There ends the record of the tale _Jurgen’s_ adventures with the law.
The record is, as has been said, uneventful. A book had been impugned,
that is all. An author had been vilified and his publishers indicted;
certain thousands of readers had been deprived of access to a book
which critical opinion had commended to their interest; and author and
publishers both had been robbed of the revenues from whatever sale
the book might have had during the nearly three years in which it was
removed from publication.
True, Mr. Cabell and his book had received much publicity.... There
is a legend, indeed, that the author of _Jurgen_ (and of a dozen
other distinguished books) owes much of his present place in letters
to the advertising which Mr. Sumner involuntarily accorded him. But
one may question that. An examination of the publishers’ files seem
to show that most of the expressions of admiration for _Jurgen_ were
repetitions of an enthusiasm expressed before the book’s “suppression.”
And if the enthusiasm and the sympathy of Mr. Cabell’s admirers were
hearteningly evident, the attacks of his detractors did not flag;
and an inestimable number of persons, knowing Mr. Cabell’s work only
through the recorded opinions of Messrs. Kingsley and Sumner, did
certainly condemn him unread and, shuddering, barred their library
doors against him.... No, Mr. Cabell owes no debt of thanks to the
accusers of _Jurgen_.
But all this is by the way. The argument, which appears in the
following pages, is of importance not alone because it so ably defends
_Jurgen_, but because it defines, more clearly than any other recent
document, the present legal status of literature in America in relation
to permissible candor in treatment and subject matter. The brief is
not in any sense an argument in behalf of unrestricted publication of
any matter, however obscene, or indeed in behalf of the publication
of obscenity in any form. It is not a denial of the community’s right
to protect itself from offenses against good taste or against its
moral security, or to punish violation of the laws by which the public
welfare is safe-guarded.
But one need not be an apologist of license to perceive that there is
in a thoughtful consideration of every aspect of life no kinship to
indecency; or to perceive that the community cannot, without serious
danger to its own cultural development, ignore the distinction between
the artist’s attempt to create beauty by means of the written word, and
the lewd and vulgar outpourings of the pornographer. When these two
things are confused by a semi-official organization which is endowed
with suppressive powers, even when the courts fail to sustain its
accusations, the menace to the community is measurably increased. As
a protection against this menace the brief presents, with admirable
clarity, a legal test, the validity of which common sense will readily
recognize, for the determination of literature as distinct from
obscenity.
+Guy Holt.+
New York City,
November 14, 1922.
BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANTS ON
MOTION TO DIRECT AN
ACQUITTAL