other cases where these prosecutions had been made and publicly given, and after they took the testimony they came to the conclusion that the best thing after all would be to say nothing about it. and these two volumes of testimony were suppressed. If they had been distributed you would have had once again free discussion and there would have been more public information given out than private persons would have undertaken to distribute.

How about this country? There have been isolated cases, but so far as bringing it to the attention of the people generally in the last ten years or so, that is due to what happened in New York within about a decade. A nurse was working among the poor in New York and she found, and was shocked to find, that the mouths of physicians were stopped from giving advice to women, what she thought was appropriate advice, about avoiding the sort of misery into which they had fallen. She became aroused by that, but, of course, she found herself against the law. She started to publish what she thought were messages of health for women, but she found that was an infringement of the Federal postal laws, and her publications were suppressed. She then withdrew to England, which had passed this stage of prosecution, and discovered that there was this history of fighting through to a different sort of basis. She came back to this country with new enthusiasm, and before the storm was over she started a clinic. That was against the law of New York. Her sister was imprisoned in that connection, and they had a hunger strike, and all this appeared on the front pages of the papers for 14 days or some such time, and the thing flared over the country. And out of that has come definite organization, definite propaganda, which I think quite frankly and calmly we should not have at all in this country if it had not been there was legal opposition against which people felt moved to organize. Now, what is this law, so far as we can say what has this law, 50 years of it, and of the State laws that have copied it-what have they accomplished in this country? That, of course, is not easy to say, and especially not easy to say in two or three minutes.

They have not stood-and we all recognize this, we all know thishave not stood in the way of birth control, which is widely spreading, and a very widely approved practice; they have not stood in the way of the sale of instruments of birth control. I think it is fair to say that anybody that is aware of what is going on knows that traffic flourishes for whoever chooses to take advantage of it, in spite of the laws about carrying in interstate trade.

What has been accomplished definitely is much more difficult to say, but some things it seems to me that the law on the whole tends to do are these: It makes it relatively more difficult, I think, for people who are without reputation or character to get the sort of information and medical advice, and sort of chance to think about these things for themselves which the other people have. To me personally that seems unfortunate. But I will not argue the point. It makes it extremely difficult for physicians who might otherwise be in a position to give intelligent advice to get the basis of that sort of advice.

The members of the committee themselves have asked this morning if in this, that, and the other State physicians were prohibited

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from giving advice to their patients. But there is this issue which perhaps that question overlooked. Where do they themselves get the basis for giving the advice?

Scientifically, the thing has hardly been approached anywhere, and as long as it is under this taboo I fancy it will not be pushed scientifically by the people of the best ability. The attitude will be that this is outlawed, it is clandestine, it is unclean, and although you may believe, and may have the courage to do what you believe, you are not likely to devote yourself as a scientific person to a contaminated thing of that sort.

And, finally, what has this law done in the way of deciding who stands before us as the representative of this proposed social reform? Has not the law virtually kept this in the hands of agitators? Is it extravagant to say on the whole that that is the effect of this system of legislation, even unenforced legislation, that the people who take the trouble to stand for the thing are, by temperament, by organization, and presently by habit of mind, agitators? And do we really want the matter-which I insist is complicated-do we want a matter of this sort to remain for purposes of our community a matter for organized agitation? Do we not want it, as we like to have so many things in a free country, a matter for the honest opinion of honest people, to be settled as a physical matter for those who try to administer to our physical needs, and as a moral matter for those who try to administer to our moral welfare? But don't we want it placed honestly and on its merits, in order that we may really find out what the truth is?

Senator SPENCER. We will now hear from an opponent of the

measure.

STATEMENT OF MRS. LEGARE H. OBEAR

Senator SPENCER. Whom do you represent?

Mrs. OBEAR. Well, I am a member of.a number of societies; but I am not here representing any of them. I have but a few moments to speak, and what I have to say is more from the religious and moral standpoint, and only a few words.

