A Year M A Y , 1919 15c o Copy

SIDTH CONTROL Ddcated to Voluntary Motherhood

And NOW? BY Virginia C. Young

Endowment of Motherhood, B y Dr. Alice Drysdale V ickry

Origin and Workings of the Comstock Laws, B y James F. Morton, Jr.

Why Not Birth Control Clinics in America? B y Margaret Sanger

"The quesr~on then IS whether we are to have mtelhgent B~rth Control . . or umntellgent, dangerous

B~rth Control ?" says the Edtor of Amencan Med~ane Read the article on page 12.

The Banh Courol Revcew

The NATIONAL BIRTH C O N T R O L LEAGUE WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU HOW PARENT- HOOD MAY BE CONTROLLED, BUT STATE AND NATIONAL LAWS SAY THIS IS A CRlME I F YOU WILL HELP WE CAN CHANGE THE LAW

JOIN THE LEAGUE AND SIGN OUR PETI- TIONS TO CONGRESS AND THE STATE LEG- ISLATURE

NATIONAL BlRTH CONTROL LEAGUE 200 Fdth Avenue, New York Clty

I w ~ s h to be enrolled as a member of the League, and herewlth enclose

One dollar for dues

-_-___dollars for sustaln~ng membership

Address ...........................

The

Woman's International League BRANCH of WOMAN'S PEACE PARTY-

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF WOMEN

FOR PERMANENT PEACE

1111 Hold a Serzes of

Woman's Freedom Conferences PLACES AND DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED LATER

Supper promptly at 7, followed by d~scuss~on,

whlch will be led by the women and men most interested m freedom for women in every field of actlvity TICKETS $1 00

Su6lects Woman m Pol~tlcal Act~on

The Econonuc Status of the Wde.

Marnage, Dlvorce and 1lleg.ltunacy Women and Internat~onal Rekt~ons

For T ~ k e t s or Further Injormatwn,

Wrzte to the LEAGUE, at 70 FIFTH AVE , N Y C Telephone CHELSEA 4410

Books On Birth Control and Kindred Subjects: Man and Woman -By Havelock Ellls The L~s t of References on B~rth Control -By Theo-

book wh~ch reveals to each other Women dore Schroeder Blbhography of 1,400 and Men as thev are ------- -------------- $2 00 Books, Art~cles and Pamphlets ------------ 35

Parenthood and Race Culture-By C W Sa- The Small Fanuly ~ y s t e m . ~ ~ ~ C V Dr, sdale

leeby A Sc~ent~fic Treatlse 1x1 Popular An Argument for Blrth Control from Moral,

Style for Parents and Prospectwe Parents-- 2 75 Eth'cal and Standpoints----------- The Love Fbghts of Women-By Havelock

The Century of the Ciuld-By Ellen Key An Ellls A Book That Every Man Should Illummat~on of the Ch~ld's Place m Soce~ty 150 Read .................................... 25

Hered~ty-By Thompson A Study In Heredl- tary Influence from the Eugen~c Standpomt

Popuhhon and B~rth Gntrol A Sympostum by W ~ l l ~ a m J Robmson, Ach~lle Lorla, Charles V Drysdale, Ludw~g Quessell, Eden Paul, Edward Bernstem, D Dunlop, R Manschke, S H Halford and F W Stella Browne, ed~ted by Eden and Cedar Paul----

What Every Mother Should Know-By ~ i r - garet Sanger A Book That Teaches the Mother How to Tell the Truth of Sex of the Child Paper, 25c, cloth --------------

Lmutahon of Offsprmg -By Wllham J Robm- son Answers All Arguments Agamst B ~ r t h Control .................................

The Objects of Marnage -By Havelock Elhs A Reverent, Insprr~ng V ~ e w of the Conjugal Relat~on ................................

Bvth Control m Its Medlcal, S o c d and Eco- nomc Aspects -By Dr A Adolphus Knopf

Uncontrolled Breedmg -By Adelyne More A Startlmg Sc~ent~fic Treat~se on Overpopu- latlon as the Cause of War ----------------

Small or Large Farmhes7-By Dr C V Drys- dale and Havelock Elhs B ~ r t h Control from the Indlv~dual, Rac~al and Moral Stand- pomts Blrth Control and War -----------

What Every Gul Should Know -By Margaret Sanger Sex Instruction for Adolescent G~r l s In Plaln, S~mple Language Paper 2% cloth ....................................

BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW, 104 F~fth Avenue, New York C~ty

THE W R T H CONTROL KEVIEW MARGARET SANGER DEDICATED TO VOLUNTARY MARY KNOBLAUCH

Edztor MOTHERHOOD Managzng Edztor

VOL I11 NEW YORK. MAY. 1919 No 5

Editorial Comment By Mary Knoblauch

TANDING BY THE beds~de of a woman dymg m chdd S buth, Martm Luther IS supposed to have s a ~ d -"If a woman grows weary and at last d~es from chdd bearmg, ~t matters not Let her then d ~ e from chdd bearmg She is here to do it "

These brave words may have been a consolat~on to the sor rowlng father and husband, called upon to contemplate the result of h ~ s casual act -but were they wlse or aptly spoken from any other standpomt?

Would anJane, for example, engage a chaffeur who s a ~ d of h ~ s machme, " It's no matter ~f ~t breaks down, burns out, loses ~ t s parts, goes mto the junk heap, that is what ~t 1s for " No' Certa~nly not Machmes cost money The people who pay for them know that to glve sat~sfact~on they must be well treated They must be o~led, greased and watered They must have gasolme They must be kept clean and In repair Other wlse ne~ther pleasure nor profit can be had from them The merest Ford contrives to concentrate upon ~tself more care and attentlon than often falls to the lot of the reproductwe machme called woman

HEY-MACHINESREQUIRE rest They can't be run all the tlme to the 11m1t of then capaclty and gwe elther

good servlce or long servlce They also repulre mdmdual attentlon No one expects a Bu~ck to run hke a Rolls Royce, nor a truck to keep pace w~ th a racer It 1s constdered sheer s u p ~ d ~ t y when a man does not know what h ~ s englne can do, and trles to make twenty horse power do the work of e~ghty There are expert machm~sts to p e mstructlon ~n the phys~cal make up and capaclty of d~fferent cars The law, please note, does not frown upon the gwmg of t h ~ s necessary knowledge The cituen has a r~gh t to be as happy, as safe, as sattsfied as expert adv~ce can make h ~ m when ~t IS merely an automob~le that IS concerned It is only women's bod~es that must be used to death for want of mformat~on and the whole race that must suffer from t h ~ s lack of fores~ght

The State has found it wlse to l~cense chaffeurs No one is allowed to drive on the h~ghways who has not proved to the sat~sfaction of competent judges that he knows at least how to start and stop his englne The more natural method of learnmg to drwe by experience was found ~ n c o m ~ a t ~ b l e w~th ch~ldren, she could count w~th certainty on havlng all poss~ble the safety of the ~ u b l ~ c It 1s a crlme to overload ferryboats care and attention for herself, and yet she cons~dered the task

and elevators or to operate them when you don't know how Machmery won't stand for much nonsense It refuses to be stramed beyond its hmit Hence ~t IS treated with respect Yet ~t IS a far greater menace to the safety of the publ~c to overstram woman w~th child bearmg, even if ~t be true that she has, as Martm Luther suggested, no other funct~on than the reproduct~on of the race To do that properly, she must at least be accorded the same measure of cons~derat~on that IS shown to other machmes

Holland and New Zealand have seen the w~sdom of gmng her at least that much attentlon Them physmans glve expert adv~ce on the l~m~tatmos of the fam~ly, as they gwe it on club feet or squmt eyes The result has been fewer but sounder ch~ldren, a great lowermg of mortal~ty, and a net increase m the populat~on Parents there, llke chaffeurs here, have been taught how to go about theu busmess

OREOVER, AND IN t h ~ s respect woman d~ffers from other machmeq, the smallest p a ~ t of her work IS done w~th

the dellvery of her chdd to the world It IS lust as Important for the welfare of the race that the mother should have the strength, the tlme, and the knowledge to brmg up her ch~ldren properly after they are here, as it IS for her to bear them and d ~ e domg ~t

If ~t IS too much to expect that women should be regarded as human bemgs w~ th the r~gh t of self determmat~on m the matter of chdd bearmg, let pubhc opmon at least real~ze that she can't perform her duty as the race producmg machme, if she 1s forced to contlnue ch~ldbearmg when she IS mentally, phys~cally, or econom~cally unfitted for the task Let the laws be so altered that the doctors ~n the c l ~ n ~ c s may gwe ad vme, when ~t 1s needful to women of the poorer classes If our doctors don't know what adv~ce to gwe, let them go to the Dutch and find out

Queen Victorla, ~n a letter to Kmg Albert of Belgmm, writ ten m 1841, says -"I thmk, dearest Uncle, that you cannot really w~sh me to be the 'mamma d'une nombreause fade , ' for I thmk you will see the great mconvenlence a large fam~ly would be to us all, and part~cularly to the country, mdepen dent of the hardsh~p and lnconvenlence to myself Men never thmk, at least seldom th~nk, what a hard task ~t is for us women to go through t h ~ s very often" These were the words of a queen and a domest~cated, conservatlve queen at that She is not supposed to have had radical ~deas to upset her equillb rlum She &d not have to wash and bake and brew for her

The Bvrh Control Revlno

of havlng chldren a hard one, and reallzed that men seldom thought about that side of it, or thought about it as Lutber dd, with a sense of secure detachment.

HE DAY HAS come, however, when they must thmk about n The legwhtors mn see that the day for bImd dom

meermg IS done Fear and ignorance never were the obedmt weapons slave drlvers hoped they would be. Slave labor was nelther mtelllgent nor economical The slavery our laws un pose on mothers will, m the future of voluntary motherhood, seem just as absurd The day wdl come here, as lt has come and 1s commg m other lands, when physlclans will gve con traceptlve mformatlon for the benefit of the race, as they now prescribe glasses to preserve the eyesight Woman, the breed mg machme, wl l get at least as much care as the automobile

Judge Advocate on Biith Control

M NOR J C RUPENTHAL, a judge advocate of the United States Army, formerly judge of one of the

most Important judmal h l c t s m Kansas, gves hls mews on Bmth Control m a recent letter to the Blab Control Renew

"I have some 6rm conmcbons on the sub& of Blab Con trol I am unable to agree wth the extent or extremes of sentiment often found m the columns of the Buth Control Renew But I do thmk that people should cons~der the sub ject m calmness and not reject the whole matter out of preju dlce or superstlhtlon, etc Everyone ought to start m wth positlve convlctlons that the msane, the d e c d e , the ihohc, the syph~htic, and perhaps other forms of physlcal defects that are mcurable and transrmssable, should not be repro duced Nor should any woman bear chddren to a pomt that 1s dangerous to the well bemg, largely regarded, of elther mother or chlld, but how far to go must be a controverted matter permanently

"I hope some tune to be able to follow your s u m o n of summarlzmg all cases declded by courts, touchmg these laws whose summary has been made by me. My expemence as judge m hundreds of dmorce cases sustams your mew that the matters touched by Blab Control lead to much manta1 unhappmes and to dworce"

N. B. C. L. Begins Fifth Year N VIEW OF the world events that occupied the publlc mmd 1 so engrossmgly durmg the whole of ~ts lde-tme, the

Natlonal Blrth Control League feels that ~t may well be jush fied m ~ t s connctlon that the first four years are the hardest"

Organized m the sprmg of 1915, ~t has canled on all lts difficult lnltlal organuahon and promohon work against the heavy odds presented by the war, and therefore at the begm nmg of rts fifth year, w~th the war over and wlth a substanhl membership and a sound foundation of publlc opuuon to stand on, ~t looks forward to a future of cornparatme easy

go ma, At the annual meetmg held Aprd 14th at the home of Mrs

Mmturn Pmchot, a new Executive Comrmttee was elected as follows

Mlss Amta Ashley, M w Elmor Byms, Mrs Luclan Cary, Mrs Walter Chambers, Mrs Mabel Potter Daggett, Dr A. L Goldwater, M w Alice hggs Hunt, Mrs Maxwell Hyde, Max well Hyde, Mrs Loulse Kneeland, Mrs Darnel O'Day, Mrs L l l ~ a n R Sue, Mlss Kathleen Taylor, Mrs John H Wllhams

Mrs Maxwell Hyde was reelected c h a m . and MKS Mm- turn Pmchot was made treasurer

WO CHANGES IN the constltubon were made. One adds to the "objectsn of the League the c l a w b promote

the dutrtbutwn of all the best contraceptrve anformahon, as soon as kgally through clutrcs, dupensarm and all other eflectcve agencies" Another creates an associate non dues paymg memberdup of persons who accept m wntmg the auns and prmclples of the League

Plans were made for ngorous prosecution of the work m Congress and the State Leplature and the general propaganda through llterature and meetlugs

A new executive secretary, Mrs Francs Maude Bjorkman. has been engaged Some new and pement llterature ~s prom lsed for an early date

Too Bad By Hekn Huyt

Too bad the stork, when he comes. W111 not stay And sew the dresses, And gve the baths and bottles Only a moment ~t takes hlm to set down hrs load, Then he 1s off to the sky agam Wlth never a look back for us'

The BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW 104 FIFTH AVENUE

NEW Y O R K , N Y

And an Recognuwn of a Vltal Spzrlt tha.t Stdl Anunctes thu Maganne, JESSIE ASHLEY

Art Eduors COWELU BARNS LOU ROGERS -

Publtshed monthly Subscnpbon nce $1 50 a year, forelgn countries and Canada 8; 75, postpad

Bundle rates ten coples for a dollar, $9 50 per hundred. Owned and Publuhd by

The New York Womeds PuhLslung Co, Inc Entered as secondclaas matter March 11, 1918, at the post

at New York, N Y. under the Act of March 3.1819 Issued on the first of each month

Addrm correspondence and make chech and monq ordm payable to MABCARET SANCER

Noncs -When requcsung change of address. e v e both old and new address.

