;-NRLF 
 
CH4 
 

FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHT COPIES 
 
 OF JURGEN AND THE CENSOR HAVE 
 
 BEEN PRINTED AND NUMBERED, OF 
 
 WHICH FOUR HUNDRED AND 
 
 FORTY ARE FOR SALE. THIS 
 
 IS COPY NUMBER 
 
JURGEN 
 
 AND THE CENSOR 
 
 REPORT OF THE EMERGENCY COMMITTEE 
 ORGANIZED TO PROTEST AGAINST THE 
 SUPPRESSION OF JAMES BRANCH CABELL S 
 
 JURGEN 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE EMERGENCY COMMITTEE 
 EDWARD HALE BIERSTADT BARRETT H. CLARK SIDNEY HOWARD 
 
 ONE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND TWENTY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
. . . 
 
 ** * 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
 BARRETT H. CLARK 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Preface James Branch Cabell 
 
 Letter from the New York Society for the Suppression 
 
 of Vice John S. Sumner 
 
 Report of the Emergency Committee Barrett H . Ctark, Secretary 
 
 "MORALS, Not Art or Literature" Edward Hale Bierstadt 
 
 List of Signers of the Protest 
 
 Letters to the Emergency Committee Joseph Hergesheimer 
 
 Burton Rascoe 
 William Lyon Phelps 
 Edward Sheldon 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 Sinclair Lewis 
 Christopher Morley 
 Brander Matthews 
 Henry Turner Bailey 
 Lawrence Gilman 
 Pierre Troubelzkoy 
 John Drinkwater 
 Harriet Ford 
 E. P. Costigan 
 PaulE. More 
 Theodore Dreiser 
 Walter Lippmann 
 Mary E. Wilkins Freeman 
 Arnold Bennett 
 Owen Wister 
 Padraic Colum 
 Thomas H. Dickinson 
 Hugh Walpole 
 Mary Austin 
 Charles Rann Kennedy 
 J. W.Linn 
 H . L. Mencken 
 St. JohnErvine 
 George Moore 
 
 Utters to the Publisher. j 
 
 Ellis P. Oberholtzer 
 Ernest A . Boyd 
 Gilbert Cannon 
 Echoes From the Press: 
 
 The Judging of Jurgen James Branch Cabell 
 
 The Rainbow and Jurgen Gilbert Cannan 
 
 Is Any Book Safe? New York Times 
 
 Lift Literary Load Off Police New York Evening Sun 
 
 Appendix A Extracts from the Penal 
 
 Code of the State of New 
 York and the United 
 States Criminal Code. 
 
 Appendix B Extracts from MORALS, 
 
 Not Art or Literature 
 
 760851 
 
PREFACE 
 
 By James Branch Cabell* 
 
 In reply to the questions you ask me, nothing could be more valueless than 
 my personal opinion of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and of 
 its attitude toward Jurgen. Of a proceeding by which I have been robbed and 
 vilified I cannot be expected to speak or think without bias. The part of wisdom, 
 therefore, is silence. Yet since a "literary" allusion is always more or less my 
 foible as "a prosperous and affected pseudo-litterateur" I would temper this 
 taciturnity by referring you to the fragmentary MS. of The Judging of Jurgen, 
 which if it really dates from the fourteenth century, seems curiously prophetic. 
 
 As to censorship of our reading-matter, I concede this may, in theory, be 
 advisable. In practice, though, I can imagine no persons or class of persons quali 
 fied to perform this censorship. Pace the Vice Society, there is certainly a 
 difference between pornography and fine literature, if but the difference that 
 everybody enjoys the first where few care one way or the other about the second: 
 and certainly the two should be appraised by diverse and appropriate standards. 
 A work of art should therefore, in theory, be judged entirely as a work of art, by 
 a jury of practitioners of the art concerned. 
 
 Yet, since every self-respecting author at bottom abominates his com 
 petitors, despises his inferiors, and is frantically irritated by the work of those 
 who differ from him in aesthetic canons, such an arrangement would, in practice, 
 only fling open more conspicuous fields wherein to flaunt the mutual spite 
 and miscomprehension common to us creative writers. Besides, it is not 
 difficult to forecast what sort of writers must, and would, be chosen for the 
 judiciary, as representing the dignity of letters by the happiest combination of 
 mediocrity and senility. No: in the end an attempt to establish a purely "literary" 
 tribunal would result in setting over American art a death-watch of genial clergy 
 men and decrepit college-professors; and I despondently question if their decisions 
 would be a whit less imbecile than the present arbitraments of the society s 
 hired spies. 
 
 With the outcome of the Jurgen case I have really now no especial con 
 cern. To the reception accorded my books during the last fifteen years this 
 suppression of the Comedy of Justice seems, indeed, the logical and exhilarating 
 climax. At all events, the book exists in a sufficient number of copies to be beyond 
 destruction by anything save its own inherent inadequacies. If Jurgen contains 
 the right constituents it will live, and if it lacks the stuff of longevity it will in 
 due course die; either way, the outcome is, now, to be decided neither by me nor 
 by vice commissioners, nor even by a grand jury. 
 
 As touches my personal part in the publication, it is in the end by Jurgen 
 that I must be condemned or justified, rather than by what anyone including 
 me may just now elect to say about Jurgen. And inasmuch as the receipt of 
 royalty statements is not generally included among the threatened torments of 
 the next world, it seems unlikely that this final verdict which is in the entire 
 transaction the one feature of any conceivable importance will ever be known 
 by me. So I cannot regard even this final verdict with much sense of personal 
 concern. 
 
 *In reply to questions addressed to Mr. Cabell by the Secretary of the Emergency 
 
 :tter dated May 6, IQZO. 
 
J 3 r * * * 
 
 - , .Against the charge of violating the current morality of 1920 I think that any 
 serious defence would be a waste of effort, if only because the question must so 
 soon become of purely antiquarian interest. Our children may not improve, 
 even from the standpoint of humor, upon our moral standards, but our children 
 will certainly not retain them. When, as must inevitably happen before very 
 long, our present ethical criteria have come to seem as quaint as those of the 
 Druids or the Etruscans, or even as those of 1913 appear nowadays, offences 
 against any one of these outmoded codes will hardly be esteemed worth talking 
 about. Should Jurgen be remembered ten years hence, it will, through being 
 remembered, be amply exonerated: whereas it Jurgen. be forgotten, the book will 
 then of course be violating nobody s moral sensibility. Time thus lies under bond 
 to silence, whether with praise or with oblivion, all these aspersions; and willy- 
 nilly I must defer to time. 
 
 None the less do I still believe that Jurgen is, as originally labeled, "a book 
 wherein each man will find what his nature enables him to see"; and when anyone 
 confesses that he finds therein only "offensiveness, and lasciviousness, and lewd- 
 ness, and indecency," I must make bold to take the announcement as a less 
 candid summary of the book s nature than of the critic s. 
 
 What can be done, you ask me, to better the present literary situation? 
 Not much, I fear: for we contend against well-meaning and courageous persons 
 who fight for high aims. The most fantastic feature of this droll affair is the 
 profound sincerity of its participants upon both sides. You and I may know 
 and welcome, as the saying runs that we are in the right so far as goes the un- 
 human abstraction called rationality. But the officers and backers of the society s 
 imbecilities, also, quite honestly believe they are engaged in praiseworthy work 
 when, to cite a recent example, they hale Mademoiselle de Maupin into the 
 police courts. Indeed, they appear to be inebriated to these antics by very much 
 the same real love of virtue which incites some of their congeners to burn an 
 unruly negro as a torch to illumine their reprehension of lawlessness, and yet 
 others to express their disfavor of intemperance by decreeing that wine is too 
 atrocious a compound to be employed for any purpose except to symbolize the 
 blood of Jesus Christ. In the face of so many laudable intentions thus obscurely 
 communicated, we can but deduce that whenever stupidity and high morals pig 
 together they beget an offspring that is doubly cursed with zealotry and toxic 
 aphasia. Nor, of course, does it appear quite pious to contend against these 
 natural phenomena. 
 
 At all events, you and I are in the negligible minority. I need hardly remind 
 you that the officers of the society have embattled back of them all the complacent 
 muddleheadedness of the average pew-renting American, who from the first has 
 rather fretfully resented any talk about "art." Mr. Paul E. More, in one of the 
 letters relative to the Jurgen imbroglio, has nicely summed up this popular point 
 of view: "I am not at all in sympathy with a group of writers who would take any 
 protest against the society as a justification of what they are pleased to call art. 
 The harm done by the society seems to me very slight, whereas the harm done by 
 the self-styled artist may be very great." 
 
 Now that is really the popular and, therefore, the expedient moral attitude. 
 The morality of a democracy is, after all, a matter of elementary arithmetic: 
 one counts the ballots (sometimes, it is said, quite honestly) in order to distinguish 
 between right and wrong, because the voice of the people is notoriously the voice 
 of God. It is precisely this discerning voice which has proclaimed, time and again, 
 
 8 
 
that the sturdy American peerage of nature s noblemen does not want to be 
 bothered with any nonsense about literature and art: for the reasons, first, that 
 such fripperies play no part in honest polltax-payers lives; and, second, that in 
 very much the manner of this Mr. More, our reputable citizenry obscurely and 
 inarticulately, but none the less genuinely resents the impudence of "self-styled 
 artists" "who presume to know more than their betters about "what they are 
 pleased to call art." 
 
 It seems therefore eminently appropriate that in our National Hall of 
 Statuary, along with such world-famous statesmen and shapers of human destiny 
 as Jacob Collamer, S. J. Kirkwood, and George L. Shoup, the sole representative 
 of our art and letters should today be General Lew Wallace, for Ben Hur is really 
 the perfected expression of American ideals in literature. It is equally appropriate 
 I like to think that, when judged by these ideals, Jurgen should be decreed 
 "offensive, and lascivious, and lewd, and indecent." 
 
 James Branch Cabell. 
 
 Dumbarton Grange, 
 Dumbarton, Virginia. 
 
Letter from the Secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of 
 Vice to the Secretary of the Emergency Committee 
 
 April 16, 1920. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have your letter of the 14th instant, enclosing one dollar for two copies 
 of the pamphlet entitled "Morals, Not Art or Literature," which was compiled 
 by Mr. Comstock a year or two before he died. I will send you these pamphlets 
 in a day or two. We are in the midst of moving our headquarters and these 
 matters have been packed up and it will take a little time to get straightened out 
 in our new quarters. 
 
 Regarding Jurgen In view of the fact that this case is still pending, I shall 
 say only that this book was first brought to our attention by a correspondent who 
 forwarded a clipping of the New York Tribune, with which you are no doubt 
 familiar. Having obtained a copy of the book and read it and sought the advice 
 of others, we are of the opinion that its publication and sale constitute a violation 
 of law. In the usual course the book was presented to a magistrate whose opinion 
 coincided with ours and who received the complaint and issued summonses. 
 The defendants waived examination in the Magistrates Court and were held 
 for trial in Special Sessions. Subsequently, on their motion, the case was trans 
 ferred to General Sessions to proceed by indictment and jury trial. It is now 
 awaiting presentation to the Grand Jury. In addition to opinions received here, 
 we received opinions also from Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Cincinnati, 
 where the book had been sold. 
 
 As to the general work of the Society, this corporation was organized in 
 1873 to enforce the laws seeking to suppress traffic in obscene, lewd, lascivious, 
 indecent, filthy and disgusting books or publications, and for other purposes. 
 This law does not make exception as to the publications of any particular class. 
 That is, it does not distinguish between the writings of John Doe, who has no 
 reputation, or Richard Roe, who is a distinguished author; nor have the courts, 
 in interpreting this law, permitted the intent of the author, expressed or implied, 
 to influence them in their decisions. If the language of a book is lewd, or if it is 
 of suggestive lewdness, it is a violation of the law, regardless of the literary or 
 artistic character of the published matter. Some of the court decisions have held 
 that a writing of an obscene character was more dangerous when couched in 
 fine language than when set forth in crude form, and this is undoubtedly true. 
 
 This Society endeavors to perform its duties without favor to any class. 
 If it appears that the law, which it is our duty to enforce, has been violated, 
 we are just as prompt to proceed against an established publisher or a known 
 author as against the street peddler who seeks to excite impure thoughts in the 
 minds of boys by retailing questionable pictures on the public street. Any other 
 course would lay us open to just criticism. 
 
 Some recent editorials and other comments assumed that this Society was 
 organized to perform its duties in a limited way. There is nothing in the Act 
 of Incorporation of the Society, nor in the statutes under which it proceeds, which 
 would warrant such a conclusion. Of course, there has been a great amount of 
 exaggeration as to the effect of this Society s activities. The query of the Times, 
 "Is Any Book Safe?" and the editorial matter presented under that caption is, 
 of course, puerile. It is answered by the fact that out of the thousands of books 
 published and offered for sale during the past year action has been taken against 
 possibly four or five. We realize very fully that it is not pleasant for a publisher 
 or an author to be brought into court to defend his work; nor is it a particularly 
 
 10 
 
pleasing duty to feel called upon to proceed against a publication which may 
 be the result of months or years of work on the part of the producer. If laws 
 exist they should be enforced until amended or repealed. Much of the unsettled 
 condition prevailing in the country at the present time can be traced directly to 
 a lack of law enforcement in many directions during past years. 
 
 Last year this Society took action against 160 defendants. Of this number 
 only four cases had to do with book publications. Pictures of a demoralizing 
 character were taken on search warrant to the extent of 50,000, not only in New 
 York, but in Boston, Oswego, Rutherford, Philadelphia and Chicago. Plates 
 for reproducing such pictures were taken to the extent of over 300. Three thou 
 sand feet of motion picture film of the most obscene character were confiscated 
 and destroyed. In many of these cases the morals of school children boys and 
 young men were directly involved. From this I think you may fairly determine 
 that the book cases are incidental, but at the same time important features of 
 the work which we are carrying on. 
 
 I should be very glad to have you call at our office with a view of discussing 
 these matters more in detail, and believe that if you have any other opinion now 
 you can readily be satisfied that no undertaking of the Society is entered into 
 except with a view to fairly and impartially enforcing those laws which we are 
 bound to enforce under the terms of our charter. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 John S. Sumner, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 11 
 
REPORT OF THE EMERGENCY COMMITTEE 
 
 By BARRETT H. CLARK 
 
 Secretary 
 
REPORT OF THE EMERGENCY COMMITTEE 
 
 Jurgen, "A Comedy of Justice," was published by Robert M. 
 McBride & Company of New York City on September 27th, 1919. 
 The author , subsequently designated in legal documents as onej ames 
 Branch Cabell," has for fifteen years enjoyed immunity from the 
 guardians of national morals in the pursuit of his literary endeavors, 
 publishing in that period half a dozen novels and romances, a 
 number of short stories, a volume of verse, and a book of essays. 
 Until the suppression of his latest book, Jurgen, Mr. Cabell was 
 known among the group of readers who recognized the distinction 
 of his work, as a writer of fastidious English, devoted to the depiction 
 of the romantic and idealistic manifestations of human love. Mr. 
 Cabell has been content throughout his career to maintain a po 
 sition apart from the literary "world," caring neither for notoriety 
 nor for the passing fame of the writer of best-sellers. 
 
 Those of Mr. Cabell s readers who have followed the develop 
 ment of his art, will have recognized in Jurgen the logical one 
 might say the inevitable point toward which the earlier books were 
 constantly tending. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that Jurgen is no isolated phenom 
 enon; it is an integral part of the world of Mr. Cabell s imagination. 
 It is the crowning episode of the artist s comedy of life. It seems to 
 be his ultimate word upon the subject that underlies all his books, 
 from The Eagle s Shadow to Beyond Life . 
 
 It is reasonable to assume that before the suppression of 
 Jurgen, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice never 
 heard of its author. Neither Mr. Cabell nor his latest book could 
 very well have excited the suspicions of the crusaders. Now, 
 Jurgen had been on the market for over three months; a large 
 number of copies had been sold, considering the subtle character 
 of the book; about fifty reviews had appeared in news 
 papers and magazines throughout the country; and with the ex 
 ception of five reviewers, whose words are quoted below, 1 no one, 
 so far as it has been possible to determine, had hinted that Jurgen 
 was in any respect "objectionable." 
 
 *Heywood Broun, in the New York Tribune, Nov. ijth, 1919: ". . . strives to attain a 
 Rabelaisian flavor. ... In the hands of Cabell the joke becomes a barroom story refurbished 
 for the boudoir. In such a refining process it becomes a little nasty." 
 