I think we all approve of volunteer motherhood. But the sanction by law of the indulgence and abuse of the creative function by use of contraceptives fixes the age-long curse of indulgence on our Nation for coming generations. The body is a temple of God and must be kept holy, using the sex function for creation only. This is the God plan for emancipated and consecrated parenthood.

STATEMENT OF MRS. DOROTHY GLASER, OF AMHERST, MASS.

Mrs. GLASER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I speak for both myself and my husband, Dr. Otto Charles Glaser, who is the head of the department of biology at Amherst College, the alma mater of President Coolidge.

It seems to me that there is a slight misunderstanding on the part of the various religious organizations here represented, especially the Catholics, about the Vaile bill, and I would like to discuss it from the scientific point of view. I feel that we only stand on our rights as American citizens on this proposition. Do not misunderstand me.

We do not object to the teachings of the Catholic faith on this subject for their own people. But we do feel that it is up to their own priests to advise them, instruct them, and keep them in order. They have no right to ask Federal aid to help the priests in matters of church discipline. I would make the same reply to any other set. Suppose, gentlemen, that the Christian Scientists came to you and said that they could not keep their people from using doctors. Would you then pass legislation to do away with medical knowledge at the request of these Christian Scientists. We have no objection to their taking any attitude on this matter, but we do object to their method of forcing it on others. We wish to be free to create scientific values without their interference. This is very difficult in the field of birth control, because under the present law the scientist is not free to work in this particular field. In every other than the human species there is freedom. The United States Bureau of Fisheries have a corps of scientists who work across the road from us in the department's laboratories at Woods Hole. They carry on experiments at Government expense with huge tanks of eggs and sperm. They limit the birth of the fish until such time as the temperature, season, and other environmental conditions are right, so that the young fish may have a square deal. have a square deal. But then America wants the best possible fish. The Bureau of Animal Husbandry is carrying on work in fertility, and I have a letter from Doctor Cole, the chief of this department, indorsing the Vaile bill. Now, however, if some one is very much interested in problems of fertilization in his own species and wants to work in this field, to create new material for the use of the medical profession, what happens? He goes into his laboratory; and suppose he makes a discovery: if he then tells anybody, if he publishes what he has discovered, or whispers it through the keyhole, he is in the position of Galileo, about 400 years ago. He is likely to go to jail for giving his scientific knowledge to the world. In fact, the law tells him that it is obscene. He can, however, publish it in any other country in the world, except the United States.

Of course, we can not agree with the point that has been made this morning, that it is an interference with nature, nor grant that that is a logical argument. For scientific discovery and all medicine is an interference with nature, as are electric lights and plumbing. In fact, it is when we do not know how to interfere with her that many of our worst calamities befall us. The flu came so suddenly that science could not help, and few of us enjoyed letting nature run her course. In the case of yellow fever the Government scientists stepped forward and through birth control of the mosquito, a rank interference with nature, removed one of the greatest menaces to the South.

Again, I would like to emphasize the right of every American to all the scientific information that we can give him and to insist that no group have the right to keep it from him. The scientist has not found that ignorance is bliss. Is it, then, unreasonable for him to ask why his Government, which stands for free education and the public-school system, should write into a law in this instance a faith in man's ignorance about himself? I plead, then, for the removal of this law which would restrict man's knowledge abou himself. Have we not faith enough in the people to let them have

such information as we possess, or are some fields of science to be kept for the favored few?

Of course, the point of restriction of experimentation, had it come up in other relations, would have been a serious thing for all of us. As an example, the man who discovered insulin. the only known control for diabetes, could never have made this discovery had he been prevented by law from having free access to the material and work done by others before him. There is much valuable material being published in European laboratories. If, however, any scientist or physician brings this material into our country for use in our laboratories that we may advance our knowledge in this field, he is likely to go to jail by reason of the fact that the law tells us it is obscene literature. It can only be done on the bootlegging basis.

