Part 3

Then came my father’s house. I have one sister and one brother. My sister has three children and my brother four, and I have four. (Applause.) There are eleven grandchildren. Within the next house, there is a merchant living with his wife and they both tended store. They wanted to be so decent and accumulate a lot of property. They became the crankiest individuals and when he died, his wife said he was the handsomest looking corpse she had ever seen. It is extinct. No children whatever.

There is another that lived in that house, and they had one child. Out of those 17 families, nine are extinct. Nine are dead and gone. They have passed away. Is that race suicide? Out of eight who remain, out of the 34 people, out of these eight families, there are 26 grandchildren. My father’s family produced 12 of the 26. Out of 33 of the families, there are 14 grandchildren if you except mine. I think I am an exception. There is race suicide. Don’t tell me that that is one exceptional block. I can duplicate that block on every street in that town except one blessed community, Little Canada. They were not Americans. They were vulgar. They were poor. They want big families, but from these poor families in Little Canada, there have come the French Canadians. From them come doctors, lawyers, and teachers, and they are inheriting the town. There is race suicide.

I can duplicate that block in practically every American city in this country. I can duplicate that block in every apartment house on the west side.

America is dying today—the America that we know. I wish that it were not. I wish that it could get a cleaner and better ideal, but it hasn’t got it. That is the tragedy of it all.

Now, that is what we have got to consider, whether we are going to do that or not. I have no worry what ever and life has no worry. It does not matter what you prove, the inexorable law goes on. “Those who do shall inherit the earth. They shall have life unto the end and the others shall be extinct.”

I come from college—Harvard. I believe that the average production of college graduates in America is three-quarters of a life. That is statistically and literally true. (Applause)

Margaret Sanger SECOND SPEECH

Mrs. Sanger: There is no doubt there are many ways of race suicide but Mr. Russell has not proven to me yet that birth control is causing it. He has shown us—given us the number of inhabitants in a block which, according to his ideas, are dying out. Those who have had no children—there is no reason to claim or to know just what is the cause of those people not having children. Many barren women today might be desirous of having children, and they go through serious operations in order to have children, and because sometimes of an infection given to her by her husband, she is unable to bear children.

Furthermore, for every block that Mr. Russell can produce in New York City, where they are controlling their numbers and where they are not having the numbers sufficient to his satisfaction I can show you an equal number who are overdoing themselves. (Applause.) I can give him one block in New York City where there are 10,000 people, and but one airshaft between them. They are living huddled together practically like animals and he will ask these people still to produce numbers to a greater extent than they have.

When we talk about race suicide it seems to me that there are other things that one must consider. Birth control will improve the quality of the race, and unless we do improve the quality of the race, it is better that we do have race suicide. (Applause.) Certainly all of us who have lived within the past five years and have seen what has gone on in the world—we have seen the destruction of life—we have seen it so mercilessly taken—certainly, there are other ways that race suicide is being put out upon the world other than birth control. War certainly has done something to wipe out the inhabitants of the earth. And if you go to Europe where I have been the last six months or so and see the condition of misery and unhappiness that is going on there, particularly in Central Europe, you would say that death would be a blessing to these people, instead of the hand of peace that has come to them. When I saw more than 15,000 little children in Germany that were born since the war, friends, brought into being in the most terrible conditions that any country could be in—those children were brought to birth because they, too, did not believe in birth control. They believe in numbers, in expansion, in more and more children, and today, those hundreds and hundreds of children have no backbone. They are almost unable to hold up their heads. They will be absolutely useless for another generation. Are these the kind of children we want to bring into the world? Don’t we want quality instead of quantity?

It seems to me it is time we used our intelligence and stopped the ranting phrases that we have been hearing so many of today. (Applause.)

