottery. No such articles, whether imported separately or contained
+in packages with other goods entitled to entry, shall be admitted to
+entry; and all such articles shall be proceeded against, seized, and
+forfeited by due course of law. All such prohibited articles and the
+package in which they are contained shall be detained by the officer
+of customs, and proceedings taken against the same as hereinafter
+prescribed, unless it appears to the satisfaction of the collector that
+the obscene articles contained in the package were inclosed therein
+without the knowledge or consent of the importer, owner, agent, or
+consignee: <em>Provided</em>, That the drugs hereinbefore mentioned, when
+imported in bulk and not put up for any of the purposes hereinbefore
+specified, are excepted from the operation of this sub-section.</p>
+
+<p>“(b) That any officer, agent, or employee of the Government
+of the United States who shall knowingly aid or abet any person engaged
+in any violation of any of the provisions of law prohibiting
+importing, advertising, dealing in, exhibiting, or sending or receiving
+by mail obscene or indecent publications or representations, or means
+for procuring abortion, or other articles of indecent or immoral use
+or tendency, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall for
+every offense be punishable by a fine of not more than $5000 or by
+imprisonment at hard labor for not more than ten years, or both.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sec. 6.</span> The transportation by mail or by any public carrier in
+the United States or in territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
+of information respecting the means by which conception may be
+prevented, or of the means of preventing conception, is hereby prohibited,
+except as to such information or such means as shall be certified
+by not less than five graduate physicians lawfully engaged in the
+practice of medicine to be not injurious to life or health. Whoever
+shall knowingly aid or abet in any transportation prohibited by this
+Act shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, upon conviction thereof,
+shall be fined not more than $5000 or imprisoned for not more than
+five years, or shall be punished by both such fine and imprisonment.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_12">APPENDIX NO. 12<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">Condensed Chronological Story of the Federal Bill to Remove
+the Ban on Contraceptive Knowledge from
+the Obscenity Laws</span></h3>
+</div>
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt"><p class="noindent">1919.</p></td>
+<td class="hanging">
+<p>July 24. Began preliminary interviews with Senators and
+Congressmen with a view to discovering the right sponsor
+for the bill, and to create a good atmosphere for its introduction.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="August">Sept.</abbr> 24. Asked Senator France of Maryland to introduce
+it, he being chairman of the Committee on Public Health,
+a physician and heartily in favor of the bill. He agreed
+to consider it.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="August">Oct.</abbr> 21. Senator France doubted the wisdom of his being
+sponsor. He suggested Senator Norris of Nebraska.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="August">Oct.</abbr> 22. Senator Norris was wholly favorable to the measure,
+but said the prejudice of the Judiciary Committee
+against other measures for which he stood would hurt his
+sponsorship and he hadn’t the advantage of being a physician.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="August">Oct.</abbr> 23. As Senator France was most desirable, the sponsorship
+was again put up to him and he said he would again
+consider it.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt"><p class="noindent">1920.</p></td>
+<td class="hanging">
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 19. After nearly three months of prodding by letters
+and interviews, Senator France wrote that he did not feel
+ready to shoulder our bill ahead of others to which he was
+already committed. He did not decline, but thought it
+unfair to keep us waiting further.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 21. Took it back to Senator Norris, who agonized over
+it conscientiously, but decided he had better not. He had
+sounded Senator Ball, the only other physician in the Senate
+beside France. Found him rather skeptical. He then
+suggested asking Senator Nelson, chairman of the Judiciary
+Committee to do it as proof of his repentance for having
+been an abusive opponent (one of the very few we have
+met).</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span></p>
+
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 22. Senator Nelson’s repentance went to the extent of
+recommending that the bill be referred first to the Committee
+on Public Health and implied that the Judiciary Committee
+would concur if the report should be favorable.</p>
+
+<p class="indented">During the next few weeks, besides hunting for a sponsor
+we interviewed the Health Committee. Seven out of
+eleven were wholly in favor or inclined favorably toward
+the bill.</p>
+
+<p class="indented">Senator Ball was seen several times, in the hope that he
+would prove to be the right sort for a sponsor. He was slow
+in coming to a conclusion as to the merits of the bill.</p>
+
+<p class="indented">Meanwhile two other Senators were asked.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 29. Senator Sterling of South Dakota, first. The discussion
+convinced him as to the merits of the bill, and he
+finally agreed to consider sponsoring it.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="February">Feb.</abbr> 18. Urged his decision. He did not refuse, but said
+he would be relieved to be released from consideration.
