When a Congressman voices this wholesale distrust of his fellow citizens in regard to contraceptive knowledge, is it irrelevant to inquire if the expressions of faith in the people such as appear in pre-election campaign speeches are all mere platitudes: “If you do really consider most people intrinsically unworthy in this regard are you ready to go before your constituents and tell them so? Are you willing to explain to them that your hesitation about the Cummins-Vaile Bill is because you think they are so weak or so vicious that they would abuse contraceptive knowledge if it were made easily accessible?” A fair test of the validity, and even the sincerity, for any such generalization as this, is to apply the idea to our own selves. Surely we assume that our own lives are decently guided by something beside mere fear of “consequences.” We can hardly consider ourselves unique in this regard, either. We cannot think that we have any personal monopoly of principles, moral standards or good taste. We surely cannot picture ourselves as standing alone in the world on a pedestal of superiority, with all the others below in a morass of moral obliquity. If we dare trust ourselves with this knowledge, and we know we do, must we not also dare to trust others? All these disconcerting inquiries are seldom pressed home, however, with most Congressmen, for they usually think twice rather quickly, and they admit that the tendency of a few to abuse knowledge is no reason for trying to keep the mass of people ignorant. They admit when they stop to think, that knowledge of all kinds can be abused and that it is abused every day by some people. Even reading, writing and arithmetic are abused, by forgers, embezzlers and the like, but that is no reason for not teaching these pre-requisites of civilization to everyone. The elements and natural forces can be dangerous for mankind as well as beneficent. Fire, water and electricity can all do frightful damage if they get out of hand, but under proper human control, they are blessings and fundamental necessities. But it is the case of the young that stays longest in the mind of the doubting Congressman as a cause of apprehension. Usually it is the young girl whose “virtue” he thinks can be safeguarded by keeping her ignorant. If he is asked, “Why the sex distinction?” he is apt to admit that what is being safeguarded is convention rather than virtue, as the girl’s lapse would become known while the boy’s need not.