Y h B d Control Remew 5

The Origin and Working of the Comstock Laws By James F

FULL HISTORY of the censorshlp m sex matters re mams to be wrltten Much materlal has been collected for T"

the purpose, but the task will be one of great magnitude It rn eeaam that among the anclents there IS little trace of the thotght or feelmg that the vital t h ~ n g of hfe requue a specla1 rmcence m language or a veded form of expression What they had to utter on these themes was plamly expressed, mth no strange fancy that a speclal vutue known as modesty requued the use of mnuendo, metaphor or euphemism to call up to the mmd an ldea nahlrally expressrble m plam words In new of the specla1 actmty of the churchly mmded In seekmg a reheow sanchon for the extreme prudery which has become a conventional vutue, ~t IS lnterestmg to note that the Jewish and Chrlshan Scriptures are second to none of the wrltlngs of antlqu~ty m the use of plam and expllclt language wlth reference to sex organs, functions and acts The advocates of verbal mspuatlon are therefore placed In the pecullar posi hon of bemg requued by the most elementary rules of logc to abandon thew premue uncon&tlonally, or to adnut a & m e example for the use of expressions whlch are today held to be under the ban

It IS not m the splendld classical c~viluabons and theu literatures, any more than m the sacred books of the Chrlstlan and other Oriental rehgons, that a warrant IS to be found for readmg "obscenity" mto the stralghtfonvard dlscusslon of natural thmp In fact, so persuaded are our censors them selves that the use of a forelgn, especially a clasacal tongue purges references to sex matters of theu assumed uncleannes. that it 1s posslble under even our present exaggerated censor shlp to prmt and cuculate almost anythmg m the Lahn Ian guage, so that not only medlcal works but boob of all sorts for general clrculatlon pass freely, although contammg casual reference and quotatlorn of the most baldly pornograph~c char acter, provzded that the othenvlse offendmg words or sentences are prmted m Lahn only

The psychology whlch admts of this puerlle subterfuge need hardly be charactenzed, bemg so far beneath contempt as to adnut of no adequate term of reproach Llke the shameless hypocrisy of the censorshlp m other respects, such as the sup presslon of sober sex hscusslon and the lmpunlty of the pub llcations revelling m erobc double entendre, the prosecubon of sellers of cheap edltlons of Boccawo and hke wnters and the free course pemtted to the publishers of edltwns de l a , the "mwrttten law" h e m e even-to med~cal peno&cals above those of the lalty, the hberty granted to certam classes of purchasmg books whlch must not be sold to the publlc at large, t h ~ mane superstihon that a word or Idea IS mdecent m Eng I& and proper m Latm cannot be reconcded vnth the supposl tlon of common ~ntelhgence or common honesty on the part of those who have usurped the rlght to hctate the speech and wr~tmg of the cltuens of thls country Even a Comstock or a SYIMQT would hardly mp1~.tam w d ~ a grave face that the

Morton Jr

wealthy, the membera of certam professlonr or those able to read Lam are so much more puremmded than any of them fellowc~tmm that contanunahon of theu sweet souls 1s lm posslble, and no other hypothesis 1s tenable save that of cowardly or corrupt favorltwm m the enforcement of the law As s p d l l y becomes the case wlth all censorshps, the honest and just adnunlstrahon of the Comstock laws has never been even attempted by theu author or by b successor

IL LONG PAST the Eluabethan perlod, the Anglo pSaxon world had not become allhcted n t h the scourge of p ~ d e r y The p l m spokenness of Shakespeare and st111 more that of Beaumont and Fletcher are famlllar to all The robust mmds of that brdllant age saw no cause for blushmg when a spade was called a spade Throughout the Seven teenth and Eighteenth centuries, although certam traces of affected rmcence had begun to appear, creatmg a prurient mental nastmess whld renders the dramas of Wycherly and Etherege consciously perverse, the process had not gone much farther than m other lands In the Nmeteenth century, how ever, apparently w~thout rhyme or reason (although the hls tonc causes may be d e t m e d when occaslon perrmts a closer analysis), both England and Amerlca began to &verge mth great rapldlty from the rest of the world, unbl today the curlous prudery notable m the t y p a l Anglo Saxon mmd 1s the cause of amused and contemptuous surprise to the natlves of other c ~ v ~ l u e d lands, who have not yet developed so un wholesome an averslou to the normal view of sex It has been our msfortune that Br~hsh msularlty and Amer~can van ~ t y have concurred to develop m the Engllsh spealung world a preposterous Phar~see~sm of the "hoher than thou" order, which has made ~t mposslble for us "to see ourselves as others see us" The h t that our h b e d prudery could be anydung but a token of superiority IS taken as a lund of trea son or at least a proof of unpardonable coarseness Untd a certam day m August, 1914, it was perrmss~ble to pomt to the French as an awful example of a people that had become d e cadent and rotten through fallure to adopt Anglo Saxon no tlons of modesty That sort of statement has not been much m evidence for some tme past, and 1s not Ilkely to be renewed m the near future. HLstory has a way of g m g the lie to our lmle nat~onal raclal concelts

T IS CALLED OBSCENITY, was not a crlme under R e common law of England Space forblds the detalled proof of t h ~ s statement, but any who doubt wxll fmd all ques hon removed by consultmg Theodore Schroeder's admuable work, "Obscene Lrterature and Const~tuhonal Law," pages 33 to 41 It 1s not unhl 1868 that we fmd m England an unmistakable denlal of the right to hscuss sex matters wrth the freedom apphed to other sublects In the well known case of R e p a v Hlcklm, the court held a pamphlet attack mg the Roman Catholic Confessional to be obscene m reveal

~ n g some of the object~onahle questions put by prtests to then female penitents Thls IS what IS called a "leadmg case," since the words of t h ~ s court, although the product of loose and ab surd reasonmg, have ever slnce been bltndly followed m both England and Amerlca, m splte of the fact that the Unlted States had at that tlme been a separate natlon for over nmety years, and our judges were in no way bound to adopt the vaga rles of the Brtttsh courts

The test of obscen~ty gravely put forward was "whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscene IS to deprave and corrupt those whose mmds are open to such lmmoral ~nfluences, and Into whose hands a publ~cat~on of t h ~ s sort may fall " In other words, sane and well balanced human hemgs are not to be perm~tted to read anythmg that m~ght have an lnjurlous effect on the muds of the feeble mtnded and degenerate' The monstrosity of the proposmon IS self evldent, and ~t IS hard to retam any respect for Engllsh and Amer~can courts wh~ch have for fifty years parrot mouthed ~t as if ~t were msplred gospel The s~ght of jewelry m a wmdow may deprave the sense of honesty of a poor weahlmg, and the stght of the Amer~can flag may lnclte m an abnormally mznded ahen enemy or soctal revolutton~st the ~mpulse to murder Therefore the jeweler and the patriot should be ~mpr~soned for the crlme of a posslble tendency to "deprave or corrupt" some hypo thet~cal person of a weak or already depraved nature The absurdrty and mfamy of the dlctum become no less when appl~ed In the s~ngle realm of sex, mstead of bemg extended to all parallel cases It should be borne m mmd that tbls B r ~ t ~ s h judlctal atroctty was perpetrated just five years before the so called Cornstock laws were enacted, and that our statn tory leg~slat~on has smce been systemat~cally interpreted m the hght of t h ~ s more than dublous case settled under the vague tdea of a general duty to protect the fragle "pubhc morals "

TN THIS COUNTRY, the open d~splay and sale of porno I graph~c ltterature has been under the ban from an early per~od, under the general ~ d e a of preservtng the publ~c eye from gross scandal, but obscenity huntmg as a fine art and fdvor~te pastlme began among us w~ th the rlse from obscurity of the somewhat unsavory character known as Anthony Com stock

The early hfe of the notonous Amer~can censor contams nothing of spec~al note It has been charged that dur~ng one period he was add~cted to somewhat abnormal and reprehens1 ble sex practmes, but the evtdence 1s not clear In any case, when approaching the age of th~rty, about the year 1872, he suddenly acqutred publ~c~ty by hls vehement and extreme de nunclatrons of the alleged corruptton of the youth of America by a flood of obscene llterature HIS impetuous propaganda won h ~ m a large followmg, and In 1873, he bes~eged Congress wlth the demand that laws be ~mmed~ately passed to curb the monstrous and growing evd In the course of hls energetlc lobbying, he exh~b~ted to the horr~fied gaze of the congressmen a number of samples of pornographic matter, cla~mmg that the schools and colleges were being deluged w~ th them No hmt was gwen at t h ~ s time of any ulter~or purpose, and the later wtld extravagances of the censor m h ~ s systematic attacks on literature, art, science and serlous reform propaganda

The Bcrth Control Reuuw

were kept carefully secreted from the attentton of the law makers The whole plea was based on the sale of porno graph~c llterature to the young, and the use of the mads to spread thls "moral filth" among the school chddren Natur ally, nobody wished to appear as a defender of pornography, and no legtslator even dreamed that anythmg further was ~n volved In the rush of the closlng dajs of the congress~onal sesslon, the exact text of the apparently laudable measure recerved no careful scrutmy As a matter of fact, the bdl was passed m the last hours of the sesslon w~th practtcally no d ~ s cusslon, being hurriedly jammed through together w~ th some two hundred and stxty other acts As later changes have been made, the text of the orlgtnal act may be of mterest

Sec 3893 No obscene lewd or lasc~vlous book pamphlet. plcture. paper, pnnt or other publ~catron of an Indecent character or any anlcle or thmg deslgned or mtended for the prevention of conception or pro curlng of abamon, nor any artrcle or thing mended or adopted for any ~ndecent or ~ m a r a l use or nature nor any wrltten or prmted card cacular, book pamphlet advertlsement or notlce of any kmd gmng rnfarmatron dnectly or ~ndlrectly, where or how, or of whom or by what means elther of the thlngs before ment~oned may be obtalned or made nor any letter upon the envelope of wblch, or postal card upon w h ~ h Indecent or seurr~lous epzthets may be wrrtten or prrnted shall be carr~ed In the mad and any person who shall knowingly deposlt or cause to be deposrted for malllng or delwery, any of the herem before mentroned artrcles or th~ngs, or any notlce or paper contauung any advert~sement relatmg to the aforesaid artdes or thmgs, and any per son who, In pursuance of any plan or scheme for dlsposlng of any of the herem before menlloned art~cles or thmgs shall take or cause to be taken from the mad any such letter or package, shall be deemed gullty of a mlsdemennor, and shall for every offense, be fined not Jess than one hundred dollars nor more than five thousand dollars or lmprlsoned at bard labor not less than one year, nor more than ten years, or both