+Promised to work for the measure in Committee and on
+the floor.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="March">Mar.</abbr> 5. After conferring with Senators France and
+Norris, whose advice has always been helpful, took the bill
+to Senator Dillingham of Vermont. He is wholly in favor
+but considered himself unsuitable sponsor. He is the <em>only</em>
+Senator who has not kept us waiting for his decision. He
+urged Ball as best sponsor.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="March">Mar.</abbr> 6. As Senator Ball had announced on February 20th,
+that he was convinced by our data—on the advice of
+Dillingham, France and Norris, he was asked by letter to
+introduce the bill.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="March">Mar.</abbr> 11. Went to Washington for his decision. Found him;
+he had not even read the letter carefully enough to realize
+he was being asked. Said “No.” Then reconsidered and
+agreed to talk it over with France.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="March">Mar.</abbr> 19. <em>He promised to sponsor the bill.</em> He asked for
+“a few days of grace” before introducing it, to recover from
+influenza and attend to the suffrage crisis in Delaware.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="April">Apr.</abbr> 21. Introduction still hanging. Said he “hadn’t had
+time.” Meanwhile the comment of the other Senators had
+begun to disconcert him. He turned us over to Major
+Parkinson of the bill drafting service to discuss phraseology
+and work out an opposition-proof bill. Everything was
+settled to our satisfaction. It was the Senator’s next move.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span></p>
+
+<p><abbr title="April">Apr.</abbr> 24. He “hadn’t had time to see Parkinson,” and asked
+for a few days more of patience. We reminded him that
+we had waited over a month. He said he would surely do
+it during this session. We insisted on something definite.
+He finally promised “some day next week” and that he
+would wire us what day.</p>
+
+<p>May 25. No word, despite letters from our office and many
+from the supporters of the League.</p>
+
+<p class="indented">Letters, telegrams, personal interviews with Senator
+Ball in Washington were all unavailing. He did nothing
+but reiterate promises.</p>
+
+<p>June 5. <em>The Senate adjourned and the bill was not introduced.</em></p>
+
+<p><abbr title="August">Dec.</abbr> 6. With the opening of the last session of Congress,
+we began the sponsor hunt again. Nine Senators in succession
+have been asked to sponsor the bill, as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="indented"><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Capper of Kansas.</i> For the bill, but too submerged
+in his agricultural relief bills to take ours on.</p>
+
+<p class="indented"><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Townsend of Mich.</i> (Member of Health <abbr title="Committee">Com.</abbr>)
+Favors the bill, but declined on grounds that he was too
+ignorant on the data to face debate, and too busy to get
+primed.</p>
+
+<p class="indented"><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Kenyon of Iowa.</i> (Had reputation of being chief
+welfare advocate of Senate.) Too busy with his “packer”
+bill. Might consider it at next session.</p>
+
+<p class="indented"><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> McCumber of S. D.</i> Admitted merit of bill, but
+thought he better not imperil his re-election (in 1923) by
+sponsoring it. Suggested that it be introduced by Health
+<abbr title="Committee">Com.</abbr> as a whole, without individual sponsorship, so no
+one would “be the goat.”</p>
+
+<p class="indented"><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Sheppard of Texas.</i> (Sponsor of Sheppard-Towner
+Maternity Bill.) Recognized necessity of our bill to complete
+the service provided by his bill, but could not consider
+sponsoring ours till next session anyway, and probably
+not then, as he thinks it should come from a Republican.</p>
+
+<p class="indented"><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Fletcher of Fla.</i> (Member of Health <abbr title="Committee">Com.</abbr>)
+Heartily approves bill, but considers himself unsuitable
+sponsor because he is a Democrat.</p>
+
+<p class="indented"><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Frelinghuysen of N. J.</i> (Member of Health <abbr title="Committee">Com.</abbr>)
+Frankly said he would be “afraid” to do it, but he feels
+favorably toward the bill.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span></p>
+
+<p class="indented"><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Owen of Okla.</i> (Member of Health <abbr title="Committee">Com.</abbr>) Like
+Senator France, author of bill for Federal Health Dept.—unqualifiedly
+in favor, but sure bill should not be sponsored
+from Democratic side.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><abbr title="August">Dec.</abbr> 31. Proposed to Senator France that the bill be introduced
+by the Health Committee without individual sponsorship.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="tdlt">
+<td><p class="noindent">1921.</p></td>
+<td class="hanging">
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 5. Senator France declined the proposition on the
+ground that the burden of the bill would fall on him just
+the same.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 13. After thorough consultation with Senator France,
+took bill back to Senator Sterling.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 27. Senator Sterling answered that he was “too busy
+to do it at this session.”</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="February">Feb.</abbr> 11. Senator Kenyon was asked to reconsider. He replied,
+“I’m mighty sorry, but I am just loaded down with
+bills that are taking every minute of my time, and I must
+ask you to secure some other Senator to take care of this
+legislation for you.”</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="March">Mar.</abbr> 1. Senator Borah was asked to sponsor the bill. He
+did not see his way to doing it.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="August">Aug.</abbr> 19. Post Master General Hays had put himself on
+record as not believing in the maintenance of Post Office
