brag: Exhibit 1

I have just acquired a copy of Norman Lockridge's "Waggish Tales of
the Czechs", Candide Press, New York 1947. It has this slip stapled
to the flyleaf, type-facsimiled as follows:

pre
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SAMUEL ROTH, doing business under the
trade names and styles of CANDIDE PRESS,
THE MONTHLY BOOK GEM, PSYCHIC RESEARCH
PRESS, ARROWHEAD BOOKS and HOGARTH HOUSE,

plaintiff-appellant,

against

ALBERT GOLDMAN, indivisually and as
Postmaster at New York, New York,

Defendant-Appellee.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EXHIBIT 1
Book Entitled "WAGGISH TALES OF THE CZECHS"
/pre

From which I assume it was an obscenity case and Roth was appealing
against a seizure. Anybody know more? The content is Boccaccio-
like bawdy fake folktales. Googling reveals that there was an article
about the case in the Journal of Popular Culture in 1968, but it's
subscription-only.

The book is in good shape but the dustjacket is falling to bits. It
doesn't seem to be worth a lot going by prices on the web, but the
legal connection is neat.

Anybody else have (physical copies of) books that have been through
the courts?

============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557

"Jack Campin - bogus address" wrote in message
...
I have just acquired a copy of Norman Lockridge's "Waggish Tales of
the Czechs", Candide Press, New York 1947. It has this slip stapled
to the flyleaf, type-facsimiled as follows:

pre
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SAMUEL ROTH, doing business under the
trade names and styles of CANDIDE PRESS,
THE MONTHLY BOOK GEM, PSYCHIC RESEARCH
PRESS, ARROWHEAD BOOKS and HOGARTH HOUSE,

plaintiff-appellant,

against

ALBERT GOLDMAN, indivisually and as
Postmaster at New York, New York,

Defendant-Appellee.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EXHIBIT 1
Book Entitled "WAGGISH TALES OF THE CZECHS"
/pre

From which I assume it was an obscenity case and Roth was appealing
against a seizure. Anybody know more?

PROCEDURAL POSTU Appellant challenged the validity of five orders of the
Postmaster General, entered after administrative proceedings and hearings,
which excluded from the mail three books published by appellant under
various trade names.

OVERVIEW: Appellant, under various trade names, published three books, which
were excluded from the mail by five orders of the Postmaster General,
entered after administrative proceedings and hearings. Only one of the books
was excluded as obscene, lewd, and lascivious, while all material concerning
the others was held unmailable because they were fraudulently advertised to
be salacious, although they were not. On appeal, the court held that there
was little doubt of the misleading character of the condemned advertising or
of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain these administrative findings.
The court affirmed, holding that the injunction against the third, was
proper because it was a decision committed in the first instance to an
administrative official, and therefore judicial review channeled within the
confines of a plea for an injunction should not be overextensive.

OUTCOME: The court affirmed, holding that two of the books were excluded
because of the steps taken to secure mail orders for them by fraudulently
advertising them to be salacious when they were not. The court held that
there was no abuse of administrative discretion or power in excluding the
third as obscene, lewd, and lascivious.


CONCUR: FRANK, Circuit Judge

[ . . .]

My private tastes are such that I think the American people will suffer no
great loss if deprived of the opportunity to read Waggish Tales from the
Czechs. But far more is here involved than this particular book: Our
decision will become a precedent- in a circuit which includes America's
great publishing center- affecting the exercise of the right of free press
guaranteed by the First Amendment. Our decision may put in peril other
writings, of a higher order of excellence, which any man who happens at the
moment to be Postmaster General happens to find offensive.

For my colleagues allow small room for court review, saying that the
determination of obscenity 'is committed in the first instance to an
administrative official; and, under normal rules, therefore, judicial review
channeled within the confines of a plea for an injunction n1 should not be
overextensive.' That ruling vests immense administrative censorship
authority in one fallible man, makes him an almost [**5] despotic arbiter
of literary products. If one day he bans a mediocre book, another day he may
do the same to a work of genius. Originality is not so common that we should
lightly contemplate its potential stifling. And censorship does more than to
keep finished books from being sold: it keeps many from ever being written.
Tolstoy and other Russians of the Czarist era have told how fear of the
censor impeded their creative writing. An American author's imagination may
be severely cramped if he must write with one eye on the Postmaster General;
authors must cope with publishers who, uncertain about that official's
judgment, may refuse to accept the manuscripts of contemporary or future
Shelleys or Witmans.

[ . . .]


===============================
ROTH, DOING BUSINESS AS PSYCHIC RESEARCH PRESS, v. GOLDMAN,

POSTMASTER.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


OPINION: Certiorari denied.

fungod wrote:

"Jack Campin - bogus address" wrote in message
...

