Margaret Sanger - Autobiography of Margaret Sanger

As I lay sleepless that night, after a prayer of thanks for my many blessings, the crack of Simon Legree’s whip and the off-stage hounds baying after Eliza were not occupying my mind. Their places were taken by pictures of the devil which had tempted me and the hand of God which had been stretched out to save me from theft.

Following this experience, which might have been called a spiritual awakening, I began to connect my desires with reasoning about consequences. This was difficult, because my feelings were strong and urgent. I realized I was made up of two Me’s—one the thinking Me, the other, willful and emotional, which sometimes exercised too great a power; there was danger in her leadership and I set myself the task of uniting the two by putting myself through ordeals of various sorts to strengthen the head Me.

To gain greater fortitude, I began to make myself do what I feared most—go upstairs alone to bed without a light, go down cellar without singing, get up on the rafters in the barn and jump on the haystack thirty feet below. When I was able to accomplish these without flinching I felt more secure and more strong within myself.

But ahead of me still lay the hardest task of all.

Across the Chemung some friends of ours had a farm. Their orchard, heavy with delectable apples, seemed to me a veritable Eden. But to reach it by the wooden wagon bridge was three miles around; my brothers preferred the shorter route over the high, narrow, iron span of the Erie Railroad, under which the river raced deep and fast. The spaced ties held no terrors for their long legs, and they often swung them over the edge while they fished the stream beneath. When I made the trip father and brother each gave a hand to which I clung fiercely, and they half lifted me over the gaps which my shorter legs could hardly compass unaided. Held tight as I was, I became dizzy from the height, and a panic of terror seized me. In fact, the mere thought of the journey, even so well supported, made me feel queer.

The younger children were forbidden to cross the bridge unaccompanied. But I had to conquer my fear; I had to take that walk alone. I trembled as I drew near. The more I feared it, the more determined I was to make myself do it. I can recall now how stoically I put one foot on the first tie and began the venturesome and precarious passage stretching endlessly ahead of me. I dared not look down at the water; I wanted terribly to see that my feet were firmly placed, but could not trust my head.

About halfway over I heard the hum of the steel rails. My second dread had come upon me—the always possible train. I could not see it because of the curve at the end of the bridge. The singing grew louder as it came closer. I knew I could not get across in time, and turned towards the nearest girder to which I might cling. But it was six feet away. The engine with a whistling shriek burst into view—snorting, huge, menacing, rushing. I stumbled and fell.

In those days I was plump, and this plumpness saved me. Instinctively my arms went out and curled around the ties as I dropped between them. There I dangled over space. The bridge shook; the thunder swelled; the long, swift passenger cars swooped down. I was less than three feet from the outer rail, and a new terror gripped me. I had seen the sharp, sizzling steam jet out as locomotives drew near the station. I screwed my eyes shut and prayed the engineer not to turn on the steam.

After the blur of wheels had crashed by I could feel nothing. I hung there, I do not know how long, until a friend of my father, who had been fishing below, came to my rescue. He pulled up the fat, aching little body, stood me on my feet again, asked me severely whether my father knew where I was, gave me two brisk thwacks on the bottom, turned my face towards home, and went back to his rod and line.

After waiting a few moments to think matters over I realized that it would be impossible for me to retrace my course. Common sense aided me. The journey forward was no further than the journey back. I stepped ahead far more bravely, knowing if I could reach the end of the bridge I would never be so terrified again. Though bruised and sore I continued my cautious march and had as good a time at the farm as usual.

However, I returned home by the wooden bridge, the long way round, but the practical one.

When Ethel asked me that night why I was putting vaseline under my arms I merely said I had scratched myself. Foolhardiness was never highly esteemed by anyone in the family. Though resourcefulness was taken for granted, running into unnecessary danger was just nonsense, and I wanted no censure for my disobedience.

We were seldom scolded, never spanked. If an unpleasant conversation were needed, no other brother or sister was witness; neither parent ever humiliated one child in front of another. This was part of the sensitiveness of both. Mother in particular had a horror of personal vehemence or acrimonious arguments; in trying to prevent or stop them she would display amazing intrepidity—separating fighting dogs, fighting boys, even fighting men.

Peacemaker as she was, on occasion she battled valiantly for her loved ones, resenting bitterly the corporal punishment then customary in schools. Once my brother Joe came home with his hands so swollen and blistered that he could not do his evening chore of bringing in the wood. Mother looked carefully at them and asked him what had happened. He explained that the teacher had fallen asleep and several boys had started throwing spitballs. When one had hit her on the nose she had awakened with a little scream.

Most children had the trick of burying their faces behind their big geographies and appearing to be studying the page with the most innocent air in the world. But Joe had no such technique. He was doubled up with laughter. The teacher first accused him of throwing the spitball, and, when he denied it, insisted that he name the culprit. She had been embarrassed by her ridiculous situation, and had turned her emotion into what she considered righteous indignation. Joe had paid the penalty of being beaten for his unwillingness to violate the schoolboy code of honor.

This was injustice and the surest road to mother’s wrath. She started at once the long trip to the school. When she found no one there, she walked more miles to the teacher’s home. Reproof was called for and she administered it. But that was not enough. She then demanded that father go to the Board of Education and take Joe with him. There would have been no sleeping in the house with her had he not done so. An investigation was promised, which soon afterwards resulted in the teacher’s dismissal.

The teachers at the Corning School were no worse than others of their day; many of them were much better. The brick building was quite modern for the time, with a playground around it and good principals to guide it. Its superiority was due in part to the influence of the Houghtons, the big industrialists of the town. For three generations they had been making glassware unsurpassed for texture and beauty of design, and hardly a family of means in the country did not have at least one cut-glass centerpiece from Corning. The factories had prospered during the kerosene lamp era, and now, with electricity coming into its own, they were working overtime blowing light bulbs.

Corning was not on the whole a pleasant town. Along the river flats lived the factory workers, chiefly Irish; on the heights above the rolling clouds of smoke that belched from the chimneys lived the owners and executives. The tiny yards of the former were a-sprawl with children; in the gardens on the hills only two or three played. This contrast made a track in my mind. Large families were associated with poverty, toil, unemployment, drunkenness, cruelty, fighting, jails; the small ones with cleanliness, leisure, freedom, light, space, sunshine.