 "A. L. S. W," in the Springfield Union, Oct. iz, 1919: ". . . and so cautiously one may let 
 it be known that Jurgen will be recommended to one s friends whose maturity and taste are un- 
 
 15 
 
It was not until the publication of Mr. Walter J. Kingsley s 
 letter to the Tribune, published January 3rd, 1920, that the trouble 
 began. Mr. Kingsley s letter follows: 
 
 ABOUT A COLUMN 
 
 Jurgen and the Non-Reading Public 
 
 James Branch Cabell is making a clean getaway with Jurgen, quite the 
 naughtiest book since George Moore began ogling maidservants in Mayo. How 
 come? Dreiser had the law hot after him for The Genius and Hager Revelly 
 came close to landing Daniel Carson Goodman in Leavenworth, yet these volumes 
 are innocent compared with Jurgen, which deftly and knowingly treats in thinly 
 veiled episodes of all the perversities, abnormalities and dam- foolishness of sex. 
 There is an undercurrent of extreme sensuality throughout the book, and once 
 the trick of transposing the key is mastered one can dip into this tepid stream 
 on every page. Cabell has cleansed his bosom of much perilous stuff a little too 
 much, in fact, for Jurgen grows tiresome toward the end but he has said every 
 thing about the mechanics of passion and said it prettily. He has a gift of dulcet 
 English prose, but I like better the men who say things straight out and use gruff 
 Anglo-Saxon monosyllables for the big facts of nature that we are supposed to 
 ignore . 
 
 It is curious how the non-reading public discovered Jurgen. A few days 
 after it appeared on the newsstands a male vampire of the films who once bought 
 Stevenson s Underwoods in the belief that it was a book of verses hymning a 
 typewriter, began saying up and down Broadway: "Say, kid, get a book called 
 Jurgen. It gets away with murder." 
 
 This sold the first edition quickly. How do they discover these things? 
 
 Walter J. Kingsley. 
 
 Mr. John S. Sumner, secretary to the New York Society for 
 the Suppression of Vice, declares, in a letter which is herein quoted, 
 that Jurgen "was first brought to our attention by a correspondent 
 who forwarded a clipping of the New York Tribune . . ." 
 
 After January 3rd, the game of "transposing the key" of Jurgen 
 went merrily forward. An astounding exhibit of perverse ingenuity 
 might be assembled by anyone who cared to collect the interpreta 
 tions that have (since January 3rd) been fastened upon Jurgen. 
 The Emergency Committee, at any rate, can testify to having re- 
 
 questioned.. . . Strong meat, my masters of forty-and-something, in Jurgen, and if you find 
 something of truth in a comparison between your wanderings and those of Jurgen, the better reason 
 for ordering the book burned in the public square. . . . Possibly when Jurgen has passed through 
 the house of the Master Philologist and its hero pronounced a nature myth and properly explained 
 away it will be generally read in expurgated versions for the beauty of its language." 
 
 "W. H. C., in the New York Tribune, Oct. 18, 1919: "Mr. Cabell is not squeamish about 
 using sex as a background for humorous situations ..." 
 
 H. W. Boynton, in the (New York) Review, Oct. 15, 1919: "Hera are eloquence and a nimble 
 fancy, a darting eye and a musing brain behind it, playfulness, malice, tenderness indecency. 
 For it is a book of male humor in the good and less good senses frank Rabelaisian* . . . Our 
 jester s erotic symbolism is over-insistent, and so mars a fantasy which contains much beauty, 
 in substance as well as in form." 
 
 Edward S. Everett, in The Detroit News, Nov. 30, 1919: ". . . has as its chief quality a 
 certain adroit and many-sided perversity." 
 
 16 
 
ceived a liberal education in the refinements of moral turpitude to 
 which those bent upon discovering nastiness can descend. 
 
 But it is not our object to pass judgment upon the minds of 
 those who make it a business to glut over the actual or imagined 
 indecencies of any work of art. Nor, be it clearly understood, has 
 the Committee undertaken to defend, explain, or deny the alleged 
 "obscenity" of Jurgen. Mr. Cabell has stated his case, and there 
 is no further need to comment upon this aspect of the question. 
 
 The Emergency Committee came into existence for the pur 
 pose of protesting against a law and a particular organization having 
 the power to prevent the circulation of works of art. Believing 
 that Jurgen is a work of art, the Committee is ready to defend it 
 on that ground alone. * 
 
 On January i4th, 1920, representatives of the New York 
 Society for the Suppression of Vice entered the offices of Robert M. 
 McBride & Company with a summons for Mr. McBride and a 
 warrant authorizing the seizure of all plates, copies and 
 sheets of Jurgen. The publisher was charged with violating Section 
 1141 of the Penal Code of the State of New York, in publishing 
 Jurgen, "a certain offensive, lewd, lascivious and indecent book." 
 Plates and books were seized and taken away. In the absence of 
 Mr. McBride, Mr. Guy Holt, the secretary of the company, an 
 swered the summons, and appeared in court the following day. 
 The hearing was set for January 23rd. The formal charge, a copy 
 of which follows, was presented on January 1 5th: 
 
 : By way of indicating that there are at least two ways of looking at Jurgen, we print the 
 following copy of an affidavit: 
 
 "The undersigned, Paul Jordan Smith, a lecturer for the University of California, Extension 
 Division, and for ten years occupied in either reviewing books or teaching general literature, hereby 
 declares that he had read and given lectures on the books of one James Branch Cabell, and that 
 he has found them clean, and wholesome and stimulating, both in content and expression; and 
 that in his experience with the classes of adult men and women no one has found them in any sense 
 objectionable. 
 
 "He further affirms that in a course in The Development of the Novel given in Los Angeles, 
 California, and ending in January of this present year, IQZO, he lectured on Jurgen, a novel by 
 the aforementioned James Branch Cabell, and that it was read by his class without criticism; 
 on the contrary it received the highest praise. 
 
 "Finally the undersigned declares that, in his opinion, Jurgzn is a notable contribution to 
 American literature, and far from being obscene is a fine and enduring piece of fiction, suitable 
 for general reading. 
 
 (Signed) Paul Jordan Smith. 
 
 Claremont, California. 
 February 18, 1910. 
 
 Subscribed and sworn to before me this zoth day of February, igzo. 
 (Signed) Harry F. Belcher, Notary Public." 
 
 17 
 
"January i5th, 1910. 
 
 John S. Sumner, Agent New York Society for the Suppression 
 of Vice, being duly sworn, says: That on the 6th day of January, 
 1920, and prior, and sworn thereto at the city and county aforesaid 
 Robert M. McBride & Company, a corporation, and Guy Holt, 
 manager of said corporation, Book Department, did at No. 31 East 
 ijth Street in the city and county aforesaid, unlawfully print, utter, 
 publish, manufacture and prepare, and did unlawfully sell and offer 
 to sell and have in their possession with intent to sell a certain 
 offensive, lewd, lascivious and indecent book, in violation of Section 
 1 1 4 1 of Penal Code of the State of New York . At the time and place 
 aforesaid, the said Robert M. McBride & Company by and through 
 its officers, agents and employees did print, publish, sell and dis 
 tribute and on information and belief of the said Guy Holt did 
 prepare for publication and cause to be printed, published, sold 
 and distributed a certain book en titled JUT gen by one James Branch 
 Cabell, which said book represents and is descriptive of scenes of 
 lewdness and obscenity, particularly upon pages 56, 57, 58, 59, 
 61, 63, 64, 67, 80, 84, 86, 89, 92, 93, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, 106, 
 107, 108, 114, 1*0, 114, 125, 127, 128, 134, 135, I4*> 144, 148, 149. 
 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 
 167, 168, 170, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 186, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 
 203, 206, 207, 211, 228, 229, 236, 237, 238, 239, 241, 242, 271, 272, 
 275, 286, 321, 340, 342, 343, thereof, and which said book is so 
 obscene, lewd, lascivious and indecent that a minute description of 
 the same would be offensive to the Court and improper to be placed 
 upon the records thereof: Wherefore a fuller description of the 
 same is not set forth in the complaint." 1 
 
 On January 23rd, Mr. Holt appeared in court, pleading Not 
 Guilty. 
 
 1 "The second count of the indictment did not set forth the book, or any part thereof, but 
 alleged that it was so obscene that it would be offensive to the court and improper to be placed 
 on the record thereof, and therefore the jurors did not set it forth in the indictment." (1811) 
 Conn vs. Holmes, 17 Mass., 336. 
 
 "The rules of criminal pleading do not require the indictment to set forth the evidence, or to 
 negative every possible theory of the defence." Evans vs. U. S., 153 U. S., 584. 
 
 The prosecution, then, may be assumed to state facts, whereas the defence is merely stating 
 theory. 
 
 18 
 
The case was then committed for trial in the Court of Special 
 Sessions. Two weeks later Mr. Holt, representing the publisher, 
 appeared before the Court of Special Sessions. The trial was set 
 for March 8th. 
 
 In February the publisher retained Mr. John Quinn,of Quinn 
 and Crowell,to act as trial counsel. Mr. Quinn appeared before 
 Judge Malone in the Court of General Sessions and moved for a 
 transfer of the case to the Court of General Sessions. The motion 
 was granted and the case placed on the Grand Jury docket. The 
 Grand Jury indicted Guy Holt, Robert M. McBride, and Robert 
 M. McBride &z Company, on a charge of violating Section 1141 of 
 the Penal Code of the State of New York. 
 
 On May ijth the publishers pleaded Not Guilty. They are 
 now awaiting trial, the date for which has not been fixed. 
 
 Shortly after the action of the so-called "Vice" or "Comstock 
 Society" became known, Edward Hale Bierstadt, Sidney Howard, 1 
 and the writer of the present report, organized themselves into an 
 Emergency Committee for the purpose of drawing up and distrib 
 uting a protest against the action of the Society in suppressing 
 Jurgen, and in general against the practices of that Society which, 
 in their opinion, constitute a menace to the development of Amer 
 ican art, and a nuisance to American publishers and readers. 
 
 The Emergency Committee, realizing that no time was to be 
 lost if their protest were to be effective before the trial, determined 
 to distribute copies of the protest without forming a "society" or 
 enlisting the support of the Authors League of America, 2 pre 
 sumably the proper organization to undertake such work. 
 
 A short list of writers was first compiled, and the following 
 form-letter, together with the protest, sent out: 
 
 l Mr. Howard, after the termination of the active work of the Committee, withdrew from it. 
 While he has been, and is, in hearty agreement with the aims of the Committee, he cannot be held 
 responsible for the final report. B. H. C. 
 
 2 The Authors League was asked what action it was willing to take, and replied that "the 
 Committee came to the conclusion that it would be best to follow the policy which had been held 
 for some years, that it would be inadvisable for the League to take issue on the censorship question 
 in an individual s case. The Committee, however, is considering ways and means of taking up 
 the general question of censorship in some effective way." 
 
 19 
 
EMERGENCY COMMITTEE 
 Edward Hale Bierstadt 
 Sidney i Howard 
 Barrett H. Clark, Secretary 
 
 124 East 28th Street, 
 New York City. 
 
 February 13, 1920. 
 Dear Sir: 1 
 
 We have taken it upon ourselves to draw up the enclosed protest and sub 
 mit a copy, asking you to sign it and return it to us in case you agree with its 
 provisions. We purpose sending copies of the signed protest to the press, in the 
 hope that some more effective means may be taken to put a stop to the high 
 handed methods of the vice-crusaders, and in any event with the earnest desire 
 that a number of representative American writers may put their feelings in the 
 matter upon record. 
 
 Perhaps you have not read the book whose "morality" is called into question; 
 if, however, you subscribe to the principles upon which this protest is based in 
 general (or if you would even care to change the wording), and wish to reserve 
 judgment upon Jurgen in particular, would you kindly make this clear and 
 authorize us to put your name down among those who protest "in general"? 
 
 We ask you to overlook this method of writing to you, but as immediate 
 action is required (the trial is set for March 8), and we have more letters to send 
 out than we could possibly write by ordinary means, we trust you will pardon the 
 mimeograph. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 Barrett H. Clark, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Below is the protest form: 
 
 EMERGENCY COMMITTEE 
 Edward Hale Bierstadt 
 Sidney Howard 
 Barrett H. Clark, Secretary 
 
 124 East 28th Street, 
 New York City. 
 
 February 14, 1920. 
 
 We, the undersigned, American writers vitally concerned for the legitimate 
 freedom of artistic expression in the United States, protest 
 
 1 . Against what we hold to be the arbitrary and unjustifiable charge pre 
 ferred by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice against the publisher 
 of James Branch Cabell s Jurgen (as an "offensive, indecent, lewd, obscene, and 
 lascivious" book), and the suppression of the same pending trial; and 
 
 2. Against the methods of that Society, an organization which we claim 
 to be an unrepresentative body of people exercising disproportionate influence, 
 and which by repeated actions in suppressing many works of genuine artistic 
 merit, tends to discourage and inhibit the development of literature; 
 
 3. Against the law, which was framed by the founder of the Society, and 
 which is eminently unfair in that it makes no distinction between art and por 
 nography and is so worded as to afford the publisher or writer no fair 
 opportunity for defence; and 
 
 4. Particularly against the practices of the New York Society for the Sup 
 pression of Vice as an extra-legal body, judging works of art and literature by no 
 standards except such as it wishes to set up in the discovery and sequestration of 
 individual passages deemed to be indecent and immoral. Not only does this 
 Society arbitrarily seek out particular passages, it casts upon the whole work the 
 stigma of moral corruption which of necessity must cling to it even in instances 
 
 iAnd "Dear Madam:" 
 
 20 
 
where the publisher is finally exonerated for years to come. The judging of 
 works of art by those who are manifestly unfit for the work, who deem it their 
 duty to look only for the indecent, cannot but result in unfairness both to authors 
 and publishers. 
 
 Believing that the existence of a law of this sort, and of an organization like 
 the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, which oversteps the legitimate 
 field of its defensible activities in suppressing pornography, is a very real menace 
 not only to literary art but to the reading public at large, we have hereunto affixed 
 our signatures in protest against both the law and the Society which makes it a 
 business to see that the law is enforced. 
 
 Signed . 
 
 To be returned to 
 Barrett H. Clark 
 114 East i8th Street 
 New York City. 
 
 At the same time, a very few forms were sent to foreign writers 
 who were at the time in America. Each protest was marked "Speci 
 men," as the forms were not intended to be signed by any but 
 Americans. In spite of this, the protest was signed unconditionally 
 by Hugh Walpole, Padraic Colum, St. John Ervine, and Gilbert 
 Cannan. 1 
 
 The returns from the first series of letters were gratifying. In 
 view of the fact that over half of the addresses were taken from an 
 edition of Who s Who compiled during the War; that (as was later 
 learned) about thirty persons written to were abroad; and finally 
 that a number of letters were later received explaining that the forms 
 arrived too late to be sent in before March 8th, the returns were 
 surprisingly large. 
 
 A few days later a second list was prepared. The first com 
 prised American writers; the second, though including some writers, 
 was extended to include artists, critics, editors, publishers, musicians, 
 etc. This was likewise a small list. A letter similar to the first, 
 together with the protest both of which were modified by the 
 exclusion of the words "American writers" was sent out as before. 
 The clauses in the protest and the letter allowing those who wished 
 to protest "In General," in the event of their not having read 
 Jurgen, was in almost every instance underlined. 
 
 The returns this time were not so large. It was hardly to be 
 expected that members of professions not immediately interested 
 in the production or consumption of literature should rally to the 
 support of a book with which most people were not familiar. One 
 could not reasonably expect politicians and other public servants to 
 
 Later by George Moore, to whom a protest was sent. 
 
 21 
 
compromise their political careers (during election year) by pro 
 testing against an organization whose professed purpose it was to 
 purify the country. But it was disappointing to find that of the 
 thirty-odd publishers who were asked to support an effort to curb 
 the activities of an organization that potentially threatened them 
 all, only seven replied. 
 
 Had it been possible, the Committee would have liked to issue 
 copies of the protest for general circulation. But time and a lack of 
 funds prevented this. However, a few booklovers, as private 
 individuals, did sign the protest, adding their names to forms 
 sent to other persons. Their presence in the lists of signers 
 is appreciated, but it must be understood that no effort was 
 made to arouse the interest or enlist the sympathy of the general 
 public. 
 