HIS WAS MERELY the entermg wedge It is bad enough, w~th ~ t s vague ep~thets, deprtvmg any penon accused of

ma~ltng "obscene Itterature" of anythlng ltke due process of law, slnce the whlm of a pecuharly narrow mtnded judge or ~g norant jury mtght condemn any man or woman to ten years' lm prlsonment at hard labor and a fine of five thousand dollars for a harmless reference to sex, whlch no normal human hemg would dream of findmg obscene Nor IS t h ~ s mere fancy, as many actual cases of vlnd~ctlve and unscrupulous persecut~on can bear witness Moses Harman, for example, one of the most smcere and h ~ g h mtnded soclal reformers m our htstory, suf fered a long term of lmprlsonment for publ~sh~ng In h ~ s paper, Lucder, an indignant protest agalnst the brutal assault by a bestla1 ruffian upon b ~ s slck wlfe Nevertheless, even t h ~ s blanket provlslon d ~ d not suffice to enable the censor to vent h ~ s spleen upon those whom he desned to Injure, and, subse quent amendments, brmgmg the law mto ~ t s present form, were successively procured by h ~ m The addalon of the word "filthy" to the adjectives tn the or~gmal act was made to cover matter whtch dealt w~th sex In such a way that even the Com stock type of mtnd could not brmg tt under the definmon of obscen~ty In the cases Reg v H~cklin Another amend ment sub~ected prwate correspondence, hltherto always held sacred, to the msolent lnvaslon of an unpr~ncrpled censorsh~p Numerous verbal changes were made, wlth the general mten tlon of stoppmg up every loophole, and of givtng to a pre jumced judge or jury SO many possible catchwords on whch

The Bwth Control Revcew

to convlct that ~t should be rendered unsafe for any person so much as to mentlon the subject of sex for fear of falllng Into one of the traps set for honest reformers rather than for spec~ahsts m pornography

In fact, the wordlng of the law 1s so vague and comprehen swe that ~ t s hteral enforcement would be utterly lmposslble As stated above, the censors have never lentured to carry it out to the letter, wlthout fear or favor Physlclans, lawyers, Latm scholars and to some extent scholars of other fore~gn tongues, and above all the wealthy, have been systematically granted mmunlty from the strlct constructlon applled m the case of Amerlcan cltuens In general, as equallty before the law 1s no part of the program of the censorshlp In reahty, the rules applled In the case of those not protected by favorlt Ism would bar the Blble and Shakespeare from the malls under heavy penalties, would wlpe out many of our popular maga zmes and would cause the suspension of most med~cal perlodl cals The provlslons regardmg prevention of conception (evl dently understood by the legislators who passed ~ t , as by the Ignorant today, as merely synonymous wlth abortlon) would make ~t a crime to preach chastity or delayed marriage, or to advocate the sterlluatlon of the crlmlnal or unfit Nay, there cs m the files of the Natconal Bcrth Control League a letter sent to me by Anthony Comstock hcmself, zn whcch he speccfically ucolate hcs own law, by gwcng me defincte cnformafaon of m certacn "artxle or thcng desrgned or rntended for the preven tcon of conceptcon," and whxh has been very frequently used for that purpose Men have gone to lad for no more than the great censor hcmself wrote to me -

HE ACTUAL ENFORCEMENT of the law has been marked by a long trad of persecutlon, falling largely on the hlgh

est type of men and women Whde the c l am of Comstock and of hls successor, Mr Sumner, that vast quantltles of porno graphlc llterature has been suppressed, need not be disputed, any posslble good m thts dlrectlon has been offset beyond all comparison by the nuschlef of creatmg a relgn of terror wlth reference to all wholesome and canmd dlscusslon of sex, out of whlch hght and guldance mlght come The emasculation of our llterature has been fraught with pern~clous consequences In the lowermg of our natlonal vulllty of mmd Art has suf fered, and the mlschlef done to publlc health and normal Ilv mg by enforced Ignorance IS beyond all computation If the censorshlp really wlshed what ~t or~gmally pretended, to pro tect the lmmature mlnds of the young from the unwholesome suggestlons of pornography as thrust upon them for commer clal purposes, the end could be ach~eved without an autocratic

dlctatlon to mature men and women wlthout the persecutlon of smcere educators and reformers I have myself offered a reasonable compromise law (m Case and Comment, June, 1916), to the followmg effect Repeal the present law alto gether, s~nce the vagueness of ~ t s provlslons furmshes no crlterlon of gul~t or innocence Confine the prohlb~tory clause to the dlsplay m publlc places, or the mallmg, exhbitmg, gvmg, loanmg or selllng to chlldren below a certaxn age of any pornographic product, and let pornography be spec1 tically defined as any art or other product exhlbltmg peraons er animals p e r f o n n g an act of sexual coupgabon or of

semal satlsfactlon In any other form, or suggesting such an act or lnvltlng to or preparing for ~t or In a state of sexual excltement, or c a h g attention by pomtmg, gesture, pose, att~tude, or otherwise of the spectator or of other persons or animals represented, to the sexual organs, whether exposed or mdlcated under clothmg, more than to any other part of the body or to the body as a whole, also any wrltmg or prmt, pamphlet, book, etc , descrlbmg the pleasures of sexual excltement or of ~ t s gratlficatlon by any means whatever, normal or abnormal, or descrlb~ng any speclfic mstances of any form of sexual gratlficatlon or lnvlting to the performance of such acts or recommending them Proper exceptions can be framed to remove all danger of the lnclu slon of med~cal wntmgs or physlologlcal textbooks or maga zlne artlcles m the scope of the prohlb~tlon, and the advertls Ing and sale of means of abortlon, except for the preservation of Me or health, may be Included The foregomg 1s not offered as verbally perfect, but as ~nd~catlng the dlrectlon and the llmlts of legltlmate restrlctlve leglslat~on

The federal government IS, of course, concerned only wlth the mallablllty of the artlcles mentioned, as the questlon of dls play, sale, glft or loan belong to state prov~slous I have not referred above to state laws Suffice rt to say that they have followed the h e of the federal statutes, contalnlng the same vagueness and offerlng scope to the same abuses The New York and several of the other statutes were framed by Cam stock hlmself, and enacted shortly after the passage of the federal law In 1873, and these have been copled by other states It mav also be added that addlt~onal federal laws. later sKured by Comstock's mfluence, forb~d the use of express ccmpanles or of any other common carrlers to transport such artlcles as are barred from the malls Thls was done m the face of a decwon of the Unlted States Supreme Court (U S v Jackson, 96 U S 727), whlch expressly declared that Con gress could not lawfully commlt so gross an mvaslou of per sonal llberty

E REPEAL OF THE clauses prohlbltmg the glvlng of yBlrth Control mformattlon IS the specla1 nnmedlate ~ssue Thls leglslatlon 1s anomalous m every way Wlth the excep tlon of a freak law m Connecticut, no statute book m this couu try (and probably none m the world) contalns anythmg so preposterous as a prohlbltlon of Birth Control Yet the federal and stare laws make ~t a c rme to furnlsh the means of domg an absolutely lawful act, or to glve lnformatlon concernmg the same' It IS a plece of leglslatlve msanlty probably w~th out a parallel In getting rld of it, we shall be rendering a vast servme, not merely to the host of unwlll~ng mothers, not merely to our country and to the human race, but to the decency and dlgnlty of our lawbooks themselves Whlle con centratmg on thls great work, however, let none of us forget that the entlre body of the Comstock law IS an mfamous tra vesty on law and justlce Its uncondltlonal repeal would be m immeasurable improvement on the present state of thmgs, but ~f we are atlllcted wlth the tlmld fear that a llttle salacious readmg wlll rum our youth, In splte of all the counter m fluences of the home and the school, I have shown above an

( C o n h m d on pa& 181

The Bzrth Control Review

And Now? By Vzrgznua C Young

A S WE SIT DOWN to count the cost of the World War, surely the grimmest fact of all the grimness, the out

standmg horror of all horrors, is the wholesale destruction of large numbers of the young and the fit. For each natlon has gwen of ~ t s best-those boys who were to have been the fathers of that newer and better race which each generation always hopes IS to arwe for the building of the better and fairer next.

Nor has the slgniiig of the armistice brought, nor does the signmg of the final peace treaty seem to p r o m a surcease from the pain and loss The Horses of the Apocalypse still rlde on1 And m our morning papers we read of enunent scienma dymg of starvation m Petrograd, and scores of stu dents and highly tramed army officers executed m Moscow Whlle at last, m 111 concealed terror we plan to close the gates of our own nahon to the "Red Peril," whch IS the per11 of the badly born

There are these who would speak of Birth Control to a world so sorely in need of men and women to "carry on" And we can understand tbe protest of these bewildered ques tioners But the war has taught us many thmgs It has taught us to thlnk for ourselves, as never before, and one of the th1n5 that we are b e p n i n g to see, gropmgly at first and then more and more clearly, IS that what the world needs IS "not more of us, but a better brand of us "

R GALSWORTHY HAS recently made an eloquent, fi unconscious plea for buth con,, m an article m the

Atlantic Monthly He argues that war IS only possible m a world where there IS a preponderance of human bemgs who love ugly things more than beautiful thmgs To whom a gees hill slde m early sprlng 1s only a convenient place for gun emplacements and barbed wire entanglements And we mght add, to whom a cathedral is only a bulky mass of material wluch mterferes with the range of cannon, and not the product of human love and worship and sacrifice and the apmt of beauty which 1s tbe spmt of God'

But whence are to come these "lovers of beauty," the parents of the yet unborn, who shall wlsely, mtelllgently, yes and prayerfully, enter upon this vital busmess of producing off sprmg of the highest and finest type? Where but from the ranks of the boys and p l s of today?

Yes, all of us must reallze, men as well as women (for women have always striven, even if mart~culately, for the prznlege of voluntary motherhood)-I say, all of us must realue that we cannot and dare not go on m the stupld, blun dermg old way The tune 1s here when we must see and con fess to the rank hypocrisy of carefully Ilrmtmg our own re fined and exclusive farmly stock whde refusmg to hold out the hand of mtelhgent sympathy to those others whose power to people the earth fills us wlth &may What some of us know,

all of us must know, m order that the day may come when no child shall be born mto a society unready or unfit to we1 come, to feed, to tram and to properly provlde for it There 1s a task for Reconstmctlonistsl

In this stlrrlng appeal for a better race Miss Young refers to the "badly born" agalnst whom we are thinkmg of clos ing our portals It 1s mteresting, m this connection, to note the efforts made by the present Russlan Government towards r~ghtlng past errors m regard to children In the Dream of the Sovwt Government, published m a recent number of the The Naiwn, we read "chlldren born out of wedlock are on equallty wlth those born m wedlock wlth regard to the rights and duties of parents towards children, and likewise of chlldren toward parents" And further "In case the father of a chdd born out of wedlock does not make such a declaration, the mother of the child, or the guardIan or the chdd Itself has the rlght to prove fatherhood by legal means"

Would ~t not be well if the more generally recognized gov ernments would take some such step in regard to the "badly born " wlthin them own portals?

