“Confiscated in the raids were 5,000 books and magazines with a retail value of about $375,000.”
This statement, taken from the Philadelphia Daily News, Wednesday, October 2, 1963; places an average value of $75 on each individual item confiscated in the Philadelphia area raids. This contrasts with the actual cover prices from 50 cents to $1.50.
In so far as nudist magazines are concerned,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has always been a city unique. While other
cities around the United States were discriminating against nudist magazines
and at the same time permitting the “girlies” to go unchallenged, Philadelphia
was cognizant of Supreme Court decisions which took into account such items as
the intent of the publisher. So they picked up the so-called girlie magazines
which were obviously designed to arouse and they left the nudist magazines
alone. On one occasion a few years back, city officials seized four truckloads
of girlie magazines but did not disturb a single copy of the supply of nudist
magazines located in the same warehouse. Nudist magazines were not obscene;
bona fide nudist magazines, that is. The United States Supreme Court has said
so and the city of Philadelphia was willing to go along.
Philadelphia, a city unique; until now that is.
On the morning of October 1, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, seventy policemen under the personal direction of Captain Clarence J. Ferguson confiscated 5,000 nudist magazines which they said were obscene. One nudist magazine distributor and twenty newsstand operators were arrested in raids which took place simultaneously.
The task force, the paper said, consisted of forty plain-clothesmen belonging to a special investigations squad headed by Captain Ferguson, and thirty un-uniformed policemen.
According to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Ferguson said the raids were the result of a two-month investigation. Ferguson was credited with the statement that the raids were made at the order of Police Commissioner Howard. R. Leary.
In addition to the twenty newsstands, Ferguson’s army arrested George Rosenbloom, distributor for Outdoor American Corporation, as he was making deliveries at 15th and Market Streets. He was charged with possession of obscene literature while the newsstand operators were charged with selling obscene literature.
The Inquirer said “The magazines were of the ‘health,’ ‘nudist,’ or ‘sunbathing’ variety.” According to this paper the titles seized included the following: Sun and Health, Sundeck, Nudist News, Nudist Photo Field Trip, Sunbather, Sun and Shadow, Nudist Digest, Urban Nudist, Eden, Helios, Golden Days, Sun Leisure, and Nudist Supreme.
Although “nudist” publications by Erik Holm (International Publishing House), Sun Era (Parliament News), Elysium Incorporated and Joel Warner (Continental News) are also distributed in Philadelphia, George Rosenbloom, the Outdoor American representative, was the only one arrested. Apparently dissatisfied with the arrest of George Rosenbloom at the city center, police later converged on his warehouse, picked up additional material and arrested Mr. Rosenbloom again. The above list of materials taken, is of course incomplete, because the warehouse contained eight Outdoor American titles, i.e., Eden, Paradise,Sun Fun, American Sunbather, American Nudist Leader, Naturist, Nude World, and Nudism Magazine, as well as innocuous Nudist Primer and unassailable The Nudists by Donald Johnson. Six hundred copies of the latter were taken by the police from the distributor’s truck upon the occasion of the first arrest.
This was quite an operation, according to the papers, worthy of a commander-in-chief, although the papers do not agree about exactly what happened, when it happened, or who was involved. The Evening Bulletin said that the raids began at 11 A.M. and were concluded at 2 P.M. The Inquirer said that the raid procedure began at 9 A,M. when Ferguson met with his task force in the ready room and gave them their final briefing. The officers were deployed throughout the city and struck simultaneously at 11:15 A.M. (zero hour) such precision presumably made possible by use of the very latest in modern electronic equipment designed for crime detection but which can also be used for other purposes including persecution of the free press.
Incidentally, there is an article which mentions Captain Ferguson extensively in the October issue of Saturday Evening Post. The article “They Call Me Tiger Lil” is about show-girl Lillian Reis, who was charged with organizing a burglary. How Ferguson came to get on the trail of Lillian Reis is interesting. According to the Post, Ferguson and the wife of a man named Clyde Miller were old friends. Miller, in turn, was a friend of Lillian Reis. Mrs. Miller, according to the magazine, complained to her friend Ferguson about her husband’s attention to his friend, Lillian.
The arrest and seizures, the papers said, were made on the basis of warrants issued by Magistrate Raymond Malone. Besides Outdoor American distributor Rosenbloom, those arrested and the locations where the arrests took place were as follows:
Benjamin Sorkin, 49, 13th and Market sts.; John Scullin, 62, 52nd and Market sts.; Phillip Bressler, 46, 15th and Market sts.; Barnett Sobel, 51, Broad and Locust sts.; Harry Golden, 56, 60th and Market sts.; Michael Mancuso, 55, 52nd and Market sts.; Joseph Altmerio, 28, 10th and Chestnut sts.
Also: Joseph Shmukler, 42, Broad and Arch sts.; Jacob Guard, 50, 16th and Market sts.; George Schott, 71, 52nd and Market sts.; Allan Rosen, 42, 52nd and Market sts.; Benjamin Sigal, 51, 52nd st. and Baltimore ave.; Felix Henry, 61, 5th st. near Allegheny ave.,; Charles Ciaverelli, 60, Girard ave. near 13th st.
Isadore Markowitz, 53, northeast corner, Germantown and Lehigh avs; Frank Savage, 31, southeast, 13th and Market sts.; Manual Nelson, 54, northeast, 13th and Market sts.; Frank Scovetti, 50, northeast, 12th and Market sts.; Kernel Goldberg, 37, southeast, 15th and Market sts., and Marvin Barrish, 21, southeast, 9th and Market sts.
All were brought before the Magistrate the following day where they waived preliminary hearing and were bound over to the next higher court. All were released under bond. The Outdoor American Corporation took immediate action on behalf of distributor Rosenbloom and the newsstand operators handling OAC products. Philadelphia attorney Benjamin Paul was engaged and since it appeared hopeless to make a defensive stand in the municipal courts, application was filed in the Federal Court seeking an injunction against the city of Philadelphia, its police commissioner, and police captain to prohibit them from further interfering with the distribution of OAC titles and against two newspapers and one broadcasting company to prohibit them from referring to the bona fide nudist publications produced by Outdoor American Corporation as obscene.
At the hearing before the Federal Court on October 21, the case was continued to October 28 in order to give attorneys time to prepare briefs in the matter of jurisdiction.
Attorney Paul has stated the OAC publications absolutely are not obscene. No court has ruled them to so be and in fact several high courts have specifically ruled them not to be obscene. In fact it is so obvious that the seizures were unwarranted that one is led to wonder as to the real reason for the action.
Whatever are these people doing with their necks out so far? Currently, of course, there are nudist magazines and there are “nudist” magazines. But only last June, bona fide nudist magazines won a federal injunction in Michigan which should be valid in every judicial district in the country. After having had our magazines vindicated by the United States Supreme Court is it justice for us to be forced to prove our case in every town and hamlet in the land?
(Source: The Nudist
Newletter No. 143)
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