July 1918

I
nts Per Copy
JULY, 1918
Per Year
$1.50
THE
BIRTH CONTROL
DEDICATED TO THE CAUSE OF VOLUNTARY MOTHERHOOD
REGENERATION THROUGH SEX
& MAUDE DURAND EDGREN
THE
BIRTH CONTROL
REVIEW
104 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
LITERARY EDITORS
XABGARm SANGEB
LILY WINNER
WALTEB ROBEBTS
LOLA RIDGE
JESSIE ASHLEY
MAUDE WGBW
ART EDITORS
COBNELIA BABNS
GERTRUDE BOYLE
LOU ROGEBS
Vol I1
No 6
Published monthly Subscnptlon pnce $150 a year, foreign
countries and Canada $1 75, postpaid
Bundle rates ten coplea for a dollar, $9 60 per hundred
Owned snd Publlahed by
THE NEW YOBK WOMEN S PUBLISHING CO Inc
104 Fifth A v a m New YorL N Y
Entered at the Poet OBLce at New York N Y am mad nutkr of the
-nd
okas
eorrea~ondenceand make cheeb and money orden payable to
MARGARET SANGEB
NOTICE When maueetms cham of ad&.
always =we the old
adu well
Add-
BIRTH CONTROL ORGANIZATIONS IN FOREIGN
COUNTRIES
The Federation of N m Malthusian Leagues
Dr Ahce Drysdale V~ckery,Preardeut
CONSTITUENT
BODIES
E NGLAND (1877) -The Malthusian League Secretary, Dr
Blnnle Dunlop, Queen Anne's Chambers, Westmmster.
London, S W Penodlcal, The Malthunan
HUND (1885) -De Nleuw-Malthuslaausche Bond S I retary Dr J Rntgers, 9 Verhulststraat, Den Haag
Pertodlcal Het Gellukkrg Huugesrn
GERMANY
(1889) -Sozlal Harmonrxhe Verun Secretary,
Herr M Hausmelster, Stnttgart Perlodlcat, Dce Somule
Harmow
F R A N (1895)
~
-G
Hardy, 29 Rue Puerecourt, Pans
Perlodkcal GPnPrafron Conscrente
S PAIN (1904) -L~ga Espanola de Regeneracloo humana
Secretary Senor LUIS Bulffi, Calle Provenza 177, Pral
la, Barcelona Perlodlcal, Salu y Fuersa
BELGIUM(1906) -Llgue Neo Malthuslenne Secretarv, Dr
Fernand Mascaux, Echevln, Courcelles
Swrn-D
(1908) -Groupe Malthuslen Secretary, Valentln Grandlean, 106 Rue des Eaux-Vlves, Geneva
Perlodeal, La Vre Intrme
BOHKMIA-Aus.ma(1901) -Secretary, Mlchael Kacha, 1164
Zlzhov Prague Zadruhy
PORTUGAL-E Sllva, Junlor, L da Memorla, 46 r/e, Llsbon
Perlodrcal, Pa8 e Lrberdade
B ~ z n(1905) -Secclon brasllena de propaganda Secretarres, Manuel Moscosa, Rua dBento Plres 29 San
Pablo, Antonlo Domlnlguez, Rna Vlzcande de Moranguapez 25, Rlo de Janerro
Cusa (1907) -Sewon
de propaganda
Secretary lose
Guardlola, Empedrado 14, Havana
SWEDEN (1911) -Sallskapet for Humanltar Barnalstrlng
Presldent Mr Hlnke Bergegren, Vanadwagen 15 Stockholm Va
I T A L Y (1913) -Lega Neomalthus~ana Itallana Secretary
D r Lnlgl Berta, Vla Lamarmora 22, Turm Penodlcal,
L'Educamone Sessuale
A m u - L ~ g u e Neo-Malthuslenne, Maxson du Peuple 10
Rampe Magenta, AIger
BIRTH CONTROL CENTERS IN THE UNITED STATES
A NN ARBOR MKH -Mrs L A Rhoades, 1318 Forest Court
BANGOB,
ME-Dr P E Lnce, 40 Central Street
BOSTONMass-The Bwth Control League of M ~ ~ a c h u s e t t s
P 0 Box 1358 Mrs Oakes Ames, preadent
CAMDEN,
N J -Dr L A Young 522 Spruce St
CHICAGO, Iu-The C~tuens' Commrttee on Famrly Lmmrlatron Secretary Mrs B E Page, 521 Longwood Ave,
Gleocoe, Ill
CLEVELANQ,
OHIO-The Bwth Control League of Ohro
Presldent, Alfred F Bosch, 1611 E 73rd S t , Cleveland
Co~uxnus, OHIO-The Brrth Control League of Columhs
Arthur Gluck 2054 Tuller Street, presldent
ELIZABETH CITY, N C-MI
and Mrs W 0 Saunders.
H m ~ s n u a c P A -George A Hernng, 2436 Reel Street
Los ANGELIS C&-Dr
T Percwal Gersoo
M1NNEAmLIs MINN-The Mrnneafiolw Brrlh Control
League Mrs Helen C Thomsen, 1208 V~ncentAvenue,
N , secretary
NEW ORLEANS,LA-H G Shockley, 428 Delaronde Street
NEW YORK
The Commrttee of One Thousand D r Ira S Wrle WO
West 97th Street, charrman
The Natronal Brrth Control League 200 Flfth Avenue
Mrs Vlrgtnra Heldelberg
The Woman's Commrttee of One Hundred Mrs Amos
Pmchot, chairman, 9 East 81st Street
PATEXSON,
N J-Wdham D Walker, 1139 Madcsou Avenue
PITTSBUBGH,
PA-The Brrrh Control League of Western
Pennryluanro Mrs Clarence Reushaw, 117 Lluden Ave ,
Edgewood, secretary
PoRnAND ORE-The Bwth Control League of Portland
H C Dekker 652 Elhott Avenue, presldent Mrs J R
Oatman, 549 F ~ f t hStreet, secretary
ROCHESTEPN YA I Howser, 227 Parsells Avenue
ST IS Mo-Clara Taylor 5063 Page Boulevard
S T P AUL MINN-The Mrnnesota State Brrth Control League
Secretary, Mrs Grace M Keller 230 Vernon Ave, St
Paul
SAN FRaNasco CAL-The Bwth Control League of San
Francuco, 239 Geary Street Margaret McGovero, presldent
SEATTLEWasa- The Seattle Brrth Control League Mlnnle
Parkhurst, 516 Thrrd Ave , West Seattle, Wash secretary
S UMMIT N J -Rev Franklln C Doan
W ASHINGTON D C-The Brrth Control League of the DUmct of Cokmbra Mrs Anna Wexler 1926 New H a m p
shtre Ave presldent
BOOKS TO B E HAD AT THIS OFFICE
Populat~onand B ~ r t hControl
A Sympos~um
UncontroIled Breedmg, by Adelyne More
Small or Large Famlliea
B.Y Drysdale and Havelock Ellis
Marrled Love, by C Stopes
What Every Girl Should Know
By Margaret Sanger
paper 2 k , cloth
What Every Mother Should Know
paper 25c, cloth
By Margaret Sanger
Llmltatlon of Offsprmg, by Dr Wm J Roblnson
The Smell Famlly System, by Dr C V Drysdale
The Obleets of Marriage, by Havelock Ellls
B ~ r t hControl m ~ t Medlcal,
s
Soelal, Eeonomre and
Moral Aspects, by Dr S Adolphus Knopf
Jaded for Bmth Control, by James Waldo Fawcett
~
The above prlees do not include postage
REGENERATION THROUGH SEX
By Maude Durand Edgren
T
H E PICTURE EVERY WOMAN should hold up
as her deal 1s a Goddess rad~antw t h hfe and love,
wearing the sun for a crown and usmg the moon for
a pedestal, at the same hme holdmg aloft, for the benefit of
the whole s~sterhood of womankmd, the serpent-twmed
staff of Mercury The moon IS the symbol of concephon,
the sun IS the symbol of the h~ghest~llummat~on,
and the
serpent 1s the same old tempter that crept ~ n t oEden
The best and surest contracephves, phys~callycons~dered, would be about as useful
to the truly dlummed woman
as water wmgs or a 11fe preserver would be to Annette
Kellennan-mere useless encumbrances But for the
woman just learnmg to swlm
the wmgs m~ghtprove a great
comfort m secunng confidence and self-control ~n the
water
Fear IS woman's greatest
enemy Constant fear and
dread of pregnancy, to say
noth~ngof lts effect on the
offspring, is enough to deaden
any mcentwes toward progress Progress, too, requlres
mtelhgent effort, and mtelhgent effort requlres sex force
The very same force that goes
out to budd bohes for offspnng has to be red~rected
and used for md~v~dual
uphft
To those So-called ~llummed
ones who hold back thelr
skrrts and look askance at
anythmg that m~ghtIncrease
self-mdulgence for sense grat~ficatton,we m~ghtsay that
them fear of ev~loutwe~ghs
t h e ~ rf a ~ t h~n good We beheve that w ~ t hhalf a chance
and just a l~ttlehelp ~n the
nght d~rect~on
every woman,
a t least every normal woman,
would strwe to attam self control If left to her own cho~ce,
she ~nvar~ably
would choose the h~gherpath
And t h ~ spath does not lead to cehbacy Such a hfe
means overcommg by annulmg a great part of one's nature
and ~t seldom results In ~llumnat~onI t has been tried out
by the monks and the nuns The truly ~llumnedamong
them have been few and far between, on the other hand,
the d ~ r eoutcome of then practices has produced some of
that ever ex~stedon t h ~ splanet
the worst l~cent~ousness
w
HAT IS THERE between the deep sea of cehbacy
and the dev~lof sex gluttony 7 Let us look about us
at the natural trend of human progress In splte of all
Protests to the contrary, fewer and fewer ch~ldrenare born
to the more mtelhgent parents In fact, famhes seem to
decrewe In slze as dlummat~onIncreases T h ~ 1s
s so evident
that ~t looks almost ltke a natural law It appl~esto the
anma1 kmgdom, as well as to man The lower types of
a n n a l s are far more prol~fic
than the hrgher
T h ~ seems
s
to be a natural
law of progress, and we are
just~fied In assumlng that,
smce ~llummat~on
reduces the
number of offspring, ~t must
be counted as a mam factor
~n the development of the
human race
The ~llustrat~onon t h ~ s
page shows that our Goddess
holds aloft two entwmed serpents We mrght quote the
B~bleabout "ra~smgthe serpent," but w~llrefram, as we
are glven so many strange mterpretat~ons of that book
nowadays Instead, we w~ll
look m the book of nature
Look at the lotus, or waterhly Its roots are ~n the mud
at the bottom of the pond, ~ t s
stem rlses up through the water ever toward the lrght At
last the leaves and blossoms
spread out ~n the alr above
the water and bathe m the
heavenly sunl~ght What IS
the Illy blossom but the sex
organ of the plant ?
