Philippine–American War Letters & Margaret Sanger’s Fight for Birth Control

Philippine–American War: Soldiers’ Perspectives

  • General Reeve (formerly Colonel, 13th Minnesota)

    • Expresses regret over the war, calling it a violation of earlier American principles.
    • Believes the nation would have “shrunk” from such imperial actions in earlier times.

  • Sergeant Elliott (Company G, Kansas Regiment)

    • Senior officers predict the conflict will last “years” and require a “large force.”
    • Morale issues:
    • Homesickness among especially volunteer soldiers.
    • No perceived personal or national gain from fighting “so far away.”
    • Soldiers would die for the flag if necessary, but dislike dying “at the hands of a foe little better than a savage.”
    • Psychological burden of a potentially prolonged war.

  • Charles Bremer (Minneapolis, Kansas) – Battle of Caloocan

    • Company I captured 4 Filipino POWs but hesitated over what to do.
    • Captain Bishop reminded them of standing orders; the 4 prisoners were shot.
    • Bremer calls it “the hardest sight I ever saw.”

  • Martin P. Olson (14th Regulars)

    • Estimates 150,000 Filipino fighters “back in the hills.”
    • American numerical weakness: awaiting 8,000 reinforcements.
    • Climate hardships: “2–4 funerals a day,” rampant chronic diarrhea/dysentery.
    • Fears disease more than bullets.

  • Ellis G. Davis (Company A, 20th Kansas)

    • Predicts Filipinos will fight until “their whole race is exterminated.”
    • Argues Americans, once revolutionaries themselves, should respect Filipino independence.
    • Blames slow U.S. policymakers; views annexation as antithetical to patriotism.

  • Captain Elliott (Kansas Reg., 27 Feb.)

    • Describes “hellish” destruction:
    • Caloocan (pop. 17,000) rendered empty of natives; only church/prison walls remain.
    • Maypaja (pop. 5,000) totally leveled.
    • Concludes: “War is worse than hell.”

  • Theodore Conley (Kansas Reg.)

    • Notes mass Filipino deaths: “trenches are full of them.”
    • Sees moral reversal: U.S. now playing Britain’s 1776 role.
    • Calls war “utterly causeless,” “crime against human liberty, Christianity, civilization.”
    • Describes orders to kill those trying to surrender.

  • E. D. Furnam (Washington Reg.) – Feb 4–5

    • Reports large-scale burning/looting: “hundreds” of houses; soldiers acquire furniture, jewelry, pianos, carriages.

  • Lieutenant Henry Page (Regular Army)

    • After 8 months’ observation, grows in respect for Filipino “grit” and organization.
    • Battle of Feb 5: Americans surprised by strong Filipino stand; required artillery & “stoutest” fighting by Tennessee & Nebraska regiments.
    • Praises orderly Filipino retreat (leap-frog defense).
    • Observes robust Spanish-built civic infrastructure: churches, convents, tribunals, schools.
    • Notes high literacy & bilingualism; Aguinaldo government eager to reopen schools despite U.S. occupation.

  • Robert D. Maxwell (Corporal, Co. A, 20th Kansas)

    • Filipinos feigned death to ambush troops.
    • Led to standing order: “take no prisoners – shoot all.”

  • Ethical & Historical Connections

    • Letters echo Anti-Imperialist League arguments: imperial war contradicts Declaration of Independence.
    • Parallels drawn between Filipino struggle and American Revolution.
    • Soldiers’ firsthand accounts reveal:
    • Systematic atrocities (summary executions, scorched earth, looting).
    • Racialized dehumanization of Filipinos (“dagos,” “savages”).
    • Physical/environmental toll on U.S. troops (disease > combat deaths).
    • Cognitive dissonance: patriotic duty vs. moral repugnance.

Margaret Sanger: Awakening & Revolt (Early 1912)

  • Realization that nursing/social work merely “palliative” amid systemic misery.
  • Observes East-Side New York tenements:
    • Theft, filth, brutality; child death after just hours of life.
    • Pregnant women over-working to feed 4–5 perpetually hungry children.
    • Overcrowding: boarders share already-cramped rooms.
    • Sexual dangers: fathers eyeing daughters (6–7 yrs old).
    • Abortions & births the main conversational topic.
    • Saturday nights: crowds (50–100) seek cheap abortions.
  • Abortion procedures described:
    • Quick speculum/probe “to disturb fertilized ovum.”
    • Subsequent hemorrhage 4–5 weeks; many end in hospital curettage.
    • High mortality; “lucky” survivor narrative.
  • Women’s home-remedy attempts:
    • Herb teas, sugar-turpentine drops, steaming over turpentine water, rolling downstairs.
    • Insertion of slippery-elm sticks, knitting needles, shoe hooks into uterus.
  • Socio-religious dynamics:
    • Poor women resent “rich know the tricks.”
    • Catholic women deride “Yankee tricks,” assume Protestants/Rich hide secrets.
    • Constant questions to Sanger for contraceptive knowledge; she lacks answers.

Case Study: Mrs. Sacks (Grand St., NYC)

  • Family: husband 32, wife 28, children 5, 3, 1 (all frail).
  • Self-induced abortion with borrowed instrument → collapse; neighbors call doctor.
  • Sanger nurses 3 weeks through July heat (old air-shaft walk-up).
  • On discharge, patient begs contraceptive advice.
    • Doctor jokes: “Tell Jake to sleep on the roof!”
    • Sanger unable to provide real guidance; promises to return.
  • 3 months later emergency call: new pregnancy; failed abortion; patient dies within 10 minutes of Sanger’s arrival.
  • Husband’s devastation; Sanger’s nighttime soul-search leads to decision: “set the heather on fire” for birth control.

