Conference Opens on Birth Control; Sanger Says "Undesirables are Increasing in Population"

The New York Times Archives | March 26, 1925

[nwrep]

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OPENS ON BIRTH CONTROL

MESSAGE FROM G.B. SHAW

Speakers hail movement as way of curbing overpopulation and wars

----

The sixth international birth control conference opened last night at Hotel McAlpin under the auspices of the American Birth Control League.

Addresses were made last night by Mrs. Margaret Sanger, President of the Organization and Dr. C.V. Drysdale of the University of London.

Messages from George Bernard Shaw and Havelock Ellis, approving of the movement, were also read.

"While the United States," said Mrs. Sanger, "shuts her gates to foreigners, no attempt whatever is made to discourage the rapid multiplication of undesirable aliens - and natives - within our own borders. On the contrary, the United States deliberately encourages, and even makes necessary by its laws, the breeding, with a breakneck rapidity, of idiots, defectives, diseased, feeble-minded and criminal classes. The American public is heaily taxed to maintain an increasing race of morons which threatens the very foundation of our civilization."

"If we could," she continued, "by a system of awards or bribes, or whatever you call it, discourage the reproduction of the obviously unfit, we would be lightening the economic and social burden now hindering the progress of the fit."

Dr. Drysdale paid tribute to Mrs. Sanger as the "Joan of Arc and the Florence Nightingale of the birth control movement."

[xJones]

On the contrary, the United States deliberately encourages, and even makes necessary by its laws, the breeding, with a breakneck rapidity, of idiots, defectives, diseased, feeble-minded and criminal classes. The American public is heaily taxed to maintain an increasing race of morons which threatens the very foundation of our civilization."

Nowdays they're called Democrats....they post at DU a lot.

[GSlob]

Did she foresee that the socially fit would not be reproducing? The law of unintended consequences, I suppose.

[MisterRepublican]

The little known history of Planned Parenthood's infamous founder. I wonder how supportive of abortion movement many minorities would be if the were aware of it's racist beginnings.

[luv2ski]

Wow! I didn't realize that Sanger was that extreme. Last night I watched a show on the SS in Nazi Germany on the History channel. What they did was the result of this kind of thinking. They chose SS men based on their height, the color of their eyes and the shape of their head. Then those men were "given" wives who met the same criteria and "encouraged" to have at least 4 children for the good of the country. They were also encouraged to father children with other women out of wedlock so long as they met the criteria of the super race. Very scary stuff.

[SmithL]

And where is her definition of the "inferior" population?

[Don Corleone]

"While the United States," said Mrs. Sanger, "shuts her gates to foreigners, no attempt whatever is made to discourage the rapid multiplication of undesirable aliens - and natives - within our own borders. On the contrary, the United States deliberately encourages, and even makes necessary by its laws, the breeding, with a breakneck rapidity, of idiots, defectives, diseased, feeble-minded and criminal classes. The American public is heaily taxed to maintain an increasing race of morons which threatens the very foundation of our civilization.

If a Republican said this it would bring down the wrath of the liberal press no end. The "Chattering Class" continues.

[MisterRepublican]

Forgot the "the" before abortion movement.

[Delphinium]

rapid multiplication of undesirable aliens - and natives - within our own borders.

she must be talking about the Christian conservatives that she hates.

[luv2ski]

Did she foresee that the socially fit would not be reproducing? The law of unintended consequences, I suppose.

It is highly ironic that because of Planned Parenthood, the very people she thought should populate the world used birth control and therefore reduced the birth rate of their class. Whereas the "undesirables" continued to reproduce for lack of knowledge or access.

[Diago]

Margaret Sanger and the Ku Klux Klan

Here is Margaret Sanger's account of her trip to talk to the Ku Klux Klan from pages 366-367 of Margaret Sanger An Autobiography (1971 reprint by Dover Publications, Inc. of the 1938 original published by W.W. Norton & Company).

