Chapter 1

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NONSENSEORSHIP

SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING PROHIBITIONS INHIBITIONS AND ILLEGALITIES

By G. G. Putnam and Others

CONTRIBUTORS:

HEYWOOD BROWN GEORGE S. CHAPPELL RUTH HALE BEN HECHT WALLACE IRWIN ROBERT KEABLE HELEN BULLITT LOWRY FREDERICK O'BRIEN DOROTHY PARKER FRANK SWINNERTON H. M. TOMLINSON CHARLES HANSON TOWNE JOHN V. A. WEAVER ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT and the AUTHOR of "THE MIRRORS of WASHINGTON" Edited by G. P. P.

Illustrated By Ralph Barton

WE HAVE WITH US TODAY

At current bootliquor quotations, Haig & Haig costs twelve dollars a quart, while any dependable booklegger can unearth a copy of "Jurgen" for about fifteen dollars. Which indicates, at least, an economic application of Nonsenseorship.

Its literary, social, and ethical reactions are rather more involved. To define them somewhat we invited a group of not-too-serious thinkers to set down their views regarding nonsenseorships in general and any pet prohibitions in particular.

In introducing those whose gems of protest are to be found in the setting of this volume, it is but sportsmanlike to state at the start that admission was offered to none of notable puritanical proclivity. The prohibitionists and censors are not represented. They require, in a levititious literary escapade like this, no spokesman. Their viewpoint already is amply set forth. Moreover, likely they would not be amusing.... Also, the exponents of Nonsenseorship are victorious; and at least the agonized cries of the vanquished, their cynical comment or outraged protest, should be given opportunity for expression!

Not that we consider HEYWOOD BROUN agonized, cynical, or outraged. Indeed, masquerading as a stalwart foe of inhibitions, he starts right out, at the very head of the parade, with a vehement advocacy of prohibition. His plea (surely, in this setting, traitorous) is to prohibit liquor to all who are over thirty years of age! He declares that "rum was designed for youthful days and is the animating influence which made oats wild." After thirty, presumably, Quaker Oats....

And at that we have quite brushed by GEORGE S. CHAPPELL. who serves a tasty appetizer at the very threshold, a bubbling cocktail of verse defining the authentic story of censorious gloom.

Censorship seems a species of spiritual flagellation to BEN HECHT, who, as he says, "ten years ago prided himself upon being as indigestible a type of the incoherent young as the land afforded." And nonsenseorship in general he regards as a war-born Frankenstein, a frenzied virtue grown hugely luminous; "a snowball rolling uphill toward God and gathering furious dimensions, it has escaped the shrewd janitors of orthodoxy who from age to age were able to keep it within bounds."

Then RUTH HALE, who visualizes glowing opportunities for feminine achievement in the functionings of inhibited society. "If the world outside the home is to become as circumscribed and paternalized as the world inside it, obviously all the advantage lies with those who have been living under nonsenseorship long enough to have learned to manage it."

WALLACE IRWIN is irrepressibly jocose (perhaps because he sailed for unprohibited England the day his manuscript was delivered), breaking into quite undisciplined verse anent the rosiness of life since the red light laws went blue.

"I am not sure, as I write, that this article ever will be printed," says ROBERT KEABLE, the English author of "Simon Called Peter." (It is). Mr. Keable, a minister from Africa, wrote of the war as he saw it in France, and in a way which offended people with mental blinders. He declares that the war quite completely knocked humbug on the head and bashed shams irreparably. "Rebels," says he, meaning those who speak their mind and write of things as they see them, "must be drowned in a babble of words."

And then HELEN BULLITT LOWRY, the exponent of the cocktailored young lady of today, averring that to the pocket-flask, that milepost between the time that was and the time that is, we owe the single standard of drinking. She maintains that the debutantalizing flapper, now driven right out in the open by the reformers, is the real salvation of our mid-victrolian society.

