[In the following essay, West explores the psychological tensions behind the censorship campaign of the American reformer, Anthony Comstock.]

Censors tend to use political or religious arguments to justify their positions, but beneath the surface of their arguments often runs an unstated and personal subtext. Some censors play out their internal psychological conflicts on a very public stage. These censors attempt to renounce their repressed impulses and desires through censorship campaigns. An example of such a censor is Anthony Comstock. Recognized as the most famous censor in America during the second half of the nineteenth century, Comstock led a national crusade against vice. An examination of his personal life suggests that his censorship activities stemmed from the repugnance that he felt toward his own sexual impulses. This internal conflict not only led him to campaign against pornography, but it also entered into his efforts to ban other forms of popular culture that he found repugnant, such as children's dime novels.

Comstock's crusading spirit surfaced well before he began his campaign against dime novels. During his teenage years in New Canaan, Connecticut, he developed a preoccupation with religion. Having regularly attended the community's congregational church throughout his childhood, he was very familiar with the Bible, and he tended to view it as a factual and incontrovertible document. Biblical teachings about sin were of particular interest to Comstock. He often worried about his own sinful inclinations, and he was not entirely certain his sins would be forgiven. These concerns led him to take an aggressive approach to resisting sin. For example, not long after he allowed himself to be talked into drinking a friend's homemade wine, he broke into the local saloon-keeper's storeroom and spilled all of the kegs of liquor on the floor. Before leaving he wrote a note to the saloon-keeper in which he told the man that unless the saloon was closed the building would be destroyed.

In 1863, at the age of nineteen, Comstock enlisted in the Union army, where he continued his battle against drinking. Shocked that whiskey was included among the rations for each soldier, Comstock attempted to convince his companions not to drink it. After this approach failed, he regularly accepted his share of whiskey and then poured it on the ground in front of the other soldiers. Drinking, however, was not the only sin that concerned Comstock during the war years. Lust, masturbation, and the reading of pornography also worried the young soldier. In the diary that he kept during this period he often confessed to a nameless sin, which, in the opinion of his biographers, was probably masturbation (Broun and Leech 56; Andrist 6). The following entries were typical:

Again tempted and found wanting. Sin, sin. Oh how much peace and happiness is sacrificed on thy altar. Seemed as though Devil had full sway over me today, went right into temptation, and then, Oh such love, Jesus snatched it away out of my reach. How good is he, how sinful am I. I am the chief of sinners, but I should be so miserable and wretched, were it not that God is merciful and may I be forgiven. Glory be to God in the highest.

Oh I deplore my sinful weak nature so much. If I could but live without sin, I should be the happiest soul living: But Sin, that foe that is ever lurking, stealing happiness from me. What a day will it be when that roaring Lion shall be bound and his wanderings cease, then will we have rest, the glorious rest from sin. O hasten ever welcome day, dawn on our souls.

This morning were severely tempted by Satan and after some time in my own weakness I failed.

(Broun and Leech 55-56)

Comstock was mustered out of the army in 1865, and a few years later he moved to New York City, where he found a job in a dry goods store. During this period he continued his obsession with pornography and other manifestations of sexuality which he considered to be sinful. A number of his acquaintances, he discovered, read erotic literature, and he concluded that this reading material was having a demoralizing effect upon them. He felt so strongly about this issue that in 1868 he began a campaign to rid the city of its pornography dealers and publishers. Initially, he encouraged the police to enforce existing laws against pornography, but he soon decided that this approach was inadequate. Comstock felt that most of the city's police officers showed too little enthusiasm for this area of law enforcement and that the federal and state laws dealing with pornography were too lax. In an effort to correct this situation, he formed an alliance with the leaders of the New York branch of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), and with their backing he traveled to the nation's capital to lobby for a bill that would prohibit producers of obscene materials from using the postal system to distribute their wares. The bill passed, and the Postmaster General asked Comstock to supervise its enforcement, a task which Comstock agreed to perform without pay.

Interpreting his victory in Washington, D.C., as a sign that God wanted him to continue his war against pornography, Comstock returned to New York feeling determined to do everything in his power to make American society conform to his conception of moral purity. For its part, society, caught up in the prudery of the Victorian period, was remarkably obliging. In order to carry out his crusade, Comstock felt that he needed the backing of an effective organization. Thus, with the help of a number of his friends from the YMCA, he formed the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. The organization was incorporated in May 1873, at which time the New York state legislature gave it the legal authority to conduct criminal investigations and make arrests. The incorporators of the society asked Comstock to serve as the organization's secretary and chief special agent and offered him a yearly salary. Since this was a full-time position, Comstock severed his connections with the dry goods business and began dedicating nearly all of his waking hours to suppressing vice. During the early years of the organization's existence, Comstock primarily concerned himself with arresting publishers and sellers of pornographic materials, although he also arrested people for performing abortions, selling contraceptives, and running lotteries. He filled the first three annual reports of the society with boasts about how many people he had arrested and how many tons of pornographic books he had confiscated.

