_Dr. Litchfield_: The medical society has been very busy, but they will do this eventually. The president of the American Medical Association told me so. I met him in conference at Atlantic City, and he said all the members were in favor of birth control, and it was only a question of time that we should have it. I am not authorized to give his name, but he stands as the first man in American medicine. _Mr. Hersey_: Where you felt you had a patient bearing a child, who would be in danger of her life, there is nothing in the law at present that would prevent you from pursuing your remedy, is there? _Dr. Litchfield_: There is something in the law of my State that prohibits me. _Mr. Hersey_: The proponents of this measure contend, as I understand, that some of them do not want to have the trouble with the child, they do not want to have the child on account of the annoyance. _Dr. Litchfield_: No; the statement that was made this morning that morality depends on opportunity for conception is an insult to American women. I have been practicing medicine for 25 years, and I do not figure that the morality of the young American women would be influenced in the slightest degree if contraceptive methods become public property. I think morality is something higher, and I do not think Congress is asked to pass statutes in favor of morality any more than they are asked to pass a law that everybody should be a Roman Catholic. _Mr. Hersey_: When was this ban fixed? _Dr. Litchfield_: 1873. (For five years Mr. Hersey like all members of Congress had been receiving literature and data frequently, which gave the history of the Comstock law, and all the pertinent facts concerning it.) _Mr. Hersey_: And the immediate thing desired here is the repeal of the prohibition of the use of the mails for these methods? If this law were passed you would be confronted by your State. _Dr. Litchfield_: We would have to have the State laws changed. _Mr. Hersey_: Do you mean to say that at the present time you are prohibited by your State law of advising a patient or communicating through another doctor methods of birth control? _Dr. Litchfield_: Yes, sir. _Mr. Major_: Do you not think that the main trouble in this country now is lack of children, instead of having too many? _Dr. Litchfield_: Too many children in a certain strata is very undesirable. _Mr. Major_: I remember the old poem, “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, who had so many children she didn’t know what to do.” There was another old poem, “There was a woman who lived in a shoe, who didn’t have any children; she knew what to do.” I have heard that all my life. _Dr. Litchfield_: I do not think that knowledge will prevent the average woman from having children.