The lotus has long been a
symbol of ~llummat~onThe
earth wherem ~t has ~ t sroots
1s the p h ~ s ~ c abody,
l
the water through wh~chthe stem
rlses IS the sea of human deslre, the arr 1s the realm of
pure thought, and the sunhght
1s dmne s p ~ r ~Ilt was the sunhght, remember, that ~nduced
the lotus stem to grow upward It 1s the dwme sparh in
each human soul t h ~ makes
t
that soul strtve upward for the
hght It IS confidence m the latent dlztmtv of eaclr h~onan
berng on the face of the earth that just~fiesthe advocacy of
bmth control
0 W E SAY T O WOMEN, hft up thrs wonderful productwe power w~thmyou, glor~fy,sanct~f)~t Let your
asplratlon carry ~t stratght to your God as the most sacred
S
The Btrth Control Revsew
offermg you can make Let ~t be hke the sacred 011that kept
POEMS OF A PARIS COCOTTE
ahve the fire in the ever-burnmg lamps
By "Margot"
I t goes w~thoutsaylng that mdulgence for mere phys~cal
Laterally rendered tnto Engksh prose by
gratlficat~onbecomes sacr~lege T h ~ force
s
becomes a healWalter Adolphe Roberts
lng, a regenerating blessmg only to be used as such The
SADNESS OF PAST DAYS
sages of old comprehended the beauty of sex The urn,
symbol of the female sex organ, has been venerated for
I
ages I t was used to contam the preclous ointments The
H , F R I E N D ! for almost four years now we have folurn 1s the receptacle of all that IS beaut~fuland holy I t
lowed recklessly together the ways of I ~ f e We have
symbol~zesthe mother of the race, the &vme mother
been md~fferentto wealth Yet, strong in our mutual love,
Through woman IS the race regenerated, through her we have been able to seek In drunken orgles what the world
growlng abdtty to make concrete her spirttual aspwahbns m ~ g h tcall our fortunes 1
Heretofore, she has taken man as he IS, th~nlung~t her duty
I1
to submt to h ~ des~res,
s
w h ~ l edesp~smgthem often, and so
Famme and poverty have been our lot When the wmter
havoc re~gned
wmds have been mest, we have faced them all too s~mply
When she can be made to real~zethe beauty-and to l ~ v e dressed The cry of our two souls has been one cry The
up to ~t-f
makmg the sex relat~onspmtually d ~ f f u s ~ vand
e
struggle has been b~tter,but In the end fate has tr~umphed
not merely phys~callygrat~fymg,then she is on the way to
I11
become the true redeemer of the race Not by a n n ~ h ~ l a t ~ o n
Common our suffermgl Long our hours of abandon!
of the sex funct~onor sex mtercourse, but by splntualm
Hostlle Prov~dencehas become, for us, a hurr~caneStunned
Ing lt
and ~nstmct~ve,
our unappeased hearts In the s a n e breath
Yes, she must hft man to her level and not stoop to h ~ s
demand vengeance and unplore forgetfulness
She should show hlm the falseness and narrowness of lookmg at only the phys~cal She must, to be a l~ght,learn the
IV
h ~ g h e rlaws--how the act of creat~onmay be turned to
O b l ~ v ~ owill
n submerge our ex~stenceIn ~ t vast
s
blackh ~ g h e rplanes than the phys~cal Thus wdl both he and she ness But t h ~ s at
, least, wdl end our outrageous memortes
be recreated mto the super-men and women of the future
H u m h a t ~ o n sand g r ~ e f shave taught us to hate, yet scorn,
When a woman 1s free from the fear of pregnancy, ~f our hard destmy
she knows absolutely that she can create when and only
when she desxes, then she can look to the h ~ g h e raspects,
TO THE FRIEND OF MY HEART
the regeneratwe aspects of the sex relat~on She may have
H Y M O U T H once held the secret of mtoxicatlng tento go through several hells to find the truth, but she w ~ lcome
l
dernesses, wh~chexalted thee
up reborn t o her newer, fuller and freer hfe
Yet, ~t has been thy body's destmy to qulver under the
4 s regards your duty to the commg race, you and you yoke of any gallant's caresses
alone must dec~deon how many ch~ldrenyou want and how
Now, In thy sad abandon, thou hast learned to strangle
many you can prov~defor and brmg up as you want your thy heartch~ldrento be brought up The lncommg egos must walt
Ay, even to prefer the h a b ~of
t acceptmg love for a n ~ g h t ,
They wtll go forward faster for the w a ~ t m g They w ~ l l a day 1
have b~ggeropportun~tlesIn smaller fam~liesand so wdl
benefit In the end
HAVELOCK ELLIS
Remember, woman IS the symbol of the eternal mother,
T o women he owes the best t h ~ 1s
t In h ~ mand to them
she 1s not merely the mother of ch~ldren,but the mother of he has p a ~ dback h ~ debt
HIS understandmg of the pnmls
man, her mate The real~zat~on
of the truth and beauty of tlve and complex In them natures 1s a l~ttlebew~ldermgeven
t h ~ sfact rases the mated palr to a c o n d ~ t ~ omore
n
than to those of us who thmk we know ourselves T h e parasite,
human
the doll, the rebel, the angel, the ~ d ~ oand
t , the over-woman
must all acknowledge that t h ~ sman has somehow surprmd
A report publ~shedthe other day by the French Academy many secrets whrch women themselves, as yet, scarcely
of Med~cmeIS s~gn~ficant A commlsslon, composed of reallze It IS as ~f he has been eavesdroppmg at the threshemment sc~ent~fic
men, had been appomted by the academy old of thelr souls and envylng them t h e ~ rrole In the races
revelat~onof
for the purpose of rnakmg a detaded mqulry mto the declm- work of the world HIS mother was h ~ first
mg b ~ r t hrate The commlsslon exammed Into every one of the sweetness and strength of woman h o one can, of
the causes supposedly respons~ble,but only exammed the course, as yet declare who wdl be the last to mtens~fyh ~ s
s
on the per~odprevlous to the behef m women, but he can say w ~ t hEzek~elthat " h ~ s
facts and s t a t ~ s t ~ cbearmg
s
"
Nothmg has puddled
war The central fact developed was, that voluntary b ~ r t h mother 1s as a vme w ~ t h ~h n~ blood
control was pr~mardyrespons~ble The only other cause the clear waters ~n w h ~ c hthe faun and the C h r ~ s tIn t h ~ s
held to be ~mportantwas that w h ~ c hcame under the head of student have looked mto the mlrror of women's natures Mrs Havelock Ellls, ~n The Bookman
dlegal operat~ons
A
T
1
5
The Bwth Control Revmu
CORNERED
The Bwth Control R m e w
THE WASTE OF CREATIVE
ENERGY
and consc~ouslycontrol and d ~ r e c tthls tremendous power
f o r good results onlv Do you know that out of every 1,000
bab~eshorn In thls country 150 d ~ e ?And thls means that
150 out of every 1,000, o r about 1 out of every 7 mothers,
By lessre A Rene
go through the penls and heartrendmg throes of chlldblrth
H A T AN EXTRAVAGANT waste of creatlve for no useful purpose--for worse than nothmg, to say nothenergv 1s uncontrolled lnstlnct 1 What a sacrlfic~al Ing of t h e ~ rgolng through hfe generally wlth mut~lated
waste 1s f rultless agony 1
bod~es Now just mult~plyt h ~ sby the tens of thousands
Woman IS wllllng, glad and even eager to sacr~ficefor Can you not see these hundreds of thousands of mothers all
anv cause really worth whde, and, In passmg, let us take wr~thlngIn p a n ? Can you not hear thew cry of accumusacrlfice to mean the glvlng up of the lesser for the gauung Idted suffermg as ~t rlses to heaven In a long drawn-out wall
of the greater, and not blmd mother love whlch 1s so often for mercy? T h ~ sbarbar~cwaste of mother force must be
stopped If women must suffer to brlng bables Into emsttnlstaken for sacrlfice
The woman a h o becomes a mother by cholce, who IS ence, surely they should be free to choose thew own tlme
prepared for and who longs for the prlv~legesas well as the and convenience, and labor according to them strength 1
sacrifices of motherhood, gladly goes through the unspeakOMEN, YOUR BODIES are your very own, gwen
able physlcal agony, glves up her body to be racked and
to you as a sacred trust to treat wlth respect and to
tortured by patn In order that a llttle Love Blossom may be
use w ~ t hlntelhgent care for the carrymg on of the Great
welcomed Into the home, thls l~ttleLove Blossom whlch 1s
Plan How can you do your part well when you subject
the harmonlous result of the blendlng of reciprocal ldeals
these instruments to lmproper treatment and even to mtsWoman expects to sacr~ficeher tune, her energy, even
use? I s ~t that you are afrald to stand up for your nghts,
her career, a m b ~ t ~ o and
n s deslres for a tlme at least ( g ~ v m g
not as women merely, but to stand up for your r ~ g h t sas
up of the lesser), so as to assume the hlgh office of motherhuman belngs, equally w ~ t hmen? Are not men and women
hood, (the galnlng of the greater) But should she be exco-workers for the advancement of the human race!
