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Article: From Comstockery to Helmsmanship. (censorship, Anthony Comstock and Jesse Helms)
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- October 1, 1990
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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From Comstockery To Helmsmanship
The morals of the nation's youth are threatened by "obscene, lewd and indecent" photographs "commonly, but mistakenly, called art." So-called artists, under the cloak of free expression, are producing material that "fans the flames of secret desires." In the past year, such sentiments have become almost unbearably familiar. But this particular salvo was fired at artists more than a century ago by a New York dry-goods-clerk-turned-morality-crusader named Anthony Comstock.
As it happens, Comstock died seventy-five years ago this past September, leaving behind a forty-year trail of banned books, jailed birth-control ...