The Experts Blushed

For two weeks witnesses had been testifying that Esquire is a clean-living, right-minded magazine (TIME, Nov. 1). Now the Post Office Department had its inning. To the witness chair in Washington trooped a psychiatrist, clergymen, an educator, a clubwoman, all Washingtonians. Gum-chewing, spectacled P.O. Attorney William C. O'Brien put them through their paces. Esquire's attorney, quick-witted Bruce Bromley, thoughtfully tripped them.

Psychiatrist Benjamin Karpman studied a magazine illustration (of a nude) handed him by Attorney Bromley, found it "sexually stimulating." Bromley promptly turned the magazine's cover, showed that the picture was in the Ladies' Home Journal.

The Rev. John K. Cartwright, a Catholic priest, contended that Esquire has a tendency to encourage low ideas of women. When Attorney Bromley brought out the fact that the Catholic Digest has carried reprints from Esquire and that Father Flanagan, of Boys' Town fame, has contributed articles to Esquire, Witness Cartwright countered: "Bad judgment."

The Rev. Peter Marshall, Presbyterian, said Esquire's jokes, articles and cartoons create "the impression that virginity . . . is a thing to be joked about," and added: "I believe that womanhood has definitely been lowered by the achievement of equality with men."

To Rabbi Solomon Metz, Bromley read a series of borderline gags. One involved two London charwomen discussing the inconveniences of a blackout. Said one:

"It's a necessary evil, else we're likely to be blasted into maternity." Replied the other: " Tis so. But the worst of it is we'd never know who done it."

Another had to do with a hostess saying to a guest: "I won't offer you a cocktail, Mr. Brown, since you are the head of the Temperance League." "No," replied Mr. Brown, "I am president of the Anti-Vice League." "Oh," said the hostess. "Well, I knew there was something I shouldn't offer you."

Rabbi Metz called these gags objectionable. Attorney Bromley revealed they had all been culled from Reader's Digest.

Vulgar, Obscene, Promotional. Mrs. Harvey Wiley, chairman of the legislative committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs (representing 2,500,000 women), thought Esquire's Varga Girl drawings "obscene," was shocked by a picture of a modern bathing beauty. Shown a 30-year-old photograph of onetime swimming champion Annette Kellerman and asked if she thought it, too, was indecent, she cagily declined to commit herself except to say she had always admired Miss Kellerman as "a great exponent of health."

At week's end, testimony ended, the Post Office's three-man Board of Judges (Fourth Assistant Postmaster General Walter Myers, First Deputy Assistant Thomas Cargill, Chief Clerk Frank Ellis) retired to draft their recommendation-either that Esquire's second-class (cheaper rate) mailing privileges be revoked, or that the magazine be absolved.

Summed up the New York Daily News's rollicking George Dixon: from some witnesses' testimony it appears "that nearly every amusement in life, except possibly lynching, [is] vulgar, obscene and corrupting."

Variety, with an eye always cocked at the box office, called the hearing "one of the greatest promotional stunts in years."

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