The Case of Mrs. Dennett
62 THE COMMONWEAL May 22, 1929 THE CASE OF MRS. DENNETT WE HAVE preferred to keep "sex" in its more strident aspects out of The Commonweal, for the reason that this seems a matter which...
...Are we to believe that liberty is all with the platform, and that respect for others as well as ordinary common sense are things of the past...
...Though it may be true that the "scientific approach" to the problem of sex information sometimes forgets that the final aim must be to sublimate instinct, there is no sense in talking about "pretty violets" and "blushing bluebells" to human beings on the verge of messing up their lives...
...As a priest he remains wisely conscious of the unparalleled sublimating value of the Christian faith...
...The New Republic, in its issue of May 8, reprinted part of her pamphlet, with the remark that "the passages we omit are entirely in the tone of those we print...
...We think, first of all, that the habit of seeing in what any individual Catholic utters the voice of the Church is very annoying and misleading...
...McGoldrick and Mrs...
...DENNETT WE HAVE preferred to keep "sex" in its more strident aspects out of The Commonweal, for the reason that this seems a matter which intelligent people (and their confessors) can settle without editorial assistance...
...During recent weeks, however, a number of things have occurred which seem to call for plain speech...
...There is room for legitimate difference of opinion regarding it...
...If that be true, the word "tone" is certainly one of the most extensive in the language...
...Certainly it is difficult to see why Mrs...
...He has written for parents, whom he sees confronted with "a most difficult task," that must be performed if scores of boy and girl tragedies are to be averted...
...Such language—which the extracts published by the New Republic do not remotely approximate—could not be circulated in the average American community without the risk of raising the roof...
...Thomas A. McGoldrick to the effect that her protest was able to quash a birth-control talkie by Mrs...
...The very language of the Church affords easy starting-points for what is often an embarrassing discussion...
...Sanger are not equally entitled, under the law, to a fulsome say...
...And immediately a crusade for her liberation was set afoot, while sleuths began to scent a "Catholic censorship...
...Dennett's pamphlet is one of these ways...
...Sanger...
...Sanger we confess to having made up our minds...
...Mailing privileges usually mean promiscuous circulation...
...Why not recognize this fact, which simply means that like all other literary productions "sex pamphlets" must reckon with their audience...
...Elsewhere we are publishing the reasonable view of a distinguished and highly respected Catholic physician—which will, we hope, help to dispel the illusion that the "Catholic mind" is all compressed into one lump...
...We particularly object to a certain note which injects itself into this discussion...
...But as boy guidance and marital rehabilitation develop, it becomes increasingly clear that the Catholic conscience, at least, can adopt no such categorical negative...
...But the difficulty will only be increased, and ultimate failure merely hastened, by such language as Judge G. W. H. Hayes employed in his charge to the Dreiser jury...
...But if there must be enthusiasm for her endeavor, we should like to make the following suggestions: that an ordinarily earnest effort be made to discern the "Catholic point of view" before this is defined...
...Father Kilian is a Capuchin whose life has been devoted to Catholic boy guidance...
...But two conditions have changed: a far larger number of people are without religious beliefs, and the world of nature is remote...
...We think that Dreiser's book is of no great importance...
...The reply is rather simple...
...Books written from a definitely religious point of view (notably Gillet's Innocence and Ignorance, translated by the Reverend J. Elliot Ross) have emphasized the importance of freeing youth from the handicap of sex ignorance...
...In its issue of May 15, the New Republic returns to the charge, by quoting a remark by Mrs...
...No doubt, of course, it would be soothing to behold both relaxing into quiet meditation...
...This last is probably not more violent in our time than it has been during the past...
...It seems to us that the endeavor to book lectures for her is not worth the trouble it would cost an intelligent person otherwise employed...
...Nothing can ever fully compensate for these...
...Dennett's pamphlet were distributed by physicians and counselors as they saw fit, few would (or could) object...
...On the other hand, we are in profound disagreement with much that has been said regarding Mrs...
...He even went on to say that "if the language used is such as to arouse unchaste thoughts in the minds of youths into whose hands the book might fall, you are warranted in finding a verdict of guilty...
...and that every stampede for "freedom" has been rather hard on sundry folk in the crowd...
...The jury objected no doubt to a series of expository passages and drawings which are about as completely undraped as a bean-pole in a blizzard, and which will shock nine out of ten American parents nearly out of their senses...
...And so if Mrs...
...Now certainly it may be quite true that Mrs...
...Mary Ware Dennett comes in...
...Indeed, one may say that this decision has popularized the "movement for contraception" vastly more than anything of the kind which has occurred for years...
...Having written and mailed a pamphlet dealing with the "sex side of life," she was tried by a Brooklyn jury, found guilty and fined...
...She is quite as fanatical as Carrie Nation ever was, and probably just as harmful...
...The Judge declared that in estimating the book, it was not "necessary to find that the words alone are indecent...
...The Catholics, who constitute a minority of the people of the United States, ought to be the last to demand a censorship of this sort," opines the editor, who then proceeds to ask what liberal Catholics, including our humble selves, think of the matter...
...The decision of a Boston jury that Dreiser's An American Tragedy is an obscene book has inoculated with new vigor—and for strange reasons—prevailing opposition to Catholic views of sex morality...
...We believe furthermore that Catholic citizens ought to uphold existing sex-propaganda laws in so far as they are able, though it is clear that this defense is bound to become increasingly difficult...
...Brisbane for American journalism or Professor Fisher for New England...
...Dennett...
...On the subject of Mrs...
...In the face of such a charge, one can only ask with the Psalmist, "Lord, who shall stand...
...But if we must go on campaigning for "freedom," the only thing that will happen is that all the pink teas will become even more stupidly erotic than they are now...
...What to do then is a matter for wise educators and physicians to decide...
...After one has reached a certain period, beating around the bush is only a ridiculous subterfuge...
...that so fundamental a problem as sex be dealt with calmly and considerately, for the obvious reason that frankness alone never safeguarded anybody...
...It would seem, however, that in the realm of sex as elsewhere the teaching of natural law is what Newman might have termed a "civilizing preliminary step...
...Why not admit once and for all that Catholics are varied and distributed just as authors, politicians and New England Puritans are distributed—that some one no more speaks for all than Mr...
...A very nice old lady, when asked recently for her May 22, 1929 THE COMMONWEAL 63 literary credo, replied with great firmness: "I object earnestly to the facts of life...
...And so physicians and educators have sought for ways in which such teaching might be correctly and effectively imparted...
...More specifically, it leads one to inquire as to just how the important work of conveying information about sex to young men and women is to be performed...
...Here is where Mrs...
...Dennett's essay would be genuinely helpful to a good many young folk...
...And now comes Father Kilian Hennrich's Watchful Elders, a little treatise issued by the Bruce Publishing Company, of Milwaukee, to make the same point with renewed emphasis...
...And if a human being can as a child exchange "innocence" for "knowledge" normally, as part of the discovery of all things the Lord has made, he will be safeguarded at least in a measure against rampant evil suggestion...
Vol. 10 • May 1929 • No. 3
