Boston’s Puritan Police Pin Down Mencken

On a chilly spring morning in Boston, April 5, 1926, the city’s authorities got a taste of their own medicine. H.L. Mencken, the fearless editor of The American Mercury, defied the Watch and Ward Society’s ban on his magazine by hitting the streets with copies in hand. The society, notorious for its moral crusades, had deemed Mencken’s magazine too racy, specifically a story by Herbert Asbury titled ‘Hatrack,’ which exposed the seedy underbelly of prostitution in small Western towns.