We have at present students at Amherst going into all professional fields, many to medical schools, but they may not be given any information in relation to this subject, even though they may ultimately want to use it for the control of venereal disease among their patients. They, like the rest of us, must just find out what they can as best they may. Doctor Litchfield has already stressed this point.

One other point I should like to touch on in regard to the scientific point of view: We hear a great deal about "interference with nature" and the "right of the child to be born." To speak perfectly frankly, to a scientist this is nonsense, for in the light of the facts it leads to the reductio ad absurdum. I am sorry if I shocked the reverend father, who has just told us that these are things not even to be mentioned among Christians. The scientist must face all facts, sex included. The recent studies of bubonic plague in China have been very unsavory and have been made at great personal risk. But some one must have the courage to face all of life, not selected sections of it.

So I will continue and tell you that it has been found that every human female has 3,600 eggs and every male liberates 2,500,000 sperm at a time. Now, if the "right of the child to be born' means anything at all it must mean, then, the right of the egg to be fertilized, for it does not become a child until it does. Which, then, gentlemen, is the sacred egg? I would say that it is that egg which is fertilized at a time when both parents are in a position to give it a square deal: to give the child food, care, and the sort of environment which goes to the making of a decent American citizen. Nature, as you know, has another way of getting rid of the excess of the unwanted children, and this way is death. In other speciesfish, frogs, etc.-the greater portion of the young die before maturity. Nature does it not by birth control but by death control. We have a way which we call less brutal. We keep many of these children alive, unfed, and in misery until they are ripe to fill the ranks of the I. W. W's and Bolsheviks; or we put them into asylums for the unfit at huge public expense, where, if you have seen them, you know that science's way is kinder.

I think I have covered the main points. I say again, we have no antagonism to the churches. The scientist would simply like to be left free to investigate his material and to put it at the dis

posal of all the American people, without church interference. He asks no pay for what he does. The man who discovered insulin and the man who discovered 606 did not charge. We simply want the American people trusted with the best information that we can give them about this matter; that all, not some, may have the right to use it or not, as they seet fit.

I thank you.

Senator SPENCER. Is there any other opponent of the bill that desires to be heard?

STATEMENT OF MRS. BENJAMIN CARPENTER, OF CHICAGO

Mrs. CARPENTER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, we have been asked the question how we expect to get this information to the people who need it. Now, in Illinois it is perfectly legal to give information; there is no law aginst it. Physicians can give it; it can be given in hospitals, in clinics. Nothing, of course, can be sent through the mails.

The women who have worked in the social settlements and other social work in Chicago, seeing the need of the poorer classes having information, knowing that those women are not accustomed to going to physicians' offices, that they are accustomed to going to clinics, decided last year that the thing for our birth-control league to do was to start a clinic, and I was asked to be chairman of that clinic committee.

We had a consultation with our health commissioner, who told us that though he personally disapproved of all birth controland his only reason was that he said he believed in God and had five children, who were a source of great satisfaction-he told us that if it were legal and the corporation counsel approved our project he could not refuse to give us a license. The corporation counsel approved. We rented rooms and we furnished them; we passed the inspection required by the police department and the fire department and the building department, and then we applied for a license, and the health commissioner refused it.

He said that while he admitted there was no law against, that it was against public policy as shown by the fact that the Federal law prohibited the giving out of any information; that it was against public morals; that it would ruin the Nation; and that he would not be a party to any such action. Well, there we are. We are hung up. We can not have a clinic in Chicago without a license. We can not get a license because the Federal law says that the subject of birth control is immoral and obscene. We have taken the case into court, and we have had a decision from the court that it is perfectly legal. A mandamus has been issued compelling the health officer and the mayor to give us a license; but our case is appealed. It will come up in June, before the appellate court. We have not very much doubt as to what the decision will be.

In the meantime our clinic is empty, women are coming there every day imploring information, and we are getting letters from women all over the State.

I ask you gentlemen, is it not a shameful thing that when women are anxious to have children, and ask only for information as to