pected to do thls cheerfully for chance maternity, perhaps
Take comfort Thls reckless waste of wtal creatlve
because of an extra glass of champagne, a late supper o r
force can be stopped, and you can do ~t You who are some
the takmg of st~mulantsand tnd~gestlblecombmatlons, o r
day golng to be mothers and you who are now mothers, why
perhaps because of the Innate bel~efIn a "necessrty," whrch
not be the very best mothers that study, care and thoughtful
sclence proves to be qulte unfounded?
preparation can produce? How can ~t be done?
Are these plausible and suffic~entreasons for expecting
One way 1s to wln polltlcal freedom so that you may
woman to enter upon motherhood and the many years of
share
In framlng the laws you must obey
responstblhty and care whlch the frwt of thls excess o r
Another
way 1s by obtammg a knowledge of the workIgnorance demands? That motherhood should be merely
an lnc~dentof marrled hfe, the penalty for wifehood, 1s lngs of your own bohes and mmds, together w ~ t han undermost lncons~stentw ~ t hthe exalted prase whlch IS e v e n on standing of how to control and dlrect your ernotlons and how
to develop wdl power so that you wall use your knowledge,
everv hand to the mothers of the natlon 1
once you have obtalned ~t
F ONLY B I R T H would ensure aoman's freedom from
Thts can be done by establlshmg schools for lads and
the recurrence of chance maternltyl But ~t does not
glrls, husbands and wlves, fathers and mothers throughout
The constant fear, anxlety, dread and even horror as each
the land N o end of ways suggest themselves as to how
month rolls by IS something which only those who have been
t h ~ smay be done, the Natlonal Congress of Mothers and
through at can tully reallze, and how few women there are Parent-Teacher Assoc~at~ons
1s one far-reachlng power for
who do not know t h ~ sfear1 Let us do our utmost to put
good
away such consuming wasteful mental anxlety, and bnng
mstead peace wlthm the marrlage bond Women want chlldren, yes, of course, but they want ch~ldrenborn at the
proper t m e and under the rlght c o n d ~ t ~ o nnot
s , when tlmes
are hard, not when the father 1s out of work or an ~nvahd,
and not when she, the mother, 1s a phys~calwreck and overwrought mentally In her struggle to keep allve and half way
decent the ch~ldrenalready here
Women, do you reallze what ~t means when we say
"The hlgher the blrth rate, the hlgher the death rate?"
Surely you see what a t r a g c and devastating waste of vltal
force ~t IS to glve b ~ r t hto chtldren that d ~ wlth
e
the first
breath or wlthln a few months after b ~ r t h1 Creatlve energy,
of whlch mother love IS part, 1s so powerful that ~t can
remove mountams, ~t behooves us, therefore, to understand
PUTTING THE CHICKEN BACK INTO THE SHELL
W
w
I
The Bwth Control Revtew
THE CRYING NEED FOR BIRTH CONTROL
By Ida W r g h t Mudgett
PART I
More than any other one determmng factor, the hmltlng
H E CONSEQUENCES of unchecked blrth, or on the of famlhes has a profound bearmg upon the h ~ g h e educatlon
r
other hand of blrth control, reach down mto every of the chlldren of the masses A man w ~ t ha llmrted Income
maln avenue of human affalrs T o the thmklng ob- cannot carry the burden of non-producmg chlldren for any
server there 1s hardly a human cond~tlon,soclal o r m d ~ v ~ d -great length of tlme Each younger born presses the older
ual, Into w h ~ c h~t does not force ~ t way
s and have ~ t deters
ones more speed~lyand surely out upon the labor market
m n m g mfluence
before they have finlshed even the elghth grade, to say
More than any other factor In soc~ahzedIlfe, surplus nothmg of the Hlgh School or Un~verslty
populatton determtnes the economlc status of the wageThe hlgher educatlon of the masses 1s pos~t~vely
necesearnmg class, who constitute the great majorlty of human- sary to thew well bemg T h e educated classes, because of
tty Where there are a large number of wage-earners com- thew superlor knowledge, contmually Impose upon the more
petlng for a lmlted supply of jobs, the wage scale 1s bound ~lllteratenumberless laws whlch are wholly to thew own
to be forced down t o the llmlt of subsistence A dense advantage and detrimental to the masses They contmually
population m a small area always means low wages and a nnpose customs, through soctal opprobr~um, that present
very low standard of hvmg for the masses and a corres- knowledge In the world, ~f attamable by the many, should
pondmg Increase of profit and means of tyranny for the long slnce have rel~evedthem of They perpetuate superprlvtleged classes When a poor man has a large famlly to stltlons that the masses, ~f possessed of the certaxn knowlsupport he cannot be too partlcular about the amount of edge now In the world, would long slnce have outgrown
wages he recemes, nor too partlcular m regard to the abuse Many superstltlons perslst, whlch are not much above the
Indlan myth of the Thunder Blrd In explammg phenomena
l allow 1n order to keep hls job
he w ~ l not
The above statement 1s equally true of the wage-earner of the Universe, and many ceremonies, not much above the
as a class Wttness the older countries-Chma, I n d ~ a ,etc Ind I n Snake Dance, or Ghost Dance The knowledge 1s
t e n~ghtmaredreams, but
-where the rabb~t-hkepopulat~on1s reduced to hopeless m the world now to d ~ s s ~ p a such
poverty and abject subserviency and then glance up through ~t 1s safely embalmed In techn~caltreatises and dead lanthe ascendmg scale to those countries where the populat~on guages, whlch only those w ~ t ha Unwerslty educatlon can
has not yet swarmed over every Inch of habitable ground rnterpret
s
means of Independence from landand thus cut off ~ t every
N O T H E R IMPORTANT bearmg too large famthes
lord or boss, thereby depr~vmgthe ~nhab~tants
of every
have upon the well bemg of poster~ty1s the lack of
sense of hberty, to say nothlng of opportunity A certam
proper development In the offsprmg, whether pre-natal o r
amount of space and contact wlth nature-unspoiled by
after blrth The pre-natal mfluence w ~ l lbe touched upon
man's art-1s md~spensableIn breedmg m the human bang
presently
the sense of llberty and human dlgn~ty
The first thmg that stares one In the face, In consldermg
That thC wage scale 1s controlled by the number of
t h ~ sphase of the subject, 1s the lack of proper care of the
b~ddersfor a stated number of jobs 15, In a measure, rllus- ch~ldrenof large famhes I t 1s next to lmposs~blefor a
trated by present labor condlt~ons On account of the large
poor mother burdened w ~ t hten o r twelve chddren to do
number of young men bemg taken from the labor market,
anythmg hke justlce to thew s~mplestneeds She IS over the
there are fewer men to compete for jobs and thus wages are
wash tub, the lronlng board, cookmg and baking, w~eldlng
continually ascendmg
the needle, niakmg, mendmg, darnmg clothes, or carmg for
YRANNIES, OLIGARCHIES, autocracies, are al- the frettmg younger members The older chrldren are playways based upon th~cklypopulated areas, democrac~es Ing tn the streets, p~ckmgup and d~ssemmatmgall kmds of
based upon areas where the mhabltants are m close touch bad hab~tsand diseases-hablts prohloltwe of proper musw ~ t hnature Over populat~onmeans many men blddlng for c u h r and nerve growth, d~seasesoften fatal to hod~lyhealth
proport~onatelyfew jobs, wh~ch111 turn means low wages The dehnquencles of 70% of the ch~ldrenIn Reformatories
and low standards of hvmg A low standard of hvmg means 1s due to street hvmg and playmg
an ever greater growth of Ignorance and superst~t~on
and
Moreover, ~t 1s practically lniposslble for the slender
consequent lnablllty to understand and defend popular r~ghts purse of the average wage-earner to cover the actual needs
and l~bertles
of a large famlly In the way of clothes and food H e cannot
The deslre of the prrv~legedclasses (clerical or secular) procure a properly balomcd ratloll for hls brood, and any
to keep In subordmatlon the masses, upon whose helpless- good stock-ralser can tell what that, long continued, w ~ l ldo
ness them spectal pr~vllegesand opportunltles depend, 1s one both to the present and future generations Theu clothtng
,
very often Into
reason why these classes are so vehement m thew opposltlon 1s cheap stuff w ~ t hno warmth In ~ tfash~oned
to b ~ r t hcontrol propaganda and so drasttc In thelr laws grotesque garments wh~chrender them a laughing-stock to
(Contttrrted on page ro)
concernmg rt
T
A
T
$10. Shares
$10. Shares
HELP SUPPORT THIS MAGAZINE
THE BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW
e now Incorporated, and the par value of the stock IS Ten Dollars, fully pad and non-assessable T o own a
share entads no Ilabrhty, but cames a vote on the pollcy of the Revlew The pnce of a share IS wthm the
reach of all Invest $10, $20, $30-as many as you can s p a r t a n d help bnng birth control wthm the
reach of the masses
The people must be
911th control has been nusrepresented by 1ts opponents W e must undo that wok
educated, and the Renew 1s the best meBum through whch ths can be accomplished
I For further ~nformabonr t e to
Send check or money order to
Mn. Frances B. Ackerman, Treas.
