In 1971, Professors Howard S. Becker and Irving L. Horowitz
suggested that San Francisco fostered a "culture of civility,"1 a
culture which provided greater acceptance of "deviant groups" and
cultures, such as the Beats, the hippies, and the growing gay community.
Countercultural groups were allowed greater freedom in San Francisco than in
any other city in the United States.
On the other hand, in 1993 journalist Mark Dowie wrote an
essay in which he dubbed the century between the 1860s and the 1960s as the
"Catholic century" in San Francisco.2 While Dowie's essay is
overstated, and marred by several factual errors, his essential contention is
correct--the Catholic Church in San Francisco exerted enormous influence in
defining the contours of San Francisco culture and society, though they were
not the only group to do so. Regardless of the reality, Catholics in San
Francisco considered themselves the cultural guardians of the City. As such,
the Catholic culture contributed to the culture of civility; at the same time
it often found itself in conflict with that culture.3 One such instance of
conflict was generated by the publication of Lenore Kandel's paean to love, the
825 word poem entitled simply "The Love Book."
In November 1966, police inspectors Sol Wiener and Peter
Maloney arrested Jay Thelen and Allen Cohen of the Psychedelic Book Shop in the
Haight Ashbury and Ron Muszalski of City Lights
Bookstore in North Beach for "knowingly possessing obscene
matter [i.e. 'The Love Book'] with the intent to sell." What ensued was
the longest Municipal Court trial in San Francisco history, pitting the City's
past and present countercultures against the City's cultural mainstream. (A
decade earlier City Lights was at the center of another obscenity trial for
having published Allen Ginsberg's classic, Howl.)
The trial, begun in late April 1967, on the eve of the
Summer of Love, became a showcase for different visions of the City. The
proceedings reflected the pre-eminent position of the Catholic Church as
cultural authority within San Francisco. The composition of witnesses led
defense attorney Marshall Krause of the American Civil Liberties Union to
complain that the trial was more a "heresy trial" than an
"obscenity trial." Krause complained further, "I am distressed,
for the prosecution seems to have taken a religious emphasis, with Catholics
trying to apply their doctrine to the rest of the world. And I don't think the
testimony at this case is based on sound Catholic doctrine"4 What Krause
failed to understand was that the witnesses were not merely projecting the
Catholic party line; they were expressing the attitudes of a significant
portion of the San Francisco populace, Catholic and non-Catholic. What had
begun as a simple obscenity trial had now become a trial with much larger
cultural ramifications. At odds were (1) the emerging counterculture and
mainstream San Francisco culture and (2) old notions of Catholic morality
versus new conceptions inspired by the recently completed Second Vatican
Council.
What was exceptionally objectionable about the poem, beyond
its description of a sexual encounter between a man and a woman, was its
frequent use of several unmentionable four-letter words. The description of
"gods" engaging in sexual acts also upset many. But the poem could be
quite lyrical, as suggested by the following section:
I kiss your shoulder and it reeks of lust
the lust of hermaphroditic deities doing
inconceivable things to each other and
SCREAMING DELIGHT over the entire
universe and beyond
and we lie together... and
we WEEP we WEEP we WEEP
the incredible tears
that saints and holy men shed in the presence
of their own incandescent gods...
And it concludes:
we are transmuting
we are as soft and warm and trembling
as a new gold butterfly
the energy
indescribable
almost unendurable
at night sometimes I see our bodies glow.
Lenore Kandel herself expressed her intent in the most noble
terms: "I believe when humans can be so close together to become one
flesh, or spirit, they transcend the human into the divine. Unfortunately for
Kandel, not everyone saw her poem in the same light.
From the moment of the initial arrests, the events
surrounding "The Love Book" and its subsequent trial had a slightly
comic quality about them, and suggest some of the excesses of the era. Mayor John F. Shelley immediately
condemned the poem as "hard core pornography," and opined, "I
certainly wouldn't want my kids to read it." Police inspector Peter
Maloney added, "I'm no prude... but where is the redeeming social
importance in this book?"5
Typical of San Francisco, a group of professors from San
Francisco State leapt to the poems defense. Professors Leonard Wolf, Mark
Linenthal, James Scheville, and Jack Gilbert were hired by the City Lights
Bookstore with wages of one dollar a day to sell the poem. The professors then
sponsored a public reading at San Francisco State. A crowd of more than three
hundred persons listened to the poem in "defiance" of the
"City's police censorship squad,"6 though the police were noticeably
absent from the reading. The reasons the professors gave for supporting the
poem were something less than sublime. One observed, "The book makes me
want to make love--and I think that's good." And another added, "It
seems to me it is a good thing for society to maintain a high degree of sexual
excitability...(Prosecuting attorney Frank Shane countered during the trial,
"If 'The Love Book' is so exciting, would it not cause hundreds of college
students to rush into bed together after readings of the poem, such as been
held in the Bay Area?")7
The actual trial began in late April with the prosecution
attempting to fashion a jury that "had little or nothing to do with the
hippies."8 The jury selected consisted primarily of married women.
