Other cases cited deal with matters requiring expert judgment in the administration of the mails. E.g., Smith v. Hitchcock, 226 U. S. 53.
Cases cited involving obscenity while referring to “administrative discretion” considered the facts. In Bowery Enterprises v. Christenberry,
Civ. 140-233, D. C. S. D. N. Y., 1958, Judge Dimock found the material clearly obscene. It was “unnecessary to seek support in the rule that an administrative determination must stand unless clearly wrong.” In Anderson v. Patten, D. C. S. D. N. Y., 247 Fed. 382, the material, the subject matter and the treatment were salacious. In Roth v. Goldman, 2 Cir., 172 F. 2d 788, the materials had “little excuse for being beyond their provocative obscenity * * * .”
Monart, Inc. v. Christenberry, D. C. S. D. N. Y., 168 F. Supp. 654, was concerned only with the power of the Post Office.
These cases do not hold that a Post Office determination of obscenity is entitled to special weight.
15 Woolsey, D. J. in United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses”, supra.
16 The “rulings” referred to, apparently made even before the Ulysses case, were not produced at the hearing and it does not appear that they have ever seen the light of day. There is nothing in the record as to their content, the grounds on which they were based, whether whatever parties may have been involved were given a hearing, or what standards were applied. Nor is there any indication as to what “major nations” have banned the book or whether in such countries there are any constitutional or other legal protections afforded speech and press.
17 As Judge Woolsey said (5 F. Supp. p. 184): “Each word of the book contributes like a bit of mosaic to the detail of the picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers.”
18 There was no question but that the material involved in Roth was hard core pornography and that the defendants were engaged “in the commercial exploitation of the morbid and shameful craving for materials with prurient effect.” (354 U. S. p. 496.)
19 For a comprehensive review of the prior material see Judge Frank’s provocative concurring opinion in the Court of Appeals which points to problems in this field still unresolved. United States v. Roth, 2 Cir., 237 F. 2d 796, 801.
20 § 207.10(2), Tent. Draft No. 6, 1957.
21 See Volanski v. United States, 6 Cir., 246 F. 2d 842.
22 See D. H. Lawrence, “Sex Literature and Censorship,” (Twayne Publishers, 1953) p. 89. Essay “A Propos of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”
23 As Mr. Justice Frankfurther pointed out in Kingsley International Pictures Corp. v. Regents, supra, Lawrence
“knew there was such a thing as pornography, dirt for dirt’s sake, or, to be more accurate, dirt for money’s sake. This is what D. H. Lawrence wrote:
“ ‘But even I would censor genuine pornography, rigorously. It would not be very difficult. In the first place, genuine pornography is almost always underworld, it doesn’t come into the open. In the second, you can recognize it by the insult it offers invariably, to sex, and to the human spirit.
“ ‘Pornography is the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it. This is unpardonable. Take the very lowest instance, the picture post-card sold underhand, by the underworld, in most cities. What I have seen of them have been of an ugliness to make you cry. The insult to the human body, the insult to a vital human relationship! Ugly and cheap they make the human nudity, ugly and degraded they make the sexual act, trivial and cheap and nasty.’ (D. H. Lawrence, Pornography and Obscenity, p. 13)” (Collected in Lawrence “Sex Literature and Censorship”, supra, p. 69.)
24 Judge Bok in Commonwealth v. Gordon, 66 D. & C. Rep. (Pa.) 101, 114.
25 It should be noted that if the book is obscene within § 1461 and thus barred from the mails it is a crime to ship it by express or in interstate commerce generally under 18 U. S. C. §§1462, 1465, and it would be subject to seizure by the customs authorities if imported for sale. (19 U. S. C. § 1305.)
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