April 22, 1924: Crosswords versus the censors

Ben Zimmer

Apr 22, 2024 — 2 min read

Left: Seal of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Right: John S. Sumner.

In an earlier post, we made the acquaintance of New York World columnist Heywood Broun and his crossword-obsessed wife Ruth Hale. The new crossword craze is once again featured in the Apr. 22, 1924 installment of Broun's syndicated column "It Seems to Me," in which crosswords appear as a counterpoint to the moralism of censorship advocates.

At the time, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice served as a kind of morality police, actively seeking to censor books, movies, and other popular media. The group was led by John S. Sumner, who had succeeded the founder, Anthony Comstock. In 1921, they won a court case banning James Joyce's Ulysses on obscenity grounds, and they would go on to target such works as D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.

In his column, Broun quotes correspondence from "R.L.S." poking fun at Sumner and his morality crusade. Broun had already used his column to ridicule a piece by Sumner in McCall's advocating film censorship. (Sumner harrumphed, "Who has not observed the young couples in the back rows spooning when love-making is vividly portrayed?")

Broun's correspondent goes on to present crossword puzzles as a kind of refuge from Sumner's rampage against books and other materials considered obscene.

“Now that Mr Sumner is suppressing books right and left, many poor souls have to resort to cross-word puzzles. I think I can understand why the Cross-Word Puzzle is so popular. The creative impulse has been starved and this puzzle gives people a chance.
“Do you blame people for not wanting to read books that have made good with Mr Sumner? There is no kick in a white list. People not only want to read good live stuff, but they want to let themselves go. Cross-word puzzles are the answer. They are still free from the clutches of the Society for the Suppression of Vice .... but for how long? If Mr Sumner ever gets a clew to the three-letter word beginning with S and ending with X, meaning ‘What makes life interesting,’ human nature will just have to go ahead and find some other form of debauch.”

While the Society for the Suppression of Vice may not have ever set its sights on cruciverbal debauchery, the crossword would indeed be seen by some as a kind of moral menace as the craze got crazier.

The Second Crossword Book: "Buy it and Estrange Your Family!"

In August 1924, just four months after the publication of the book that set off the crossword craze, Richard Simon and Max Schuster were back with a new collection, dubbed The Cross Word Puzzle Book, Second Series. And unlike the first time around, when the publishers were too wary to

The Crossword Champion vs. "the Lady Wizard of the Art"

Three months after the first-ever crossword puzzle championship, held at the National Cross Word Puzzle Convention in New York on May 23, 1924, one newspaper columnist tried to stir up a good-natured rivalry between the top two competitors. As was widely reported at the time, the winner of that first

Crosswords ruined my marriage!

A common pop-cultural theme of the 1924 crossword craze was the ruinous effect of the fad on marital bliss. We've already seen a number of examples poking fun at how crosswords were affecting marriages — even purportedly leading husbands and wives to trade blows. Domestic comedies were no stranger

“We had not been a cross word puzzle fan.”

As we've discussed in these pages, crossword puzzles had been around for a decade or so by the time The Cross Word Puzzle Book was published and the hobby snowballed into a craze in 1924. The format already had fans — and indeed, some of the earliest reviews seemed

Read more

The Second Crossword Book: "Buy it and Estrange Your Family!"

The Crossword Champion vs. "the Lady Wizard of the Art"

Crosswords ruined my marriage!

“We had not been a cross word puzzle fan.”