Part 27

My object in England having been attained, I went on to Switzerland with a definite aim; I had formed a habit in my nursing days, when I was waiting in the night to give medicine or treatment to a patient, of occupying the time putting down experiences and thoughts that came to me. The same habit continued. After lectures, while I was still sizzling with excitement, I often relieved the tenseness by writing down answers to questions I feared I had not covered adequately. Before I knew it I had material gathered for a book, and even some chapters in rough draft. They needed pulling together and polishing off and I went to bed in Montreux for a month to do this. I had regarded _Woman and the New Race_ as my heart book; this, _The Pivot of Civilization_, was to be my head book. I brought it back with me to the United States and Wells, who was reporting the Washington Disarmament Conference for the New York _World_, wrote an introduction.

To make our Conference a success it had to be under the auspices of an organization. I had always had a dread of them. I knew their weaknesses and the stifling effect they could have. They seemed heavy and ponderous, rigid, lifeless, and soulless, often caught in their own mechanism to become dead wood, thus defeating the very purposes for which they had initially been established. Even the women who were able and clever at systematizing such bodies terrified me with their rule-and-rote minds, their weight-and-measure tactics; they appeared so sure, so positive that I felt as if I were in the way of a giant tractor which destroyed mercilessly as it went.

In spite of this dread I had reasoned out the necessity for an organization to tie up the loose ends. Although it might be limiting and inhibiting to the individual, it had other advantages of strength and solidity which would enable it to function when the individual was gone. Therefore I sent a questionnaire to leaders in social and professional circles, asking them whether the time had not come for such a national association; the replies almost unanimously confirmed this decision.

The evening before the Conference was to open, a few friends gathered together to launch the American Birth Control League. Its aims were to build up public opinion so that women should demand instruction from doctors, to assemble the findings of scientists, to remove hampering Federal statutes, to send out field workers into those states where laws did not prevent clinics, to co-operate with similar bodies in studying population problems, food supplies, world peace. After the dinner, given at Mrs. George F. Rublee’s home, we talked over specific plans for the year and set in motion the machinery for having the League incorporated.

Juliet Barrett Rublee had been one of the pioneers, a member of the original Committee of One Hundred, and all the way through the years she has never wavered from my side. No more inspired idealist was ever initiated into a movement. The imagination of this picturesque, romantic wife of a conservative lawyer had been so fired that she dedicated to it her entire devotion, loyalty, partisanship. Others had rallied their own personal friends around the idea, but Juliet’s influence brought in her husband’s associates—the Cravaths, Morrows, Lamonts, Dodges, and Blisses.

Juliet’s parties were always gay and interesting, with an atmosphere nobody else could create. Her small, engaging dining room was as colorful as she herself—the only woman I ever knew who dared to wear bright greens, reds, yellows, all together. For lunches, teas, and dinners in behalf of the cause she practically turned over her home in Turtle Bay Gardens.

A goodly number attended the opening of our Conference, which, appropriately, coincided with that of the great disarmament conference at Washington. The medical meeting, where contraceptive technique was discussed, was so crowded that latecomers could not squeeze in. The doctors who did find places, each apparently surprised to see his confrères there, expected us to have a hundred percent sound methods; they seemed disappointed because we had no magic up our sleeves and told them quite frankly we had not. The best we could do was show what devices were being employed, including those from the Netherlands and the preparation I had found at Friedrichshaven, with the warning that they had not been tested for efficacy.

After two full days nothing remained but the Sunday evening mass meeting on “Birth Control, Is It Moral?” For this we had selected the Town Hall on West Forty-third Street, a new club designed as a forum for adult education; the auditorium was often used for discussion of questions of civic interest. Harold Cox was to deliver the first speech and I was to follow.

Always, when I am to speak, I attempt to visualize the hall and the audience in order to feel my way into the subject. When I cannot do so, I have invariably been met by blocked doors. Throughout Sunday, try as I would to “tune in” to the approaching event, I could not do it. I kept remembering a dream I had had the night before in which I was carrying a small baby in my arms up a very steep hill and came rather abruptly to a slope which became a mountain side of rock and slippery shale; I had nothing to grasp to prevent me from sliding. The baby cried continually and I wanted to comfort it, but I dared not use my right hand because it was held up like a balancing rod which saved us both from falling. That miserable dream made me drowsy all day. My brain seemed numb. I simply could not think of what I was going to say.

Anne Kennedy had gone ahead to the Town Hall at about seven o’clock. Harold Cox and I had dined at Juliet’s but I could not eat; I was interested neither in the food nor the conversation. I still had an absolute blank in front of me. Juliet was congratulating me that soon, with the Conference over, I could have a rest. Ordinarily when I am approaching the end of a particular job I begin to feel released, but this time I could not reassure her; I was nervous, anxious, and apprehensive.