104 Fifth Avenue
New York Gty
I1
Margaret Sanger
104 Fifth Avenue
New York City
EDUCATION WILL BRING EMANCIPATION
Stat.
Follomng are the names of
our fight 6 your name here"
Frances B Ackermann
Jessre Ashley
Julret Rublee
Mrs Mary B Knoblauch
Elizabeth W Colt
Manon Cothren
Natronal B ~ r t hControl League
Jonah J Goldstem
Vrrgrnra H Lawrence
MIS A B C S t e m t t
Chrrstran Anderson
Kate W Baldwn, M D
Brrth Control League of Mass
Mrs A A Brown
Elma Zum Bmnnen
M n C a m e L Carleton
Bryan Chance
Mrs G M Clark
Rabbi Rudolph I Coffee
Mras C A Dana
MISS Ella Davls
Charlotte Delafield
M ~ s sK S Drerer
Jessre 0 Drummond
MISS Ethel L Eblrng
Amy Walker Fleld
August M Fless
M n Florence Fowler
MISS Mlnn~eFr~edman
Mr Everett S Gardrner
area
those who are help~ngm
New York
10
New York
10
New York
10
New York
6
New York
5
New York
6
New York
5
New York
2
New York
2
Dlstnct of Columh~a 2
Washrngton
1
Pennsylvanm
1
Massachusetts
1
New York
1
Mmesota
1
New York
1
Kaneas
1
New York
1
Illrnola
1
New York
1
New York
1
New York
1
New York
1
New York
1
New York
1
Dlstr~ctof Columbla 1
New York
1
New York
1
New York
1
Calffornm
1
Mrs Anne D Geller
MIS A M Greene
Mrss Maw B H ~ g g m s
MIS Cense Cannan Jack
Adele Kellnor
Lourse W Kneeland
Marron May
Bertha Row Mrller
M J McAhster
MIS Emma Morse
MIS H Nunsbaum
John Orth
MIS W B Pendleton
John P ~ n t a l
Mrs Ponsonby Ogle
Mrs Julre G Porter
Ehzabeth Morse Redheffer
Mrs Elrzabeth M Remlck
Katherine N Romer
Margaret Sanger
Bessre M Sertz
Mr Alfred Sterner
Mr Frank Stephenson
Dr Edlth Hale S d t
MISS Elsa Thlele
MIS K ~ t t yTomklns
Florence C Wlutney
Mrs A E Wxll~ama
Mrs Fannre Willlams
Dr Mary A W h
Mlaa Ellen Wrmor
Mrs Grover C Wolfe
Dr Jenme Young
8t.k
8h.r-
New York
New York
New York
Massachusetts
New York
New York
New York
Dlstnct of Columbra
West Vlrpnla
New York
Texan
Massachusetts
Kentucky
New York
Massachusetts
Calrfornra
Ill~nors
New York
New York
New York
Oh10
Cahfornla
Pennsylvania
Masaachusetts
New York
New York
New York
New York
New York
New Jersey
Pennaylvanur
Pannsylvanm
New Jeraey
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
The Bwth Control Remew
EDITORIAL COMMENT
N THE MEANTIME the wal has opened our eyes In
H E r E D E R A L CHILD LABOR LAW has been
stdl other ways to the appalling c o n d ~ t ~ oofn our youth,
declared unconst~tutional and therefore v o ~ d T h ~ s
fact has been met by expresvons of restrained ind~gnat~on the selectwe draft has shown physical, mental and nervous
throughout the country I n d ~ g n a t ~ omust
n
be restramed affl~ct~ons
due to neglect In ch~ldhood Neglect caused by
these days when ~t 1s d~rectedagamst any funct~onof the poverty produces 111-nounshed ch~ldren,stunted ch~ldren,
rederal Government But In this case even restramed In- feeble-mmded chddren Ignorance and stupidity create too
d ~ g n a t ~ omay
n be mstaken The five learned just~cesof the many chrldren An e p ~ d e m ~
ofc effort to remedy and abol~sh
Supreme Court, who rendered the major~tyopinlon, may
theye thmgs by leg~slat~on
has sprung into existence C h n m
poss~blyh a l e done a real sertlce to the ch~ldhoodof the
and m ~ l k statlolls are bemg establ~shed, educat~on for
s
once more before the people for
nation by brmgrng t h ~ case
mothers
provided, health exammation enforced, labor laws,
study and d~scussion For ~t was at best a weak and mademothers'
pensions, day nurseries all expermented with-the
quate law u ~ t hwh~cht o meet so great an evil as ch~ldlabor
t as long as your arm Everyone is patr~ot~cally
shoutd meet t h ~ evil
s squarely w ~ t hdownright proh~b~tion l ~ s 1s
It d ~ not
even w t h m ~ t llmited
s
sphere, but prov~dedthat no goods mg ' S a l e the bab~es" But when sober common sense sugm ~ g h tbe transported from one state to another ~f these gests that this pest of 111-conditioned ch~ldrencould best be
goods were produced In a factory In w h ~ c hwithin thirty cured by a sane l m t a t t o n of offspring by contraceptive
days of the removal of the goods, ch~ldrenunder fourteen methods, fear and Ignorance mamfest themselves, fear so
years of age had been employed or chddren between four- strange and Ignorance so appallmg as to be pos~t~vely
d~steen and s~xteenyears of age had been employed or per- maymg Those who work hardest to "save the bab~es"look
m~ttedto work more than e ~ g h thours m any day, o r more w ~ t h coldness upon the least suggestion of savmg the
than SIX days in any week or after the hours of seven p m
mothers from h~deouslyfrequent b ~ r t h s
o r before SIX a m In the "Survey" of June 8th ~t rs stated
Ch~ldrenmust not work, but parents may not be helped
that ~f fully enforced t h ~ slaw would have removed about
to l m t the number of their ch~ldrento those they can care
150,000 ch~ldrenfrom ~ndustry,but would still leave 1,850,000 chddren to emploved A patently madequate remedy for In health and decency I t is not mmoral nor ~llegalto
even ~f allowed to stand The d~fficulty1s that the Federal brmg helpless young5ters Into the world to slave and rot and
Government is not In a posltion to deal properly with ch~ld die, ~t 1s not ~mmoralnor ~llegalto eke out the fam~lyinlabor, because laws of t h ~ ssort interfere with home rule In come by the use of baby hands, but ~t 1s cr~mmalto tell a
the states Nevertheless, there IS a way to deal w ~ t hnat~onal woman how to protect her health and strength and that of
e v ~ l sor w ~ t hsuch matters as should be nat~onalin t h e ~ r her fam~lyby l ~ m ~ t mthe
g number of pregnancies Civ~lized
character I t was not d~fficultto amend the federal Constl- people cry out agamst ch~ldlabor and are md~gnantwhen a
t u t ~ o nin such a way thzt a federal lncome tax became pos- clumsy, meffectwe law 1s thrown upon the scrap heap, but
sible If LJncle Sam can go after the lncomes of his people, think ~t qulte all r ~ g h tto send Margaret Sanger to j a ~ lfor
why can't he go after those who make money from the toll telling a woman how to prevent conception when she already
of chddren 7 It should not be harder to pass an amendment has several poor httle candidates for the factor~estugging
to the Cons& ltlon that would permlt national laws to be
at her s k ~ r t s If each fam~lywele hm~tedto the number
enacted so framed as to save the nat~on'schildren from the
that could be reared In health and comfort, there would be
joyless houtes of ~ndustry,save them not only from factories, but f ~ o mmmes and sweat shops and even from over- no need for chdd labor laws, federal o r otherwise, but desn o ~ km then own homes Chddren are often stunted and peratelv poor parents need the extra wages that them little
dulled by long hours of farm work o r by the care of younger tots can earn and so they ]om hands w ~ t hemployers in
opposmg all leglslat~onthat would tahe these pennies away
sisters and brothers Generous mmded m d ~ v ~ d u a land
s
amable socreties have put years of work and pots of gold R ~ c hparents do not send t h e ~ rch~ldrento the factor~eso r
Into ch~ldwelfare leg~slat~on,
yet child labor and child de- the mmes, ~t 1s the poor parents whose l~ttlech~ldrenneed
world that makes ~t a
gradat~on,child starvation dnd child imbecll~tycont~nuein protect~on I t IS a strange, ~llog~cal
giant proportlolls If ch~ldlabor 1s a bad thing and there crlme to teach the prevention of concept~onand encourages
can be but l~ttledoubt that it Is, then we should demand an people to breed like rabbits and then makes no decent prog of t h ~ ssort vis~onfor the swarms of httle tots that come tumbhng Into
amendment to the ~ o n s t ~ t u ? ~p oe rnm ~ t t ~ nlaws
a sad world
to be enacted
T
I
10
T H E CRYING NEED F O R B I R T H CONTROL
(Contmued from page 7)
thew more fortunate schoolmates and playfellows T h ~ s
hurts thew p r ~ d e afeelmg of then own worth that all
chddren naturally h a v e a n d eventually subordmates them
In thew own mmds to chrldren of a better outward showmg
So, when they are grown t h e ~ rprlde 1s dead, and they become the sycophants, the apolog~sts,and the crmgers before
the s ~ l khat and the gloved hand
Such cli~ldrengenerally have no refinlng surroundmgs
In t h e ~ rhomes Only a httle cheap furniture, crowdmg In
lwmg rooms, and worse In bedrooms, bad smells from cookmg cheap food, the quarrelmg that 1s always gomg on among
a large number of ch~ldrenherded together, when not properly amused, no good books, nor qulet to read them, no good
muslc, nor shdl In the household to play ~t, no refinlng home
entertamment of any kmd, no enl~ghtenmgand educatmg
conversations between father and mother, such as take place
between parents In a more le~suredhome, nothmg, absolutely nothmg, of an elevatrng character No caresses, no
rndwdual care and Interest from mother to older chdd so
necessary to the blossommg of ~ t spmtual
s
hfe The mother's
l~ttletlme from household drudgery must be 'wen to the
younger members
T h ~ s~ d e aassociates rtself w ~ t hanother aspect of the
problem-the bltter ~ n j u s t ~ ctoe the women of the poor, who
are compelled to be the mothers of enormous famllles What
tlme ha\e they for any mental development, or to keep what
they m~glithave had before they were martled?
