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to censor expression in advance of publication – was strictly limited; Near v. Minnesota, 283 US 697 (1931).Google Scholar

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to “sharpen our enforcement blade.” Testimony of Michael K. Powell, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, Before the United States Senate, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, at 3 (Feb. 11, 2004).Google Scholar

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to prevent them from enforcing such policies on their own. French, David, Josh Hawley’s Internet Censorship Bill Is an Unwise, Unconstitutional Mess, Reason.com, Jun. 20, 2019 (www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/josh-hawley-internet-censorship-bill-unconstitutional/).Google Scholar

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“[t]heir very cocksureness is their chief source of strength.” Mencken, A Book of Prefaces, supra, at 245.Google Scholar

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by an official smacks of an ideology foreign to our system.” Hannegan v. Esquire, 327 US 146, 158 (1946).Google Scholar

“one man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric.” Cohen v. California, 403 US 15, 25 (1971).Google Scholar

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examples of such public hypocrisy “are too multitudinous to permit a detailed inventory.” Ernst, Morris L and Seagle, William, To the Pure – A Study of Obscenity and the Censor 14 (New York: Viking Press, 1928).Google Scholar

because of a habit of masturbation.” Ernst, Morris L. and Schwartz, Alan U., Censorship – The Search for the Obscene 29–30 (New York: The McMillan Co. 1964) (“Ernst and Schwartz”).Google Scholar

sex is a weak second.” Hentoff, Nat, Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other 1 (New York: Harper Collins, 1992).Google Scholar

so is euphemistic evasion. François de La Rochefoucauld, Sentences and Moral Maxims, No. 218.Google Scholar

[employed in] defense of the indefensible.” Orwell, George, Politics and the English Language, reprinted in The Orwell Reader 355, 366 (San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1984).Google Scholar

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made it critical that the Supreme Court create doctrine defining freedom of speech. Chafee, Zechariah, Jr., Free Speech in the United States 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941); Chemerinsky, Erwin and Gillman, Howard, Free Speech on Campus 36 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017); Batchis, Wayne, The Right’s First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech & The Return of Conservative Libertarianism 13 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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a “verbal act,” not protected expression. Gompers v. Buck’s Stove & Range Co., 221 US 418 (1911).Google Scholar

for circulating anti-draft pamphlets, Schenck v. United States, 249 US 47 (1919).Google Scholar

a newspaper publisher for articles that criticized the war effort, Frohwerk v. United States, 249 US 204 (1919).Google Scholar

Eugene Debs for purportedly obstructing the draft. Debs v. United States, 249 US 211 (1919).Google Scholar

unless “an immediate check is required to save the country.” Abrams v. United States, 250 US 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting).Google Scholar

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140 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified. Stromberg v. California, 283 US 359 (1931); Near v. Minnesota, 283 US 697 (1931).Google Scholar

even with the mandate or approval of a majority. United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 US 803, 818 (2000).Google Scholar

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“a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.” Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Columbia Pictures, 1964).Google Scholar

to demonstrate the perils of “evil reading.” LaMay, Craig L., America’s Censor: Anthony Comstock and Free Speech, Communications and the Law (Sept. 1997), at 1–59; Paul, James C. N., and Schwartz, Murray L, Federal Censorship: Obscenity in the Mail 18–24 (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961) (“Paul and Schwartz”); Heins, supra, at 31–32;Google Scholar

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showing off his collection to the horror of many legislators. Broun and Leech, supra, at 131.Google Scholar

on almost any kind of laws for which their vote might be solicited.” Bennett, D. M., Champions of the Church: Their Crimes and Persecutions 1016 (New York: Liberal and Scientific Publishing House, 1878).Google Scholar

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Comstock didn’t exactly cut a dashing figure. Paul and Schwartz, supra, at 18–19.Google Scholar

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and New York Sun publisher Moses S. Beech. Boyer, Paul S., Purity in Print 5–7 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968).Google Scholar

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stressing their “personal interest” in the legislation. Carlson, Allan, Pure Visionary, Touchstone – A Journal of Mere Christianity (Jun. 2009).Google Scholar

and Senator William Windom introduced it in the Senate. Broun and Leech, supra, at 129–132; Paul and Schwartz, supra, at 22.Google Scholar

took the bill home to work on it and to combine it with other legislative proposals. Bates, Anna Louise, Weeder in the Garden of the Lord: Anthony Comstock’s Life and Career 81–84 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 1995).Google Scholar

supported resolutions that would have allowed legal presumptions to enforce Christian morality. Werbel, Amy, Lust on Trial 67 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).Google Scholar

The bill that emerged was all encompassing. Paul and Schwartz, supra, at 22–23; Trumbull, Charles Galludet, Anthony Comstock, Fighter 85–91 (1913).Google Scholar

very few men here that the young men of today can safely pattern after. Broun and Leech, supra, at 138–139.Google Scholar

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They knew he was there at the behest of powerful benefactors. Boyer, supra, at 5–10.Google Scholar

a joint-stock company organized to finance the building of the transcontinental railroad. Broun and Leech, supra, at 129–132; Paul and Schwartz, supra, at 18.Google Scholar

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it was combined with 15 other proposals that were adopted in a vote at two a.m. LaMay, supra, at 16; Blanchard, The American Urge to Censor, supra, at 748.Google Scholar

despite the fact that, as Congressman Niblack observed, it is “now Sunday morning.” Morone, James A., Hellfire Nation 229 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

the clock in the chamber was stopped to preserve the fiction that it was still Saturday night. Ernst and Schwartz, supra, at 31.Google Scholar

affixing his signature as quickly as an attendant could hand him each one, and without the slightest examination. Bennett, Champions of the Church, supra; Giesburg, Judith, Sex and the Civil War 92–95 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017).Google Scholar

including two boys aged eleven and thirteen. Comstock, Anthony, Traps for the Young (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1883/1967) (editor’s introduction by Robert Bremner); Broun and Leech, supra, at 83–84.Google Scholar

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carried not just the power to arrest but also free passage on all rail lines that carried the mail. Schroeder, Patricia, Gifts of Speech, Sept. 24, 1996 (http://gos.sbc.edu/s/schroeder.html).Google Scholar

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will be forgiven to a Congress which thus powerfully sustains the cause of morality.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 144.Google Scholar

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an obscene, impudent, and indecent posture with a woman.” Commonwealth v. Sharpless, 2 Serg & Rawle 91 (Pa. Sup. Ct. 1815).Google Scholar

the same would be offensive to the court here, and improper to be placed upon the records thereof.” Massachusetts v. Holmes, 17 Mass. 336 (1821); Ernst and Schwartz, supra, at 15–16.Google Scholar

Regina v. Hicklin would set that standard for obscenity, not just in Great Britain but also in the USA. Heins, supra, at 32.Google Scholar

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until the Supreme Court finally abandoned it in 1957 because of evolving First Amendment concerns. Roth v. United States, 354 US 476 (1957).Google Scholar