Our taxi swung into West Forty-third Street and crept cautiously along through a swarming aggregation. “Heavens!” I said. “This _is_ an overflow with a vengeance.”

We dismounted and pushed our way to the Town Hall doors. They were closed and two policemen barred our path when Mr. Cox and I attempted to enter. “This gentleman is one of the speakers and I am another,” I said. “Why can’t we go in?”

“There ain’t gonna be no meeting. That’s all I can say.”

I had not the faintest idea of what was happening. A newspaper man standing near by suggested, “Why not call up Police Commissioner Enright and see what the trouble is?”

Juliet and I rushed across the street to a booth and she telephoned police headquarters. No one could say where the Commissioner was. As far as they knew no orders to forbid the meeting had been issued.

Then I put through a call for Mayor Hylan. While I was waiting for the connection I kept my eyes on the Town Hall entrance and saw that policemen were cautiously opening the doors to let out driblets of people. If they could get out I could get in, so I abandoned the telephone and wove my way through the throng until I reached the doors, slipping in under the policemen’s arms before they could stop me. Dignified health officers from all over the country, lawyers and judges with their families and guests were standing about, grumbling, vague, reluctant to depart, wondering what to do.

I fairly flew up the aisle but halted in front of the footlights; they were as high as my head and another blue uniform was obstructing the steps leading to the stage. Suddenly Lothrop Stoddard, the author, tall and strong, seized me and literally tossed me up to the platform. A messenger boy was aimlessly grasping flowers which were to be presented after my speech. Stoddard grabbed them briskly, handed them to me, and shouted, “Here’s Mrs. Sanger!”

“Don’t leave!” I called to the audience. “We’re going to hold the meeting.”

A great scramble began to get back into the seats. The hall was in a turmoil; the front doors had been stampeded and those in the street were pressing in, only to find their places gone. The boxes and galleries were soon filled, the stage was jammed, hundreds were crowded in the rear. I cried, “Get in out of the aisles!” I knew the meeting could be legally closed if they were blocked, and I did not want fire regulations to be used as a pretext.

I still had no idea of what had gone on earlier when I commenced my lecture, but had uttered no more than ten or twelve words when two policemen loomed up beside me and said, “You can’t talk here.” A thundering applause broke out as though it were the only relief for angry, indignant, rebellious spirits.

“Why can’t I?”

I started again but my voice could not be heard. I then suggested to Harold Cox, “Perhaps they’ll let you speak. Try it.” This white-haired and pink-cheeked gentleman walked to the edge of the platform with a dignity of bearing about as distantly removed from immorality as could be imagined. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I have come from across the Atlantic—” but that was as far as he got before he was led back to his seat by a policeman.

Then Mary Winsor, an ardent suffragette, sprang up, but they stopped her also. As soon as one was downed, another jumped to his or her feet. I did not know the names of some of the volunteers, who were not even allowed to finish their “Ladies and gentlemen.”

Meanwhile, Anne Kennedy was telling me as best she could what had happened prior to my arrival. When the house had been half filled, a man had come to the platform and asked, “Who’s in charge?”

“I am,” Anne had answered.

“This meeting must be closed.”

“Why?”

“An indecent, immoral subject is to be discussed. It cannot be held.”

“On what authority? Are you from the police?”

“No, I’m Monsignor Dineen, the Secretary of Archbishop Hayes.”

“What right has he to interfere?”

“He has the right.” Here he turned to a policeman. “Captain, speak up.”

“Who are you?” Anne had demanded.

“I’m Captain Donohue of this district. The meeting must be stopped.”

Capable and cool-headed Anne had replied, “Very well, we’ll write this down and I’ll read it to the audience. ‘I, Captain Thomas Donohue, of the Twenty-sixth Precinct, at the order of Monsignor Joseph P. Dineen, Secretary to Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, have ordered this meeting closed.’”

The listeners had sat petrified while she had read them this strange admission. No hissing or booing then. They had just sat. It was one thing to have the hall shut by a mistaken or misguided police captain; a very different thing to have it done by a high dignitary of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

Monsignor Dineen was now stationed in the back of the hall, and Anne pointed him out to me, of medium size, in plain attire, calmly directing the police by a casual nod of the head or a whisper to a man who acted as runner between him and the Captain on the platform.

Confusion and tumult continued for at least an hour. Newspaper men were scribbling stories; those who could not get in were creating commotion outside; the reserves had been summoned. It was bedlam. Miss Winsor tried to speak two or three times; I, at least ten. But I knew that I had to keep on until I was arrested in order that free speech might be made the issue. To allow yourself to be sent home at the order of the police was accepting the police point of view as to what was moral. Moreover you were bound for the principle of the thing to carry it into the court for a legal decision; if the pulpit and press were denied you, you must take it to the dock.