The high point for the defense came with their initial
witness -- the poet herself, Lenore Kandel. Ms. Kandel added a theatrical
dimension to the proceedings, appearing in "a brilliant orange turtleneck
sweater, burgundy jacket, and vivid orange stockings." She then read her
poem to the jury in tones "more reverent than passionate." In
addition, she read selections from the "erotic" poetry of Brother
Antoninus (William Everson) and St. John of the Cross. She defended her poem in
language quintessential to the 1960s: "Love is a four-letter word,"
she noted, observing that the really obscene words were "hate,"
"bomb," and "war". "If we can recognize
our own beauty, it will be impossible for any human being to bring harm to any
other human being. We owe each other loving responsibility." Finally, when
asked if the poem was religious, she responded, "Yes, and everyone who
makes love is religious."9
The encounter between Prosecutor Shaw and Ms. Kandel also
had its comic moments, and some not quite so comic, as the clash of world views
became personalized. One reporter described Shaw in the following manner:
"His voice shook with anger much of the time and he used the four-letter
words with inflections of disgust for them. Ms. Kandel maintained her composure
as Shaw threw "various Anglo Saxon shock words at Kandel and found himself
being called beautiful by her." Shaw was not converted. He accused Kandel
of subverting fundamental moral values and attempting to "condition us
into a new type of morality."10
The rest of the defense witnesses defended the poem in a
variety of ways. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti defended the poem's artistic merit.
Professor Thomas F. Parkinson of the University of
California at Berkeley was presented as a distinguished literary scholar, and
"gave a whole day's testimony on the nature of poetry and the poet's call
to truth."11 Parkinson observed: "The sexual mysticism of the 'Love
Book' is an attempt to show that through an abandon to the senses one may
achieve a kind of spiritual revelation."12 Two women, Mrs. Nina Beggs, the
wife of a Congregational minister, and Mrs. Margaret Krebs, testified that the
poem was a beautiful expression of sexuality from the "woman's point of
view."13 Mrs. Krebs testified, "The general theme is love and it
discusses the beauty and the spiritual heights possible in intercourse between
man and woman, primarily from a woman's point of view. I am a woman and I
identify with it."14 The testimony of both women encountered problems.
Mrs. Beggs's testimony was undercut by her statement that she "had never
heard of two of the disputed words," and Mrs. Krebs's testimony was
disallowed because the court determined that she could not be considered
"an ordinary woman."15 Several other witnesses, including G.W. Smith,
a professional marriage counselor, Dr. J. M. Stubblebine, director of San
Francisco's Mental Health Services, and Rabbi Joseph Glaser, testified that the
poem improved the City's mental health by dealing directly and openly with the
issue of sexuality. More harmful, they claimed, were the repressive notions of
sexuality which had dominated society for too long and resulted in a variety of
unhealthy manifestations.
After ten hours of deliberation, the jury found the
defendants guilty. They concluded that "The Love Book" was obscene
and had "no redeeming social value." In 1971, however, the verdict
was overturned.
The trial had two immediate results besides the fines
imposed on the sales clerks. First, sales of "The Love Book"
skyrocketed. Prior to the trial less than 100 copies had been sold; after the
trial sales soared to 20,000 plus. In appreciation, Ms. Kandel donated one
percent of the profits to the Police Retirement Association.16
While the trial of "The Love Book" may have little
significance in itself, it does provide an interesting window to view several
of the basic conflicts in San Francisco in the 1960s. First, despite the
culture of civility, San Francisco was racked by the cultural conflicts of the
times. Often, in romanticizing the 1960s and the Love Generation, we tend to
overlook the profound trauma the counterculture generated for more traditional
San Franciscans. On one level, the "Love Book" trial can be
interpreted as an attempt to assert the basic values of mainstream San
Francisco; values that were increasingly and vigorously being called into
question.
