I thought I might have my wish when Judge Freschi, holding up a cervical cap which the prosecuting attorney had put in evidence, said, “Who can prove this is a violation; the law states that contraception is permitted for the prevention of disease. May it not be used for medical reasons?”
This question raised my hopes high. At last the law might be interpreted according to the definition I so desired; ill health resulting from pregnancy caused by lack of its use might be construed as disease.
Then one by one the Brownsville mothers were called to the stand to answer the District Attorney. “Have you ever seen Mrs. Sanger before?”
The witness bowed sweet acknowledgment to me until she was peremptorily commanded to address the court.
“Yess. Yess, dank you, I got it. It wass gut, too.”
“Enough,” the District Attorney barked, and called another.
Time after time they gave answers that were like nails to seal my doom, yet each thought she was assisting me.
J.J. saw how their testimony could be turned to our advantage.
He asked, “How many miscarriages have you had? How much sickness in your family? How much does your husband earn?” The answers were seven, eight, nine dollars a week.
At last one woman more miserable and more poverty-stricken than the rest was summoned. “How many children have you?”
Judge Freschi finally exclaimed, “I can’t stand this any longer,” and the court adjourned over the week-end.
J.J. was jubilant, because he said there was nothing for him to do; the court was arguing his case for him.
I myself was feeling a little conscience-smitten. A mass meeting of sympathizers had been organized by the Committee of One Hundred for that evening in Carnegie Hall, and I went straight there from the courtroom. I had a speech ready in which I said we were being persecuted, not prosecuted; that the judges were no better than witch-burners. It was unfortunate, but copies had already been released to the press and the wording could not be changed.
Helen Todd, the Chairman, a grand person who had been trained under Jane Addams, had given the mothers of Brownsville places of honor on the platform to let everybody see what kind of women we were fighting for. She asked for twenty volunteers to follow the example of the English suffragettes who had gone on hunger strikes en masse, but no women whose names registered socially in the public mind were willing thus to join in protesting against the law; only working girls came forward.