Captain Donohue kept repeating to me, “Please get off this stage before you cause disorder.” Police now began to hustle the audience towards half a dozen exits, and finally Miss Winsor and I were put under arrest; Robert McC. Marsh, Mrs. Delafield’s son-in-law, offered to act as our counsel.

Juliet said to an officer, “Why don’t you arrest me too?”

“Well, you can come along if you like,” he agreed. So we walked together up Broadway to the station at West Forty-seventh Street, policemen flanking us. The crowd, still jeering the reserves, who had been trying vainly to clear the way, fell in line and marched behind us. A patrol wagon then took us to night court where we were arraigned before Magistrate McQuade. Someone had telephoned J.J. and he came up later, but Mr. Marsh had already taken care of the necessary formalities. We were released on our own recognizances, to appear at court the following morning.

It was now some time after midnight, but we all went back to Juliet’s apartment. Harold Cox was shocked, not only by the roughness of the police, but also by the supineness of the audience, which had done nothing but make a noise. “Had this been in London, they would never have been able to stop the meeting! We would have defended our rights, used every chair and door and window to barricade the place, even though we might have been beaten in the end.”

Anne Kennedy had brought the reporters, and they were waiting for us. They wanted to make out a story of police stupidity and let it go at that, unable to believe her when she told them it was the Archbishop who was responsible. A _Times_ reporter called up the “Power House,” as St. Patrick’s Cathedral was colloquially termed, reached Dineen himself, and asked for verification. “Yes,” said the Monsignor, “we closed the meeting.”

Then and there we decided to hold a second one as soon as possible at the same place.

It was well on towards five o’clock when at last I fell in my bed. I sank to slumber, but it was only to find myself still carrying that same baby up the steep and sliding mountain, balancing myself with upraised hand. The sky was dark, the way unmarked. Wearily I stumbled on.

_Chapter Twenty-four_

LAWS WERE LIKE COBWEBS

“_And heard great argument, About it and about; but evermore Came out by the same door wherein I went._” EDWARD FITZGERALD

Promptly at nine the morning after the wretched Town Hall affair Miss Winsor and I appeared before Magistrate Joseph E. Corrigan and the case was dismissed in five minutes. Neither Monsignor Dineen nor Captain Donohue was in court. Here was a ridiculous thing—the Catholic Church held such power in its hands that it could issue orders to the police, dissolve an important gathering of adult and intelligent men and women, and send them home as though they were naughty children—and then not feel called upon to give any accounting.

The papers expressed the greatest indignation. Even the most conservative were placed in the trying situation of defending birth control advocates or endorsing a violation of the principle of free speech, which “must always find defenders if democracy is to survive.” It was to be expected that the _World_ would be up in arms, but the _Times_ carried a headline that Archbishop Hayes had closed the meeting, and the _Tribune_ was spurred on by the indignation of Mrs. Ogden Reid, who had been present at the Town Hall.

Apparently the Church had not expected to render any explanation whatsoever. Then, faced with a battery of reporters, Monsignor Dineen made a statement:

The Archbishop had received an invitation from Mrs. Margaret Sanger to attend the meeting, and I went as his representative. The Archbishop is delighted and pleased at the action of the police, as am I, because ... I think any one will admit that a meeting of that character is no place for growing children.... The presence of these four children at least was a reason for police action.

He had not improved his position. The scoffing was redoubled when it was learned that the four “children” were students of Professor Raymond Moley’s class in sociology at Columbia University; Monsignor Dineen had not seen beyond their bobbed hair.

Only a small section of the public had been aware of our modest little conference; even fewer had known of the proposed Town Hall meeting. Now the publicity was tremendous. Many Catholics themselves condemned Church tactics, and Archbishop Hayes had to defend himself:

As a citizen and a churchman, deeply concerned with the moral well-being of our city, I feel it a public duty to protest ... in the interest of thousands of ... distressed mothers, who are alarmed at the daring of the advocates of birth control in bringing out into an open, unrestricted, free meeting a discussion of a subject that simple prudence and decency, if not the spirit of the law, should keep within the walls of a clinic.... The law was enacted under the police power of the Legislature for the benefit of the morals and health of the community.... The law of God and man, science, public policy, human experience, are all condemnatory of birth control as preached by a few irresponsible individuals.

The seventh child has been regarded traditionally with some peoples as the most favored by nature. Benjamin Franklin was the fifteenth child, John Wesley the eighteenth, Ignatius Loyola was the eighth, Catherine of Siena, one of the greatest intellectual women who ever lived, was the twenty-fourth. It has been suggested that one of the reasons for the lack of genius in our day is that we are not getting the ends of the families.