 There were eight^ persons known to have refused signing the 
 protest; eight, that is, who took the trouble to state their reasons. 
 We publish the letters of four of these. The others were from: (i) 
 a prominent American artist who agreed with the aims of the Com 
 mittee on principle, but knowing nothing about Jurgen, assumed 
 that "it probably is smutty most American things are." He re 
 fused to allow his letter to be published, on the ground that he knew 
 nothing of the book. (2) From a university professor who believed 
 and courteously stated that he thought the book what he had 
 read of it objectionable. (3) From a novelist who knew nothing of 
 Jurgen or the Society, and wished to act in accordance with the 
 Authors League. (4) From a novelist who asked to be forgiven 
 for not implicating herself in a matter of which she knew 
 nothing. 
 
 It was at first intended to give wide publicity to the protest 
 and the lists of signers, but as the case developed, and as the Com 
 mittee became more familiar with hitherto unsuspected aspects of the 
 situation, they determined that for the time being nothing further 
 should be done with the protests. It was later apparent that the 
 protest method was all very well so long as it was used simply as a 
 safety valve for the pent-up feelings of indignant writers. It was 
 also one means of creating a necessary solidarity among a group 
 that is by no means organized for effective concerted action. But 
 the mere signing of protests cannot amend a law or take the juris 
 diction over works of art out of the hands of the incompetent, the 
 unsympathetic, the ignorant, and the fanatical. 
 
 22 
 
A knowledge of the laws framed by Anthony Comstock and 
 the methods employed by the society which he founded will afford 
 one the best insight into the problems to be faced. There is no 
 use in trying to do away with any vice society 1 so long as the law is 
 so phrased as to allow that body to arbitrate in questions of art, 
 as distinguished from pornography. 
 
 The Emergency Committee, therefore, came to the conclusion 
 that to carry on an extended campaign, either on behalf of Jurgen 
 or of any other book, or against any particular society, could not 
 materially improve the situation. 
 
 So far as any definite conclusion can be reached as to the most 
 effective method of suppressing the suppressors, it is this: that the 
 law as written by Anthony Comstock and enforced by his successors 
 must be radically amended. That law has not only permitted gross 
 injustice to writers, painters, sculptors, and scientists without 
 mentioning publishers it has by reason of its skillfully worded 
 terms permitted the establishment of a mass of judicial decisions 
 and interpretations the application of which is contrary to the 
 first principles of liberty. 2 
 
 Those Sections of the Codes of the United States and of the 
 State of New York concerned with the publication and distri 
 bution of obscene books, are reprinted in an appendix to the 
 present volume. To these are added a few of the judicial decisions 
 just referred to. These are reprinted from the pamphlet entitled 
 MORALS, Not Art or Literature* 
 
 The Emergency Committee is now engaged in drafting an 
 amendment to the laws. It may be briefly stated that the efforts 
 
 !Even were it possible to convict the members and officers of such a society for the very vices 
 it aims to suppress and thereby discredit it in the eyes of the community, the law remains. For 
 an instance of this method of attack, see George Moore s Avowals, p. 110 and following, wherein 
 is related the story of Captain Verney of the English Vigilance Society. "And one day the news 
 arrives at the office of the Vigilance Society that Captain Verney has been charged with the abduc 
 tion of a young cook. ... A few days after the magistrate sent Captain Verney for trial." 
 And yet George Moore is still prosecuted, though he has lately published his books for private 
 circulation, the only means that will allow him the freedom he requires. 
 
 2For a discussion of the whole subject, see H. L. Mencken s illuminating article on Puritanism 
 a Literary Force. (A Book of Prefaces, Kriopf, New York.) 
 
 3This may be procured from the offices of the Society, at 115 West aind St., New York. 
 The price is fifty cents. 
 
 23 
 
of this Committee are directed toward the passage of a law requiring 
 that the work of art, as distinct from the pornographic book or 
 picture, be judged should its "morality" be called into question 
 by those qualified to pass judgment upon it. The phrase "work of 
 art" must,- of course, be made to embrace every work that may be 
 considered a serious effort; it would be patently absurd to ask any 
 jury to decide whether a book or picture was or was not an enduring 
 masterpiece. But the distinction between the book that treats 
 sex as a part of life and that which treats sex primarily for the 
 purpose of stimulating the sexual instinct, is easily drawn. 
 
 No law or system of legal precedent which upholds, nay 
 demands, the suppression of a book wherein a single passage may be 
 deemed to tend "to the corruption of public morals," or which may 
 be construed as tending "to deprave and corrupt those whose minds 
 are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publi 
 cation of this sort may fall," can be logically defended in a free 
 country. The defendant, under the present laws, is not even al 
 lowed to argue that the great masterpieces of all time are as "offen 
 sive" as that for the publication of which he is indicted. 
 
 Under the existing State and Federal laws the defendant has 
 no chance to fight his case upon its own merits. The law which 
 allows the "morality" of the works of Boccaccio, and Shakespeare, 
 Gautier, Thomas Hardy and George Moore, to be judged by 
 magistrates and juries, is as antiquated as the Code of Lycurgus. 
 
 If vice societies are to be tolerated at all and the question is 
 an open one they should confine their efforts to a definitely re 
 stricted field. The suppression of books and pictures produced 
 primarily for the purpose of stimulating the sex impulse is perhaps 
 necessary, though it is not beyond all reason to suppose that the 
 same (innate decency which forbids one parading the streets naked 
 might curb the practice of distributing offensive post-cards. The 
 New York Society of the Suppression of Vice has in its own fa 
 natical way suppressed a vast amount of obscene matter which 
 ought not to fall into the hands of the "susceptible." It is, by long 
 experience of and first-hand acquaintance with the sort of matter 
 it suppresses, competent to examine and judge the perverse, the in 
 decent, the obscene. Where the vice crusaders have erred, and to 
 this day continue to err, is in imagining that the obscene is an abso 
 lute, unvarying entity, to be judged without reference to what may 
 be termed the context. Because the naked human body can and does 
 arouse "impure" thoughts in the "susceptible," they proceed on th.e 
 assumption that nakedness is in itself obscene. Long practice in 
 
 24 
 
the detection of "offensive" matter has rendered the vice crusaders 
 expert in scenting obscenity not only where it exists but where it 
 does not. 
 
 But if a passage in a book or single words taken from their 
 context are sufficient grounds for legal suppression, nothing would 
 be more logical than to suppress the dictionary a volume containing 
 more offensive, lewd, lascivious, and indecent words than any other 
 book in existence. The law as amended must first of all be so 
 written as to distinguish between the frankly and purposely offen 
 sive, and (whether it be "exciting" or "stimulating," or not) the 
 serious work that attempts to reflect and interpret life. The first is, 
 of course, dangerous for the "susceptible;" the second is not. The 
 frank treatment of every aspect of life in the hands of an artist, is 
 likely to affect the young and the susceptible only in so far as life 
 itself will affect them. When the vice crusaders attempt to sup 
 press what is exciting and stimulating in great art which of 
 necessity treats sex as the tremendously moving power it is they 
 are in effect attempting to suppress sex itself. 
 
 The vice crusader, unable, by reason of long association with 
 nastiness, to differentiate the clean from the unclean, seeks to 
 impose his own necessarily biased standards upon everyone who 
 might perchance be moved by an instinct the nature of which the 
 professional crusader cannot understand. 
 
 In other words, the Bible, Shakespeare and Rabelais and all 
 of them ought under our present laws to be suppressed are in a 
 class by themselves. If the enduring masterpieces of the world are 
 to be suppressed, can we hope ever to strive to produce new master 
 pieces? And it may here be once more emphasized that every time 
 not only a new book but a "standard work" is suppressed, the 
 imagination of the "susceptible" is stirred by "unclean thoughts." 
 For it is not until the vice society hales into court the offending 
 distributors of books like Mademoiselle de Maupin that the real 
 harm begins. Jurgen would in all probability have circulated among 
 the mature who read Baudelaire and Anatole France, George Moore 
 and Thomas Hardy, had not the New York Society for the Sup 
 pression of Vice advertised its actual or imagined "obscenity" to 
 thousands of young people, thereby inviting them to read it for the 
 sole purpose of discovering its "obscenity." 1 
 
 1 "Now, whenever I discover that a group of my fellow-citizens are ardently working to prevent 
 the printing and circulation of a book on the ground that you and I and everybody else would be 
 contaminated if we were to see it, my custom is to get that book and read it." A. F. L. in the 
 Baltimore Sun, Feb. 19, IQZO. 
 
 25 
 
The suppression of Jurgen has so far resulted in the damaging 
 of the reputation of an artist, and in the establishment of a wide 
 spread and morbid interest in the book on the part of young people 
 of both sexes. Booksellers in many parts of the country have tes 
 tified to the fact that young men and women in hundreds sought 
 surreptitiously to buy copies of Jurgen after the news of its sup 
 pression was spread abroad. 
 
 But a change in the tide is to be observed. In November, 
 1917, Mr. Sumner brought charges against Mr. Raymond 
 Halsey of the McDevitt-Wilson Company of New York for selling 
 Gautier s Mademoiselle de Maupin. At the first trial in 
 January, 1918, the Court dismissed the case on the grounds that 
 the novel failed to show any evidence of "obscenity." Mr. Halsey 
 then brought suit for damages on the ground of malicious prose 
 cution. Judge Wagner ruled that since there was no "probable 
 cause" for arrest, the prosecution was "malicious." Mr. Halsey 
 was awarded $1,800 damages. The Society then appealed. The 
 Judges of the Appellate Court were divided as to the "probable 
 cause," and decided that the case should go to the jury. At the 
 second trial, before Judge McAvoy, all evidence originally sub 
 mitted, establishing the place of Mademoiselle de Maupin as a 
 classic and standard work, was ruled out. The Judge, in charging 
 the jury, asserted his belief that there was "probable cause." The 
 most important precedent established by this case was the Judge s 
 insisting that the whole of the novel be read in court, in order to 
 determine the alleged "indecency" of its contents. The book was 
 accordingly read. The jury, after less than an hour s deliberation, 
 brought in a verdict in favor of the prosecution. The New York 
 Society for the Suppression of Vice was forced to pay $2, 500 
 damages and costs. 
 
 If every successful defendant were to sue for damages, the vice 
 crusaders might think twice before deciding to bring charges. 
 
 Jurgen and the Censor goes to press before the final trial. The 
 documents herein printed are considered to be of sufficient impor 
 tance to warrant their publication at this time. It is with the hope 
 that the volume may focus attention upon a national menace to 
 American art and literature that it is now made public. 
 
 26 
 
If further justification were needed for publishing this book, 
 the reader is asked to consider once again the implication beneath 
 the title of the pamphlet published by the New York Society for 
 the Suppression of Vice: 
 
 MORALS, Not Art or Literature. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 Barrett H. Clark. 
 
 New York City. 
 1 2th June, 1910. 
 
 27 
 
"MORALS, NOT ART OR LITERATURE"* 
 
 By 
 EDWARD HALE BIERSTADT 
 
 "This heading, set exactly as above, is the title of a pamphlet published by the New York 
 Society for the Suppression of Vice which sets forth the aim. purposes, and ideals of that 
 organization. 
 
"MORALS, NOT ART OR LITERATURE" 
 
 The above title is puzzling. Indeed, it has so little obvious or 
 surface meaning that one is almost inclined to suspect some subtle 
 esoteric significance. It reminds one at first glance of the im 
 mortal Gilbertian couplet: 
 
 " A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men shun a bandit," 
 Which is really very clever if you only understand it." 
 
 Personally, I don t understand it at all. "MORALS Not Art or 
 Literature;" it is as though one said, MORALS Not Pork or Beans. 
 It implies a relationship that does not exist; it makes a distinction 
 between elements that cannot be compared; it states dramatically 
 a revelation that has nothing to reveal. It is curious, but it is not 
 enlightening. 
 
 In all discussions and inquiries it appears to be almost axio 
 matic that one must begin with a definition of terms. Let us do 
 so then, but let us make that process as short and painless as pos 
 sible. We may assume, or at any rate I will, and I hope you will 
 too if only for the sake of being companionable, that Morals, as it 
 is used here, indicates a code of ethics, a formula of convention which 
 proceeds not from any directly divine source, as when Jehovah handed 
 the golden tablets containing the ten commandments to Moses, 
 but through the intensely human and fallible medium of Society 
 which through all the ages has endeavored to save its face and pre 
 serve what it has fondly believed to be its dignity at the expense 
 of the minority, that minority which has only "the inalienable right 
 to endorse." I do not for one instant take up the cause, if there be 
 a cause, of the minority against the majority; the minority is well 
 able to look after its own interests; but I do most emphatically de 
 sire to make it plain that Morals in this sense is as arbitrary and as 
 artificial as our legal code. Again, I do not inveigh against that 
 code. It is obviously essential to our well being. But, we, we 
 human beings, made it, and we know that it is neither absolute nor 
 divine. At best it is a very poor approximation of what we actually 
 believe justice to be. So it is with Morals. They are what we have 
 made them, and well we know that at best they are only the poor 
 approximation of what we would have them. The imposed relation 
 ship between morals of this type and our legal code is too obvious 
 to dwell upon. Witness Jurgen. That morals in the real, the actual 
 and absolute sense would concern themselves with Jurgen we can- 
 
 31 
 
not for one instant believe. They would have better sense, for 
 common sense and true morality are twin sisters. Morals, or to 
 phrase it more normally, the moralist, would well know that if 
 Jurgen were true art it could no more be immoral than life itself, 
 and he would know likewise that if it were not true art, if it were 
 spurious, nothing in all the whole wide world could save it from 
 extinction, not even nastiness or the moralist. It would die from 
 sheer malnutrition and inertia. So much then for morals. We 
 have not defined the term, it is true, but we have at least indicated 
 a basis for understanding. 
 
 What is the case then with Art and Literature, or, not to make 
 any distinction between the arts, Art? Oddly enough it is much 
 the same as with Morals. We know that there is in theory an ab 
 solute standard of Art, but we do not know just what that standard 
 is any more than we know just what the absolute standard of Morals 
 is. So in one event as with the other; we hypothecate a working 
 standard which will serve the practical purposes of the moment, 
 and which changes with the flux and flow of time as change all other 
 things which are of this world only. And Art is no more changed by 
 artists than Morals are by moralists. When the world is ready for 
 the change there comes the "still small voice crying in the wilder 
 ness," and the thing is done. But these Morals, this code of ethics, 
 this procedure of behavior, these social usages, for actually they are 
 little more, are not omniscient. They are not absolute. They may 
 indicate the way; they can never enforce themselves. A moralist 
 is no more capable of judging a work of art than is a pure food ex 
 pert. And too the question may well be raised, are the members of 
 such an organization as the Society for the Suppression of Vice 
 moralists at all? No, surely not. They are experts in immorality, 
 that is all. It is their mission, self imposed, as all intrusive 
 missions are, to deal in the abnormal, in the nasty, in the obscene, 
 the salacious, the pornographic. Does this then qualify them to rec 
 ognize, still less to pass judgment on, a work of art, a thing of 
 beauty? Obviously, in the very nature of things they could not. 
 A child to them is only a potential sinner; a rose to them is merely 
 a means of seduction. These then are our judges. I do not by any 
 means intend to picture these men as monsters, but I do mean to 
 suggest that it would be well nigh impossible for any men to devote 
 themselves exclusively over a period of years to a concentration on 
 the vicious without being affected by it. Their point of view be 
 comes inevitably warped, their judgment is biased, and they be- 
 
 32 
 
come themselves subject to perverse delusions. It is not that they 
 are fundamentally unlovely or incapable in themselves, but that 
 their work has created a direct tendency for them to be both of these 
 things. Mind ! I do not say that they are anything unpleasant. 
 I have too great a respect for the laws of libel to say anything of 
 the kind. But taking all else into consideration, it would be un 
 reasonable to suppose their attitude of mind to be entirely healthy. 
 To this type of mind the only difference perceptible between "In 
 timations of Immortality," and "Imitations of Immorality" is 
 that suggested by a rearrangement of a small portion of the al 
 phabet. 
 
