One way to sum it up is to say that today money may speak,
but a hundred years ago bulls were well advised to wear pants. Puzzled? Read
on.
It’s
1907 and the leading tobacco company in the United States, American Tobacco, signs
a contract with a stage-coach line. We’re talking about the horse-drawn
variety. The company wants to use the sides of the stage-coach to
advertise one of its most popular brands, “Bull” Durham. The ads are made and
affixed, the first stage-coach heads out. A huge public outcry follows. Why?
Well, the bull’s testicles are so prominently featured in the ad that people
daren’t even look!! The City of New York, always a guardian of public morality,
arrests the stage coach driver. The coach is rapidly shunted out of sight. Then
as now (some things never change), the affair bursts into litigation, and that,
in turn, eventually reaches the Supreme Court no less. It is now 1911. And the
Supremes uphold the city’s action, approve of the ban. What!? you cry. Hadn’t
those benighted judges heard of free speech yet? No doubt they had. It’s just
that they clean forgot it—staring at those humongous testicles.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.