No palpitating defense of censorship would be expected from FREDERICK O'BRIEN of the South Seas, who contributes (and deliciously defines) a precious new word to the vocabulary of Nonsenseorship, "Wowzer." The nature of a wowzer is hinted in a ditty sung by certain uninhibited individuals as they lolled and imbibed among the mystic atolls and white shadows:

"Whack the cymbal! Bang the drum! Votaries of Bacchus! Let the popping corks resound, Pass the flowing goblet round! May no mournful voice be found, Though wowzers do attack us!"

DOROTHY PARKER gives vent to a poignant Hymn of Hate, anent reformers, who "think everything but the Passion Play was written by Avery Hopwood," and whose dominant desire is to purge the sin from Cinema even though they die in the effort. "I hope to God they do," adds the author devoutly.

From England, through the eyes of FRANK SWINNERTON, we glimpse ourselves as others see us, and rather pathetically. In days gone by, lured by reports of America's lawless free-and-easiness, Swinnerton says he craved to visit us. But no more. The wish is dead. We have become hopelessly moral and uninviting. "I see that I shall after all have to live quietly in England with my pipe and my abstemious bottle of beer. And yet I should like to visit America, for it has suddenly become in my imagining an enormous country of 'Don't!' and I want to know what it is like to have 'Don't' said by somebody who is not a woman."

Also is raised the British voice of H. M. TOMLINSON, singed with satire. He writes as from a palely pure tomorrow when mankind shall have reached such a state of complete uniformity of soul, mind and body, that "only a particular inquiry will determine a man from a woman, though it may fail to determine a fool from a man." Tomlinson's imagined nation of the future is "as loyal and homogeneous, as contented, as stable, as a reef of actinozoal plasm." And over each hearth hangs the sacred Symbol--a portrait of a sheep.

Next is the usually jovial face of CHARLES HANSON TOWNE (that face which has launched a thousand quips) now all stern in his unbattled struggle with Prohibition, dourly surveying this "land of the spree and home of the grave."... "My children," says Towne, "as they sip their light wine and beer..." He is, at least, an optimist! But then, we are reminded he is also a bachelor.

In his own American language JOHN WEAVER pictures the feelings of an old-time saloon habitué when his former friend the barkeep, now rich from bootlegging, with a home "on the Drive" and all that, declares his socially-climbing daughter quite too good for this particular "Old Soak's" son. Weaver's retrospect of "Bill's Place" will bring damp eyes to the unregenerate:

"So neat! And over at the free-lunch counter, Charlie the coon with a apron white like chalk, Dishin' out hot-dogs, and them Boston Beans, And Sad'dy night a great big hot roast ham, Or roast beef simply yellin' to be et, And washed down with a seidel of Old Schlitz!"

"The Puritans disliked the theatre because it was jolly. It was a place where people went in deliberate quest of enjoyment." So says ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT, who emerges as a sort of economic champion of stage morality, though no friend at all of censorship. Despite the _mot_ "nothing risqué nothing gained," Woollcott emphatically declares the bed-ridden play is not, as a general thing, successful. "A blush is not, of course, a bad sign in the box-office," says he, developing his theme, "but the chuckle of recognition is better. So is the glow of sentiment, so is the tear of sympathy. The smutty and the scandalous are less valuable than homely humor, melodramatic excitement or pretty sentiment."

And last in this variegated and alphabeted company the anonymous AUTHOR OF "THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON" who views the applications of nonsenseorship from the standpoint of national politics.

G. P. P.

CONTENTS

We Have With Us Today. G. P. P.

Evolution-Another of Those Outlines. GEORGE S. CHAPPELL

Nonsenseorship. HEYWOOD BROUN

Literature and the Bastinado. BEN HECHT

The Woman's Place. RUTH HALE

Owed 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_

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

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 terms of the existence of mortals one decision is not enough. We must keep reaffirming decisions if they are to hold. Even in Eden there was the germ of a new threat to degrade Adam and Eve back to innocence. When they ate the apple an amoeba in a distant corner of the Garden shuddered and began the long and difficult process of evolution. To all practical purposes John S. Sumner was already born.

