Anthony Comstock

From Philosopedia

Comstock, Anthony (7 March 1844 - 21 September 1915)

A devout Christian and morals crusader who was born in New Canaan, Connecticut, Comstock advocated the suppression of obscene literature. He wrote a comprehensive New York state statute (1868) which forbade immoral works, and in 1873 he arranged for strict Federal postal legislation against obscene matter. His New York Society for the Suppression of Vice was credited with having destroyed 160 tons of literature and pictures.

D. M. Bennett’s Anthony Comstock: His Career of Cruelty and Crime (1878) cited Comstock as a ruthless persecutor, the “Roundsman of the Lord,” in a class with Torquemada and Calvin. In fact, Comstock bragged that he had convicted enough people to fill a passenger train of sixty-one coaches, not counting the many who had been driven to suicide. When Ida Craddock was hauled into court for having written The Wedding Night, a work about a maiden lady who imagined she was the chosen bride of Heaven’s lustiest angel, Comstock described the work as “indescribable obscenity.” Craddock left the court, went home, and turned on the gas.

Comstock, although mocked as an old wheezer, justified her suicide by saying that he was “stationed in a swamp at the mouth of a sewer,” that “in my heart I feel God approves” putting writers of obscenity—as well as publishers and tavernkeepers—out of business.

In 1905 he unsuccessfully tried to block a New York production of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, immediately making a hit of the play and establishing overnight the reputation of an “Irish smut dealer,” author George Bernard Shaw.

September Morn, by French painter Paul Chabas, 1912

In 1913 he ordered the removal of a painting September Morn, from a gallery on Manhattan’s 46th Street, leading to publicity that made it one of the world’s most famous paintings.

In his vigilant career, Comstock sought prosecutions against James Joyce, Theodore Dreiser, D. H. Lawrence, Mae West, radio programs, and true-detective magazines.

In 1915 the Society for the Suppression of Vice, aware that Comstockery had become “the world’s standing joke at the expense of the United States,” in Shaw’s words, named John Summer to assume Comstock’s duties.

Comstock died soon afterwards, and by 1950 the organization had ceased to exist.

Comstock, who married Margaret Hamilton in 1871- their one child died in infancy - is buried in the Evergreens Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.

Works

Frauds Exposed: or How the People are Deceived and Robbed, and Youth Corrupted (1880)

Traps For the Young (1883)

Gambling Outrages (1887)

Morals Versus Art (1888)

(See entry for Elizabeth Slenker.)

{CE; Jay Maeder, New York Daily News, 29 April 1999}