+censorship laws. He was accordingly asked to consider
+recommending to Congress the removal of the censorship
+law regarding birth control knowledge. He was most
+hospitable to the suggestion—said it was timely, that he
+was interested and had about come to the conclusion that
+he ought to ask Congress to revise all the laws bearing on
+Post Office censorship power. He asked for a compilation
+of pertinent data, which was promptly provided. He had
+the matter under consideration till he resigned office the
+following March. But he made no recommendation to
+Congress.</p>
+
+<p class="indented">The sponsor hunt began again.</p>
+
+<p class="indented">Senator Borah suggested the possibility that he might
+slip in our bill as an amendment to the bill proposing to
+extend Post Office censorship to information about race
+track betting tips, if it was reported out of committee and
+reached the floor for discussion. The bill was killed in
+Committee, due in part to Senator Borah’s opposition to it.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt"><p class="noindent">1922.</p></td>
+<td class="hanging">
+<p>Dec. Sponsors found in both Houses. Senator Cummins
+in the Senate, and Congressman John Kissel of New York
+in the House. The latter responded to a circular letter
+asking for a volunteer statesman for the task.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt"><p class="noindent">1923.</p></td>
+<td>
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 10. Bill introduced in both Houses.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 22. <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Nelson, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee
+appointed Sub-Committee of three to consider the bill—Senators
+Cummins, Colt and Ashurst. Senator Cummins
+was ill and went to Florida. Committee action was stalled.</p>
+
+<p class="indented">Strenuous effort was made to get substitute Chairman
+so action could proceed. Norris was added to Committee
+but not as Chairman.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="February">Feb.</abbr> 6. <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Colt declined to act as Chairman.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="February">Feb.</abbr> 8. <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Colt asked to be excused from the Committee.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="February">Feb.</abbr> 13. <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Cummins returned.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="February">Feb.</abbr> 19. <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Cummins tried to get vote of full Judiciary,
+as conditions had not permitted a Hearing and report from
+the Sub-Committee. Meeting adjourned without action.
+They “did not get to the bill.”</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="February">Feb.</abbr> 26. <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Cummins tried again to get a vote. Announced
+that he would call for it before adjournment, again.
+The members slipped out one by one, so no quorum was
+present. The Senator said, “They just faded away.”</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt"><p class="noindent">1924.</p></td>
+<td class="hanging">
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 30. Bill reintroduced by Senator Cummins.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="February">Feb.</abbr> 1. Bill introduced in House by Congressman William
+N. Vaile of Colorado.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="March">Mar.</abbr> 7. Bill referred to Senate Sub-Committee, consisting
+of Senators Spencer, Norris and Overman.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="March">Mar.</abbr> 22. Bill referred to House Sub-Committee of seven,
+Congressmen Yates, Hersey, Perlman, Larson, Thomas,
+Major and O’Sullivan.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="April">Apr.</abbr> 8. Joint Hearing held before both Sub-Committees.
+Ten spoke for the bill, and five against.</p>
+
+<p>May 9. Hearing reopened at request of the Catholics.</p>
+
+<p>June 7. Congress adjourned. Neither Committee reported
+the bill.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlt"><p class="noindent">1925.</p></td>
+<td class="hanging">
+<p>Dec. Senator Cummins made Chairman of the Judiciary
+Committee.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="January">Jan.</abbr> 20. Senate Sub-Committee unanimously reported Cummins-Vaile
+Bill “without recommendation.”</p>
+
+<p class="indented">House Sub-Committee evaded making a report.</p>
+
+<p><abbr title="March">Mar.</abbr> 4. Congress adjourned.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_13">APPENDIX NO. 13<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85" style="line-height: 1em;">Senators Borah and Stanley Argued before the Judiciary
+Committee in 1921 for the Principles on Which the
+Cummins-Vaile Bill Is Based, but Regarding
+Another Bill</span></h3>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The following excerpts from the Hearing, with editorial
+comment, are taken from the <cite>Birth Control Herald</cite> of January
+20, 1925.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The Bill on which the Hearing was held had passed the House
+in October, 1921. It aimed primarily to make race track betting
+tips unmailable, but section No. 5 to which Senators Stanley and
+Borah objected most strenuously was a sweeping infringement of
+the freedom of the press, by which nothing could go through the
+mails that gives any information as to bets or wagers on any contest
+of speed, strength or skill. The bill was referred to a Sub-Committee
+of the Judiciary consisting of Senator Sterling, Chairman, and Senators
+Borah and Overman.</p>
+
+<p>The measure has never been reported out by the full committee,
+and it seems evident that the vigorous opposition of the two Senators
+who argued on principle, and the disapproval of powerful newspaper
+associations, have resulted in the burying of the bill.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of this Hearing (January, 1922), Senator Stanley
+was not on the Judiciary Committee but he was so interested in preserving
+the right of free press from further encroachment that he
