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PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
(The ACTORS enter from the back of the house. During their progress to the stage, SLIDES 1 to 14 are projected on rear stage screen. These slides are of the original letters being quoted by the ACTORS. The stage is bare except for four chairs and a desk.)
(NOTE: Dates given in parens, such as (11/23/37)are not spoken by the actor, but are for the reader’s information.)
ACTOR TWO
Dear President.
ACTOR ONE
Dear Mr. President.
ACTOR THREE
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My dear Mr. President.
ACTOR FOUR
Mr. President and wife.
ACTOR TWO
Dear President Harding.
ACTOR ONE
Dear President Coolidge.
ACTOR FOUR
Dear President Hoover.
ACTOR THREE
Dear Mr. Roosevelt.
ACTOR ONE
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt.
ACTOR FOUR
To the President of these U.S. of A.
ACTOR THREE
Your Honor Sir and Your Royalty.
ACTOR TWO
Your Excellency.
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ACTOR ONE
Majesty.
ACTOR FOUR
Sir.
ACTOR TWO
Dear Sir. Dear Madame.
ACTOR ONE
Dear Friend.
ACTOR THREE
My Dear Sir. Kind Sir. Honored Sir. Honorable Sir. Dear Honorable Sir.
ACTOR FOUR
Gents.
ACTOR TWO
Who am I?
ACTOR FOUR
One who did not vote for you, but a true American.
ACTOR ONE
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I am one of many ordinary Americans.
ACTOR TWO
I am a farmer’s wife.
ACTOR ONE
A descendant of eight Revolutionary soldiers.
ACTOR THREE
A descendant from the Frosts of Massachusetts.
ACTOR THREE
An American born Negro.
ACTOR ONE
An American of the tenth generation.
ACTOR THREE
An old soldier in my 88th year.
ACTOR TWO
A graduate from Boyd’s Business College.
ACTOR ONE
A master of Mental and Sexual Science.
ACTOR TWO
A widow woman 55 years old.
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ACTOR FOUR
A poor woman who cannot care for so many children.
ACTOR TWO
I am your friend.
ACTOR THREE
We are the common run of folks.
ACTOR ONE
We are hog-tied. What shall we do?
ACTOR FOUR
Please give me some help.
ACTOR THREE
I am in a bad way.
ACTOR TWO
I need advice.
ACTOR ONE
Please hear the plea of a broken-hearted mother.
ACTOR FOUR
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I feel impelled to exercise my prerogative as a native-born American.
ACTOR THREE
I wish to express my approval of the stand you have taken.
ACTOR TWO
The letter from you in reply to my letter is not satisfactory.
ACTOR ONE
I am writing this letter to ask: what is the score?
ACTOR TWO
Do you encourage Bolshevism in this country?
ACTOR THREE
I hereby protest the frame-up charge against the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States.
ACTOR FOUR
Sorry for what I wrote last time.
ACTOR TWO
It is terrible how the women are dying.
ACTOR ONE
The election of 1924 will witness the downfall of our Republic.
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ACTOR THREE
Rotten politics breeds crime and communism.
(The ACTORS have now all reached the stage.)
ACTOR ONE
We are disgusted with misrule and failures and propaganda and deceit.
ACTOR THREE
I just hate the United States and its stinking contradictions.
ACTOR FOUR
This country is full of English spies.
ACTOR THREE
Jewry is well organized.
ACTOR TWO
I fear anti-Semitic outbreaks will take place.
ACTOR ONE
The head man is a peg-legged Southerner.
ACTOR FOUR
Mr. President, what good does lynching do?
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ACTOR THREE
Why is it un-American because a large group of citizens who are native-born and of the Protestant faith want to have a society of their own?
ACTOR TWO
Every man is who is not against the K’s is for the K’s.
ACTOR THREE
What has the Ku Klux Klan ever done?
PART TWO: THE KLAN
(SLIDE 15: KKK Cross Burning.
SLIDE 16: KKK March in Washington, D.C.
SLIDE 17: Blindfolded KKK Inductees.
SLIDE 18: Klan Leaders on Parade )
ACTOR FOUR
Houston, Texas, September, 19. 1921
To the Attorney General of the United States and To All Whom It May Concern:
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The average person in Texas is afraid to open his mouth against the Ku Klux Klan, for if he should say something against the outfit he is attacked by an overwhelming number of masked men, severely beaten, stripped of his clothes and left in the heart of the business district. Such practices as these are daily occurrences here in Texas.
ACTOR ONE
Idabel, Oklahoma (2/28/10)
Sir: There is an organization within the boundaries of McCurtain County known as the White Circle. Their purpose is identical with that of the Ku Klux Klan---the Negro must go. On the night of Thursday, February 24th, they took from the sheriff and his deputy, a Negro, who had pled guilty of murder and whom the judge had sentenced to a life imprisonment, and they shot and mangled him to pieces. I do not wish to be known in the matter.
