NON-FICTION

The Lord's Henchman

The core of this book* is a diary. In the core are seeds: "In the 41 years I have been here I have convicted persons enough to fill a passenger train of 61 coaches. . . . I have destroyed 160 tons of obscene literature." "The place for a woman's body to be denuded is in the privacy of her own apartments with the blinds down." "Jesus was never moved from the path of duty however hard by public opinion. Why should I be?" "I believe that there is a Devil." "Counsellor Spencer tried to show that I sought a fat office in Washington. But I could triumph over them all. I said, 'No sir, I did not seek a fat office.'" "The closer art keeps to morality the higher is its grade." "Stood on barracks and looked off over the ocean as it lay basking in Moonlight's silvery rays. How grand the sight! Beautiful indeed." "I am called an obscene man." "Got home and found little wifey out. Found a dress partly done and I finished it on the machine for her and had the bastings out before she came. How she laughed." "Oh how can I express the joy of my soul or speak of the mercy of God." When he was not misspelling the journal of his days, Anthony Cornstock acted as president of the Society for the Prevention of Vice. In this capacity he hunted Satan, finding his prey sometimes in the guise of a bartender brandishing a pack of cards, more often as an abortionist fumbling with a contraceptive, most frequently as a pornographer raising the dark symbol of a dirty book. His chasing of pornographers did not always end with a clean capture. Over a fairly long period Anthony boasted that he had driven 15 persons to their death, a good number by suicide, others by an act of God. A lady in Philadelphia, mildly mad, wrote a pamphlet called The Wedding Night. Brought to justice by Comstock, she chose to exercise what she called Socrates' prerogative. Dr. Karl Reiland, eminent clergyman, wrote to the Roundsman: "You have hunted an honest, not a bad woman to her death. I would not like to have to answer to God for what you have done."

It was not until after a long campaign against smut-writers and publishers that he turned his eye to the devilments of the quack doctors and abortionists. It was his practice to write under a false address, or disguised, to pay a visit to these evildoers. This led to mistakes but the method was not without value. It was Anthony Cornstock who decoyed the notorious Madame Restell to jail and then drove her to kill herself. When he heard of the latter event, the reformer said, "A bloody ending to a bloody life." While he was not alone in his campaigns, few associates went all the way with him. Most of his contemporaries in fact, detested him. "The spirit that lighted the fires of the Inquisition," wrote Ezra Heywood, eccentric socialist, victim of Comstock's fury. He was called "an incorporated conscience," "an ogre to innocent girls." George Bernard Shaw said: "Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States." He must, though, have had some friends, for he notes, "For Christmas I received a pair of slippers, a mustache cup and saucer and a gold toothpick."

Upon the physical facts of Crusader Comstock's life--birth at Canaan, Conn., in 1844; service in the Civil War; commercial career in Manhattan--this biography lays no great stress. The biographers are removed from their subject's generation and while Margaret Leech is more interested in portraying a personality than in scoring a, point of view, it is Heywood Broun, himself a reformer of no mean pretensions, whose mind dominates the book. Here as in his colyum in the N. Y. World, Mr. Broun is all embattled against censorship, wearing the favor of Common Sense. That the enemy is long dead is unimportant. The type, Mr. Broun seems to say, still persists and it is of all types the hardest to combat. Its stupidity, greaved with arrogance, filled with energy, renders it immune to debate. Its streak of extraordinary cruelty infuriates the most reasonable friends of Reason. Direst of all, its genuine humility, its humanity, warm though stunted, preserves it as a comic ogre, not a monstrous and sinister.

Reformers publish the book. The Literary Guild, founded with the professed intention of supplying the best books at better prices to deserving readers (TIME, Feb. 14), considered the Leech-Broun manuscript to be its most logical and excellent first offering. Boni & Liveright who had contracted to publish it originally, declined to collaborate with the Guild and bring put a "trade" edition, for non-Guild readers. So up stepped the Brothers Boni, of whom Albert, the elder, used to be Publisher Horace Liveright's partner*. They are braving a storm of unknown force--the wrath of booksellers who conceive that the Guild's low-price books may hurt business.

*ANTHONY COMSTOCK, ROUNDSMAN OF THE LORD -- Heywood Broun & Margaret Leech--A. & C. Boni ($3.00)--First book selected by the Literary Guild of America. *There is no actual Boni now in Boni & Liveright. The name was retained for good will.