+appeared at the Hearing as an opponent of the bill, and as a pleader
+for fundamental liberty. At present, however, he is a member of
+the Judiciary Committee, with the best of opportunities to make his
+convictions count effectively for the Cummins-Vaile Bill, in which
+precisely the same principle is at stake, namely, the freedom of the
+press and the right of the individual to have access to knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>The V. P. L. Director was originally indebted to Senator Borah
+for her copy of the report of this Hearing. He has never faltered
+in his opposition to the principle of censorship. And Senator Sterling,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span>
+the Chairman before whom this Hearing was held, was already at
+that time committed to support of the Cummins-Vaile Bill. He gave
+his word that he would work for the Bill in the Judiciary Committee
+and on the floor of the Senate.</p>
+
+<p>In the 113 pages of the Report of the two Hearings on the bill
+to exclude gambling information from the mails, there are many
+more analogies to the principle involved in the Cummins-Vaile Bill
+than there is room to recount, so the excerpts below are only samples.</p>
+
+<p>At the very start there is similarity of circumstance. At the first
+Hearing Senator Stanley spoke “especially of the section that was
+added in the last hour of debate, about which I am advised comparatively
+few members of Congress knew anything at the time of
+its passage.” That the House should have inadvertently passed a
+measure on the strength of its moral sounding aim, but which contained
+an unwarranted suppression of constitutional rights is exactly
+what happened in 1873, when the Comstock bill was hastily passed,
+aimed at obscenity, just as this bill was aimed at gambling, but blundering
+into suppression not only of crime, but of freedom.</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i> (speaking on behalf of representatives of the chief
+metropolitan newspapers): “These great papers wish an opportunity
+to show that the gambling evil is not best remedied—especially by
+a government of delegated powers—by an unwarranted restriction of
+the freedom of the press or the freedom of speech.”</p>
+
+<p>(Similarly, the abuse of contraceptive information is not to be
+remedied by laws forbidding access to that information. <abbr title="Editor">Ed.</abbr>)</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i> (at the second Hearing): “Despotic governments
+have always viewed and always will view freedom of speech with
+apprehension and alarm. When you have placed a censorship or arbitrary
+inhibition or prohibition upon either the freedom of speech
+or the freedom of the press, you have not invaded one constitutional
+right, but have imperilled or desolated them all.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Borah</i>: “Do you attack this as unconstitutional, or simply
+the policy of it?”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “Both. I maintain that it is not necessary to show
+that it is unconstitutional, because of its folly and its unwisdom. It
+is absolutely a violation of the spirit of the Constitution.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Sterling</i>: “If you think race-track gambling is an evil, do
+you think that advice or suggestions in regard to wagers and bets
+should be prevented?”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “May I answer that question by asking another?
+Does the Chairman believe that the Federal government should pass
+a law prohibiting anything that is morally or industrially wrong?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span></p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Sterling</i>: “Oh no, there are limitations of course upon the
+power of the Federal government to do those things.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “Yes, ... I had begun to doubt it.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Sterling</i>: “This prohibits the use of the mails for <ins class="corr" id="TN-28" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: certain purposes.">certain
+purposes.”</ins></p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “Yes.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Sterling</i>: “And we have passed laws relative to the use of
+the mails ... prohibiting certain written or <ins class="corr" id="TN-29" title="Transcriber's Note&mdash;original text: printed matter....">printed matter....”</ins></p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “And Mr. Chairman, that is the worst vice, the
+worst phase of this legislative itch with which the country is infected,
+for the Federal and sumptuary regulation of all the activities of the
+people, moral, intellectual and industrial. It is gaining. One bad
+law breeds a million.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Borah</i>: “Well, Mr. Stanley, you do not have to make any
+argument to me that we have no power to establish a censorship.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “This is as fine an instance, Mr. Chairman, as I
+know, of the abortive birth and progress of this character of half
+baked legislation. A bill, honest, and perhaps advised in the main,
+was introduced.... As it passed a Representative took a shot at
+it on the fly and inserted this section 5. The Postmaster General
+(Hays) in a letter to Chairman Nelson of this Committee very
+pertinently observed: ‘This particular section 5 makes it an offense
+for newspapers to publish racing news. I favor the bill, but am
+opposed to this section 5. I was not consulted about it, and I hope
+this section does not pass. The whole bill had better be defeated
+in my opinion, than to add this additional curtailment of the freedom
+of the press. There has been a very strong tendency of late
+in that direction, and I am sure it is essential that such tendency
+be checked. I am reminded of Voltaire’s statement, “I wholly disapprove
+what you say and will defend with my life your right to
+say it.”’”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Borah</i>: “It is not necessary to proceed any further then, is
+it?”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “Senator, I think there is more in this than this
+bill. I have no fear that this bill will pass. This is too much.