(SLIDE 19: Idabel. Oklahoma Letter)
ACTOR TWO
Cleveland, Ohio (6/24/24)
Sir: The Ku Klux Klan has placed a boycott on several of my stores on account of me being fortunate enough to be born a Hebrew. In the town of Ashland in front of thousands of spectators, the Klan openly told the audience they should not patronize any Jewish merchant. I think this very unfair to an American citizen—or even a non-American citizen!
(SLIDE 20: KKK & Santa Klaus visits the home of elderly African-Americans.)
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ACTOR THREE
Knoxville, Tennessee (11/23/37)
Sir: Please be advised that the Night Riders of the World and the KKK are the fairest, squarest men on this Terra Firma. Thus far we have been true to both state and federal laws. By the Divine Hand of God, and your aid, we can continue. Please keep down hunger and bloodshed, if possible.
ACTOR FOUR
Alliance. Ohio (5/5/24)
We, the Women of the Ku Klux Klan Number One of Alliance, Ohio, shall ever be devoted to the sublime principles of a pure Americanism. It is our earnest desire to promote real patriotism, honorable peace among men and nations, and protection for the homes of our people.
ACTOR ONE
Ewing, Virginia, March 3, 1928
Attorney General SargentNational Capitol, Washington. D.C.
Dear Sir: Eighteen months ago a mob under guise of the KKK attacked and drove my father from his dwelling about midnight. Due to terror, a very young brother of mine was forced to flee from the house, from whence he went to a newly plowed field where he buried himself in a deep furrow. Out of fear for his life, my father, dressed in a very thin nightgown, escaped to a nearby copse where he spent most of the night in a drizzle. After the effort of the villains to get my father was foiled, they battered down a door against which my mother and sister frantically pushed to stay them. They riddled another door with bullets.
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Sir, Russia with her flowing blood and Sovietism has little more than surpassed this dastardly outrage upon peace and life. We haven't sufficient money to investigate thoroughly and prosecute, that is, bring these curs to justice. Since this occurrence my father has through discretion seen it necessary to go well armed. He has found that he has had to do much that the state should have done, that is, guard his life. We, my father and I, are taxpayers and citizens of the United States. Since the county and the state have failed to act upon this constitutional outrage, I supplicate you in the name of peace, liberty, happiness and life to see that action is had. My father and his family reside at Etheridge, Tennessee.
(SLIDE 21: Ewing. Virginia Letter)
ACTOR ONE
Dear Sir: The Department is in receipt of your letter of the 3rd instant with reference to an attack made upon your father, but regrets to inform you that it would have no authority to take any action in reference to the matter. It can only be suggested that you communicate with the appropriate state authorities in the state where the attack is alleged to have occurred.
Respectfully, For the Attorney General.
ACTOR FOUR
Royston, Georgia, December 24, 1925
Dear Sir, I am a widow 55 years old. My son is a disabled war veteran. I have no other means for support. This town of 18,000 population is highly populated with the Ku Klux even to the
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officers of the town. My son had been drinking moonshine whiskey and on account of his nervous condition had delirium tremens and went to the drug store and purchased some form of liquid dope, which made him six times worse than the whiskey and stayed that way for four days and the officers came and arrested him, taking him away from me as I was returning from a neighbor’s house, taken him and locked him up in a wooden building, wooden cells about eight by ten with absolutely no heat, and temperatures freezing, kept him all night and fined him ten dollars and then the Ku Klux come to my home at midnight and ordered him to leave town in two days, said the people of the town did not want him here any longer, they were tired paying taxes keeping up disabled ex-soldiers and he is honest and he pays his debts. So please advise what steps to take to protect my home.
ACTOR FOUR
Madame: The Department regrets it would have no authority under federal law to investigate such matters. It is suggested that you communicate with the appropriate state authorities with reference to this matter.
Respectfully, For the Attorney General.
(SLIDE 22: Edinburgh, Virginia Letter)
ACTOR THREE
Edinburgh, Virginia (10/18/21)
Sir: While you are investigating the Ku Klux Klan, why not investigate the greatest enemy the United States and our free government has—the Knights of Columbus. All the kick against the
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Ku Klux Klan has come from the Knights of Columbus and Romanism in America. Did you ever read the Knights of Columbus secret oath? Investigate many of their churches and see the guns and ammunition preparing for a war with the Protestants. If the Republican Administration turns over this government to the Pope of Rome ruled by the Knights of Columbus, they had just well plan to move in four years.
Sincerely yours for fair dealings with Secret Orders and true Americanism.
ACTOR ONE
Highland Park, Michigan (3/19/34)
Sir: There is at present a concerted effort to establish the Night Riders here in Highland Park. They are located at 121 West Grand under the name of the New Republican Club.
