Papers of Morris Leopold Ernst, 1933-1937

This volume documents United States v. One Package of Pessaries, a suit which challenged the seizure by the United States Customs authorities in January 1933 of one package of pessaries sent from Japan to Dr. Hannah Stone for research. The government's case was based on Section 305 (a) of the Tariff Act of 1930 which prohibited the importation of contraceptive articles. Morris Ernst successfully argued the case for Dr. Stone before Judge Grover Moscowitz of the United States District Court of Southern New York. The government appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals in April, 1936. The Moscowitz decision was unanimously affirmed by Judges Augustus N. Hand, Learned Hand, and Thomas Swan. Judge Augustus Hand wrote the majority opinion (although Learned Hand concurred, he wrote a separate opinion expressing doubts as to the legal correctness of the decision), claiming that Section 305 and other laws like it originated in the Comstock Act of 1873, and that "Its design, in our opinion, was not to prevent the importation, sale or carriage by mail of things which might intelligently be employed by conscientious and competent physicians for the purpose of saving life or promoting the well-being of their patients...." In 1937, Morris L. Ernst and Harriet Pilpel wrote that, "The holding that a doctor may, notwithstanding the ban of a sixty year old statute, prescribe a contraceptive in the interests of life and health, symbolizes a notable victory."