+Neither the minds nor the stomachs of the people are prepared to
+endure it. But I wish to emphasize its evils in order that this character
+of legislation may be discouraged, that this persistent and pernicious
+effort to control the freedom of the press may find an end
+somewhere at some time.”</p>
+
+<p>(The Cummins-Vaile Bill will also help to end it. <abbr title="Editor">Ed.</abbr>))</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Borah</i>: “Well, Senator Stanley, as I think you know from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span>
+personal conversation, I am quite in sympathy with your view, but I
+am unable to construe this letter (from Postmaster General Hays,
+quoted above) in harmony with a number of statutes that are already
+upon the statute books, and already in force.”</p>
+
+<p>(The Comstock law, for instance. <abbr title="Editor">Ed.</abbr>)</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “It is unfortunately true.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Borah</i>: “Indicating that we are taking a step back to constitutional
+government.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “Buckle says that all civilization for five hundred
+years consisted in repealing laws. I wish Buckle were eligible for a
+seat in the Senate now.”</p>
+
+<p>(Hear, hear! <abbr title="Editor">Ed.</abbr>)</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Chairman, the greatest influence for good—and it may be
+greatest power for evil—is the power of the press. There is no free
+government without it. There are no free men without it. There
+is no free thought without it. I commend to your attention just a
+little paragraph from that great defense of free institutions, with
+(one) possible exception, the greatest in the English tongue: ‘Though
+all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so
+Truth be in the field, we do ingloriously by licensing and prohibiting
+to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever
+knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?’”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i> continuing: “Now let us see what this bill prohibits.
+Section 5 reads: ‘No newspaper, postcard, letter, circular,
+or other written or printed matter containing information, or statements,
+by way of advice of suggestions, purporting to give the odds
+at which bets or wagers are being laid or waged, upon the outcome of
+speed, strength or skill, or setting forth the bets,’—now get this,—‘made
+or offered to be made, or the sums of money won or lost upon
+the outcome or result of such contest,’ etc.</p>
+
+<p>“If a school boy at college should write to his mother that his
+room-mate had bet five cents on a foot-ball game, he could be sent
+to the penitentiary for five years and fined $5000.</p>
+
+<p>“Put in force this act and then endeavor to convince a civilized
+world that this is the land of the free and the home of the brave.”</p>
+
+<p>(Compare the wording of this proposed law with that of the old
+Comstock law by which “every book, pamphlet ... paper, letter,
+writing ... or notice of any kind giving information directly or
+indirectly where, how or of whom or by what means,” etc., conception
+may be controlled is unmailable. Then parallel <abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley’s instance
+of the college boy and his five cent bet on the foot-ball game
+with the fact that no mother can now lawfully write to her married<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>
+daughter any information even in a private letter as to how she
+may space the births of her babies. <abbr title="Editor">Ed.</abbr>)</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “The evil of attempting to restrict the freedom of
+the press in discussing this matter more than counterbalances any
+possible ultimate good. It is purely problematical whether it would
+stop any racing or not, or deter it. It is an actual fact that it would
+be another step in the wrong direction—that is of a pernicious, vexacious,
+inquisitorial censorship of the press.</p>
+
+<p>“It would of course be argued that the boy would not be sent to
+prison for five years or fined $5000. And why? Because judges
+have more sense and more humanity and more decency than the
+Senate, and that they would refrain from doing what they are authorized
+to do. Now you enact this bill, and how do you know that
+somewhere, sometime, you are not going to find a Judge that has
+just as little sense of proportion and propriety and justice as the
+Senate of the United States?</p>
+
+<p>(For instance the Judge who sent Carlo Tresca to jail for a small
+unwitting infringement of the Comstock act, which government officials
+as a whole make not the slightest attempt to enforce.<abbr title="Editor">Ed.</abbr>)</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>, satirically: “Because Congress has gone very near
+the end of its constitutional tether, it should cut the tether and go
+the whole length: because it has regulated the freedom of the press
+in a few respects, it should now proceed to regulate them in all respects.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Borah</i>: “I think, Senator Stanley, that the argument that
+we will have to rely upon finally is whether we are going any further.