Very truly yours, A Government Employee
ACTOR TWO
Sir: You are once more notified as to the unrestricted reign of the KKKs. Do you think honest men will suffer to be taken from their homes and whipped, tarred and feathered, hanged, etc., by a K of thugs and thieves? If you do, you are badly in the dark, my friends and fellow citizens (original spelling: “feller sittens”. ) We propose to obey a Law and not a gang of trash that wants to predominate the people and murder and steal their earnings, their virtue, their peace, their honor and their life. And we shall presume that every man who is not against the Ks is for the Ks. And woe! woe! woe! be to him under the banner of the KKKs. Yours for peace on earth and good will to men, but we shall not woo the devil!
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(SLIDE 23 “Woe! Woe! Woe!” Letter)
ACTOR THREE
Frankston, Texas (10/2/21)
Sir: The KKK menace in this state is much worse than after the Civil War in Alabama where I was reared. Last Saturday night a bunch from Palestine, the county seat, paraded Neches—a little town 12 miles east—and passed through a Negro camp meeting, scaring the Negroes half to death. In Palestine also they took
a man out, knocked him in the head with a large revolver, driven him out in the woods, beat him in a manner unto death and dumped him in the main street. The charge against the man was that he was making dates for the young white women in the town and would take them out into the country in his automobile for immoral preposes (original spelling), and I presume some of the “immorals” was related to “Goody-goodies.
Yours respectfully, A Lumber and Grain Merchant
(SLIDE 24: Frankston, Texas Letter)
ACTOR THREE
Sir: Inasmuch as the State of Texas would have exclusive jurisdiction over such matters the Department regrets that it is unable to take any action.
Respectfully, For the Attorney General
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ACTOR FOUR
West Palm Beach, Florida (10/21)
Gentlemen: In West Palm Beach there was a danger of serious trouble as several Negroes had come down from northern cities with propaganda, evidently left over from the war, going to have their rights. One told a white woman whose lawn he was cleaning that the Negroes were going to butcher every _____ (blank space in original letter) white man in Florida and each get himself a white woman for a wife. Now, if you were a white man and knew of this, you would want to start something.
ACTOR TWO
Armstrong Technical High School Washington, D.C., June 12, 1922
Mr. President,
Lynching has been committed in the south for many years, but when the last presidential election took place, practically every colored boy and girl in America was for Warren G. Harding. Why did we want you? The answer was: he is a Republican and will stop that terrible crime—lynching. During the war, the colored people were very patriotic. They bought Liberty Bonds, War Saving Stamps, Thrift Stamps, had meatless, sugarless, wheatless days, also they crocheted, knitted and embroidered for the boys over there while they were fighting for “dear old America. “ But mind you, some of the same colored boys have since returned to America and have been lynched. When lynching has been expurged (original spelling), then we may all sing from our hearts with a true meaning:
“My country ‘tis of Thee/ Sweet land of liberty/ Of thee I sing/Land where my fathers died/Land of the pilgrims pride/From every mountain side/Let freedom ring.”
Once more, Mr. Harding, we are looking to you, to you, to YOU.
Respectfully yours, Ara Lee S. (Last name struck out in original letter), 17 years old
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PART THREE: THE RED SCARE
ACTOR FOUR
These letters about the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s come from Justice Department files kept at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.. As a rule, people do not write the government
when they are happy, and in the same files are other letters from people very stirred up about something else….
ACTOR ONE
Reds!
ACTOR TWO
Bolsheviks!
ACTOR THREE
Foreigners!
(SLIDE 25: Poster titled “Foxy Foreign Ideas”)
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ACTOR FOUR
Dobbs Ferry, New York, November 5, 1928
Dear Attorney General: There is a man in this town who may need some looking into by your Department. He is a German who fought in the late war and came over here since then. His talk against the government is such that during the late war he would have been shot instantly. He is on the Emma Goldman order of socialist. Trusting you will give this man a good scare, if nothing more. He deserves more and should get it.
ACTOR ONE
Ocean Beach. California Sir: (4/19/29)
Do you encourage Bolshevism in this country? If you do, I am awfully sorry to waste my time in writing these few lines. But if you do not, then the address I am enclosing will stand a little investigation. This man has been a stark raving socialist, a social democrat and at the present time is a Bolshevik. He is a born Russian. a Canadian subject, and for the last seven years he has been living in Los Angeles. I do not believe that at the present time he is taking an active part in any bolshevik movement, but he has recently made a will leaving his property to the communist party. Any questions that you care to ask me I will be glad to answer.
ACTOR TWO
Farmington, Illinois (12/14/33)
We have a person here of foreign birth who is not a citizen. He came here from Italy years ago. He is so vicious life isn’t safe around him, an out and out anarchist. His removal as a public
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enemy is desired. Other parties pertaining to the Stiletto Gang are prominent here.