I have just acquired a copy of Norman Lockridge's "Waggish Tales of
the Czechs", Candide Press, New York 1947. It has this slip stapled
to the flyleaf, type-facsimiled as follows:

pre
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SAMUEL ROTH, doing business under the
trade names and styles of CANDIDE PRESS,
THE MONTHLY BOOK GEM, PSYCHIC RESEARCH
PRESS, ARROWHEAD BOOKS and HOGARTH HOUSE,

plaintiff-appellant,

against

ALBERT GOLDMAN, indivisually and as
Postmaster at New York, New York,

Defendant-Appellee.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EXHIBIT 1
Book Entitled "WAGGISH TALES OF THE CZECHS"
/pre

From which I assume it was an obscenity case and Roth was appealing
against a seizure. Anybody know more?


PROCEDURAL POSTU Appellant challenged the validity of five orders of the
Postmaster General, entered after administrative proceedings and hearings,
which excluded from the mail three books published by appellant under
various trade names.

OVERVIEW: Appellant, under various trade names, published three books, which
were excluded from the mail by five orders of the Postmaster General,
entered after administrative proceedings and hearings. Only one of the books
was excluded as obscene, lewd, and lascivious, while all material concerning
the others was held unmailable because they were fraudulently advertised to
be salacious, although they were not. On appeal, the court held that there
was little doubt of the misleading character of the condemned advertising or
of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain these administrative findings.
The court affirmed, holding that the injunction against the third, was
proper because it was a decision committed in the first instance to an
administrative official, and therefore judicial review channeled within the
confines of a plea for an injunction should not be overextensive.

OUTCOME: The court affirmed, holding that two of the books were excluded
because of the steps taken to secure mail orders for them by fraudulently
advertising them to be salacious when they were not. The court held that
there was no abuse of administrative discretion or power in excluding the
third as obscene, lewd, and lascivious.


CONCUR: FRANK, Circuit Judge

[ . . .]

My private tastes are such that I think the American people will suffer no
great loss if deprived of the opportunity to read Waggish Tales from the
Czechs. But far more is here involved than this particular book: Our
decision will become a precedent- in a circuit which includes America's
great publishing center- affecting the exercise of the right of free press
guaranteed by the First Amendment. Our decision may put in peril other
writings, of a higher order of excellence, which any man who happens at the
moment to be Postmaster General happens to find offensive.

For my colleagues allow small room for court review, saying that the
determination of obscenity 'is committed in the first instance to an
administrative official; and, under normal rules, therefore, judicial review
channeled within the confines of a plea for an injunction n1 should not be
overextensive.' That ruling vests immense administrative censorship
authority in one fallible man, makes him an almost [**5] despotic arbiter
of literary products. If one day he bans a mediocre book, another day he may
do the same to a work of genius. Originality is not so common that we should
lightly contemplate its potential stifling. And censorship does more than to
keep finished books from being sold: it keeps many from ever being written.
Tolstoy and other Russians of the Czarist era have told how fear of the
censor impeded their creative writing. An American author's imagination may
be severely cramped if he must write with one eye on the Postmaster General;
authors must cope with publishers who, uncertain about that official's
judgment, may refuse to accept the manuscripts of contemporary or future
Shelleys or Witmans.

[ . . .]


===============================
ROTH, DOING BUSINESS AS PSYCHIC RESEARCH PRESS, v. GOLDMAN,

POSTMASTER.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


OPINION: Certiorari denied.



The story does not end there, however. Ten years later, Roth was back, and this
time he made it to the U. S. Supreme Court: Roth vs. United States, 354 U. S.
476, 77 S. Ct. 1304 (1957). Again, he lost, with the court relying upon an
early articulation of the community standards theory. Justice Brennan wrote the
majority opinion. Justice Douglas, dissenting, said [354 U.S. @ 511-512]:

"The standard of what offends "the common conscience of the community"
conflicts, in my judgment, with the command of the First Amendment that
"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or [p512] of
the press." Certainly that standard would not be an acceptable one if religion,
economics, politics or philosophy were involved. How does it become a
constitutional standard when literature treating with sex is concerned?"


In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart announced the "I know it when I see it"
standard. Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964). As with most bad law,
these opinions of the Supreme Court generated more not less litigation.
Eventually, the court took to deciding obscenity cases per curiam. Supreme
Court Justices and their clerks were subjected to regular "movie days", watching
more sex films than most people would ever see. [Presumably, it did not corrupt
them.] See Bob Woodward, _The Brethren_. The practice was satirized in the
play _First Monday in October_, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.


Then, in Miller v. California , 413 U.S. 15 (1973), the Court refined its
community standards theory to have three elements: (1) dominant prurient theme;
(2) affronts community standards; and (3) without redeeming social value. The
Court reversed the determination of obscenity in that case.


Brennan switched sides, making a detailed dissent in Paris Adult Theatre I v.
Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 73 (1973), delivered on the same day as Miller, that set
forth the futility of the Court's attempts to articulate what constitutes
obscenity.


The next year, in Jenkins v. Georgia , 418 U.S. 153 (1974), [the "Carnal
Knowledge" movie case], it was held that nudity was not per se obscene.


And that is essentially where the law now stands. What has changed is community
standards. And that is why there are so few obscenity cases now.


Francis A. Miniter