+There are plenty of precedents for this law on the statute
+books.... They are bad precedents, but they are there.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “Exactly, Senator Borah.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Borah</i>: “I would like to repeal many of them.”</p>
+
+<p><i><abbr title="Senator">Sen.</abbr> Stanley</i>: “I would like to join you in that....</p>
+
+<p>“No man of course is in favor of moral uncleanness.... But
+that is no reason why the Federal Government should act as a spy
+and as a supervisor of the private relations between men and women
+in the several States....</p>
+
+<p>“Race gambling no one doubts is an evil. Of course it is. But
+intemperance is a bad thing. Therefore the papers must not encourage
+intemperance by mentioning the concomitants of an alcoholic
+drink; the other day an officer tried to stop the Cincinnati Inquirer
+from making reference to a copper can because they said some copper
+cans were used for distilling! That is a fact. Where are we going
+to stop?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Burglary is a bad thing. Think of it, there are millions of
+men who do not know that a simple flat piece of steel, called a jimmy,
+can be used to open doors that are locked.... Suppose the papers
+tell of how a man gets into a house by means of a jimmy ... some
+fellow reads that and gets a jimmy and breaks into a house. Are
+you going to stop all mention of that?... I want to stop now, any
+further advance as Senator Borah has said, in this pernicious practice
+of regulating the morals of the people by prescribing what the
+press shall say about their morals, whether in their domestic relations,
+their gaming practices, or anything else....</p>
+
+<p>“You pass this act, and by virtue of its precedent and those others
+of its kind that now deface the statute books of a free country, within
+a few short years, with a little ingenuity, I can keep anything out of
+the columns of the press except an account of a school picnic or a
+pink tea. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.”</p>
+
+<p>(And this paper thanks the Senator.<abbr title="Editor">Ed.</abbr>)</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span></p>
+
+<h3 id="APPENDIX_NO_14" class="nobreak lineht">APPENDIX NO. 14<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">Sections of the Food and Drug Act Which Are Pertinent
+to Materials Used for the Prevention of Conception</span></h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noindent"><i>Manufacture</i>:</p>
+
+<p>Sec. 8717: It shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture
+within any territory or the District of Columbia any article of food
+or drug which is adulterated or misbranded, within the meaning of
+this Act.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Importation</i>:</p>
+
+<p>Sec. 8718: The introduction into any State or Territory or
+the District of Columbia from any other State or Territory or the
+District of Columbia, or from any foreign country of any article of
+food or drugs which is adulterated or misbranded, within the meaning
+of this Act, is hereby prohibited.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Definition of Drug Includes Compounds</i>:</p>
+
+<p>Sec. 8722: The term “drug,” as used in this Act, shall include
+all medicines and preparations recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia
+or National Formulary for internal or external use, and
+any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used for the
+cure, mitigation, or prevention of disease of either man or other
+animals.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Adulteration</i>:</p>
+
+<p>Sec. 8723: For the purposes of this Act an article shall be
+deemed to be adulterated:</p>
+
+<p>In case of drugs:</p>
+
+<p>First: If, when a drug is sold under or by a name recognized
+in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary, it differs
+from the standard of strength, quality, or purity as determined by
+the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National
+Formulary official at the time of investigation.</p>
+
+<p>Second: If its strength or purity fall below the professed standard
+of quality under which it is sold.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Misbranding</i>:</p>
+
+<p>Sec. 8724: The term “misbranded,” as used herein, shall apply
+to all drugs, or articles of food, or articles which enter into the
+composition of food, the package or label of which shall bear any
+statement, design, or device regarding such article, or the ingredients
+or substances contained therein which shall be false or misleading
+in any particular, and to any food or drug product which is
+falsely branded as to be the State, Territory, or country in which it
+is manufactured or produced.</p>
+
+<p>That for the purposes of this Act an article shall also be deemed
+to be misbranded.</p>
+
+<p>In case of drugs:</p>
+
+<p>First: If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the name
+of another article.</p>
+
+<p>Second: (Not pertinent.)</p>
+
+<p>Third: If its package or label shall bear or contain any statement,
+design, or device regarding the curative or therapeutic effect
+of such article or any of the ingredients or substances contained
+therein, which is false and fraudulent.</p>
+
+<p>Fourth: If the package containing it or its label shall bear any
+statement, design, or device regarding the ingredients or the substances
+contained therein, which statement, design, or device shall
+be false or misleading in any particular.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak lineht" id="APPENDIX_NO_15">APPENDIX NO. 15<br>
+
+<span class="smcap fs85">Freedom of Access to Knowledge of Their Own Choosing
+Denied to Catholics by Oregon School Law, and
+Seriously Threatened in Other States</span></h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent center"><span class="smcap">Same Principle at Stake as That in Cummins-Vaile Bill</span></p>
+
+
+<p>The following letter was sent by the Director of the
+Voluntary Parenthood League to every Catholic member of