ACTOR THREE
Somerville, Massachusetts (1930)
I know a man who has not worked for three years and is living on welfare and is a socialist and runs down this country. Wish you would send him back to Scotland.
ACTOR FOUR
Gentlemen:
I am sending this letter not as a squealer, but as a good American who was unable to do his bit in the last war, but my chief combat is against those Bolshies who are trying to destroy this country. There is one case I want you people to investigate. This man’s name is Januar or Zanimer and comes in a drug store on the corner 3rd Street and Avenue B. He comes around usually from 6 PM to 12 PM, not alone. He is an agitator, one of the worst ones. I know because I live in a district which is the worst in the good old U.S.A.. I think personally if this man called Januarz—about 5 feet 10 inch; blond, clean shaved—is caught with the goods and found guilty, he should be shown no mercy. Fine. So I hope you people get this man and if so I will be a witness against him when the time comes. For I am an anti-Bolshki and would shoulder a gun in defense of our country. A government like ours should not tolerate agitators of his caliber and he should be deported at once. So get after this Bolshevik. He is a Hungarian-Polack.
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(SLIDES 26—29: Four Pages of the “Januarz” Letters)
(SLIDE 30: “America On Guard”, anti-espionage poster)
ACTOR ONE
Dallas, Texas (1/6/30)
Sir: In a barber shop today there was a man talking, said they were working to have one government over all the world, have all people in the world belong to one church. It sounded so much like the Russian plan that I secured the card he gave the man in the next chair to me and I am enclosing it to you. From his talk I feel he should be investigated thoroughly.
ACTOR FOUR
Galena, Kansas (12/14/33)
Friends: There is a man in this community wears a red shirt and he is as red as his shirt. He has caused us trouble ever since we started the Federal Relief work here. At the present time he is taking a petition around town causing a great deal of misunderstanding among the ignorant people, and he may lead them into something desperate. We do not need any disturbance in this mining community. There are some desperate characters here, and they can be easily caused to do something desperate and mean.
ACTOR THREE
Mansfield, Ohio (9/24/25)
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Sir: I believe that these communist speakers are not going around without being instigated to it by someone. Who is that someone? Is it England? Is it a set of Jewish bankers? Does it emanate from Italy? Surely you know.
ACTOR TWO
Buchtel, Ohio (10/4/21)
Sir: I had a talk with a strange man believed to be a hobo roaming past my forest. He said this country is full of English spies. The way he explained it to me, it would pay our government to look out, as he stated it was English spies trying through the KKK to get the entire U.S. organized.
(SLIDE 31: Poster with Heading. “ALIENS”)
ACTOR ONE
This is to warn you that the troops should be held ready, as there are more than 40,000 communists which may descend on Washington and attempt to seize the government in the name of labor. These are paid by the Soviet government. Investigate for yourself and you will be surprised.. You will find things getting hotter as Spring approaches. Jewry is well organized in this country. Russia will make heavy war on China in the Spring. Think it over, Governor, and don’t think lightly.
ACTOR FOUR
New York, New York (12/29/40)
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The sooner you reply telling me I am to be deported to the Soviet Union, the only land in this world worth living in, the sooner I will have peace of mind.
ACTOR THREE
New York, New York (1/30/30)
Such a rabble should be rounded up and those not born in this country should be deported immediately and the rest of them put to breaking stone until they wake up to the fact they are better off in this country than they would be anywhere in Europe.
ACTOR FOUR cont.
So what do you say? What are the chances of being deported to the Soviet Union? I just hate the United States and its stinking contradictions, so won’t you please have me deported. I’ll buy you the biggest cigar you ever saw, if you’ll only deport me.
(SLIDE 32: Hotel Marvin Letter)
ACTOR ONE
Hotel Marvin (150 rooms with hot and cold water), Fordson, Michigan, December 29, 1929
Dear Honorable Sir: Honorable Sir, I am sending you a paper called the “Daily Worker”, a communist literary piece of propaganda. Publishers of statements like these should be made to pay for the slurs and insults heaped on the best man that ever held the President’s chair to my way of thinking. I can stand a lot, but when they start to call Mr. Hoover dirty names, I wish I had more authority from you. I can round up this dirty gang.
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Please, Honorable Sir, write me, swear me in as a deputy to round them up. I despise backbiters.
Your Servant, Roy Elmer __________, (name struck in original) Registered Nurse
ACTOR TWO
Middle Valley, New Jersey, November 9, 1927
Dear Sirs: There is a man in this locality, a Presbyterian who studied for the ministry, but has taken up the work of a peculiar sect. He wears sandals without any socks on his feet and sometimes goes barefoot in extremely cold weather. He is an
avowed socialist, wants all things in common, and blames Wall Street and the capitalists for everything evil. I was told by a reliable person that this man sailed from New York on Tuesday the 8th for India. A great many students come out here to visit—mostly young fellows. Not long ago a young Japanese was here. I do not believe he is going to India on a purely religious mission. Your department should keep in touch with the movements of this man.