Also may we not hope that the wholesale slaughter of the intellectuals in Petrograd mentioned by Miss Young, may turn out to be as g~eatly exaggerated as the oft repeated story of the murder of the Grandmother of the Revolution?- EdItor's Note

Women to Discuss Birth Control

E WOMAN'S INTERNATIONAL League of New York Sate is arousing women to theu opportunities and re

sponslbilities at home The League 1s announcmg a amea of Women's Freedom Conferences for Tuesday evenings in May, where ~nformal dlscusslon at supper w ~ l l be followed by more formal, but general discussions, on problems whlch affect women The subject of Blah Control w l l form a pmmment part of these dmusslons, as ~t dld m the recent Women's Freedom Congress, held under the ausplces of the League

Over population-unrestramed breedmg-IS one of the fac tors worlung for war, and this sub~ect must form a part of any program whch anus to make wars ~mposslble

The Woman's International League IS graspmg the real and fundamental ~ssues workmg for permanent peace and the freedom of women It 1s a branch of the Woman's Peace Party whlch IS, m turn, a s-on of the Internahonal Corn mttee of Women for Permanent Peace Twelve delegates from the United States are now on them way to Beme to attend the first convent~on of the Internahonal Comrmttee smce 1915 Jane Addams IS chammu of the Comrmttee. Jean

10 The Bzrth Control Revlew

Why Not Birth Control Clinics in America? Margaret Sanger

"Why not Bzrth Control Clznrcs m Amerzca?" u the ques twn asked of the medzcal projesszon by Alargaret Sanger through the columns of the March number of Amerccan Medz cme, New York, usued Aprzl 1 Mrs Sanger's artlcle whth the edztorzal comment upon zt, are reprznted by the courtesy of the eduors of the medccal publz~atwn, who belzeve that zn publzshzng zt they were /crljillzng an oblzgatzon to their readers

T HE ABSURD CRUELTY of permlttmg thousands of wo men each y e v to go thru abort~ons to prevent the ag

gravatlon of diseases, for whrch they are under treatment, assuredly cannot be much longer Ignored by the med~cal pro fesslon Responsib~llty for the mestmable damage done by the practlce of permlttlng patlents suffering from certain a~lments to become pregnant, because of them Ignorance of contraceptives, when the physlc~an knows that ~f pregnancy goes to ~ t s full term it w ~ l l hasten the disease and lead to the patlent's death, must in all fa~rness be l a ~ d at h ~ s door

What these d~seases are and what dangers are Involved In pregnancy are known to every practltloner of standing Spec ~ a l ~ s t s have not been neghgent In polntlng out the situation Eager to enhance or protect then reputations m the profess~on, they contmually call out to each other " Don't let the patient bear a ch~ld-don't let pregnancy contlnue "

The warnlng has been sounded most often, perhaps, In the cases of tubercular women '' In riew of the fact that the tubercular process becomes exacerbated e~ther durlng preg nancy or after chtldblrth, most author~t~es recommend that abortion be induced as a matter of routme m all tubercular women," says Dr J Wh~tridge W~ll~ams, obstetr~c~an m ch~ef to the Johns Hopklns Hospital, In h ~ s treatlse on " Obstetr~cs " Dr Thomas Watts Eden, obstetric~an and gynecologist to Char mg Cross Hosp~tal and member of the staffs of other notable B r ~ t ~ s h hosp~tals, extends but does not complete the llst m a paragraph on page 652 of h ~ s Pract~cal Obstetrics "Cer tam of the condit~ous enumerated form absolute ind~cat~ons for the mduct~on to abortrons," he sa)s "These are nephr~t~s, uncompensated valvular les~ons of the heart, advanced tuber c u l o s ~ ~ , msanlty, ~rremed~able mahgnant tumors, hydat~dlform mole, uncontrollable uter~ne hemorrhage, and acute hydram nlos "

E KNOW THAT abort~on, when performed by sk~lled hands, under right condit~ons, b r m g almost no danger

to the life of the patient, and we also know that part~cular dlseases can be more eas~ly combated after such an abortion than durmg a pregnancy allowed to come to full term Bui why not adopt the easler, safer, less repuls~ve course and pre vent conceptron altogether? Why put these thousands of women who each year undergo such abort~ons to the pam they entall and lo whatever danger attends them7

Why contlnue to send home women to whom pregnancy IS

a grave danger wrth the futile adv~ce "Now don't get this

way agam'" They are sent back to husbands who have gen eratlons of passlon and pass~on's c la~m to outlet They are sent back w~thout belng glven mformat~on as to how to pre\ent the dangerous pregnancy and are expected, presumably, to depend for then safety upon the husband's contmence Back comes the patlent agaln iu a few months to be aborted and told not to do ~t agaln

Does any physman belleve that the plcture IS overdrawn? I have known of many such cases A recent one that came under my observat~on was that of a woman who suffered from a d~sease of the k~dneys Fme tunes she was taken to a ma ternlty hospital In an ambulance after fall~ng In offices or In the street One of the foremost gynecolog~sts of Amer~ca sent her out three tunes without glvlng her mformat~on as to the contraceptive means wh~ch would have prevented a repe tltlon of t h ~ s experience

Why does thls sltuat~on exst? One does not quest~on the mtent or the h ~ g h purposes of these physlc~ans, or that they are working for the lmprovement of the race But here IS a sltuatlon that IS absurd-h~deously absurd What 1s the matter?

EVERAL FACTORS CONTRIBUTE to t h ~ s state of affa~rs Fsst, the subject of contraceptlon has been kept m the

dark, even In medical colleges and hosp~tals Abort~on has been openly discussed as a necessity under certaln condit~ons, but the subject of contraceptlon, as any phys~c~an will adm~t, has only recently been brought to the front

It has been perrmtted to he latent, ~t has escaped spec~alized attention in the laborator~es and the research departments Thus there has been no profess~onal stamp of approval by great bodies of experlmenters

The result is that the average physic~an has felt that con traceptlve methods are not yet estabhshed as certamties and has, for that reason, refused to d~rect the~r use

Spec~alists are so busy wlth the~r own part~cular subjects and general practltloners are so taken up w ~ t h theu dally routme that they cannot give to the problem of contraceptlon the attention ~t must have Consultat~on rooms In charge of reputable physmans who have spec~alued m contraceptlon, ass~sted by reptered nurses-~n a word, clm~cs designed for thls spec~alty-would meet this crylng need Such clln~cs should deal wlth each woman md~v~dually, taking mto ac count her part~cular disease, her temperament, her mental~ty and her condlt~on, both phys~cal and economic It. sole funct~on should to be prevent pregnancy In the accompl~sh ment of &IS, a h~gher standard of hyg~ene IS attamed The re sult would be not only the removal of a burden from the phy slclan who sends her to the clmlc, but an lmprovement In the woman's general cond~tion that would reflect Itself m a num ber of ways to the benefit of her fam~ly

The Bzrth Control Revtew

LL THIS FOR the d~seased woman But every argument A that can be made for preventlve medmme can be made for Blrth Control cllnics for the use of woman who has not yet lost her health Sound and vigorous at the tlme of her marriage, she could remaln so if given advice as to by what means she could space her chlldren and h m ~ t then number When she IS not gwen such information, she is plunged bl~ndly ~ n t o marrled life and a few years IS likely to find her w~th a large fam~ly, herself diseased, damaged, an unfit breeder of the unfit, and st111 ignorant What are the fru~ts of t h ~ s woeful Ignorance in wh~ch women have been kept? Rrst, a tremendous ~nfant mortality-hundreds of thousands of them dying annually of diseases which flourish In poverty and neglect Next, the rapid increase of the fee blemmded, of cr~minal types and of the pathetic victlms of toil in the chdd labor factones Another result is the famil~ar overcrowdmg of tenements, the forcing of the chddren into the street, the ensumg prostitution, alcoholism and almost unlversal physical and moral unfitness

These abhorrent conditions pomt to a blunder upon the part of those to whom we entrust the care of the health of the m d~vidual, the fam~ly and the race The medical profession, neglecting the princ~ple ~nvolved in preventlve medicme, has permitted these condlt~ons to come about If they were unavoidable, we would have to bear wlth them, but they are not unavoidable, as shown by facts and figures from other coun tries where contraceptive lnformat~on 1s ava~lable

In Holland, for instance, where the mformat~on concerning contraceptlves has been accessible to the people, thru clinics and pamphlets since 1881, the general death rate and the infant mortality rate have fallen until they are the lowest in Europe Amsterdam and The Hague have the lowest infant mortal~ty rates of any cltles in the world

T IS GOOD to know that the first of the B~r th Control clin I ics of Holland followed shortly after a thoro and enthu siastlc dmuss~on of the subject at an mternat~onal medwal congress ln Amsterdam ln 1878 The first Buth Control c lm~c In the world was opened IU 1881 by Dr Aletta Jacobs in Am sterdam So great were the results obtained that there has been a gradual Increase in the number of clmics, until to day ther are fifty-two m operation in that country of some 6,000,000 people Physic~ans have found that nurses tramed for thrs work by speclalists are hlghly competent to take care of ~t and it is the almost mvariable rule that B~r th Control cl~nics are conducted by such nurses Dr J Rutgers of The Hague, secretary of the Neo Malthusian League, E the spec lalist who trains and mstructs the nurses The general re sults of the work are best judged by tables, appended to t h ~ s article, taken from The Annual Summary of Marriages, B~rths and Deaths in England, Wales etc , for 1912'

In conclus~on, I am going to make a statement which may at first seem exaggerated, but wh~ch is nevertheless carefully considered The effort toward racial progress that IS being made to day by the med~cal profess~on, by social workers, by the var~ous charitable and phdanthrop~c organlzatlons and by state institutions for the phys~cally and mentally unfit 1s pract~cally wasted All these forces are m a very emphat~c sense mark~ng time They wdl contmue to mark time untd the med~cal profession recognizes the fact that the ever increas ing tlde of the unfit 1s overwhelming all these agencies are domg for society They w ~ l l contmue to mark tune untd they get at the source of these destructwe conditions and apply a fundamental remedy That remedy IS Birth Control

*Amsterdam (Malthus~an [Bmh Control] League started 1881. Dr Aletta Jacobs gave ad vlce to poor women, 1885 )

1881 85 1906 10 1912 Birth Rate -------------- 37 1 24 7 233 per 1,000 of population Death Rate ------------- 25 1 13 1 11 2 per 1,000 of population

Infantile Mortahty Deaths ~n first year ...--- 203 90 64 per thousand lmng h u t b

The Hague (now headquarters of the Neo Malthusian [Buth Control] League) 1881 85 1906 10 1912

Brrth Rate -------------- 38 7 27 5 23 6 per 1,000 of population Death Rate ._-.----..... 23 3 13 2 10 9 uer 1 000 of ~orulatlon - -

Infanrde Mortal~ty Death ~n first year ------- 214 99 66 per thousand 11v1ng buths

Rotterdam 1881 85 1906 10 1912

Blrth Rate ------..-_--_- 374 32 0 29 0 per 1000 of populat~on Death Rae --.---------- 242 13 4 11 3 per 1,000 of population

Infantllc Mortality Deaths ~n first year--.--- 209 105 79 per thousand llvlng hrrthn

Fertdn~ and Illeptlmacy Rates 1880 2 1890 2 1900 2

Legltlmate ferthty ------- 306 4 2% 5 Leg~tlmate huth per 1,000 mamed 2527 1 women aged 15 to 45

llleg~tlmate fertdlty---- 16 1 163 Ille@mate huth per 1000 mmm ) n d women, aged 15 to 45

The Hague 1880 2 1890 2 1900 2

Legrtunate femllty ----------.__----------------- 346 5 303 9 255 0 Iuemhmate ferthty ----..----------------------- 13 4 13 6 7 7

T k Buth Control R ~ v l n o

Intelligent or Unintelligent Birth Control? An Edttorwl from Amerzcan Medacure

Whether we shall have antellagent or uruntellagent Buth Control u the questwn rawed by Amencan Medmane an us March usue Under the t u k " Barth Control and Barth Pre ventwn," the eduors commented at kngth upon Margaret Sanger's artacle an the same wsue, whzch we have reprankd elsewhere In thu comment, they emphasazed the ques- twn whach Margaret Sanger has often put to physacurns, kgwlators, ~zulges aaul socurl reformers I t w very sap$ cant of progress when a consewatwe, authontatave medzcal lournu1 of the rank of Amerzcan Medacane calls attentwn to the fact t h famaly lamatatcon of one kcnd or another u very generally practaced, and the sole questwn now to be solved w whether thu famcly hm~a twn shall be sczentafic and safe or unsczentzfic and unsafe, as well as anadequate It 2s a150 an terestcng to note the retort of the edmr to Dr Harvey W Waley, who declares hamself opposed to Barth Control

R HILDA NOYES, an authority on eugenlcs and the care D of bables, n an advocate of Buth Control Needless to say, she 1s thoroughly well mformed about the methods of contraception In vlew of thls, the crlhc of Buth Control (even the friendly crlbc perhaps) would be freely disposed to judge that Dr Noyes, mformed as she 1s and aware of the grave responslblllty of motherhood, rmght be the mother of one chlld, possibly of two chldren at most The fact IS that she IS the mother of s u splend~d chldren This mterest~~g m stance of the phdosophy of Buth Control and m effect on the famtly IS here mentioned not m approval of the doctrmes of Buth Control, but m &approval of a rmsunderstandmg of the movement whlch IS almost universal It has always been the pollcy of Ameracan Medzcane (as it IS the pollcy of every lust critm) to examme both sides of the shleld before comrmttmg itself to a final judgment, and we have adhered to thls pollcy m the fa& that the majorlty of the profession are of our own rmnd, whlch IS, we trust, not an unduly preju&ced one. In prmtmg Mrs Sanger's a ~ c l e m thrs mue, Amermn Meda- cznc feels that ~t IS fulfillmg ~ t s obhganon to ~ t s readers, and m recordmg m own unpresalons here ~t IS fulfillmg ~ t s obhgahons to itself