 To cite examples in a discussion of the right of censorship in 
 art would be futile. The list of masterpieces which might and at 
 various times have come within the scope of such a censorship 
 would be far too long for inclusion here. It would begin with the 
 literature of the golden age of Greece, and would proceed through 
 the ages, carrying with it nearly every great name which genius 
 has graven on imperishable tablets. But absurd as that would 
 unquestionably make the censorship appear it still would be but 
 symptomatic in its treatment of the issue. It begs the question: 
 Does a direct relationship exist between Morals as they are con 
 stituted in this world, and Art? And, if such a relationship does 
 exist, does it give either one of the two the right to correct, control, 
 or to readjust the other? To both these queries we may answer 
 No, and we may say this in our most emphatic manner. There is 
 not nor can there ever be such a relationship, except that wholly 
 false one which is hypothecated by the pseudo-moralists in order 
 that they may grow fat upon the filth of their own creation in the 
 desire that their obesity shall extend from their brains to their 
 purses. The point of view of these persons is well exemplified by 
 the translation of that college freshman who construed the "Apol 
 ogia Pro Vita Sua" as "an apology for living in a sewer." There 
 are those, however, who do not apologize. 
 
 Negative morality is but a poor thing at best. We may trace 
 it in the "horrible example" which prevailed upon the lecture plat 
 form in those halcyon days before Prohibition astonished its warmest 
 adherents by becoming a fact. But the horrible example did not 
 make Prohibition. Indeed it did little more than create a thirst, 
 and a sense of envy, and hence after a time the horrible example was 
 abandoned. It is so with the "suppression of vice." Granted that 
 
 33 
 
it exists, and who would deny it? and granted likewise that its 
 suppressors always know vice when they see it, which would be 
 most difficult to prove, is suppression after all an effective measure? 
 It has been well said that "the seed of revolution is suppression." 
 And then too ask the psychiatrists; read Freud; delve into all the 
 hubbub of suppressed desires and observe their distressing con 
 clusions! But, frivolity aside, for Freud is essentially a frivolous 
 and romantic person, suppression is not of much use in this world. 
 It doesn t work. The doctors tell us that if we remove a bad 
 habit, without doing anything more about it, we leave a pleasing 
 blank spot upon which another bad habit may form. It is neces 
 sary, it appears, to create a good habit which will crowd out the 
 bad one, and cause it to flee in dismay. The white corpuscles of 
 health eat the red ones of disease, or vice versa. (My argument is 
 becoming so scientific that I can t even follow it myself, so we had 
 better begin a new paragraph) . That is a positive philosophy at 
 least, in contradistinction to suppression which is a negative one. 
 There is that much gained, and it is not a little. 
 
 It is not necessary, however, to view this problem from a 
 medicinal, a judicial, a legal or even from a moral standpoint; it 
 is only necessary to look for a moment through the ever reassuring 
 glasses of sanity, of common sense. Having done this we shall see 
 several things clearly. One, that if the vicious, as it is artificially 
 conceived, does not die of itself, as most of us feel that it will, no 
 amount of suppression is going to kill it. It will simply disappear in 
 one place to crop up in another. Advertise it, make hue and cry 
 over it, and the unclean thing is fed, and fattens; withdraw your 
 hand from it, and it will effect its own demise with hardly even a 
 struggle. Next, that judgment by a jury of one s peers is an es 
 sential of our common law; and that such judgment is denied the 
 artist when he is judged, and usually condemned in advance, by 
 those whose livelihood is gained by seeking industriously the smut 
 marks on the pages of life. After such a search we are able to find 
 dirt where there was none. It is enough. If there is to be sup 
 pression let it begin at home; let the suppressors suppress themselves, 
 and let us observe this evidence of good faith on their part with the 
 calm of the dispassionate inquirer. It may be that in this event we 
 shall discover that suppression is not such a bad thing after all, 
 and if so we shall admit bravely that we were mistaken. 
 
 The judging of Jurgen has recoiled upon the judges themselves. 
 It has made us acutely aware that no such judgment is possible in 
 the very nature of things, and that even were it possible it would be 
 ill advised; we have become cognizant of the fact that the prose- 
 
 34 
 
cuting attorney has of himself created the laws under which both 
 judge and jury act, and that the defendant is not even allowed the 
 hollow semblance of a fair trial. 
 
 These things are unjust in a country which has taken justice 
 for its motto; they are tyrannical in a nation that was born free; 
 they are barbaric in an age that lays any claim to civilization; and, 
 first and last of all, they are supremely silly. There is only one 
 unforgivable sin in life, and that is willful ignorance, which is 
 stupidity, for stupidity means blindness, and blindness means 
 death, to a man, to an art, or to an era. 
 
 35 
 
THE SIGNERS OF THE PROTEST 
 Americans Who Signed without Reservations 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK 
 
 AMY LOWELL 
 
 GRANT M. OVERTON 
 
 HARVEY O HIGGINS 
 
 Louis UNTERMEYER 
 
 JOEL ELIAS SPINGARN 
 
 RALPH HENRY BARBOUR 
 
 ISAAC GOLDBERG 
 
 CLAYTON HAMILTON 
 
 FANNIE HURST 
 
 THOMAS H. DICKINSON 
 
 CARL VAN VECHTEN 
 
 SINCLAIR LEWIS 
 
 WALTER PRICHARD EATON 
 
 AMELIE RIVES TROUBETZKOY 
 
 BLISS CARMAN 
 
 ["Most emphatically and 
 abomination for the Society 
 mentioned."] 
 
 BOOTH TARKINGTON 
 
 HARRIET FORD 
 
 MICHAEL MONAHAN 
 
 WILL PAYNE 
 
 VAN WYCK BROOKS 
 
 STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 ZOE AKINS 
 
 WITTER BYNNER 
 
 UPTON SINCLAIR 
 
 JAMES GIBBONS HUNEKER 
 
 WlLLA SlBERT GATHER 
 
 WILSON FOLLETT 
 HELEN THOMAS FOLLETT 
 HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS 
 OTIS SKINNER 
 HARRY HANSEN 
 BERT L. TAYLOR 
 BOARDMAN ROBINSON 
 
 ["In general and in particular. 
 JOHN POWELL 
 ARTHUR HOPKINS 
 ROBERT EDMOND JONES 
 JOHN BARRYMORE 
 RUTH HALL 
 CLINTON T. BRAINERD 
 EMILIE HAPGOOD 
 LILITH BENDA 
 
 EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON 
 
 MONTROSE J. MOSES 
 
 EDWARD SHELDON 
 
 HEYWOOD BROUN 
 
 HARRY LEON WILSON 
 
 H. L. MENCKEN 
 
 JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER 
 
 OLIVER M. SAYLER 
 
 WILLIAM ROSE BENET 
 
 PETER MICHAELSON 
 
 ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE 
 
 THEODORE DREISER 
 
 ["Far more important than this 
 
 written protest would be a defense 
 
 fund subscribed by writers and their 
 
 friends, which same I have advocated 
 
 with for the last five years. Then the man 
 
 above could be properly defended without 
 
 expense to him."] 
 
 EDWIN BJORKMAN 
 
 LAWRENCE GILMAN 
 
 GEORGE JEAN NATHAN 
 
 ALGERNON TASSIN 
 
 CHANNING POLLOCK 
 
 JAMES METCALFE 
 
 AVERY HOPWOOD 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH 
 
 THOMAS L. MASSON 
 
 JOHN MCCLURE 
 
 L. M. HUSSEY 
 
 W. J. HENDERSON 
 
 W. A. NEILSON 
 
 EUNICE TIETJENS 
 
 FANNIE BUTCHER 
 
 CARL VAN DOREN 
 
 MEREDITH JANVIER 
 
 JOSEPH A. MARGOLIS 
 ] ALFRED F. GOLDSMITH 
 
 R. M. BROECKEL 
 
 MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY 
 
 CHARLES COLLINS 
 
 THEODORE KEANE 
 
 EUGENE G. O NEILL 
 
 ["I have read Jurgen, and therefore 
 sign this all the more emphatically."] 
 
 JOHN RUHRAH 
 37 
 
W. WOOLLCOTT 
 
 RICHARD H. WORTHINGTON 
 HARRY C. BLACK 
 JACK R. CRAWFORD 
 G. LANE TANEYHILL 
 ALFRED A. KNOPF 
 BURTON RASCOE 
 JOHN ERSKINE 
 
 HORACE B. LIVERIGHT 
 ALBERT JAY NOCK 
 JAMES HOWARD KEHLER 
 SIDNEY HOWARD 
 BARRETT H. CLARK 
 EDWARD HALE BIERSTADT 
 PHILIP MOELLER 
 GEORGE GORDON 
 
 Americans Who Signed "In General": 
 
 SAMUEL J . HUME 
 
 THOMAS BIRD MOSHER 
 
 J. JEFFERSON JONES 
 
 S. H. CLARK 
 
 JACOB S. FASSETT, JR. 
 
 RICHARD J. MONTAGUE 
 
 WALTER LIPPMANN 
 
 GEORGE CREEL 
 
 ETHEL COOK ELIOT 
 
 ABBIE W. FORD 
 
 KENNETH MACGOWAN 
 
 FREDERICK S. HOPPIN 
 
 S. SHIPMAN 
 
 WALTER ADOLPHE ROBERTS 
 
 WILLIAM SALISBURY 
 
 PAULINE BROOKS CRAWFORD 
 
 ROBERT W. SNEDDON 
 
 HOWARD BROCKWAY 
 
 DANIEL GREGORY MASON 
 
 MRS. DANIEL GREGORY MASON 
 
 HOWARD Me A. BALDWIN 
 
 RAY T. MORGAN 
 
 BERTRAM B. TATE 
 
 LANDER MACCLINTOCK 
 
 OWEN WISTER 
 
 HARRIET MONROE 
 
 MARY AUSTIN 
 
 OTTO HELLER 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 SAMUEL A. ELIOT, JR. 
 
 HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON 
 
 GELETT BURGESS 
 
 ["Not having read Jurgen I can sub 
 scribe only to the general statement 
 as above but to that with all my 
 heart. G. B."] 
 
 GEORGE C. HAZELTON, JR. 
 
 MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN 
 ["After eliminations."*] 
 
 B. M. HERRICK 
 
 P. M. HICKS 
 
 H. C. GODDARD 
 
 EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS 
 
 JULIA C. LATHROP 
 
 ["Although I am unacquainted with 
 this book, I am fully acquainted with 
 other actions of a similar character 
 taken by the Society, and I believe 
 its methods are against the public 
 weal."] 
 
 CAROLINE FLEMING 
 
 HARRIET ANDERSON 
 
 HELEN M. DART 
 
 ANNA E. RUDE 
 
 E. NATHALIE MATHEWS 
 
 JOHN M. MANLY 
 
 JAMES WEBER LINN 
 
 EDITH J. R. ISAACS 
 
 SHELDON CHENEY 
 
 FRANK W. RYAN 
 
 MARIE PRIOR RYAN 
 
 CARLO DE FORNARO 
 
 HERMANN HAGEDORN 
 
 CHRISTOPHER MORLEY 
 
 WILLIAM LYON PHELPS 
 
 RICHARD BURTON 
 
 WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE 
 
 CHARLES RANN KENNEDY 
 
 ARTHUR GUITERMAN 
 
 ["Not having yet read Jurgen, I am 
 obliged to limit myself to joining in a 
 general protest against what I feel 
 to be the arbitrary, narrow-minded 
 and unfair methods of censoring 
 literature in vogue in the State of 
 New York."] 
 
 GEORGE MIDDLETON 
 
 GERALD STANLEY LEE 
 
 See letter page 48 
 
 38 
 
Foreigners Who Signed Without Reservations: 
 
 PADRAIC COLUM GEORGE MOORE 
 
 RICHARD LE GALLIENNE ST. JOHN ERVINE 
 
 PIERRE TROUBETZKOY fA. Z. L6PEZ-PENHA 
 
 GILBERT CANNAN \Luis CARLOS LOPEZ 
 
 HUGH WALPOLE [After the words "United States" in 
 
 ("Delighted to sign with all my Section 2 : "One of the biggest leading 
 heart I agree. H. W."] nations in the world." (Cartagena, 
 
 Colombia.)] 
 
 39 
 
LETTERS TO THE EMERGENCY COMMITTEE 
 
 The following letters were received by the Secretary during and 
 immediately after the sending out of the form letters and protests. The 
 Committee herewith acknowledges its gratitude to the writers for their 
 permission to use these letters. 
 
 JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER 
 
 The Dower House 
 West Chester, Pennsylvania 
 
 The suppression of Mr. Cabell s Jurgen, it seems to me, is one 
 of the most surprising attacks on the liberty of beauty which it 
 is possible to conceive. It is specially maddening because Mr. 
 Cabell for years has devoted himself to a singularly pure theme 
 the spirituality of love. He is a novelist of grave judgment, re 
 markable fineness, and the master of an invaluable and delicate 
 art. We have few such and, judging from the treatment awarded 
 him, we shall soon have none. There is only one way by which 
 the decency of a novel may be tested by the writer s intention. 
 And the fact that Mr. Cabell is accused of deliberate obscenity is, 
 except for its tragic nonsense, laughable. 
 
 As I have already written, this attack makes the position of 
 every serious creative writer in America precarious; it seems now 
 positively dangerous to be honest, independent to be anything, 
 in short, but the mouthpiece of sentimental lies, dishonest propa 
 ganda, or current superstition. Mr. Cabell has conceived it his 
 duty to write maturely for mature people; he preferred the expres 
 sion of certain fundamental principles to trotting at the heel of a 
 cowardly hypocrisy; and in this it begins to appear he was wrong. 
 
 Joseph Hergesheimer. 
 
 The Chicago Tribune 
 The World s Greatest Newspaper 
 
 Chicago, Feb. 23, 1920. 
 
 Inclosed herewith is my signature to the protest. Please 
 accept my sincerest congratulations on the spirit you and your 
 associates are showing in this matter. I hope that the signatures 
 will be many and that the protest will do some good, not only 
 in the case of Jurgen (in which, of course, I feel especial interest as 
 the dedicatee), but in the matter of literature in general. The high 
 handed methods of the Society for the Suppression of Vice have 
 no parallel in any civilized country. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 Burton Rascoe. 
 41 
 
WM. LYON PHELPS 
 
 Professor of English Literature 
 
 Yale University 
 
 New Haven 
 
 February 25, 1910. 
 
 In general I disapprove of literary censorship and of course I 
 am willing to be so quoted. At the same time, you must not 
 quote me in any way that would seem to give my approval to Jurgen, 
 for the simple reason that I have not read the book. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 Wm. Lyon Phelps. 
 
 February 26, 1920. 
 
 Here is your petition. Yes, I read Jurgen and thought it 
 both wise and beautiful. Of course it should not be suppressed; 
 but, on the other hand, one is not at all surprised. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Edward Sheldon. 
 
 145 West 58th St. 
 
 February 17, 1920. 
 
 I am asked by an "Emergency Committee" to sign at once a 
 protest to the publisher against the selling of James Branch Cabell s 
 book, Jurgen. I have replied that I must read the book before 
 answering. Can you send it to me immediately? 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 
 February, 1920. 
 
 I do not agree with the point of view in the least. There are 
 great differences of opinion about books among equally intelligent 
 people. If I knew the case I should be proud to resent an injustice. 
 Not knowing it, I would not sign a protest for worlds! How could 
 I? I do not in general believe in certain particular censorships, 
 but how am I to tell whether I believe in this one or not without a 
 particle of evidence? 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin. 
 
 42 
 
1814 Sixteenth St., N. W. 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 February 18, 1920. 
 
 May I suggest that you send petitions to obtain names pro 
 testing against the exclusion of Jurgen to all the magazines and 
 the Press Clubs in the various cities? I am enclosing one with 
 several signatures obtained at the Press Club in Washington. 
 
 From speaking to a number of men distinguished in literature, 
 science, and governmental affairs, I have learned that the more 
 understanding and important a man is, the more likely he is to 
 know of and protest against the outrage of banning Jurgen, and 
 the more likely he is to assert, as I do, that not for many years has 
 there been produced in America a book of greater beauty, more 
 dignity, and higher ideals. 
 
 To stop the sale of such a book, while permitting lewd plays 
 to continue on Broadway, is precisely like condemning Rodin s 
 The Thinker while permitting cheap music and picture stores all 
 over New York to exhibit and sell openly obscene photographs 
 ... as they do! The only thing they have so far omitted is to 
 ban The Thinker \ 
 
 In fighting for Jurgen, you are serving the highest cause. We 
 have had so few books of sheer magic and beauty in this country 
 that the thought of assailing Jurgen is infuriating. But I am sure 
 that when the book is considered on the bench by judges of culture 
 and learning they will realize not only its high beauty but also 
 the fact that its intense sophistication makes its references to sex 
 not only unintelligible to those young girls whom, apparently, the 
 Vice Society is trying to protect, but actually highly uninteresting 
 to them. To be anything like consistent or just, it would be abso 
 lutely necessary for the Society to ban all medical books, and all 
 books of jurisprudence touching on sex, if they are to ban Jurgen. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Sinclair Lewis. 
 