(ACTORS ONE, TWO, & FOUR each reads a response to a letter each had written.)
ACTOR ONE
I beg to advise you that this department is not investigating communistic activities as such. It is suggested that possibly
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the authorities of the State of Michigan may be interested in the activities of the subject
Respectfully, For the Attorney General
ACTOR TWO
I beg to advise you that from the statements furnished it does not appear that the matter of which you complain falls within any of the federal statutes.
Respectfully, For the Attorney General
ACTOR FOUR
This Department acknowledges receipt of your letter. The statements contained therein have been noted.
Respectfully, For the Attorney General
(SLIDE 33: FBI Anti-Spy Poster)
ACTOR THREE
Erie, Pennsylvania, October 9, 1939
Dear Mr. Roosevelt as President:
Sorry for what I wrote the last time about dictatorship. I had the wrong idea, but now I have something more important. I got in the WPA project. I work with a boy who is against the government and hates the job. One day we were coming home at 5
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o’clock and he said this country is near to a rebellion. I figured he knows a lot about that kind of work, so, I figured, I’ll put two and two together and find things out. I said, “Yes, that’s what we need, but how can we start that?” He drops his voice and says, “I‘m a communist, and we have a club, but tell no one. If you care, I’ll get you in. It’ll cost you 50 cents a month. We are getting ready for a rebellion this coming summer 1940.”
So I figure, if you’ll play ball with me, I’ll help you out. I need a suit and overcoat because I can’t save on WPA money, for one. I’ll join this club and get the inside dope, then I’ll notify you. You notify your FBI men, they contact me and we’ll do the rest in secret. If you answer me, please don’t send an envelope with the Capitol or any mark on it. Send a plain short envelope like this one and no name on the back because people here look in the mailbox. Then they won’t get wise to the game. If they say anything, I’ll say I have a sister in Washington, D.C. (get the dope?) Think it over. Sooner we clean out this racket the better the country will be. This is all I can say till further orders.
I thank you, Mr. Sigmund Torok
(ACTOR THREE opens his reply letter.)
U.S. Department of Justice. November 2, 1939. Your letter has been referred to the Honorable J. Edgar Hoover, Director. Federal Bureau of Investigation, for appropriate consideration.
Respectfully, For the Attorney General
(SLIDE 34: J. Edgar Hoover)
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PART FOUR: THE CHILDREN’S BUREAU
ACTOR ONE
The Department of Justice seems to have mastered the art of the bureaucratic brush-off. But, there was one federal agency that did encourage people to write. Beginning in 1912, the Children’s Bureau of the Department of Labor placed ads in newspapers and magazines around the country saying “Better Babies”, offering free information on infant care. Julia Lathrop was the first chief of the Children’s Bureau—the first woman to head any federal department— and she hoped these ads would cause women to write and tell her about their lives. And they did.
(SLIDES 35—37: Children’s Bureau Posters)
(SLIDE 38: Waterville, Georgia Letter)
ACTOR ONE:
Waterville, Georgia June 20, 1920
Dear Miss Lathrop, I need advice. I am a farmer’s wife. I do household duties and am a regular field hand too. I am the mother of nine children and in the family way again. Does it make a woman un-virtuous for a man physician to wait on her during
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confinement? There aren’t any midwives near us. I am not friendless, but going to you for advice to keep gossip down.
(NOTE:In the original production ACTOR FOUR played Julia Lathrop throughout Part Four.)
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
It is common practice throughout the United States for male physicians to be in attendance on women during their confinement.
Yours respectfully, Julia C. Lathrop, Chief
(SLIDE 39: Cover of Pamphlet, “Infant Care”)
ACTOR TWO
Jackson. Mississippi, November 9. 1919
Dear Miss Lathrop:I have been reading a little book, “Baby’s Outfit”, that was given me at Kennington’s Dry Goods Store. I saw your address for two little books that I could get free of charge, “Prenatal Care” and “Infant Care”. I would like very much to have a copy of both of these books as I want to be a mother so bad I am nearly crazy. I am 24 years old; my husband 26. We are both in very good health, only sometimes we are both a little subject to constipation. Oh! If I were an expectant mother, I would imagine I were an angel. Please answer my letter. There are lots of different departments I have written without receiving any reply.
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I guess they think I am insane, which I nearly am. Please address me.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
My personal advice would be to settle the matter. I advise that you and your husband consult the best physician in your state and have a thorough examination. The best thing for a woman who has strong maternal instincts and cannot have her own is to take one of the unfortunate children who lack a parent and bring it up as her own. An unfortunate child would be the better for a good mother.