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ten years later would abandon even that idea as unconstitutional, Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slayton, 413 US 49, 73–74 (1974) (Brennan, J., dissenting, joined by Justices Stewart and Marshall).Google Scholar

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you will have a bid for a life of self-gratification and sin.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 14–16.Google Scholar

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the iniquity and morbidness in which she now wallows for existence.” Bates, supra, at 72–73.Google Scholar

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more sedate in appearance, and of a less lovely turn.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 103.Google Scholar

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where she denounced the prosecution as a violation of freedom of the press. MacPherson, supra, at 193.Google Scholar

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a drama that “has seldom been surpassed for filthiness of detail.” MacPherson, supra, at 190–191.Google Scholar

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had inspired him to lobby Congress for expanded authority. Bates, supra, at 76.Google Scholar

The Brooklyn Eagle dubbed the case “An Inglorious Failure.” MacPherson, supra, at 204; Broun and Leech, supra, at 122.Google Scholar

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as well as various radical causes. MacPherson, supra, at 72–73.Google Scholar

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playfully dubbed “the Train matinees.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 112.Google Scholar

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decried the strictures of matrimony and extolled the virtues of sexual freedom. Heins, supra, at 32–33.Google Scholar

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an erudite man who was respected in his community that so incensed Comstock. Broun and Leech, supra, at 170–171.Google Scholar

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selected passages were provided to jurors as they entered the jury room. Broun and Leech, supra, at 174; Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 36; Beisel, supra, at 91.Google Scholar

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to exclude immoral materials from the US mail. Ex Parte Jackson, 96 US 727, 736 (1877).Google Scholar

now by their good service has been settled in our favor.” New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Fifth Annual Report 14 (1879).Google Scholar

who had strong political connections that extended even to the White House. New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Fifth Annual Report, supra, at 6–9; Broun and Leech, supra, at 177; Bates, supra, at 129; Beisel, supra, at 92; Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 38.Google Scholar

who had made final revisions to the bill that became the Comstock Act. Broun and Leech, supra, at 177; Bates, supra, at 139.Google Scholar

freedom of the press and to the great hurt of the learned professions.” Beisel, supra, at 92.Google Scholar

Butler “presented” the petition without endorsing its substance. Paul and Schwartz, supra, at 29.Google Scholar

“backed by one of the basest conspiracies ever concocted against a holy cause.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 192; Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 328–332.Google Scholar

the opposition by publishing injurious insinuations against the agent.” New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Fifth Annual Report, supra, at 6–7.Google Scholar

not established to carry instruments of vice, or obscene writings, indecent pictures, or lewd books.” Beisel, supra, at 92.Google Scholar

but no action was taken. Broun and Leech, supra, at 179.Google Scholar

drawing nearly six thousand people to protest Heywood’s conviction. Proceedings of the Indignation Meeting Held in Faneuil Hall, Thursday Evening, Aug. 1, 1878 (Boston: Benj. R. Tucker, 1878).Google Scholar

demanded total repeal of the Comstock law as opposed to more moderate reforms. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 38; Bates, supra, at 135–136.Google Scholar

six months into Heywood’s sentence. Broun and Leech, supra, at 170; Beisel, supra, at 94–95.Google Scholar

“it is no crime by the laws of the United States to advocate the abolition of marriage.” Beisel, supra, at 94–95.Google Scholar

“obscene, lascivious, lewd, or corrupting in the criminal sense.” Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 333.Google Scholar

destroy all that is lovely and of good report, and who openly boast of their crimes.” New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Fifth Annual Report, supra, at 9.Google Scholar

a great hindrance to the further enforcement of the law.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 174–175; Bates, supra, at 137–138.Google Scholar

which led to additional arrests and prosecutions. Bates, supra, at 131.Google Scholar

puckishly called the “Comstock Syringe.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 183–184; Beisel, supra, at 98–99; Bates, supra, at 143.Google Scholar

he ceased publishing contraceptive advertisements in The Word, lest he be arrested again. Bates, supra, at 143.Google Scholar

charges were dropped by the US attorney. Beisel, supra, at 101.Google Scholar

“fuck,” “penis,” “womb,” “semen,” and “vagina.” Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 338.Google Scholar

Heywood served all but two months of his sentence. Bates, supra, at 143; Beisel, supra, at 101.Google Scholar

“who will in the future be classed with murderers.” Bates, supra, at 144.Google Scholar

and who published the leading free-thought journal of the day. Jacoby, Freethinkers, supra, at 209.Google Scholar

everything that degrades or burdens mankind mentally or physically.” Bennett, Champions of the Church, supra.Google Scholar

“the mouthpiece of these moral cancer planters.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 396. Comstock was moved to arrest Bennett in November 1877. Bates, supra, at 138–139.Google Scholar

which mankind could well spare, losing nothing by its rejection?” Bennett, D.M., An Open Letter to Jesus Christ (New York: The Truth Seeker Co., 1876); Beisel, supra, at 90–91.Google Scholar

without regard to the rights, morals or liberties of others.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 175.Google Scholar

the case was hastily dropped in early January 1878 notwithstanding a grand jury indictment. Bennett, Champions of the Church, supra, at 1066.Google Scholar

Ingersoll had campaigned for President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876. Jacoby, Freethinkers, supra, at 209.Google Scholar

a “monstrous conspiracy” to undo his divinely inspired law. Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 388–515.Google Scholar

a “foul-mouthed libertine” and an “apostle of nastiness.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 495–496.Google Scholar

a first-class Torquemada, Calvin, Alva, Charles IX, or Matthew Hopkins.” Bennett, Champions of the Church, supra, at 1009.Google Scholar

who has labored with more resolution and zest” than Comstock. Bennett, Champions of the Church, supra, at 1010, 1064.Google Scholar

to Washington in 1878 to lobby against the repeal petition. Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 430.Google Scholar

it could be used as a contraceptive when combined with salicylic acid. Bates, supra, at 139, 141; Beisel, supra, at 94.Google Scholar

boycotted its products on principle. Broun and Leech, supra, at 189.Google Scholar

not just of embarrassment but of unwanted pregnancies. Jacoby, Freethinkers, supra, at 208.Google Scholar

and was arrested under state law. Broun and Leech, supra, at 180; Bates, supra, at 141.Google Scholar

to send Cupid’s Yokes to anyone who wanted it. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 36–37.Google Scholar

advertise Cupid’s something or other, you know what I mean.” Paul and Schwartz, supra, at 25–26; Broun and Leech, supra, at 180.Google Scholar

and not just based on portions the prosecutor selected to read to the jury. United States v. Bennett, 24 F. Cas. 1093, 1099–1100 (2nd Cir. 1879).Google Scholar

improper to be placed on the court records.” United States v. Bennett, 24 F. Cas. at 1094.Google Scholar

passages of the book marked by the prosecutor, which were read to the jury. United States v. Bennett, 24 F. Cas. at 1098–1099.Google Scholar

the United States is one great society for the suppression of vice.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 89; Bremner, supra, at xxix.Google Scholar

It is the prosecution of the United States.” United States v. Bennett, 24 F. Cas. at 1101.Google Scholar