+Congress. There are 37 Catholic members in the House,
+and 5 in the Senate.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">
+January 16, 1925.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Am I correct in thinking that you are one of the thirty-seven
+Roman Catholic members of the House? If so, may I not assume
+both your special interest in the recently attempted anti-Catholic
+legislation in several States, and in the possibly anti-Catholic tendencies
+of certain proposed Federal measures, and your common concern
+with all liberty loving Americans at these new menaces to certain of
+our fundamental rights.</p>
+
+<p>Among the proposals to which I refer are those made in Oregon,
+California, Washington, Michigan and Alabama to restrict Catholic
+teaching and learning. The laws proposed have not attempted directly
+to prohibit Catholic schools, but they indirectly achieve that
+end, by compelling all children of certain ages to attend public
+schools during all the hours of all the school days through out the
+year. What is perhaps the most preposterous of these attempts,
+actually became law in Oregon in 1922. Its provisions are incredible
+to upholders of a supposedly free government. They create a Prussian
+type of surveillance and control over all private instruction, and
+empower a County School Superintendent, vested with absolutely
+autocratic authority from which there is no appeal, to decide whether
+such private instruction as may be allowed is being “properly” conducted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span>
+and to compel children receiving such private instruction as
+he may disapprove to attend the public school in the district of their
+residence. Fortunately, protest against this outrageous law from
+Catholics and other citizens, has taken the questions to the courts.
+Equally fortunately, the Federal District Court in Oregon has pronounced
+against the law’s constitutionality.</p>
+
+<p>At Washington, it is the Sterling education bill at which lovers
+of our constitutional liberties, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, are
+looking askance as a possible gateway to Federal compulsion of
+public school attendance, or to other Federal interference with individual
+freedom in the acquisition of knowledge. In view of these legislative
+tendencies, then, and of the intolerant and lawless aggressiveness
+of certain groups which are violently anti-Catholic, and quite
+ready to translate their feelings into political control, may there not
+well be concern lest our guaranteed American freedom become a
+farce?</p>
+
+<p>This is no time then for thoughtful Catholics to take sides against
+freedom. They need it to protect their own rights. Am I wrong
+in thinking that, on sober thought, they will not wish to line up
+against a bill that makes a stand for the very principle that is most
+dear to them, namely, their right to knowledge of their own choosing?
+It has been generally assumed that Catholic Representatives,
+as such, will vote against the Cummins-Vaile Bill, which touches inferentially
+upon “birth control”; but will they, can they, when they
+reflect that this measure only seeks to repeal the same kind of pernicious
+legislation as now imperils the civil liberties of all of us, but
+Catholics in particular, in the matter of their schools and religious
+instruction?</p>
+
+<p>For these reasons I respectfully ask your judicial consideration of
+the above facts and those which follow, as they have a bearing on
+the decision to be made as to this bill by any Congressman who is
+at the same time a loyal Catholic and a conscientious legislator.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the existing laws nor the provisions of the Cummins-Vaile
+Bill deal directly with the question of birth control. They
+have no right to do so. That is essentially a question for the individual
+conscience. But they do both affect the question indirectly. However,
+in so doing the laws have established tyranny, whereas the bill
+re-establishes individual freedom. The laws are an intrusion upon
+personal liberty, such as is prohibited by the constitution, and the bill
+simply removes that intrusion.</p>
+
+<p>No Federal statutes forbid the actual control of conception. That
+is an entirely lawful act for the individual. But the laws do forbid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span>
+the circulation by any public carrier, of any information as to how
+conception may be controlled. That is, they forbid the circulation
+of knowledge by restricting the freedom of the press, and even the
+freedom of individual communication by letter. Yet freedom of
+speech and press is constitutionally guaranteed.</p>
+
+<p>Liberty to learn and to teach is a fundamental American right,
+which may not justly be infringed, except when the things taught
+are criminal acts. The control of conception is not a crime. It could
+not possibly be declared such, by law. It may be contrary to ethics,
+morality and religious teachings as claimed by the authorities of the
+Catholic Church, but so also it may not be. Opinion differs about
+it, though it is obvious that the trend of opinion, as proven by the
+birth rates the world over, is in its favor. However, it is a question
+apart from the law, and should be worked out in accord with personal
+conscience, and whatever educational and inspirational influence
+the individual wishes to accept.</p>
+
+<p>So I earnestly ask you, Sir, to think this matter through, and
+to co-operate now with us who are working for enactment of this
+bill; so that freedom may be safeguarded for everyone, and each allowed
+to utilize it according to his own conscience. I do not ask
+you to believe in birth control. It would be utterly irrelevant and
+intrusive to do so. It is not the point of the bill. The point of the
+bill is one that all Americans should have in common, a love of freedom
+and insistence upon having it for all.</p>
+
+<p>Will you stand for the Cummins-Vaile Bill on that one ground?</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours respectfully,</span><br>