All the world over, in Penang and Skagway, in El Paso and Helsingfors, I have found women's psychology in the matter of childbearing essentially the same, no matter what the class, religion, or economic status. Always to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing.

My letter of instruction told me what train to take, to walk from the station two blocks straight ahead, then two to the left. I would see a sedan parked in front of a restaurant. If I wished I could have ten minutes for a cup of coffee or bite to eat, because no supper would be served later.

I obeyed orders implicitly, walked the blocks, saw the car, found the restaurant, went in and ordered some cocoa, stayed my allotted ten minutes, then approached the car hesitatingly and spoke to the driver. I received no reply. She might have been totally deaf as far as I was 1 concerned. Mustering up my courage, I climbed in and settled back. Without a turn of the head, a smile, or a word to let me know I was right, she stepped on the self-starter. For fifteen minutes we wound around the streets. It must have been towards six in the afternoon. We took this lonely lane and that through the woods, and an hour later pulled up in a vacant space near a body of water beside a large, unpainted, barnish building.

My driver got out, talked with several other women, then said to me severely, "Wait here. We will come for you." She disappeared. More cars buzzed up the dusty road into the parking place. Occasionally men dropped wives who walked hurriedly and silently within. This went on mystically until night closed down and I was alone in the dark. A few gleams came through chinks in the window curtains. Even though it was May, I grew chillier and chillier.

After three hours I was summoned at last and entered a bright corridor filled with wraps. As someone came out of the hall I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses. I waited another twenty minutes. It was warmer and I did not mind so much. Eventually the lights were switched on, the audience seated itself, and I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak.

Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand.

In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York. Under a curfew law everything in Silver Lake shut at nine o'clock. I could not even send a telegram to let my family know whether I had been thrown in the river or was being held incommunicado. It was nearly one before I reached Trenton, and I spent the night in a hotel.

Margaret Sanger and the Ku Klux Klan -KKK - as recreated by Free Republic's Registered:

Margaret Sanger

[Diago]

bump

[BenLurkin]

Great find!

[mlc9852]

"The American public is heaily taxed to maintain an increasing race of morons which threatens the very foundation of our civilization."

So she proposed eliminating Democrats? Cool!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Messages from George Bernard Shaw and Havelock Ellis, approving of the movement, were also read.

Eugenics, anyone?

[Cvengr]

She has to either be referencing Democratic socialists, NPR, Michael Moore, or some distorted convolution involving the three...

[mlc9852]

LOL - any or all...

[KevinDavis]

You should check this site out: Click Here

[nwrep]

You two are funny, but unintentionally so. Do not forget that the fight to legitimize and accord credibility to this horrible organization was lead by the Republican luminaries of their day. Without the support of WASP Republicans (like the Bushes of Kennebunkport), PP would not have achieved its success.

[Leonard210]

Don't know about the Democrats part, but at least one author seems to have verified that Sanger may have been on to something. Freakonomics author Steven Levitt has compiled stats from the 90's and claims that the only correlation he can find for the precipitous drop in crime is the systematic abortion of undesirables. I found one reference to the book on FR at Freak Out! Freakonomics is as interesting as it is controversial and I'm reading the book now. I can't gush like the author of the review cited here, but as statistics go Levitt makes some pretty good points.

The only real controversy is his conclusion on the effect of abortion on crime. Assuming he's correct, neither side of the abortion debate seems willing to embrace his conclusion. Pro-aborts don't want to sound like this was their plan all along and anti-aborts (my team) don't want to publicize what appears to be a positive outcome of abortion-on-demand.

I'm a big fan of James Taranto (he writes a news summary with pithy comments daily) and he continually points out that a second outcome of abortion that many anti-aborts have been willing to at least mildly embrace is the possible reduction in Democrats of voting age due to a decision by their mothers 18 to 25 years earlier. The reasoning is that Democratic women, who are solidly pro-abort, would be more likely to terminate a pregnancy than Republican women thereby reducing the number of potential Democratic voters. I'm intrigued by both possibilities yet saddened by the way they may have been achieved.