Nonsenseorship | Page 3

to Volstead. WALLACE IRWIN
The Censorship of Thought. ROBERT KEABLE
The Uninhibited Flapper. HELEN BULLITT LOWRY
The Wowzer in the South Seas. FREDERICK O'BRIEN
Reformers: A Hymn of Hate. DOROTHY PARKER
Prohibition. FRANK SWINNERTON
A Guess at Unwritten History. H. M. TOMLINSON
In Vino Demi-Tasse. CHARLES HANSON TOWNE
Bootleg. JOHN V. A. WEAVER
And the Playwright. 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