+<span class="smcap">Mary Ware Dennett</span>,<br>
+<span style="margin-right: 4.5em;"><i>Director</i>.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> To give the name, would make this book “unmailable” under the law.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Published by the Voluntary Parenthood League.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> The bill which Mrs. Sanger was then trying to have introduced <em>did not
+remove the subject from the obscenities</em>, except in the case of the doctor. For
+all others it still remained an indecency.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> The bill proposed did not allow self-government as to the control of
+conception, but only physician-government. The person applying could get
+instruction only if the doctor chose to give it, not otherwise.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> These States present a knotty legal question as to whether the repeal
+of the Federal prohibition relating to the mails will automatically make
+these State laws void. Legal opinion (as expressed by Attorneys Alfred
+Hayes and James F. Morton, Jr.) seems to agree that the Federal action
+will probably be effective, but there is authority for the assumption that
+under the State law police power might withhold such supposedly undesirable
+mail from the recipient.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="p2 chapter">
+<div class="transnote" id="transnote">
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE<br>
+<br>
+Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
+corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
+the text and consultation of external sources.<br>
+<br>
+Inconsistent hyphenations have been left as is.<br>
+<br>
+Unmatched quotation marks have been left as printed. Double quotation
+marks occurring within a passage within double quotation marks have
+been left as printed.<br>
+<br>
+Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
+and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.<br>
+<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-0">vi</a>. “sponsor—Cummins-Kissell” <i>replaced by</i> “sponsor—Cummins-Kissel”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-1">vii</a>. “Doctor’s Only” <i>replaced by</i> “Doctors Only”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-2">15</a>. “physican” <i>replaced by</i> “physician”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-3">36</a>. “pornagraphic” <i>replaced by</i> “pornographic”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-4">37</a>. “putrefying sores,”“ <i>replaced by</i> ““putrefying sores,””.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-5">42</a>. “it seem” <i>replaced by</i> “it seems”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-6">43</a>. “instinctly acting” <i>replaced by</i> “instinctively acting”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-7">50</a>. The word “crime” is enclosed in double
+quotation marks, an extra single quotation mark has been removed.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-8">52</a>. “Recive” <i>replaced by</i> “Receive”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-9">55</a>. “weaklies” <i>replaced by</i> “weeklies”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-10">66</a>. “park that flamed” <i>replaced by</i> “spark that flamed”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-11">85</a>. “may protests” <i>replaced by</i> “many protests”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-12">92</a>. “State legislatlon” <i>replaced by</i> “State legislation”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-13">94</a>. “Cummins-Kissell” <i>replaced by</i> “Cummins-Kissel”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-14">94</a>. “every one against:” <i>replaced by</i> “every one against.”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-15">105</a>. “these pople” <i>replaced by</i> “these people”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-16">117</a>. “from heresay” <i>replaced by</i> “from hearsay”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-17">123</a>. “hearings analagous” <i>replaced by</i> “hearings analogous”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-18">146</a>. “Mrs. Dennet” <i>replaced by</i> “Mrs. Dennett”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-19">158</a>. “giving exerpts” <i>replaced by</i> “giving excerpts”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-20">160</a>. “this subjest” <i>replaced by</i> “this subject”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-21">181</a>. “seeems to prevent” <i>replaced by</i> “seems to prevent”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-22">184</a>. “member of Congress” <i>replaced by</i> “members of Congress”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-23">198</a>. “sex conciousness” <i>replaced by</i> “sex consciousness”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-24">248</a>. “the the principle” <i>replaced by</i> “the principle”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-25">251</a>. “substracting errors” <i>replaced by</i> “subtracting errors”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-26">252</a>. “scorn of pretentions” <i>replaced by</i> “scorn of pretensions”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-27">265</a>. “Cortlandt Palmer” replaced by “Courtlandt Palmer”.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-28">301</a>. ‘certain purposes.’ <i>replaced by</i> ‘certain purposes.”’.<br>
+Page <a href="#TN-29">301</a>. Closing double quotation mark added after “printed matter.”<br>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76901 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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author	pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org>	2025-09-20 09:22:03 -0700
committer	pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org>	2025-09-20 09:22:03 -0700
commit	c5894ddd0299eeaf3759043034c70e51c53fd0b8 (patch)
tree	e7d5975ead381b3326c099583ab09f34bfd4306c /76901-h