BIRTH CONTROL.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 January 1922, Page 4

BIRTH CONTROL.

ANGRY WOMEN OF FASHION

NEW YORK, Nov. 15

A riotous scene occurred yesterday evening when the New York police prevented the holding of the filial meeting of tlie American Birth Control Conference, which was to have been addressed by Mrs Margaret Sanger, pioneer of the movement in this country, and Mr Harold Cox, editor of tbe Review. The scene of the riot was the Town Hall, a building in the theatre district used for meetings and concepts. It has no connection with the municipality. The audience, which included many fashionable women, vigorously resented* tlie action of tlie police, who were jeered, mobbed, and at one time overwhelmed by an angry crowd, necessitating the summoning of strong reserves.

in reply to protests by Mrs Sanger, Captain Donohue, in command of tbe police, said lie received orders from headquarters to stop tbe meeting and refused to state tlie reasons for the order. Mrs Sanger and two other woliicn were arrested when they refused to desist from attempts to address the audience.

’i large crowd, including many women in luxurious motor cars, followed them to the night court, where the prisoners-were arraigned on a charge of refusing to obey police orders. .Mr Robert Marsh, .a prominent New York lawyer, who with Airs Ogden Mills and other wcll-kAown' people accompanied Mrs Sanger to the court, acted as her counsel. All three prisoners were remanded.

After leaving the police court Mrs ganger issued a statement to the effect that the meeting was stopped “by the influence of the Catholic Church.’ The Newspapers report the presence at the faceting of Monsignor Joseph Dineen, secretary to the Roman' Catholic Archliishop Hayes. According to one newspaper, Monsignor Dineen stated boat lie “might find it necessary to stop the meeting.” Spreading information as to the prevention of edneepfibn is ah offertce i’n New York and all other States of this Union. One of the objects of yesterday evening’s liVceting was to urge the legalising of such information in special motherhood clinics.

Mrs Sanger and one of her supporters appeared hbfore a: stipendiary to-day charged on remand with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Two'policemen having given evidence, the magistrate■ hskfed for Captain Donohue. He was-not in court, and the magistrate directed he be brought, but messengers despatched to the police station returned reporting his whereabouts unknown. Tie magi strath thereupon discharged both prisoners.