“if it would suggest impure and libidinous thoughts in the young and the inexperienced.” United States v. Bennett, 24 F. Cas. at 1101–1102; Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 37–38; Blanchard, The American Urge to Censor, supra, at 755–756; Paul and Schwartz, supra, at 26–28.Google Scholar

Bennett’s counsel and friends boasted that a pardon would be granted within ten days. Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 485; Bates, supra, at 141.Google Scholar

as the petition reportedly garnered 200,000 signatures. Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 496.Google Scholar

for the same crime for which Heywood had been pardoned? Broun and Leech, supra, at 182.Google Scholar

“[h]e was pardoned because facts were suppressed.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 485–486.Google Scholar

Hayes denied the pardon petition. Broun and Leech, supra, at 182; Bates, supra, at 141–142; Beisel, supra, at 95; Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 40–41.Google Scholar

“evidences of this man’s character.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 496–498.Google Scholar

“The Defender of Liberty and Its Martyr.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 182–183.Google Scholar

Morals stand first.” Comstock, Morals Versus Art, supra, at 5.Google Scholar

during the year [1875], but 17 were Americans.” New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Second Annual report, supra, at 11.Google Scholar

to help “keep undesirable classes from our shores.” New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Thirty-Fifth Annual report 16 (1909); Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 346; LaMay, supra, at 34–35.Google Scholar

a quarter of Comstock’s prosecutions in 1915 represented these nationalities. LaMay, supra, at 22.Google Scholar

referring to Shaw as some “Irish smut-dealer.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 230.Google Scholar

to deify this ‘companion of every other crime.’” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 168–169.Google Scholar

comes in its most insidious, fascinating and seductive form.” Comstock, Morals Versus Art, supra, at 4–5.Google Scholar

making the lascivious conception only the more insidious and demoralizing.” New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Eighth Annual report 6 (1882).Google Scholar

perhaps to avoid the embarrassment of a high-profile loss at his home base. Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 344; Beisel, supra, at 167.Google Scholar

enjoyed phenomenal sales because of the controversy. Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 342–344; Beisel, supra, at 165; Boyer, supra, at 15.Google Scholar

“The Boston fools have already made me more than $2,000.” Miller, Banned in Boston, supra, at 14–17.Google Scholar

so prostituted from what has heretofore been thought to be their proper and legitimate place.” New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Fifth Annual Report, supra, at 15–17.Google Scholar

“little better than histories of brothels and prostitutes, in these lust-cursed nations.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 172, 179.Google Scholar

“death-dealing powers of strychnine are the same whether administered as a sugar-coated pill or in its natural state.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 168, 182–183.Google Scholar

simply because clothed in smooth verse or choice rhetoric.” Comstock, Anthony, Vampire Literature, The North American Review 165–166 (Aug. 1891).Google Scholar

only the Italian original could properly be considered a classic. Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 173–176.Google Scholar

“Fifth Avenue has no more rights in this respect than Centre Street or the Bowery.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 223.Google Scholar

the greatest educational benefit to the community.” Beisel, supra, at 172–173.Google Scholar

“subversive to the best interests both of art and morality.” Werbel, Amy, The Crime of the Nude, Winterthur Portfolio (2014), at 266.Google Scholar

galvanized opposition from prominent artists, public intellectuals, and respectable organizations. Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 264–266.Google Scholar

in character and effect a very different thing.” Comstock, Morals Versus Art, supra, at 9–10; Beisel, supra, at 176–177.Google Scholar

the siren song of titillating art could be confined in galleries. Comstock, Morals Versus Art, supra, at 8–9.Google Scholar

it served the interests of his wealthy benefactors. Beisel, supra, at 185–187.Google Scholar

“a social nuisance almost as pestilent as that which he exists to abate.” Mr. Comstock’s Censorship, New York Times, Mar. 24, 1888, at 4; Beisel, supra, at 190.Google Scholar

released Comstock’s letters and his response to the press. Werbel, Lust on Trial, supra, at 192193; Beisel, supra, at 178–189.Google Scholar

“he was not dissuaded from his campaign against the arts.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 225; Beisel, supra, at 176, 187–193.Google Scholar

“influencing 60,000 young girls annually to turn to lives of shame.” Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 251, 255, 271; Werbel, Lust on Trial, supra, at 268–272, 277.Google Scholar

a nineteen-year-old bookkeeper who handed him a copy of the journal. Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 250–251; Werbel, Lust on Trial, supra, at 272.Google Scholar

destroyed somewhere between 2,500 and 3,650 copies of the League’s pamphlet. Bates, supra, at 178–179; Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 272; Werbel, Lust on Trial, supra, at 278.Google Scholar

“to anyone who happened to call for them.” Trumbull, supra, at 130–131.Google Scholar

whenever they could find space on a wall for a sketch.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 216–219; Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 256; Werbel, Lust on Trial, supra, at 272–274.Google Scholar

with even Life magazine getting in on the fun. Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 256–257; Werbel, Lust on Trial, supra, at 273–274.Google Scholar

“preposterous pruriency.” Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 268.Google Scholar

after the League’s lawyer cut a backroom deal to allow destruction of the journals. Trumbull, supra, at 175–179; Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 272–273; Werbel, Lust on Trial, supra, at 277.Google Scholar

even before the trial began. Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 273.Google Scholar

but when they break out, they must be suppressed.” Bates, supra, at 179.Google Scholar

I’ll confiscate your whole stock.” Comstock Dooms September Morning, New York Times, May 11, 1913, at 1.Google Scholar

if I have to spend the value of my entire stock in contesting the point with Mr. Comstock.” Comstock Dooms September Morning, supra, at 1.Google Scholar

because the crowds around the display window kept paying customers from entering the shop. Wearies of Waiting a Comstock Arrest, New York Times, May 15, 1913, at 7.Google Scholar

the Fair’s committee of “Lady Managers,” no further action was taken. Cairo Dances to Go, New York World, Aug. 5, 1893, at 3; Broun and Leech, supra, at 225–228.Google Scholar

can be viewed on YouTube to this day. Little Egypt 1896 (http://youtu.be/zxZoXJBILbc).Google Scholar

Comstock’s objection was that the book dealt with sexual anatomy. Bates, supra, at 79.Google Scholar

“more offensive to decency” than the smut he suppressed. Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 158.Google Scholar

“no reputable physician has ever been prosecuted under these laws.” Hopkins, Birth Control and Public Morals: An Interview with Anthony Comstock, supra, at 489–490.Google Scholar

Abbey was convicted and given a light sentence, although it was never carried out. Bennett, D. M., An open Letter to Samuel Colgate 30–32 (New York: D. M. Bennett, Liberal Publisher, 1879).Google Scholar

provided information on birth control in his publications. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 39; Bates, supra, at 155.Google Scholar

to oppose his 1872 legislative proposal to the New York assembly for an obscenity law. Wood, Janice Ruth, The Struggle for Free Speech in the United States 1872–1915 3–4, 62–83 (New York: Routledge Press, 2008).Google Scholar

Comstock ordered a copy of a Foote pamphlet entitled Words in Pearl. Bates, supra, at 155–156.Google Scholar