Again I say, Mr. Russell tells us that he was quite sick when he heard me tell about women who had tuberculosis and heart disease and other ailments, and should have been prevented from becoming pregnant. He said the man who did not have self-control was not worth much. I wonder if Mr. Russell knows—he is a lawyer, and I wonder if he knows what the laws of this state are as far as you men are concerned. The Bible states “Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands.” It is one of the things put into our laws, and the woman who does not submit to her husband—he does not have to support her. I wonder if Mr. Russell knows that. I have myself had cases where women have come to me and said: “What shall I do? I have left this man. I can’t have more children.” And when she comes to court the judge has said: “Are you willing to live with this man or not?” And she said: “I can’t have more children. I don’t want more children.” And the judge said: “You must adjust this matter for yourselves.” The man did not have to support her unless she submitted her body to him. That is the condition today.

We talk about self-control. I think none of us who look on the world know there is self-control. No one delves in self-control. That is one of the finest human instincts there is. When you see hungry people going around with plenty of food in front of them, I think there is self-control in the world. (Applause.)

And don’t forget that this self-control—and I would like to ask anyone to contradict it that a man and woman may be ever so self-controlled and if they are married and live in marriage relationship—that it only means one embrace or one union to have a baby every year. The most self-controlled man and woman in the world can still have a family that that man can’t take care of. That is something to remember.

On the other hand, if we mean, and if Mr. Russell would only talk so that we can understand him—plainly—I have to tell you what he means as a matter of fact. If Mr. Russell means that this relationship between man and woman should only be for procreation, then that is another matter. I wish he would say so. If it means you are going to have two children, then only two times in your life you should have union—that’s another question. But our marriage laws are not based on that law. And it would have to be a strict understanding before a woman married, before that union or that companionship or relationship could take place. I have no objection whatsoever to any individuals who wish to live that way.

But I am speaking for the millions of women who are crushed with over child-bearing, whose lives are broken and who have become drudges in the family today. I am speaking for mothers and the individual here, and there does not concern me in the least. They may be an exception, but I know there are millions and millions of women who are married, who are just as self-controlled as anyone Mr. Russell can show us, who are living in terror of pregnancy, but they have men who are just as good to them. Men are not all beasts. These people give you an idea that men are a lustful, beastly creature, looking to violate some woman’s virtue. I wonder why a man does not stand up against that. They never do. It takes a woman to stand up for them. I know that most of the women that I have lived with—their husbands are men who are just as considerate and decent as anyone you can find. They are trapped in ignorance. That is what is the matter.

Our whole sexual education has been at fault. We have been kept in blinders. We have been taught that this relationship is a vital, terrible thing—put it out of your hearts. However a marriage certificate is placed in your hands and Presto! everything is supposed to be made beautiful. (Applause and laughter.)

Our married life and happiness depends upon an attitude and an ideal attitude towards our relation, and we are not going to get it by blindness and by ignorance. We are going to get it by adjusting our own interests and our own intelligence to life as it is today, and I claim that any man living on the average workingman’s wage today is not able to support some two or three children decently. There may be exceptions to that, but we have more than—I think it is something like 40,000 or 50,000 people in this country who are living and dependent upon public charity, and every time a man and woman does not have the conscious responsibility toward the children that they are going to bring into being, and have them according to Nature, as Mr. Russell would say, without regard to their protection, to preparing for their coming—that just as sure as we do that—the man’s wage to do is unable to keep up with his reproductive power. That has been the history of labor all the way down, and the man and woman who brings to birth children that they can’t take care of, it means you are going to pass that burden and the responsibility upon some one else. We have today in China this terrible poverty that is going on there. Thirty millions of people in China are starving to death. The Chinese have always lived according to Mr. Russell’s theory, and they are appealing now to low birth rate countries, to those who have as a nation used birth control; they are appealing to them now to save some other millions of others in China and we have to do it.

The responsibility always comes back upon those who have protected themselves, those who have lived within their own means, and according to their own intelligence.