T o gwe of t h e ~ rbody substance for the bu~ldrngof ten,
twelve, fourteen ch~ldren,to face such a number of tlmes
the stram and agony of chdd-b~rth, always Inadequately
supported and sustamed durmg the ordeal, never a first
class surgeon who understands the merc~fuluse of chloroform, never a tramed nurse who understands the absolute
necessrty of antlseptrc cleanhness No proper rest In bed
after the awful tr~al,always a bunch of crymg, exactmg
dependents maklng demands upon the weakened hands, the
achmg back, the trembhng loms So she 1s up long before
she should be makmg dn effort to meet those demands
What chance has such a woman, I say, to retam any mdlvldual~ty,do any thrnkmg, feed any artlst~csense, keep her
s p ~ r ~ t u amtegr~ty?
l
None whatever
I n the "good old t~mes"when women were supposed not
to have any souls, thls was all very well, but now that ~t 1s
adm~ttedthat they have at least prov~s~onal
souls, thlngs
should be so arranged that each and every woman could have
the p r o p u enwronment In wh~chto develop herself
Just compare the wives of the wage-earnlng class, at the
age of fifty, wtth the wrves of the prlv~legedclass at the
same age Observe the difference In mtellectual attarnment,
phjsical prcser%a:lon, dgruly of oearmg, between them
And remember that that whlch IS between them 1s the accldent of brrth contmued through several generations I f ~t
1s absolutely necessary that the greater part of one sex shall
be crushed, everythmg of a refinmg nature refused expresston, all mdlv~duahzmgq u a l ~ t ~ esmothered
s
out, r f such a
montsrous sacr~ficeIS necessary for the perpetuation of the
The Bwth Control R m e w
race, then it 1s not worth preservmg W e had better q u ~ t
and glve the world over to the lower animals
Don't m~sunderstand There 1s nothmg so refin~ng,so
spmtuahzmg, as mother-love when the mother has tlme and
strength to mdlv~duahzeher chddren, to caress them, to
fondle them, to nurse them at her breast, to mstruct and
educate them, and develop herself while and through developmg them But when she IS snnply a breeder, forced to
push each httle one aslde, w ~ t hhardly tune to press one
caress upon ~ t httle
s
hands, watch one blossomtng look of
mtell~genceappear upon ~ t face,
s
observe one smde of baby
recogmtlon glven to her-when, I repeat, she has to push
~t a s ~ d eto make room for the next and agam the next, there
1s no development In t h ~ s there
,
1s just retrogression
( T o be concluded)
NOTE
The August number of t h ~ smagazme w ~ l appear
l
In the
mlddle of summer, at a tlme when many readers are away
on them vacations and a c t ~ v ~ i ~
ofe sall kmds are parttally
suspended Consequently, we have dec~dedto put out an
elght-page Issue Wlth the September number, however,
we shall return to our regular slxteen-page slze-EDITORS
Do not waste your t m e on soc~alquesttons What 1s
the matter w ~ t hthe poor 1s Poverty, what 1s the matter w ~ t h
the r ~ c hIS uselessness -George Bernard Shaw
HIS HEAD ABOVE T H E C W U D S
The Bwth Control R m r v
I!
BIRTH CONTROL AND SOCIAL SERVICE
By Clara Taylor
I
H A V E BEEN ASKED to write an a r t d e on the recent
Nat~onalSoc~alServ~ceConference at Kansas C ~ t y and
,
to state whether the above ment~onedorgamzat~onhad
grounds for advocatmg fam~lyIumtat~on,and ~f so, was the
subject ~ncludedIn ~ t program?
s
After worktng seven ycars In the capactty of soc~al
worker and nurse, gomg among the work~ngclass famhes,
some of u hom are poverty str~ckenw h ~ l eothers are on the
border lme of poverty, I cannot understand how soc~al
workers can pretend they are domg constructwe work ~f
they do not mclude fam~lyI ~ m ~ t a t ~mo nt h e ~ rprogram I
am compelled to say that most soc~alworkers are sat~sfied
w ~ t h"patchwork" and close thew eyes t o the real Issue
However, there m g h t be a broad field for educat~ngthe socalled soc~alworkers and openmg t h e ~ eyes
r
to supplement the Income Consequently the Chanty Organ~zatlonhas to help a l~ttlemore t h ~ stlme
What 1s the worker's hope? She looks forward to the
t m e when Johnn~eo r Mary, who 1s now th~rteenyears old,
1s fourteen so that he or she can get a p e r m t to go to work
The soc~alworker wlll find a job, where the h ~ l dcan earn
about $4 per week and augment the famdy income The
chtld 1s not cons~dered,but ~t should be, as ~t 1s the ctttzen
of thc future 2nd should be glven a good educat~onand
therehy a chance to do better than ~ t father
s
If Johnny and
Mary were better educated, they would see the need of
h a v ~ n gIn their turn just so many ch~ldrenas they could
properly brmg up Thereby they would elmmate the necess t y of hav~ngto call on the Chanty Organ~zatlonfor help
and these orgdnizat~onswould gradually go out of exlstence
But soc~alworkers do not w ~ s hto have these organlzatlons
go out of exlstence, as it would mean a scarclty of posltlons
Mary never has had sufficient food and has been unable
to attend school regularly, because she was the oldest of the
large f a m ~ l yand had to stay home at d~fferentrntemals
Mother was slck, or the baby was s~ck,and mother had to
take h m to the d~spensaryand Mary had to mmd the other
ch~ldren At the age of fourteen, she had to leave school
and go to work to help supplement the Income What wdl
she be able to do and what w ~ l her
l earnlng capaclty be?
