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.

Doctor LITCHFIELD. We would have to have the State laws changed. Mr. HERSEY. The use of the mails does not come into that consideration?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. No, sir; the mails are a Federal matter.

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?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. Yes, sir. A great many people think that when you are talking about birth control you are advocating abortion. There is a very sharp line of distinction between birth control and abortion.

Mr. MAJOR. The medical department does have trouble with members of their own profession. What you are speaking of is some method of preventing conception?

Doctor 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?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. Too many children in a certain strata is very undesirable.

Mr. MAJOR. I remember the old poem, แ 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.

Doctor LITCHFIELD. I do not think that knowledge will prevent the average woman from having children.

Mr. MAJOR. But they do not have many children. I can remember my grandmother and her three sisters, four women, married before they were 18, who raised over 11 children and lived to be over 80 years of age. There are seven in my family. I have a daughter with two children. If it keeps on, her daughter will not have any children. That looks to be the trouble: the people that ought to have children do not. A bill like this, to put this information around in news stands, where it can be picked up anywhere, as these women say, I do not know how you feel about it, but I have always felt the very fear of consequences. I have felt that it would promote immorality.

I want to say another thing to you, Doctor. I was State's attorney in my court and my county, which is one of the best in the world, for six years, and during that time I suspect I had at least four seduction cases a year. There has not been a seduction case there now for 20 years. That looks like this information is leaking out in

some way.

Doctor LITCHFIELD. It is not getting in the right hands.

Mr. MAJOR. It is getting out. I do not think human nature is changing, but those cases are only heard of when there is pregnancy in a seduction case, and there has not been a seduction case there for 20 years. When you go into different courts you do not hear of it. and it used to be of frequent occurrence, and the only explanation in my mind is that these people are securing from some source the knowledge to prevent conception, and the effect of it is that the

people that ought to be having families, and I mean like the lady that spoke this morning-my idea about the best people in this country is that they should not bring up one or two spindley children that do not know how to take care of themselves. They do not have families any more where the girls hand down one dress to another. That is past in this country.

Doctor LITCHFIELD. I agree; but for every case of seduction there are over 100 cases of worthy, industrious, virtuous, loving mothers who are having their children too close together, and if they had the knowledge to space their children and conserve their own health it would be better than to raise such terribly big families and themselves be broken down in middle life by too frequent pregnancy. We are not working for the profligate who becomes easily seduced and becomes pregnant. They are an inconsiderable number compared with the worthy people that should have the protection that science can give them. The enormous number of women who die before middle life on account of too frequent pregnancy, whose health is broken down, so that they leave a large family of motherless children, could be done away with.

Mr. YATES. Does that frequently occur?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. Yes.

Mr. YATES. I have a daughter who had four babies, and she is fatter and prettier now after having the four.

Doctor LITCHFIELD. She did not have one each year.

Mr. YATES. No. Now, the question I have had in mind that has been troubling me--would it not happen, if we removed the prohibition of the use of the mail-in other words, if the mails were thrown open would it not happen that every cheap publication in the country could advertise to send 50 cents and they would get this information; would not that be an evil, to have these things upon the news stands, in depots, and places like that?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. I do not think so.

Mr. YATES. I am referring to the masses. That is what I am talking about.

Doctor LITCHFIELD. I feel that legitimate sources of information. will be the recognized source. I do not think that it will be a thing peddled on the news stands.

Mr. HERSEY. What will hinder it?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. If it is peddled on the news stand it will not do as much harm by reaching the immoral as good will be done to the worthy, well-meaning, industrious citizens. The people deserve health and protection, and the knowledge of science will give them that protection. I got a book in England that I wanted to send my daughter, and I was forbidden to bring it into the country because of the mails. They would not allow it.

Mr. HERSEY. Could not you instruct your daughter without the book?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. I was not in the same country with my daughter.

Mr. HERSEY. You are now, are you not?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. No, sir; my daughter is a citizen of Holland. Birth control has been made legal in Holland for 40 years, and the results, I think, are quite evident.

Mr. HERSEY. Do you think that our people are below the morality in Holland?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. No; I do not think so. I think they are somewhat below it in intelligence.

Mr. HERSEY. I do not think so.

Doctor LITCHFIELD. I have been to Holland.

Mr. HERSEY. A certain intelligence, perhaps.

Mr. YATES. This biological institute you speak of, where is that located?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. Hoodshall, Mass., east of Buzzards Bay, just at the entrance of Buzzards Bay.

Mr. YATES. Do they have any publications that will help us?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. I do not think so. It is a laboratory devoted to biologic research. I was going to say to the Congressman from Maine that I would like to give this book to all young friends, patients of mine, who are about to be married.

Mr. HERSEY. Why not give it to the members of the committee? Doctor LITCHFIELD. The customhouse will not let it come in. Mr. HERSEY. I would like to submit it to my home physician, whom I trust.

Doctor LITCHFIELD. Would you like me to smuggle a copy in? I know how.

Mr. HERSEY. You are asking us to pass something that we do not. know anything about.

Doctor LITCHFIELD. We want the freedom to use the mails.
Mr. HERSEY. Using the mails would bring it in?

Doctor LITCHFIELD. But we are liable to get caught.