Although the suppression of pornography continued to preoccupy Comstock for the rest of his life, his thoughts on censorship, as reflected in the Fourth Annual Report of the society, expanded in 1878. He argued that other forms of literature deserved to be condemned along with pornography. Included on his expanded list of objectionable reading materials were children's dime novels. In his first denunciation of dime novels, Comstock grouped atheistic publications, writings by free-love advocates, and dime novels together. All of these types of literature, Comstock maintained, corrupted youth and contributed to anarchy. The specific charges that he made against dime novels, however, were vague and not as severe as the charges that he brought against pornography. Addressing his readers on the subject of dime novels, he wrote, “It should be observed with deepest concern by all friends of virtue, that some of the so-called boys' papers published in this city are pregnant with mischief” (Fourth Report 7).

By 1880, Comstock came to the conclusion that dime novels posed a far greater danger than simply encouraging children to behave mischievously. As his hostility toward dime novels increased, Comstock began devoting a considerable amount of space in the society's annual reports to assaults upon this form of children's literature. The arguments against dime novels that Comstock presented in the annual reports generally fell into two categories. One of Comstock's most frequently repeated claims was that dime novels had a “demoralizing influence upon the young mind” (Sixth Report 6). These stories, he argued, aroused sexual thoughts and created “an appetite for publications of the grosser type” (Eighth Report 7). His other main accusation was that dime novels caused children to commit criminal acts. In the Sixth Annual Report, for example, he stated:

These papers are sold everywhere, and at a price that brings them within reach of any child. They are stories of criminal life. The leading characters are youthful criminals, who revel in the haunts of iniquity. … Read before the intellect is quickened or judgment matured sufficient to show the harm of dwelling on these things, they educate our youth in all the odious features of crime. … What is the result? The knife, the dagger and the bludgeon used in the sinks of iniquity, and by hardened criminals, are also found in the schoolroom, the house and the playground of tender youth. Our Court rooms are thronged with infant criminals—with baby felons.

(6)

In an attempt to substantiate his charge that dime novels bred juvenile delinquents, Comstock filled several pages of the Sixth Annual Report with examples of children who he claimed were led astray by reading dime novels. A boy whom Comstock arrested for selling pornography reportedly pointed to a stack of dime novels found in his room and exclaimed, “There, there's the cause of my ruin—that has cursed me and brought me to this” (7). Another case that Comstock related involved a young dime-novel reader who stole money from his employer. After being caught, the boy explained that he had “never thought of doing wrong till he read these stories” (7).

When the time came for Comstock to prepare the society's Ninth Annual Report, he characterized dime novels as the primary cause of juvenile delinquency. He based this conclusion on a series of interviews that he conducted with a group of young lawbreakers. These children, Comstock reported, “were unanimous in charging their conduct to the cheap stories of crime” (9). Although these children may have been using dime novels as a convenient excuse for their own misbehavior, Comstock accepted their confessions without question and then offered them as evidence that the “vast majority” of crimes committed by juveniles were “the direct result of evil reading” (9).

By choosing the pages of the society's annual reports to denounce dime novels, Comstock was guaranteed a sympathetic audience, for the only people who read these reports were members of the society and perhaps a few journalists. Comstock decided, however, that his feelings toward dime novels needed to be heard by more than a small group of New Yorkers who were already familiar with his position on children's reading materials. For this reason, he presented his case against dime novels in his second book, Traps for the Young, which came out in 1883. As Comstock explained in the preface to the book, Traps for the Young was “designed to awaken thought upon the subject of Evil Reading, and to expose to the minds of parents, teachers, guardians, and pastors some of the mighty forces for evil that are today exerting a controlling influence over the young” (5).

In Traps for the Young, Comstock repeated much of what he had already said about dime novels in the society's annual reports. Rather than make a series of new charges against dime novels, he simply provided page after page of examples of children who were, according to Comstock, ruined by reading this type of material. Comstock did, however, provide one additional reason for banning dime novels. He argued that the sudden successes that blessed the lives of many dime-novel heroes undermined the willingness of children to work:

What young man will serve an apprenticeship, working early and late, if his mind is filled with the idea that sudden wealth may be acquired by following the hero of the story? In real life, to begin at the foot of the ladder and work up, step by step, is the rule; but in these stories, inexperienced youth with no moral character, take the foremost positions, and by trick and device, knife and revolver, bribery and corruption, carry everything before them, lifting themselves in a few short weeks to positions of ease and affluence.

