"Blackmailers of both sexes have arisen,"
says Mr. Justice McKenna, "using the terrors of the construction now
sanctioned by the [Supreme] Court as a help--indeed, the means--for
their brigandage. The result is grave and should give us pause."[44]
But that is as far as objection has yet gone; the majority of the
learned jurist's colleagues swallowed both the statute and its
consequences.[45] There is, indeed, no sign as yet of any organized war
upon the alliance between the blackmailing Puritan and the
pseudo-Puritan blackmailer. It must wait until a sense of reason and
justice shows itself in the American people, strong enough to overcome
their prejudice in favour of the moralist on the one hand, and their
delight in barbarous pursuits and punishments on the other. I see but
faint promise of that change today.
Sec. 5
I have gone into the anatomy and physiology of militant Puritanism
because, so far as I know, the inquiry has not been attempted before,
and because a somewhat detailed acquaintance with the forces behind so
grotesque a manifestation as comstockery, the particular business of the
present essay, is necessary to an understanding of its workings, and of
its prosperity, and of its influence upon the arts.
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