other questions that concern us all to-day if this were more encouraged on the part of society. Sixth. The adolescent period must be considered. We are learning a great deal about the adolescent boy and girl. In the old days the Greeks advised their young men not to marry until their twentyfifth year. There was something very important in that. Perhaps they did not know it scientifically, but to-day we know that a man does not become really a man until his twenty-fifth year and that the woman does not become a woman, she is a girl, practically, until after the twenty-third year. This is illustrated by other findings of Doctor Woodbury. In homes, for instance, where the average number of persons per room is less than 1, the infant death rate is 52.1; where it is two or more per room, the death rate is 135.7. Furthermore, in families where the per capita income from the father's earnings was less than $50 the infant mortality rate was 215.9, as compared with a rate of only 60.5 where the per capita amount averaged $400 or over. These figures clearly and strikingly indicate the influence of family overcrowding upon family well being. Seventh. Adjustment.-A point on which many may disagree with us. I believe it is very important to our young people's future that they should take at least two or three years after marriage just to get acquainted. Marriage is more to-day than just a question of providing for children. When there is a fine companionship in marriage between men and women, a spiritual development results. We believe that if two people have a chance to get acquainted, a chance to adjust themselves mentally and spiritually and physically, before they become parents, we shall have happier homes, more permanent marriages, and eventually, when the fear of pregnancy is removed from that home, we shall have larger families. That is our belief, Mr. Chairman. We have seen it come true in the past 16 or 17 years since we have been advocating this idea. There are three main methods of contraception or birth control. The first is continence. There are no laws against it. Anyone who wishes to practice continence or to live in celibacy is legally free to do so. No one disagrees with their right to live in this way, if they wish. The second is sterilization. There are 14 States in the Union today where there are sterilization laws. These provide for sterilization of certain types of persons who are morally irresponsible, who are able to bring into the world only progeny that will be a detriment to society. The third is the chemical or mechanical means of contraception. around which most of this controversy is waged. As you will see from this bill, we want the medical profession to direct the practice of contraception. We want no promiscous distribution or scattering of knowledge or supplies, as there has been in the past and as there is to-day. We want, for all time, to have this knowledge properly controlled and we believe that this bill provides for that. It places the responsibility of giving such information upon the medical profession. We have further found in the 28,000 cases that we have advised at the Clinical Research Bureau in the city of New York, which operates legally under the laws of the State of New York, which permit a physican to give information for the cure or prevention of disease, that knowledge of anatomy and physiology is necessary to inwoman properly according to her individual need. We have had 28,000 women who have come to us and who have been benefited by the advice given them, as their homes will show, as their children will show and as their own health will show. We have found from these 28,000 cases, that every woman differs. You can no more claim that continence is the one and only method that should be practiced than you can say that every one should be sterilized. Every woman is different physiologically. Family conditions are different in each case and so it takes the trained physicia with his knowledge of anatomy and physiology to advise that person, just as it takes a trained oculist to advise as to the proper fitting, of eye glasses. We do not send our people to the 10-cent store to buy eyeglasses. Neither do we want persons sent to the 10-cent store nor to the corner druggist to get their supplies for contraception over the counter. We want this thing to be put on a decent basis, to be handled in a scientific way. That is what we are asking. This bill does not compel anyone to use such information. It does not compel any physician to give information. It simply permits contraceptive information and supplies to be sent to doctors or to hospitals and clinics from other countries and through the United States mails or by common carriers and permits supplies to be sent to druggists for use in their legitimate prescription business. Many of you may say, "Well, is there not everything in this country that we may wish?" And I wish to say, "No." There is a great deal of research going on in other countries, in Oxford and Cambridge in England, and in Edinburgh University in Scotland; a great deal of research is going on there which, according to the laws, can not come into this country. I have here to-day a letter from the customs official of New York City saying that certain things were sent to me from Germany, two articles, that will be destroyed. I sent a letter and asked that they be readdressed to the physician who is the medical director of our research bureau in New York City, stating that though they may be articles to prevent conception, they also fulfill another function of preventing the spread of disease or protecting health. I asked that they be sent to one of our physicians. The answer was that they could not be sent to any one and I would like to offer this letter, Mr. Chairman, if I may. