free speech, but was
prohibited and arrested. Miss Mary Winsor, who protested against this
unwarranted arrest, was likewise dragged off to the police station. The
case was dismissed the following morning. The ecclesiastic instigators
of the affair were conspicuous by their absence from the police court.
But the incident was enough to expose the opponents of Birth Control and
the extreme methods they used to combat our progress. The case was too
flagrant, too gross an affront, to pass unnoticed by the newspapers. The
progress of our movement was indicated in the changed attitude of the
American Press, which had perceived the danger to the public of the
unlawful tactics used by the enemies of Birth Control in preventing open
discussion of a vital question.

No social idea has inspired its advocates with more bravery, tenacity,
and courage than Birth Control. From the early days of Francis Place
and Richard Carlile, to those of the Drysdales and Edward Trulove, of
Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant, its advocates have faced imprisonment
and ostracism. In the whole history of the English movement, there has
been no more courageous figure than that of the venerable Alice Drysdale
Vickery, the undaunted torch-bearer who has bridged the silence of
forty-four years--since the Bradlaugh-Besant trial. She stands head and
shoulders above the professional feminists. Serenely has she withstood
jeers and jests. To-day, she continues to point out to the younger
generation which is devoted to newer palliatives the fundamental
relation between Sex and Hunger.

The First American Birth Control Conference, held at the same time
as the Washington Conference for the Limitation of Armaments, marks a
turning-point in our approach to social problems. The Conference made
evident the fact that in every field of scientific and social endeavour
the most penetrating thinkers are now turning to the consideration of
our problem as a fundamental necessity to American civilization. They
are coming to see that a QUALITATIVE factor as opposed to a QUANTITATIVE
one is of primary importance in dealing with the great masses of
humanity.

Certain fundamental convictions should be made clear here. The programme
for Birth Control is not a charity. It is not aiming to interfere in
the private lives of poor people, to tell them how many children
they should have, nor to sit in judgment upon their fitness to become
parents. It aims, rather, to awaken responsibil