STATEMENT OF MISS AGNES G. REGAN

Miss REGAN. I refrained from speaking because I thought it understood that we would not speak again, but since the proponents of the measure have spoken again, I will call attention to one or two things which are very important. We are asked to send through the mails, not for the benefit of the legal profession but for the benefit of the medical profession, scientific investigation, which they grant has not yet been scientifically investigated. No worth-while scientist to-day would present to the world as a whole any method unless he had endless cases to prove the worth of this scientific fact. It is admitted that none of these things have had sufficient investigation. Now, when the medical profession has reached the stage that it can say that all medical men of the country believe these things are safe, then we might be justified in asking that information be disseminated for the benefit of the people who are not physicians.

The entire plea is based on the need of bettering the condition of the women. As a woman who was principal for many years of a grammar school, who investigated high-school cases, I know that knowledge is obtainable at the present time from drug stores, and there is information disseminated in this country, and it is preventing the birth of children, which was one of the things which really safeguarded young people. They are not being cared for to-day as they should, and to flood this country with that kind of

literature you have no conception of the result. No one who deals with young people will disregard the importance of this fact. You know the whole medical profession has protested against the advertising in the papers of cures for venereal diseases. It has never been controlled, and we are told that boys and girls have been ruined because they are going to quacks and getting the information, and to-day the Congress of the United States is asked to make possible information of a more serious nature, without guaranty, and with a statement of physicians admitting that there is no really assured scientific knowledge which absolutely prevents conception. They want that information sent through the country. I do not see how any medical man can claim any justification for advocating such a system.

Mr. YATES. Your time has expired. I would like to hear you longer, but it is impossible.

Mr. VAILE. I would like to present Professor Johnson.

STATEMENT OF PROF. ROSWELL JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. It has been stated that this is a distasteful subject. Gentlemen, it seems to me that even if true that it is irrelevant. The Judiciary Committee must deal with many things distasteful. But I do not believe it is true. How can anything which deals so fundamentally with one of the three fundamental things of life be distasteful? That is an utterly inconsequential consideration.

There is a great deal of harm done to a great many women who are trying to use methods of contraception that are uncertain. There is a great deal of loss of the peace of mind, even actual neurasthenia, resulting from this cause. Such uncertainty is an argument for the spread of reliable methods.

The alarmist predictions of what might happen if Congress should pass this bill are beside the point, in view of the experiences in Holland. In Holland one of our American sociologists was investigating the situation last summer, and he reached the conclusion that the limitation of families is more evenly distributed as between the classes whose worth might be judged relatively by their education than in this country.

The thing we are especially concerned with is that adequate means, efficient means, of control are being used by the most intelligent people, and, on the contrary, the inefficient means, or no means at all, are being used by the less intelligent. You see, therefore, that because of the present law you are directly increasing the relative rapidity of reproduction on the part of the inferior.

At our last hearing here we presented you a case based on eugenic medical, and sociological consideration, and I call attention to the fact that no eugenists appeared to oppose our argument; no doctor comes here to oppose our argument, no body of sociologists, but only a sectarian organization. It is said that the study of Mrs. Katherine Bement Davis on birth control has shown that a good many children are borne by the advocates of birth control. Of course there are. We advocates of birth control want children. We favor large families from entirely desirable people. One reason

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those statistics show that result is that sterile people and people who become impregnated with difficulty use birth control less. It is a perfectly natural thing to expect, and does show that we advocates of birth control are not interested in keeping our families very small. That is a great misconception. What we want to do it to have children, properly spaced and adapted in number to the conditions.

I wish to call attention to the fact that there is in some States a law that says that a refusal to cohabit for one year is a ground for divorce.

A method of control of reproduction, which is sanctioned by a large number of people, that by the "natural" method-that is, abstinence at periods in the monthly cycle-is also prohibited as to dissemination by the mails by this law.

Mr. HERSEY. You are giving us the secret?

Mr. JOHNSON. That is one of the methods, and is considered "natural" and hence not opposed by the opponents of this law. Mr. HERSEY. Know to every woman in the world.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes; and it is very unreliable.
Mr. HERSEY. Is it as reliable as your method?

Mr. JOHNSON. No.

Mr. HERSEY. Do you know the method advocated here?
Mr. JOHNSON. Yes; there are several methods.

Mr. HERSEY. Better than that one?

Mr. JOHNSON. Why, of course.

Mr. HERSEY. A method that will prevent the workers, the poor, the working people, from having so many children, and will increase the children of the educated, of the aristocratic, will it make them have more children?

Mr. JOHNSON. It will, sir, because if you increase the welfare of the American people by increasing its quality, you will find superior, intellectual people being willing to bear more children.

Take a group like college professors. We know them by objective tests to be relatively superior, yet they are very poorly paid, and this restriction of the number of births from their families is carried on to a degree which is altogether unfortunate. Now, I say a measure like this would increase the intelligence and behavior of future generations of the people of the United States and tend to release births from such groups.

Mr. HERSEY. Let me ask a question. You have studied this matter some?

Mr. JOHNSON. I have.

Mr. HERSEY. Have you studied the matter of childbirth some?
Mr. JOHNSON. I have.

Mr. HERSEY. You have an idea, perhaps, like I have. I have an idea that our trouble to-day in this matter arises from this situation, so far as bearing children are concerned: You have a great body of people in this Nation, up into the millions, who are Catholic in religion. As I understand, they are taught by their religion the idea that the mothers contribute to their girls the belief that they should be mothers, motherhood being shown to be one of the great virtues, the girl should bear children in a legitimate way, raise up a large family, and to-day the Catholic religion is doing more in this connection than any other thing in the Nation, to grow up large healthy families; and the Catholic women are healthy women,