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. You may put the letter in the record. (The correspondence referred to is as follows:) Miss MARGARET SANGER, TREASURY DEPARTMENT, New York, N. Y. MADAM: You are advised that there is being detained at Customs Bureau, from Germany, two packages addressed to you containing articles for prevention of conception, the importation of which is held to be prohibited under the provisions of section 305 of the tariff act of 1930. The package will, therefore, be seized and disposed of in due course as provided by law. Please execute the assent to forfeiture and authority to destroy, below, returning same in the inclosed envelope, which requires no postage. Respectfully, H. C. STUART, Assistant Collector. Assent is hereby given to the forfeiture and destruction for violation of the customs revenue laws of the above merchandise now in the custody of the Collector of Customs, and I hereby waive any rights or proceedings in the premises. Mr. H. E. STUART, COMMODORE HOTEL, Washington, D. C., May 8, 1932. United States Customs Service, New York, N. Y. DEAR SIR: Yours of May 5 relative to an article addressed to me from Germany, has been received. Of course, I do not know what article you refer to, but I should like your opinion as to the article in question being delivered to the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau of which I am the director, and of which there are seven legally qualified physicians in attendance who receive such articles and who, in turn, under the laws of the State of New York, are entitled to give such articles that you claim are prohibited by the law. Dr. Hannah Stone, who is the medical director of the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, at 17 West Sixteenth Street, will receive for me any such article or package if you will see that such is readdressed to her, or she will come in person to claim same if you will so request. I am assuming, of course, that such articles, while they may be used for the prevention of conception, may also be used by physicians for the prevention of disease, and I believe that under the ruling of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York that you would not object to allowing a physician like Doctor Stone to receive same. As I am at present working on a bill to amend section 305 of the tariff act of 1930, I should much appreciate your comments on the suggestion I have made above and hope you will be good enough to reply to me at once. Sincerely yours, MARGARET SANGER. Mrs. MARGARET SANGER, TREASURY DEPARTMENT, UNITED STATES CUSTOMS SERVICE, Care National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, New York City. MADAM: Receipt is acknowledged of your communication of the 8th instant, relative to the detention of two packages containing articles for the prevention of conception, the importation of which is held to be prohibited under the provisions of section 305 of the tariff act, in which you advise that you are director of the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau and of which bureau there are seven legally qualified physicians who receive such articles and who in turn, under the laws of the State of New York, are entitled to receive such articles. In reply I have to advise you that under the provisions of section 305 of the tariff act all persons are prohibited from importing into the United States from any foreign country any drug or medicine, or any article whatever, for the prevention of conception or for causing unlawful abortion. No such articles shall be admitted to entry, and unless it appears to the satisfaction of the collector that the prohibited articles were inclosed without knowledge of the importer, the entire contents of the package shall be subject to seizure and forfeiture. An examination of the two packages discloses that they consist of three sets of rubber condoms and tubes of tablets called Jessex Tabletten. This office is of the opinion that they are prohibited importation. If dissatisfied with the above decision, appeal may be filed with the Commissioner of Customs at Washington, D. C. Respectfully, H. C. STUART, Assistant Collector. Mrs. SANGER. The law, section 305 (a) of the tariff act, does not allow any article of that kind to come into this country, and we are thus denied the results of research. We are denying our medical profession the benefit of knowledge obtained in various other countries where a great deal has been going on in the way of research, where they are unlimited in their research. There are only two countries in the world that have laws such as ours and they were patterned after our laws, unfortunately. Those countries are France and Italy. We have in this country nearly 100 clinics, birth-control clinics, that are legally operating in the various States. Forty-seven States allow the physician to protect the woman's health and to give contraceptive advice as he sees fit. At the same time these physicians, while they may give information orally, have to bootleg their supplies from New York or Chicago or some place where they are manufactured in order to do what they should to protect the health of the woman in their own State. In the State of California, in Los Angeles, under the county medical department 11 birth-control clinics have been established. If I should write and tell a woman in Los Angeles where one of those clinics is, or send her the address or name of the director of those