Then he put his last official stamp on my various papers and I passed through for the gangplank.
No complications presented themselves at the Hague, and early on a January morning in 1915 I registered at an inexpensive hotel. It was comforting to hear a radiator sizzling once more. I joined the other guests who were cheerfully breakfasting together en famille at a single table, and, since I spoke neither Dutch nor German, silently munched my black bread and cheese, downed the excellent coffee, and watched interestedly. Though stolid in appearance like all the Dutch, they were friendly.
I did not try to telephone Dr. Rutgers. Instead, though it was not yet nine o’clock, I hailed a taxi and held out to the driver a slip of paper on which I had written the street and number. In response to my ring at the door to which I was delivered, a tiny square window in the upper part opened mysteriously and a face—wizened, aged, and inquisitive—was framed in the aperture. It remained while I explained my mission. Apparently trust was inspired because, my story finished, the door swung wide and the face, materialized into Dr. Rutgers, ushered me into the library, where I waited until he came back in his street clothing. Then we went out to a second breakfast in a near-by café.
The doctor turned out to be a kindly little man, whose wife was now an invalid. It was hard for him to talk English. Most of the Dutch had four languages, but only those who had lived in England spoke English well. The difficulties, however, lessened as we nibbled brioches and sipped coffee after coffee until noon. Warming to my narrative of the battle in the United States, he shook his head when he thought of what I might have to face in the future, and expressed more concern over my predicament and more heartfelt sympathy with my having had to leave the children behind than anybody I had yet met. He was the first person to whom I had been able to overflow about my personal sadness.
On his part Dr. Rutgers described his hardships in keeping the clinics open and, through the League, preventing adverse legislation. Neo-Malthusianism had never been popular anywhere, no matter what the proof in the lessening of human misery and suffering. Dr. Rutgers had borne alone the brunt of all the criticism directed at his society.
The Rutgers method for establishing new clinics had resulted in a sound system for dealing with the birth rate. The men and women who acted as his councilors understood that a rising birth rate, no matter where in the country, would soon be followed by a high infant mortality rate. Accordingly, they reported this quickly to the society, which sent a midwife or practical nurse, trained in the technique standardized by Dr. Rutgers, into the congested sector to set up a demonstration clinic. She usually took an apartment with two extra rooms, one for waiting, the other a modestly equipped office like that of any country midwife.
Her duty was to go into the home where a child had died, inquire into the cause, and give friendly advice regarding the mother’s own health. She also encouraged her not to have another baby until the condition of ignorance, poverty, or disease, whichever it might be, had either been bettered or eliminated. Whenever four had been born into such a family this advice was made more emphatic.
As soon as Dr. Rutgers had explained his policy to me I had that most important answer to the puzzling and bothersome problem of the increasing population in the Netherlands brought about by birth control. It was proper spacing. The numbers in a family or the numbers in a nation might be increased just as long as the arrival of children was not too rapid to permit those already born to be assured of livelihood and to become assimilated in the community.
Dr. Rutgers suggested I come to his clinic the next day and learn his technique. He was at the moment training two midwives preparatory to starting a new center in the outskirts of the Hague. Under his tutelage I began to realize the necessity for individual instruction to patients if the method of contraception prescribed was to fulfill its function. I wondered at the ease with which this could be done. Very soon even I myself, unable to talk to these women in their own tongue, instructed seventy-five.
I used to bombard the little man with questions concerning each case. I took issue with him over his autocratic system of dictating without explanation. Merely saying, “This is what you do. Do this always,” had to my mind no educational value.