I am not going to take up all the time I have been allotted because I am quite through. I want to say in the first place birth control joins the fight against the transmission of venereal disease to the next generation. Birth control is the pivot around which every movement must swing making for race betterment. Birth control does not act as a substitute for any social scheme or other ideal system. But it must be the base and serve them as a foundation.

Birth control will free the mother from the trap of pregnancy. It will save the child from that procession of coffins, as well as from the toil of mill and factory.

Birth control will make parenthood a voluntary function instead of an accident as it is today. When motherhood and childhood is free, we then can go hand in hand with the emancipation of the human race. (Applause.)

Winter Russell THIRD SPEECH

Mr. Russell: May I say that if Mrs. Sanger does not know what the cause of no children in Farmington was, I do. Everybody in that town knew. It was because they had made up their minds that they were not going to do that and they did not have them.

That is one of the great troubles with this volunteer parenthood—it is that there are so very few volunteers. Mrs. Sanger and I agree upon this matter of education. She would not say to those who are trying to find the ready path to health—those who are afflicted with tuberculosis and venereal disease—that they can reach this road to health by self control. She says that we will educate you and the feeble-minded about the most delicate, intricate complications, and disseminate information and literature that we have on the human body. She thinks she can take the millions of people and, as a matter of cold fact, introduce this knowledge. A large percentage of these millions of abortions are due to the fact that they thought they knew all about it and they didn’t. And Mrs. Sanger has pointed out that here still is a lot of laboratory experiments and research work that has got to be done before they will be absolutely, scientifically sure that they will know just exactly what they are doing.

I would have them educated, and I would have Mrs. Sanger and all the rest of them change their views in this connection because of education. I agree with her absolutely with this. We are handing a marriage certificate to those who are not prepared to have it. We make a man who is going to run a steam engine or an automobile or prepare teeth—he has to have a license. We ought to know about this matter of rearing children. We ought to have education but it ought to be the education that will give us the key to self-control and teach us how to take care of the children after they have come.

And then this matter of the difficulty of self-control. If these people that have the one or two or three children would take them with joy and thanksgiving and devote themselves to the higher mental and spiritual development that ought to come with them, and would have come if they had been properly educated, the matter of self-control would be a very simple matter indeed.

Oh, this matter of quality. We are misled on this matter of quality—this matter of accomplishments. I don’t know how I can possibly impress this any better than this. I believe that a woman who comes into Ellis Island and can neither read nor write, and has seven to eight children, is worth more to the United States of America than a graduate of Vassar University. I will go further. I say this that if I had not been blessed with a wife and mother such as Mrs. Russell is, that I would choose for a wife today—I would rather have a girl that cooks and can’t read nor write, who loves children, than some of these graduates with accomplishments.

We have four sons, and I hope and I pray that instead of getting as a wife an educated rag and a bone and a hank of hair with accomplishments, that they will get some of these women that want and love a big family of children. I believe that their life will be richer, nobler, and fuller. I have a daughter. I hope and devoutly pray that instead of any person who is so utterly absorbed in this volunteer practice and they think that after some years that they will have one or two children—I would not say a common working man—I would say a divine working man—I would rather she have one of those and have a big family of children, rather than she should have one of the other kind.

Little Canada with its families has given a better quality of children to that town and country than any other place. They call for statistics of volunteer countries. They don’t realize it that there are great segments of humanity that have it as a fundamental part of their life—this matter of sacred relations. When you come to think that there is not one single phase in life, one single place that you can be frivolous with this sacred function, that it does not rebound and makes you repay and takes its penalty—you pay the penalty. They have tried to take the sweet without the responsibility. They have thought that they could scheme with this sacred thing and strike a balance book with nature.

As a matter of fact in China, I was reading the other night, two or three of the great political economists, they say there is not a single case in the history of the world where there has been starving because of the number of people. The future of the race belongs to those that have the numbers.

Then they say it is due to the war and the explosive populations. It is just ourselves, Germany, France and Italy, who have been practising this thing for years, the big material nations of the world, that are to blame. Those nations that are true to life are going to inherit the earth. It is inexorable in the way in which it works out.