Break with Nursing & Confronting the Law

  • Sanger quits nursing permanently; vows to disseminate contraceptive information.
  • Encounters warnings of Anthony Comstock’s obscenity law.
    • Comstock Act (Federal) & NY Penal Code §§ 1142, 1145, 1530 forbid distribution of devices/info “for prevention of conception.”
    • Penalties: imprisonment \ge 6 months – \le 5 years; fines \$100–\$2000.
  • Loophole: physicians may provide info to treat disease (interpreted narrowly for venereal disease only).
    • Sanger not a physician → unprotected.

Founding the First Birth-Control Clinic (Brownsville, Brooklyn, 46 Amboy St.)

  • Site selection criteria:
    • Dense working-class Jewish neighborhood; tolerant, health-oriented.
    • Lower risk of violent backlash.
  • Obstacles:
    • Women’s clubs indifferent; social agencies/medical profession hostile.
    • No doctor willing to risk arrest; decided to proceed without.
  • Handbills (“dodgers”) in English, Yiddish, Italian distributed house-to-house.
  • Client influx:
    • >500 women in opening days (records 488 seized).
    • Mothers of large families; cross-religious participation.
    • Some husbands accompany wives; others unaware.
    • Roman-Catholic woman with 15 pregnancies (only 6 surviving) questions priest’s fairness.
  • Staff:
    • Margaret Sanger (lead).
    • Ethel Byrne (sister, trained nurse).
    • Fania Mindell (activist aide).

Raid, Arrests & Legal Battles (Oct 1916 – Jan 1917)

  • Policewoman + 5 plain-clothes men raid clinic; seize records/devices/books.
  • Charges:
    1. Ethel Byrne – viol. § 1142 (disseminating BC info).
    2. Fania Mindell – selling “indecent” book “What Every Girl Should Know.”
    3. Margaret Sanger – operating clinic vs. § 1142.
    4. Sanger – “maintaining a public nuisance” (§ 1530) after reopening clinic.
  • Bail: \$500 each; cases in Court of Special Sessions (three-judge panel).

Ethel Byrne’s Hunger Strike

  • Sentenced 30 days on Blackwell’s Island (Workhouse).
  • Declares total hunger/strike: “neither eat, drink, nor work.”
  • Commissioner Burdette Lewis restricts visits; media coverage nationwide.
  • Mass-meeting at Carnegie Hall chaired by Helen Todd; women from clinic on platform; applauded as “triumph of women.”
  • After 103 hours, prison orders force-feeding (first woman in U.S. so treated).
    • Milk, eggs, stimulants via stomach tube; body wrapped in blanket.
    • Sanger fears critical condition; seeks intervention.

Political Pressure & Provisional Pardon

  • Jan 31: Delegation (Sanger, Jessie Ashley, Mrs. Amos Pinchot) meets Gov. Whitman in Albany.
    • Requests commission on birth control; protests Byrne’s treatment.
    • Gov. offers conditional pardon if Byrne ceases BC work.
  • Feb 1: Sanger visits semi-conscious Byrne in prison; accepts pardon to save her life.
  • Public discourse intensifies: subway, street-corner debates attack “archaic laws.”

Broader Implications & Historical Connections

  • Philippine letters & Sanger narrative both reveal contradictions between professed American ideals (liberty, humanitarianism) and lived reality (imperial conquest, denial of women’s autonomy).
  • Soldiers’ moral injury parallels women’s reproductive oppression: individual conscience vs. state policy.
  • Ethical dimensions:
    • Imperial war framed as crime against human liberty, echoing Enlightenment principles.
    • Comstock laws criminalize health information, prioritizing moral censorship over public welfare.
  • Practical outcomes:
    • Atrocities abroad fuel anti-imperialist sentiment, eventual debates over U.S. colonial rule.
    • Sanger’s activism catalyzes birth-control movement → eventual legal shifts (e.g., Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965) and foundation of Planned Parenthood.
  • Philosophical overlaps:
    • Both sources question governmental legitimacy when policies betray foundational values.
    • Highlight role of grassroots testimony (letters, clinics) in shaping reform movements.

Key Numerical References (contextual recap)

  • Filipino fighters ≈ 150{,}000; U.S. reinforcements expected 8{,}000.
  • Caloocan population 17{,}000 → 0; Maypaja 5{,}000 → destroyed.
  • Disease funerals 2–4 per day among U.S. troops.
  • Clinic arrests involve 488 confiscated records; >500 clients served.
  • Penal fines \$100–\$2000; sentences 6 mo – 5 yr.
  • Hunger-strike force-feeding after 103 hrs.
  • Byrne sentence 30 days; bail \$500.

Study Connections & Exam Tips

  • Compare rhetoric of soldiers (anti-imperialism) with contemporary Anti-Imperialist League texts (e.g., Mark Twain, Carnegie).
  • Link Sanger’s struggle to Progressive Era reforms (muckraking, public-health movements).
  • Analyze intersectionality: class, gender, religion in access to contraception; race in imperial war.
  • Remember legal frameworks: Comstock Act (Federal, 1873), NY Penal Code §§ 1142, 1145.
  • Be prepared to cite specific soldier quotes to illustrate atrocities & morale.
  • For essay questions, juxtapose moral reasoning (liberty, consent) against state policies (annexation, censorship).