In two unportant respects the Buth Control movement IS

very much mmunderstood. In the popular rmnd ~t has come to slgmfy but one tlung, buth prevenhon-an mcomplete and erroneous unpresslon It also IS charged vnth advocahng the small farmly, &shnctly an u n b r n m g ludgment The emphasls of the phdosophy of Bvth Control IS clearly m&- cated m ~ts name, it IS toward control Prevention IS but one of the methods of control found expedient m some cases, but ~t ls by no means the only soluhon recommended. There are

clear the track, and of the two the latter IS dIstmctly the method to be preferred. The advocates of Buth Control lean toward thls method, and thew efforts to clear the farmly track of econormc, soclal and health obstacles are too often not su&lently recognized. Hence the popular rmsapprehen slon that they encourage small farmlles The truth 1s that they encourage small farmlles where large ones would seem detrunental to soclety, but they advocate wlth just as great mslstence large famlles where small ones are an lnjustlce to soclety They frown upon the lgnorant poor whose numerous chlldren, brought lnto the world often under the most unfavorable cucumstances, are a burden to them selves, a menace to the health of the not infrequently unwllllng mother, and an obstacle to soclal progress But they frown wlth equal disapproval on the well to do, cultured parents who can offer theu chlldren all the advantages of the best care and educahon and who nevertheless selfishly withhold these bene fits from society More children from the fit, less from the unfit-that IS the chef Issue m Buth Control The emphasis is on "control" rather than on "preventlon " Seen from thls polnt of view, the movement certainly assumes a d~fferent aspect, its lntentlon IS not hostlle to the famlly but rathe favorable to ~ t , so that, if there 1s anythlng to crltlcue m the Lssue, ~t la not the motlve but the program alone whch is open to attack.

N ONE RFSPECT certlunly the advocates of Buth Control I have a clear advantage over N opponenbthe advan tage that President Wllson and the frlends of the League of Nahons have over ~ t s opponents Desplte theu voluble and heated protests, Senators Lodge, Borah, and others have been very slow to suggest a substitute for the League whlch wl l be acceptable to a war weary world The opponents of Blrth Control, tho they have been emphatlc enough m theu crltl clsm (some of ~ t , ~t may be admrtted, quite just and w n mcmg) have nevertheless faded to come forward wlth a program of theu own That a program la necessary, that some form of decmon or leg~slahon 1s advraable, ~t would be rash to deny Take, at random, a case reported by a nurse m the poorer &trlcts of New York City "One of my mothers has been the VIC- of fiftem prepancles She now has five 11vmg ch~ldren, one of them IS permanently deaf from an old case of ohm. Another has had a foul dmharge from the ear for nearly two years Only an operahon can cure t h ~ , the parents refuse to have ~t done Two of the other chlldren have rachhc deformmes Of the 6fteen prag nancles, one resulted m a mmcarr~age Nme children-d& durtng mfancy, death bemg due to qnorance and neglect All who llved thru the 6rs1 year were more or less enfeebled

two Laye of avoldmg a tram wreck when there ls a dangerous by bemg kept at the breast long after the mlk had lost ~ t s value obstacle on the track, one IS to stop the tram, the other to as n o h t Thm one thlng IS, I bel~sve, the greatest wrong

The Barth Control Revlew

done to bables among the poorer classes. The women hope m &IS way to escape pregnancy- erroneous method of Buth Control Thas explams the reason for the great num ber of chddren who are d ic ted wrth bow legs, knock knees, and the varlous deforuuhes resultmg from the lack of proper bone malung materials "

Thls Odyssey of motherhood among the ignorant poor IS

as typical and dwheartenmg a plcture ss one can magme. Pathetic m the extreme 1s the dumb, Ignorant effort at p r e ventlon whlch was perhaps the duect cause of the death m mfancy of nme of the chlldren and the deformity of the sur vlvlng ones And thu, case u by no means excephonal Any frank practlhoner famlllar wlth famly hxstory m the poorer quarters wdl readily admt that ~t 1s rather the rule, and wdl be able to clte mstances that are even more distressing Who can deny that such a sltuatlon IS dangerous m the extreme to both soclety and the farmly3 Soclety and the farmly are the concern of both sldes of the b p u t e In her art&, Mrs Sanger frankly owns that she does not "question the Intent nor the hlgh purposes of these physicians (who oppose Buth Control), or that they are worklng for the improvement of the race " Knolvlng Mrs Saqer's smcenty, one may unhesl tatmgly return the complunent and cre&t her wlth the hlgh est motives. In this respect, both sides are beyond unpeach ment m the genumeness of them Interests m the good of the race However, the strength of Mrs Sanger's case Ilea m the fact that she has a definlte program, whde the weakness of her opponents lles m the fact that they have none They stdl approach the problem as tho ~t were a questlon whether or not we should have Birth Control The fact 1s that, m m e farmlles out of ten at least, we have Buth Control- ~gnorant, unenlightened, dangerous Buth Control The case quoted and the ~nnumerable Instances that come lmmdately to the mmd of every practltloner are evtdence of thw The questton then, u wherher we are to have zntell~gent Bcrth Con trol, dzrected toward the tmprovement of the famdy and the uplaft of socaety, or unurtellagegent, dangerous Bwth Control w at presea practzed, endaqenng, ofen breakwg, the heolrh of the mother, wnposwtg a burden on the famdy and on soclety of whwh both should be relieved, and clutterzng the lughway of progress wzth cripples, mbecales and mendwants who are the by product of a stold attlarde of husez f a r e or let well enough alone

0 BRAND BIRTH Control, as so many of ~ t s opponents ' do, as the ppkbsophy of the luentwus, u to Ignore * value as a sclenhfic wntrlbutlon to the study of race lmprove ment It must be frankly adnutted that the knowledge of Buth Control, placed m the hands of the publlc, IS a dan gerous weapon, but all the tools of clvlllzahon are edged tools Many excellent men, of hgh standing m them profession are bltterly opposed to Buth Control, but ~t IS regrettable that they have preferred, up to the present, to state them o b ~ m oons m emotional rather than m sc~entrfic terms They have subrmtted no program Dr Harvey W Wlley, an opponent of Buth Control, asserted recently that every educated well- todo famly should be obliged by law to contribute a rrrrmmum

of four children. That M the neareat approach to a debite program he saw fit to venture upon, but there 1s llttle m ~t that the most ardent advocate of control would object to Are the opponents of Buth Control content to have ~t said of them that them strength hes merely III the fact that they have the approval of precedent and age-old sentment on them slde7

There u an onwutg appeal to Dr Waky's auggestwn whwh tempts comment Opposed to control tho he u, he reveals hamself anadvertcdy and mnocently w an advocate of thor phdosophy A well to-do and educated couple, left to the natural course of mature. WO& contrabute a dozen or more cluldren to the well beang of soclety To lzmzt themelveg to four offsprang unplles the employmenl: of the very Bwth Control methods to whwh Dr Wzley u so warmly opposed

It has been observed m Holland, for mstance, that a gen era1 knowledge of sclentlfic methods of Buth Control has resulted m somewhat larger farmlles for the well to do, and smaller farmlies for those wrth smaller mcomes There has also been a very rapld decrease m the amount of due pov erty Nevertheless, Margaret Sanger has not advocated larger famlles for the rlch Rather, she has emphasued the ne cesslty of leavmg the declslon as to the number of chddren and the tlme of theu arrlval to the mother, whether she ba rlch or poor

Mrs Sanger made h a posltlon m thls matter plam m an ar tlcle entltled " Buth Control and Rac~al Betterment" m tba February lssue of The Buth Control Revlew In that artlcle she said "We hold that the world is already over populated Eugenists Imply or mslst that a woman's first duty IS to the State, we contend that her duty to herself IS her first duty to the State. We mamtam that a woman possessmg an adequate knowledge of her reproductwe functions 1s the best judge of hme and con&t~ons under whlch her chdd should be brought mto the world We -tam that ~t 1s her r~ght, regardless of all other considerattons, to determe whether she shall bear chlldren or not, and how many chddren she shall bear If she chooses to become a mother"-Editors of The Buth Control Renew

SUNDAY WHITE.

By Helen Hoyt

When we sea the llttle gr ls gomg by of a Sunday In them damhesn of starched clean dresses, We forget-and they too have forgotten- The bent backa of the mothers Waslung them whte.

THE THING YOU ARE

Charlotte P e r h Gdmun Stetson

And sbll the wallmg bablea come and go, And h o w are waste, and husbands' hearts fly far, There n no hope unhl you dare to know

The ttung you am'

The Bzrth Control Revww

Endowment of Motherhood By Dr Alzce Drysdale Vzckery

Whzle t h ~ s artzcle by Dr Vlekery, one of the foremost Eng lash aclthorrtws upon the socutl a d medzcal problem of women, employs Engltsh condztwns m a basm of dmcusswn, applzes wzth equal force to condztrons ur Amerzca Mother endowments have been dzscussed m Congress and emst or are bezng urged zn many states -THE EDITOR

HE POSITION OF THE mother in the famlly 1s admxttedly unsat~sfactory from many points of new In what way

can we brmg about a change for the better? Thls is one of the questions wh~ch 1s pressing for some solut~on, and as t h ~ s IS an era of conferences, ~t IS proposed to bold a conference on the questlon of endowment of motherhood and of the fam~ly

From one polnt of view the endowment of the mother and of the famlly as a state measure would not be a step m the right d~rect~on, except, mdeed, ~t be adapted as a temporary measure for a str~ctly hmited perzod, or for the alleviation of special cases of d~stress durmg t h ~ s per~od of reconstruction,

to wh~ch many of us are hopefully looking forward The ch~ef source of our present difficulty 1s the attitude that

past governments have adopted with regard to the so called woman's sphere

On the assumption of women's socalled natural dlsabillt~es, our leg~slators have thought fit to pile up and super add other disablllt~es legal and social-wh~ch are purely artificial, and the educat~on and training of women and e r l s has been framed and conducted w~ th a vlew to the mamtenance of these qulte unnecessary mventlons

Instead of stead~ly pursumg the idea of tralnlng boys and g r l s ahke toward self dependence, and self government in order to prepare them for them future responslbll~hes and du tm as to marriage, parenthood and c~ t~zensh~p on terms of equal opportunity and equal efficiency as comrades, parents and citmns, they have started from a theory of masculme pre dommance and mastery on the one hand, and dependence, subjection, obedience and self sacrifice on the other The world was to be open to man, m hls c h o m of career, m the creatlon of tdeals and ambitions, but not so for the women

HERE WAS A SEMBLANCE of excuse for some mter ference w~ th the liberty and freedom of the gml wblle

methods of Birth Control with regard to the sue of the famlly and the frequency of b~rths were unknown, and whde almost nothmg but subm~ss~on to natural decrees was posslble, con lugal union having been entered upon, but, even so, If men had also accepted for themselves, l~mtat lon in freedom In marrlage simlar to those whlch they lmposed upon women, many of o w present evils would never have reached that scale of magmtude wh~ch make our problems so complex today

Thls lack of l ~ m ~ t a t ~ o n and restraint on the masculme slde made hlm a danger to all unguarded women, it also made hm the progenitor of unlimited and unwanted offaprmg who were

left to grow up e~ther as parlahs m h ~ s o m country, or to become the creators of half caste races elsewhere

It should be recognized, today, that maternlty need no longer be regarded as a dlsabillty, or as an inevitable consequence of marltal life, and this IS of great importance when we con slder the questlon of early marriages and also the case of the unfit Birth Control has become not only a poss~bil~ty, but ls now regarded as an essent~al part of a really practicable scheme of hfe A new freedom has come to woman, a freedom that many had hardly dared to hope for Birth Control as regards number of ch~ldren, selection of time and place, of environment generally, places motherhood on a much h~gher plane The power of cho~ce to have many, to have few, ~f circumstances dlctate to have none at all-these things are posslble, so that the function of maternlty ceases to be an abldmg danger and disab~l~ty but, on the contrary, becomes a power, an asset, a privilege to be enjoyed when it means an added happmess m the home Whether the power of mater nlty comes to be regarded as a privilege, a blessing, and ceases to be regarded chiefly as a msfortune wdl depend upon the character and attamments of the woman, and the posltlon she wdl chum as a cltnen