Yours respectfully, Julia C. Lathrop, Chief
ACTOR THREE
Duarte, California (1/10/18)
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Dear Sir:
Would you please send me all the information you can on home gardening. The time to plant all kind of vegetables, how to plan and care for them and etc. Also, how to raise and care for canary birds. And all about the care of milk and the making of butter, the length of time milk should stand before removing cream off it, and how often one should churn, temperature of cream for churning and etc.. Also, please send me a copy of Farmers Bulletin 861. I would also be pleased for all the information you can give me on the caring for, managing, and keeping of a home.
And can you send me the best information for all advice, guidance and training of children in their teens. I have two, a boy 14 years and a girl most 16 years and I want the best of advice to
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give them and all that they should know regarding their health and all other matters pertaining to life in all times. I find myself at times where I do not know what to say or do, for children at such an age begin to think they know it all and I want to do the best I can for and by my children, so they can do for their country and others.
(SLIDES 40—41: Duarte, California Letter)
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
Your letter addressed to the Department of Agriculture has been referred to the Children’s Bureau. There is a pamphlet called “Sex and Life” issued by the American Hygiene Association. I believe the price is five cents.
ACTOR TWO
Osgood, Indiana (1/4/19)
Kind Sir:I have always heard that to every mother who gives birth to twins and then to triplets there is a reward of $200. I am the mother of nine living children having twins and then triplets. If there is any reward I would be so thankful. If you want any reference to my character, I can give you it, as I am alright in every way, only being poor.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
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I am sorry to say I know nothing about such a reward and I fear that the report is an entire error.
ACTOR ONE
Wogansport, North Dakota, March 10, 1916
Dear Madame:
I have every reason to believe that you are qualified for the position you occupy, but you need assistance. I see the need for a Master of Sexual Science. I am a Master of Mental and Sexual Science. It’s been my life’s work. I have studied your publication, title: “Mental Defectives in the District of Columbia.” In all cases you will find that those minds that you would call feeble are the offspring of mismated couples. If only knowledge on who is our True Mate could be given, our children would be truly balanced in all their parts. I am 61 years old and discovered this law when only 16.
So, how about my Bureau of Eugenics I have been trying to have established since 1877 for the purpose of gathering and distributing Sexual Knowledge, now suppressed by the Post Office Department under their false interpretation of the law on obscene literature? As I am no money grabber, all the pay I wish is that I be given full credit in your reports. Very truly yours.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
My dear sir…
ACTOR ONE
P.S.. You may be surprised to receive such a letter from one who has lived 36 years on the frontier. The pure dry air and the
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bright sunshine of the Great Plains gives one mental powers to think deep into the Unknown.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
I beg to acknowledge, with thanks, the receipt of your letter of March 10th.
Yours very respectfully, Julia Lathrop, Chief.
ACTOR THREE
Andrus, Wisconsin (10/1/17)
Dear Madame: I am a farmer’s wife, and out of five babies I nearly gave my life to bring into the world I have just one little girl. The trouble always came at confinement: placenta praevia, contraction, Bandle’s ring, crossbirth and such troubles. If any of your advice covers what an ordinary farm wife can carry out, I would like to have it. The advice I have read says: fruit in plenty, a bath every morning, gentle exercise, coffee before dressing, music, pleasant surroundings. Now, I have a perfectly fine husband and a loving home, but here is my day: get up at 5 AM, hustle breakfast for five, wash dishes, help milk, feed pigs, clean up, baking. scrubbing, washing. Where is the gentle exercise? Where I could have time for a bath? I am not pregnant now, but it is only a question of a few months. I need your advice. Please send in a plain envelope. All my babies were loved and wanted.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
It is evident that you are in great need of the most competent medical advice and my chief suggestion would be that you go to a
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hospital for your next confinement. Many physicians are not equipped for these difficult confinements.
(SLIDE 42: Copland, Idaho Letter)
ACTOR TWO
Copland, Idaho (1/4/16)
Dear Miss Lathrop,
What I am to do? I don’t know. I am living 25 miles away from any doctor. We have four small children. My husband is only making $1.35 a day and everything is so high it takes all he makes to keep our babies in clothes and food. I am looking for the stork about the 19th of April. How am I going to get $35 for the doctor, for he will not come for less and not unless we have the cash. How can there be better babies when they must come into the world like a calf or colt, I would like to know?
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
I earnestly wish I knew how to be of service to you. Someday I hope that our country will be so organized that no one can be 25 miles from a physician. I can plainly see that your life requires great courage.
