Every once in a while I had a telephone message to come down to the Post Office at an appointed hour. I did so, wondering and uncertain. Was the interview to be about the _Review_, _Family Limitation_, or what?
The official in the legal department whom I always saw, fatherly though not old, used to say, “Now, Mrs. Sanger, you’re still violating the law by sending your pamphlet through the mails. If you keep this up they’ll put you in jail again.”
I objected, “The Government and I had this out years ago. The Federal case was dismissed.”
“It never can be settled while we get these protests.”
To prove the Post Office was not having such an easy time of it, he pulled open a drawer and inside was a little pile of pamphlets and letters from religious fanatics, self-constituted moralists of one kind or another, women as well as men, who had received their copies and then complained. He showed me envelopes addressed to the Governor of New York, to the President of the United States. I studied the handwriting to see whether I could recognize it as identical with any that had come to me. Perhaps the postmark was Wichita, Kansas; there could not be many from a town of that size, and presently I remembered the request. It was a shattering thing to see that drawer. I had been earnestly trying to aid despairing mothers, and had been betrayed.
“Here’s this proof against you, Mrs. Sanger. What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing. As long as these women ask me to help them, I’m going to do so.”
I intended to continue to the limit of my resources whether or not I had help from those whom I had originally counted upon. In order to make women’s clubs feel the need as I did I had often gone miles at my own expense to present a topic that had taken me years to prepare and then had had to express it to the accompaniment of the clatter of dishes or the stirring of spoons in after-dinner coffees. The members had seemed to have their minds on hot rolls or had been fidgeting to get on to the bridge tables. Sometimes a few, who had come to dabble in sentimentality, had experienced a pleasant emotional response, “Oh, the poor things,” but that had been as far as it had gone.
The continued apathy of such organizations disappointed me intensely; the desire to build up a structure appeared to dominate them all. I had lost faith in their sincerity, respect for their courage, and at this time had no reason to anticipate assistance from them. To upbraid, accuse, or censure them for not doing what I had hoped was useless, but I resolved that I was never again going to talk to them, and, when it seemed necessary that they be addressed, I sent others to do it.