Chapter IV: Puritanism as a Literary Force (3)

[43] An instructive account of the organization and methods of the Anti-Saloon League, a thoroughly typical Puritan engine, is to be found in Alcohol and Society, by John Koren; New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1916.

[44] U. S. Rep., vol. 242, No. 7, p. 502.

[45] The majority opinion, written by Mr. Justice Day, is given in U. S. Rep., vol. 242, no. 7, pp. 482-496.

[46] New York, (1914).

[47] I quote from page 157 of Anthony Comstock, Fighter, the official biography. On page 239 the number of his prosecutions is given as 3,646, with 2,682 convictions, which works out to but 73 per cent. He is credited with having destroyed 50 tons of books, 28,425 pounds of stereotype plates, 16,900 photographic negatives, and 3,984,063 photographs--enough to fill "sixteen freight cars, fifteen loaded with ten tons each, and the other nearly full."

[48] By Charles Gallaudet Trumbull; New York, Fleming H. Revell Co. (1913).

[49] An example: "All the evil men in New York cannot harm a hair of my head, were it not the will of God. If it be His will, what right have I or any one to say aught? I am only a speck, a mite, before God, yet not a hair of my head can be harmed unless it be His will. Oh, to live, to feel, to be--Thy will be done!" (pp. 84-5). Again: "I prayed that, if my bill might not pass, I might go back to New York submissive to God's will, feeling that it was for the best. I asked for forgiveness and asked that my bill might pass, if possible; but over and above all, that the will of God be done" (p. 6). Nevertheless, Comstock neglected no chance to apply his backstairs pressure to the members of both Houses.

[50] Now, with amendments, sections 211, 212 and 245 of the United States Criminal Code.

[51] _Vide_ Anthony Comstock, Fighter, pp. 81, 85, 94.

[52] Now sections 1141, 1142 and 1143 of the Penal Laws of New York.

[53] U. S. _vs._ Casper, reported in the _Twentieth Century_, Feb. 11, 1892.

[54] The trial court dodged the issue by directing the jury to find the prisoner not guilty on the ground of insanity. The necessary implication, of course, was that the publication complained of was actually obscene. In 1895, one Wise, of Clay Center, Kansas, sent a quotation from the Bible through the mails, and was found guilty of mailing obscene matter. See The Free Press Anthology, compiled by Theodore Schroeder; New York, Truth Seeker Pub. Co., 1909, p. 258.

[55] U. S. _vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 368-9 (1877).

[56] _Idem_, 362; People _vs._ Muller, 96 N. Y., 411; U. S. _vs._ Clark, 38 Fed. Rep. 734.

[57] U. S. _vs._ Moore, 129 Fed., 160-1 (1904).

[58] U. S. _vs._ Heywood, judge's charge, Boston, 1877. Quoted in U. S. _vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford.

[59] U. S. _vs._ Slenker, 32 Fed. Rep., 693; People _vs._ Muller, 96 N. Y. 408-414; Anti-Vice Motion Picture Co. _vs._ Bell, reported in the _New York Law Journal_, Sept. 22, 1916; Sociological Research Film Corporation _vs._ the City of New York, 83 Misc. 815; Steele _vs._ Bannon, 7 L. R. C. L. Series, 267; U. S. _vs._ Means, 42 Fed. Rep. 605, etc.

[60] U. S. _vs._ Cheseman, 19 Fed. Rep., 597 (1884).

[61] People _vs._ Muller, 96 N. Y., 413.

[62] U. S. _vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 368-9.

[63] U. S. _vs._ Smith, 45 Fed. Rep. 478.

[64] U. S. _vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 360-1; People _vs._ Berry, 1 N. Y., Crim. R., 32.

[65] People _vs._ Muller, 32 Hun., 212-215.

[66] U. S. _vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 361.

[67] U. S. _vs._ Moore, 16 Fed. Rep., 39; U. S. _vs._ Wright, 38 Fed. Rep., 106; U. S. _vs._ Dorsey, 40 Fed. Rep., 752; U. S. _vs._ Baker, 155 Mass., 287; U. S. _vs._ Grimm, 15 Supreme Court Rep., 472.

[68] Various cases in point are cited in the Brief on Behalf of Plaintiff in Dreiser _vs._ John Lane Co., App. Div. 1st Dept. N. Y., 1917. I cite a few: People _vs._ Eastman, 188 N. Y., 478; U. S. _vs._ Swearingen, 161 U. S., 446; People _vs._ Tylkoff, 212 N. Y., 197; In the matter of Worthington Co., 62 St. Rep. 116-7; St. Hubert Guild _vs._ Quinn, 64 Misc., 336-341. But nearly all such decisions are in New York cases. In the Federal courts the Comstocks usually have their way.