ACTOR ONE
Jackson, Mississippi, April 28, 1915
Dear Miss Lathrop,
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Here in Jackson we have been having such sad deaths. I have just come from a funeral this afternoon. The baby was buried two or three days ago, the mother today. She was a college graduate, a teacher, yet a young woman of about 30. Also, Mrs. Petard, whose musical ability was known all through this section, who had spent years in the Cincinnati Conservatory and in Germany, died recently and her little son was buried in her arms. What can stop this terrible death rate? Education? Well, it is the so-called educated who are dying or losing their babies or both. It makes me mad to hear the preachers say, “It’s Gods will.” “She has fulfilled her mission,” etc.. It is terrible, perfectly terrible, how the women are dying in childbirth.
Why is it? Is it the corsets we wear? Is it the food we eat? Is it the strain we live under? What is it? Something’s got to be done and done quickly.
(SLIDE 43: Page of Jackson, Miss. Letter)
(SLIDE 44: Close-up of Sentence from Jackson Letter )
(SLIDE 45: Close-up of words, “Why is it?”)
ACTOR THREE
Perryville, Missouri (5/7/15)
I am going to ask you a simple question. I know you will laugh, but I feel I must go to someone. It is this: do you know any simple way to keep from getting in the family way as I have six already and feel I would do more good to care for them than to have several more.
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ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
I have read your letter with earnest care and I felt no disposition to laugh. The laws of this country make it a penal offense to answer your question if I could.
Very respectfully, Julia C. Lathrop
ACTOR TWO
Pawtucket, Rhode Island (11/6/16)
If you print any information on artificial sterilization for birth control, will you please send it to me. If nothing on this is printed, can you advise me what is the most efficient and safest disinfectant to use in a fountain syringe?
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
The laws of this country forbid the giving of information such as that you asked for.
ACTOR ONE
Crump. Tennesse (6/4/17)
I have a large family and am greatly in favor of birth control. Will you tell me something that will make a woman miscarry? I am a poor woman and cannot care for so many children properly.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
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The laws of this country forbid the giving of information such as that which asked for.
ACTOR TWO
Ransonville, New York (5/3/19)
I am a young mother of five children and do not want to have any more. If there is any way you could tell me to keep from having any more, I will gladly pay you whatever you ask and keep it a secret.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
The laws of this country make it a penal offense to answer your question.
ACTOR THREE
Summerton, South Carolina (3/25/19)
I want you to send a treatment of your medicine for my daughter. She has three children and almost four in three years time. She have two in one year. She cannot keep her health and have children that fast. Please give me some help for her.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
We are not able to advise in regard to prevention for having children, although we would be very glad to help you in any way in regard to the care of them.
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ACTOR ONE
Sparland, Illinois (5/8/17)
I am in a bad way as my man says he won’t have the baby or call it his. God knows it belongs to him. He tries to get me to miscarry it. I try too and have done all I know to do so. I saw where you have been helping people, so I thought I would write asking you to send me the stuff that will cause me to lose this baby I am carrying. I will send you your pay when I receive the stuff. Tell me how to take it and when I can tell it is going to pass out of me. So send the stuff. It will keep family trouble down. I am seven months along so don’t wait a day. I am getting fat since I got this way so put something in it so I will lose flesh also.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
It is a terrible thing that any wife and mother should be in a situation in which the coming of a child is a source of unhappiness. To take the life of your unborn child is a criminal offense. The bureau does not possess the information you request and for anyone to give it to you would be a crime. Think it over and see if there is not some good friend who can advise with you and your husband, but do not let yourself for one moment think of taking the life of your own child.
(SLIDES 46—49 Letters from the Preceding Group)
ACTOR THREE
Whiteland, Indiana (4/20/17)
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Will you be so kind as to send me the address of Mrs. Margaret Sanger, a nurse of New York. Please answer as soon as you can, for I need Mrs. Sanger’s help.
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
The address of Mrs. Margaret Sanger is Room 2004, 104 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York.
Yours respectfully, Julia C. Lathrop.
ACTOR TWO (Phelps)
Burnt Fork, Wyoming, October 19, 1916
Dear Miss Lathrop,I live 65 miles from a doctor. My other babies were very large at birth, one 12 pounds, the other 10 1/2 pounds. I have been very badly torn each time. I am 37 years old and am so worried and filled with perfect horror at the prospects ahead. So many of my neighbors die at giving birth to their children. I have a baby 11 months old now whose mother died when I reached their cabin last November. It was 22 degrees below zero and I had to ride seven miles horseback. She was nearly dead when I got there and died after giving birth to a 14 pound boy. It seems awful to me to think of giving up all my work and leaving my little ones, two of whom are adopted, a girl ten and this baby.
Will you please send all the information for the care of myself at the time of delivery. I am far from a doctor and we have no means, only what we get on this rented ranch. Is there anything I can do to escape being torn again? Won’t you let me know? I am four months along and haven’t quickened yet.
I am very respectfully, Mrs. Alice Cutting Phelps, Hutton Ranch
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ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
Dear Mrs. Phelps,
Your letter of October 19th came in my absence and I have just read it with most earnest attention and sympathy. It is not the only letter of that kind that the bureau has received. It makes very urgent the great question of protecting motherhood.
