The day book. [volume], October 21, 1916, LAST EDITION, Image 3

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
MARGARET SANGER SAYS OFFICIALS MIGHT
JUST AS WELL ACCEPT BIRTH CONTROL
BY GEORGE MARTIN
N New York, Oct 21. "The poor,
century-behind the times public of
ficials of this country might, just as
well forget their moss-grown stat
utes and accept birth control as an
established fact. My new national
plan makes it as inevitable as night
and day."
Mrs. Margaret Sanger, short and
smiling, with a" tinge of red in her
hair and more than that in her eye,
sat in her little two-by-four hotel
bedroom and said that here today.
Within the last 48 hours she has es
tablished semi-secretly in this city,
the first out-and-out birth control
clinic inthe United States, the law,
a federal indictment and numerous
arrests all over the country to the
contrary notwithstanding.
"The police are hunting my clinic
today," she went on. "They can't
find it If they should they can't hurt
it. It is an oral clinic and the law
says nothing about not spreading
birth control information orally. If
they do try to interfere I am legally
prepared to carry a hard and bitter
fight to the highest tribunal in the
land with the best legal talent
there is.
"Four more secret climes will be
running in New York within a week.
In less than a year there will be clin
ics in Washington, Cleveland, De
troit, St. Paul, MineapoUs, Milwau
kee, Denver, St Louis, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, San Diego, Portland,
Seattle, Spokane and Butte. They
are every one organized and ready
to open the minute I say the wqrd.
The Washington clinic will open
within a few days.
"Do the women like it? Say, you
ought to go down in the neighbor
hood we have canvassed with secret
circulars the last 48 hours. The
women have been coming in by the
dozens. You can hear them calling
from house to house in the congest
ed districts: 'Oh, Mrs. Rosenbaum,
you ought to see this; this is some
thing fine.'
"Within two years every man and
woman in this country will know
how many children they can afford
to have. And when they know that,
I predict that two generations of
birth control will wipe out all the
slums, eliminate the birth of mental
defectives, minimize the number of
humans in our insane asylums and
automatically put a stop to child la
bor and prostitution.
"I say it will wipe out child labor
because statistics show that 97 per
cent of our child labor is recruited
from families that are too large to be
cared for by the parents.
"I say it will wipe out the worst of
prostitution because statistics proye
that 95 per cent of the girls taken
from lives of prostitution and placed
in industrial homes come from poor
parents with nine or more children.
"IJoyerty doesn't force these girls
into prostitution, but the lack of at
tention they get, with so many chil
dren at home and the general sordid
tone of their .lives, naturally leads
them to such a life.
"My friends and myself are going
to bring the people of this country to
realize that a man making only $15
a week cannot afford to marry, much
less have children. And they'll learn
that the average workingman's fam
ily should not exceed two children,
even under the most favorable phys
ical conditions.
"This is the work the law and pub
lic officials are trying to stop."
o o
Washington. Admiral Pond is
proceeding at full speed aboard the
gunboat Prairie to aid steamer Sew
ard, aground off Cape Haitien.
New York. Macaroni workers on
strike. Factories have plenty of holes
to wrap macaroni around, but no one
to do r " "
essaimjammmmmmmmm