Anthony Comstock
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Anthony Comstock (March 7 1844 - September 21 1915) was a former United States Postal Inspector and poltician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality.
He was born in New Canaan, Connecticut. As a young man, he enlisted and fought for the Union in the American Civil War. He served without incident, but objected to the profanity used by his fellow soldiers.
In 1873 Comstock created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public. Later that year, Comstock successfully influenced the United States Congress to pass the Comstock Law, which made illegal the delivery or transportation of both "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" material as well as any methods of, or information pertaining to, birth control. George Bernard Shaw coined the term comstockery, meaning "censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality" [link], after Comstock alerted the New York police to the content of Shaw's play Mrs. Warren's Profession. Shaw remarked that "Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States. Europe likes to hear of such things. It confirms the deep-seated conviction of the Old World that America is a provincial place, a second-rate country-town civilization after all."
Comstock's ideas of what might be "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" were quite broad. During his time of greatest power, even some anatomy textbooks were prohibited from being sent to medical students by the United States Postal Service.
Comstock aroused intense loathing from early civil liberties groups and intense support from church based groups worried about public morals. He was a savvy political insider in New York City and was made a special agent of the United States Postal Service, with police powers up to and including the right to carry a weapon. With this power he zealously prosecuted those he suspected of either public distribution of pornography or commercial fraud, his twin obessions. His efforts to suppress public information on sex education materials and birth control is now often viewed as misguided & medically irresponsible. He was also involved in shutting down the Louisiana Lottery, the only legal lottery in the United States at the time, and notorious for corruption.
Comstock is also known for his persecution of Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, and those associated with them. When they published an expose of an adulterous affair between Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and Elizabeth Tilton, he had the sisters imprisoned under laws forbidding the use of the postal service to distribute 'obscene material' (though they were later found 'not guilty').
The men's journal The Days Doings, having popularised lewd images of the sisters for three years, was instructed by its editor (while Comstock was present) to stop producing images of "lewd character". Comstock also took legal action against the paper for advertising contraceptives.
He had numerous enemies, and in later years his health was affected by a severe blow to the head from an anonymous attacker. He lectured to college audiences and wrote newspaper articles to sustain his causes. Before his death, Comstock attracted the interest of a young law student, J. Edgar Hoover, interested in his causes and methods.
During his career, Comstock clashed with Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger. Through his various campaigns, he caused the arrest of more than 3,000 persons, destroyed 15 tons of books, 284,000 pounds of plates for printing 'objectionable' books, and nearly 4,000,000 pictures. [link]
A biography of Comstock written in 1927, "Anthony Comstock: Roundsman Of The Lord" by Heywood Broun and Margaret Leech of the Algonquin Round Table examines his personal history and his investigative, surveillance and law enforcement techniques.
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