Source: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1990/spring/esquire-v-walker-3.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 14:49:15+00:00

Document:
Bromley read a series of jokes to Rabbi Solomon Melz of Washington's Adas Israel Congregation.(27) After eliciting the expected disapproval, Bromley revealed that these examples of borderline humor came not from Esquire but from Reader's Digest. A major part of the Esquire strategy, in fact, involved demonstrating that other magazines, such as Life, carried material similar to that in Esquire but had not been challenged by the Post Office.
Even the executive secretary of the New England Watch and Ward Society, Louis Croteau, testified that Esquire "is in the spirit of good clean slapstick humor, and we could use a little more of that right now."(32) Securing Croteau as a witness was quite a coup for Esquire. The Post Office records include a letter from the Watch and Ward Society dated May 4, 1943, and signed by Croteau, commending the Post Office's efforts against popular magazines. "We as an organization are endeavouring to prevent such pernicious literature from reaching the homes of our New England families."(33) The society, however, was particularly concerned with police and detective stories and had not complained specifically about Esquire, which Croteau compared to the New Yorker.
With Croteau's testimony on behalf of Esquire, the Post Office changed the thrust of its case. If the head of the Watch and Ward Society failed to find the magazine obscene, postal authorities would be hard pressed to proceed under the Comstock Act. Over the weekend following Croteau's appearance, the Post Office Department amended its charge. Even if the magazine were not obscene, lewd, or lascivious under the 1873 postal obscenity statute, it could be denied second-class mailing privileges for failing to make a positive contribution to the public good under the 1879 postal classification act. Such a finding would force its publisher to mail Esquire at first-class rates, an additional expense estimated to be $500,000 a year.
On November 11, 1943, two of three members of the hearing board found that neither statute could be used to keep Esquire from the mails.(38) The charges of obscenity had not been supported or proved. "The proof was overwhelming that Esquire did not offend or violate the standards or the mores of our days." Furthermore, the majority found that Esquire had not failed to comply with the fourth condition for second-class mailing privileges; it rejected Postmaster General Walker's interpretation that a publication not only had to refrain from disseminating obscene material but was bound to contribute to the public good.
In an appendix, the majority members commented on every item that postal authorities had found objectionable.(39) For example, it observed that the cartoon "She came directly from the wedding" "seems silly to the Board and we certainly do not think it obscene." "Goldbricking with Esquire," it concluded, "is a reproduction of alleged jokes and sayings from army newspapers. On to each item is cited the paper from which it was reprinted. In the setting the Board cannot see anything obscene in the material cited." Only one item continued to trouble them. The board considered that "Paste Your Face Here" had definite obscene connotations but did not by itself provide grounds for rescinding Esquire's second-class mailing privileges.
The advice of the majority of the hearing board should have ended the matter. Contrary to its findings, however, Postmaster General Frank Walker decided to proceed with the revocation of Esquire's second-class mailing privileges. On December 31, 1943, presumably when Esquire readers were busy preparing for New Year's Eve, the Post Office issued a press release announcing Walker's decision, effective February 28, 1944.(41) Walker was particularly troubled by "writings and pictures in that obscure and treacherous borderland zone where the average person hesitates to find them technically obscene, but may still see ample proof that they are morally improper and not for the public welfare and good." Esquire's lawyers immediately filed suit in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., seeking to enjoin the revocation order.
The Post Office hearing board had determined that Esquire's risque humor did not offend contemporary mores. The judge in the federal district court for the District of Columbia, T. Whitfield Davidson, visiting the D.C. bench from Texas, however, tested Esquire by the standards of the late nineteenth century. According to Judge Davidson, the congressmen who created the second-class mail rate had been raised on the morality tales of William McGuffey's readers. "In the primer, about every fourth lesson was one that taught children how to live. He must not lie, and there followed the story of Washington and the cherry tree. He must be honest and just, and there followed the story of the broken window and the silver dollar. . . . These environments created a standard of ethics and morals which ruled the America of our fathers. It was the Victorian era translated to the American conception. . . . It was men of this type, brought up under the standards of this period, who wrote in 1879, Section 226, Title 39 of the U.S.C.A. giving a low rate to newspapers and like publications. May the Postmaster General, therefore, have not been warranted in reaching his conclusions that the literature referred to was literature of desirable type of an educational value?"(42) As Arnold Gingrich observed, "It is hard to conceive of a 20th century magazine that could have measured up."(43) Finding that the postmaster had not acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner, Judge Davidson denied the injunction and dismissed the complaint.
