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Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956

"A Book of Prefaces"

But they simply cannot be printed in the United States,
with the law what it is and the courts what they are.
I know many other editors. All of them are in the same boat. Some of
them try to get around the difficulty by pecksniffery more or less
open--for example, by fastening a moral purpose upon works of art, and
hawking them as uplifting.[75] Others, facing the intolerable fact,
yield to it with resignation. And if they didn't? Well, if one of them
didn't, any professional moralist could go before a police magistrate,
get a warrant upon a simple affidavit, raid the office of the offending
editor, seize all the magazines in sight, and keep them impounded until
after the disposition of the case. Editors cannot afford to take this
risk. Magazines are perishable goods. Even if, after a trial has been
had, they are returned, they are worthless save as waste paper. And what
may be done with copies found in the actual office of publication may be
done too with copies found on news-stands, and not only in one city, but
in two, six, a dozen, a hundred.


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