There 1s really no questlon as to whether the Soc~alSerConference had grounds for advocating fam~lyIumtatlon Any worker who has ever been sent out by a Chanty
Organtzat~onsoclety to make a home ~nvestlgatlonand finds
the average-s~zedfam~lyof e~ght,SIX ch~ldrenand husband
and w ~ f e ,hvmg In one room and k~tchen-the father slck,
but not too sick to have more ch~ldren,the mother only
t h ~ r t y\ears of age, and the c h ~ l d ~ eunderfed
n
and w~thout
proper clothmg-immed~ately begms to wonder how to get
mformation on b ~ r t hcontrol, to prevent addmg more mouths
HE BEGINS A S a cash g ~ r lat $3 a week and when she
to t h ~ sfam~ly Workers who have had the above experience
reaches the age of e~ghteenshe earns $8 per week,
came to the conference and took part In the d~scuss~ons,
but
wh~ch,for a person w ~ t hher educat~on,IS considered a good
not a nard Wac s a ~ don the subject of b ~ r t hcontrol
salary She 1s not able to buy "hfe" on $8 a week The
I shall base my arguments for fam~lylnn~tationon t h ~ e e
fam~lylwe In two rooms and a k~tchen Mary has no place
papers wluch were read at the conference, where b ~ r t hconto brmg her "gentlemen fr~ends,"as her home always 1s
trol would have been a most mportant Issue tf the social
d ~ r t yand upset, t h ~ sbemg due to the many people l ~ v ~ n~ng
workers senously meant to do constructwe work One
ao few rooms Mary 1s young and wants to Iwe, w h ~ c hshe
paper was on "The R e h a b ~ l ~ t a t ~ofo nthe Fam~ly," another
has a r q h t to do, but what has the community prepared for
was on "Juven~le Courts and Del~nquent G~rls,"and the her, There are publ~cdance halls and demoral~zedmovles,
t h ~ r don "Ch~ldren's W o r k " 1 he last paper was read by
but she cannot go to these places as often as she would l ~ k e
Sally Lucas Jean, of the People's Instttute of New York, tt
She cannot afford ~ tand
, naturally 1s glad to accept an offer
was the most ~ l l u m ~ n a t and
~ n g msplrlng, as ~t began w ~ t hthe
from any "gentleman fnend" to go out with h m to any
chdd and seemed to lead lo better future cltlzens
publ~cplace--dance hall, plcntc or p~ctureshow The results
I R S T I SHALL DISCUSS the paper on 'The Rehabk- we all know she becomes a delmquent girl Who produced
? to have taught Mary's mother to pretatlon of the F a m ~ l y" By what methods does the soc~al t h ~ sc o n d ~ t ~ o nYet
vent
havtng
more
than three chddren, whtch she could have
worker a m to help the famtly to help themselves? There
brought up properly, would have been a crunmal act
are SIX ch~ldren,the oldest not yet twelve years of age, the
The next paper was "Juven~le Courts and Delinquent
father's earntng capacity 1s enly $12 o r $14 a week and his
work 1s only seasonal The father has very l~ttleeducat~on, G ~ r l s " The reader already knows the orlgln of some dehavmg gotten as far as the Fourth Grade ~n the P u h l ~ c lmquent g d s , now we shall see other sources of delmquency
Schools, and so has \cry l~ttlechance to compete w ~ t hbetter The paper contamed the followmg definrt~on
"Ch~ldren from broken homes, the mother or father
s of effic~ency When h ~ work
s
gves
educated men 111 t h ~ day
out, the Chanty Organ~zatmn1s called on for a ~ and
d helps has e ~ t h e rd ~ e do r deserted the fam~ly"
u n t ~ the
l father 1s agam able to resume his work A year o r
It 1s a well known fact that many men desert then
so later, the famdy 1s agam forced to call on the organ~zat~on famhes when thew wlves are pregnant When the father
for help There 1s probably another mouth t o feed and the leaves, the mother, although s ~ c kand ~ r r ~ t a b lhas
e , to go to
mother 1s unable to take ~n occas~onalwashmg as in the past work and consequently the ch~ldrenare left e ~ t h e rwlth all
vice
S
F
The Bwth Control Review
older brother o r slster of twelve or th~rteenyears of age,
who 1s too young to work, or w ~ t ha ne~ghborwho has too
many ch~ldrenof her own properly to care for them W h ~ l e
the mother 1s at work, the th~rteen-year-oldbrother w ~ l lrun
out w ~ t h111s playmates and leave the other ch~ldren W e
all know the envlronment In wh~chthese chddren h e and
what they are able to do m the congested d ~ s t r ~ c t sThe next
thing we hear IS, that Johnny has stolen f r u ~ tfrom the
grocery stand Stealmg coal from the ra~lroad tracks IS
just a matter of course, as mother needed the coal and
probably sent h ~ r nthere herself Whlle at the ra~lroad
tracks, Johnny meets other boys, who, hke h~mself,had gone
there to steal only coal, and they discover a carload of food
and help themselves, as a result, Johnny IS now a case for
the Juven~leCourt T o ha\e taught Johnny's mother how
to take care of herself so she wouldn't get pregnant so often
and to keep Johnny's father at home would have been cons~dereda cr~mmalact
IVe, also, must not forget the thousands of mothers who
d ~ every
e
year as a result of ch~ldb~rtli,
because they were
p h y s ~ c a l lexhausted
~
from nursmg and carrymg the unborn
ch~ld,bes~deshavmg to care for too large a fam~lyand not
havmg sufhclent proper food when she needed ~t most The
result of t h ~ s1s motherless ch~ldrenwho grow up w~thout
proper gu~danceand who const~tutea large number of
Ju\en~leCourt cases and del~nquentg ~ r l s
I n the paper read by MISSR ~ p p mshe
, gave an account of
twelve hundred g ~ r l s ,most of whom came from broken
homes, large famhes, and who had left grammar school
when they were somewhere between the second and e~ghth
grades MISSR p p m s a ~ dthat most of the g ~ r l were
s
br~ght,
but on account of some rn~sfortuneIn the home, they were
retarded pup~ls Out of the twelve hundred g r l s referred
to, the greater number earned between $6 and $8 a week
Only three out of t h ~ slarge group earned $19 a week and
these were show g ~ r l s W e all know the envlronment In
wh~chthese g d s live, and nothmg can be expected of them
but delinquency 111 the course of t ~ m e
The last paper was M ~ s sJean's paper She advocated
lunches for all school ch~ldren T h ~ spaper was the most
hopeful and made one feel that h l ~ s sJean held the key to
the salvation of the future generatton Her conclus~ons,
howe\er, were somewhat d~sappomtmg,because even ~f a
chdd IS given a good lunch for nme months, t h ~ sdoes not
solve the entlre problem wh~chfaces the workmgman's ch~ld
If the father 1s only able to earn 814 a week and there are
t
chddren, IS a dally luncheon at the
from five to e ~ g h other
school gomg to brmg about the ult~materesults we would
hke to have?
ANSWERS TO MR. LLOYD
E d ~ t o r s"BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW '
EJOINDERS HAVING been u n ~ t e dby the REVIEW
to the letter by Mr J W m Lloyd, of Westfield, N J ,
whtch appeared In ~ t June
s
Issue, I beg to subm~ta
few observdt~ons,prefacmg them w ~ t hrecogmtlon of the
excellent spmt of M r Lloyd's communlcatlon, so d~fferent
f loin the abuse In wh~chcrltlclsm of b~rth-controlfrequently
abounds
FIRST M r Lloyd says that nature 1s a pretty good
gu~de,and that nature made b ~ r t hlnstrnctlve and w~thheld
lnst~nct~ve
knowledge of b~rth-control But M r Lloyd seems
to forget that human evolut~on,~n an nnportant aspect, 1s
the record of the lncreaslng control of knowledge over Ignorance, of reason over lnstmct, of del~berat~on
over ~mpulse-consists, In short, of improvement upon nature Left to h ~ s
Instincts, man would be a savage By the cult~vat~on
of hls
h ~ g h e rnature, by the ascendancy of mmd over body, by the
sacr~ficeof present pleasure to larger future good, man becomes c ~ v ~ h z e d
S ~ C O N DThe vast areas of unpopulated and unproductlve land throughout the world furn~shno argument, In
themselves, for increase of populat~on I t 1s only when the
populat~onand development of new terrltory are accompanled by mdlv~dualexcellence and mdustr~alfreedom, on
the palt of the new mhabltants, that such expansion 1s d e w able M r Lloyd m ~ g h tas rat~onally d e s ~ r eto have the
world's over-crowded cltles expand yet further, slums and
all
THIRD it4r Lloyd names a long 1 s t of reforms (all of
wh~chthe unders~gnedhappens to favor as much as he),
and says that these are vastly more important than brrthcontrol Rut 1s not t h ~ sputtmg the cart before the horse?