[69] St. Hubert Guild _vs._ Quinn, 64 Misc., 339.

[70] For example, Judge Chas. L. Benedict, sitting in U. S. _vs._ Bennett, _op. cit._ This is a leading case, and the Comstocks make much of it. Nevertheless, a contemporary newspaper denounces Judge Benedict for his "intense bigotry" and alleges that "the only evidence which he permitted to be given was on the side of the prosecution." (Port Jervis, N. Y., _Evening Gazette_, March 22, 1879.) Moreover, a juror in the case, Alfred A. Valentine, thought it necessary to inform the newspapers that he voted guilty only in obedience to judicial instructions.

[71] _Vide_ Newspaper Morals, by H. L. Mencken, the _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1914.

[72] As a fair specimen of the sort of reasoning that prevails among the consecrated brethren I offer the following extract from an argument against birth control delivered by the present active head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice before the Women's City Club of New York, Nov. 17, 1916:

"Natural and inevitable conditions, over which we can have no control, will assert themselves wherever population becomes too dense. This has been exemplified time after time in the history of the world where over-population has been corrected by manifestations of nature or by war, flood or pestilence.... Belgium may have been regarded as an over-populated country. Is it a coincidence that, during the past two years, the territory of Belgium has been devastated and its population scattered throughout the other countries of the world?"

[73] For example, the printed contract of the John Lane Co., publisher of Dreiser's The "Genius," contains this provision: "The author hereby guarantees ... that the work ... contains nothing of a scandalous, an immoral or a libelous nature." The contract for the publication of The "Genius" was signed on July 30, 1914. The manuscript had been carefully read by representatives of the publisher, and presumably passed as not scandalous or immoral, inasmuch as the publication of a scandalous or immoral book would have exposed the publisher to prosecution. About 8,000 copies were sold under this contract. Two years later, in July, 1916, the Society for the Suppression of Vice threatened to begin a prosecution unless the book was withdrawn. It was withdrawn forthwith, and Dreiser was compelled to enter suit for a performance of the contract. The withdrawal, it will be noticed, was not in obedience to a court order, but followed a mere comstockian threat. Yet Dreiser was at once deprived of his royalties, and forced into expensive litigation. Had it not been that eminent counsel volunteered for his defence, his personal means would have been insufficient to have got him even a day in court.

[74] The chief sufferers from this conflict are the authors of moving pictures. What they face at the hands of imbecile State boards of censorship is described at length by Channing Pollock in an article entitled "Swinging the Censor" in the _Bulletin_ of the Authors' League of America for March, 1917.

[75] For example, the magazine which printed David Graham Phillips' Susan Lenox: Her Rise and Fall as a serial prefaced it with a moral encomium by the Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst. Later, when the novel appeared in book form, the Comstocks began an action to have it suppressed, and forced the publisher to bowdlerize it.

[76] An account of a typical prosecution, arbitrary, unintelligent and disingenuous, is to be found in Sumner and Indecency, by Frank Harris, in _Pearson's Magazine_ for June, 1917, p. 556.

[77] For further discussions of this point consult Art in America, by Aleister Crowley, _The English Review_, Nov., 1913; Life, Art and America, by Theodore Dreiser, _The Seven Arts_, Feb., 1917; and The American; His Ideas of Beauty, by H. L. Mencken, _The Smart Set_, Sept., 1913.

[78] _Vide_ The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI, p. 225.

[79] The point is discussed by H. V. Routh in The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI, p. 290.

[80] In Boon; New York, George H. Doran Co., 1915.

[81] In a letter to Felix Shay, Nov. 24, 1916.

INDEX

Abolitionists, 213, 231

Agnosticism, 14, 17

Alden, W. L., on Conrad, 53

"Almayer's Folly," 12, 16, 37, 42, 47, 51, 52, 56, 59

American Bible Society, 239

American mind, 25, 197-8, 207 et seq.

"Amy Foster," 36

Anglo-Saxon point of view, 20-3

Animal behaviour, theory of, 135

"Anthony Comstock, Fighter," 254 _n_, 255 et seq.

Anti-Saloon League, 244 et seq., 249-50

Art Students' League raid, 269

Balzac, H. de, 15, 73, 76, 113, 155, 202, 260

"Banks of the Wabash, The," 106

Beauty, Dreiser on, 126

Benedict, Judge Chas. L., and Comstockery, 267 _n_.