Comstock obtained a copy of the pamphlet using a decoy letter and arrested Foote. Wood, supra, at 53–56.Google Scholar

it would “afford an easy way of nullifying the law.” United States v. Foote, 25 F. Cas. 1140 (SDNY 1876).Google Scholar

Foote was convicted and fined $3,500. Bates, supra, at 156; Bennett, Champions of the Church, supra, at 1039.Google Scholar

(although some suggest that he just became more subtle about it). Wood, supra, at 36.Google Scholar

300,000 copies of his popular home guide Medical Common Sense between 1858 and 1876. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 40.Google Scholar

(or the blame, depending on your outlook). Wood, supra, at 5, 62–64.Google Scholar

continued to wage battles for freedom of expression in the early twentieth century. Wood, supra, at 76–81.Google Scholar

in 1873 alone he arrested thirty-five people for advocating contraceptives and secured twenty-five convictions. Bates, supra, at 154.Google Scholar

beginning with her 1878 arrest for selling “a certain article … made of India Rubber and sponge.” Bates, supra, at 166; Wood, supra, at 89.Google Scholar

once again the district attorney declined prosecution. Bennett, An Open Letter to Samuel Colgate, supra, at 35–36.Google Scholar

As before, the grand jury cleared her of the charge. Bates, supra, at 166–168.Google Scholar

Sieckel was sentenced to a $500 fine and a year in prison. Bates, supra, at 103–104.Google Scholar

“Is it not time to defy this law?” Margaret Sanger, The Woman Rebel (Jul. 1914), at 5; Bates, supra, at 198.Google Scholar

“No Gods or Masters.” William Sanger to Fight in Court for Birth Control, New York Times, Sept. 5, 1915.Google Scholar

not just deemed unmailable; they were confiscated. Sanger, Margaret, Comstockery in America, International Socialist Review (1915), at 46–49.Google Scholar

Sanger had 100,000 copies of the small pamphlet distributed to factories and mines throughout the country. Sanger, Comstockery in America, supra.Google Scholar

Can’t everybody, whether rich or poor, learn to control themselves?” Broun and Leech, supra, at 249.Google Scholar

I decided to take an indefinite postponement and left for London.” Sanger, Comstockery in America, supra; Bates, supra, at 198–199.Google Scholar

he looked for a copy “as a special favor to a friend of his wife.” William Sanger to Fight in Court for Birth Control, New York Times, Sept. 5, 1915.Google Scholar

the man returned with Comstock, who promptly arrested Sanger. Sanger, Comstockery in America, supra; Bates, supra, at 198–199; LaMay, supra, at 54–55.Google Scholar

Sanger “lived separate from his family with many artists in the house.” Bates, supra, at 199.Google Scholar

including Alexander Berkman and labor activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, later a founding member of the ACLU. Disorder in Court as Sanger Is Fined, New York Times, Sept. 11, 1915.Google Scholar

they would be rendering society a greater service.” Disorder in Court as Sanger Is Fined, New York Times, Sept. 11, 1915; Broun and Leech, supra, at 249.Google Scholar

“a heinous criminal who sought to turn every home into a brothel.” LaMay, supra, at 54–55; Bates, supra, at 200.Google Scholar

I have disregarded the threat.” Disorder in Court as Sanger Is Fined, New York Times, Sept. 11, 1915.Google Scholar

Family Limitation was indecent, immoral, and a menace to society. Bates, supra, at 200.Google Scholar

“Then,” Judge McInerney responded, “you will go to jail.” Disorder in Court as Sanger Is Fined, New York Times, Sept. 11, 1915; Broun and Leech, supra, at 250; Bates, supra, at 200.Google Scholar

struggled to clear the crowd into the corridor. Disorder in Court as Sanger Is Fined, New York Times, Sept. 11, 1915.Google Scholar

far short of the one-year imprisonment and $1,000 fine that could have been imposed. William Sanger to Fight in Court for Birth Control, New York Times, Sept. 5, 1915.Google Scholar

“as fast as one circulator was arrested[,] another would step forward and take his place.” Disorder in Court as Sanger Is Fined, New York Times, Sept. 11, 1915.Google Scholar

on September 21, 1915, the old crusader died. Broun and Leech, supra, at 258–259; Bates, supra, at 200.Google Scholar

“and from his successful efforts to convict William Sanger.” Anthony Comstock Dies in His Crusade, New York Times, Sept. 22, 1915, at 1.Google Scholar

“served for forty years as the national line between virtue and vice.” Werbel, Amy, Searching for Smut, Common-Place (Oct. 2010).Google Scholar

and made himself the first of its kept professors.” Mencken, A Book of Prefaces, supra, at 255, 260.Google Scholar

“the foremost policeman of private vices in America’s Gilded Age.” LaMay, Craig L., America’s Censor: Anthony Comstock and Free Speech, 1 Communications and the Law 41 (Sept. 1997).Google Scholar

“over most of the civilized world.” Hopkins, Mary Alden, Birth Control and Public Morals: An Interview with Anthony Comstock, Harper’s Weekly, May 22, 1915, at 489–490.Google Scholar

a fallen “soldier of righteousness,” Broun and Leech, supra, at 259.Google Scholar

“the most spectacular crusader against vice that America has known.” LaMay, supra, at 1–2.Google Scholar

his crusades against books, pictures and plays that he deemed indecent.” Anthony Comstock Dies in His Crusade, New York Times, Sept. 22, 1915, at 1.Google Scholar

“served a good cause with tireless devotion.” Boyer, Paul S., Purity in Print 29 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968).Google Scholar

a conspiracy of silence against certain of the major concerns of mankind.” Van Doren, Carl, Why the Editorial Board Chose This Book, 3 Wings (New York: The Literary Guild of America, Inc., 1927).Google Scholar

fornication, adultery, pornography, contraception, easy divorce, abortion, and sodomy.” Carlson, Allan, Pure Visionary, Touchstone – A Journal of Mere Christianity (Jun. 2009);Google Scholar

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This analysis compels the conclusion that same-sex couples may exercise the right to marry. Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 2598 (2015).Google Scholar

so many joking comments by people in Europe as Comstockery in America.” Sanger, Comstockery in America, supra, at 46–49.Google Scholar

“the historical image of Anthony Comstock is more comic than threatening.” Heins, supra, at 29.Google Scholar

“the whipping boy of present day public opinion.” Collier, John, Anthony Comstock – Liberal, Survey, Nov. 6, 1915, at 127.Google Scholar

a mail clerk smarted under the reprimands of this irascible superior.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 145.Google Scholar

at considerable expense, to remove the garment. Comstock at Princeton, New York Times, Mar. 31, 1888; Bates, supra, at 185.Google Scholar

depicting a time in which Comstock’s influence caused even horses, dogs, and birds to wear trousers. Gibson, Charles Dana, A Scene in the Moral Future, Life, Jan. 12, 1888.Google Scholar

the advertiser was thrilled by the notoriety. A Shock to Sir Anthony, New York Times, Dec. 28, 1895.Google Scholar

