Debate on birth control. Margaret Sanger and Winter Russell

by Margaret Sanger; Winter Russell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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