“From my grandfather, yes. That’s all settled now?”
“Yes and no,” Sophie said. She told him a little about Comstock and his crusade, and the most recent attempt to send Dr. Garrison to the penitentiary. “And I doubt he’s given up. He’ll do his best to entrap her, and that’s where your business comes in. The pamphlets Comstock brought into the courtroom as evidence were your grandfather’s work. The only reason he wasn’t arrested was that he didn’t put his name or the company name on the materials he printed for us.”
She paused, and he nodded for her to go on.
“My first question for you is, whether you would prefer us to find a different printer.”
He studied his hands for a moment longer. “There’s no reason you should know this, but I just recently took over the business when I moved back home from Savannah. I’m not even sure what my grandfather was printing for you.”
Sophie went to her desk, unlocked a drawer, and took out a slim stack of pamphlets. “Personal Hygiene,” “The Well-Considered Family,” “A Woman’s Health,” “The Human Reproductive Cycle.”
When he had looked over them briefly he said, “Dr. Garrison wrote these?”
“In part. A number of different physicians have had a hand in putting them together, including me. What you need to understand is that if you continue printing these pamphlets, you will place yourself in harm’s way.” She wondered if she would have to be more explicit.
He put the pamphlets on her desk. “According to the account books, Dr. Garrison is an excellent customer. My grandfather had no complaints about her or the work she brought to him. I think we can continue on in the same way. Do I have to introduce myself to her?”
“No,” Sophie said. “Given the close attention Comstock is paying to her, the committee has decided to have her step back for the present. I had planned on taking over for her, but I’ve had a change in circumstance quite suddenly and will be away for as much”—her voice roughened—“as a year.”
She could see that he was curious, but Sophie didn’t want to open the discussion of where she would be, or with whom. She took a deep breath and continued. “Early next week we’ll have decided who will take over the business end of things, and I will send you word if you decide you want to continue. But I think it’s important you understand the seriousness of the situation before you decide.”
He inclined his head in what might have been reluctant agreement.
“Comstock has made an art out of entrapment by mail,” Sophie began. “He writes a letter to a doctor and pretends to be a young woman who has gotten in trouble without the benefit of marriage, pleading for help.”
Sam Reason was frowning. “He signs someone else’s name?”
“He makes up a story about someone who doesn’t exist, and signs that person’s name.”
“Always a young woman?”
Sophie paused. “For the most part. There’s the possibility that he sometimes writes as a man needing help for his wife. He does send both men and women to try to entrap physicians in their offices. Whoever he sends always has a convincing story about a desperate need for contraceptives or abortion. We’ve been approached more than once.”
“We?”
“Pardon me, I haven’t explained clearly. I live with an aunt and a cousin. My cousin Anna is also a physician. Comstock seems to be interested in both of us.”
“There are two of you?” He seemed amused by this idea. “Two black women practicing medicine in the city?”
“She is my half cousin,” Sophie explained. “And she is white. There are other women of color practicing medicine, here and elsewhere. A few of us, and more every year.”
He started to say something and then stopped to listen, though he was clearly disturbed by what she was telling him. She went on to relate a cautionary tale that happened to be true. It was Dr. Newlight’s history that kept physicians awake at night. He had received one of Comstock’s entrapment letters and responded by sending a prescription for bismuth and gentian powder, a mild treatment for digestive ailments.
“For that he was convicted under the Comstock Act. He spent almost two years in the penitentiary.”
Almost reluctantly he asked, “What this doctor sent wasn’t illegal?”
“Nothing illegal about it. But the judge ruled that by responding to the decoy letter he had committed a crime. He wouldn’t allow Dr. Newlight’s attorney to call any witnesses, he simply instructed the jury to find the doctor guilty, and that’s what they did.”
She watched him think this through. “You know,” he said, and there was a good dose of cynicism in his voice, “stories like that are not all that unusual, at least when the man standing trial is black. I assume this Dr. Newlight is a white man, and that’s why it strikes you as unjust.”