“not at all libidinous.” Cairo Dances to Go, The World, Aug. 5, 1893, at 5; Broun and Leech, supra, at 227.Google Scholar

“at best, laughable,” and “at worst, revolting.” Mencken, H. L., The Emperor of Wowsers, New York Herald Tribune, Mar. 6, 1927.Google Scholar

single-handedly fought the battle for national purity … and won.” Kevin Peeples, Anthony Comstock: Fighter (2014).Google Scholar

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he dramatically curtailed the pornography industry, and nearly eliminated both abortion and contraception.” Scott Matthew Dix, When Contraception Was Outlawed! (editor’s preface to Outlawed! How Anthony Comstock Fought and Won the Purity of a Nation, supra, at xviii, xxi).Google Scholar

“makes for wickedly amusing reading today.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 443.Google Scholar

Comstock “both embodied and caricatured the moral sense of his epoch.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at xxxi).Google Scholar

halfway between that enjoyed by phrenology and that enjoyed by homosexuality.” Mencken, The Emperor of Wowsers, supra.Google Scholar

America is a provincial place, a second rate country town civilization after all.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 229–230.Google Scholar

for personally covering up advertisements for the Metropolitan Museum of Art that offended him. Comstockery, New York Times, Dec. 12, 1895; LaMay, supra, at 29–30; Broun and Leech, supra, at 231.Google Scholar

exercised their talents on the noted Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.” Anthony Comstock Dies in His Crusade, supra, at 1, 6.Google Scholar

“[m]ost people don’t even like the word – especially the censors.” Gardner, Gerald, The Censorship Papers xi (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1987).Google Scholar

far more harm to women than pornographic pictures.” Bates, supra, at vii.Google Scholar

everyone wants to know how you got into the business.” Vizzard, Jack, See No Evil 9 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970).Google Scholar

“strange or hypocritical to mention freedom of expression in the same breath with censorship.” Schneider, Alfred, The Gatekeeper 5 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001).Google Scholar

if we have the eyes to read them.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 192.Google Scholar

the ridicule that was heaped on Comstock began at the very outset of his vigilante career. Anthony Comstock Dies in His Crusade, supra, at 6.Google Scholar

“if the policy of suppression is pushed to extremes.” The Suppression of Vice, The North American review 484–501 (Nov. 1882).Google Scholar

whose methods were displeasing to saints.” Bremner, supra, at xvi.Google Scholar

did not always sit well with other reformers. Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 317–366.Google Scholar

he thinks no one has the right to work for social purity without first obtaining permission from him.” Bremner, supra, at xxvi–xxvii.Google Scholar

depicted a Victorian gentleman stoking a bonfire with books. Boyer, supra, at 250.Google Scholar

changed its name to the Society to Maintain Public Decency. Gertzman, Jay A., John Saxton Sumner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice: A Chief Smut-Eradicator of the Interwar Period, 14 Journal of American Culture 41–47 (Jun. 1994).Google Scholar

and whose self-hatred stemmed from an obsession with masturbation Ernst and Schwartz, supra, at 29–30.Google Scholar

the “hard, incontrovertible experience of a Puritan farm-boy, in executive session behind the barn. Mencken, The Emperor of Wowsers, supra.Google Scholar

the impulses of cruelty arise concurrently with the stirrings of sex emotion.” Bates, supra, at 191.Google Scholar

the laws he had made his especial concern.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 191.Google Scholar

instead each prayer or Hymn seemed to add to my misery.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 39.Google Scholar

the zealot treated anything remotely connected with sex as a public danger. Broun and Leech, supra, at 201.Google Scholar

compared them to “wild animals” that must be “caged.” Bates, supra, at 179.Google Scholar

and it became a lifelong habit. Haney, Robert W., Comstockery in America 19 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960).Google Scholar

some man of desperate fortunes and ambiguous character.” Bennett, D. M., Champions of the Church: Their Crimes and Persecutions 1014 (New York: Liberal and Scientific Publishing House, 1878).Google Scholar

destructive to individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution of our country.” Bennett, Champions of the Church, supra, at 1014.Google Scholar

many thousands of people had seen the photos that otherwise would have been unknown to them. What Is the Streisand Effect?, The Economist, Apr. 16, 2013; Streisand v. Adelman, SC-077-257 (Cal. Super. Ct., Dec. 31, 2003).Google Scholar

her name is now forever associated with comically misguided censorship efforts. Rogers, Paul, Streisand’s Home Becomes Hit on Web, San Jose Mercury News, Jun. 24, 2003.Google Scholar

and described the encounter as “sad and ludicrous.” Comstock, Vampire Literature, supra, at 160–161; LaMay, supra, at 29.Google Scholar

put art on page one.” Werbel, Amy, The Crime of the Nude, Winterthur Portfolio (2014), at 267.Google Scholar

“the advertising agents of sex.” Morris Ernst, Sex Wins in America, The Nation, Aug. 10, 1932, at 123.Google Scholar

to see which one can excel the others in unclean stories.” Comstock, Vampire Literature, supra, at 160–161.Google Scholar

invited Comstock to attend rehearsals at the Garrick Theatre. Comstock at It Again, New York Times, Oct. 25, 1905.Google Scholar

Comstock went to court to block the “obscene” performances, but was unsuccessful. Broun and Leech, supra, at 232–234.Google Scholar

with overflow audiences and tickets fetching premium prices. Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 349.Google Scholar

city police had to call out the reserves to manage the crowds. Broun and Leech, supra, at 232.Google Scholar

a confrontation captured in a tongue-in-cheek front-page New York Times account. Broun and Leech, supra, at 238.Google Scholar

that story mutated and eventually took on a life of its own. Comstock Dooms September Morning, New York Times, May 11, 1913, at 1.Google Scholar

was said to spiral from $35 to $10,000. Bates, supra, at 181.Google Scholar

a lithograph that had been rejected as a brewer’s calendar became an overnight sensation. Reichenbach, Harry, Phantom Fame: The Anatomy of Ballyhoo (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1931).Google Scholar

he was not looking for work at the time but was already an established publicist, Washington Post, Aug. 24, 1913; The September Morn Hoax (http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_september_morn_hoax).Google Scholar

to prosecute a small art store for selling copies of the print. September Morn Pits Her Beauty Against Censors, Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar. 21, 1913, at 1; September Morn Wins Case, Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar. 22, 1913, at 3.Google Scholar

but was rebuffed by the courts. Broun and Leech, supra, at 238; Doherty, James, The Story of Bathhouse John, Chicago Sunday Tribune, May 24, 1953, at 6.Google Scholar

