Seduction of the Innocent Read Free Page A

Krazy Kat, declare John Ford a “modern folklorist,” and Benny Goodman a musical genius.
    Didn’t disagree with those views, but Lehman’s pomposity made irritating stuff out of them.
    “Your book The Velvet Fist came out last year,” Barray (back on the air) was saying after introducing his new guest, “and you raised a lot of eyebrows.”
    “Yes,” Lehman said, in a pinched, nasal voice, “and I even fought successfully against the United States Postal Service in court, to protect my rights as a citizen and scholar.”
    “What was the fuss over, Garson?”
    “My central thesis was the ‘fuss’—that graphic violence in the popular arts runs rampant while governmental censorship focuses exclusively on the depiction of natural, biological activities.”
    Lehman knew not to use the word “sex” on the air.
    Maggie, who was expected to just sit there and look swell and not interrupt, asked, “Are you recommending more censorship or less censorship?”
    She seemed genuinely confused.
    This threw the little man, and Barray had to pick up the slack, saying, “Well, now, Maggie, that may be a moot point ...two separate bills—one designed to ban crime and horror comic books, the other to regulate their contents prior to publication—have already been passed by the New York legislature.”
    “That’s right,” Maggie said in her low purr, “and Governor Dewey vetoed both. He knew they were unconstitutional.”
    Finally Lehman chimed in: “Even so, a United States Senate hearing on comic books, as they relate to juvenile delinquency, is scheduled to begin later this week, right here in New York City, if you didn’t know.”
    Maggie was shaking her head, casting the pair an I-pity-you-in-your-stupidity smile that I knew all too well.
    “Really, gentleman,” she said, “don’t you realize that opening this door will invite censorship into all forms of entertainment?”
    “Personally,” Barray said, in his gravest radio-announcer voice, “I believe no man should be told by another what he is allowed to see.”
    Lehman seemed to take the host’s pompous pronouncement as a betrayal, bristling. “Tell that to those who consistently ban material relating to human...”
    He almost said “sexuality.”
    “...biology.”
    “With all due respect, Garson,” the disc jockey said, “Dr. Kinsey’s favorite subject is not the issue here.” He plucked the horror comic off the pile again and waved it like a flag. “It’s the violent garbage being foisted upon the youth of our nation.”
    Now Lehman was back on board. “Absolutely! These periodicals are the worst kind of swill—a garish hodgepodge of clashing colors, atrocious artwork, moronic writing, all printed on the cheapest pulp paper pennies can buy—a very celebration of violence.”
    I bet he wanted to say “orgy.”
    Calm as still waters, Maggie said to Lehman, “And you would censor that?”
    “Well, something must be done.”
    “Yet you fought the post office over censoring your book.”
    He stuck his nose in the air and it twitched like a rabbit’s. “My book was not cheap violent trash, glorifying crime and killing.”
    Wasn’t killing a crime?
    “Mr. Lehman,” Maggie was saying, with a gracious veneer, “I seem to recall you writing a letter on my behalf some years ago.”
    The shaggy-haired intellectual swallowed, and his neck reddened. He was lucky this new color TV hadn’t hit the local broadcasts.
    “I, uh, am afraid I don’t recall,” he said.
    She gestured to her lovely decolletage. “When I was arrested, a, uh... few years ago...when Mayor LaGuardia shut down the burlesque houses and made my act illegal...you wrote a spirited defense of my art that appeared in several local papers...and, in greater detail, in an arts magazine you edited called Erotique.”
    The little guy’s face was bright red now—sort of like Yosemite Sam after Daffy Duck really got his goat.
    Before his guest could have a stroke, however, Barray