Debate on birth control. Margaret Sanger and Winter RussellSanger, Margaret
History
Debate on birth control. Margaret Sanger and Winter Russell
Sanger, Margaret
Birth control -- Moral and ethical aspects
Mr. Russell: May I say at the outset that I did not say we could not
have pleasure without pain. I said we could not have pleasure without
paying for it and the man has to pay. (Laughter.) I, too, am concerned
with the matter of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I have
been trying to find out the truth about that from the very first time
that I began to think, and that is what I want to find out, and I
devoutly pray right now that if Mrs. Sanger has got the truth that it
will prevail, but I want to know the truth and I feel still that the
truth is not there.
I am going to concern myself entirely with refutation now. I am going to
speak a little more about the positive side of this. I would say that
Mrs. Sanger has done quite a little for me in pointing out that there
are these two groups she sees all of the time—these families with large
numbers of children. I hope that I do not miss sight of them entirely. I
may not know them directly or as intimately as Mrs. Sanger, but Mrs.
Russell has been in 1,500 of the homes reported to be in dire straits
and destitution. I have been living with her as her husband during the
time that she visited those homes. And I feel that through her report I
know something of those homes as well. I see the other homes of the
small families, but I am frank to say that I do think in a far different
line than Mrs. Sanger. She says that the large family is the family of
poverty and of misery; very often, though not always nor in so large a
measure as is generally expected, is it the family of poverty and by no
means is it the family of misery. I have seen the misery beyond words in
the small family. I know that my mother considered—and she had three
children—that her life was a long tragedy. There was never a day that
she waited for food or clothes or a fine home, but practically all of
her talk was like the story of a great tragedy. My sister has a husband
that has now an income of $70,000 a year. She has never known what it
was to want for food or clothes or a fine home, and I heard her say not
very long ago that she had never known what happiness on this earth is.
Mrs. Sanger sees poverty, she sees misery and she sees unwanted
children. To be sure, there are many thousands of these homes where, sad
to say, the children are unwanted, but they have made this devout prayer
to God, I believe, for children, and they have gotten them. They have
gotten what I believe to be the greatest wealth and treasure of the
Kingdom of Heaven that there is on the face of the earth, and when they
get that, they have to pay for it. They have to pay and take the
responsibility.
To my mind, these snickers and giggles is one of the most tragic things
on the face of the earth. It shows you haven’t got eyes that see. You
have neither ears that hear, and you haven’t got the heart that feels.
(Chairman calls for more respectful attention on the part of the
audience.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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