“might work havoc in the minds of her pupils passing that way.” September Morn Stirs Mr. Comstock, The La Crosse Tribune, May 13, 1913.Google Scholar

people went into the print publishing business merely for the sake of handling this picture.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 239.Google Scholar

copies of the print were on sale in every part of the United States. Anthony Comstock Dies in His Crusade, supra, at 6.Google Scholar

one of the most famous and popular paintings of the twentieth century. The September Morn Hoax (http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_september_morn_hoax).Google Scholar

it grew over time to include mainstream publishers, artists, doctors, and merchants. Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 250.Google Scholar

as to reach and corrupt the young and inexperienced.” Comstock, Vampire Literature, supra, at 167–168.Google Scholar

according to conscience, men may be found ready to fight and suffer.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 188–189; Werbel, The Crime of the Nude, supra, at 266, 269.Google Scholar

the insidious repression of the liberties of the people.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 189–190.Google Scholar

to end the Comstock Act and to defend those prosecuted under it. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 40.Google Scholar

to violate the true and constitutional liberty of the press.” National Liberal League, Indignation Meeting Minutes 6 (Boston, MA: Benjamin R. Tucker, 1878).Google Scholar

by their own particular opinion or notion of morality and immorality.” Bennett, Champions of the Church, supra, at 1016.Google Scholar

still this would be no protection to the next vendor of the book.” Schroeder, Theodore S., Obscene Literature and Constitutional Law: A Forensic Defense of Freedom of the Press 313–314 (New York, 1911).Google Scholar

and not to dwell just on what prosecutors thought were the naughty bits. United States v. Bennett, 24 F. Cas. 1093, 1099–1100 (2nd Cir. 1879).Google Scholar

to protect free speech for all, regardless of viewpoint. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 44–45.Google Scholar

and essential to our existence as a free people.” Free Speech or Slavery, Lucifer: The Light Bearer, Jun. 22, 1905, at 327.Google Scholar

was an organizer and major funder of the League. Wood, Janice Ruth, The Struggle for Free Speech in the United States 1872–1915 62–83 (New York: Routledge, 2008); Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 47–49.Google Scholar

a principled commitment to free expression for all viewpoints on all subjects.” Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 76.Google Scholar

having “done more for free expression in America than any other.” Boyer, supra, at 41; Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 54.Google Scholar

blasphemy, censorship of the mails, the Alien and Sedition Acts, free speech for radicals, advertising, and sex censorship. Theodore Schroeder on Free Speech: A Bibliography 1–24 (Stankey-Jones, Nancy E., ed., Free Speech League, 1919); Boyer, supra, at 41–43.Google Scholar

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was well ahead of its time. Schroeder, Obscene Literature and Constitutional Law: A Forensic Defense of Freedom of the Press, supra.Google Scholar

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a gathering of social reformers billed as a united national effort to promote public virtue. The Elementary School Teacher (Sept. 1906–Jun. 1907), at 100.Google Scholar

debated the legitimacy of obscenity laws via extensive correspondence. Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 364; Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra, at 74.Google Scholar

even Biblical quotations and passages from Uncle Tom’s Cabin were not safe from the censors. Schroeder, Theodore S., Freedom of the Press and “Obscene” Literature: Three Essays 732 (Free Speech League, 1906).Google Scholar

He was said to be too ill to attend. Purity Debate One-Sided: Anthony Comstock Fails to Meet His Opponent, Chicago Daily Tribune, Oct. 11, 1906, at 2.Google Scholar

to prevent “suppression of any scientific and educational purity literature.” Schroeder, Freedom of the Press and “Obscene” Literature, supra, at 7–32.Google Scholar

“a new epoch among purity workers.” Flower, B. O. (editorial), reprinted in Free Speech Anthology 167–171 (New York: Free Speech League, 1909) (Theodore S. Schroeder, ed.); Gurstein, supra, at 128.Google Scholar

by the words, ‘obscene, lewd, or lascivious.’” United States v. Kennerley, 209 F. 119, 120–121 (SDNY 1913); Broun and Leech, supra, at 241–242.Google Scholar

The jury ultimately acquitted the publisher of the obscenity charge. Boyer, supra, at 46–48.Google Scholar

that spawned Comstock’s New York Society for the Suppression of Vice decades earlier. Weinrib, Laura, The Sex Side of Civil Liberties: United States v. Dennett and the Changing Face of Free Speech, University of Chicago Public Law & Legal Theory Working Paper, No. 385 (2012), at 340–341, 344.Google Scholar

“much chaste poetry and fiction, as well as many useful medical works would be under the ban.” United States v. Dennett, 39 F. 2d 564, 568–569 (2nd Cir. 1930).Google Scholar

“it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season spring.” United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses”, 5 F. Supp. 182, 183–184 (SDNY 1933).Google Scholar

because it was not written with “pornographic intent.” One Book Called “Ulysses,” 5 F. Supp. at 183–184.Google Scholar

“does not affect the tendency of a book or picture” to corrupt. Comstock, Morals Versus Art, supra, at 4, 26.Google Scholar

“if sold in such a manner as to reach and corrupt the young and inexperienced.” Comstock, Vampire Literature, supra, at 167.Google Scholar

and that, Judge Hand concluded, could not be what Congress had in mind. United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce, 72 F. 2d 705, 706–708 (2nd Cir. 1934).Google Scholar

They are protected by law, while art, if unclean, is not.” Comstock, Morals Versus Art, supra, at 4–5.Google Scholar

and his book as “an amazing tour de force.” One Book Called “Ulysses,” 5 F. Supp. at 184.Google Scholar

It turned a cultural insurgency into a civic virtue of a free and open society.” Birmingham, Kevin, The Most Dangerous Book 12 (New York: Penguin Press, 2014).Google Scholar

the right to experiment with a new technique.” One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce, 72 F. 2d at 706, 708.Google Scholar

it was his duty “to act as observer and recorder, not as regulator.” People on Complaint of Sumner v. Miller, 155 Misc. 446, 446–448 (City Magistrate’s Court of New York, 1935).Google Scholar

sold by the retailers and reviewed by the press.” Ernst, Morris, Sex Wins in America, The Nation, Aug. 10, 1932, at 124.Google Scholar

it is one of the vital problems of human interest and public concern.” Roth v. United States, 354 US 476, 487 (1957).Google Scholar

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“no such verdict could convince me, without more, that these books are ‘utterly without redeeming social importance.’” Roth, 354 US at 498 (Harlan, J., dissenting in part).Google Scholar

“literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.” Roth, 354 US at 509–514 (Douglas, J., dissenting).Google Scholar

it lives on, albeit in a greatly diminished form. Kinsley, Jennifer, The Myth of Obsolete Obscenity, 33 Cardozo Arts & Entertainment L. J. 607 (2015).Google Scholar

“I know it when I see it.” Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 US 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring).Google Scholar

can reduce the vagueness to a tolerable level.” Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slayton, 413 US 49, 84 (1973) (Brennan, J., dissenting).Google Scholar

to grapple with hard questions about obscenity’s relevance to a global medium. Corn-Revere, Robert, Cyberspace Cases Force Court to Reexamine Basic Assumptions of Obscenity and Child Pornography Jurisprudence, Cato Supreme Court Rev. 115–148 (2002).Google Scholar

prosecutions can be used to limit the availability of adult entertainment and to force local businesses to shut down. Kinsley, supra, at 639–642.Google Scholar

a law that threatened “to torch a large segment of the Internet community.” Reno v. ACLU, 521 US 844, 875, 882 (1997).Google Scholar

at least to the younger generation – a “joke” and a “scapegoat.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 244.Google Scholar