Historian Charles Perry has suggested that the trial was not
about obscenity at all but was a direct attack on the psychedelic
counterculture of the Haight-Ashbury. The two defendants from the Psychedelic
Shop were Allen Cohen, editor of The Oracle, the most
significant paper of the Haight, and Jay Thelen, its publisher. It is
noteworthy that the two stores singled out for violating the community's
obscenity standards represented the old counterculture (the Beats) and the new
counterculture (the hippies). San Francisco, being a port town, always had a
rather high tolerance for "vice." At the time of "The Love
Book" trial, topless night clubs were opening up in the City with little
harassment from the courts. Perhaps the City was making a distinction between
acknowledged vice--few would argue topless dancing had any socially redeeming
value--and "vice" which presented itself as virtue. What was
dangerous about "The Love Book" was that it was perceived to be
presenting a new moral ethic without apology, and the new moral ethic ran
counter to the accepted ethic of mainstream San Francisco. As such the trial
was a manifestation of the public anxiety generated by the enormous cultural
shocks and transitions of the 1960s.
Second, the "Love Book" trial brought to public
awareness the conflict that was occurring within the Catholic Church. Catholic
squabbling at the trial broke the united Catholic front on moral issues. And
with the public squabbling came an erosion of the Church's moral authority
within the City. Increasingly it seemed there was no one Catholic voice in the
City, but a variety of competing voices. As such, the Catholic influence on the
life of the City began to dissipate. What was occurring within the Church, and
within the culture at large, was a relentless questioning of the validity of
authority at every level. And too often the response of the cultural authority
was so muddled or ill-considered that the response served only to undercut
further the authority of the challenged institution. In the case of the
"Love Book" trial, well meaning Catholics attempted to reassert their
position as cultural authority within the City--however, the result was
disastrous. The complex story of the cultural transformation wrought by the
1960s in San Francisco is still to be written. One conclusion is certain,
however--the "Catholic century" had come to an end.
Notes:
1. Howard S. Becker and Irving L. Horowitz, "The
Culture of Civility," in Howard Becker, ed., Culture and Civility
in San Francisco (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1971).
2. Mark Dowie, "Holy Smoke," SF Weekly 24
February 1993, II.
3. For an interesting discussion on the Catholic influence
on Labor in the city see William Issel, "Business Power and Political
Culture in San Francisco, 1900-1940,"Journal of Urban History 16 (November
1989), 52-77.
4. Anne Marie Ferrairis, "Local Testimony on 'Love
Book' Trial," San Francisco Monitor, 11 May 1967,3.
5. From the Oregon Journal, 26 November 1966,
City Lights Bookstore Collection, Clippings File, Bancroft Library, Berkeley,
CA.
6. From the San Francisco Chronicle, 24 November
1966. Ibid.
7. Donovan Bess, "Witness Explains His Reactions After
Reading 'Love Book'," San Francisco Chronicle 12 May
1967, 3.
8. San Francisco Chronicle, 25 April 1967.
9. Donovan Bess, "Lenore Defends the Love Book," San
Francisco Chronicle, 6 May 1967, 3; Donovan Bess, "Love Book Poet
Keeps Her Cool," San Francisco Chronicle, 9 May 1967,3; Anne
Marie Fertaris, "Local Testimony..."
10. Bess, "Love Book Poet Keeps Her Cool,"3.
11. Robert Brophy. "Brophy and the Love Book"
(unpublished manuscript, 1993) Copy in the Archives for the Archdocese of San
Francisco (AASF).
12. Donovan Bess, "Scholar's Plea for the Love
Book," San Francisco Chronicle, 10 May 1967, 2.
13. Donovan Bess, "A Minister's Wife Praises the Love
Book," San Francisco Chronicle, 13 May 1967, 2.
14. Sam Blumenfeld, "My Husband's Birthday Gift," San
Francisco Examiner, 19 May 1967.
15. Ibid.
16. Charles Perry, The Haight Ashbury: A History (NY:
Vintage Books, 1984), 195.
__
De FOUND SF
(inicialmente publicado en The Argonaut, Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring
1994)
Imagen: 1967 press conference with Lenore Kandel, 2nd
from right
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