False Hypocrites

The surgeon, white-robed and with immaculate gloves and instruments, must probe and lay bare the infections of the flesh, that it may be sterilized and heal. Recently, at the height of the Browning-Peaches orgy of pornography (TIME, Feb. 7), conscience-stricken editors tried hypocritically to explain that in probing into the sex life of a babbitt-Iecher they were acting as "surgeons to the public mind." The false hypocrisy of this excuse appeared, last week:

"THAW BREAKS LOOSE!" screamed the Bernarr Macfadden pornoGraphic tabloid last week, even as the Browning-Peaches story guttered. For this there was not even the excuse that the public does not know all there is to know about Harry K. Thaw. The Graphic pretended that its story would be a "warning" to "young girls" not to go out with Mr. Thaw. What maid, wife or widow needs further warning against Harry Thaw?

There was not even the excuse that Mr. Thaw is a type, like Mr. Browning. Mr. Thaw is not a type, but a special case. The acts of which he has been accused for so many years are to be described exactly only in the language of alienists--in words armed to the teeth.

Yet the Graphic splashed a composite photograph, representing Harry Thaw trying to strangle a young woman, across its cover; and printed a picture of an apartment house with the caption: "Where Harry Got Rough."

Other headlines scattered through a single issue of the porno-Graphic : "THAW ATTACKS PRETTY GIRL IN HIS LUXURIOUS ROOMS" (the pretty girl" was a dance hall "hostess," one Marcia Estardus); "LURED TO His HIDDEN HOME AND CLUBBED" (the "hidden home" was an ordinary apartment. Miss Estardus knew who Mr. Thaw was and went to his apartment voluntarily. She was not "clubbed," but said that Mr. Thaw had beaten her with a hair brush which she wrenched from him.) "THAW BITES BROADWAY GIRL" (This was a less imaginative headline. Miss Estardus did indeed allege that Mr. Thaw flung her to the floor and bit her in the arm and leg.)

Harry Thaw's actual condition was suggested by the allegation that after friends broke in and rescued Miss Estardus he ran about shouting: "Where's my brush? Where's my brush?" Such words, if they were uttered, place Mr. Thaw outside the realm of useful discussion by a public not made up of specialists.

Not even this sufficed. Last week the tabloids were scenting still more pornography afar. The Hearst Mirror, which had referred to Browning as "Bozo Bunny," cried last week: "BOZO KING BEN NEXT! . . . Within a few weeks King Ben* will be tried . . . accused of ruining many young girls . . . more sensational than the Browning case."

Not even this sufficed. Bernarr Macfadden personally drew his pen and signed the following statements about the Browning-Peaches case:

"The fact that every newspaper in New York had to print the details of ... the Browning case . . . proves beyond all possible argument that an alarmingly large number of people everywhere have distorted and perverted ideas. . . . Experts . . . state that there are several million sex perverts in this country. . . .

"Part of my family consists of four growing girls, ranging from 8 to 13 years of age. They read the Graphic every day. They pick out what they like. The older ones undoubtedly glanced at the Browning case. They were interested in it as a phase of life. . . .

"I could not read the stuff. It did not interest me. It bored me beyond expression. . . .

"To those who are entirely normal and who are fully informed on all subjects appertaining to sex, the Browning case is boresome. . ..

"But to the great mass of well-informed people it was amusing."

Last week Publisher Bernarr/- Macfadden was haled to court. Superintendent John S. Sumner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, represented that he had received complaints against the Graphic's front pages from people with children who could not help seeing newsstands. The Tombs Court issued a summons charging Publisher Macfadden and some underlings with violation of that clause of the penal code prohibiting literature "principally made up of criminal news, police reports, or pictures or stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime. . . ."