 The New York Evening Post 
 
 February 26. 
 
 I haven t read the book. I have lost the blank you sent. 
 If you care to include my name among the protestants on general 
 grounds, it being distinctly admitted that I haven t read this par 
 ticular work, pray do so! 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Christopher Morley, 
 43 
 
337 West 87th St. 
 
 New York City 
 
 February 16, 1910. 
 
 No I won t join you. The Soc. for Suppression of Vice is 
 probably making a fool of itself as it has done on more than one 
 occasion. But I am old enough to feel very grateful to it for the 
 cleansing of the newsstands of N. Y. from what they were fifty 
 years ago. I hold it to be a most useful organization; and I don t 
 believe that there is really any danger here in the U. S. in the 
 2oth century that any true work of art will be suppressed. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 Brander Matthews. 
 
 The Cleveland School of Art 
 
 Henry Turner Bailey, Director 
 
 Georgie Leighton Norton, Associate Director 
 
 Juniper Road 
 
 Cleveland, Ohio 
 
 March i, 1920. 
 
 I do not know enough about the facts to sign the document 
 you sent me. 
 
 While I believe that in a democracy a good deal of freedom 
 should be given to the individual, I feel that there are limits beyond 
 which an individual ought not to be allowed to go, and I am heartily 
 in favor of all the societies that exist for the reformation of the 
 vicious. That seems to me a more hopeful method of attack than 
 the "suppression of vice/ And yet I do believe that some sort of 
 censorship is necessary in these days if America is to continue to 
 be a decent place in which to bring up children. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 Henry T. Bailey, 
 Director. 
 
 New York, February 28, 1920. 
 With the greatest pleasure. To hell with them on all counts! 
 
 Lawrence Gilman. 
 44 
 
Fifteen West Sixty-seventh St. 
 
 February 17, 1920. 
 
 My wife is only too glad to sign the enclosed paper, and only 
 regrets that her illness prevents her from adding a personal expression 
 of her feelings and opinion in regard to the treatment of Jurgen, 
 which we read as soon as it came out and consider a masterpiece 
 honoring American literature. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Pierre Troubetzkoy. 
 
 New York, February 19, 1910. 
 
 I am, of course, entirely in sympathy with the manifesto 
 which you sent me, and I only wish I could see my way clear to 
 add my name for what it is worth. I feel, however, that the 
 attack is to be made upon a piece of legislation which, strictly 
 speaking, remains the domestic affair of a country where I am at 
 the moment a visitor. And however strongly I may feel personally 
 about the matter I think it would be a mistake for me to take any 
 public stand about another country s internal affairs. 
 
 In England, I should be with such a protest and with as loud 
 a voice as possible, but I think that if I did so in America, I might 
 very justly be told to mind my own business, and that no matter 
 how wrong the people who said it might be in other ways, they 
 would certainly have right on their side in that. 
 
 But I wish every power to your elbow, and I hope sincerely 
 that your note may be effective. I write in a general sense, 
 without reference to the book in question, which I have not read. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 John Drinkwater. 
 Repertory Theatre, Birmingham, England. 
 
 1455 Undercliff Ave. 
 
 New York City 
 
 I haven t read Jurgen, but I m sure the case against the 
 S.F.T.S.O.V. must be a just once since you are helping to prose 
 cute it, and I m glad to sign the protest. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Harriet Ford. 
 Feb. 19, 1920. 
 
 45 
 
United States Tariff Commission 
 Washington 
 
 EDWARD P. COSTIGAN 
 Commissioner 
 
 March 3, 1920. 
 
 A letter bearing your familiar name and calling attention to 
 the desirability of establishing in law and recognizing in practice 
 clear distinctions between art and obscenity, protective of the former 
 though not of the latter, is before me. The differentiation and the 
 principles you mention are at once so elementary and important 
 that I am glad to join in a general expression of approval of those 
 objects. It is highly desirable that art shall be judged by its age- 
 old standards and by those competent to apply them, and I am one 
 of those who earnestly trust that our lawmakers and the courts will 
 find it possible to avoid injustice with reference to all genuinely 
 artistic expression. The encouragement and achievements of 
 human genius certainly deserve no less from us, and, as a lawyer, 
 I am confident that it is possible, without difficulty both now and in 
 the future, effectively to realize this result through the application 
 of the reasonable and accepted tests of public welfare. 
 
 Very sincerely, 
 
 E. P. Costigan. 
 
 245 Nassau St., 
 
 Princeton, N. J. 
 
 February 14, 1910. 
 
 I am often not in sympathy with the methods adopted by the 
 New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. On the other 
 hand, I am not at all in sympathy with a group of writers who 
 would take any protest against that Society as a justification for 
 what they are pleased to call art. The harm done by the Society 
 seems to me very slight, whereas the harm done by the self-styled 
 artists may be very great. I feel obliged therefore to withhold 
 my signature from your circular protest of February i4th. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 Paul E. More. 
 
 46 
 
Los Angeles, Calif. 
 
 February 23, 1920. 
 
 I have received and signed and forwarded the James Branch 
 Cabell protest. But of what use are kind words to Mr. Cabell? 
 What he needs and what every independent thinker needs in these 
 acute hours is something tangible and substantial in the way of 
 aid. There should be a cash defense fund such as for the last five 
 years I have advocated, which should be devoted to the hiring of 
 competent lawyers and the prosecution of these cattle in every 
 city in which they operate and they now operate everywhere. 
 Such a lawyer or counsel of defense could use the newspapers, 
 as well as the courts, and make a showing of opposition at least. 
 As it stands we have pale protests from committees who ask authors 
 to sign them. 
 
 Incidentally, of what use is the Authors League if not to aid 
 in such a case as this ? Is it solely devoted to the task of discovering 
 where to sell trashy tenth-rate material and to coerce conventional 
 publishers into paying large royalties on best sellers? The spec 
 tacle! I sympathize with Mr. Cabell, but I will do more. I will 
 give one hundred dollars toward a defense fund if others as well or 
 better placed than myself will do as much. 
 
 Theodore Dreiser. 
 
 P.S. If such a defense fund can be gotten together it should 
 be urged by all publishers, producing managers, authors and play 
 wrights, as well as book-dealers, that they contribute liberally, as 
 they should. Let the matter of criticism of books, plays, etc., 
 come from the Attorney General at Washington. As it is now, 
 every little tenth-rate squeak of a minister or white slaver can now 
 pass on France, Freud, Andreyeff, Shestov, and who not else. 
 Think of Noa-Noa being barred by a mid-western vice society! 
 These cattle must be debarred from indicting the characters and 
 morals of their betters. Their muddy hoofs dishonor the temple. 
 It is not for an artist to defend himself. The state should do it. 
 But pending the awakening of the state let the writers and pub 
 lishers combine to defend themselves. I will do whatever I can. 
 
 THE NEW REPUBLIC 
 
 421 West 21st St., 
 
 New York City 
 
 February 18, 1920. 
 
 I think I belong to the "in general" protestants. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Walter Lippmann. 
 47 
 
Metuchen, N. J. 
 
 February 26 1920. 
 
 I have not read Jurgen, and feel that in fairness to author 
 and publisher, I should not judge on either side. 
 
 I agree with you with regard to your opinions. Can you use 
 the enclosed? 
 
 Sincerely, 
 Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. 
 
 I don t know anything about the Society or the law, hence 
 the changes before signing. I hope you can use one of them. I 
 might do better next time. 
 
 [Additional Note.] 
 
 I have not read Madeleine. I have not read Jurgen. I have 
 not read any book to which public attention is called by the 
 Society for the Suppression of Vice. 
 
 I do not think it fair to the Society, to publisher or author, to 
 pass judgment upon a book or measure of which I am ignorant. 
 
 I, however, do most sincerely think that any Society, enabled 
 by any law to cast a stigma upon an author or a publisher, unless 
 all the reasons, not in part, but as a whole, are known to the reading 
 public, should have for its judges a body of persons eminently 
 calculated by their own knowledge of literature, and art, and stand 
 ards of morality, to praise or condemn. 
 
 I also think that no books dealing only with the social evil 
 should be chosen for examination, but those dealing with the drug 
 habit and life of the underworld in such a manner as to fascinate 
 young readers and cast a gloss upon evil which may attract their 
 imagination. 
 
 Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. 
 
 Comarques 
 Thorpe-Le- Soken 
 
 May 17, 1920. 
 
 With reference to your Emergency Committee Protest, my 
 view is that the police alone should have the right to prosecute 
 an author. To give to any private society the right to prosecute 
 on public grounds is bound to lead to grave injustice. In England 
 the number of private prosecutions is now almost nil, and I believe 
 that no effective private prosecution can be begun without the 
 consent of the Attorney General. Two private societies in England 
 took very strong objection to my novel The Pretty Lady not on 
 moral but on sectarian religious grounds! They demanded the 
 suppression of the book. As soon as they discovered I was a fighter 
 they let the matter drop. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Arnold Bennett. 
 48 
 
1004 West End Trust Building 
 Philadelphia 
 
 April 19, 1920. 
 
 I cannot express any opinion about the book of Mr. Cabell, 
 concerning which you have written me, because I have not seen it. 
 One book of Mr. Cabell s I know, and like. He was good enough 
 to send it to me some years ago and I had great pleasure in reading 
 the stories that it contained. Its title, if I remember, was A 
 Certain Hour. 
 
 In a general way I share the opinion which your paragraphs 
 embody. I think, however, that it is very difficult to lay down 
 any rule for universal application. There are certain themes which 
 should be kept from the young, and are kept from the young in 
 countries like France. To justify works of imagination upon 
 these themes, genius, it seems to me, is needed. For example, 
 the play of Measure for Measure would be purely objectionable in 
 the hands of a number of modern play writers whose names I could 
 mention. I can find but two formulas which I can express to you 
 in words, and which, I think, represent my feelings upon the subject. 
 
 First, I think that each individual case should be judged 
 upon its merits. 
 
 The second formula is more difficult namely, who shall be 
 the people to judge. Usually I find myself not completely in sym 
 pathy with the sort of people who associate themselves with the 
 suppression of vice. While their aim is high, I am apt to think 
 their judgment is somewhat fallible. Were I to choose a committee 
 who should act as censors upon works of the imagination, whether 
 they be in the form of books or in the form of plays, I should want 
 a committee very variously selected. I should like to see upon it 
 one or two writers of creative talent, one or two enlightened philan 
 thropists, and several men connected with active business, such as 
 bankers, engineers, manufacturers of broad experience in dealing 
 with mankind. These men are apt to take very sane views and to 
 dislike extremes. Their opinion, after conference with the other 
 sort of people namely, artists and moralists would bring a 
 leaven that I think wholesome and essential. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Owen Wister. 
 
 2970 Filis Avenue 
 Chicago, HI. 
 
 With every word in the protest you are circulating with regard 
 to the suppression of Jurgen I am in the heartiest accord. If such 
 a book can be put out of circulation by an irresponsible committee; 
 if publishers can be penalized for issuing it; if an author for writing 
 it can be defamed and have his just earnings sequestered, then 
 
 49 
 
indeed every writer in America who wants to deal with the whole of 
 human life will be inhibited. Could a Goethe write a Faust in a 
 country where a book was dealt with in such a way? If the irre 
 sponsible Committee in New York want to fill up their time, why 
 don t they deal with the undraped ladies in the movie posters at 
 every street corner? These, I consider, are more likely to affect 
 the morality of the man or the boy in the street (who, by the way, 
 would not read Jurgen for money) , than any book that the Com 
 mittee might smell out. Why don t they deal with the headings 
 of the newspapers that every day drag down standards of whole 
 some living by exhibiting not Cocaigne, but the next street as 
 a place of crime and lust? I should write all this about the sup 
 pression of a mediocre book. But Jurgen is not a mediocre book. 
 It is a remarkable book imaginative, vital and philosophic. I 
 might add, too, that it is an austere book. What Mr. Whibley 
 has written about Congreve s Way of the World applies to Jurgen 
 "as austere as a tragedy, as rarefied as thought itself." The person 
 who could be misled by such a book would not have the patience, 
 the discipline, or the necessary regard for literature to read it. 
 Such books are not for policemen, or for those who, dealing with 
 vice, unfortunately for themselves, have to lay "the dyer s hand" 
 upon an author s book. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Padraic Colum. 
 
 115 Broadway 
 
 i gth April 
 
 I signed the statement and protest as to Jurgen in no spirit 
 of solicitude for art or artists. I still believe that petty bureau 
 cratic interference will not hinder the appointed word from getting 
 itself spoken, or picture from getting itself painted. My attention 
 went outside of artists, who, to my view, can take care of them 
 selves, to the mass of us, artists and others, who make up the 
 fumbling giant Democracy and who are depending more and more 
 upon the written word for our communications with our fellows 
 and our understanding of our mass job. The sight of the way our 
 channels of written communications are being muddied by pro- 
 hibitors and propagandists makes me howl. We must keep them 
 open and that means they should be left absolutely alone. No man 
 living is big enough to interfere with these channels policemen, 
 parsons, or pleaders for the new dispensation. If they are closed 
 or choked, God save us! 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 Thos. H. Dickinson. 
 50 
 
April 20, igzo. 
 
 I am of course delighted to do anything of any kind in protest 
 against the censorship of Jurgen. In answer to your question, the 
 lines from me that appeared on the jacket of Jurgen were, I think, 
 part of a letter written to Guy Holt about Cabell s work. Ask 
 him for the letter and say that I will be delighted to have you 
 publish it. 
 
 As to adding some words, I can only say in the first place that 
 I regard any censorship of art, organized and directed by men who 
 are moved by political and moral feelings apart from aesthetic 
 ones, as an impossible anachronism in any modern civilized country, 
 and that in any case I cannot see that Jurgen can possibly be held 
 to offend against morality for the simple reason that there is no 
 incident, detail or description from one end of the book to the other 
 that is not there entirely for reasons of truth and beauty. The 
 author s implied intention behind his work is surely the thing that 
 matters and I cannot conceive that anyone over the age of ten or 
 with a mentality more mature than that could dream for a moment 
 that Cabell is anything but an artist, first, second and last. Finally, 
 it seems to me quite ludicrous that a time and country that permit 
 the present revues and musical comedies that are running in New 
 York and Chicago, that publishes in every daily paper those 
 ludicrous and mushy columns about love and matrimony, can see 
 nothing ironical in the prohibition of one of the few first-class works 
 of art that America has produced in recent times. Do use this 
 entirely honest opinion in any way that you please. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Hugh Walpole. 
 
 THE NATIONAL ARTS CLUB 
 
 New York. 
 
 Gramercy Park 
 
 Manhattan 
 
 Not only have I not read Jurgen, but this is the first time I 
 have heard of the Emergency Committee. I have been away from 
 New York for two years, and would like to be better informed. 
 
 I know there is much stupidity enacted in the name of morality, 
 but I cannot commit myself in the dark. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 Mary Austin. 
 51 
 
[The following note was received a few days later:] 
 
 Count me as opposed to the methods of the Society for the 
 Suppression of Vice, in general. But do not commit me to any 
 particular book which I may not have read. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 Mary Austin. 
 
 New Hartford, Conn. 
 
 February 21, 1920. 
 
 Many thanks for your letter of the i3th instant. 
 
 Without having read or even heard of James Branch Cabell s 
 Jurgen, it is impossible for me to sign your manifesto without some 
 modification, as a matter of simple honesty and public responsibility. 
 Nor do I know anything about the N. Y. Society for the Suppression 
 of Vice, as I no longer live in that city, and do not find time to 
 keep in close touch with its various activities. But I hate the 
 name of the Society; not that I have any particular interest in the 
 promulgation of Vice; but because I know very well the kind of a 
 society parading under that name that is likely to emerge from 
 the moral enthusiasms of a place like New York. If I am doing 
 the Society an injustice, I regret it, and shall be glad to be put 
 right in the matter, and if necessary make public apology for the 
 same; but I have an inspiration that the Society is only one more 
 of the many diabolically instigated movements now afoot to cripple 
 free speech and to torture Art and the divinely inspired liberties 
 thereof into the "safe," smug, comfortable bourgeois pattern of 
 our lords and masters, the propertied and financial classes. There 
 fore, until further illumination comes my way, and with the modi 
 fications intimated above, I do most solemnly affix my signature 
 also to your manifesto. I too belong to a Society for the Suppres 
 sion of Vice, one inaugurated by the Lord Jesus Christ; and the 
 Vice of Plutocracy, Oligarchy, Bourgeois Blasphemy and Intolerance 
 is one of them. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Charles Rann Kennedy. 
 
