Debate on birth control. Margaret Sanger and Winter Russell

by Margaret Sanger; Winter Russell

Mr. Russell: May I say at the outset that I did not say we could not have pleasure without pain. I said we could not have pleasure without paying for it and the man has to pay. (Laughter.) I, too, am concerned with the matter of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I have been trying to find out the truth about that from the very first time that I began to think, and that is what I want to find out, and I devoutly pray right now that if Mrs. Sanger has got the truth that it will prevail, but I want to know the truth and I feel still that the truth is not there.

I am going to concern myself entirely with refutation now. I am going to speak a little more about the positive side of this. I would say that Mrs. Sanger has done quite a little for me in pointing out that there are these two groups she sees all of the time—these families with large numbers of children. I hope that I do not miss sight of them entirely. I may not know them directly or as intimately as Mrs. Sanger, but Mrs. Russell has been in 1,500 of the homes reported to be in dire straits and destitution. I have been living with her as her husband during the time that she visited those homes. And I feel that through her report I know something of those homes as well. I see the other homes of the small families, but I am frank to say that I do think in a far different line than Mrs. Sanger. She says that the large family is the family of poverty and of misery; very often, though not always nor in so large a measure as is generally expected, is it the family of poverty and by no means is it the family of misery. I have seen the misery beyond words in the small family. I know that my mother considered—and she had three children—that her life was a long tragedy. There was never a day that she waited for food or clothes or a fine home, but practically all of her talk was like the story of a great tragedy. My sister has a husband that has now an income of $70,000 a year. She has never known what it was to want for food or clothes or a fine home, and I heard her say not very long ago that she had never known what happiness on this earth is. Mrs. Sanger sees poverty, she sees misery and she sees unwanted children. To be sure, there are many thousands of these homes where, sad to say, the children are unwanted, but they have made this devout prayer to God, I believe, for children, and they have gotten them. They have gotten what I believe to be the greatest wealth and treasure of the Kingdom of Heaven that there is on the face of the earth, and when they get that, they have to pay for it. They have to pay and take the responsibility.

To my mind, these snickers and giggles is one of the most tragic things on the face of the earth. It shows you haven’t got eyes that see. You have neither ears that hear, and you haven’t got the heart that feels. (Chairman calls for more respectful attention on the part of the audience.)

Furthermore, there are not as many as she feels that are unwanted. Many in these homes are glad that they are numerous. And yet she says these small families that she sees are all wanted. I happen to know that in those small families, as she sees them, there is almost as large a percentage of these one, two or three or sometimes four kinds [sic] that are not wanted. It has become an exception. She has not become as scientific as she ought to be.

She says she sees misery in large families. I do not see so much happiness. She says that she sees congestion and infant mortality. A large percentage of that was due to pure ignorance. My father was a physician, and in that town that I am going to talk about—she says I know nothing of the race suicide and I will show you that I do—in this town of small families, there was infant mortality. My sister and I were on the bed, at the door of death, for weeks because we had a terrible disease. My father was a physician. We know that that disease has no terror whatever for people who know how properly to treat and feed children. There is a difference in knowledge between that day and this, and much of the infant mortality is due to the lack of education.

Then she says in these days there is not so much infant mortality. There is a place—she finds here in the small family, crime. I grant that there is a lot of crime. They have filled a large percentage of our prisons, but I will have you remember that in those homes that are small I believe that there is a vastly greater number of criminals, not only those who have enough knowledge to keep within the law but those who belong in the penitentiaries, but they are keen enough and they are shrewd enough to keep without the law and escape it.

The Lockwood Committee does not prosecute these profiteers, these robbers and pirates who belong in the penitentiary, but just the same as they think they can cheat nature by having a small family—that greed that makes them criminals that do escape the law—I hold with Emerson that they pay. They may not pay in a penitentiary but they pay.

Then she says that here is where we get our prostitution. Yes, again she is right; a large number of the poor and unfortunate girls who walk the streets do come from these homes. For every girl who walks the street in that condition—I believe there are 100 who have a wedding certificate and who live in a home—they are worse than prostitutes (applause)—they want somebody to be their meal ticket. They want somebody that will support them. They want respectability. They want all the joy that they haven’t got. You men have to pay and you assume the responsibility. Before these poor girls upon the street I take off my hat and before these I can’t express my detestation. (Applause.)

Then, just think of the logic of her position. Oh, there are some beasts in the marriage tie and they can’t be self-controlled. What is the logic of it all? Is she going to have the young people filled up with this knowledge and are people of her kind going to have full sway over their lives—over their life of sacrifice and consecration to the welfare of humanity—over those going through life single and should they have compulsory marriage because they don’t have the joys of marriage? If she says that they suffer the physicians will tell you it is because they don’t have children, and if they do suffer, it is because they have to pay that penalty.

Of all of the sickly stuff I ever heard of is this matter of tuberculosis and heart disease and kidney trouble. If a man has got a wife that has tuberculosis and heart disease and kidney trouble, and he is such a beast that he can’t control himself and can’t consecrate himself to the sick wife, the law should step in. Should we say that we will surrender her to this beast? Half of them do not know the law of health and development, and strength and energy comes from that very law of self-control.