(25)

Comstock concluded his chapter on dime novels by asking his readers to join in efforts to suppress this form of literature. He urged everyone who disapproved of dime novels to call for the passage of laws that would prohibit or restrict their publication and distribution. Although Comstock felt that passing such laws was the most desirable way to eliminate dime novels, he argued for the implementation of other methods of combating this “evil” as well. He instructed parents to confiscate and burn all dime novels that their children brought home. He also suggested that parents apply economic pressure against businesses that sold dime novels. “The remedy lies in your hands,” he told his readers, “by not patronizing any person who offers these death-traps for sale. … Let your newsdealer feel that, just in proportion as he prunes his stock of that which is vicious, your interest in his welfare increases and your patronage becomes more constant” (42).

In addition to attacking dime novels in his writings, Comstock frequently voiced his objections to these publications in lecture halls. In 1882 alone, according to the society's Eighth Annual Report, Comstock addressed fifteen public meetings during which he warned parents not to allow their children to read dime novels. These lectures were delivered in various locations in New York City as well as in several other cities in the state (9). On February 28, 1882, a reporter from the New York Times attended one of these lectures, and his account of it was published in the next day's paper. According to the reporter, Comstock's lecture lasted for two hours and was attended by a “large audience.” Comstock, the reporter noted, “was especially severe upon boys' and girls' weekly story papers which assume to be respectable.” The reporter also mentioned that Comstock “related many incidents to show that boys and girls had become criminals through reading the stories in these papers” (“Listening” 3).

Comstock's campaign against dime novels had repercussions outside of the state boundaries of New York. Following the successful establishment of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, antivice societies were founded in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and several other states. The leaders of these societies paid close attention to Comstock's denouncements of dime novels and often waged their own battles against these publications. In 1885, for example, Boston's Watch and Ward Society convinced the Massachusetts legislature to pass a bill that forbade children from purchasing books and magazines that featured “criminal news, police reports, or accounts of criminal deeds, or pictures and stories of lust or crime” (Boyer 11).

Joseph W. Leeds, a prominent member of the Philadelphia Purity Alliance and a staunch supporter of Comstock, tried to persuade the Pennsylvania legislature to pass a bill that would empower mayors to outlaw the selling of dime novels in their cities. Although this bill did not become law in Pennsylvania, Leeds and Comstock lobbied for the passage of similar bills in state legislatures across the country. Their efforts met with success in California, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington. Leeds also expanded upon Comstock's list of alternatives to dime novels. Whereas Comstock simply recommended that children read the Bible, history books, or “some wholesome tale,” Leeds compiled a list of “acceptable” children's periodicals and distributed it to the editors of 275 newspapers (Pivar 184). Thus, although Comstock and his supporters did not succeed in forcing the publishers of dime novels out of business, they did manage to make the reading of dime novels by children an issue of public concern.

Any attempt to explain why Comstock thought that dime novels were nearly as objectionable as pornography must take into account his views on human sexuality. From his adolescence onward, sexuality was a source of anxiety for Comstock. He found it impossible to accept sexuality as a natural part of life, but he found it equally impossible to ignore it. Comstock's anxieties about sexuality led him to view it as a serious threat to his own self-concept as well as to the entirety of civilization. In describing this threat, he proclaimed that “there is no force at work in the community more insidious, more constant in its demands, or more powerful and far-reaching than lust” (Traps 132). Comstock apparently believed that sexuality was the root cause of all criminal and antisocial behavior, for in Traps for the Young he repeatedly stated that “lust is the boon companion of all other crimes” (133). Because of this belief, Comstock felt that the suppression of libidinal drives was the key to reducing all forms of crime and undesirable conduct. Consequently, he advised adults that unless they were primarily interested in procreation, they should abstain from all sexually related activities.

Comstock attempted to follow his own advice. There is no indication that he engaged in any sexual activities other than masturbation until his late twenties, and his Civil War diaries suggest that he felt immense guilt whenever he did masturbate. When he finally married, it was to a woman who was more of a mother figure than a lover. At the time of their marriage, she was ten years his senior and in poor health. Within their first year of marriage they had a daughter. But the child died while still in infancy, and they apparently made no effort to have any more children. As much as Comstock wanted to renounce his own sexuality, however, he was unable to banish all sexual thoughts from his mind. In an attempt to deal with this hated part of himself, he projected it upon the devil (O'Higgins and Reede 132-40). Satan, he told himself and his readers, was responsible for the arousal of nearly all sexual feelings.