 I should like to hear the names of the people who are running 
 this Society. I dare swear I shall find them all "saved" and very 
 rich. 
 
 52 
 
The University of Chicago 
 The Faculties of Arts, Literature, and Science 
 
 Office of the Dean of the Junior Colleges. 
 
 I haven t read Jurgen and probably shan t read it, as Cabell 
 bores me to tears. As for the law, I haven t read that either, and 
 am not therefore qualified to protest against it. I object on prin 
 ciple to the suppression of free speech, but I prefer to center my 
 energies on the protection of people who can t help themselves, 
 rather than crusade for prosperous and affected pseudo-litterateurs 
 like Mr. Cabell. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. W. Linn. 
 February 28, 1920. 
 
 The University of Chicago 
 The Faculties of Arts, Literature, and Science 
 
 Office of the Deans of the Colleges. 
 
 Having discussed the matter with Boynton, after the receipt 
 of your extremely good-tempered letter of March 2nd, I am pre 
 pared to say I was wrong, not about Cabell, but about signing the 
 general protest. I cannot imagine my name will be of any service; 
 but by way of crying peccavi, I shall authorize you not only to 
 use it, but to call on me for any service I can render. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. W. Linn. 
 March 23, 1920. 
 
 H. L. Mencken 
 
 1524 Hollins Street 
 
 Baltimore 
 
 The raid on Jurgen is the crowning absurdity. The book is 
 not only a sound and honest piece of work; it is also an unques 
 tionable work of art; and perhaps the finest thing of its sort ever 
 done in America. In any civilized country such a book would be 
 received with enthusiasm by every educated man; here it is exposed 
 forthwith to the stupid attack of persons without either intelligence 
 or taste. 
 
 The laws under which such outrageous assaults upon decent 
 books and decent authors are made were drawn up by the late 
 Comstock to suit his private convenience, and are so worded that 
 
 53 
 
it is practically impossible for an accused publisher to make an 
 effective defense. They are unjust, oblique and dishonest. I be 
 lieve that no movement against Comstockery can have any force 
 until these laws are materially amended. It" will take a hard fight 
 to amend them, but it can be done. Certainly no Legislature, 
 once it is made aware of the disgusting facts, will ever ratify the 
 proceedings that now go on under them . 
 
 I f you undertake this agitation you must expect to be attacked 
 viciously. Comstockery is a profitable business, and those who 
 live by it are without decency. But you will be doing a valuable 
 work for American letters. Call on me for any help that I can give. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 H. L. Mencken. 
 
 9 Arcade House 
 Temple Fortune, Hendon, 
 London, N. W. 4 
 
 Yes, indeed, you may add my name to the list of protesters 
 against the banning of Jurgen. I consider myself to be a very 
 ordinary sort of person, with a mind as shockable as that of either 
 of the Rockefellers, Senior or Junior (particularly Junior), but I 
 could not find anything in Jurgen that seemed to me likely to destroy 
 or even to disturb the morals of a Strict and Particular Baptist. 
 The kind of person who might be harmed by it if there be such a 
 person would not get beyond the first chapter of the book, which 
 is written for cultured people and not for the rag-tag and bobtail; 
 and in any event, the kind of person who can be harmed by such a 
 book ought to be harmed and, if possible, destroyed. There are 
 two kinds of war: the war waged by evil men on the body, and the 
 war waged by more evil men on the mind. The evil men have 
 had five years in which to destroy the body of Youth: the more 
 evil men, made envious no doubt by the spectacle of their colleagues 
 success, are beginning a five years war on the mind. And wherever 
 one looks in the world to-day, one sees attempts being made to 
 control opinion and to suppress thought. We must fight with 
 our backs against the wall in defense of Free Minds. If individ 
 uality is to be crushed out of civilization, then we had much better 
 die. In these matters, there must be no nationality a cursed 
 thing anyhow but a kindly comradeship. In the fight against 
 the Mind-Murderers, Cabell is not an American, I am not an 
 Irishman we are simply soldiers of freedom fighting in a renewal 
 of a fight that must be continually fought if men are to remain men 
 and not degenerate into servile things. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 St. John Ervine. 
 54 
 
121 Ebury Street 
 London, S. W. 1 
 
 22nd April, 1920 
 
 I am very much obliged to you for writing about your struggle 
 in America against societies who disguise themselves as Puritans 
 so that they may blackmail with impunity. . . I have not read it 
 [Jurgen] , and reading it would not enable me to say anything that I 
 have not already said in my article on the subject printed in the 
 Century and reprinted in my last volume entitled Avowals. I sup 
 pose you will have read my article in the Century, and if you have 
 you will have seen that the leading members of these societies are 
 generally libertines of the worst kind, and you will also have seen 
 how a case can always be won against these societies if it is fought 
 wisely, and how these cases should be fought. I have signed the 
 paper which you sent me, and shall always be glad to hear from you 
 on this or any other subject in which you are interested. You say 
 you are sending me under separate cover a pamphlet published by 
 the society entitled: Morals, not Art or Literature , but the pamphlet 
 has not arrived; I am sorry, for no doubt I should have found some 
 thing interesting in it. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 George Moore. 
 
 121 Ebury Street 
 London, S. W. 1 
 
 27 th May, 1920. 
 
 I received your letter dated the seventh of May a few days 
 ago (the postal service appears to get worse) . The state of things 
 that you describe seems to me to call for radical measures. Liter 
 ature cannot be allowed to provide a quarry for the indecent-minded 
 and the blackmailer, one following money and the other perverted 
 sexual excitement. Something will have to be done, and the sooner 
 public attention is called to the scandal the better. The way to do 
 this would be to summon the publisher of Shakespeare and the 
 Bible, and to ask publicly in court why these books should be exempt; 
 if they contain matter injurious to the public health they must be 
 stopped, and it s no excuse to plead that they are well written, 
 life being more important than literature. I think of no other 
 way except this that will bring about a change in the law. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 George Moore. 
 
 55 
 
LETTERS TO THE PUBLISHER 
 
 The following letters, addressed to the publisher of "Jurgen," are here 
 reprinted with the kind permission of the writers and of the publisher : 
 
 15 West 67th Street 
 
 February 17, 1920 
 
 We want to congratulate you for publishing that remarkable 
 book, Jurgen, of James Branch Cabell, and add our opinion, for 
 whatever it may be worth, to the opinion of those who admire it 
 and are protesting against the Censor s attack upon it. 
 
 Such an attack is based, we suppose, on the law which pre 
 scribes that: "The test of obscenity within the meaning of the statute 
 is whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscene is to 
 deprave or corrupt the morals of those whose minds are open to 
 such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this 
 sort may fall." 
 
 According to this law, the factors which determine whether a 
 book can be published or not are "the minds that are open," etc., a 
 definition which includes the immature and degenerate minds, so 
 that the culture of a people is subordinated to the requirements of 
 immature and degenerate minds, in which case the word "culture" 
 becomes synonymous with immorality and must cease to exist with 
 what it connotes. 
 
 Strangely enough, the type of mind with which the law and the 
 Censor are in such close sympathy has always been and is averse 
 from the intellectual effort required for the understanding and 
 appreciation of a work of a highly intellectual order, so that it is 
 automatically protected from what might affect its morbid condition 
 in a work of this kind. 
 
 It is strange, therefore, that a book like Jurgen should have 
 been read at all by the agent who is in so close a sympathy with 
 immature and degenerate minds a bool< of which Hugh Walpole, 
 an eminent writer, says: "Jurgen is surely a book that should 
 make Americans proud. I am delighted with its delicacy and good- 
 temper and tenderness, its fancy and its wit. If Americans are 
 looking for a book to show to Europe, here it is." 
 
 But, then, while there are American artists and Americans who 
 appreciate art, their number is far from sufficient to offset the mass 
 of those who, while advertising so loudly the "idealism" of America, 
 are really so devoid of it as to stifle or drive out of their country 
 those who could best inspire it. 
 
 This cannot be called an exaggerated statement, as they have 
 so driven out already such men as Stephen Crane, Harris Merton 
 Lyon, John Curnos, Henry James, Whistler, John Sargent, Shannon 
 and many others. Can we wonder about it when the expression of 
 the artist is subjected to the standard that fits immature and 
 degenerate minds? 
 
 57 
 
Strangest of all, however, is the erratic action of the Censor 
 who vents his thunder against Jurgen, a phantasy made of poetry, 
 philosophy and the sanest and most varied humor, which at its 
 broadest never seeks to make sensuality attractive but ridiculous, 
 a book which rises to the height of permanent achievement above 
 the stream of mediocre literature flooding our times. This book the 
 Censor wishes to suppress when he has allowed a book as repulsively 
 obscene as Freud s Leonardo da Vinci to circulate freely for some 
 years past, to "fall into the hands of those whose minds are open to 
 such influences." 
 
 It seems a pity that if literary ignorance, lack of culture and 
 lack of information are to be the standards required for the control 
 over literature in this country, there should not be at least some 
 sort of limitation to their powers of destruction. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Amelie Rives Troubetzkoy, 
 Pierre Troubetzkoy. 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA STATE BOARD OF CENSORS OF MOTION 
 
 PICTURES 
 
 Projection Rooms 
 
 1025 Cherry Street 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 March i, 1920. 
 
 In Jurgen Mr. Cabell s symbolism is at times phallic, but his 
 narrative is so far above the understanding of any but the highly 
 sophisticated that in my opinion no conceivable injury could result 
 from its public circulation. It is safe to say that not another 
 person in our English speaking and English writing world could 
 think in such terms and set down so altogether a remarkable piece 
 of literature. In this book he ranges the whole firmament of myth 
 ology and romance. To nine out of ten persons it is and will re 
 main as incomprehensible as Greek. It is for the enjoyment of 
 rare souls whose reading has been wide and whose tastes are unusual, 
 caviar to be attacked lightly and joyously by the epicure. No one 
 else would seem to have any business with such a book. 
 
 Cabell s women are intangible creatures so far removed from 
 daily human form that they cannot be made to fall under the rules 
 established for the world that we know about. It is difficult then 
 to know on what grounds he should be condemned for impropriety. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Ellis P. Oberholtzer. 
 58 
 
18 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, 
 Dublin 
 
 loth February, 1920. 
 
 Your letter of the i6th January, announcing Jurgen as the 
 latest victim of Comstockery, amazed me. I have been through the 
 book again in search of passages likely to offend even the most 
 prurient puritan, for on first reading nothing of the kind had 
 struck me. All I can say is that only the logic which would 
 bowdlerize the Bible or classical mythology could take offense at 
 Jurgen. It is a delightful fantasia, a charmingly sophisticated 
 fairy tale, but a fairy tale nevertheless. To inject into that world 
 of myth, where Mr. Cabell s fancy plays so skillfully, the crude 
 solemnities of Methodist morality is the supreme act of philistinism. 
 I hope that you will be properly supported in an attempt to vin 
 dicate the rights of literature, for never was there a clearer case of 
 the issue which must be faced, if art in America is ever to escape the 
 tutelage of the aesthetically blind. Jurgen is not even a Dreiserian 
 chaos of contemporary realism, where the pious stenographer might 
 find some incitement to a life of pleasure. Its action lies outside of 
 time and space, far beyond good and evil; obviously so must the 
 morality (if any) which is read into it. It seems to me as ludicrous 
 to criticise Jurgen s actions as to blush at the perversities of Leda, 
 or to ostracize Pasiphae on the grounds of immorality. Except 
 that the good pawnbroker did not observe the continence alleged 
 to be the ideal of all true Presbyterians, there is nothing to be said 
 against him which would not apply to every personage in the 
 legendary lore of most civilized countries. There is no scene which 
 could be described, in my opinion, as deliberately voluptuous, or 
 specifically obscene. These are the counts, I understand, on which 
 certain masterpieces have from time to time been indicted. 
 
 With every good wish for your success in the fight which I 
 hope you will make on behalf of Mr. Cabell in particular and the 
 liberty of the artist in general, 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Ernest A. Boyd. 
 
 New York, 28 January, 1920. 
 
 I hear Jurgen is suppressed, but I hope you are going to fight 
 it tooth and nail because it is really time to clear up the muddle 
 between literature and pornography; and the juxtaposition of 
 Madeleine and Jurgen is an admirable instance. There are things 
 that the hand of vulgarity must not touch, but there is nothing in 
 human nature that literature cannot sanctify; there s the difference. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Gilbert Cannan. 
 59 
 
ECHOES FROM THE PRESS 
 
 THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES APPEARED IN THE NEW YORK 
 
 NEWSPAPERS DURING THE EARLY PART OF THE YEAR. 
 
 THEY ARE REPRINTED VERBATIM. 
 
THE JUDGING OF JURGEN 
 
 Great Tumblebug States His Case for the Court of Philistia 
 
 James Branch Cabell 
 [From the New York Tribune, Feb. 8, 1920] 
 
 They of Poictesme narrate that in the old days a court was held by the 
 Philistines to decide whether or no King Jurgen should be relegated to limbo. 
 And when the judges were prepared for judging, there came into the court a great 
 tumblebug, rolling in front of him his loved and properly housed young ones. 
 
 This insect looked at Jurgen, and its pincers rose erect in horror. And the bug 
 cried to the three judges, "Now by St. Anthony! this Jurgen must forthwith be 
 relegated to limbo, for he is offensive and lewd and lascivious and indecent." 
 
 "And how can that be?" says Jurgen. 
 
 "You are offensive," the bug replied, "because you carry a sword, which I 
 choose to say is not a sword. You are lewd, because you carry a staff, which I 
 prefer to think is not a staff. You are lascivious, because you carry a lance, 
 which I elect to declare is not a lance. And, finally, you are indecent, for reasons 
 of which a description would be objectionable to me, and which, therefore, I 
 must decline to reveal to anybody." 
 
 "Well, that sounds logical," says Jurgen; "but, still, at the same time, it 
 would be no worse for an admixture of common sense. For you, gentlemen, can 
 see for yourselves that I have here a sword and a lance and a staff, and no mention 
 of anything else; and that all the lewdness is in the insectival mind of him who 
 itches to be calling these things by other names." 
 
 The judges said nothing as yet. But they had guarded Jurgen, and all the 
 other Philistines stood to this side and to that side with their eyes shut tight 
 and saying in unison, "We decline to look, because to look might seem to imply a 
 doubt of what the tumblebug has said. Besides, so long as the tumblebug has 
 reasons which he declines to reveal, his reasons stay unanswerable, and you are 
 plainly a prurient rascal, who are making trouble for yourself." 
 
 "To the contrary," says Jurgen, "I am a poet and I make literature." 
 
 "But in Philistia to make literature and to make trouble for yourself are 
 synonyms," the tumblebug explained. "I know, for already we of Philistia 
 have been pestered by three of these makers of literature. Yes, there was Edgar, 
 whom I starved and hunted until I was tired of it; then I chased him up a back 
 alley one night and knocked out those annoying brains of his. And there was 
 Walt, whom I chivvied and battered from place to place and made a paralytic 
 of him; and him, too, I labeled offensive and lewd and lascivious and indecent. 
 Then later, there was Mark, whom I frightened into disguising himself in a clown s 
 suit, so that nobody might suspect him of being one of those vile makers of litera 
 ture; indeed, I frightened him so that he hid away the greater part of what he had 
 made until he was dead and I could not get at him. That was a disgusting trick 
 to play on me, I consider. Still, these are the only three detected makers of 
 
 63 
 
literature that have ever infested Philistia, thanks be to goodness and my vigi 
 lance, but for both of which we might have been no more free from makers of 
 literature than are the other countries." 
 
 "Now, but these three," cried Jurgen, "are the glory of Philistia; and of all 
 that Philistia has produced, it is these three alone, whom living ye made least 
 of, that to-day are honored wherever art is honored, and where nobody bothers 
 one way or the other about Philistia!" 
 
