They know how to make a victim jump and writhe in
the ring; they have a talent for finding victims who are prominent
enough to arrest attention; they shrewdly capitalize the fact that the
pursuer appears more heroic than the prey, and the further fact that the
newspaper reader is impatient of artistic pretensions and glad to see an
artist made ridiculous. And behind them there is always the steady
pressure of Puritan prejudice--the Puritan feeling that "immorality" is
the blackest of crimes, and that its practitioner has no rights. It was
by making use of these elements that Comstock achieved his prodigies,
and it is by making use of them that his heirs and assigns keep up the
sport today. Their livelihood depends upon the money they can raise
among the righteous, and the amount they can raise depends upon the
quality of the entertainment they offer. Hence their adept search for
shining marks. Hence, for example, the spectacular raid upon the Art
Students' League, on August 2, 1906. Hence the artful turning to their
own use of the vogue of such sensational dramatists as Eugene Brieux and
George Bernard Shaw, and of such isolated plays as "Trilby" and "Sapho.
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