In spite of this dread I had reasoned out the necessity for an organization to tie up the loose ends. Although it might be limiting and inhibiting to the individual, it had other advantages of strength and solidity which would enable it to function when the individual was gone. Therefore I sent a questionnaire to leaders in social and professional circles, asking them whether the time had not come for such a national association; the replies almost unanimously confirmed this decision.
The evening before the Conference was to open, a few friends gathered together to launch the American Birth Control League. Its aims were to build up public opinion so that women should demand instruction from doctors, to assemble the findings of scientists, to remove hampering Federal statutes, to send out field workers into those states where laws did not prevent clinics, to co-operate with similar bodies in studying population problems, food supplies, world peace. After the dinner, given at Mrs. George F. Rublee’s home, we talked over specific plans for the year and set in motion the machinery for having the League incorporated.
Juliet Barrett Rublee had been one of the pioneers, a member of the original Committee of One Hundred, and all the way through the years she has never wavered from my side. No more inspired idealist was ever initiated into a movement. The imagination of this picturesque, romantic wife of a conservative lawyer had been so fired that she dedicated to it her entire devotion, loyalty, partisanship. Others had rallied their own personal friends around the idea, but Juliet’s influence brought in her husband’s associates—the Cravaths, Morrows, Lamonts, Dodges, and Blisses.
Juliet’s parties were always gay and interesting, with an atmosphere nobody else could create. Her small, engaging dining room was as colorful as she herself—the only woman I ever knew who dared to wear bright greens, reds, yellows, all together. For lunches, teas, and dinners in behalf of the cause she practically turned over her home in Turtle Bay Gardens.
A goodly number attended the opening of our Conference, which, appropriately, coincided with that of the great disarmament conference at Washington. The medical meeting, where contraceptive technique was discussed, was so crowded that latecomers could not squeeze in. The doctors who did find places, each apparently surprised to see his confrères there, expected us to have a hundred percent sound methods; they seemed disappointed because we had no magic up our sleeves and told them quite frankly we had not. The best we could do was show what devices were being employed, including those from the Netherlands and the preparation I had found at Friedrichshaven, with the warning that they had not been tested for efficacy.
After two full days nothing remained but the Sunday evening mass meeting on “Birth Control, Is It Moral?” For this we had selected the Town Hall on West Forty-third Street, a new club designed as a forum for adult education; the auditorium was often used for discussion of questions of civic interest. Harold Cox was to deliver the first speech and I was to follow.
Always, when I am to speak, I attempt to visualize the hall and the audience in order to feel my way into the subject. When I cannot do so, I have invariably been met by blocked doors. Throughout Sunday, try as I would to “tune in” to the approaching event, I could not do it. I kept remembering a dream I had had the night before in which I was carrying a small baby in my arms up a very steep hill and came rather abruptly to a slope which became a mountain side of rock and slippery shale; I had nothing to grasp to prevent me from sliding. The baby cried continually and I wanted to comfort it, but I dared not use my right hand because it was held up like a balancing rod which saved us both from falling. That miserable dream made me drowsy all day. My brain seemed numb. I simply could not think of what I was going to say.
Anne Kennedy had gone ahead to the Town Hall at about seven o’clock. Harold Cox and I had dined at Juliet’s but I could not eat; I was interested neither in the food nor the conversation. I still had an absolute blank in front of me. Juliet was congratulating me that soon, with the Conference over, I could have a rest. Ordinarily when I am approaching the end of a particular job I begin to feel released, but this time I could not reassure her; I was nervous, anxious, and apprehensive.
Our taxi swung into West Forty-third Street and crept cautiously along through a swarming aggregation. “Heavens!” I said. “This is an overflow with a vengeance.”
We dismounted and pushed our way to the Town Hall doors. They were closed and two policemen barred our path when Mr. Cox and I attempted to enter. “This gentleman is one of the speakers and I am another,” I said. “Why can’t we go in?”