UT EVEN IF THESE SO CALLED disabilit~es of women should continue to be regarded In the light of a hand1

cap-surely there 1s all the more need for the removal of all obstacles, legal, soclal or otherw~se wh~ch have been super added to these so called natural dlsabil~ties It would seem to be reasonable that these obstacles should first be removed and the effects of freedom be reahzed before any hurrled or dlconceived legslatlon of the character of the endowment of motherhood, or of the fam~ly, should be mtroduced

F~rst , let us clear the road of all artlfic~al l~rmtatlons and obstacles wh~ch prejuhce and tradition have twined about the path of women, before we proceed to enmesh ourselves and our succesjors m the colls and mtricacies of new and untr~ed schemes, wh~ch may prove the source of innumerable evlls m the future

Second, let us change the outlook wh~ch we lmpress upon the youthful mmd We must train our boys and o r l s to regard each other as equal cltuens and copartners m the future state

Education must be duected toward the development of all theu powers, the fostermg of any special talent, while not for getting the wladom of an all round ~ntell~gent outlook on Ilfe, and the cultivahon of the capacity for readaptahon, whenever soc~al or natural cataclysms become the cause of unheavals and necessitate soclal or polltlcal re adjustments Therefore the road to learnmg, to the attainment of sklll m prof- s~onal or mdustr~al actmty must be as freely open to gmls and women as to men Rewards and emoluments, posltlon and

The Buth Control Revrew

career must be as freely within the scope of vislon of the g1r1 as of the boy Equal pay for equal efficiency

No more must be heard the excuse for inequality of reward that the girl can live upon less Rather let us ask if there exlsts any reasonable or just ground for suggesting that she should, and the honest reply must be that there is no such ground

It is true that the boy after meetmg the expense of feedmg, clothing and shelter should save for marriage and parentage, so also the g r l after paymg for food, clothing and shelter should save for marrlage and maternity

Motherhood makes great demands upon the feminme phy sique, and the raclal physlque wlll deteriorate if that c lam be evaded This is an indisputable fact whlch our rmlltary ex perts have been obhged to admlt from the experiences both of the Boer War and of the recent War

HERE IS STILL ANOTHER reason why the girl's wage should be m even way as adequate as the boys The g r l

must save not only for marrlage and maternity but also that she may be free to choose, to discriminate m the selection of a partner for life, as the father of her children, and as a prepar atlon for lllness or old age She should be in a positlon to make terms

Engllsh parents would do well to copy the French custom m aiding thelr chlldren of marriageable age m the cholce of a partner, and of asslstmg both sons and daughters in the es tablishment of a new household upon equal and self respecting terms Equal dlvision of the property among all the chlldren of elther parent should be the rule wlth us as wlth them Thus would primogeniture and entail be swept away, and wedth would become more equally dlstrlbuted among the people.

Also English parents would do well to save for their chil dren m moderation Llfe is full of vlclssitudes The married daughter needs some securlty for herself and her Infant chil dren and the married son needs some startmg pomt for energy and enterprise

The adult daughter should consult wlth her prospective part ner, as to then mutual clalms The wlfe who agrees to retire from industrial or professional employment In marrlage, will only do so on the recognlhon by her husband of her c lam to be considered an equal partlclpator m all hls acquisitions and emoluments Thls IS essential to her self respect and personal dlgnity Otherwise she becomes a dependent and subsldes mto a position of sublectlon The prmclple of community of property prevalls chlefly among the workmg classes and poorer population in France It would place the wlves of slrmlar classes m England m a much better relative position ~f a slrmlar custom were adaped here No doubt most of the thrift and prudence of the French people may lustly be traced to the more favorable posltlon of the wife m the house, which 1s largely due to the recognition of financial equality

The Endowment of Motherhood and of the Family would scarcely tend to check that recklessness m reproduction which a the great fault and nusfortune of our poorer classes The poor workmg mother, besides bemg a slave to her husband, be comes a second m e enslaved by her fam~ly

N ACCOUNT OF ALMOST criminal deprivatwn of the O knowledge of the methods of Birth Control, h e workmg mother probably commencesmaternlty too early, and often in a state of unf~tness from previous poverty and underfeeding She enjoys no period of rest and recuperation between the birth of one ch~ ld and the next Therefore wlth each suc cessive pregnancy her physlque becomes lower, and later chll dren suffer proportionately

Thus do we as a nation, whde theoretically desirmg an A 1 population, practically favor the production of a C 3 popul- tion

It 1s the pronnce of women to safeguard the interests of the coming generation In order to do t h ~ s the wife and mother must have her rlghtful posit~on In the conjugal 6rm clearly recognued She must be able to act as her conscience

dictates m these vital matters of social health It has been the source of disaster m many homes that when the more or less erratlc masculme has forgotten the necessity for self con trol and self restraint that the wife has not been able, on account of her dependent posltion, to stand on the defensive and recall a recalcitrant husband to a sense of h ~ s duty to her and to the children for whose future they are ~omtly responsl ble Many a man might have been restrained at the outset of an urational crisls, many a home mght have been saved by the tlmely assertion of the wife of her rlght to preserve her per sonal mdependence and safeguard the welfare of her children at a critical moment

It may be urged that such considerations would justlfy the Endowment of Motherhood, and as a temporary measure for specla1 cases somethmg m ~ t s favor might be urged, but the wider effects and the more permanent aspects of a posltion of independence snch as I have atempted to describe, would be ~mmeasurably more effectwe and valuable than the fictitious independence gained by the substltut~on of one kmd of mastery over another lund.

Women are llkely to develop many mterests outslde the home The affairs of the munlcipallty, the nation, the entlre globe wlll come wlthm them purview, and the mdeperdenc~ they seek must be something far w~der than the escape from the sublectlon of the family and the home

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at the follomng rates

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Stuyvesant 1963-5296-837

16 The Buth Connol Revrcco

T H E EDITOR'S UNEASY C H A I R F

W E CALL THE ATTENTION of our readers to the sympo slum on Buth Control, m the March Issue of the Medzcal

Revrew of Revrews The symposium was conducted by Mary Ware Dennett and

Frederic H Robwon A set of four queshons was sent to a representative llst of pbyslc~ans whose oplruons on the subject of Blah Control were not already known. Forty mven were received

These were the quest~ons Do you belreve or do you unequrvoeally not behere m Bntb Control? Do you beheve the p m n t lawn lust or do you tlunk t h q ought

to be repealed? Is Bmh Control an econornlc mue or an A c a l one ~ c l u s l ~ e l g ? Would the g~vmg of contraceptwe lnformauon lead to an m c r w

m rmmorallty by parmttmg wxual mtercourss wthout fear of eon quencca, or would rt tend to decrease ~mmordty by enabhg young men to many w~thout the unmedmte fear of bamg to support a i d y ?

The ed~tors of the sympoaum expressed asto~ushment that twelve out of the forty seven phys~cians replied that they had not gven the sub~ect sullic~ent thought to warrant the expres slon of an opmlon We, on the contrary are surprwed and agreeably ~mpressed by the fact that they oons~dered an ab sence of thought and study of the matter su5clent warrant for not gvmg an unfavorable opmlon

Two of the most unequ~vocally unfavorable replies were from Dr Howard Kelly of John Hopkms University and Dr Harvey W Wdey Dr Kelly has demded that Blah Control would lead to great nastmess, and a filled mth and horror at the thought of it. HIE IS a state of rmnd, fi not of reason.

R WILEY WRITES m a perfect ecstasy He says "The way to be d u l d h r to be nrtuous* Does he mean

that all chldren are just lapses from wtue? Endently not, for he goes on to say that every educated and well todo farmly should be r e q d by law to have at least four cb~ldren, and that all young men and women who refuse to marry, unless no one asks them or there be d c a l or surgcal reasons, should be penalmd He seams here to leave loopholes for certam forms of Blrtb Control wh&er he knows t or not, and he ends up mldly with the Mormon my "Chl dren, st111 chldren, and then more chldren. E v q one of them 1s a fortune, even to the father on day wages, and the mother who does her own waslung" Endently he regards men and women as lutchen utensils m the State m c e , and he has nothtng to say about the welfare of the duldren thus brusquely compounded by law He would pay more attenhon to the mgrdents and ultimate &pos&on of a sausage.

R BASS OF New Orleans, on the other hand, IS just as unequ~vocally m favor He d m not beheve m any law

wtuch tends to ignorance of facts or the suppression of mfor matron He believes that the present supprewon of mforma hen lea& to pn nmecewy large percentap of tmdePupbI~

blrtbs, and a comparahve redumon m the desuable He be 11eves further that a widespread knowledge of Buth Control would tend to decrease lmmorahty

Dr Leo Loeb IS also favorable Dr Clevenger of Chlcago believes m qual~ty children and not the present besual, reckless propagation wthout regard to fitness and preparedness What ever tends to promote mult~ple buths favors a reversion to lower forms of evoluhon-approxunatmg the fish stage

Dr Goldwater takes a firm stand He says the questlorn are an msult to the mtelligence of every humamtanan, educator and phymc~an He deals mercilessly wth the hypocrisy of some phys~c~ans m the matter He believes m B~rth Control and a not afra~d to say so

Everyone mterested m the subject of Buth Control owes a debt of gratitude to the editors of t h ~ ~ symposium, and to the M e d d Revcew of Revlews for publshmg it.

D EAR EDITOR -Your magazme asks the questton "Is

procreation the sole purpose of the sex unpulse?" I do not &I& that ~t is

Ideahm, emohon, puts life and energy mto our science and art, our mvenhons and law Remove thls and we have but a skeleton of Me, soon to decay The sex lmpulse IS the means, the mecban~sm, by whch we come m contact wah and are related to, not only each other, physically, mentally, spuitu ally, but to the -ate and mammate world We advance only m proportion as this power m h us IS developed and riehtlv used It a the center. the motwe power of all ~deahm. - - , all emotlon.

Creahve desue ls strongdesue to create a p~cture, a statue, a book, a busmess, an engme, a bndge, a child. We have cons~derably muddled matters by utterly alienating through Ignorance or prudery all thought of the relahodup of sex to these ereahve etforts, rnth the except~on of physical repro duction a l o n ~ fact m nature endent even to the casual observahon of a barb- or a ch~Id

Sex power IS universal, deep rooted and Hnth one purpose only--that we rmght have llfe and that we rmght have ~t more abundantly It IS not mdxatme of great mtellect on our part to gauge "abundance" merely by our arumal fecudty When th1.9 prol~fic br&g leads to ~clocy. want and crune we are worse than stupid Sex marufests ~tself through all nature, plants, d s and

man, not only crudely but m color, song, grace, mohon, hght and act~on. Each advance along these hea IS h l e d mth dehght. It becomes the treasure, the mcenhve of the ages. We can spare not one iota. We stnve for further advancement and as we strive we develop our own c r a v e and apprecmhve Po-

But on the a~umal plane alone, Nature calls a halt. Unmer c ~ f d y , yet wah a mde mercy, she relentlessly slays h61 w-

I C ~ ~ on w e 19)

The Bufh Control R ~ M M 17

Cheer Voluntary Motherhood

C HEERS AND PROLONGED applause greeted a demand for sex knowledge and voluntary motherhood when Agnes

Smedley dehvered SIX fifteen m u t e addresses before the curtam of the Mt. Morns Theatre, New York, March 29th and 30th The Scarlet Trad, a ~ h o t o drama whch deals m a frank, h~gh mmded manner wth the problem of soclal dl- and I& attendant evd of quack m&cmes, was bang shown. Between 10,000 and 12,000 people heard the addresses

An even more en thus last^^ reception was even MIS Smed ley's plea for sex educahon and Buth Control when she ad- d d large audiences m the Alhambra Theatre, Brooklyn. Aprd 17th and 18th.