This statement appeared synchronously with our second meeting. The Town Hall had been booked ahead for several weeks; consequently, we had engaged the big Park Theater in Columbus Circle. It was packed fifteen minutes after a single door was opened. Dr. Karl Reiland of St. George’s Church was a new recruit on the platform; otherwise our program was the same as before, and a balanced and poised discussion proceeded without acrimony or excitement. Outside, however, two thousand people were clamoring to get in, even climbing up the fire escapes. Orators were haranguing from soapboxes, men were pounding each other with their fists, Paulist fathers were selling pamphlets against birth control.

In my open letter of reply to Archbishop Hayes I said:

I agree with the Archbishop that a clinic is the proper place to give information on birth control.... I wish, however, to point out the fact that there are two sides to the subject under consideration—the practical information as distinct from the theoretical discussion. The latter rightly may be discussed on the public platform and in the press as the Archbishop himself has taken the opportunity to do.

And then, citing Scripture:

If the Archbishop will recall his Bible history, he will find that some of the more remarkable characters were the first children, and often the only child as well. For instance, Isaac was an only child, born after long years of preparation. Isaac’s only children were twins—Jacob, the father of all Israel, and Esau. Samuel, who judged Israel for forty years, was an only child. John the Baptist was an only child, and his parents were well along in years when he was born.

Archbishop Hayes delivered his final pronunciamento in his Christmas Pastoral:

Children troop down from Heaven because God wills it. He alone has the right to stay their coming, while He blesses at will some homes with many, others with but few or with none at all.... Even though some little angels in the flesh through moral, mental, or physical deformity of parents may appear to human eyes hideous, misshapen, a blot on civilized society, we must not lose sight of this Christian thought that under and within such visible malformation there lives an immortal soul to be saved and glorified for all eternity among the blessed in Heaven.

Heinous is the sin committed against the creative act of God, who through the marriage contract invites man and woman to co-operate with him in the propagation of the human family. To take life after its inception is a horrible crime; but to prevent human life that the Creator is about to bring into being is satanic. In the first instance, the body is killed, while the soul lives on; in the latter, not only a body, but an immortal soul is denied existence in time and in eternity. It has been reserved to our day to see advocated shamelessly the legalizing of such a diabolical thing.

A monstrous doctrine and one abhorrent to every civilized instinct, that children, misshapen, deformed, hideous to the eye, either mentally or constitutionally unequipped for life, should continue to be born in the hope that Heaven might be filled!

General opinion was that controversy gave us free publicity, and it did, column after column, but to my mind it was of the negative kind. The truths falsified and motives aspersed had to be debated, corrected, and argued away, and this took time from constructive work. The press wanted to keep up the excitement and manufacture news, but I did not. As a matter of fact the hullabaloo was usually done for me; the blundering of the opposition often saved my voice.

The correspondence through the press was dropped, but meanwhile the American Civil Liberties Union, spurred on by Albert de Silver, from whom we had previously sought advice and who had helped us raise funds, had urged me to institute action for false arrest. This I knew would be a fruitless task, but I did consent to the demand for an investigation. Commissioner Enright was said to be out of the city, but Chief Inspector Lahey, acting in his place, was to determine whether charges should be preferred against Captain Donohue for having stopped the meeting.

On December 2nd, in a small room closed to the press, Mr. Lahey sat at the head of a long table. On his right was a chair to which I was called. On his left, opposite me, was a heavy man with a big bulldog head, wearing a black alpaca coat. He fixed his eyes straight on mine as though he intended to hypnotize me and influence by sheer terror what I was to say. His features were so set, his expression so immobile, that I sensed animus. I refused to return his gaze but faced the Inspector instead.

The interrogation, prompted by this sinister individual, who bent over occasionally to murmur into Mr. Lahey’s ear, held bitter malice. Nevertheless, I answered every query as completely and as honestly as I was able. I had nothing to hide, and still believed that my interlocutor could arrive at no decision unless he heard the truth in its entirety. I was all for telling it.

But never throughout any of the hearings could either the examiners or police be kept to the point. They were not genuinely trying to find out who had given the orders and why, but attempting to justify the illegal proceedings; and always they went off into vague irrelevancies extraneous to the issue, such as trying to embarrass dignified, elderly witnesses by asking, “What are you doing with birth control?”

Chiefly the investigation focused around the Brownsville clinic raid. I denied emphatically that certain contraceptives for use by men only had ever been there; they were of a type which I did not recommend, and had been brought in by the police themselves.

“Do you mean to say, Mrs. Sanger,” went on Mr. Lahey, “that this statement of the police officer as written into the records was untrue?”

“I do.”

Mr. Lahey lifted an official finger to an attendant. The door of the anteroom opened and Mrs. Whitehurst, who had been the leader of the raid, was dramatically framed before us.

“Do you say that if she,” he waved to her, “made the statement referred to in the police records, she lied?”

“She did,” I affirmed. This was the first time in all my life that I had ever called a person a liar. I felt as though I had stepped down into the lower brackets of common decency, but the police are accustomed to such words, and I had to meet the circumstances.