clinics, I subject myself to the possibility of five years' imprisonment and $5,000 fine under section 211; even to write her where she may go to obtain that information. It is preposterous; it is absurd. This whole situation is preposterous. Our laws are tangled and confused and as long as they remain as they are on the books, the situation will continue to be as it is. I myself have received over a million letters, a great majority of them from mothers. I am going to conclude by asking you if you will listen patiently to just a few of them, because I want to analyze them, to show you what the real condition is. Here is one that says: I am the mother of 12 children, 6 of which are living. I have had eight iniscarriages in 20 years. I have been married and have a husband that does not support his family like he should. If you can and it is in your power, please tell me something to keep me from getting pregnant. I think I will die if I ever have another baby. So please help me if you can. And may God bless you as long as you live. Now, that is a 50 per cent loss. That woman has had 12 children and only 6 of them are living. She has had eight miscarriages. Think of the wasted time, think of the loss to that woman; think of the loss of the power of motherhood when we make this woman go through such a ghastly ordeal. Here is another letter: I have six children, my youngest 2 months old, and I am just scared to death for fear I will get that way again, for I never can live to go through with it again. I came near dying this time. For three months before my baby was born I could not get any shoes on my feet and I could hardly get my eyes open to see. I was bloated up so bad. The doctor wanted to take the baby away when I was 8 months, but I said no, I did not care if I lived or died and I did not have the least idea of living, but the Lord spared me probably so I could go through it again. But I live on the banks of Lake Erie and just as sure as I get in a family way again I will end my troubles and be at rest. Now, if you can tell me of any way, I would bless your name forever. That is another one. You can imagine that mother with that fear in her mind, with that sword hanging over her head. I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that since this law was passed, 1,500,000 mothers have passed out into the great beyond from causes due to child bearing. There is just one more that I want to read to you, because these are the women who are urging us to pass these laws to give them some relief from the evil condition from which they have been suffering. I just passed my 21st birthday August 5th (this year). I am already the mother of five little children, the oldest six years, and the baby three months. My husband has been out of work over a year and a half now. We would have starved to death long ago but for our relatives who, among them, gave us $5 a week. It's awful hard, Mrs. Sanger, to live like this, and my husband got so down and blue when he found I was that way the last time, that he wanted to go away and live in another place, but his folks wouldn't let him do that. My children are well, thank God, but I'm awfully weak, only weigh 90 pounds. I do all the work, and if only I could get strong and not have any more babies, I'd take hope and so would my husband. Won't you help me, please? I know that God will bless you if do. One more. This is a classic: I am only 34 years old and have given birth to 12 children, only 3 of them living. They die so quickly after they are born, it seems they don't have strength to live long. My husband is a good hard-working man, but the best he ever made was $1.50, and never for long. We're poor people, Mrs. Sanger, and the coffins of the last two are not paid for yet. It's hard on a woman to see them go like that, and I think that if I did not have any for a while I could keep the three I've got and give them better than we had. Is there any man in the world that would continue in a business that shows a 75 per cent loss? Of course not. And yet these mothers are not only losing live babies, but they are interrupting pregnancies, thereby sapping their health and strength. One woman is only 34 years old, the other one is only 21. Can you see, gentlemen, what it means to look ahead? Can you see that these women have years and years ahead of them of child bearing, of hopelessness, of despair? Why, the very entrance of a smiling, loving husband is a terror to these women. Is it any wonder that homes are broken up? Some of the other speakers will tell you something about the attitude of men. The young husbands have their problems too. They are trapped. They do not know what it is all about. They do not know what to do. They do the best they can, and yet the only thing they can do when they find their wives in a pregnant condition, with their hopelessness for the future, is to abort. In many of our cases we have brought them back again so that we can teach the husband and wife that it is not necessary for them to continue to bring children into the world that they can not take care of, and we have made many of these homes happier by proper instruction. These are the facts. These are the conditions; and there is just one thing that we must realize: The United States Government has already recognized that there is a population problem, at least as far as the quality is concerned, for you know that the Government has claimed the right to exclude immigrants whose condition is likely to be a serious danger to the well-being and happiness of the country. A very important law was passed, and there are now excluded 121936-32- -2 |