MIS Smedley told how the Umted States Government and vmous State Governments had broken the bonds of a morb~d prudery m them campagna agamt venereal dwase dunng the war M~lhons of pamphlets whch dmcussed sex matters m plam language were used m these campcugns She also vo~ced the demand of modern women for educat~on m matters of sex and the pnmlege of deterrrrrmng how many ch~ldren they ahall have and when they shall have them. Excerpts from the addresses follow

"False modesty, prndery, and hypocrq, are h g thrust as~de today and we are wmmg to lmow that sex problems must be met frankly and sanely We must tear away the cur- tam of morb~d sex mystery h d w h h has developed IS- eases whch threaten ns and our cluldren. When we refuse to tell our chldren the truth about sex they gam them d o n n a - tton m the alleys and on the &eek Thu faka and danger- ous method can brmg no good to socwity or to CI&

tton.

"We women m p a ~ c o l a r should respond to the new &as at large m the world. Thu IS not merely my own ~dea. It IS the behef of such anthontm as Dr Herman B w , om State Comrmss~oner of Health, who reomtly m d

"'la ~t not tune that women should look the sex problem nquarely m the face, h o l d of mystery and socalled "moral mma," from a prachcal and common sense pomt of vmr? Is ~t not tune that guls and young women, the fuhue mothers of the race, should know the trnth about the reproductwe organs and the dmama whch may dect them, so as to p r e serve theu health and that of theu offspring?'

"If we, as women, are to meet the problems of socwq, we mnst demand every b ~ t of knowledge whch IS a d a b l e to the human md. We are ent~tled to, and must demand, the donnabon whch wl l enable us to brmg mto the world only healthy chddrem, only chldren f m from phys~cal and mental hanhcaps, and, furthermore, only the number of clul- dren whch we can bear, rear and educate decmtly The ~deas often expressed that lmowledge of these matters wl l lead to lmmorallty are mmlts to w o k d everywhere and are so ~ t r n e that we need not conalder them. It a only half htlths, only nntrue 'dormatton,' wluch ts danproua

Book Reviews BIRTH. By Zona Gale. M a d a m 402 pp Pnce $1 60

There s a profound rngdcance m Zona Gale's story of amall town Me. " M" m the h&t of her assertion that nedho rha ra IS a role nplunng pama, that. to take o u a place a. a member of a town u d&cate b u u n a r

In thu aoty of two genemuons you pereene bow Barbara's mu p a p the penalw of her casual mamage, and of her ignorance and abhor rmcc of motherhood It mil ~ W B J S be w as long as motherhood, whch, by be- voluntary mght be h e and beautlfd, belongs 'to the limbo of h u g s wbmped about. cornmucrated upon, avoided. and MMQ

ated mth the naqur"

WOMEN IN MODERN SOCIETY By Earle Bamea Huebsch. Pnca $125. A hghly mtereamg book. It goes far to prove that "men and women

aLLe dl &eve gnatat happmeaa, not by mmumzw sax U e r e n a q but by f r d y rewgnmng and uslug them."

Drmng t b uanslnonal penod the enerrner, of men and women moat be sa frx, to work out a new wle ty where the complunentay values of both sexes wdl be uaed to them utmost. Bm Huebseh s to be congratulated not only for bemg one of

the few mtcebgent p u b h h m of b~ ume, but for domg mmehug to cany on the splend~d d o r t of Anrue Besant and m e n Key

Tlu. s a book that the tbdung rmnd cannot ignore It a not m t nor brilhnt, but ~t a bnd, w d wnnen and a storehouse of dean,

TBE SUPER RACE. By Scott Nemng B. W Huebacb, pubhhem 89 pp. Pna 50c. Tlu. httle volume. although pubhhed mme ume ago, dmmsea a

subject whch a ever new--that of raclal betterment There are, says Ihe author, t b ra means at hand by whch r m a l betterment may be saomphhed

(1) Enge~~cs, the mencc of mcc culture. (2) w l a l adjoatment, the wmcc of moldmg matltuttonq and (3) edueat~on, the sclencc of m d m d d devdopmenr

That topla, are & u d at I e ~ g t h Dr N m g calls attention to the fact that the Gr& elmmated the unlit by mfanuc~de, but that such mahods should be nunecessary today The h t atep toward the deal goid he w ~ ~ d e n , the prmentmg of the procreauon of defecuvm

mgm~cq or aelectne matmg r necessary to the attamment of thu ~ d d . ha no doubt adnuts that the ~ d d wuple would cons~der quality mom e s ~ ~ ~ t l a l than guanhty, and would regulate the number of otl lpnng-

BOOKS RECEIVED L m m Danger, (threc plays) By MIS. Havdmk FXu Houghton,

MIMUY GI 88 pp. Pnce 90 cents. The Psgcbolog). of Mamage. By Walter M. GalLcban. Frederick

A Stoka GI 300 pp Pncc $1.50 W d welfare m Alabama By Edward N Clopper Nar Cldd Labor

GImnuta 315 pp ha $1 00 Cluld Welfare m Nonh Cnroha. By W H S d t . Nat Cluld

Labor Comnuna 315 p p Phec $100 W d Welfare m Ohlaboma By Edward N Clopper Nat. Qild

Labor ComrmncG 285 pp. m c e $100

PMIPHLETS RECEIVED Moan, Fmm the Utay M&e and Guc&ons m the 20th Cen

nny By Ammean Indnsmal Co., 811 Reen St., Chcago 8 pp Unemployment. Ita C a w and Cura By John L Brown, Sebasttc

pol, Cal 21 p p Pnce 5 cents.

Who Arc the GIluc~mtions Objktma By Comrmtta, of 100 Fnen& of ChmxmtlOlls Objeum* 302 Grand St., Brooklyn, 36 pp P n w 10 centa

In& Freedom m Amencan G u m By h e n & of Reedom for Indm 7 Enst 15th S~IWL 12 p p P n w 10 antr

The Bmh Control Revzew

The Voluntary Parenthood League HALL PARENTHOOD BE voluntary mstead of acciden S ta17 was the subject of the first publ~c meeting of the

newly organzed Volutary Parenthood League, held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York C~ ty on April 10th

Mrs Robert Bruere pres~ded and the speakers were Pro fessor Charles Zueblm, Dr George M Parker and Mrs Mary Ware Dennett

Mrs Bruere's mtroduct~on included the story of the ex perience of herself and her husband in caring for some of the children of the Lawrence strlkers m the strlke preceding the present one lnquuy as to he famdy of a twelve year old lad who hved with them several weeks revealed these facts He was the oldest of seven, was fazrly bnght, but small for his age The next child was stupld The next one frad from birth, the next an obvious defective, and so on down the line It was a farmly wh~ch would have over taxed the ill condmoned parents even ~f it had numbered only two children

Dr Parker, a specialist m nervous d~seases. did a verv real

e The secunng of endorsements from physmans and all the vanolu welfare organizations

f A promotton t n p over the countrr particularly In the 65 cules whlcb have a baby death rate of over 100 per 1000

ORGANIZATION The smplest form conslstlng of a secretary treasurer and dlrector

wlth a large Natkonal Counml the League to he supported by volun tary contrrbutlons

The Nat~onal Councll IS now bemg formed, and already ~ncludes such slgn~ficant names as Professor Charles Zueblm, Dr Edward Sanderson, Mrs Emmet L Holt, Mrs Eugene Stone, Mrs Charles Knoblauch, Reverend John Haynes Holmes, Professor Warner Flte, Mrs Stanley McCormick, Dr and Mrs William J Robmson, Dr Lydla Allen De Vilbiss, Dr Hdda H Noyes, Dr Antoinette F Konikow, Mrs Robert Bruere, Hon W 0 Saunders, Mrs Harry Montague, Dr A L Goldwater, Mrs Carolme @Day, Mrs Henry G Leach, Mr B W Huebsch, Mr and Mrs J Leslie Tompk~ns, Mr and Mrs Lionel Sutro, Mr James F Morton, Mrs W H Greene, Mrs Marlon Nicholl Rawson

servlce to the Buth Control movement by h ~ s scholarly psy cholog~cal analysis of the taboo which has so long lnhlbited Ongla of the Comstoek Laws people from frankly standmg for thew belief In Birth Con (Cont~nued from page 7)

trol, by acknowledgng the dual funct~on of the sex relation way to furnish the protection thought be necessary'

professor zueblln gave the ma,or part of on wlthout continuing the d~sastrous rule of a demoralumg and

Race Recu~erat~on. which is one of the most sienificant of h ~ s censorship "

several lectures on s o c ~ o l o ~ ~ c a l questions Excerpts from it were g.lven m the Aprll issue of the Buth Control Review He proved conclus~vely that the human race must be more mtel ligently reproduced ~f ~t IS to hope for social eEcieny, the betterment of types, or the safeguardmg of child llfe

HIS picture of the whole ocean filled to overflowing with squummg eels m two years, if their prod~glous, wasteful breedmg were not antidoted by an almost equally prodiglous death rate, was unforgettable as a hint to humans what not to do

RS DENNE'lT ANNOUPlCED the objects and plans of the new organ~nat~on, whvh have been formulated as

follows OBJECTS

1 To render avallahle far the people's need, the b-st sclent~fic knowl edge as to how parenthood may be voluntary ~nstead of accrdental and as a first s!yp toward that end, the removal of the words prevention of conception from the Federal obscenity laws whlch now besmrch and degrade the questlon of mtelllgent parenthood by lncludmg ~t wlth pen&ed mdecencles

2 The educatton of parents, so that the hlrth of chlldren may occur wlth due regard to health, herebty, mcome, cholce, envuonment and the well bemg of the community

PROGRAM a A careful thorough canvass of Congresa dunng the specla1 semon.

probablv to he called m May for the purpose of maklng ~t clear to Congressmen that the proposed hdl u a necessary publlc health measure, by whch procees the best sponsor for the hdl wdl be discovered

h The mtroductlon of the bdl m the December session followed by a fine hearlug before the Judmary Comrmtee, with the best poss~hle speak a s and proper publicity

c The rapld puhhcatron of effectwe l~terature an all phases of the subject mcludmg leaflets, pamphlets and books, whch wdl present not only the dxect questlon of Blrth Control hut the allled quesuom of eugenles, c u d welfare, publrc health, and sex educauon.

d lubclolu newspaper publlclty and a d v e m m p

WOMAN: HER SEX and LOVE LIFE I FOR MEN and WOMEN

By WILLIAM J ROBINSON, M D

is one of Dr Rob~nson's most unportant and most useful books It IS not devoted to abstruse T" drscussions or doubtful theories lt IS full of prac

tzcal mformatlon of v~ta l Importance to every woman and through her to every man, to every w~fe and through her to every husband

The s~mple practical pomts contamed m its pages would render mtllions of homes happier abodes than they are now, they would prevent the disrupt~on of many a farmly, they show how to hold the love of a man, how to preserve sexual attraction, how to remaln young beyond the usually allotted age This book de stroys many lnjur~ous errors and superstitions and teaches truths that have never been presented m any other book before In short, t h ~ s book not only Imparts mteresting facts, it gives pract~cal points which wdl make thousands of women and thousands of men hap

1 pler, health~er, and more satisfied with life Certam cha ters or even paragraphs are alone worth the prlce of &e book

Illustrated 412 Pages Cloth Bound P r m $3

Order Direct THE CRITIC AND GUIDE

12 West M t Moms Park New York C ~ t y Dr Roblason's Never Told Tales-41 00

The Bvth Conirol Reozew

The Malthusian Doctrine Today - By Charles Drysdale, Sc B

(Conhned from Apnl number) EFORE GOING INTO the nat~onal aspect of t h ~ s question,

let us s~mply consider the homely axample of a laborer's family If we have a young couple settlng out on marr~ed l ~ f e m London on a pound a week, as so many thousands of couples do, t h ~ s means, on the prlces exlsting just before the war, that they could adequately nour~sh themselves and one chdd by very good management If the husband is a good, average man, he may expect h ~ s wages to rlse by five sh~l l~ngs a week every four or five years, and for each such sum they could support one more child But d the ch~ldren arrlve more rapidly than this, as they almost invar~ably do, they simply cannot be properly nourished, and, unless other help is forthcoming, they or the mother become 111 from under nutrition, and deaths occur, nommally due to certain dl seases, but wh~ch have them orlgin m under feedmg Unless the birth rate in the labormg classes as a whole, therefore, is exceedingly low, there will be deaths from pressure of sur plus chddren on the fam~ly food supply, and the greater the number of b~rths, the greater w~ l l be the deaths, as is perfectly well recognued by all who know anythmg of such families