“You are nothing but a little boy trying to tell me my business!” Broun and Leech, supra, at 251–252.Google Scholar

had struck Comstock in response to being called a liar. Broun and Leech, supra, at 252–253.Google Scholar

Sumner would later write that he had been hired to replace the crotchety crusader. LaMay, supra, at 42–43.Google Scholar

They also wanted someone who avoided publicity. Broun and Leech, supra, at 256, 258.Google Scholar

impressed everyone with his even temper. Gertzman, supra; Boyer, supra, at 30.Google Scholar

naturally, he and Comstock fought often. LaMay, supra, at 43.Google Scholar

remained in that post for thirty-five years. Gertzman, supra.Google Scholar

Sumner had taken on the role of running the organization. Anthony Comstock Dies in His Crusade, supra, at 6; Broun and Leech, supra, at 257–258.Google Scholar

his wife’s pro-birth control pamphlet, Family Limitation. Bates, supra, at 199.Google Scholar

the old man’s fraying reputation and buoying his sagging spirits. Broun and Leech, supra, at 258; Bates, supra, at 199; Boyer, supra, at 28.Google Scholar

within ten days died of pneumonia. Anthony Comstock Dies in His Crusade, supra, at 1, 6.Google Scholar

Comstock dictated notes for use by the Society up until the day before his death. Broun and Leech, supra, at 259.Google Scholar

documenting Comstock’s deep-rooted neuroses. Broun and Leech, supra, at 46–58, 63–74, 77–78, 131–144, 178, 261; Ernst and Schwartz, supra, at 29–30.Google Scholar

to keep them from “falling into the wrong hands.” Johnson, Richard Christian, Anthony Comstock: Reform, Vice, and the American Way 5, n. 4 (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1973); LaMay, supra, at 4.Google Scholar

The bad news, of course, was that he never rose again. Schroeder, A Challenge to the Sex Censors, supra, at 16–17.Google Scholar

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no longer even mentions Comstock. The Evergreen Cemetery (www.theevergreenscemetery.org/).Google Scholar

simplistic and quick-fix solutions. Cohen, Stanley, Folk Devils and Moral Panics 1 (London: Routledge, 3rd ed., 2002).Google Scholar

“may trace the commencement of their career in crime to their attendance in Penny Theatres.” James Grant, Sketches in London (1838); Springhall, John, Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics 9, 38–58, 75, 93 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).Google Scholar

blame dime novels for virtually all the antisocial behavior exhibited by the youth of the period. Blanchard, Margaret A., The American Urge to Censor: Freedom of Expression Versus the Desire to Sanitize Society – From Anthony Comstock to 2 Live Crew, 33 William & Mary Law Rev. 741–851 (1992).Google Scholar

we can expect campaigns to ban or censor it. Springhall, supra, at 7.Google Scholar

the cycle of outrage in the typical moral panic. Drotner, Kirsten, Modernity and Moral Panics, in Media Cultures: Reappraising Transitional Media 52 (Schroder, Michael Skovmand and Christian, Kim, eds., 1992).Google Scholar

fund the American Museum of Natural History. Boyer, Paul S., Purity in Print 12–16 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968).Google Scholar

normal fixtures on the philanthropic landscape. Boyer, supra, at 12–16.Google Scholar

are to be relentlessly proscribed.” Howe, Julia Ward, The Influence of Literature Upon Crime, Papers and Letters Presented at the First Women’s Congress of the American Association for the Advancement of Women 13, 15, 17 (New York: American Association for the Advancement of Women, 1874).Google Scholar

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in praising the campaign against “salacious literature.” Boyer, supra, at 24–25.Google Scholar

to cleanse newsstands and drugstore magazine racks of ‘objectionable’ material.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at vii.Google Scholar

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firmly believed “in himself and in his work to the end.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 244, 259.Google Scholar

a “barrier between youth and moral death.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 425.Google Scholar

“contrary not only to the law of the State, but to the law of God.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 249.Google Scholar

“in the hope that the blind be made to see and the erring to correct their ways.” Comstock, Vampire Literature, supra, at 171.Google Scholar

neither the intellect nor [the] judgment to decide what is wisest and best for themselves.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 6.Google Scholar

“I cannot expect to have better treatment than our blessed Master.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 7.Google Scholar

“you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart.” Abrams v. United States, 250 US 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting).Google Scholar

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“eternal vigilance is the price of moral purity.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 433.Google Scholar

according to Comstock, “defending ‘this, their dear obscenity.’” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 508; Broun and Leech, supra, at 191.Google Scholar

their actions were based on “revenge, avarice, and innate depravity.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 393.Google Scholar

“naturally favor the impure and base.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 196–197.Google Scholar

the “enemies of moral purity.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 418.Google Scholar

a means of persecution, terrorism and blackmail.” Mencken, A Book of Prefaces, supra, at 251.Google Scholar

Comstock bragged that he was responsible for at least fifteen suicides. Broun and Leech, supra, at 192–193; LaMay, supra, at 18; Morone, James A., Hellfire Nation 230 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

asserted that some of the names on the petition were forgeries. Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 192–193, 226.Google Scholar

describing his advocacy as “sneering, scoffing, and blasphemous lectures.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 187.Google Scholar

“a scoundrel whom I caught committing a felony.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 194.Google Scholar

created merely “to defend those so charged.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 185.Google Scholar

to help “keep undesirable classes from our shores.” New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Second Annual report 11 (Jan. 27, 1876); New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Thirty-Fifth Annual report 16 (1909); LaMay, supra, at 34–35; Blanchard and Semonche, supra, at 346.Google Scholar

“little better than histories of brothels and prostitutes, in those lust-cursed nations.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 179.Google Scholar

“see no reason why we should have the sewerage of Great Britain dumped on our shores.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 224, 248–249.Google Scholar

a “foreign writer of filth.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 18, 235–236; Boyer, supra, at 24–25.Google Scholar

all the invective that his violent nature and colorful imagination suggested.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 150.Google Scholar

a post he shared with “rattlesnakes and other poisonous dangers.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 19.Google Scholar

protect the young of our land from the leprosy of this vile trash.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 123.Google Scholar

more dangerous beasts of prey than rabid dogs. Broun and Leech, supra, at 42–43, 86.Google Scholar

Its breath is fetid, and its touch moral prostration and death.” Comstock, Morals Versus Art, supra, 11–12.Google Scholar

or lighting matches in a powder magazine. Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 228.Google Scholar

while he was just a “weeder in the garden of the Lord.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 396, 414; Bates, supra, at 3.Google Scholar

away from the ‘Lamb of God which taketh away sins of the world.’” Hopkins, Mary Alden, Birth Control and Public Morals: An Interview with Anthony Comstock, Harper’s Weekly, May 22, 1915, at 490; Broun and Leech, supra, at 416–417.Google Scholar