To us the whole theory of censorship is immoral. If its functions were administered by the wisest man in the world it would still be wrong. But of course the wisest man in the world would have too much sense to be a censor. We are not dealing with him. His substitutes are distinctly lesser folk. They are not even trained for their work except in the most haphazard manner. Obviously a censor should be the most profound of psychologists. Instead the important posts in the agencies of suppression go to the boy who can capture the largest number of smutty post cards. After he has confiscated a few gross he is promoted to the task of watching over art. By that time he has been pretty thoroughly blasted for the sins of the people. An extraordinary number of things admit of shameful interpretations in his mind.

For instance, the sight of a woman making baby clothes is not generally considered a vicious spectacle in many communities, but it may not be shown on the screen in Pennsylvania by order of the state board of censors. In New York Kipling's Anne of Austria was not allowed to "take the wage of infamy and eat the bread of shame" in a screen version of "The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House." Thereby a most immoral effect was created. Anne was shown wandering about quite casually and drinking and conversing with sailors who were perfect strangers to her, but the censors would not allow any stigma to be placed upon her conduct. Indeed this decision seems to support the rather strange theory that deeds don't matter so long as nothing is said about them.

The New York picture board is peculiarly sensitive to words. Upon one occasion a picture was submitted with the caption, "The air of the South Seas breathes an erotic perfume." "Cut out 'erotic,'" came back the command of the censors.

In Illinois, Charlie Chaplin was not allowed to have a scene in "The Kid" in which upon being asked the name of the child he shook his head and rushed into the house, returning a moment later to answer, "Bill." That particular board of censors seemed intent upon keeping secret the fact that there are two sexes.

Of course, it may be argued that motion pictures are not an art and that it makes little difference what happens to them. We cannot share that indifference. Enough has been done in pictures to convince us that very beautiful things might be achieved if only the censors could be put out of the way. Not all the silliness of the modern American picture is the fault of the producers. Much of the blame must rest with the various boards of censorship. It is difficult to think up many stories in which there is no passion, crime, or birth. As a matter of fact, we are of the opinion that the entire theory of motion picture censorship is mistaken. The guardians of morals hold that if the spectator sees a picture of a man robbing a safe he will thereby be moved to want to rob a safe himself. In rebuttal we offer the testimony of a gentleman much wiser in the knowledge of human conduct than any censor. Writing in "The New Republic," George Bernard Shaw advocated that hereafter public reading-rooms supply their patrons only with books about evil characters. For, he argued, after reading about evil deeds our longings for wickedness are satisfied vicariously. On the other hand there is the danger that the public may read about saints and heroes and drain off its aspirations in such directions without actions.

We believe this is true. We once saw a picture about a highwayman (that was in the days before censorship was as strict as it is now) and it convinced us that the profession would not suit us. We had not realized the amount of compulsory riding entailed. The particular highwayman whom we saw dined hurriedly, slept infrequently, and invariably had his boots on. Mostly he was being pursued and hurdling over hedges. It left us sore in every muscle to watch him. At the end of the eighth reel every bit of longing in our soul to be a swashbuckler had abated. The man in the picture had done the adventuring for us and we could return in comfort to a peaceful existence.

Florid literature is the compensation for humdrummery. If we are ever completely shut off from a chance to see or read about a little evil-doing we shall probably be moved to go out and cut loose on our own. So far we have not felt the necessity. We have been willing to let D'Artagnan do it.

Even so arduous an abstinence as prohibition may be made endurable through fictional substitutes. After listening to a drinking chorus in a comic opera and watching the amusing antics of the chief comedian who is ever so inebriated we are almost persuaded to stay dry. Prohibition is perhaps the climax of censorship. It has the advantage over other forms of suppression in that at least it represents a sensible point of view. Yet, we are not converted. There are things in the world far more important than hard sense.