As I look at America today, I see it in the grip of a foul monster. It was as though we have been gassed. I consider these teachings as mental and spiritual dope. Morphine and heroin don’t compare with the way in which we are duped today. It speaks in all of our literature and customs. When you see a woman in a pregnant condition today, you see smirks and snubs as though it was a misfortune to that poor woman. We are today in the grip of a foul monster. It speaks in our literature.

Take the intellectual life of America today. Greenwich Village thinks it is intellectual. It is the intellectual sewage disposal plant of America today, and it is not very scientific. It is a fact. Fifth Avenue and the west side where I live—it is the social garbage dumping grounds of the United States of America. All these people that think that they have to be decent and have the freedom and liberty—freedom to be foul, freedom to be disgusting—if there is anything that annoys me and my nerves is this puking pus that is called love poured forth over the poodle dog by some volunteer married person today.

As a matter of fact, a large family is the hope of the world. It is the greatest disciplinary force that there is in life. There is nothing that so develops the mind and soul of man and the woman as bringing up a great family of children. These disciplinary forces we are losing today and that is because we are following the easiest way. We are taking the course of the least resistance. You are trying to get the honey and escape the thorns, and it can’t be done.

Oh, these people. If Mrs. Sanger were true in this matter—then why is it that the great mass of people—the down and outers, are single men, and a good many of them, single women? It is because they haven’t control to get the skill that is necessary and there is always that condition. We find that by self-control one can lead a life of singleness. We find that self-control gives them influence and power. School teachers, priests and nuns—those people that have a tremendous influence, practice self-control—they think they can obtain the pleasure without paying for it.

Now, the individual is really unimportant. If you look at life itself and what you are trying to do, it is the race that is going to produce. It is the race of the past that has made it possible for us to be here today. And only as we measure up to this tremendous responsibility does the race of tomorrow depend. I cannot give you all that I would like to give you—a vision. But I believe that in these great unborn numbers is really—there is the real resources of America. Why, we have resources ample. We could all move into Texas and it would not be as crowded as Belgium was before the war began. This matter of food and clothes—we haven’t begun to touch the resources.

About that little town in Maine, rotten to the core with its birth control, there are hundreds of depleted farms that used to support families of ten and twelve children, and do that well, too.

That is where the future lies in the great unborn, in the heart, and in the soul. The psychologists say we use but 10 percent of the brains we have and we are using a small percentage of the spiritual and moral resources we have, and we can do it if we live up to this responsibility that we ought to incur.

I believe that in every mind and heart there is faith and love that would make life glorious and glad indeed, and I wish I could give you the vision of that. I have sought for ambition, fame, power, and I would like to write a great song, but I know I could never begin to express the music and joy of a great home, of a fine pure home.

I would like to paint a great picture, but I know I could never begin to depict the color and composition that there is in a little daughter or son’s face.

I would like to have a great piece of sculpture as my work, but I know that I could never begin to express the beauty and form of a little loving child in a home.

I would like to write a great novel but I know I could not for one moment begin to give the comedy and the tragedy, the romance, and the thrill that there is in the home group of little children.

And I would like to write a great play, but I know that I could not begin to give the drama, the comedy and the tragedy that there is in bringing up a little family.

I believe that the great mass of so-called Americans are today voluntarily but blindly shutting the unborn out from the Heavens to which I hope we will all ultimately reach. I thank you for your courtesy and consideration. (Applause.)

Mr. Gould: May I announce that the real and practical decision of this debate will be rendered by the New York State Legislature when they take up the problem of whether or not birth control should be made public knowledge? I thank you.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 19, Sanger may have meant "die" rather than "live". Inserted "[sic]" into the transcription. 2. P. 32, Russell may have meant "kids" instead of "kinds". Inserted "[sic]" into the transcription. 3. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 4. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.