Compromise with Sin Read online

  Louise returned to Riverbend and waited, hoping to be able to bear good news to the Committee. But by the time of the next meeting, Miss Keller had not yet secured the go-ahead to write an article for The Ladies’ Home Journal.

  “I shall help you clean up,” Madge said to Louise after the Committee meeting.

  Louise handed Madge a dishtowel and filled a basin with water. She considered, then dismissed, the idea of telling Madge about meeting with Helen Keller, something she had not disclosed to the Committee. There was no point in getting hopes up prematurely.

  “Did you know Dr. Foster has been working for several years to persuade his medical society colleagues to use drops?” Madge asked.

  “I did not.”

  “He is unduly modest about it; he has not had great success, but these things take time.”

  “That’s admirable.”

  “It is more than admirable. The man is a leader, Louise, not to disparage your efforts. But he has influence where we need it most, and I am loathe to say it, but he is a man . . .”

  Louise stopped washing the cup in her hand. “Just what are you getting at?”

  “To put it bluntly, our Committee would stand a greater chance of succeeding if Dr. Foster were chairman.”

  Louise wanted to throw the cup against the wall. “For you of all people to abdicate power to a man—”

  “I am being a realist. He is a man and a medical doctor.”

  Louise tried to interpret the plea in Madge’s face and voice. It could have meant she regretted undermining Louise’s authority or regretted acknowledging the superiority of men. Or both.

  “Louise, as much as I advocate women taking leadership roles, it is not fair to test it on the backs of innocent children. Ours is a formidable task, and—”

  “The others, where do they stand?”

  “They hold you in the highest esteem—”

  “But want me to step down, even Alice?”

  Madge nodded.

  “How do you know he’ll accept? After all he’s very busy.”

  “It was his idea.”

  31

  November 1906

  Louise acquiesced to Doc’s narrowly focused leadership while her original plans for the Committee smoldered inside her. When Doc assigned yet another letter-writing task, she sensed what was almost a collective sigh from the four women seated at the large reading table. The only one seemingly happy with her duties was Irina, who stood alongside Doc at the end of the table.

  “The object of these letters is to reinforce the remarks I shall be making when I speak at the Nebraska Medical Society convention in three weeks.” He handed materials to Irina. “Miss Taylor will pass out lists of physicians’ names and our new printed letterhead and envelopes. You can see how impressive our letterhead looks. It suggests that our message is one worthy of serious consideration.”

  Louise set down the list and stationery Irina handed her without looking at them. She bristled. His assumption that printed letterhead would excite the scribes was ludicrous, but if Louise challenged him it would seem like sour grapes.

  “Once we get enough physicians on board,” Doc said, “we shall work on securing the endorsement of the Medical Society, and that will provide sufficient clout to pressure the legislature.”

  “How long do you expect it to take, to get the Medical Society’s endorsement, that is?” Madge asked.

  “It’s difficult to say. Perhaps as little as a year with concerted effort.”

  With the exception of Irina and Alice who were politely attentive, the women seemed less interested in Doc’s agenda than in Bonita’s argyle-patterned sock taking shape stitch by stitch with the steady click of her knitting needles.

  Louise said, “Dr. Foster, you have said yourself that you’ve been working for ten years to persuade doctors to use drops, and in that time perhaps five percent have gotten on board.”

  “Yes.”

  “With all due respect, I believe we would achieve our goal much faster if we broadened our campaign to achieve grassroots support, educate nurses and midwives, and begin making inroads to the legislature.”

  “I am in agreement,” Doc said. “But we should concentrate first on the physicians and adopt a broader campaign as our next phase.”

  Bonita set down her knitting, and the women looked to Louise who held up the new stationery. “If we are to be nothing more than scribes, this Committee won’t exist much longer.”

  “Just what would you propose?”

  “Irina and Bonita can develop a curriculum for midwives and talk to professional nursing and social work organizations. Madge and Alice can create pamphlets to be distributed at every speaking engagement and mailed to women’s clubs.”

  Madge spoke up. “And another set of pamphlets for mothers that could be placed in clinics and distributed by visiting nurses.”

  “Public pressure,” Jerrylynn said. “That’s what will move the legislature.”

  “All good suggestions,” Doc said. “But without staging them in phases, we risk spreading ourselves too thin.”

  Madge said, “Let me give you a bit of advice. We must remember Louise’s words at our first meeting: ‘Make magnificent plans; with their magic we shall soar over insurmountable obstacles.’”

  With the moribund Committee showing signs of life, challenging Doc’s plan, Louise anticipated he would dig in.

  “I also recall at that meeting,” Doc said, “that Mrs. Morrissey extolled the power of women to achieve social reform. I thought of that when I learned the man who was to be keynote speaker for the Women’s Auxiliary of the Medical Society had cancelled. Would it not be a coup if Mrs. Morrissey took his place?”

  “A speech?” Louise gasped. As the full impact hit her, she said, “In three weeks?” She shook her head. “I’m no speechmaker. Get someone else.”

  “Come now, Mrs. Morrissey,” Doc spread his arms, “you speak so eloquently to this gathering. Just think of this engagement as speaking to a few more people.”

