The Case for Birth Control: A Supplementary Brief and Statement of Facts

by Margaret Sanger

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

It is interesting to know that the present agitation for the dissemination of knowledge to prevent conception, as expressed in the various leagues throughout the world to-day had its greatest impetus and inspiration from two books written by Americans in the United States.

The first of these was a pamphlet entitled “Moral Physiology,” written by United States Senator Robert Dale Owen, son of Robert Owen, which was published in New York City in 1830 and gave a description of the physical checks made use of in France, where it was the custom to limit the number of children to the means at the command of the family. This book was much read and commented favorably upon in America.

So favorably did this publication appeal to the thinking minds of the time, that Dr. Charles Knowlton, an able Boston physician, on reading Owen’s pamphlet, was so struck by its importance as a contribution to the science of hygiene that he brought out a similar work in 1833, entitled “The Fruits of Philosophy.” His book was addressed to young married people and gave a popular description of the anatomy of the organs of reproduction, especially in the female, and a somewhat more detailed account of the physical checks to prevent conception than had been given in Owen’s pamphlet.

“The Fruits of Philosophy” circulated unchallenged for more than forty years, and finally, in 1876, was attacked as an obscene publication under the new act of Parliament called “Lord Campbell’s Act,” and a bookseller of Bristol, England, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for selling it.

This work would have been suppressed altogether had not Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant, two ardent defenders of British liberty, come forward and volunteered to sell it in order to test the case in the English courts. The trial, as has been described herein under the title of “Birth Control League of England,” attracted great attention to this philosophy throughout the world. It is a sad commentary upon the legislative bodies of this country that up to the present every attempt by advocates of this principle to discuss this subject and awaken our people to its needs has been met with prosecution and jail sentences.

During these last forty years the movement has made rapid progress in all civilized countries except the United States. In this progressive matter we find ourselves classed with Russia, Japan, India and China, where national interest is concerned with quantity of human beings rather than with quality.

But during the last five years the subject has come forcibly to the front, mainly through prosecutions. Again a message has gained a hearing from the dock which it could never have won from the platform.

The people of this country are now awakened to the need of knowledge to prevent conception. Social workers, nurses, and members of the medical profession find their work hampered and their activities nullified by oppressive laws denying the individual the right of health, life and the pursuit of happiness.

The most advanced thinkers in America are with us in this movement, the sentiment being largely in favor of the establishment of clinics, similar to those in Holland, where the poor and overburdened mothers may come for advice to be given by doctors, nurses or others competent to instruct.

Following are some of the names of men and women in the United States who stand for the dissemination of such knowledge, have allied themselves to this great humanitarian cause, and have come out in the press for birth control as a national necessity:

WELL KNOWN WOMEN WHO ENDORSE BIRTH CONTROL

Mrs. J. Borden Harriman

Mrs. Amos Pinchot

Mrs. Charles Tiffany

Mrs. Robert M. La Follete

Mrs. Herbert Croly

Mrs. Phillip Littell

Mrs. Raymond B. Stevens

Mrs. Simeon Ford

Mrs. Philip Lydig

Mrs. William I. Thomas

Mrs. Robert P. Bass

Mrs. Inez Haynes Irwin

Mrs. Paul Manship

Mrs. Frank Cothren

Mrs. George B. Hopkins

Mrs. J. Sargeant Cram

Mrs. William Leon Graves

Mrs. Gifford Pinchot

Mrs. J. G. Phelps Stokes

Mrs. Elsie Clews Parsons

Mrs. Amy Walker Field

Mrs. Mary Heaton Vorse

Mrs. Juliet Barrett Rublee

Mrs. Frances Hand

Mrs. Mabel Foster Spinney

Mrs. Belle I. Moskowitz

Miss Caroline Rutz-Rees

Miss Jessie Ashley

Miss Lillian D. Wald

Princess Troubetskoy

NOTED PHYSICIANS WHO ENDORSE BIRTH CONTROL

Dr. Abram Jacobi, ex-president, American Medical Association, New York City.

Dr. Hermann M. Biggs, State Commissioner of Health, New York.

Dr. John N. Hurty, secretary, State Board of Health, Indiana.

Dr. Godfrey R. Pisek, professor of diseases of children, New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, New York City.

Dr. J. W. Trask, United States Public Health Service, Washington, D. C.

Dr. Ira S. Wile, editor, American Medicine, member Board of Education, New York City.

Dr. John A. Wyeth, professor of surgery and president of the New York Polyclinic Medical School and Hospital, ex-president of the American Medical Assn., and New York Academy of Medicine, New York City.

Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, professor of medicine, department of Phthisio-therapy, at New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, New York City.

Dr. Lydia Allen de Vilbiss, formerly of New York State Department of Health, now in charge of the division of Child Hygiene of the State Board of Health of Kansas.

