In our campaign of educating the public in the necessity for changing the Federal statute I began having regional conferences in the East, South, Middle West, West, and linking them all into an organization to support the bill. One of these was at Los Angeles. At first most of the Westerners wanted an open bill such as Mrs. Dennett’s, and I stood rather alone on the doctors’ amendment, which was only approved on the last night of the Conference by a very narrow margin.
As the people filed out I saw at the end of the room a thin, almost emaciated woman with gray hair, somewhat shabby, but not unusually so. She held out a bony hand to clasp mine, saying practically nothing, just a word or two, and her name, Kaufman, came to me. I remembered it because Viola Kaufman had been one of the small subscribers to birth control in the past, and I was familiar with most of these names. I thought nothing further of it at the time.
Wanting all the endorsement I could get for the doctors’ bill, and particularly that of the American Medical Association, I made a special trip to Chicago to see Dr. Morris Fishbein, who was a power in that organization. I asked for advice or help, and offered to draw up a bill in any way which would suit them. Dr. Fishbein appeared sympathetic and turned me over to Dr. William C. Woodward, the legislative director; we had a pleasant conversation and that was all. Though he made no comment as to its merits or demerits, I put the bill on record in their office.
Tried and true friends, whose abilities and loyalties had been tested and proved, rallied around the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, which established its headquarters in Washington in 1931. Frances Ackermann assisted my husband as Treasurer. For Vice President we had Mrs. Walter Timme who had left the League of Women Voters, a fine speaker, a clear-thinking crusader, a devoted ally of long standing. Tall, large-framed, broad-shouldered, she could harangue audiences in the strong, convincing, and forceful fashion of the early, suffrage, soapbox days—nothing delicate or fragile. When she had an idea, it was an idea, and she stated it as an idea. More than once our bank account would have faded to a mere wraith had it not been for Ida Timme’s money-raising talents.
Mrs. Alexander C. Dick was Secretary. She had the old-fashioned head of a daguerreotype, but was thoroughly modern in her verve and gay personality and her quick agility of mind. Since 1916, when I had first known her, she had been really interested in the research end of birth control, and definitely had agreed with the then new war cry that it should be under medical supervision. It was mainly due to her and her late husband, Charles Brush of Cleveland, that Ohio had had from the beginning one of the best organized and conducted state leagues.
Kate Hepburn was Chairman. In her long public career she had learned great efficiency and was so careful of minutiae that she never let our witnesses run over their time. Just as we were swinging along briskly she invariably tugged at a coat and passed over a little slip—“time up in one minute.”
Best of all our lobbyists was Mrs. Hazel Moore, our Legislative Secretary, who had left the Red Cross in the South to support us. Nothing could withstand her indefatigable enthusiasm, and it took a stout Senator to harden his heart against her feminine ruses and winning manners.
We now began to be initiated into the A B C of Federal legislative procedure. After your bill had been drawn up, you had to find a Congressman to introduce it. Sometimes he believed in it a hundred percent; sometimes he believed in the individual a hundred percent; sometimes he sponsored it only to be accommodating and agreeable, in which case it was called “by request,” a very weak way since you knew he was not going to fight for it. When introduced, the bill was read in the House or Senate and at once referred to a committee, those having to do with changing a law to the Judiciary. Ours was difficult to manage at first, because we were trying to alter several statutes simultaneously, not merely Section 211 and everything pertaining to mails and common carriers, but also laws relating to imports. We had a general principle back of us, but we had to keep whacking off clauses so that it would not be thrown into the wrong committee.
If you were fortunate enough to secure a Senate hearing for your bill the chairman of your committee appointed a sub-committee of about three; in the House, the entire committee might attend the hearing. A day was set and you began preparing your ammunition; the opposition was allowed an equal amount of time to the second. After the hearing a vote was taken. If they were against it, they killed it then and there; if they recommended it, it came up before the full committee and, if then approved, went to the Senate or House for debate on the floor.
To the frantic, worried, harassed, driven Congressmen of 1931 the announcement of a birth control bill was like a message from Mars, only less interesting and more remote. The mind of each Senator resembled a telephone switchboard with his wary secretary as the operator. All the wires were tied up with foreign debts, unemployment relief, reparations, moratoriums, sales taxes, prohibition, budgets and bonuses, war in Manchuria, peace conferences, disarmament, and the tariff—issues of vital concern to themselves for which they needed every vote; and their principal endeavor was not to cause conflict or get themselves disliked. What chance had we to plug in?