Bennett, Arnold, 19, 26, 32, 48, 62, 78, 104, 137, 142, 143

Bible, declared obscene, 261-2

Bierce, Ambrose, 146, 202, 216, 224

"Blue Sphere, The," 126

_Bohemian Magazine_, 104

Bourne, Randolph, 147 _n_, 158, 237 _n_.

Boynton, H. W., 134, 158

British mind, 25

Brooks, Van Wyck, 134

_Butler, Edward Malia_, 116 et seq., 119

Calvinism, 14, 139, 164, 197 et seq.

Catholicism, Dreiser's, 75

Censorship, theatre, 241; moving picture, 242, 274

_Century Magazine_, 143, 221

"Chance," 37, 48, 56, 60

Chicago Vice Commission, report of, 269

"Children of the Sea," _see_ "Nigger of the Narcissus, The"

"Chopin: the Man and His Music," 166, 169 et seq.

Clemens, S. L., _see_ Twain, Mark

Clifford, Hugh, 52, 54, 59

Comstock, Anthony, 253 et seq.

Comstock Postal Acts of 1873, 241, 257 et seq.

Comstocks, attack on Dreiser, 101-2, 140 et seq.

Conrad, Joseph, birth and parentage, 20;
first book, 51;
early success, 53;
pensioned, 54;
his books as bibelots, 56;
style, 36 et seq.;
materials, 40 et seq.;
irony, 13, 18;
ethical agnosticism, 17, 29-32;
on women, 33-5;
statement of his task, 29;
contrasted with other authors, 30, 45, 48-9, 88 et seq., 96

_Cowperwood, Frank_, 79, 114 et seq., 135, 201

Criticism in America, 153 et seq., 191-2

Curle, Richard, 60

_Delineator_, 104

de Pachmann, Vladimir, 171, 178

Dewey, John, 152-3

Dime novels, Dreiser as editor of, 103

Doubleday, Page & Co., 70, 100-1, 102

Drama League of America, 180, 182

Dreiser, Theodore, birth and parentage, 76-7, 106;
early influences, 68 et seq.;
career in journalism, 98-105;
first book, 70, 98 et seq.;
dates of books, 100, 105;
plays, 105, 125-6;
travel books, 105, 127-131;
style, 79 et seq., 113;
mysticism, 12;
agnosticism, 88 et seq., 147;
his novels criticized, 106 et seq.;
academic attitude toward, 131 et seq.;
attacked by Comstocks, 139 et seq.;
contrasted with Conrad, 34, 88 et seq.

Dresser, Paul, 106, 130

"Egoists," 179, 181

"End of the Tether, The," 47

"Falk," 16, 36, 39, 47, 59, 64

Fiction, English, 18, 19

"Financier, The," 81, 86, 101, 105, 107, 114, 122, 138

Flaubert, Gustave, 73, 84, 136, 181

Follett, Wilson, 11, 13, 17, 60

Garnett, Edward, 52

"'Genius,' The," 80-1, 83, 86, 87, 93, 105, 107, 115, 122, 125,
139, 226, 270, 273, 282

_Gerhardt, Jennie_, 109-10, 119, 137

_Gerhardt, Jennie's_ father, 96, 117

German mind, 25

"Girl in the Coffin, The," 125

Good Templars, 228-30

_Goorall, Yanko_, 12

Great Awakening of 1734, 227

Greenwich Village, 124, 145, 224

"Hand of the Potter, The," 105

_Hanson, Minnie_, 85

Hardy, Thomas, 16, 62, 69, 71, 72, 76, 260

Harper & Bros., 100-2, 105

Harvard, 163, 169, 177

"Heart of Darkness," 35, 36, 41, 64

_Herrenmoral_, 236

_Heyst_, 12, 34, 59

"Hoosier Holiday, A," 76, 86, 88, 92, 105, 106, 125, 127 et seq.

Hope, Dreiser on, 126

Howells, W. D., 28, 58, 74, 76, 97, 156, 159, 188, 205, 217, 218,
275, 282

Hueffer, Ford Madox, 53, 54

Huneker, James, birth and parentage, 164;
in journalism, 167, 183;
as music student, 166-7;
as a critic, 159 et seq., 190-4;
books on music, 168-175;
stories, 188-90;
on Conrad, 59;
his aims, 193;
style, 180 et seq.