ACTOR TWO (Phelps)
Dear Miss Lathrop,
Please excuse the pencil, but my ink is frozen hard as ice. If you could only know what I do from actual experience, you would be simply appalled at conditions in these remote places. If you are not already tired of Wyoming’s tragedies, here is one that came last week. A man about 60 years old took dinner with us. He had some business down here in regard to some sheep, so as soon as dinner was over he left. Reaching my neighbors, he found the young woman in the last stages of labor. She had been sick 36 hours when her husband left her alone to go to the town of Linwood after a doctor, 28 miles over the worst roads one ever saw. About 30 minutes after he got there the baby was born, a fine big boy weighing 10 pounds. He did all that had to be done and in about an hour the husband got there with the doctor. That doctor never looked that baby or woman over, just trusted to an old man 60 years old. Well, the baby bled to death in an hour after the doctor left and the mother has blood poisoning.
That makes two babies and two mothers in my own neighborhood to die in just one year. A big toll when it was unnecessary. If that woman had been a thoroughbred cow worth 300 or 400 dollars, Wyoming state veterinary would have been rushed out here to save her and the calf, but it doesn’t seem worthwhile to save babies and mothers That’s what hurts me so. Oh, Miss Lathrop, what if I should get caught as that poor girl did and suffer 36 hours--then lose my baby in the end. Isn’t it awful to think about?
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ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
The bureau is trying to find a plan by which mothers living in remote places can secure the medical and nursing care to which they are certainly entitled.
ACTOR TWO (Phelps)
Miss Lathrop,
About five miles from here there lived until two months ago a family. The woman had 21 children. She and the children are the most pitiful looking you ever saw. She has been blind from childbirth pains since the fourth youngest was born. Some day if I pull up the hill again—I’m young—I am going to start a cottage for just as my poor self and all my neighbors, most of whom are unlearned, ignorant, and would be born and die like a cow. Oh, it just makes my heart sick and my blood boil with anger to think that must be.
Mrs. Alice Cutting Phelps
ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
I am making some inquiries which I dare not hope will result in anything of immediate advantage to you, but I shall at least try.
Yours faithfully, Julia C. Lathrop
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(Pause as lights dim for a moment. Then return to previous level.)
ACTOR TWO (Phelps)
My dear Miss Lathrop,
I cannot thank you enough for sending Dr. Hedger out here. Not alone for the good she has done, but because she is so good and dear. One cannot help loving her and wanting her to stay all the time. It certainly has been a wonderful two days for me. I think she found me in fairly good condition. I am sure her coming has opened up chances for a great many things out here this country has needed. It is only necessary to make people realize that their condition is not normal. Christmas this year seemed very sad indeed—but now I shall have hope of another yet to come.
Thanking you for all your kindness, Alice Cutting Phelps.
ACTOR THREE
Dr. Caroline Hedger of Chicago drove her Model-T through a Wyoming winter to Mrs. Hedge’s door. Julia Lathrop paid her expenses out of her own pocket. I guess it was one letter too many.
And the story doesn’t stop here. There are more letters in the file: letters from Dr. Hedger, letters from Mrs. Phelps and other ranch women, letters to the Red Cross, to the governor of Wyoming, to nursing services, as Julia Lathrop sought help for the women of Wyoming. In July, 1917 she could report a victory.
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ACTOR FOUR (Lathrop)
Last week I had a consultation with the governor of Wyoming in Cheyenne. He assures me that the State Hospitals at Rock Springs, Sheridan and Casper have now been directed to receive maternity cases without charge whenever necessary. I cannot but hope that means will be devised before long to make still more effective the provision for mothers and babies.
Yours very respectfully, Julia C. Lathrop, Chief
ACTOR THREE
Oh yes. Mrs. Phelps had her baby and returned to Burnt Fork. And there the record ends.
PART FIVE: CLOSING
(SLIDE 51: Closing of a Letter)
ACTOR FOUR
Excuse my crying out my soul to you.
ACTOR TWO
Yours truly, a mother.
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ACTOR THREE
Yours very truly, a citizen of Arkansas.
ACTOR ONE
Yours in faith, a citizen of Texas.
ACTOR FOUR
Yours for better babies.
ACTOR TWO
Yours truly.
ACTOR ONE
Answer at once.
ACTOR TWO
Yours for true and just motherhood.
ACTOR THREE
From a true American patriot who will defend his country in time of called for action.
ACTOR THREE
Yours in haste.
ACTOR FOUR
Yours sincerely and heatedly.
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ACTOR TWO
Humbly and respectfully yours.
ACTOR FOUR
A humble citizen.
ACTOR THREE
A loyal citizen.
ACTOR ONE
Respectfully yours.
ACTOR TWO
A loyal American.
END OF PLAY
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