 "What is art to me and my way of living?" replied the tumblebug, wearily. 
 "I have no concern with art and letters and the other lewd idols of foreign nations. 
 I have in charge the moral welfare of my young, whom I roll here before me, and 
 trust, with St. Anthony s aid, to raise in time to be God-fearing tumblebugs like 
 me. For the rest, I have never minded dead men being well spoken of; no, no, 
 my lad, once whatever I may do means nothing to you, and once you are really 
 rotten you will find the tumblebug friendly enough. Meanwhile, I am paid to 
 protest that living persons are offensive and lewd and lascivious and indecent, 
 and one must live." 
 
 Jurgen now looked more attentively at this queer creature; and he saw that 
 the tumblebug was malodorous certainly, but at bottom honest and well meaning; 
 and that seemed to Jurgen the saddest thing he had found among the Philistines. 
 For the tumblebug was sincere in his insane doings and all Philistia honored him 
 sincerely, so that there was nowhere any hope for this people. 
 
 Therefore, King Jurgen addressed himself to submit, as his need was, to the 
 strange customs of the Philistines. "Now do you judge me fairly," cried Jurgen 
 to his judges, "if there be any justice in this insane country. And if there be 
 none, do you relegate me to limbo, or to any other place, so long as in that place 
 this tumblebug is not omnipotent and sincere and insane." 
 
 And Jurgen waited 
 
 "THE RAINBOW" AND "JURGEN" 
 
 Cannan Says Posterity May Take Books Now Banned 
 By Gilbert Cannan 
 
 Tis the voice of the sluggard 
 
 I heard him complain, 
 "You have waked me too soon, 
 
 You must call me again." 
 
 (From the New York Tribune, Feb. 8, 1920) 
 
 The familiar jingle is the best possible diagnosis of the trouble in which 
 those singular beings, D. H. Lawrence and James Branch Cabell, find themselves. 
 Humanity s chief trouble is inertia, and those inconvenient persons who attempt 
 to break it are frequently themselves broken. However, let us, above all, be 
 good-tempered about it. If posterity wants Jurgen and The Rainbow, posterity 
 will print them. The present generation does not want them because they are 
 in advance of current morality, and those whose idiosyncrasy it is to care for 
 morals, to the exclusion of good sense and every other social consideration, de 
 mand their suppression. 
 
 64 
 
In these matters there is no better text than that supplied by William Shake 
 speare in the line: 
 
 "Love is all truth; lust is all forged lies." 
 
 It may or it may not be a good thing to suppress vice. Personally as a 
 libertarian, I incline to the view that every attempt to suppress only increases 
 its frenzy, for, as they say, murder will out; but it is important that those who 
 believe in attempting to suppress vice should learn to distinguish it from truth, 
 otherwise they are apt to tamper not with the debauches of the human mind, but 
 with its means of expression, than which it has no other means of development. 
 Humanity wants to know the facts about itself and the need increases with its 
 knowledge about the facts of everything else. Every new invention, every great 
 social development imposes upon the writing artist a higher standard of integrity 
 and urges him away from the charm and toward the necessity of his work. A 
 modern novelist, living in a time of great stress and profound change, can no 
 longer accept the convention which deprived the characters in a work of fiction 
 of both passion and intelligence in order that novels might be read as easily and 
 indolently as the newspapers, until at last novels came to be written as easily 
 and indolently as they were read. Compared with such novels books like JUT gen 
 and The Rainbow seem to be startling and violent . The men who wrote them have 
 actually had the audacity to ignore the lassitude of the modern reader. They 
 have discarded the superficial view of human relationships and have had the 
 temerity to explore them. Lawrence insists upon their intensity, Cabell upon 
 their transience ; but both are good artists and are reverent before the wonder 
 and mystery of their material. Unfortunately, the indolent modern mind, in 
 the sluggishness of its decadent Puritanism, sees none of the reverence and is 
 aware only of what seems to it the painful emphasis on these things, passion and 
 intelligence, which it has for so long ignored. It is thrown into panic and imagines 
 that here is an attack upon society. But artists do not attack society; they leave 
 that to the prophets and social reformers. The artist s loyalty is to art and that 
 loyalty is a thing that the layman cannot possibly understand. The layman, 
 therefore, should leave well alone and not attempt the impossible. There is no 
 earthly reason why he should read a book that offends him, but there is every 
 reason why he should not attempt to prevent others reading it who wish to do so, 
 for the social implication is profound and serious. Every clamor over the alleged 
 indecency of a work of art rouses in the innumerable indolent readers of the news 
 papers the always present hunger for prurience which there are, in all conscience, 
 books enough to satisfy. A work of art like Jurgen or The Rainbow is pro 
 tected if there were none of this unreasoning and well-intentioned interference 
 by the fact that it is a work of art and outside the range of the indolent reader. 
 When there is interference a work of art is exposed to the insult of being read for 
 what it does not contain witless salacity. 
 
 In salacity salted with wit there is no harm whatsoever for persons of 
 experience. "Ah!" say the well-meaning and censorious, "but we must protect 
 the innocent." In reply, I would say that the innocent are of all classes of 
 persons the least in need of protection, for their innocence has no clue to the 
 meaning of human expression. All books to them are fairy tales, as witness 
 
 65 
 
Gulliver s Travels. None who has lost his innocence must work cunning upon 
 them . . . good Lord! I remember when I was fourteen, as my father and 
 older brother came home from the theatre singing a plaintive ditty with the 
 refrain "I have fallen through another," asking naively, "Through another 
 what ?" and I had grotesque and puzzled visions of a young woman falling through 
 a ceiling or coal hole or down a drain, and even when my brother explained at 
 some length the words had no real and certainly no exciting meaning. And all 
 innocent persons are like that they have no conception of anything outside their 
 range. 
 
 It may be said, on the other hand, that young minds groping out of inno 
 cence must be protected. I never knew a young mind that sought out a dirty 
 book without external suggestion, and that external suggestion is invariably 
 supplied with the maximum of force whenever a public outcry is raised against 
 the work of an artist who in his exploration of the mystery of human relation 
 ships states candidly and beautifully, passionately or wittily, what he finds there. 
 There is absolutely no other result except that timorous artists may be deterred 
 from honesty, but if they are so timid as all that there is no great loss. 
 
 The case of The Rainbow is of the two the more amusing, because if ever there 
 was a morose, hard-boiled Cromwellian Puritan it is D. H. Lawrence, and for 
 the Puritans to assail him is for them to show how little grasp they have of the 
 logic of their own case. In Jurgen, on the other hand, the Puritan may find his 
 natural enemy, the aristocratic individual who does "not give a single damn," 
 and then the Puritan is baffled, for no attack can impinge upon that individual s 
 imperturbability. 
 
 The matter is serious and worth writing about at length, because modern 
 society is hectic and confused for lack of the authority which only art can give it . 
 Indeed, these periodic assaults upon books which are a few years ahead of their 
 time are perverted expressions of the need of that authority which is withheld by, 
 among other things, this pathetic confusion of pornography and literature. 
 There should be a rallying of writers everywhere to make it plain to the public 
 that literature cannot possibly be pornographic, and that there is no simple fact 
 of human nature that cannot find expression in art. A dirty book is, God save 
 us! a thing of nought. It must perish of its own dreariness. A work of art is a 
 thing of vital necessity and society tampers with it at its peril. 
 
 IS ANY BOOK SAFE? 
 
 (From the Editorial Page of the New York Times, March 28, 1920) 
 
 The New York police do not intend to let the Society for the Suppression 
 of Vice get all the credit for censoring American literature. Mr. Sumner of the 
 Vice Society lately prosecuted with success the head of one of the best known of 
 American publishing houses for the issuance of a book which was accepted and 
 published without the knowledge of the defendant, a book most of whose readers 
 must have been surprised to learn that a court had regarded it as under the ban 
 of the law. This encouraged Mr. Sumner; he brought proceedings against the 
 publishers of a book which is regarded by a great many lovers of literature as one 
 
 66 
 
of the most notable American works of recent years. This case has not yet come 
 to trial; but the jealousy of the police seems to have been excited. Was it to be 
 said that anybody had a more sensitive nose than the police vice squad? 
 
 It was not to be said very long. Another book, issued by a firm which has given 
 many valuable books to the public, was found obnoxious to the moral sense of a 
 detective, and the publishers must appear in court tomorrow. Persons who 
 occasionally like to read books may be interested in the section of the penal law 
 which says that 
 
 "A Magistrate * * * upon complaint that any person within his 
 jurisdiction is offending against the provisions of this article, supported 
 by oath or affirmation, must issue a warrant." 
 
 And this warrant, to condense the legal phraseology, directs police officers to 
 seize all copies of the book, or picture, or whatever may be regarded as obscene 
 by the man who made the complaint, and deliver them to the District Attorney 
 to be held until trial. If the purveyor of the books or pictures is convicted, the 
 offensive articles are destroyed, unless retained for the sake of evidence by the 
 Society for the Suppression of Vice; if the seller is acquitted, his property is, of 
 course, restored. 
 
 Upon complaint the Magistrate must issue a warrant this means that if any 
 individual sees, or professes to see, indecency in any book, the sale of that book 
 is stopped until the seller has been tried. If any Magistrate and three Judges 
 of Special Sessions agree with the man who makes the complaint, the book is 
 suppressed for good. Fortunately the courts have generally been far more 
 reasonable than the statute, which despite intelligent Judges goes a long way to 
 restricting the reading of the public to such books as do not seem objectionable 
 to any man who makes a living by looking for unlawful publications. The 
 public morals must be preserved, but surely there is some wiser way of preserving 
 them than this. 
 
 LIFT LITERARY LOAD OFF POLICE 
 
 Authors and Publishers Plan Censor Board to Pass on Books and Let Coppers 
 Have More Time to Hunt Thieves 
 
 (From the New York Evening Sun, March 8, 1920) 
 
 If certain publishers and authors have their way the New York Police De 
 partment will be a much more attractive place of employment than heretofore. 
 No member of the department, not even members of the vice squad, will be 
 required to read a questionable book in pursuit of duty. 
 
 Instead of calling for volunteer book readers who will undertake to ferret 
 out the evil in a volume, even at the risk of their own morals, the head of the vice 
 squad may be able merely to smile, shrug his shoulders and send the book on to a 
 board of censors unless, of course, heroic policemen should insist on reading the 
 book after hours in their capacity as self-sacrificing citizens. 
 
 Boni & Liveright, publishers of The Story of a Lover, an anonymously 
 written tale, which Patrolman John F. Pooler found contained words whose 
 employment he thought were prejudicial to the interests of the general public, 
 originated the board of censorship idea. The board, in their opinion, should 
 
 67 
 
include representatives of various organizations of culture and morals, including 
 the clergy, and would be able to lift from the police their literary burdens. But 
 their suggestion is not the only one advanced for the solution of this literary 
 problem. 
 
 Campaign to Change Law 
 
 A committee of three authors, Barrett H. Clark, writer on dramatic sub 
 jects; E. H. Bierstadt, author of the Life of Dunsany, and Sidney Howard, 
 magazinist, is seriously arranging to place the censorship law of the State before 
 the general public with a view to having the law amended. The committee was 
 organized at first to protest against the New York Society for the Suppression 
 of Vice in its action to prohibit the publication of Cabell s Jurgen. Action 
 against the publishers of this book, the Robert M. McBride Company, was begun 
 by the society in January. The case has not yet been decided. 
 
 "We have come to the conclusion that sporadic efforts for the righting 
 of individual cases and against particular societies are not enough," said Mr. 
 Clark, secretary of the committee. "We are now preparing to attract public 
 attention to the need for an amendment to the law. Any work under the sun 
 could be censored under the existing law, provided any one cared to bring it to 
 the attention of the authorities." 
 
 It was called to Mr. Clark s attention that a recent reviewer had declared 
 that only the Rollo Books and Esther Reid, Yet Speaking would be allowed to 
 circulate freely under the act, but he expressed a decided doubt as to whether even 
 these volumes would be found innocuous if thoroughly raked for wrong thoughts 
 and words under the provision of the statute. 
 
 Writers Club Assails System 
 
 The Writers Club, whose president is Walter Adolphe Roberts, a magazine 
 editor, passed a resolution at its last meeting denouncing the suppression of 
 Jurgen and the censorship of books, plays and works of art as conducted by the 
 Society for the Suppression of Vice. "Vicious, unintelligent and destructive to 
 American liberty and honest literary craftsmanship," is the Writers Club state 
 ment in regard to the censorship of the vice society. 
 
 Other books which have been brought into court in recent years either by 
 the police or the Society for the Suppression of Vice are Theodore Dreiser s 
 The Genius, published by the John Lane Company; Madeleine, published by 
 Harper &z Bros., and Guido Bruno s Edna, the Girl of the Street. 
 
 Meanwhile John S. Sumner, executive secretary of the Society for the 
 Suppression of Vice, isn t a bit disturbed by these efforts of writers and publishers 
 to establish a different system of literary censorship. 
 
 "A Board of Censors might be a very good thing," said Mr. Sumner placid 
 ly, "it would be likely to restrain some of the rash publishers. Of course it would 
 only be advisory and could have no binding effect on the police or courts." 
 
 68 
 
APPENDICES 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 The Laws. Penal Code of the State of New York 
 
 1141. I. "A person who sells, lends, gives away or shows, or offers to 
 sell, lend, give away, or show, or has in his possession with intent to sell, lend or 
 give away, or to show, or advertises in any manner, or who otherwise offers for 
 loan, gift, sale or distribution, any obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or 
 disgusting book, magazine, pamphlet, newspaper, story paper, writing, paper, 
 picture, drawing, photograph, figure or image, or any written or printed matter 
 of an indecent character; or any article or instrument of indecent or immoral use, 
 or purporting to be for indecent or immoral use or purpose, or who, designs, 
 copies, draws, photographs, prints, utters, publishes, or in any manner manu 
 factures, or prepares any such book, picture, drawing, magazine, pamphlet, 
 newspaper, story paper, writing, paper, figure, image, matter, article or thing, 
 or who writes, prints, publishes, or utters, or causes to be written, printed, pub 
 lished or uttered, any advertisement or notice of any kind, giving information, 
 directly or indirectly, stating, or purporting so to do, where, how, of whom, or by 
 what means any, or what purports to be any, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, 
 disgusting or indecent book, picture, writing, paper, figure, image, matter, article 
 or thing, named in this section can be purchased, obtained or had; or who has in 
 his possession, any slot machine or other mechanical contrivance with moving 
 pictures of nude or partly denuded female figures which pictures are lewd, obscene, 
 indecent or immoral, or other lewd, obscene, indecent or immoral drawing, image, 
 article or object, or who shows, advertises or exhibits the same, or causes the same 
 to be shown, advertised or exhibited, or who buys, owns or holds any such 
 machine with the intent to show, advertise or in any manner exhibit the same; 
 or who 
 
 II. "Prints, utters, publishes, sells, lends, gives away or shows, or has in 
 his possession with intent to sell, lend, give away or show, or otherwise offers for 
 sale, loan, gift or distribution, any book, pamphlet, magazine, newspaper or other 
 printed paper devoted to the publication, and principally made up of criminal 
 news, police reports, or accounts of criminal deeds, or pictures, or stories of 
 deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime; or who 
 
 III . "In any manner, hires, employs, uses or permits any minor or child to 
 do or assist in doing any act or thing mentioned in this section, or any of them, is 
 guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be sentenced to not less than 
 ten days nor more than one year imprisonment, or be fined not less than fifty 
 dollars, nor more than one thousand dollars, or both, fine and imprisonment for 
 each offense." 
 
 United States Criminal Code 
 Act Mar. 4, 1909. Sections 211, 212, 245. Chapter 321, 35. Stat. L. 1129. 
 
 211 . "Every obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and every filthy book, pamphlet, 
 picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or other publication of an indecent char 
 acter, and every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for preventing 
 conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and every 
 article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or 
 described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for preventing 
 conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and 
 every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or 
 notice of any kind giving information directly or indirectly, where, or how, or 
 from whom, or by what means any of the hereinbefore mentioned matters, articles, 
 or things may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation of 
 any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done or performed, or 
 how or by what means conception may be prevented or abortion produced, 
 whether sealed or unsealed; and every letter, packet, or package, or other mail 
 matter containing any filthy, vile, or indecent thing, device, or substance; and 
 
 71 
 
every paper, writing, advertisement, or representation that any article, instru 
 ment, substance, drug, medicine, or thing may, or can be used or applied for pre 
 venting conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; 
 and every description calculated to induce or incite a person to so use or apply 
 any such article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing, is hereby de 
 clared to be nonmailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered 
 from any post office or by any letter carrier. Whoever shall knowingly deposit, 
 or cause to be deposited for mailing or delivery, anything declared by this section 
 to be nonmailable, or shall knowingly take, or cause the same to be taken, from 
 the mails for the purpose of circulating or disposing thereof, or of aiding in the 
 circulation or disposition thereof, shall be fined not more than five thousand 
 dollars, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. 
 