Did he ever stop to cons~derthat progresslve pol~ciesdepend
upon progresswe people, and that progresslve people are the
product of moral and s p ~ r ~ t u forces
al
that gather strength
just In proportlon that phys~calappetites and selfish ambltlons are held tn abeyance or neutral~zed-that a progresslve
can never sprmg from
people, w ~ t hprogresslve mst~tut~ons,
the Ignorance and poverty wh~chthe practlce of b~rth-control
would so materially lessen'
FOURTH M r Lloyd says that b~rth-controlIS negative,
not pos~tne,and that the slogan should be, not "Fewer and
better ch~ldren,"but "More and better chddren " But he IS
golng too fast There cannot be more and better children
u n t ~ lthere are first fewer and better ch~ldren H e Ignores
the fact that everywhere, and at all tlmes, both In nature and
In human soclety, quahty 1s and must be at the expense of
qnantlt) I t any glven tlme, there are only so much knowledge
and vlrtue poss~ble,and when thew content 1s mcreased
Frecdom is so splcnd~da thmg that one cannut wui tidy
In
the
~nd~vidual,
the number of ~ n d ~ v ~ d u exemphfymg
als
state ~t In the terms of a defin~tlon, one has to umte In some
them
must
relat~vely
be
d~mrn~shed
flammg svrnbol or smg ~t In a muslc rlotous w ~ t hthe uproar
of heaven -Padratc H Pearse
I F T H hlR LLOYD shares the prevalent but rn~staken
* * *
behef that b~rth-controltends to so-called "race-su~c~de
"
Ignorance and prudery are the m~llstonesabout the necks But he seems to forget that the same cond~t~ons
that produce
of progress -Judge Wm N Gatens, of Portland, Ore
fewer b ~ r t h salso reduce the death-rate m at least equal de-
R
F
The Bwth Control Revtern
gree, so that the net result In the d ~ r e c t ~ oofn "race-su~c~de"
1s ntl
SIXTH Speakmg absolutely, ~t 1s doubtless true, as M r
Lloyd says, that none of the contraceptwes advocated by the
b~rth-control~stsis mfalhble But experience shows that,
when properly manufactured and properly used, they are
not only harmless but preventlve In a vast major~tyof cases
and w ~ l M
l r Lloyd say that, because they are not efficac~ous
In every case, they should not be used as w~delyas poss~ble7
T o apply such a princrple generally would put an end to all
soc~alreform
SLVENTH The fact that b~rth-control1s already pract ~ s e dlargely among the better educated and more wealthy
classes, and frequently for selfish reasons, 1s hardly an argument for ~ t d~scouragement
s
among the classes wh~chneed
~t most, where, as a matter of fact, most of the b~rth-control
propaganda 1s found The fact that a good thmg 1s abused
In a lim~tedclass of soc~ety1s no reason why ~t should not
be encouraged among the masses
EIGHTH I t IS qulte true that the use of contraceptlves
tends to mar the "romance" of the sexual relat~ons The
u n d e r s p e d has no doubt that, w ~ t hthe progress of the
race, such relat~ons,except for the purpose of ch~ldren,w ~ l l
gradually d ~ m ~ n ~ sBut
h u n t ~ lmen and women are suffic~entlyspmtual~zedto find marrlage useful and happy w ~ t h
only occas~onalmdulgences, ~t behooves them to mlnlmlze
the unfortunate consequences to themselves and to the commonwealth, to be found In present reckless practlces, and
b~rth-control furn~shesthem the most rat~onalmeans for
the accompl~shmentof t h ~ great
s
and good end Better less
poverty-whether phjs~cal,mtellectual, moral, or spmtual
- e v e n at the expense of less "romance "
w ~ i ethe thought and care he bestows upon h ~ lwestock
s
and
he 1s equallv ~ndifferentto her mental and spmtual state
H e has even made laws and under protest refuses to abollsh
them, w h e r e h ~she 1s kept In Ignorance and 1s compelled to
reproduce whether she wants to or not, as though the matter
were no concern of hers
M r Lloyd says most women do understand preventive
method4 as "knowledge of that kmd penetrates far and w ~ d e
beneath the surface " Why should knowledge that 1s r ~ g h t
and necessary be compelled to seek underground channels, a
thmg to be spoken of In wh~spers? Why be proud to state
that most women are lawbreakers-or is he ashamed of the
law? I have not known that he IS workmg to have it abolshed But he m~stakes Why all these c l ~ n ~ and
c s publ~catlons, the arrests and lads, the lecture tours, the plea for a
free press, ~f women already know? Why the thousands of
women dymg annually of abort1011and harmful practlces lf
preventwe methods were generally known? Why all the
orphan asylums and lmmense famihes hvmg squal~dly,~f
preventlve methods are understood? Many do not know
They have no way of know~ng,especially ~f they are poor
and uneducated 01 In remote places, and these are the women
who most need help But, I am glad to say that there are In
existence safe, cheap, eas~lyprocured preventives and they
are not the "undependable, ~ n j u r ~ o uth~ngs"
s
M r Lloyd
says they are Why all t h ~ stumult? Why all the opposltlon Why so much ado about nothing? Because they DO
prevent and that 1s why that, freed from overbreedmg,
parents can thmk more, read more, work more mdependently, l ~ v ea less explo~tedlife, that 1s why woman, awake at
last, 1s askmg Why should I have a chdd I do not want or
one I cannot prov~defor?
I N 1 H MR LLOYD d~fferent~ates
b~rth-controlfrom
S T O T H E "lack of poetry and romance of the sex
eugenrs, and expresses far more confidence m the
relat~on" where preventives are used--oh' that every
latter But, after all, b~rth-control1s only one form of
woman In the world had for a moment the fabled g.lft of
eugenics, and the true eugen~stwtll hardly fa11to appreciate
t man know for once what h ~ s
tongues so that they m ~ g h let
the Important aid w h ~ c hb~rth-control offers hun In h ~ s
unbndled, ~rrespons~ble,
brut~shlust has done to her "poetry
efforts for t n d ~ v ~ d u and
a l soc~alwell-bemg
and romance" slnce the world began! V ~ c t ~ mofs force
I n a tlme hke the present, when the spmt of mtolerance
often of drunken fury, often compelled to yteld for duty's
1s abroad In the land, ~t 1s refreshmg to find a man hke M r
sake, for love's sake, at every convenient and mconvenlent
Lloyd, so mbued w ~ t hthe spmt of democracy as to des~re
season, exhausted by muscular f a t ~ g u eor nervous exhausthe repeal of all laws c u r t a h g a propaganda to wh~chhe
t ~ o n ,111 w ~ t hrecent o r advancmg matermty, no phys~cal
has serlous object~ons The land needs more true Amer~cans
response, a spmtual loathmg, a mental d~sgust,terror~zedby
hke h ~ m who
,
have not forgotten that free speech 1s of the
the poss~brl~ty
of another unwelcome maternity, endurrng
essence of Amer~can~sm
the forced embrace of a husband she has long ceased to love
Yours for hberty and progress,
or respect, told that ~f she refuses, "some other woman
K EPLER H OYT
won't," financ~allydependent, a dozen chtldren perhaps alY DEAR M R S SANGER read> on hand to be prov~dedfor And now the "romance
The June letter of f W ~ l l ~ a mLloyd
s
her before me
and poetry ' of the average marrted par's sex matters, are
M r Llojd does not seem to have really thought much about
held up to us as a very real and wonderful thmg that 1s apt
s
crltlclsms are more than tmged
the matter and h ~ rambltng
to be jeopard~zedi f the overburdened, unresponsrve w ~ f e
w ~ t hthe str~ctlymasculine pomt of vlew Smce woman has
should happen to know about a compound procurable at the
the ch~ef(and often all) the burdens of parentage t o bear
corner drug store L ~ f e1s short and ~t seems to me that a
I cons~derthe matter absolutely her own to dec~de Does
few cents of monej and a l~ttlesanltary care are qu~ckerand
M r Lloyd know that the average man has no real~zat~on
more effectwe than makmg a man over from the ground up
whatever of what a woman must undergo at c h ~ l d b ~ r nor
th
In the months precedmg H e seldom grants the pregnant
C LARKE
L ULU MACCLURE
N
M
A
The Btrth Control Rmew
THE MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE TODAY
By C
V Drysdale D S c
(Contmued from the last Issue)
.
Blrth-, Death and Survlval Rates m Varlous Countries
(Average 1906 10)
ATURAILY, some deduct~ons must be made from thls
extreme case, although ~tshould be noted that no multlple
blrths have been reckoned, and no smaller ~ n t e ~ a than
ls
two years between blrths About five per cent-not more--may
be deducted for lnfantlle mortahty, and perhaps twenty-five per
cent for ccl~bacy,stenhty, etc , although both these latter should
be very small d economlc condlt~onsperm~ttedgeneral early
marnage, and w ~ t h~tthe almost complete ehmlnat~onof venereal
dlsease However, makmg a total deduct~onof t h ~ r t yper cent
for these vanous causes, our five and a half per cent lncrease
per year 1s reduced to four per cent, whch means doubllng every
seventeen and a half years, very much more rap~dlythan assumed by Malthus
N
Bmth rate
per l 000
Death rate
per 1 000
Survwsl rate No of Y u n
per 1000
to Double
Australla
26 7
10 7
16 0
43 7
Austrla
Belg~um
Bulgana
Ceylon
Chlll
Denmark
England and Wales
Fxnland
France
Malthus claimed that m the Northern States of Amenca, German Emp~re
where food was more easlly obtainable than m Europe, the popu- Hungary
latlon had continually doubled Itself m less than twenty-five Ireland
years As Malthus pointed out, the death-rate m those tlmes Italy
was much h~gherthan ~tshould be under the best economrc con- Jamalca
d ~ t ~ o n There
s
was certa~nlya considerable defic~encyof women, Japan
and a f a ~ amount
r
of cel~bacyeven among these, caused by the Netherlands
dlfficult~esof Me In a new country There can be no reasonable New Zealand
doubt that with better condlt~onathe populatlon would have Norway
rlsen st111 more rapldly
Ontarlo
In h ~ excellent
s
Offic~alYear Book of the Commonwealth of PRlss~a
Austraha, Mr G H Kn~bbshas e v e n dmgram as regards the Roumanla
lncrease of populat~on,showrng that from 1860 to 1890 the rate Russ~a*
