United States V. One Book Called Ulysses - Trial Court Ruling

Trial Court Ruling

The seizure of the work was contested in the United States District Court in New York City. The United States, acting as libelant, brought an action in rem against the book itself rather than the author or importer, a procedure in the law that Morris Ernst, attorney for the publisher, had previously asked to have inserted when the statute was passed by Congress. The United States asserted that the work was obscene, therefore not importable, and subject to confiscation and destruction. Random House, as claimant and intervenor, sought a decree dismissing the action, contending that the book was not obscene and was protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which protects free expression. There was no trial as such; instead the parties stipulated to the facts and made motions for the relief each sought.

Attorney Ernst later recalled the libelant's case as having three lines of attack: (1) the work contained sexual titillation, especially Molly Bloom's soliloquy, and had "unparlorlike" language; (2) it was blasphemous, particularly in its treatment of the Catholic Church; and (3) it brought to the surface coarse thoughts and desires that usually were repressed. These attributes were a perceived as a threat to "long–held and dearly cherished moral, religious, and political beliefs" — in short, it was subversive of the established order. Ernst's argument therefore concentrated on "downplaying the novel's subversive or potentially offensive elements and emphasizing its artistic integrity and moral seriousness". He instead argued that the work was not obscene but rather a classic work of literature.

Judge John M. Woolsey ruled that Ulysses was not pornographic—that nowhere in it was the "leer of the sensualist". Acknowledging the "astonishing success" of Joyce's use of the stream of consciousness technique, the judge stated that the novel was serious and that its author was sincere and honest in showing how the minds of his characters operate and what they were thinking. Some of their thoughts, the judge said, were expressed in "old Saxon words" familiar to readers, and:

n respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.

To have failed to honestly tell fully what his characters thought would have been "artistically inexcusable", said the judge.

Having disposed of the question of whether the book was written with pornographic intent, Judge Woolsey turned to the question of whether the work nevertheless was objectively obscene within the meaning of the law. That meaning, as set forth in a string of cases cited by the judge, was whether the work "tend to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts". The judge found that the book when read in its entirety did not do so:

hilst in many places the effect of Ulysses on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.

Consequently Ulysses was not obscene, and could be admitted into the United States.

Within minutes of hearing of the decision, Bennett Cerf of Random House instructed the typesetters to start work on the book. One hundred copies were published in January 1934 to obtain U.S. copyright. This was the first legal publication of the work in any English-speaking nation.

The news of the decision was cabled to Joyce in Paris. Richard Ellmann, Joyce’s biographer, stated that judge’s eloquent and emphatic decision allowed the author to achieve his ambition of obtaining a "famous verdict". Joyce stated triumphantly that "one half of the English speaking world surrenders; the other half will follow", a gentler version of his prior sardonic prediction that while England would allow the work within a few years after the U.S. stopped censoring it, Ireland would not follow suit until "1000 years hence". In fact, the first unsuppressed British edition was published in 1936.