Nonsenseorship | Page 3

ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT
The Oracle That Always Says "No". THE AUTHOR OF "THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON"

ILLUSTRATIONS
George S. Chappell demonstrating his Outline of Censorship.
Heywood Broun finds America suffering from a dearth of Folly.
Ben Hecht chopping away at the ever-forgiving and all-condoning Bugaboo of Puritanism.
Ruth Hale as a XXth Century woman guarding the Home Brew.
Wallace Irwin composing under the influence of synthetic gin and Andrew Volstead.
Robert Keable urging the Automaton called Citizen to turn on his oppressor.
Helen Bullitt Lowry watching Puritanism set the Flapper free.
Frederick O'Brien finds the South Seas purified and beautified by the Missionaries.
Dorothy Parker hating Reformers.
Frank Swinnerton contemplating, from the Tight Little Isle, the two classes of prigs developed by Prohibition; those who accept it and those who rebel.
H. M. Tomlinson regarding, with not too great enthusiasm, the Perfect State of the Future.
Charles Hanson Towne and the Law.
John V. A. Weaver noticing the bartender who has been thrown out of work by Prohibition.
Alexander Woollcott rescuing the Playwright from the awful shears of the Censor.
The Periscope of the Author of the Mirrors of Washington is turned toward the Great Negative Oracle.

NONSENSEORSHIP

EVOLUTION
Another of Those Outlines
[Illustration: George S. Chappell demonstrating his Outline of Censorship.]
BY GEORGE S. CHAPPELL
I
[Sidenote: Time. The Beginning.]
When Adam sat with lovely Eve And. Pressed his Primal suit, There was a ban, if we believe Our Genesis, on fruit. But did it give old Adam pause, This One and only law there was?
X
[Sidenote: Nine verses are supposed to elapse.]
And then great Moses, on the crest Of Sinai, did devise His tablets, acting for the best, (Though some thought otherwise). At least he showed restraint, for then Man's sins were limited to Ten,
C
[Sidenote: Ninety-nine verses elapse.]
In later days the Romans proud Their famous Code began. And lots of things were not allowed By just Justinian. He wrote a list, stupendous long; "One Hundred Ways of Going Wrong."
M
[Sidenote: Nine hundred and ninety-nine verses elapse.]
Napoleon, (see Wells's book) Improved the Roman plan By spotting a potential crook In every fellow-man. And by the Thousand off they went To jail, until proved innocent.
MDCCCCXXII
[Sidenote: Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine verses elapse.]
Now in the change-about complete Since Adam Passed from View. For apples we are urged to eat And all else is taboo. A Million laws hold us in thrall, And we serenely break them all!

NONSENSEORSHIP
[Illustration: Heywood Broun finds America suffering from a dearth of Folly.]
HEYWOOD BROUN
A censor is a man who has read about Joshua and forgotten Canute. He believes that he can hold back the mighty traffic of life with a tin whistle and a raised right hand. For after all it is life with which he quarrels. Censorship is seldom greatly concerned with truth. Propriety is its worry and obviously impropriety was allowed to creep into the fundamental scheme of creation. It is perhaps a little unfortunate that no right-minded censor was present during the first week in which the world was made. The plan of sex, for instance, could have been suppressed effectively then and Mr. Sumner might have been spared the dreadful and dangerous ordeal of reading "Jurgen" so many centuries later.
Indeed, if there had only been right-minded supervision over the modelling of Adam and Eve the world could worry along nicely without the aid of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. Suppression of those biological facts which the Society includes in its definition of Vice is now impossible. Concealment is really what the good men are after. Somewhat after the manner of the Babes in the Woods they would cover us over with leaves. For men and women they have figs and for babies they have cabbages.
It must have been a censor who first hit upon the notion that what you don't know won't hurt you. We doubt whether it is a rule which applies to sex. Eve left Eden and took upon herself a curse for the sake of knowledge. It seems a little heedless of this heroism to advocate that we keep the curse and forget the knowledge. The battle against censorship should have ended at the moment of the eating of the apple. At that moment Man committed himself to the decision that he would know all about life even though he died for it. Unfortunately, under the terms of the existence of mortals one decision is not enough. We must keep reaffirming decisions if they are to hold. Even in Eden there was the germ of a new threat to degrade Adam and Eve back to innocence. When they ate the apple an amoeba in a distant corner of the Garden shuddered and began the long and difficult process of evolution. To all practical purposes John S. Sumner was already born.
To us the whole theory of censorship is immoral. If its functions were administered by the wisest man in the world it would still be wrong.