NOTED WRITERS AND TEACHERS WHO ENDORSE BIRTH CONTROL

Ernest Poole

Will Irwin

Walter Lippman

Paul Kellogg

Max Eastman

Winthrop D. Lane

John Reed

Prof. Warner Fite

Prof. William P. Montagu

Prof. Charles Zueblin

Prof. Durant Drake

Prof. Thomas Nixon Carver

Prof. Melvil Dewey

Prof. William H. Allen

Prof. Franklin H. Giddings

Prof. Irving Fisher

Hon. Homer Folks

Hon. William H. Wadhams

Dr. Henry Moskowitz

Hiram Myers

Dr. Scott Nearing

Eugene V. Debs

NOTED MINISTERS WHO ENDORSE BIRTH CONTROL

Rev. Dr. Frank Crane, formerly pastor of the Union Congregational Church, Worcester, Mass., now notable writer of editorial articles for New York Globe, etc.

Rev. Dr. Percy Stickney Grant, rector, Protestant Episcopal Church of the Ascension, New York City.

Rev. Dr. Frank Oliver Hall, minister, Church of the Divine Paternity, New York City.

Rev. Dr. John Haynes Holmes, minister, Unitarian Church of the Messiah, New York City.

Rev. Dr. Harvey Dee Brown, minister, Unitarian Church of the Messiah, New York City.

Rev. Dr. Stephen S. Wise, rabbi of the Free Synagogue, New York City.

Rev. Dr. Sidney E. Goldstein, rabbi of the Free Synagogue, New York City.

Rev. Dr. Waldo Adams Amos, rector, Protestant Episcopal Church of St Paul, Hoboken, N. J.

PROMINENT RESIDENTS OF CHICAGO, ILL., WHO ENDORSE BIRTH CONTROL

Dr. Isaac A. Abt

Rev. Myron E. Adams

Rev. Edward S. Ames

Dr. Charles S. Bacon

Mrs. E. W. Bemis

Mrs. I. S. Blackwelder

Mrs. Tiffany Blake

Dr. Anna E. Blount

Ralph E. Blount

Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen

Mr. and Mrs. Horace Bridges

Mr. and Mrs. Edward B. Burling

Mrs. Benjamin Carpenter

Dr. and Mrs. Frank Cary

Mr. and Mrs. William L. Chenery

Dr. Frank S. Churchill

Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Dauchy

Dr. J. B. De Lee

Mr. and Mrs. William F. Dummer

Mrs. Joseph N. Eisendrath

Mrs. Kellogg Fairbank

Dr. John Favill

Prof. and Mrs. James A. Field

Mrs. Walter L. Fisher

Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Frank

Rev. and Mrs. Charley W. Gilkey

Dr. and Mrs. Maurice L. Goodkind

Dr. Ethan A. Gray

Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Gundlach

Mrs. Alfred Hamburger

Dr. and Mrs. Ralph Hamill

Dr. Alice Hamilton

Mr. and Mrs. Charles F. Harding

Dr. N. Sproat Heaney

Mrs. Charles Henrotin

Dr. Rudolph W. Holmes

Mrs. Leila K. Hutchins

Dr. Karl K. Koessler

Mr. and Mrs. Herman Landauer

Dr. W. George Lee

Prof. and Mrs. Frank R. Lillie

Prof. and Mrs. J. Weber Linn

Mrs. Edwin L. Lobdell

Max Loeb

Judge and Mrs. Julian W. Mack

Prof. and Mrs. George H. Mead

Dr. James H. Mitchell

Mr. and Mrs. William S. Monroe

Prof. and Mrs. Addison W. Moore

Mrs. James W. Morrisson

Mr. and Mrs. George Packard

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Page

Mrs. Elia W. Peattie

Allen B. Pond

Mr. and Mrs. James F. Porter

Mrs. Julius Rosenwald

Mrs. Dunlap Smith

Mrs. Henry Solomon

Dr. Alexander F. Stevenson

Prof. Graham Taylor

Mrs. Harriet W. Walker

Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby Walling

Mrs. George Watkins

Mr. and Mrs. Payson Wild

Mrs. Wilmarth

Dr. Rachelle Yarros

Victor S. Yarros

Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund Zeisler

Physicians, scientists, economists, social workers and others interested in the forward march of this country are simply marking time in progress until it is decided whether or not the medical profession and its assistants have the legal right to impart information to prevent conception to those who need it. A favorable decision would permit men and women to stem the incoming tide of feebleminded, unfit, degenerate individuals who undermine our present social structure and place a burden on generations yet unborn.

CHAPTER III
POPULATION AND BIRTH RATE

In this chapter it is demonstrated that a high birth rate invariably means a high death rate, particularly a high infant mortality. Where a knowledge of methods to prevent conception results in a lowering of the birth rate, proportionately more of those children born survive, and a healthier, sturdier population is the result.