  Louise suspected now that Doc’s idea had been spur-of-the-moment, a way to punish her for questioning his authority. “No. Dr. Foster, you must find someone else.”

  Alice’s face and voice pleaded. “Louise, this is an opportunity we can’t pass up.” Then she brightened. “I have an idea. Bonita, may we use Vinny’s photograph on a big poster?”

  “That picture would melt the hardest heart,” Madge said.

  The women looked toward Bonita, who said, “My sister, God rest her soul, was so ashamed of having gonorrhea, even though she was the innocent victim of a philandering husband. I’ll have to think it over.”

  The prospect of giving a speech, forgotten, Louise felt a flush rising from her neck and averted her gaze away from Doc. Did Bonita’s words move him? Does he accept that he infected me and blinded Marie?

  Three weeks later, Louise awakened from a dream in which she was shackled to a chair. She shuddered free of the restraint. Setting her feet on the floor and yielding to the sensation of its cool surface helped to clear her mind. Now a paralysis of another sort seized her—the thought of giving the speech.

  Today she was going to Lincoln to the Nebraska Medical Society convention to speak to the Auxiliary while Doc spoke to their husbands. Louise would have to interact with him only once, at which time he would hand off the poster he carried in a large portfolio. The poster featured Vinny’s picture with the heading, “Needlessly Blind.”

  There was time to rehearse her speech once more before leaving for the train depot. Standing in the kitchen, she went through the motion of removing the watch pinned to her lapel and placing it on an imagined lectern. With this ritual she would mentally shift into her public speaking role which set the words she knew by heart flowing almost automatically. She shut out the annoying drip of the kitchen faucet, figuring she needed the discipline of handling distractions. The speech lasted exactly twenty-one minutes and went according to plan. But she held out hope that the train would be late
or that some deus ex machina would save her from having to give the speech

  On her way out of the Inn─it would always be “the Inn” even though J.D. had turned it into Riverview Old Folks Home─she stopped at the front desk to report the leaky faucet. Harley would probably have it fixed by the time she got home from Lincoln.

  The journey behind her, she met Doc in the hall outside the adjacent ballrooms where they’d be simultaneously presenting their speeches. She squeaked a “hello.”

  “You look stricken. Stop thinking about all the things that might go wrong. You have rehearsed, you know what you want to say, and you have your notes, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. You have a solid foundation. Now fix your mind on the profound significance of your message. And fix your mind on how important it is that your audience hear that message. Concern yourself only with conveying your message to your audience. Hold that thought in your mind from now on until you have finished your speech.”

  Louise nodded. How could she have allowed herself to get into this situation? Letting this man who should have no place in her life volunteer her to speak and now stand here and lecture her? Who does he think he is?

  A man approached and said he would be introducing Dr. Foster to the assembled doctors. Doc followed him, leaving Louise to make her way to the North Platte Room. The sight of about one hundred women seated there caused her breaths to become shallow. As she approached the stage she was greeted by an officious-looking woman in a smart black and white suit who directed her to an empty seat.

  The women seated on either side of Louise introduced themselves. She instantly forgot their names.

  The sound of the gavel caused Louise to look in the direction of the lectern, next to which stood the easel that would hold Vinny’s picture. Her hand went to her mouth to stifle a gasp. Doc has the poster. Her presentation depended on the picture. How would she manage without it?

  There being no choice, she mentally reorganized her speech as the woman in the black and white suit welcomed the guests, made introductions, and launched into a lengthy thank-you to individuals, committees, and companies for all manner of support. Then the business meeting began, with reports from the secretary, treasurer, and committee chairs. Louise checked her watch. She breathed deeply, trying to summon the courage she would need to speak. But another committee chair was called to report. And then another.

  When Louise was finally introduced, she was stunned to hear she would be allotted just ten minutes. She carried her notes and a stack of petitions to the lectern and looked around in vain for a friendly face. The audience had grown restless, their scheduled break delayed. Just as rehearsed, she reached for her watch, but the clasp would not budge. Instead of being a graceful, purposeful gesture, it appeared pointless, and she would have to guess at the time.

  “Thank you, Madam President.” Her voice quivered. She looked down at her notes. “I am honored to address this very august organization. Women today are the vanguard of social change to benefit society’s health and welfare, particularly that of its children. I noted your efforts along those lines, such as with your committee to advocate vaccinations for school children. I am here today because I would like to enlist your invaluable support for The Nebraska Committee to Save Babies’ Sight.”

  Watching women squirm and check their watches was leeching the last shred of confidence right out of her body. She was Lulu again, back in New Lexington, stammering through an oral book report. Concern yourself only with conveying the message to your audience. She set aside her notes, rendered useless anyway by the severe time constraint. At the heart of her message was Vinny, whose sweet picture the audience would never see. If nothing else she wanted to convey his plight so poignantly they would wish to save others from his fate. “I want to tell you the story of three-year-old Vinny. He is legally blind and has lived at Smithville State Asylum for the Blind since the death of his mother. Vinny and approximately one-third of all children in the state asylum were needlessly blinded.