It was the first time Mr. Macfadden had been haled to court in years. His first arrest was in 1901, when Federal authorities got after the posters for one of his early beauty shows (a modest affair in tights but warm for its day). At that time the pure zeal of a reformer burned in Mr. Macfadden. He was but seven years away from his native Missouri. Like Theodore Roosevelt, he had built himself up from a weazened shrimp to a powerful athlete. He was as militant as any Irishman with an undigested dose of religion. His faith was physique; he was out to make the world safe for healthy bodies. This zeal has never wholly died. The numerous Macfadden daughters are buxom as can be and have never been ashamed to pose as their father's prize exhibits. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that this apostle of the corporeal should find how well the U. S. form repays its exploiters. Bernarr Macfadden got into publishing and fell among shrewd businessmen.

His second arrest was brought about by that primate of prudence, Anthony Comstock, whose vestments Reformer Sumner inherits. Mr. Comstock only succeeded in causing the Macfadden beauty show of 1905 to attract mobs that nearly burst Madison Square Garden. It was still an affair of tights--a source, perhaps, of some of the rancor in Mr. Macfadden's charges of fraud (which brought him libel suits totaling four millions) against the 1926 beauty contest at Atlantic City, held with scant emphasis on costume, by eminent bankers and businessmen.

A woman secured $3,000 damages from Mr. Macfadden in 1908 for publishing her ravishing picture without permission. But that was before the Misses Macfadden grew up and before their father had found what pictures money can buy honestly. Kind-hearted President Taft once had to come to Mr. Macfadden's aid to spare him two years of hard labor for an article on "Growing to Manhood." But since then the latitude permitted "educational" matter has increased and Mr. Macfadden has doubtless forgotten the $2,000 fine he paid in the dismal dawn of this porno-glorious century.

A cult must have a shrine or citadel. Bernarr Macfadden built his at Spottswood, N. J., "The Physical Culture City." Pilgrims groaned when they found they must pay board and yet fast for two weeks. But the city flourished, perhaps on compensations which the New York World misunderstood when it attacked the city as a nest of impropriety and license. These attacks put the city out of business, nor could its Sultan retrieve damages from the World in court. The times were narrow, oppressive. Even a chain of Macfadden lunchrooms failed, all save three, after "revolutionizing the restaurant business" so that "you can get wholesome health-building foods most anywhere."

The full extent of the Macfadden press is popularly appreciated but needs the official Macfadden figures to set it off in its true magnificence: Readers

Physical Culture* (monthly) 400,000

True Stories (weekly) 2,111,000

Movie Weekly 440,000

True Romances (monthly) 650,000

Fiction Lovers 175,000

Dance Lovers 85,000

Dream World (monthly) 200,000

Radio Stories 125,000

True Detective Mysteries 150,000

Modern Marriage ("the be happy magazine") 150,000

Muscle Builder 80,000

In 1924, feeling that his Manhattan millions should be pampered a little more intimately, Mr. Macfadden offered them stock in his company at far above "the old antiquated rate" of 4% or 6% dividends, and started the daily Graphic. It was hardly a newspaper. It was a huge success. In something like a year it had 100,000 readers. A Sunday Graphic, after an allegedly prodigious nativity, died stillborn; but since 1920, Mr. Macfadden and his friends have turned their every dollar into $10. . . .

What time Mr. Macfadden was going to court, officials in White Plains, N. Y., and Princeton, N. J., obstructed the sale of Macfadden publications (and Mr. Hearst's Mirror). In Princeton, Macfaddenism has been an old story since the evening undergraduates caught a physically-cultured runner who was supposed to be jogging from Newark to Philadelphia as a publicity stunt (accompanied by Bernarr himself), taking rides between towns on the Macfadden truck.

* Benjamin Purnell, leader of the House of David Colony (TIME, Jan. 3).

/- Originally "Bernard," Mr. Macfadden explains that he thought it would be wise to make his name distinctive, hitting finally upon "Bernarr." But legend has it that the change originated in a typo graphical error on a Macfadden magazine cover, which the astute publisher at once forgave and adopted.

* To which Mr. Macfadden gave "practically his entire life" for 20 years.