For Comstock, the devil was not a vague abstraction. He felt he knew the devil well. He constantly referred to Satan in both his private and public writings, and he often claimed to have special insights into the devil's desires and methods. Comstock was aware, though, that not everyone believed in the existence of the devil, and in the final pages of Traps for the Young he attempted to accommodate those people who did not share his beliefs about Satan:

It may not be pleasant to speak of a devil, or of his having a kingdom and power; but I doubt if any man could go through the experiences of my past eleven years and not be thoroughly persuaded that there is one, and that he has numerous agencies actively employed recruiting for his kingdom. …

I believe that there is a devil. Those who disagree with me in this may translate my language. All I ask is that they admit the vital truth on which I insist. Let my language be considered symbolical, provided the evils I denounce are regarded as diabolical.

(239)

Because Comstock associated sexuality with the devil, he tended to think of sexual interests as being unnatural. The fact that most people exhibited such interests only proved, Comstock argued, that the devil possessed tremendous power as a corrupter of souls.

Comstock's acceptance of this line of reasoning led him to argue that human beings begin life uncorrupted. Thus, Comstock felt compelled to champion the concept of childhood innocence. On several occasions he argued that sexuality was not a normal attribute of childhood. God, in Comstock's opinion, did not intend for children to be interested in sex. Indeed, Comstock maintained that when God created children, He meant for them to be innocent of all sinful impulses. Comstock underscored this point by comparing children to a glass of sparkling water:

Fill a clean, clear glass with water and hold it to the light, and you cannot perceive a single discoloration. It will sparkle like a gem, seeming to rejoice in its purity, and dance in the sunlight, because of its freedom from pollution. So with a child. Its innocence bubbles all over with glee. What is more sweet, fascinating, and beautiful than a pure innocent child?

(240)

The greatest challenge facing parents and other adults who cared for children, according to Comstock, was to preserve childhood innocence. This task, he explained, required constant attention because children's mental powers, unlike those of Christian adults, were not strong enough to detect the subtle traps that the devil placed before them. Another factor that made this task even more difficult was that Comstock's devil specialized in corrupting children. In Traps for the Young, Comstock provided the following explanation for Satan's special interest in children:

The world is the devil's hunting-ground, and children are his choicest game. All along their pathway the merciless hunter sets his traps, and they are set with a certainty of a large return. To corrupt a boy or girl, he knows lessens the chance for a pure man or woman. If at the beginning of life the mind and soul be defiled, he reckons that the youth will become in the community a sure agent to drag others down.

(240-41)

Throughout his career, Comstock maintained that Satan's favorite method of corrupting children was to expose them to pernicious reading materials. Comstock's devil realized, however, that because his pet trap, pornography, was “so libidinous” most adults would not allow children to buy or read it (Traps 20). In order to avoid this obstacle, Satan, according to Comstock, had his agents create “a series of new snares of fascinating construction, small and tempting in price, and baited with high-sounding names.” These new traps, Comstock went on to explain, comprised “a large variety of half-dime novels, five and ten cent story papers, and low-priced pamphlets for boys and girls” (Traps 21). It was Comstock's contention that Satan attempted to lull parents into believing that dime novels were harmless by not including specific references to sexuality in their pages. Claiming to see through this ploy, Comstock argued that dime novels were filled with accounts of crimes because Satan knew that all crimes involved lust. For this reason, Comstock was certain that after children developed a taste for stories about criminals, they would quickly succumb to other devil-traps, especially pornography. Thus, even though dime novels hardly even mentioned sexuality, they were, in Comstock's mind, little better than pornographic works and therefore deserved his condemnation. In other words, he viewed his campaign against dime novels as a natural extension of his purity crusade. Since this crusade was clearly fueled by his anxieties about sexuality, there can be little doubt that his stand on dime novels was tied to his lifelong struggle to suppress his own libidinal drives.

Works Cited

Andrist, Ralph K. “Paladin of Purity.” American Heritage Oct. 1973: 6+.

Boyer, Paul S. Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Book Censorship in America. New York: Scribner's, 1968.

Broun, Heywood, and Margaret Leech. Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord. New York: Boni, 1927.

Comstock, Anthony. Traps for the Young. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1883.

“Listening to Mr. Comstock.” New York Times 1 Mar. 1882: 3.

New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Fourth Annual Report. New York, 1878.

———. Sixth Annual Report. New York, 1880.

———. Eighth Annual Report. New York, 1882.

———. Ninth Annual Report. New York, 1883.

O'Higgins, Harvey, and Edward H. Reede. The American Mind in Action. New York: Harper, 1924.

Pivar, David J. Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1869-1900. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1973.