Margaret Sanger: an autobiography.Sanger, Margaret
History
Margaret Sanger: an autobiography.
Sanger, Margaret
Birth control -- United States -- Biography; Sanger, Margaret, 1879-1966
After settling Grant in a hotel I took a chair from around the corner,
because police headquarters was part way up the Peak, and rickshas could
not negotiate the steep ascent. The Chief was not there. I inquired
whether anything were wrong with my passport. Since my British visa was
perfectly correct, they said there must be some mistake; they had no
information about any summons. I left my card.
The next day the Chief called at my hotel but we missed each other
because I was out with Grant ordering his first pair of long trousers.
When I returned I found a calling card and another request to come to
headquarters that afternoon. Again I obeyed, and again I found no Chief
and no message for me. I left another card and the officials whom I had
seen before laughingly reiterated they still knew of no complaints.
“Well, I’m going tomorrow morning. If the Chief wants anything he’ll
have to come to the hotel.” He never did.
Once more we were off, this time on a British liner. The sea was smooth,
the air cool. It was the ideal ocean voyage I had always longed for. I
was relaxed and enervated but it was good to be so. I had nothing to do
all day but sit in the glorious breezes on deck and watch the romping
children, about fifty of whom were on board. Many had been born in the
Orient and were accompanying “pater” who was going home on leave. One
little boy might come tearing by pursued by another, both followed by
anxious Chinese amahs, thin, dark, slick-haired, wearing glossy, black
trousers and coats buttoned down the side. They seemed in constant
distress over the antics of their energetic charges.
When we dropped anchor at Singapore, agitation and excitement were again
manifest among the inspectors at the sight of my passport. I was
politely asked to stand by while they consulted, and then was ushered
off the ship to an upstairs office where I was questioned by a pleasant
young Englishman as to my intentions in going to India.
“But I’m not planning to stop in India.”
“Lectures by you are announced in Bombay and Calcutta.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” I assured him. “But if I were to
go, would there be any objection?”
“That would depend on the subject of your lectures.”
“I’m interested in only one subject.”
He pressed a button. Miraculously, almost like a scene from a mystery
play, and as though everything had been rehearsed in advance, an
attendant entered and placed on the desk a large, closely typewritten
paper.
“Am I on the blacklist?”
“Not exactly, but you said you were interested in only one subject. Then
what about this?” He actually read me from that document details of a
small reception I had given five years before in my own apartment in New
York for Agnes Smedley after her release on bail.
For a moment I was speechless with amazement. Then I ejaculated, “Why
shouldn’t I be interested when she was arrested for a cause that is my
own? Besides, you must remember the charge was later dismissed.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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