Now I gave it up and decided to start afresh. The more I had studied, the more clearly I had recognized that it was not possible to advise a standard contraceptive for all women any more than it was possible to prescribe one set of eyeglasses for all conditions of sight. Only upon examination and careful check-up could you determine the most suitable method. No detailed statistics had ever been kept except at Brownsville, and those case histories had never been returned to me by the police. I wanted to collect at least a thousand such records for a scientific survey before any opposition could interfere with the plan.
Many women were still coming to me personally for information at 104 Fifth Avenue. The best thing to do was have a woman doctor right there to take care of them—a quiet way to begin. It was hard to locate one foot-loose and free; I could have no shying or running off at the first indication of trouble. In making inquiries I heard of Dr. Dorothy Bocker, who held a New York City license though she was at present in the Public Health Service of Georgia. This single, cordial, and enthusiastic young woman knew practically nothing about birth control technique, but was willing to learn. The difficulty was that she wanted five thousand dollars a year.
At first this appeared an almost unsurmountable obstacle. Here was just the person I had been looking for, but it seemed beyond my power to raise so large a sum. I was loaded with the financial weight of the Review and the League. That organization had been admitted as a membership corporation and hence could not secure a license to conduct a clinic, which in New York was synonymous with a dispensary. No clinic, therefore, could be included in its budget; it would remain a department of the League by courtesy only, being actually my private undertaking. Where could I find someone to donate such an enormous amount?
Then I remembered Clinton Chance, a young manufacturer of Birmingham, who had prospered exceedingly both before and during the War. He and his wife, Janet, had become good friends of mine during my 1920 visit to England. Having felt the need of a more sound and fundamental outlet for his riches than that provided by charity, he had come to see that birth control information was far better for his employees than a dole at the birth of every new baby. He was not in any sense a professional philanthropist, but only wanted to help them be self-sufficient.
Clinton had once offered me money to set the birth control movement going in England, but I had refused then because England had enough co-workers, who were handling the situation well, and, furthermore, my place was in the United States. He had then said to me, “I won’t give you a contribution for regular current expenses, but if ever you see the necessity for some new project which will advance the general good, call on me.”
Now I cabled Clinton at length, explaining my need. He promptly answered, “Yes, go ahead,” and soon arrived an anonymous thousand pounds to cover Dr. Bocker’s salary for the first year. I made out a contract for two. She was to come in January, 1923, and we were to shoulder the risks and responsibilities together.
Even to choose a name for the venture was not easy. I had been steadily advertising the term “clinic” to America for so long that it had become familiar and, moreover, to poor people it meant that little or no payment was required. But the use of the word itself was legally impossible, and I was not certain that the same might not be true of “center” or “bureau.” I wanted it at least to imply the things that clinic meant as I had publicized it, and also to include the idea of research.
Finally, one of the doors of the two rooms adjoining the League offices, readily accessible to me and to the women who came for advice, was lettered, Clinical Research.
It was still a clinic in my mind, though frankly an experiment because I was not even sure women would accept the methods we had to offer them. We started immediately keeping the records. Dr. Bocker wrote down the history of the case on a large card, numbering it to correspond with a smaller one containing the patient’s name and address. Each applicant she suspected of a bad heart, tuberculosis, kidney trouble, or any ailment which made pregnancy dangerous, she informed regarding contraception and advised medical care at once.
In our first annual report, which attracted much attention, all our cases were analyzed. We said, “Here is the proof—nine hundred women with definite statistics concerning their ages, physical and mental conditions, and economic status.”