Anthony Comstock pulls his collar over his thick, red sideburns so that no one in the audience recognizes him. The 33-year-old Civil War veteran is a household name in America, where he has been cracking down on everything he says is “obscene, indecent and immoral” behavior for the past five years.
Since the introduction of the so-called Comstock laws in 1873, it has been illegal to send sexually offensive material through the mail, and the laws allow the special agent to open all packages and arrest violators.
On November 2, 1877, Comstock traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, where publisher Ezra Heywood was lecturing on “sexual self-determination.” Comstock has long wanted Heywood behind bars for his sinful thoughts about natural desires – and recently the publisher sent him two lewd books.
Comstock sits down with an arrest warrant in his pocket. From his seat he sees ‘the desire on the faces’ of those present, while the speaker uses shameful words like ‘penis’ and ‘intercourse’.
“It was disgusting – I had to leave the room right away,” the officer later notes in his diary. Nevertheless, he goes back into the hall, where he pursues Heywood after his lecture. When the publisher refuses to volunteer, Comstock grabs him by the neck and drags him down the stairs. The postal worker throws his prisoner into a carriage and sends him to the nearest prison.
“The devil’s trapper is trapped,” writes the defender of morality.
Comstock has caught yet another felon, but he knows there are still many immoral people out there. From 1873 to 1915, he goes to great lengths to track down offensive texts and images – and the postal worker doesn’t stop until every ‘sex maniac’ has been punished.
Comstock moved to sinful city
Anthony Comstock grew up in a strict religious family in New Canaan, Connecticut, where his mother read to him from the Bible and he attended church every Sunday.
His disgust for sexual emancipation was instilled in him, and it haunted him when Comstock enlisted in the Union Army in 1863. When the whiskey bottle was passed around the campfire, Comstock ostentatiously poured his portion on the ground. This made him many enemies – but he didn’t care.
‘Do I have to sacrifice my principles to be popular? NEVER!’ he wrote in his diary.
For Comstock, like sexual desire, alcohol was a test people had to pass. So when he went to work in New York in 1876 at the age of 22, he was shocked. The men in this city of millions drooled over erotic photos and books, while waitresses threw flirtatious glances around them.
Young people had premarital sex, and shady characters sold ‘gonorrhea bags’ – condoms – lady’s shields – diaphragms – and vaginal syringes to prevent disease and pregnancy.
Comstock received support from the Christian youth organization Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) to crack down on moral decay in New York. The organization had ties to many powerful people, including politicians.
As early as 1868, Comstock and the YMCA in New York passed a law prohibiting the production, sale, and advertising of “every obscene and indecent book,” including short stories and erotic pictures. Even texts on topics such as contraception and abortion were unacceptable.
After extensive lobbying, the United States Congress passed the Act of Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use in 1873, later known as the Comstock Laws. With this, the country had to regain its decency.
Mail was checked
No sooner had President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill than Comstock immediately began enforcing it. His network of spies was allowed to search, seize and arrest. To motivate them, they were allowed to keep 50 percent of the fines handed out.
Comstock was especially happy that he was now allowed to read the mail of Americans, because people could send each other ‘secretly’ obscene material through the mail.
Whenever one of Comstock’s spies tipped him off that someone was sending pornography or obscene books through the mail, he opened the letter or package to catch the culprit. The confiscated books and photos were then burned.
The vice squad also checked newspaper kiosks to see if newspapers and magazines might contain obscene material. As early as the spring of 1873, newspapers such as The New York Herald and The Sun were removing midwives ads because Comstock found it morally reprehensible.
Bars and cafes were forced to adapt their ‘inappropriate’ interiors. The tiniest phallus symbols were removed, and Comstock saw something horrible in a bar owner in Brooklyn.
“Here was the most obscene scene—a huge penis in a phone booth. He wanted to use this disgusting object to attract trade or certain customers,’ he declared angrily.
The erotic image trade went underground to avoid fines, so Comstock and his men had to actively provoke crimes. They walked into cigar shops and barbershops and subtly asked for nudes. For example, if a cigar dealer offered them a cigar case with a naughty picture in it, he was arrested.
Comstock used that tactic in 1877 when he arrested Ezra Heywood. The agent had sent him a letter under an assumed name, in which he praised the publisher as a champion of sexual emancipation. In addition, Comstock asked him to send him two books—obscene books.
Once Comstock got the books, he was able to arrest Heywood. The publisher was sentenced to two years in prison and a $100 fine.
Women in the grip of Comstock
Comstock initially focused mainly on men, but after the arrest of Ezra Heywood, he became possessed by the so-called ‘free lovers’ who, like Heywood, believed that the government should not interfere with human desires.
“They are weak, lazy, naughty, and corrupt people, without decency,” said Comstock, who thought these people “belonged in a pigsty.”
This includes women’s rights activist Sarah Chase, who lectured on sexuality. In 1878 she was arrested by Comstock for selling a syringe that not only prevented disease but could also be used as a contraceptive. However, Chase was not punished because it could not be proven that she sold the syringe to dissolute women. To bully the special agent, Chase henceforth sold the syringe as the Comstock Syringe.
But less strong, self-assured women often succumbed to Comstock’s enormous pressure. In 1878, 65-year-old Ann Trow Lohman, who helped women with abortions, was visited by a fat man unknown to her. That man – a disguised Comstock – asked her for contraceptives to prevent his wife from becoming pregnant. Lohman sold him some pills and a potion.
A week later, the man turned up with two officers and two journalists to arrest Lohman.
“How I’m afraid of tomorrow,” she said to her son-in-law on the day she had to go to court.
Fearing to spend her last years in jail, Lohman committed suicide.
But that made little impression on Comstock and his ties to conservative American politicians. His methods may have been crude, but they worked.
By 1893, he had convicted more than 1,000 Americans, seized 800,000 erotic photographs, and confiscated about 100,000 obscene objects.
King of censorship dethroned
In the beginning, Comstock preyed mainly on people from the social underclass, but eventually power went to his head and from the end of the 19th century he also went after the social elite. Comstock even raided elite art galleries to confiscate objectionable work. But his zeal was his downfall. The upper class, which had its own standards, distanced itself from him and the moral knight lost his political support.
In 1913, the New Jersey Passaic Daily News even claimed that Comstock “has made such a mockery of himself in town that his crusade no longer makes any impression.” In cartoons he was depicted as a monk and people called him ‘Saint Anthony’.
In 1915, 71-year-old Comstock finally resigned. Three months later he died of pneumonia. He claimed to have seized 160 tons of obscene books and other materials over 42 years and sentenced 2,740 people to a total of 566 years in prison.
The fact that 15 detainees committed suicide did not interest Comstock – in an annual report he wrote that the news of their deaths had as much impact as a bad novel.
