Cline and Huysmans Part 2 of 3

After Cline's review of La Bas appeared on 30 March 1924, the publisher received an invitation to appear in the office of the District Attorney to defend the book. A complaint had been lodged by John S. Sumner (1869-1971), who was then the head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an arch-conservative organization that had successfully prosecuted and removed from sale books like The Genius by Theodore Dreiser in 1916, and failed to remove from sale Jurgen by James Branch Cabell in 1919.

On Friday, 11 April 1924, an article in the New York World noted that La Bas had been withdrawn by the publisher, after the threat of prosecution.  Albert and Charles Boni were a new publishing firm, having been founded in 1923. 

On Saturday, 12 April 1924, New York World columnist Heywood Broun gave literary editor Laurence Stallings much of his column to describe what happened.  I quote the Stallings portion here in full.

“Before you begin the assault on the censors,” writes Laurence Stallings. “may I confess partial responsibility for the suppression of La Bas? It was reviewed for the Sunday page by Leonard Cline, who stated that Huysmans work, while a terrific piece of demonology, was certainly not a book for smut-hunters. Charles Boni, its publisher, knew that The Sunday World was carrying a review, and feared that Sumner would seize upon the book if the work was reported as Cline had done. The review, of course, was run anyway. Just as Boni feared, Sumner got it, and cited to District Attorney Banton that a good, clean paper had adjudged La Bas, however indirectly, as worthy of the reformer’s hire. Boni’s fears were realized in full, and he sent the plates to Sumner’s society.

“I think the case interesting enough to be stated in full. Boni had two books he was fearful for. You know, of course, that it was once proposed that Sumner pass on manuscripts and save the publisher the expense of printing books Sumner doesn’t like, and that he declined. So Boni had no alternative but print the books, or discard the manuscripts without a trial. Other publishers had rejected La Bas. He printed them. Havelock Ellis, in his Affirmations, admires them both. I cite Ellis, because in so far as I know he is the fairest, most wind-swept mind in the profession.

“The first book was de Selincourt’s One Little Boy. This study of adolescence found critics as widely removed as Margaret Sanger and the Y.M.C.A. calling it important. Boni was safe. He published La Bas and was on the mat in the District Attorney’s office before three weeks was out. Nearly 2,500 copies (the first edition) were sold. Wednesday he sent the remaining thirty-seven copies and the plates to Sumner’s society.

“I hold no brief for the Boni brothers. They quit rather than fight. Yet they may not be censured particularly for having elected to lie down. Young publishers with little capital, they stood to lose everything by a fight. When Sumner hits a book it is done through District Attorney Banton’s office. The publisher is invited to call with his attorney. The D.A. cites the passages and asks the lawyer if he believes his client has a chance under the penal section, with the book in question before a jury of twelve men.

“The Boni house would have lost the La Bas fight in all probability. Also, a great many bookshops would have discriminated against other publications on their list. In other words, they would not fight, because a fight would have cost them something.

“Few publishers will stand up and test a book before a jury. Give Seltzer credit for artistic nerve, and mark down Knopf for having eaten crow last fall when Floyd Dell’s Janet March was withdrawn. Knopf even declined to tell me that it had been withdrawn and Banton asked that it be given no publicity.

“It seems to me that the public might as well know that there is a definite censorship operating against it effectively in the person on Sumner, and with whatever strong financial influences there may be to back him. Perhaps there is no use shouting either for or against a Clean Books Bill. It would all resolve into one arbiter of literary elegance, who probably should be another such well-intentioned man with a financial security. The situation would be unchanged whatever laws were operating. As usual, the poor man either cannot or will not fight for his rights, and the well-off man is sufficiently solvent to disregard the many laws regulating his reading and drinking.

“Perhaps all statuses supervising the publication of books should be wiped off the board. I object and confess to an illiberality precisely that of Sumner’s. The difference is only an artistic one. Thus the only book law which I should call just would be one empowering me to assume the functions and arrogances just now embodied in Sumner, I would not hesitate to sweep away juvenile pornography written by hired men for country boys to read in the hay-loft, myself fanatical enough to forbid them the literary delights I myself once knew. Even here would be the typical reform attitude, despite an artistic intention. My plan would insist that little boys who found themselves unable to stave off puberty might be forced to read Havelock Ellis and others as equally fascinating about the most fascinating phase of human existence. . . . Thus I confess that no new book law will work; and I am damned if I can think of anything better than Sumner or myself.”