Of course, the relat~on between the b r th and death rates IS

not the same for all f a m ~ l ~ e s In some cases the man 1s very competent, and rapidly rlses to a better position, or the woman IS a very good manager, or, again, they may recelve o u t s ~ d ~ help, and m such cases we find large famihes of healthy sur vlvlng ch~ldren, just as we find some nat~ons of r a p ~ d Increase But t h ~ s does not affect the fact that, as an average for parents of average capabll~ty, a h ~ g h blrth rate most certamly causes a h ~ g h death rate, and that the coming of each fresh chdd Into the family tends to cause e~ther its own death or that of some other member of the family

Now, In the case of natlons, the great bulk of theu popu lat~ons are always made up of the poor or wage earning f a m ~ l ~ e s we have been cons~dermg, and ~t IS therefore obvious that, as a whole, the same rule should prevad, I e , that all b ~ r t l ~ s over a certam mlnlmum should cause a s ~ m ~ l a r number of premature deaths The mnlmum wdl certainly be different m d~fferent countrles with different opportunit~es, as it IS m dfferent fam~hes, but the broad princ~ple should remain, that countrles of h ~ g h bmth rates should, as a whole, have high death rates, that those of low bmth rates should have low death rates, and that changes m them birth rates should pro duce s~milar changes ~n them death rates, except m so far as any rapid and fundamental change takes place m their pro ductive powers, owmg to the- introduct~on of a new mdus trial reglme, an escape from tyrannical restrlctlons, etc

N ANY CASE, HOWEVER, the correspondence between the I birth and death rates IS sufic~ent to show that pressure of population IS a very important one among the many factors whch control theu increase The correlation co effic~ent be tween the bmth and death rates, concemng which more w ~ l l be said later, works out at the high value of 8 for those twenty eight countrm

(To be comnued zn the June number)

The Ehtofs Uneasy Chair (Contznued from page 16)

plus Man, usmg no spmtual or sc~ent~fic propagative con trol, would, long ago, through overpopulation, have made the world a horror, had his numbers not been dec~mated by overwhelmng, oft recurring pest~lence and war He exhausts h~mself and h ~ s resources and curtails h ~ s larger creative power m behalf of an unwanted, d~sastrous phys~cal mcrease

Those who believe In procreative uses only are confronted by two measures They must accept ~t checked or unchecked H~therto, it has been unchecked, with its long tram of d ~ s illus~onment, mlsery, death, degeneracy and crme In the new order of a checked fecundity we find what? A h ~ g h mmded chast~ty, contmence, temperance, or safe Blrth Con trol methods, abortions or cehbacy All of these methods have been used From the standpoint of effectweness, health, happmess, moral~ty and our present degree of enlightenment and self control, I believe that sane, scientific methods of B~rth Control are the only real solution

T H E B E A C O N [Mad Order Book Servzce]

Offers to assist d~scriminating book buyers, those who are remote from big book cen- ters, as well as others

Speciahng in the mail order semce, we can assure our patrons of unusual promptness and care in dehvery and of infinite indIvid- ual attenbon to thew wshes

We take pleasure in sending regularly, to any- one interested, our Monthly Bulletm of Books, covenng vanous fields of hterature Special facilities for securing out-of pnnt and foreign books Correspondence in- wted

T H E B E A C O N [Mail Order Book Service]

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SPECIAL NOTICE

The Beacon received a letter dated Apnl 5, requestcng varwus books (F~ ld ing Hall, etc ) As lt wos mr scgned and bore no address, zt wall be necessary for our custo mer to wrUe us again

Birth Control IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

The Federahon of Neo Malthllslan Dr Alice Drysdale Vlckery, President

E ~ c u m , (1877) -The Malthuman Lcagoe. %, Dr B m e Dunlop, 48 Broadway, Westrmoster. London, S W Perra&caZ The Malthuszan

HOLMNU (1885) -De Nreuw Mdthus~abnsche Bond Secrctaw, DI J D u t g q 9 Verhulststraat, Den H~w. P m d c a l , Her GeUvkk Hllrrgezm

GERMANY (1889) -Sad Harmowche V e r a m, H m M Hauamelster. Stuttgan P e n d d Lhc Sonale Harmonre

FRANCE (1895) -4 Hardy. 29 Rue Pperecom P m a P m d c a l , Generatwn Consclente

SPAIN (1904) -LI@ Espanola de Regenmaon Hamana Sscra tary Senor Lurs BuMi M e Proneza. 177, RaL la, Bar ccl& Pendcal, Salu y Fuerro.

B m ~ m (1906) - h e Neo-Malhmenns .%xlav, Dr Fnaand Maseaus, Echevm, Gu~ceUca

S W I R E ~ L ~ N D (1908) --Group M a l t h u m %retav, Vdentln Grandlean. 106 Rue den Ealu V~ves. Geneva P m d d La Vie Intlme

BOHEMIA A u s m ~ (1901) -Secretary, Wchael Kachq 1164 Zlzhov, Prague P e n d c d Zadruhy

PORTUGL-E Sdva, Junror. L da Mcmonq 46 r/e, LIUIW~ Penodrd, Paz e Werdade

BRAZIL (1905) &on Brasdena de propaganda Smmes. Manuel Moscosa. Rua d'&nto Pme, 29, Sari Pablo Anlorno Domuuguez, Rue Vmxnde de Moranyapcz 25 RIO de Janeno

CUBA (1907) -&on de Propaganda -, Joss Gum& oh, Empedrado 14, Hawna

Swmm (1911) -Sallstapet for Humamtar BarnalSmnk h ldent, Mr Hmke Bergegren, Vanadmagen 1% StoeLholm, Va

ITALY (1913) -Leg8 Neomalthuslana Italrans V L ~ Lamarmom 22 Turn PenoBcaI, L'Educcmone Scssunle

Amcn-Lgue Neo-Malthuenne, Mamn du Penple, 10 Ramp Magenta, Alger

Organizations IN THE UNITED STATES.

ANN Amma. MICE-MID. L A. Rhodo, 1318 F o m 6- Baacos. MI-Dr P E hq 40 Central Shkt BOSTON. MASS.-T~~ Buth Control Lmyc of M a w c h w d t u

P 0 Box 1358. MID. O d e s Am* preadent. Paaaow~1.4, Pa-Dr L A. Yo- 5152 H n d o r d Arenna Carc~co, ILL-The C m e n s C o m ~ t r c e on F d y Lvnrtrrrron

Secretary, MID. B. E Page, 521 Longwood A n , Glenca, Ill. C L E ~ ~ ~ N D , Omo-Buth Control L e w of O b Mrs A. W

Newman, lOMll Ashbury Avenue, seeretw DET~IOIT, MICE-Mra Jessle A Rene, 919 Brooklyn Avenue ELIZABETH CITY. N C- MI and Mrs. W 0 Samders. Hna~lssuac, Pk&rge A Hemug, 2436 Reel S M Los ANGEL% Car-Ih T Perclval Gemon MINNEAPOLIS. Mum-The Muulcapolu Buth Control League

Mra H d m C Thornsen. 1208 V m m Avenue, N , s%xemq NEW ORLEANS, LA-H. G ShockIey, 428 Delamnde S a e t NEW Ynna T& Comrmrtee of One Thousand. Dr Ira S Wile, 230 W

97th Sue*, cbauman. 1ntematwM.I Bvth Control League DI Wm. J Robinson,

President, 12 ML M o m Park West The Nahonal Buih Control LC- 200 Ffi Avenns

Mta Maxwell Hyds The Womns Commuree of One Hwdred Mra Amos Pm-

chot, chuman, 9 East Elst Suea b s u n c a . PA-The Bzrth Control League of Western Penn

sylwnro Mrs Clarence Renshaw, 117 Lmdm Avc, Edab wood,

-

P O ~ N D , Om-The Buth Control L c w of Poltlmd E C DeLLer. 652 Elhott Avenue, -dent MID. J R Oatmas WFIfthSaet,8emtary

RADNOR, Pa-The Maw L m Branch of the Natwnal Buth Con trol League-MID. Walter M Newlurk. eecmzaq

Rocasnas, N Y -A. L H m , 227 Parsells Avenue Sr Lows, Mo--Gram Anderson, C& Ihmemaw. 11th and . - ..

chestnut sweem. Sr PAW MINN-The MIMCSO~ State Bwth C o d

Seerezary, Mra Grace M Keller, 230 Vernrm Ave, St. Pad. SAN FIUNUSCO, &-The Buth Control League of Son Franmco,

239 G e w StreeL Margaret hIcGovern, pmdmt . Sennwg WASH-The Seattle Buth Control League M-

P a r k h o ~ ~ 516 Thmd Ave., West Seattle, Wash, ~kt ' e tmy S m ~ r r , N J -Rev Franklm C Doan Wnsm~cror , D C -The Buth Control League of the D u m t of

Colwnbla MIS. Anna Wder . 1926 New Hampslure Ave., premdmt

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT CIRCULA TION, ETC, REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF CONGRESS

OF 4UGUST 24, 1912,

Of THE BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW, p u b b i d monthly at New Yo& N Y , for April 1, 1919, State of New York, County of New York, ss

Before me, a Notarg Pubhc m and for the State and wuntg aforesaid, personally appeared MARY KNOBI.AUCH, who, having been duly morn accordmg to law, deposes and says that she ui the M w g Edrtor of TEE B ~ T E CONIUOL REVIEW, and that the foUowg IS, to the beat of her knowledge and behef, a true statement of the ownmhp, manage ment (and d a d d y paper, the cmulauon), ete. of the aforedud pubhca uon for the date shown m the above eaptlon, r e q d bp the Act of August 24 1912, embodred m secuon 443, P o d Lam and Rcgulauons, pnnted on the reverse of dun form, to m t

1 That the nama, and addmesea of the pubhher, &tor. mamgmg cd~tor, and busmess managers are

PuMuher-NEW YO= WOMEN'S P ~ L I S H I N ~ CO, 104 Ffi Avmne, New York, N Y

E h r - M m c m H SANCER, 104 Fdth Avenue, New York, N Y Y-grng Edator-M~Y KNOBLAUCH, Wya Apta, 55th !jIrmt & 7th

Avenue, New York N Y Bwness Managers-Nom

2 That the owners an N Y Women's F'ubldmg Co. 104 Fstb Avenue, New York, N Y J m ~ e Ashley (Estate of), 102 E. 52nd St., N m York, N Y J h e t Rublee, 1957 Bdtmom Street, Warlunglan,

D C MID. Mary Knoblaneh, 55th SW & 7th A m n e , Nsr Ymlt. N Y Mrs. Frances B. Ackuman, Lanrence Park, Bmnxde, N Y

3. That the lmown bondholdere, mortgagee, and kcrmtg holdan o m n g or h o l b 1 per cent. or mom of total amount of bonds, mon gages, m other 8 e ~ ~ t l e s an Nons

4 That the two pmagmphs next above, gmng the names of the m n ~ q stoclholdw and secuny holdera, If any. contam not only the lm of stockholdem and seemy holders as they appear upon the boob of the company, but also, m ease when the stockholdem or aecmty holdm appears upon the booLa of the company as m e e or m any other f i d u c ~ q relauon, the name of the person or corporation for whom such uwae u, actn~& u, w e n , also that the m d two paragmphs contam atatementn embracmg .&ant's f d knowledge and Wef as to the c r cumstances and wn&hom nuder rtueh stocLholdw and seermty holders who do not appear upon the boob of the company a. trustees, hold stoek and skuntu~ m a eapaaty 0 t h than that of a bona fide owner, and dun aEmt has no namn to b&me that any other pwon, asmaa uon, m coqwmhon has any mtnterrst duect m mduea m the sand stock, bonds, or other seeunhea than as so mated hy h a

5 That the average numher of copies of each m e of tb pubLed~on sold or bmbnted, throngh the d or 0th- to p ~ ~ d sllbscnben donng the au months precedmg the date a h m h e K (Th mformauon IS mquped from M y pabhcstlom only )

MARY KNOBLAUCB, Man. Ed. %om to and subscribed before me thrs 26th day of March, 1917

Csu1.1 ALWU Nmumx, Notary PllbLo My w m m ~ ~ ~ o n q u e a March 30. 1920 N Y Collntr N a 30. N Y Regmter NO. 10064.