In February of 1916, famous anarchist and activist Emma Goldman was arrested in New York City for violating the 1873 Comstock Law. A few days later, she said to the press, "When a law has outgrown time and necessity, it must go and the only way to get rid of the law is to awaken the public to the fact that it has outlived its purpose and that is precisely what I have been doing and mean to do in the future."
The Comstock Law banned the transportation of certain materials through the mails. What, specifically, was Goldman doing that was seen as violating that law?
First correct answer posted to comments wins a beautiful insulated coffee mug embossed with the title of Ronald Anthony's new romance blockbuster The Forever Year in lovely chrome-colored plastic.
Our own antiquated Womstock Law forbids Googling, Encarta-ing, or casting runes to get the answer. One guess per comment, but post as many comments as you like.
Posted by BT at February 21, 2003 09:37 AMLet's break it down.
Com is short for communication. And in 1873 that meant mail. Stock means buying a part of a public company. Therefore Comstock must have disallowed sending money in the mail.
Unless, of course, Comstock was the guy who wrote the law.
Posted by: teenidol on February 21, 2003 10:33 AMWhat were people concerned about in 1873?
Carpet baggers? Unions?
I'm going unions.
No I'm not.
Nekkid pictures.
Posted by: boxjam on February 21, 2003 10:44 AMWasn't she mailing anarchist "propaganda"? So the Comstock Law would have outlawed the use of the mail system to send out political statements calling for the violent overthrow of the US gov.
Either that or it was birth control.
Posted by: KF on February 21, 2003 11:06 AMOkay... or... the Comstock law forbade the use of the mails to distribute pornography, and given the loose definition of pornography it employed, Goldman's anarchist promotion of "free love" resulted in prosecution.
Posted by: KF on February 21, 2003 11:40 AMMail-order bride.
Posted by: hackly_fracture on February 21, 2003 12:01 PMAnt farm ants.
Posted by: boxjam on February 21, 2003 12:03 PMBob Hope
Posted by: Scott on February 21, 2003 12:08 PMKathleen, after a false start in the direction towards sedition, nails it with the answer of contraception. The Comstock Act forbade the transporting of “obscene” information through the mails, which the courts at that time applied to information regarding birth control. Goldman was arrested after giving a speech in which she advocated birth control, and the authorities argued that she was engaged, on the whole, in a campaign of disseminating the aforementioned obscene material, through various channels, including the mails.
Goldman was arrested again, the next year, again for making public remarks on a totally different issue and via a totally different law, this one not directly related to women’s rights. Any guesses on what it was she was speaking about, or arrested for?
Posted by: BT on February 21, 2003 12:19 PMInciting a Whiskey Rebellion?
Posted by: boxjam on February 21, 2003 12:25 PMPretty close, I reckon, boxjam. I'd guess it was anti-American-involvement-in-the-Great-War.
Indeed, Mr. Fracture, she was protesting U.S. involvement in the war. But they got her under an interestingly weaselish legal technicality, which no longer exists (at least it isn’t currently relevant). Anyone?
Posted by: BT on February 21, 2003 01:31 PMHmm. 1917. The US wasn't yet at war, so it couldn't be some wartime law.
I'm going to guess it had to do with it being a state of emergency, though, and they arrested her for congregating.
Posted by: boxjam on February 21, 2003 04:06 PMUh, Boxjam, it's over.
Posted by: Scott on February 21, 2003 04:10 PMIt is? Really?
I wonder what they'll do with the Kaiser...
Posted by: boxjam on February 21, 2003 04:28 PMI don't think there was a law against congregating per se (although who knows what various states of emergency entail -- certainly around these parts it means you can't march up and down the streets); but they arrested Goldman for "obstructing the draft" and deported her.
As for the Kaiser -- I think he cut some sort of a deal, and they put him in the Witness Protection Program. Word is he's got a walled estate just outside of Tempe, Arizona.
Oh, no, I guess there is a follow-on quiz. I'm the oblivious one, and being a jerk about it. And not for the first time.
Posted by: Scott on February 21, 2003 05:35 PMJust got back from a conference, so I missed the quiz action. In my youth Comstock was a brand of canned pie fillings and rice pudding. I figure that would have been illegal to send through the mails, and it would be just like our punctilious Congress of 1873 to be sure everyone knew it.
Posted by: Jonathan on February 21, 2003 07:49 PMWhy, wasn't she dancing?
Posted by: bootsy on February 23, 2003 04:43 PMDuh! No, passing out birth control (don't ask me which kind they had back then, tho. Maybe pig bladders with strings or something.)
Posted by: bootsy on February 23, 2003 04:46 PM