Emanuel Haldeman-Julius
From Philosopedia
- with Sir Allan Lane, on the left, founder of Penguin Books
Haldeman-Julius, Emanuel (30 July 1889 31 July 1951)
Haldeman-Julius’s Little Blue Books were inexpensive, had a light-blue cover stock, and were eclectic in subject matter: sex, religion, anarchy, liberalism, Unitarianism, freethought—you name the subject matter hard to find in libraries of that time, and E. Haldeman-Julius printed it. In effect, he served as educator for the masses.
Characterizing the average Christian minister, to the delight of his American Freeman readers, he might include the latest purported news from the Bible Belt: “Bishop Beerbelch pronounced today that he believes a religion without a Hell isn’t worth a damn!” With his down-to-earth prose, he invited closet socialists or village atheists to mail in their orders, which his Girard, Kansas, company was quick to supply. In the Encyclopedia of Unbelief Ryan has a thorough description of the man and his activities, mentioning how he employed the talents of such diverse individuals as Bertrand Russell, Joseph McCabe, Leo Markun, Vance Randolph, T. Swann Harding, and C. Harley Grattan.
In his “Meaning of Atheism,” he wrote,
- After all, the principal objection which a thinking man has to religion is that religion is not true—and is not even sane. . . . Throughout the greater part of its history, religion has been a form of ‘holy’ terrorism. . . . Wherever there is devout belief—there is also the inseparable feeling of fear. . . . Religion interferes with life and, being false, it necessarily interferes very much to the detriment of the sound human interests of life.
In Little Blue Book No. 1582, Bertrand Russell's A Liberal View of Divorce, Haldeman-Julius includes his own essay, "The Downfall of a Smut Hound." It relates how a bookseller is approached by agents provocateur to see if they are selling "obscene" works such as his Little Blue Books. In a trick, the spy is told about History of Economics, which costs a dollar and contains such material. Although complaining about such a high price, the person hands the money over. Arriving home, however, he finds not only a work about economics but also one that contained "a few solid dissertations on the folly of censorship, the beauties of toleraton, and the rights of literature as affecting both its creators and its audience."
During World War II, Haldeman-Julius published Joseph McCabe’s allegation that the Vatican was linked with the Axis powers, this being just one of over twenty books and pamphlets which he authored.
A 1948 exposé of the FBI allegedly stoked the wrath of J. Edgar Hoover. Haldeman-Julius in 1951 was found guilty of federal income-tax evasion and, while awaiting an appeal, mysteriously drowned in his Girard, Kansas, swimming pool. At the time, his death was considered suspicious because, as reported by R. Bruce Meyer, "He had attacked Hoover in print for his tyrannical tactics against perceived enemies (including himself)."
