I kept on talking until I made him admit he was interested in America, in diet, and in population. When I found he was a reader of Physical Culture I produced my open sesame letter and again it was more potent than a passport. I stood reasoning with him on the pier, until finally he said, “There’s a rule to take no women. But you Americans are not like others. I think I can put you in.” I was allowed to embark.
During the voyage we were most careful, anchoring at dusk, and when it was light keeping sharp watch for floating mines which might have broken loose from their moorings. It took us two nights and a day to make a crossing that ordinarily occupied only nine or ten hours.
I had plenty of time to sort out my impressions and conclusions regarding the birth control movement. They had been revolutionized. I could no longer look upon it as a struggle for free speech, because I now realized that it involved much more than talks, books, or pamphlets. These were not enough.
Personal instruction had been proved to be the best method, and I concluded clinics were the proper places from which to disseminate information but also, admirable as they were in the Netherlands, they ought not to be placed in the hands of unskilled midwives, social workers, or even nurses. These could, of course, instruct after a fashion, but only doctors had the requisite knowledge of anatomy and physiology and training in gynecology to examine properly and prescribe accurately.
I had a new goal, but how difficult and how distant its attainment was to be I never dreamed.
Chapter Thirteen
THE PEASANTS ARE KINGS
I stayed but a few days in London and then went on to Paris, a gloomy, gloomy city because so many people were garbed in black. Jaurès had been shot. The capital had already been moved to Bordeaux and suspicion and hysteria were in the air. When I went within easy driving distance of Paris for lunch or dinner, I could see the barbed-wire entanglements and gaps where the trees had been taken down for better visibility.
I renewed what contacts I could. But everybody was too busy now with the War to think of such a subject as family limitation, which to the French had never been anything to get excited about because they were too used to it. Furthermore, the other side of the question was now presenting itself. They were beginning to ask, “If we had a larger population, could we not have held the Germans back?”
Again I saw Victor Dave. He was literally starving to death, supported only by friendly gifts of a few francs here or there which he always accepted with laughter; what difference did it make to him whether he lived a few days longer? I never saw greater gallantry than was manifested by his smile and the shrug of his shoulders as he sauntered to work with two pieces of dry bread in his pocket.
The libraries were shut. Paris was no place for me, but I could see something of Spain, and Portet was waiting for me there. After the customary passport argument and some surprise at the cost of the sleeping-car arrangements I left for the South. It was four o’clock in the morning as the express pulled into Cerbère, the station on the border, where the French viewed all passengers with caution and mistrust.