A striking bit of evidence which is related to this point is that the best known authority on this subject in England, and the one from whom many physicians both abroad and in this country have learned most of what they know about the control of conception and who has written a large volume of the subject, is a biologist, who has scientific degrees but who is not an M.D. So the framing of laws which would place the giving of information exclusively in the hands of physicians becomes an absurdity for that reason if for no other. “Floods of advertisements” streaming through the mails, commercializing, cheapening and degrading contraceptive science—this is one of the bogies held before the eyes of the public by those who want limited legislation in place of freedom legislation. You may consider this a point well taken as a possible reason for “doctors only” legislation. Certainly decent people do not want any such thing to happen. The question is how to prevent it. Can it be achieved by law? If so, then would it not be better to have a separate statute on the subject of advertising contraceptives, than to try to accomplish the curbing of improper advertising in a round about back-handed way via a “doctors only” bill? Of course a blanket prohibition of all advertising would not be appropriate for that would rule out the publisher’s announcements of the “standard medical works and reprints therefrom” which are to be allowed according to the latest form of “doctors only” bill. It is hard to see where any line could be drawn, as “standard medical” and “scientific” publications are not defined by law. What conceivably might be done is to pass laws similar to the obsolete one in Holland which forbids the display of contraceptives in shop windows, and so forth. But on the whole would it not be best to have the laws simply provide an open field, and let the dignified authoritative scientists compete with the quacks and the spurious folk, with faith that eventually the best would win, very much as the increased public knowledge of general hygiene is steadily putting quackery into the background? The writer of this book believes whole-heartedly that the American public wants sound legislation on the subject of birth control. The difficulty in getting it lies in the fact that people in general are so concerned with each day’s doings that there is scant time or opportunity to dig out from all manner of sources the few facts that are the basis of sound legislation. The tendency of busy people is to “let the experts decide.” The tendency of average citizens is to vote yes on any project that claims to carry out ideas to which he gives general approval. The tendency of birth control enthusiasts is to assume that the sincere and self-sacrificing leaders of an agitation are automatically wise at framing laws on the subject. But, as Heywood Broun said in the New York World, anent another subject and a different sort of organization: