CHAPTER III

GOING TO THE POINT WITH A FEDERAL BILL

_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: Cummins-Kissel 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._

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 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.

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.

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 _Birth Control Review_, which became the official organ of the new League. Appendix No. 10 gives some of the concrete 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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

The bill was a simple straight repeal of the words “preventing conception” wherever they occur in the five Federal obscenity statutes, as follows:

_Criminal Code_,

Section 102, _which penalized any government employee who aids or abets_ in the violation of any law “prohibiting importing, advertising, dealing in, exhibiting, or sending or receiving by mail,” any obscene publication, etc.

Section 211, _which makes unmailable_ all obscene publications, writings, etc., and all articles used for obscene purposes.

Section 245, _which prohibits bringing into the United States or sending by express or any public carrier_, all the obscene things listed in Section 211.

Section 312, _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_, any of the obscene things listed in Section 211. (This section applies only to territory under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal government).

_Tariff Act of 1922_, Section 305, _which prohibits the importation_ of any of the obscene things, listed in Section 211 of the Criminal Code.

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 is they evaded voting on it. The session ended without action.

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 Appendix No. 11.

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.

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 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.

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, Appendix No. 12 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.

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.”

The facts submitted in this survey of some of the high spots of the campaign in Congress are for the most part 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.

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 _himself_. 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 _other_ people.

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).

Later several of the Senators made similar suggestions that a bill be introduced without a specific title, merely a 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.”

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.

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 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.

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 Birth Control Herald for the information of those who had supported the campaign to pass the bill.

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 St. Louis Globe Democrat. The following excerpts from it shed light on the situation as it was reported up to that date:

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.

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 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.

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.

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?”

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.”

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.

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 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.

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, ...”

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.

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 _leading_ 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.”

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 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.)

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.”

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 these people, 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.

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 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.”

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:

“My dear ——:

“... 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.

“Yours very truly,

“——.”

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.

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.”

Speaking of “Bolshevism,” here is another item from the interview notebook:

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?”

Congressman X.—“No, certainly not. Those men get desperate. They are ready to take up with any wild ideas.”

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!

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.”

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.”

Very few Congressmen have even the partial excuse of belonging to a church which disapproves the scientific control of parenthood. 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.”

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 _other_ way to _amend_ the present statutes, you could slip your clause _out_ 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.)

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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:

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Gentlemen:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yours very truly, Voluntary Parenthood League.”

(The original wording and spelling is given in these letters.)

DEAR FRIENDS:

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Good by for this time ____.

DEAR FRIENDS:

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.

Hoping you will send me information on this topic at once,

Yours truly, ____.

MY DEAR FRIENDS:

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.

Yours truly, ____.

MY DEAR MRS. DENNETT:

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.

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.

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 Oct., 1919, the fourth Feb., 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.

If you can devise any way to help us please do so and believe me your grateful friend,

____.

V. P. L.

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 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.

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.

One discouraged mother, ____.

Voluntary Parenthood League:

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.

I love little children but don’t like to see them suffer from lack of attention and care.

Sincerely yours, ____.

DEAR MADAM:

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.

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 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.

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.

With my very best wishes for the noble fight you are making.

Yours sincerely, ____.

MY DEAR MRS. DENNETT:

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.

If you do help me, it will be very much appreciated by me. I’ll remain

Yours truly, ____.

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.

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.

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.

In the 225 Congressional families noted, the number of children is as follows:

1 family has 11 children 2 families have 10 children 1 family has 9 children 3 families have 8 children 1 family has 7 children 7 families have 6 children 16 families have 5 children 22 families have 4 children 40 families have 3 children 80 families have 2 children 46 families have 1 child

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.

Alternation of logic with appeal for simple fairness and human interest has characterized the whole period of work 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.

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:

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE:

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.

The Bill is _simple_ 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.

The logic of the measure is also _simple_, 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.

I beg you to be _human_ 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 knowledge in decent, scientific, reliable form, instead of from hearsay 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?

Without speaking personally of individual Senators, it is entirely justifiable to assume what Senators _really_ 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?

And most of all, can you not break through the _fear_, 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?

Gratitude and respect await your favorable action.

Yours very truly, ____.

Director of the V. P. L.

What followed is reported in the Birth Control Herald (March 8, 1923).

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.”

We asked what members were present and he told us frankly. 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.

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.”

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.

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!”

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 Birth Control Herald 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:

DEAR SIR: 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.

Respectfully yours, ____.

The Birth Control Herald published the above letter with the following editorial comment:

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

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 Birth Control Herald had this to say regarding the letters the Senator received:

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 _thinking_ people want this Bill passed.

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.

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.