The Netherlands being such a small country, where one person’s business was everybody’s business, such changes could not escape notice. Just about this time Dr. Charles R. Drysdale, then President of the English League, had been invited to address an International Medical Congress held in Amsterdam. The results of Dr. Jacobs’ clinic were so apparent that immediately thereafter the Dutch Neo-Malthusian League had been formed and thirty-four physicians had joined it. When other centers were established, purely for consultation, the word clinic was applied to them also. In 1883 Dr. Mensinga, a gynecologist of Flensburg, Germany, had published a description of a contraceptive device called a diaphragm pessary, which he and Dr. Jacobs had perfected. Dr. and Madame Hoitsema Rutgers had taken charge of the League in 1899 with such success that the work had spread through that well-ordered kingdom. In recognition of its extensive and valuable accomplishment, Queen Wilhelmina had presented it with a medal of honor and a charter, and counted it one of the great public utilities.
In my statistical investigations I paid special attention to the birth and mortality rates of the Netherlands to see how they had been affected over this period of thirty-five years. They showed the lowest maternal mortality, whereas the United States was at the top of the list; three times more mothers’ lives were being saved in the little dike country than in my native land. Furthermore, the infant death rate of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and the Hague, the three cities in which the League was most active, were the lowest of all those in the world.
During the same period the death rate had been cut in half, but, surprisingly, I found that the birth rate had been reduced only a third. In other words, the death rate had fallen faster than the birth rate, which meant that the population of the Netherlands was increasing more rapidly than that of any other country in Europe.
I had much difficulty in reconciling these figures with my preconceived idea that birth control would automatically bring about a decrease in population. Since it was increasing, then perhaps birth control was not, after all, the answer to the economic international problem. If this were true all my calculations were going to be upset.
Impatient to go to the Netherlands and dig out the real facts, not only from Dutch records but from personal observation, I decided quietly—most of my decisions in those days were quiet ones—to cross the Channel. This implied possible unwelcome encounters with inquisitive officials, floating bombs, submarines, and every type of inconvenience and delay, but my eagerness made me discount the hindrances.
I applied, to the Dutch Consul for a visa to Bertha Watson’s passport.
“Eighty cents, please,” and no questions asked.
So that I should not have to return to London before going on to Paris I presented myself at the French Consulate also. I waited two hours. “Two dollars, please,” and still no queries.
I attached myself to the end of the long line waiting at Victoria Station to have passports inspected, and was soon safely on the train for Folkestone. We were late when we reached the Channel. Again we lined up for inspection. Many Belgian women with four or five children were going back to their people; the sleepy little ones and the tired women settled on the platform to rest until some had gone through. Two detectives glanced casually at my passport, and then allowed me to enter the official chamber. Inspections had been growing steadily more strict; this was the ultimate test. There sat in a row three officers in mufti, well-fed and brusque with authority. I handed my passport to the first, who looked me up and down as though I were a treacherous enemy, then pushed it over to the next. This man too viewed me with suspicion and mistrust, and pulled out a notebook, scanning the names to see whether mine were on the proscribed list. The last of the three, who was to make the final decision—crisp, trim, and hard as nails in voice and manner—demanded, “What are you going to the Continent for, Madam? Another joy ride? You Americans must think that’s all this War amounts to. Can you produce any good reason for letting you through?”
Fortunately I was prepared for such a contingency. I took out of my purse a letter from Bernarr MacFadden asking me to answer certain questions in the form of articles for Physical Culture such as the relation between the unfit and population growth. I offered this document while those in line behind me waited restively. He read it meticulously, taking longer than necessary as it seemed to me in my nervousness. At last he folded it neatly and said, “A good work, this. Too bad someone hasn’t done it before.”