_Hurstwood_, 99, 108-9

Ibsen, Henrik, 15, 23, 24, 40, 83, 124, 156, 160-1, 162, 182, 200

"Iconoclasts," 169, 170, 179, 181

"Inheritors, The," 42, 53, 56

"In the Dark," 126

"Ivory, Apes and Peacocks," 59

James, Henry, 58, 62, 113, 217, 218, 283

"Jennie Gerhardt," 16, 71, 76-7, 82, 84, 96, 101, 105-9, 111-2, 117,
124, 276

Jesup, Morris K., 257 et seq.

_Jim, Lord_, 12, 16, 38, 39, 42, 59

_Jones, Althea_, 80-1, 85

Joseffy, Rafael, 167, 178

Kellner, Leon, 197 et seq.

_Kultur-Novellen_, Huneker's, 188 et seq.

_Kurtz_, 12, 16, 34, 38, 39, 59

Libraries, Dreiser's books in American, 143-5 _n_.

"Life, Art and America," 86, 88, 92, 105

"Lord Jim," 36, 47, 56, 60

Lord's Day Alliance, 242

Love, Dreiser on, 126

_MacWhirr, Capt._, 12, 37, 42

Mann Act, 241, 251-2, 258

_Marlow_, 36, 37

_Meeber, Carrie_, 40, 85, 99, 109 et seq., 126, 137

"Melomaniacs," 188 et seq.

Men and Religions Forward Movement, 239

Methodism, 139, 197, 277

"Mezzotints in Modern Music," 168

"Mirror of the Sea, The," 50, 56

"Morals, Not Art or Literature," 253

Naturalism, German, 77

"New Cosmopolis," 165, 183 et seq.

Nietzsche, F. W., 15, 29, 90, 93, 136, 158, 162, 173, 180, 181, 183,
192, 193

"Nigger of the Narcissus, The," 50, 52, 56

Norris, Frank, 15, 70, 71, 100, 108, 122, 163, 191, 224

"Nostromo," 12, 38, 42, 45, 46-7, 48, 56

"Old Fogy," 170 et seq., 179, 181

"Old Ragpicker," 125

"Outcast of the Islands, An," 37

Page, Walter H., 102

"Pathos of Distance, The," 164

"Personal Record, A," 37, 51, 88

Pilsner, 165, 184-5

"Plays of the Natural and the Supernatural," 105, 125

Poe, Edgar Allan, 73, 151, 152, 154, 180-1, 189, 214, 221

"Point of Honor, The," 42, 47

Prague, 165, 185-6

Prohibition, 228-9, 244 et seq.

Prudery, American, 228

_Razumov_, 12, 34, 49

Resignationism, 14

"Return, The," 42

"Romance," 56

_Ruiz, Gaspar_, 12

Russia, Conrad's picture of, 49-50

Sea, Conrad's pictures of, 50-1

"Secret Agent, The," 42, 48, 59, 60

"Set of Six, A.," 56

"Shadow Line, The," 12, 13, 47

Shakespeare, Wm., 14-5, 61, 155, 121, 199, 204

Shaw, G. B., 15, 16, 19, 26, 121-2, 161, 182, 269

"Sister Carrie," 58, 70, 71, 73, 81, 84, 95, 97, 98 et seq., 105,
107, 108, 109, 111, 112-3, 117, 119, 126, 143, 201

_Sklavenmoral_, 22, 235

Slav, qualities of, 14

"Some Reminiscences," 37, 56. (_See also_ "Personal Record, A.")

Sons of Temperance, 228

Street & Smith, 103-4

Symons, Arthur, 19, 28-9, 39

"Tales of Unrest," 52, 56

"Titan, The," 60, 77, 82, 86, 101, 105, 106, 111, 114, 117 et seq.,
129, 138, 201, 275

Train, George Francis, 261-2

"Traveler at Forty, A.," 76, 82, 105, 125, 127

Truth, Dreiser on, 126

Twain, Mark, 15, 17, 30, 90, 131-2, 133, 143, 151, 202, 203-4, 217, 222

"Typhoon," 12, 47, 50, 53

"Under Western Eyes," 36, 42, 47, 48, 49, 56, 59

"Victory," 13, 33, 42, 48, 55, 56

"Visionaries," 188 et seq.

Webb Law, 230, 241, 258

Wells, H. G., 19, 32, 38, 48, 53, 62, 135, 142, 144, 281

_Wille zur Macht_, the Puritan, 237, 246

_Witla, Eugene_, 122 et seq., 137, 140 et seq.

Young Men's Christian Association, 230, 238, 240, 256

"Youth," 12, 13, 37, 41, 48, 53, 54, 56, 64

Zola, Emile, 15-6, 63, 71-2, 76, 78, 113, 124, 136, 202, 216, 260