I plunged down the stairs and into the car which stood ready for me, and we swept out of the yard towards my apartment. At the entrance were Vito, the coal man, and his wife, beaming and proudly pointing to the blazing fire they had made on the hearth to welcome me home.
Chapter Twenty
A STOUT HEART TO A STEEP HILL
“When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.”
WILLIAM HAZLITT
The noisy clamor of the world could not reach me through thick stone walls; prison had been a quiet interim for reflection, for assembling past experiences and preparing for the future. The tempestuous season of agitation—courts and jails and shrieking and thumbing-the-nose—should now end. Heretofore there had been much notoriety and but little understanding. The next three steps were to be: first, education; then, organization; and, finally, legislation. All were clearly differentiated, though they necessarily overlapped to a certain extent.
I based my program on the existence in the country of a forceful sentiment which, if co-ordinated, could become powerful enough to change laws. Horses wildly careering around a pasture have as much strength as when harnessed to a plow, but only in the latter case can the strength be measured and turned to some useful purpose. The public had to be educated before it could be organized and before the laws could be changed as a result of that organization. I set myself to the task. It was to be a long one, because the press did not want articles stating the facts of birth control; they wanted news, and to them news still consisted of fights, police, arrests, controversy.
One of the early essays in education was a moving picture dramatizing the grim and woeful life of the East Side. Both Blossom and I believed it would have value, and I continue to be of the same mind. He had not approved of the clinic and had declined to have anything to do with it, but was eager to join me in capitalizing on the ensuing publicity. Together we wrote a scenario of sorts, concluding with the trial. Although I had long since lost faith in my abilities as an actress, I played the part of the nurse, and an associate of Blossom’s financed its production. But before it could appear Commissioner of Licenses George H. Bell ordered it suppressed.
To prove the film mirrored conditions which called for birth control, we gave a private showing at a theater, inviting some two hundred people concerned with social welfare. All agreed the public should see it, and signed a letter to that effect. Justice Nathan Bijur issued an injunction against interfering with its presentation. The moving picture theaters, however, fearful lest the breath of censure wither their profits, were too timid to take advantage of this.
Of infinitely greater and more lasting significance than this venture was the Birth Control Review, which, from 1917 to 1921, was the spearhead in the educational stage. It could introduce a quieter and more scientific tone, and also enable me to keep in touch with people everywhere whose interest had already been evoked. Emotion was not enough; ideas were not enough; facts were what we needed so that leaders of opinion who were articulate and willing to speak out might have authoritative data to back them up.
The first issue of the Review, prepared beforehand, had come out in February, 1917, while I was in the penitentiary. It was not a very good magazine then; it had few contributors and no editorial policy. Anyone—sculptor, spiritualist, cartoonist, poet, free lance—could express himself here; the pages were open to all. In some ways it was reminiscent of the old days of the Woman Rebel, when everybody used to lend a hand—always with this vital difference, that we held strictly to education instead of agitation. I had learned a little editorial knowledge from my previous magazine efforts and now obtained a more professional touch from the newspaper men and women who gradually came in, among them William E. Williams, formerly of the Kansas City Star, Walter A. Roberts, who later published the few issues of the American Parade, and Rob Parker, editor and make-up man. Among the associates were Jessie Ashley, Mary Knoblauch, and Agnes Smedley.