“open to every insidious teacher, and subject to every bad influence.” Comstock, Vampire Literature, supra, at 162; Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 416–417.Google Scholar

the filth will all pour in and the degradation of youth will follow.” Hopkins, supra, at 489–490.Google Scholar

“cursed as thousands of the present day are, with secret vices.” Anthony Comstock, Morals Versus Art, supra, at 9.Google Scholar

“seventy-five if not ninety percent of our young men are victims of self-abuse.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 154.Google Scholar

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the very best medical advice and for the protection of women’s health.” Carlson, supra.Google Scholar

break down the health of women and disseminate a greater curse than the plagues and diseases of Europe.” Hopkins, supra, at 489–490.Google Scholar

from the infection or seduction of this class of crime-breeding publications.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 26–37.Google Scholar

theories about the pernicious effects of dime novels. Boyer, supra, at 17–18.Google Scholar

courts would be unable to keep up with the literature-induced crime wave. Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 26–37; Comstock, Vampire Literature, supra, at 164–166.Google Scholar

which was very frequently, that fact was bruited about.” Mencken, The Emperor of Wowsers, supra.Google Scholar

a thing “from which to weave headlines.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 244.Google Scholar

“if one may borrow a stage term, ‘created’ his unique position.” Hopkins, supra, at 489–490.Google Scholar

have been in reality the accomplishments of Mr. Comstock.” Hopkins, supra, at 489.Google Scholar

are invaded by the evil of licentious literature.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 41, 133, 136.Google Scholar

“a devil-trap to captivate the child by perverting taste and fancy.” Comstock Traps for the Young, supra, at 6, 12, 28.Google Scholar

associated with thieves, murderers, libertines, and harlots.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 13, 15–16.Google Scholar

make foul-mouthed bullies, cheats, vagabonds, thieves, desperados, and libertines.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 21, 25.Google Scholar

“should be named ‘recruiting stations for hell.’” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 48–49.Google Scholar

the harvest of this seed-sowing of the Evil one.” Broun and Leech, supra, at 80–81.Google Scholar

then reaching out like immense cuttlefish, draw in, from all sides, our youth to destruction.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 133, 136.Google Scholar

although there is no telling who said it first. Twain, Mark, Chapters from My Autobiography – XX, The North American review 471 (1907).Google Scholar

to fill a long passenger train of more than sixty coaches, Broun and Leech, supra, at 15–16; Blanchard, supra; LaMay, supra; Morone, supra, at 230; Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, supra.Google Scholar

almost 3,000 people for a total of “565 years, 11 months, and 20 days.” Hopkins, supra, at 489–490.Google Scholar

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and ruin a good man’s name and reputation.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 392.Google Scholar

was to see who could say the bitterest things against the present writer.” Comstock, Traps for the Young, supra, at 185.Google Scholar

yet I have received nothing but misrepresentation, odium, and abuse.” Comstock, Frauds Exposed, supra, at 5–6.Google Scholar

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stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime.” New York Penal Law § 1141(2).Google Scholar

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moral panics that even predated Comstock. Springhall, John, Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics 1–97 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).Google Scholar

a “national crime against our children.” Hajdu, supra, at 11–13.Google Scholar

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“the greatest mass influence on children.” Wertham, Fredric, The Comics … Very Funny!, The Saturday Review of Literature, May 29, 1948, at 8.Google Scholar

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and (incidentally), “bred juvenile delinquency.” Comic Books Held Harmful to Youth, New York Times, May 5, 1948, at 35; Sternheimer, supra, at 81; Lepore, supra, at 264–271.Google Scholar

“intellectual marijuana” and harbingers of cultural doom. Mannes, Marya, Junior Has a Craving, New Republic, Feb. 17, 1947, at 20–23; Wright, supra, at 91.Google Scholar

their loathing of such popular culture was unbounded. Tilley, Carol L., Seducing the Innocent: Fredric Wertham and the Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics. 47 Information & Culture: A Journal of History 404 (2012); Springhall, supra, at 132–133; Hajdu, supra, at 231; Sternheimer, supra, at 75; Wright, supra, at 91–94; Nyberg, supra, at 94.Google Scholar

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read comics of various kinds, and discuss them with their children. Zorbaugh, Harvey and Gilman, Mildred, What Can YOU Do about Comic Books?, Family Circle, Feb. 1949 at 61–63.Google Scholar

for increasing the level and intensity of juvenile crime. Wertham, Fredric, What Parents Don’t Know about Comic Books, Ladies’ Home Journal, Nov. 1953, at 50–53, 215–217.Google Scholar

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in Spencer, West Virginia garnered national press coverage. Wright, supra, at 86–87; Hajdu, supra, at 115–127.Google Scholar

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lighting the bonfire in Victory Park. Hajdu, supra, at 148.Google Scholar

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if the language of the statute is sufficiently precise to pass constitutional muster. Winters, 333 US at 520.Google Scholar

a long list of specified crimes from murder to “mayhem.” Hajdu, supra, at 104–108. See Regulation of Comic Books, supra, at 501, n. 92.Google Scholar

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Asbury Park, New Jersey, Santa Cruz, California, and Birmingham, Alabama. Sternheimer, supra, at 105.Google Scholar

who opined that rock and roll was a “contagious disease.” “Rock ’n’ Roll” Stage Show Frantic, Noisy, LA Times, Nov. 4, 1955, B9.Google Scholar

called rock “cannibalistic and tribalistic,” comparing it to a “communicable disease.” Altschuler, Glenn C., All Shook Up: How Rock ’n’ Roll Changed America 6 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

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the world’s most famous rock ’n’ roll song. Marsh, Dave, Louie Louie (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1995/2004).Google Scholar

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he announced a statewide ban on both radio play and live performances of the song. Faggen, Gil, Indiana Gov. Puts Down ‘Pornographic’ Wand Tune, Billboard, Feb. 1, 1964, at 3. See Marsh, supra, at 124–125; Blecha, supra, at 98.Google Scholar

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involved (although this may have been a subconscious nod to Anthony Comstock). Marsh, supra, at 114–138.Google Scholar

and therefore could not make any decision concerning the matter.” Letter to SAC, Tampa, Feb. 28, 1964, Re: Phonograph Record “Louie, Louie.” Predoehl, The FBI Investigation of the Song “Louie, Louie,” supra.Google Scholar

no one knows for sure how it all started. Marsh, supra, at 118.Google Scholar

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“it is obvious [that] the lyrics to this record are not pornographic or objectionable in any way.” FBI LA Field Office Memo, Aug. 31, 1965. Predoehl, The FBI Investigation of the Song “Louie, Louie,” supra.Google Scholar

Get that Broad out of here! Lyric sheet submitted to FBI Laboratories along with recording of Louie, Louie, Mar. 27, 1964. Predoehl, The FBI Investigation of the Song “Louie, Louie,” supra.Google Scholar

they had heard something “bad,” no matter what words had been sung. Letter to J. Edgar Hoover from [identity redacted], Jun. 18, 1965. Predoehl, The FBI Investigation of the Song “Louie, Louie,” supra.Google Scholar