  “Needlessly blinded, you ask. Yes, needlessly, because for some thirty years there has been a known preventative for the blinding condition known as babies’ sore eyes. If all babies received dilute silver nitrate drops at birth, babies’ sore eyes, this cause of so much unnecessary blindness, would be wiped out.

  “Now I must bring up an indelicate matter. Like all of you I was bred to eschew language unbecoming a lady. I was also bred to do what is right, and I reached a turning point in my life at which I realized that to do right, I must say the unspeakable. For, you see, babies contract the blinding bacteria”─here the breath support for her voice waned─”in the birth canal of mothers who have gonorrhea.” Pausing until the murmured reaction of her audience subsided gave her a chance to take some deep breaths.

  “Vinny’s mother was a good woman. Like many women, she was infected by her husband. Vinny was needlessly blinded because . . .” The well-rehearsed words simply vanished. “Forgive me, but I’ve lost my train of thought.” She paused, trying not to feel the women’s impatience. “Vinny was needlessly blinded because society’s taboos against talking about venereal disease stood in the way of taking action.

  “Discuss this matter with your husbands. They are better qualified to explain the medical side of this issue than I, and they will confirm what I said about the efficacy of prophylaxis. The Nebraska Committee to Save Babies’ Sight, which I represent, seeks nothing less than legislation mandating drops in all newborn babies’ eyes.

  She nodded to the woman who held her petitions. “We shall now pass out petitions which, when signed, will be delivered to the state legislature. I hope you will carry them to your communities. We need influential women such as you to carry our educational message and to mobilize other women to get behind this cause.

  “It is too late for Vinny. But let us act today to protect the children of tomorrow. Thank you.”

  Louise acknowledged polite applause and started to pick up her notes but thought better of it, realizing that holding notes would make the trembling of her hands obvious. She watched the stacks of petitions move from hand to hand like hot potatoes. Perhaps a total of four, maybe five, women took a petition. Damn Dr. Vandegrift. Damn Doc.

  Daisy had insisted Louise stay overnight and get the early train the next morning. “Just let yourself in,” Daisy had said. “You’ll find the teapot and scones in the kitchenette. Help yourself. I’ll be home shortly after you arrive.”

  The taxi ride took Louise to the Hampton Arms in a seedy part of town. Entering the building, she followed a long, dark hallway where the only ornamentation was a telephone mounted to a wall and telephone numbers scrawled in pencil. She climbed stairs to the third floor where a single bulb lit the narrow hallway. A heavyset man wearing a bathrobe and carrying a towel exited an apartment. His jowls jiggled, set in motion by his lumbering gait.

  Louise opened a door to a cramped, windowless parlor. Frank would have said, “It’s so small you can’t cuss a cat without getting fur in your mouth.” Painstaking attempts had been made to brighten it. Daisies abounded—on a decorative quilt hanging on one wall, on the cushions of two white wicker chairs, on a curtain separating the parlor from the kitchenette, and on a hooked rug. A wicker coffee table held a silver vase with cut daisies. On one wall was a Murphy bed, which Louise presumed would be hers.

  An open door revealed a bedroom, and as there were no other doors, Louise realized she’d be sharing a toilet and bathtub with the likes of the jowly neighbor. Hard to imagine that Daisy, bred to enjoy finer things, had invited her to stay in such a place, and without apology. A lesson in acceptance.

  Louise was pouring a cup of tea when Daisy burst in cradling a fat and aging fox terrier.

  “Meet Hercules. Hercules, this is my old friend Lulu.” Before taking off her coat, Daisy reached for a scone which she broke into tiny bites and coaxed Hercules to eat. “He scarcely has any teeth left.” She nuzzled the dog. “Is Mama’s baby hungry?” She
explained to Louise, “The neighbors watch him while I’m at work. I always worry he doesn’t get enough to eat.”

  Once the two women and Hercules were settled in the wicker chairs, Daisy asked Louise how her presentation was received.

  “Worse than I could possibly have imagined.” Louise described how she had failed to get Vinny’s poster, how her time was cut short, and how the audience was restless for a break. “And they handled the petitions like they carried cholera germs. Afterwards I realized I had failed to explain why all newborn babies needed drops even if there was no chance the mother had gonorrhea. And I should have urged them to write to their legislators.”

  “But look at you, Lulu, you did it. I would simply die if I had to give a speech. You’ll bowl them over next time.”

  “But this was such an important occasion. I should have practiced on an audience less critical to our mission.”

  Daisy shook her head. “As I recall, you didn’t have a choice. That doctor shoved you into the lion’s den with almost no time to prepare. Darned inconsiderate, if you ask me.”

  “I wonder if the audience would have been more sympathetic had I mentioned that many women die of gonorrhea.”

  “All I know about speechmaking is from comments Dr. Weil makes, but I’m inclined to think that even if everything had gone as planned your speech wouldn’t have moved the audience to act. They were probably so stunned to hear the word gonorrhea they scarcely heard anything else. An audience should be primed first, know something about the subject and its indelicate nature. Maybe mail them a leaflet. Or place an item in their newsletter. Addressing an audience cold is a recipe for disaster.”

  “That’s why Doc had the Committee send letters to the doctors. We should have sent them to the wives as well.”