Accusatory, Frustrated, Satirical, Imperative

Sanger cycles through several tones over the course of this speech. She's pretty worked up over the state of maternal and child health, and she makes no bones about it. Meek and mild? Not so much Sanger's style.

In Sentences 2-26, Sanger accuses her audience and everyone else who has been working to make the 20th century better for children of not being very good at their jobs:

So far we have not been gardeners. We have only been a sort of silly reception committee. A reception committee at the Grand Central Station of life. (20-22)

What they've been doing isn't working, and Sanger is pretty peeved about it.

Next, Sanger exhibits (even more) frustration:

When we point to the one immediate practical way toward order and beauty in society, the only way to lay the foundations of a society composed of happy children, happy women and happy men, they call this idea indecent and immoral. (29)

She knows what people need to do, but they won't do it. That's more angry shiver-inducing than hearing nails on a blackboard.

Sanger then drifts into the Jonathan Swift school of satire where she talks about doing something with babies she doesn't intend to ever do…just to make a point. Swift suggested eating poor babies; Sanger suggests letting them interview their parents to see if they want to be born in the first place:

At such a bureau of the unborn, the wise child might be able to find out a few things about its father—and its mother. Just think for a moment of this bureau where prospective parents might apply for a baby. Think of the questions they would be asked by the agent of the unborn or by the baby itself. (72-74)

Finally, Sanger winds up with an imperative call to action, where she tells her audience what they need to do to rectify this situation:

We want to create a real Century of the Child—to usher in a Children's Era. We can do this by handing the terrific gift of life in bodies fit and perfect as can be fashioned. (106-107)

You tell 'em, Sanger.