 212. "All matter otherwise mailable by law, upon the envelope or outside 
 cover or wrapper of which, or any postal card upon which, any delineations, 
 epithets, terms, or language of an indecent, lewd, lascivious, obscene, libelous, 
 scurrilous, defamatory, or threatening character, or calculated by the terms or 
 manner or style of display and obviously intended to reflect injuriously upon the 
 character or conduct of another, may be written or printed or otherwise impressed 
 or apparent, are hereby declared nonmailable matter, and shall not be conveyed 
 in the mails nor delivered from any post office nor by any letter carrier, and shall 
 be withdrawn from the mails under such regulations as the Postmaster-General 
 shall prescribe. Whoever shall knowingly deposit or cause to be deposited, for 
 mailing or delivery, anything declared by this section to be nonmailable matter, 
 or shall, knowingly, take the same or cause the same to be taken from the mails 
 for the purpose of circulating or disposing of or aiding in the circulation or dis 
 position of the same, shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars, or im 
 prisoned not more than five years, or both. 
 
 245. "Whoever shall bring or cause to be brought into the United States 
 or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, from any foreign country, or 
 shall therein knowingly deposit or cause to be deposited with any express com 
 pany or other common carrier, for carriage from one State, Territory or District 
 of the United States, or place noncontiguous to but subject to the jurisdiction 
 thereof, or from any place in or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States 
 through a foreign country to any place in or subject to the jurisdiction thereof, or 
 from any place in or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to a foreign 
 country, any obscene, lewd, or lascivious, or any filthy, book, pamphlet, picture, 
 paper, letter, writing, print, or other matter of indecent character, or any drug, 
 medicine, article, or thing designed, adapted or intended for preventing con 
 ception, or for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use, or any 
 written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice 
 of any kind giving information, directly or indirectly, where, how, or of whom, or 
 by what means any of the hereinbefore-mentioned articles, matters, or things 
 may be obtained or made; or whoever shall knowingly take or cause to be taken 
 from such express company or other common carrier any matter or thing, the 
 depositing of which for carriage is herein made unlawful, shall be fined not more 
 than five thousand dollars, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." 
 
 72 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 The little booklet which has already been referred to offers a wealth of sug 
 gestive material in the form of decisions and interpretations. Some of these are 
 reprinted below. In the same pamphlets there appears a page presumably 
 from the hand of Anthony Comstock. It is worth pondering over: 
 
 MORALS 
 It is a Question of Peace, Good Order and Morals, and not of Art, Literature or Science 
 
 Art for art purposes in an art gallery, medical works for medical and scientific 
 men, and standard literature for literary persons and students, does not mean 
 that the nude in art, anatomical plates from medical works, nor bawdy and obscene 
 extracts from standard authors have the right to be placed upon indiscriminate 
 exhibition or sale, nor placed before immature minds, when such exhibition, sale 
 or indiscriminate circulation tends to endanger the morals of the young. 
 
 For instance, what can be more chaste, innocent or freer from guile, than a 
 young girl in the privacy of her room. She may, as occasion requires, divest 
 herself of all apparel. But that is not a picture for a "Peeping Tom" to 
 desecrate by looking through a keyhole, or under a window shade or curtain. 
 
 If a person should give such an exhibition, and call attention of young men 
 to it, there would be an outcry of indignation at once. While the picture might 
 be chaste, innocent and beautiful in itself, the effect would certainly be de 
 moralizing. It would tend to corrupt the morals of young men and boys, in 
 flame their passion, and cause loose thoughts. Such a display would not be 
 tolerated for a day. 
 
 So the practice of photographing the nude figures from beautiful works of 
 art for mercenary purposes, and placing these figures upon indiscriminate sale, 
 is an assault upon the minds and morals of our youth. 
 
 It practically unclothes the sacred form of woman, exposing her to public 
 gaze. It is invading the sacred domain of woman, and degrades woman in the 
 common mind. It is supplanting the spirit of reverence and chivalry for woman 
 with loose and degrading thoughts. It is a curse to young men. 
 
 These pictures, if works of art, are privileged to occupy the select place 
 which art has chosen for her abode, but acquire no more right to a public sale or 
 display, than a chaste young girl would have to make a public exhibition of her 
 nude form from shop window or sidewalk. 
 
 The law forbids such exhibitions in the interests of public morals. 
 
 The decisions and interpretations follow: 
 
 (1) Regarding the United States Criminal Code 
 
 "The guilty intent appears from the fact of the deposit of such matter by 
 one knowing what articles he deposits. The evidence of the crime is, therefore, 
 complete when the act and the knowledge is shown. (U. S. vs. Bott, 11 Blatch, 
 c.c.,pp. 348-9.) 
 
 Observation: Since it is impossible to determine, in the case of books, what 
 is or is not "obscene," etc., the "knowledge" referred to must be proved ex, post 
 facto. Not until the defendant is tried is the book adjudged indecent or not. 
 
 73 
 
(2) Regarding the New York State Penal Code 
 
 "It would, we conceive, be no answer to an indictment under the statute for 
 the sale of an obscene picture, that it was sold to a person not liable to be injured 
 by it, or that it was a picture, in respect to execution, of distinguished merit." (Peo. 
 vs. Muller, 96 N. Y., 413.) 
 
 Observation: The author of the pamphlet prefaces the above (besides indi 
 cating the passage noticed with italics), as follows: "Fortunately for the com 
 munity, the Law suffers no apology to obscenity writers, makes no exceptions in their 
 favor." 
 
 Must then every work of art be such as could arouse no evil impulse in the 
 young, the susceptible, the corrupt? 
 
 "The courts are guardians of public morals." (Com. vs. Sharpless, 2 Sergt. 
 & Rawl., 102-105; 2 Arch. Cr. Pr. & PI. 218. Queen vs. Hicklin, 3 Eng. L. R. 
 Q. B.) 
 
 "It is claimed that the author of this book is an artist in his line; achieved in 
 literary work, as counsel for defendant says in his brief. 
 
 "Justice Brady settled this point in charging a jury in a case where Art was 
 involved: 
 
 The world is open to the artist . He may represent objects and subjects 
 in whatever colors he may see fit to adopt, but his methods must commend 
 themselves to the morality of the people. He must see to it that they do not 
 invade the law of public morals, and, according to some writers, endanger the 
 public peace. (Peo. vs. Muller, Appeal Papers to Sup. Ct. [approved by 32 
 Hun, 408; 96 N. Y.]) 
 "The Supreme Court further said: 
 
 The object of the law was to protect public morals, especially of that class 
 of the community whose character is not so completely formed as to be proof 
 against the lewd effects of the pictures, photographs and publications prohibited. 
 
 And where it may be violated, that violation would in no sense be relieved 
 by proof that similar acts were tolerated by the public authorities of other states or 
 countries. (Ibid., 213.) 
 
 "The Court of Appeals, by a unanimous opinion, affirmed the judgment and 
 rulings in the foregoing case, and said: 
 
 We find no error in the record. (Peo. vs. Muller, 96N.Y.,p.413.) 
 "In the Muller case eight of the original pictures, it was admitted by the prose 
 cution, were exhibited in the Salon of Paris, France; the other it was proven 
 was exhibited at the Centennial at Philadelphia, Pa., in 1876." 
 
 "One Holmes was indicted under Common Law for publishing an obscene 
 
 print or book. 
 
 The second count of the indictment did not set forth the book, or any 
 part thereof, but alleged that it was so obscene that it would be offensive to 
 the court, and improper to be placed on the record thereof, and therefore the 
 jurors did not set it forth in the indictment. 
 "The fifth count described the print. 
 After conviction the defendant moved in arrest of judgment, because no part 
 
 of the books was set forth, etc. 
 "Held: 
 
 The second and fifth counts in the indictment are certainly good, for 
 it can never be required that an obscene book and picture should be displayed 
 upon the record of the court, which must be done, if the descriptions in these 
 counts are insufficient. This would be to require that the public itself should 
 give permanency and notoriety to indecency in order to punish it. (1821, 
 Com. vs. Holmes, 17 Mass., 336.)" 
 
 74 
 
"Judge Phillips, in charging a jury, referred to the fall of Adam and Eve, 
 and their being driven out of the Garden of Eden. He then said: 
 
 From that day to this, civilized man has carried with him a sense of 
 shame, the feeling that there were some things on which the eye, the mind, 
 should not look; and where men and women become so depraved by the use, 
 or so insensate from perverted education, that they will not veil their eyes, 
 nor hold their tongues, the government should perform the office for them in 
 protection of the social compact and the body politic. (U. S. vs. Harmon, 
 45 F. R., p. 423.)" 
 
 "Test of Obscenity 
 
 In the case of Queen vs. Hecklin, the defendant had been convicted for dis 
 posing of a certain obscene book or pamphlet . The prosecution conceded that the 
 book was not sold for a profit, but that Hecklin, as a member of an Anti-Romanist 
 Society (the Protestant Electoral Union) , procured and circulated the said books 
 without a profit, among adults, for the purpose of exposing the alleged errors of 
 the Roman Catholic religion, especially in the matter of the confessional. Hecklin 
 having been convicted appealed. 
 
 Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, and the full Bench present, laid down the fol 
 lowing test of obscenity. He said: 
 
 I think the test of obscenity is this: whether the tendency of the matter 
 charged as obscenity, is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open 
 to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort 
 may fall. 
 
 Now with regard to this work, it is quite certain that it would suggest 
 to the minds of the young of either sex, or even to persons of more advanced 
 years, thought of a most impure and libidinous character. (Queen vs. 
 Hecklin, 3 Eng. L. R. Q. B., 360.) 
 
 " In U. S. ^.Bennett, tried in U. S. Circuit Court in and for the Southern 
 District of New York, Judge Benedict, after reciting the foregoing test, further 
 said: 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I have given you the test; it is not a question of 
 whether it would corrupt the morals, tend to deprave your minds, or the 
 minds of every person; it is a question whether it tends to deprave the minds 
 of those open to such influences, and into whose hands a publication of this 
 character might come. 
 
 It is within the law if it would suggest impure and libidinous thoughts 
 in the young and inexperienced. (U. S. vs. Bennett, 16 Blatch, p. 362.)" 
 Observation: Note the Lord Chief Justice s words, "a publication of this sort 
 may fall." It is usually assumed by the prosecutors that the book "will" fall, 
 and as a result of the advertisement afforded it by the trial, it almost invariably 
 does fall into the hands of "those whose minds," etc. 
 
 "A book, to be obscene, need not be obscene throughout the whole of its 
 contents, but if the book is obscene, lewd, or lascivious or indecent in whole or in 
 part, it is an obscene book within the meaning of the law a lewd and lascivious 
 and indecent book." ([1877] U. S. vs. Heywood, quoted from Official Stenog 
 rapher s Report in U. S. vs. Bennett, 16 Blatch, pp. 368-9.) 
 
 Observation: See the Bible, Genesis, 9:20-25; 16:1-6; 19; 38:4-9; 39:10-13; 
 Romans I, 26-27. 
 
 "A book is said to be lewd, which is incited by lust, or excites lustful thoughts, 
 leading to irregular indulgence of animal desires, lustful, lecherous, libidinous. 
 
 "A book is lascivious which is lustful, which excites or promotes impure sexual 
 desires . 
 
 "A book is indecent which is unbecoming, immodest , unfit to be seen. . . . 
 
 "Observations were made in regard to the extent to which these books might 
 be obscene, lewd, lascivious or impure or might excite unlawful or impure desires; 
 and it was said to you, that you might read these books, and they would excite no 
 impure desire in you, no impure thoughts; but that is not a sure criterion, by any 
 means: these books are not sent ordinarily to such people as you. But you may 
 consider whether they are obscene or lewd or lascivious to any considerable portion 
 of the community, or whether they excite impure desires in the minds of the boys 
 and girls or other persons that are susceptible to such impure thoughts and desires. 
 
 75 
 
"If any other standard were adopted, probably no book would be obscene, 
 because there would be some men and women so pure, perhaps, that it would not 
 excite an impure thought; but it is to be governed by its effect upon the com 
 munity whether it is obscene and is of dangerous tendency in the community 
 generally, or any considerable portion of the community." ([1877] U. S. vs. Hey- 
 wood quoted from Official Stenographer s Report in U. S. vs. Bennett, 16 Blatch., 
 pp. 368-9.) 
 
 "No matter what the motive or purpose for which they were sent, whether in 
 the real or supposed interest of science, philosophy, or morality, if they are of an 
 obscene character, you should find the defendant guilty." (U. S. vs. Slenker, 32 
 Fed. Rep., 693.) 
 
 Observation: See above definitions of obscenity. Elsewhere (at the trial of 
 "one Landis in Philadelphia, 1870) the Appellate Court is quoted as saying to the 
 jury that 
 
 " If in their judgment the book was fit and proper for publication, and such as 
 should go into their families, and to be handed to their sons and daughters, and 
 placed in boarding-schools for the beneficial information of the young and others, 
 then it was their duty to acquit the defendant. 
 
 "The jury were instructed that it did not matter whether the things published 
 in the book were true, and in conformity with nature and the laws of our being or 
 not. If they were unfit to be published, and tended to inflame improper and lewd 
 passions, it was an obscene libel." 
 
 "How would the language the subject matter . . . impress and affect 
 the average man and woman of intelligence and sensibility? What is its probable 
 effect upon society in general ? How would such language and matter impress a 
 public assembly of decent men and women?" (U. S. vs. Harmon, 45 F. R. 418.) 
 
 Observation: How would the most sacred and most beautiful and most inti 
 mate functions of human life impress a public assembly of decent men and wo 
 men? 
 
 "Language is a vehicle of thought. Chaste words may be applied so as to be 
 understood in an obscene sense by everyone who hears them." (Edgar vs. McCut- 
 chen, 9 Mo. ,768.) "Words, abstractly considered, may be free from vulgarism, yet 
 they may, by reason of the context, manifest to the intelligent apprehension the 
 most impure thoughts and may arouse a libidinous passion more effectually in the 
 mind of a modest woman than the coarse vernacular of the bawd and the pimp. 
 In other words, it is the effect of the language employed, conveying ob 
 scure lewd or lascivious suggestion, tainted with immorality and impurity, which 
 is struck at by the statute." (U. S. vs. Moore, 129 Fed. 160-1, Philips, D. J . 
 Missouri, 1904). 
 
 Observation: The prosecution is permitted to introduce evidence upon the 
 basis of the context . The defense is not . 
 
 "It was asked in argument, what remedy there was against works similar to 
 those from which the extracts given in the pamphlet are taken? No such work is 
 now before us judicially, and I pronounce no opinion, therefore, with respect to 
 any such. It is enough to say that it does not follow that because it is a mis 
 demeanor to publish the present pamphlet that it would not also be a misdemeanor 
 to publish such works as those referred to. In any case, they can afford no ar 
 gument to justify the present publication." (Steele vs. Bannon, L. R., 7; C. L., p. 
 270.) 
 
 "Justice Blatchford, in delivering the opinion of the U. S. Circuit Court in 
 Blanc, further said, quoting from the charge of Judge Clarke, in U. S. vs. Hey- 
 wood, to- wit.: 
 
 Something was said in regard to other books that these books are no 
 more offensive than some other books; but you are not sent here to try other 
 books nor to compare this book with other books, and you heard the court 
 rule out all other books. The sole question is whether these books are obscene, 
 
 76 
 
lewd or indecent. Other books may be so, or may not be so. They may or 
 may not have gone in the mail. " (16 Blatch., 369.) 
 
 And finally: 
 
 "The obscenity of a book, alleged to be an obscene libel, does not depend 
 upon its truth or falsity. 
 
 "It is a question to be determined by a jury The character of 
 
 the book was a question purely for the jury, in which they could not be aided by an 
 expert." (Commonwealth vs. Landis, 8 Phila., R., 453.) 
 
 77 
 

 
 
 
 
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