In 1915, two years before declaring a wartime crusade to make the world “safe for democracy,” President Woodrow Wilson appointed Anthony Comstock as the U.S. delegate to the “International Purity Conference” convening in San Francisco. Comstock’s death ...
Imagine government agents descending on museums and art galleries to pry “forbidden” art off the walls while others confiscated “indecent” magazines and books and arrested their authors. Even family photographs and personal letters between spouses were snatched from mailboxes and scrutinized in search of contraband words and images. No, I’m not describing crackdowns by Russian or Chinese autocrats.
To enforce the act, Comstock had the assistance of several thousand members of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, one of the largest federal police forces then in existence.
Over the next four decades, Comstock’s agents examined private mail and packages, raided businesses, seized art from private collections and museums, and, in a foretaste of recent attacks on drag shows, scrutinized photos of cross-dressing by men or women. Among the highest profile cases he brought were those against the anarchist Emma Goldman and Margret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.
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