One of the officials of the Anti-Saloon League gave out a statement the other day in which he endeavored to show all the benefits provided by prohibition. But he did it with figures. There was a column showing the increase of accounts in savings banks and another devoted to the decrease of inmates in hospitals, jails and almshouses. From a utilitarian point of view the figures, if correct, could hardly fail to be impressive, but little has been said by either side about the spiritual aspects of rum. Unfortunately there are no statistics on that, and yet it is the one phase of the question which interests us. Some weeks ago we happened to observe a letter from a man who wrote to one of the newspapers protesting against the proposed settlement in Ireland on the ground that, "It's so damned sensible." We have somewhat the same feeling about prohibition. It is a movement to take the folly out of our national life and there is no quality which America needs so sorely.

If enforcement ever becomes perfect this will be a nation composed entirely of men who wear rubbers, put money in the bank, and go to bed at ten. That fine old ringing phrase, "This is on me," will be gone from the language. Conversation will be wholly instructive, for in fifty years the last generation capable of saying, "Do you remember that night--?" will have been gathered to its fathers.

Of course, there is no denying the shortsightedness of the forces of rum. They cannot escape their responsibility for having aided in the advent of Prohibition. They were slow to see the necessity of some form of curtailment and limitation of the traffic. Such moves as they did make were entirely wrong-headed. For instance, we had ordinances providing for the early closing of cafés. Instead of that we should have had laws forbidding anybody to sell liquor except between the hours of 8 P.M. and 5 A.M. Daytime drinking was always sodden, but something is necessary to make night worth while. Man is more than the beasts, and he should not be driven into dull slumber just because the sun has set.

The invention of electricity, liquor, cut glass mirrors, and cards made man the master of his environment rather than its slave. Now that liquor is gone all the other factors are mockery. Card playing has become merely an extension of the cruel and logical process of the survival of the fittest. The fellow with the best hand wins, instead of the one with the best head. Nobody draws four cards any more or stands for a raise on an inside straight. The thing is just cut-throat and scientific and wholly mercenary.

The kitty is gone. Nobody cares to come in to a common fund for the purchase of mineral water and cheese sandwiches. And with the passing of the kitty the most promising development of co-operation and communism in America has gone. It was prophetic of a more perfectly organized society. In the days of the kitty the fine Socialistic ideal of, "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs," was made specific and workable. And the inspiring romantic tradition of Robin Hood was also carried over into modern life. The kitty robbed only the rich and left the poor alone.

But now none of us will contribute unquestionably to the material comfort of others. Each must keep his money for the savings bank.

Perhaps, something of the old friendly rivalry may be revived. In a hundred years it may be that men will meet around a table and that one will say to the other, "What have you got?"

"I've got $9,876.32 in first mortgages and gilt-edged securities."

"That's good. You win."

But somehow or other we doubt it.

Another mistake which was made in the policy of compromising with the drys was the agreement that liquor should not be served to minors. On the contrary, the provision should have been that drink ought not to be permitted to any man more than thirty years of age. Liquor was never meant to be a steady companion. It was the animating influence which made oats wild. Work and responsibility are the portion of the mature man. Rum was designed for youthful days when the reckless avidity for experience is so great that reality must be blurred a little lest it blind us.

We happened to pick up a copy of "The Harvard Crimson" the other day and read: "The first freshman smoker will be held at 7.45 o'clock this evening in the living room of the Union. P. H. Theopold, '25, Chairman of the Smoker Committee, will act as Chairman, introducing Clark Hodder, '25, and J. H. Child, '25, the Class President and Secretary respectively. After the speeches there will be a motion picture, and some vaudeville by a magician from Keith's. Ginger ale, crackers, and cigarettes will be served. All freshmen are invited to attend."