of lncrease was eren faster than that o i the Unlted States a t ~ t s Scotland
Serb~a
perlod of most rapld lncrease (from 1790 to 1860) In t h ~ case,
s
however, the net lncrease by lmmlgratlon was an important part Spam
of the total, averagmg about twenty-seven per cent of ~tbetween Sweden
Smtzerland
1861 and 1913 On the other hand, the blrth-rate has fallen
rap~dlyIn Austraha from about 1865, so that the lmmlgrat~on Un~tedK~ngdom
has not probably done more than make up for the reduct~onof Unlted States
b ~ r t h s Th~s,of course, 1s only guesswork, but the Amencan ex- I n d ~ a t
penence seems concluswely to prove that the natural unchecked
It w ~ l lbe not~ced,of course, that the rates of lncrease are
rate of Increase of populat~onwould follow a geometncal law,
as clalmed by Malthus, and at an even greater rate than that now all of them far below that glven by Malthus, and thls may
seem to some people to lust~fythose who, hke Henry George,
l a ~ ddown by h ~ m
pretended that reproduct~onwould automat~callytend to adjust
Increase of Populat~onfrom Bmth and Death-rates-In a
~tselfto the means of ex~stence But thls content~onwas an
country In wh~chthe loss or galn of people by m~gratlon1s very absolute absurd~ty There seems to be no ev~dencewhatever
small, the rate of lncrease In each year 1s ev~dentlygot by sub- that the human race 1s los~ng~ t unrestncted
s
f e r t ~ h t yto any
tractmg the de~th-ratefrom the blrth-rate, wh~chglves us the Important extent If the women of the present tlme were all to
rate of survival, or of "natural lncrease " For mstance, In our marry a t an early age and have chlldren mthout any attempt a t
there 1s no just~ficat~on
m supposing that the birthown country the blrth-rate for the last few years has been some- restr~ct~on,
where about twenty-four per thousand, whlle the death-rate has rate would be any less than the hlghest known m any country
been about fourteen T h ~ means
s
that for every thousand people a t any perlod
m the country there have been twenty-four brrths and fourteen
N RUSSIA, u n t ~ la few years ago, the blrth-rate was nearly
deaths, leavmg ten add~tlonsto the thousand people, or an mconstant a t fifty per thousand, and m Ca~ro
and Alexandria t h ~ s
crease of one per cent In the year If the blrth- and death-rates
were steady a t these figures, and lf there were no m~gratlon,the figure 1s st111 ma~ntalned T h ~ s1s endently considerably below
populatlon would lncrease every year by one per cent, or a t one the maxlmum possrble, owlng to the amount of dlsease and
per cent compound Interest It can be proved that a sum of cel~bacywh~chIS forced on all rapldly breedlng countnes by
money put out a t one per cent compound Interest doubles ltseli economlc pressure When we see that the bulk of cmnhzed
s
~t
In about seventy years, a t two per cent In 70 d ~ n d e dby 2 equals countr~esnow have blrth-rates of only about half t h ~ figure,
has caused people to put off or
35 years, a t three per cent In 70 dlnded by 3 equals 23 1/3 years, means that them ~ntell~gence
and so on So that m the Un~tedK~ngdom,a t the present rate, avo~dmarnage, In order to escape poverty, or that they have
our populatlon of forty five m~lhonswould double to nrnety m ~ l - learnt the use of preventwe dev~ces,whlch have enabled them to
m a n y and l ~ m l them
t
fam~hes We may take ~tas qulte certaln
hens In seventy years, and so on
that m a country where no need for restraint on mamage or
HE FOLLOWING table gwes us the blrth- and death-rates parenthood exlsted, the blrth-rate would be a t least fifty per
and penod of doubllng by natmal mcrease for vanous thousand per year
(To be Contmued)
countnea
I
T
The Bwth Control Revrew
THE NATIONAL BIRTH CONTROL LEAGUE
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
llln Ha= Beldelberz Chamman
Jruh ml"
OBJECT8
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
P d KenludD,
(From the by laws)
The ohleela of thls assoflabon are
1 To secure the repeal or amendment of all laws pro
h~bntlltzthe s l v l o p out of lnformnhoo eoneernmx methods of
bmtb control thmush the preventton of conceptton
2 To coIIeet and dlstrlbute hcta ,n regard ta the lesnl
status of b l M control eduentmn ia the Unnted States and
other eountrles
Atzmt.t. GI,
M n W d k r Chmben
llln H s r y Ware Deml~ett
Mr. WUlhrn H G r n n e
D. k L G0ldw.b.
h Bridolkz
Loni.. K n n h n d
3In ~ o o d l kp ~m b
M n Am- Pincbot
arton Nlcholl Rawson
M n Lillhn R Slre
llln JDhn H WUIhrm
200 Pdth Avenue New Ymk C i t l Telephone G n m e r q 3159
T
HE BIRTH CONTROL Renew has offered a specla1 page
of each Issue to the Nat~onalBlrth Control League The
League accepts thls hosp~tal~ty
w ~ t hpleasure and welcomes
this and all other opportunlt~esfor co operat~on m t h Mrs
Sanger and the Renew
The Renew and the League have the same am- to help
everyone who needs ~t to get ~nformat~on
about b r t h control
That ~nformat~on
1s now rllegal The ~ m m e d ~ aprogram
te
of the
League IS to have ~t made legal The ~ m m e d ~ a tprogram
e
of
the Renew IS to reveal the t r a g ~ cneed for knowledge on t h ~ s
subject, and to make people understand what enormous rmprovement there m11 be m md~vldual,soc~aland racral l ~ f ewhen t h ~ s
knowledge 1s easrly avarlable
W ~ t hthese two first objects accomphshed, both the Revrew
and the League m l l then be free to go on to great pnmary arm
of gettmg the lnformat~onto the people,-hy the ~ntroduct~on
of
~ n s t r u c t ~ oon
n t h ~ subject
s
m the medleal schools, by the promotron of clln~csIn all b ~ cg ~ t ~ eand
s , perhaps most ~mportantof
all, by pr~ntrngand d~stnbutrngthe best poss~bleup-to-date
sc~ent~fic
lnformat~on
VIRGINIA T HEIDELBERG, Chalrman
You want to do all you can? Very well, then B e e n nos7
Slgn your name to both sect~onsof the blank below ard
send it to our office Then tell us how many of these blanl s
you will drstnbute We m11 supply you m t h all you can use If
you want some good leaflets to d~stnbutem t h the blanks wn?e
to us for them T h ~ blank
s
wlll appear m every succeedrng Issue
of the Renew for new subscribers to srgn Two months from
now we should hke to report that every srngle subscrrber to the
Revnew haa slgned the blankn
When people say to you, "b~rthcontrol, yes-but not In war
tlme," show them that just beeause of the war cond~t~ons,
we all
the more need b ~ r t hcontrol Why? Because blrth control 1s
race consewatlon I t lowers the blrth rate but lowers the death
rate and rnfant mortalrty stdl more Fewer people are born, but
more surnve I t ehmmates waste If we are rlghtly bemg
trarned by our government to save food and fuel and money,
how much more ought we to be tramed rn savlng the nabon
~tself!
*
HICH ARE the most valuable c ~ t ~ z e for
n s a country under
the ternble stram of war, the man and woman who have
* * *
ch~ldrena s fast as ~t1s phys~callyposs~bleto have them, regardWHAT TO DO ABOUT IT'
less of whether there 1s money or strength enough to care for
LORENCE KELLEY once hushed an applaudmg aud~enceby them, so that some of them d ~ eand the parents and ch~ldren
saymg, "don't spend any of your v ~ t a l ~ appronng
ty
what I become more or less a dram on the communrty,+r the man and
, quest~onIS, what are you golng to do about ~ t ? " woman who rntell~gently"space" them chrldren, so that those
have s a ~ d the
That IS what the Nat~onalLeague asks the readers of the who are born have a chance to hve, and the health and welfare
Renew,-"what are you golng to do about 1t9" You belleve In of all concerned 1s conserved?
bmth control Your subscrlptron to the Renew proves ~t PosWhlch of these f a m ~ h e sm l l be better able to render good
srbly you are amply mformed on brrth control for the needs of
servrce to the country dunng and after the war?
your own personal Me, but what are you domg, what m l l you
In other words, blrth control 1s the h~ghest,most f a r reachlng
do,-to help the 40,000,000 men and women of thls country to kind of patrlotlsm
MARY WARE DENNETT,
understand the meanlng and benefits of blrth control and to help
Executwe Secretary
make ~tlegal for them to recewe conhaceptwe ~nformat~on?
TO THE STATE LEGISLATURE
W
TO THE CONGRESS OF T E E UNITED STATES
As a voter of t h ~ state,
s
I hereby urge you to secure the
amendment of the penal law, so that gwmg lnformat~on
concernmg methods of blrth control by the avordance of
conceptron may no longer be classed a s a cnme m the laws
of thls state
As a voter, I hereby urge you to secure the amendment
of the Federal Penal Code so that the transportation of
mformat~onconcernlng methods of blrth control by the
avoldance of concept~onmay no longer be classed a s a
crlme m the laws of thrs country
Name
Name
Address
Address
S ~ g nand return to
Slgn and return to
The Natronal Buth Control League
I00 PUtb A ~ e n n e
-
New York Cltl
The Nat~onalBmth Control League
ZOO PUth Arenmt
-
Now York
Citl
The Btrth Control Remew
16
HYMN OF THE UNBORN BABE
T OF THE Land of Chddren's Souls,
0 bComes
forth t h ~ scry unceasingly
"Mother of mme, mother-to-be,
Oh, bear me not unn ~llingly1
I ask not life, but if you gve,
Oh, grant me then the chance to lwei
"Not one of an unwelcome brood,
Whose verv Dresence doth intrude
Upon an anwous mothers care,
Of which too many clam a share
<
"Are poverty, disease and crime,
l h e heritage that come w ~ t htime?
If such be my unhappy lot,
I conj~irethee, Oh, bear me not 1
"I come, I come on hopes soft wings
Wlth f a ~ t hand love my offermg\,
LIPSto be kissed w ~ t hlove-lit eyes,
Smdes that were formed in Paradise
.
"Oh, f i r , far better not he born
1 han agmg one already .u orn 1
For I would have mv comlnrr
- be,
A source of joy and hope to thee
"If blows and curses be my fate,
Oh, you can turn my love to hate 1
Mme IS the r ~ g h to
t love and joy
Create not, ~f SOU must destroy 1"
A Fr~end