With the boom in magazines in the 1930s and the huge number of periodicals taking advantage of cheaper second-class rates (estimated at about 25,000 in 1940), the Esquire case worried publishers. If Esquire, with a circulation of 695,000 (which grew steadily as the case progressed) and some of the nation's foremost writers and critics, could be threatened, what magazine was safe? Davidson's decision made clear the economic dimensions of the problem. While first-class mail actually generated revenue (approximately $146 million in 1941), second-class mail created a deficit of more than $80 million. Most magazines would be put out of business by first-class mail rates. Furthermore, army camps would only distribute magazines that qualified for second-class mailing privileges, in effect making the rate a governmental seal of approval. Counsel for Esquire filed a subpoena demanding that the Post Office turn over its records of all the other magazines whose second-class mailing privileges had been challenged.(44) Among the fifty titles listed were Hobo News, Laff, Army and Navy Fun Parade, All-American Comics, and New Love Magazine.
As the postal obscenity statute made plain, however, Congress had given the postmaster general the power of censorship over material that was obscene, lewd, and lascivious. The law provided that such material be banned from the mails altogether and specified criminal proceedings for offenders. What the Esquire decision made clear was that what the Post Office could not accomplish directly under the postal obscenity statute it could not achieve indirectly using the postal classification act.
In some respects, Walker followed the practices of his predecessors, and it may be that faced with conflicting advice from his staff, he sought to pursue the Esquire matter as a test case to clarify the law once and for all. Until the Esquire case, postal authorities had negotiated with editors behind the scene, forcing magazines to change text and remove ads. The Esquire case brought the question of mailability and contemporary standards into the open. With its huge circulation, its conspicuous involvement in the war effort, and its retinue of literary contributors, Esquire helped to redefine the limits of permissibility. With the support of public opinion and the publishing community, Esquire helped to curb the role of the postmaster general as a national censor and to gauge taste by the wartime values of the 1940s, not the fondly remembered values of 1879.
l. Case File Relating to Esquire Magazine, 1943-1946, Central Numeric File, Entry 46, Records of the Postmaster General, Records of the U.S. Postal Service, Record Group 28, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC (hereinafter cited as case file, . . . , RG 28, NA).
2. Transcript of Proceedings Before Post Office Department Hearing Board on Order No. 23,459 (hereinafter cited as Hearing Board transcript), case file, box 2, Vol. II, p. 983, RG 28, NA.
3. Ad for Bedside Esquire, Post Office Exhibit 30, case file, box 1, RG 28, NA. Arnold Gingrich claimed that the book's publisher and not Esquire had been responsible for this advertisement. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. III, p. 1298, RG 28, NA.
4. 13 Stat. L. 507 (1865).
5. 17 Stat. L. 283 (1873).
6. 20 Stat. L. 359 (1879).
7. 39 U.S.C. 221, 224, 225, 226.
8. Vincent Miles to Arnold Gingrich, Nov. 1, 1940, case file, box 1; Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. III, p. 1257, RG 28, NA.
9. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. III, p. 1262, RG 28, NA.
10. Arnold Gingrich, Nothing But People (1971), p. 158.
11. George Dixon, "Dixon's Alabaster Cheeks Stay Pale After Reading (Hush) Esquire in a Dentist's Office," Washington Times-Herald, Nov. 11, 1943, p. 13.
12. May 3, 1943, Congressional Record, 78th Cong., 1st sess., 89:3820-3824 (remarks of Senator Langer); May 13, 1943, Cong. Rec., 78th Cong., 1st sess., 89: 4328-4334 (remarks of Senator Langer).
13. Vincent Miles to Arnold Gingrich, May 21, 1942, Post Office Exhibit 58, case file, box 1, RG 28, NA.
14. Winterwear foldout of submarine launch, Esquire, Feb. 1943, pp. 31-32, case file, box "Bundle 13A," RG 28, NA.
15. "Are Varga Girls Vicious?" Time, Sept. 27, 1943, pp. 95-96.
16. Varga girl calendar, Dec. 1943, Esquire, Jan. 1943, p. 108, case file, box "Bundle 13A," RG 28, NA.
17. Gingrich, Nothing But People, p. 157.
18. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. II, p. 1217, RG 28, NA; Hannegan v. Esquire, Brief for the Postmaster General, U.S. Supreme Court, Records and Briefs, Vol. 327, p. 43.
19. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. II, pp. 1225 1226, RG 28, NA.
20. "Bishop Hughes 'Meets' a Varga Girl," Washington Times-Herald, Nov. 6, 1943, case file, box 3, RG 28, NA.
21. "Peace, It's Wonderful," Esquire, Apr. 1943, pp. 3738, case file, box "Bundle 13A," RG 28, NA.
22. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. III, p. 1578, RG 28, NA; "Purity of Womanhood Becomes Involved in Esquire Hearings" and "Army Nurses Are in Front Lines, Too," Washington Evening Star, Nov. 4, 1943, p. A6.
23. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. III, pp. 1680-1689, RG 28, NA.
24. "The Shapely Annette Shocks, Unshocks a Feminist Leader," Washington Daily News, Nov. 6, 1943, p. C4, case file, box 3; George Dixon, "Esquire Pulls Old Trick, But Proves a Point," Washington Times-Herald, Nov. 6, 1943, case file, box 3, RG 28, NA.
25. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. III, p. 1567, RG 28, NA.
26. Deposition of Rt. Rev. Msgr. Edward J. Flanagan, Nov. 5 1943, case file, box 2, RG 28, NA. Librarians at the Hail of History at Boys Town were unable to identify any contribution to Esquire by Father Flanagan.
27. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. III, p. 1593, RG 28, NA.
28. Gingrich, Nothing But People, p. 161.
29. For Mencken's own account of the "Hatrack" episode, see The Editor, the Bluenose and the Prostitute: H. L. Mencken's History of the "Hatrack" Censorship Case, ed. Carl Bode (1988).
30. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, vol.111, pp. 1144 1146, RG 28, NA.
31. Gingrich, Nothing But People, p. 161. For Mencken's account of his testimony in the Esquire case, see Diary of H. L. Mencken, ed. Charles A. Fecher (1989), pp. 278-279.
32. "The Experts Fail to Blush," Time, Nov. 1, 1943.
33. Charles H. Fleming and Louis J. Croteau to Postmaster General Frank Walker, May 4, 1943, Post Office Exhibit 25, case file, box 1, RG 28, NA.
34. Milkmaid Cartoon, Esquire, Sept. 1943, p. 65, case file, box "Bundle 13A," RG 28, NA.
35. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. I, pp. 431-432, RG 28, NA.
36. "Paste Your Face Here," Esquire, Aug. 1943, p. 89, case file, box "Bundle 13A," RG 28, NA.
37. Hearing Board transcript, case file, box 2, Vol. I, p. 433, RG 28, NA.
38. Memorandum to the Third Assistant Postmaster General, Nov. 11, 1943, case file, box 3, RG 28, NA.
39. Memorandum to the Third Assistant Postmaster General, Nov. 11, 1943, appendix A, case file, box 3, RG 28, NA.
40. Memorandum to the Third Assistant Postmaster General from Tom C. Cargill, member of the board, Nov. 12, 1943, p. 3, case file, box 3, RG 28, NA.
41. Press release, Dec. 31, 1943, Information Service, Post Office Department, case file, box 1, RG 28, NA.
42. Esquire v. Walker, 55 F. Supp. 1015 (D.D.C. 1944) at 1019.
43. Gingrich, Nothing But People, p. 164.
44. Subpoena Ad Test, District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia, Esquire v. Walker, Civil Action No. 22822, case file, box 3, RG 28, NA.
45. "Publishers Assail Curb on Esquire," New York Times, June 9, 1944, p. 13.
46. "Pennsylvanians Join Fight on Esquire Ban," New York Times, June 10, 1944, p. 13.
47. Esquire v. Walker, 151 F.2d 49 (D.C. Cir. 1945) at 51.
48. 151 F.2d at 55.
49. U.S. v. One Book Entitled Ulysses, 72 F.2d 705 (2d Cir. 1933).
50. Hannegan v. Esquire, 327 U.S. 146 (1946) at 151.
51. "Postmaster General Penalizes 'Esquire,'" The Christian Century, Jan. 12, 1944, p. 37.
52. Gingrich, Nothing But People, p. 159.
53. "Esquire Banned," Time, Jan. 10, 1944, p. 46.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.