Save one turn to
England or to the British colonies, it is impossible to find a parallel
for the astounding absolutism of Comstock and his imitators in any
civilized country. No other nation has laws which oppress the arts so
ignorantly and so abominably as ours do, nor has any other nation handed
over the enforcement of the statutes which exist to agencies so openly
pledged to reduce all aesthetic expression to the service of a stupid
and unworkable scheme of rectitude. I have before me as I write a
pamphlet in explanation of his aims and principles, prepared by Comstock
himself and presented to me by his successor. Its very title is a
sufficient statement of the Puritan position: "MORALS, Not Art or
Literature."[46] The capitals are in the original. And within, as a
sort of general text, the idea is amplified: "It is a question of peace,
good order and morals, and not art, literature or science." Here we have
a statement of principle that, at all events, is at least quite frank.
There is not the slightest effort to beg the question; there is no
hypocritical pretension to a desire to purify or safeguard the arts;
they are dismissed at once as trivial and degrading.
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