Prejudices, fifth seriesMencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
History
Prejudices, fifth series
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
American essays -- 20th century; American literature -- History and criticism; Literature -- History and criticism
The law which forbids them to send their brummagem tracts through the
mails is obviously disingenuous and oppressive. It is a part of the
notorious Postal Act, put on the books by Comstock himself, executed by
bureaucratic numskulls, and supported by every variety of witch-burner.
I know of no intelligent man or woman who is in favor of the principal
of such grotesque legislation; even the worst enemies of the birth
controllers would not venture to argue that it should be applied
generally. The way to dispose of such laws is to flout them and make a
mock of them. The theory that they can be got rid of by enforcing them
is nonsense. Enforcing them simply inspires the sadists who advocate
them to fresh excesses. Worse, it accustoms the people to oppression,
and so tends to make them bear it uncomplainingly. Wherever, in
the United States, there has been any sincere effort to enforce
Prohibition, the anti-evolutionists are already on the warpath, and the
Lord’s Day Alliance is drumming up recruits. No, the way to deal with
such laws is to defy them, and thus make them ridiculous. This is being
done in the case of the Volstead Act by millions of patriots, clerical
and lay. It is being done in the case of the Comstock Act by a small
band, but one full of praiseworthy resolution.
Thus I deliver myself of a whoop for the birth controllers, and pass
on to pleasanter concerns. Their specific Great Cause, it seems to me,
is full of holes. They draw extremely questionable conclusions from a
highly dubious body of so-called facts. But they are profoundly right
at bottom. They are right when they argue that anyone who tries to
silence them by force is the common enemy of all of us. And they are
right when they hold that the best way to get rid of such opposition is
to thumb the nose at it.
2
_Comstockery_
In 1873, when the late Anthony Comstock began his great Christian work,
the American flapper, or, as she was then called, the young lady, read
_Godey’s Ladies’ Book_. To-day she reads--but if you want to find out
what she reads simply take a look at the cheap fiction magazines which
rise mountain-high from every news-stand. It is an amusing and at the
same time highly instructive commentary upon the effectiveness of moral
legislation. The net result of fifty years of Comstockery is complete
and ignominious failure. All its gaudy raids and alarms have simply
gone for naught.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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