Mae West vs "Holy Joe"

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Sex was the Broadway play written by Mae West that was somewhat subordinate to the greater drama surrounding it. A headline-making 1927 obscenity trial closed down the production. As with the Oscar Wilde case, the performance artist Mae West became a cause.
If you're wondering why the trial didn't get going until almost the year after the play opened to enormous attendance, that's because New York Mayor Jimmy Walker was a great fan of Miss West and did not interfere.

But, forty-one weeks into a sellout run, Walker happened to be out of town and the acting Hizzoner, holier-than-thou Joseph V. McKee, decided to send in the cops. Because of "holy Joe" getting her arrested, Mae West wound up convicted of "corrupting the morals of youth." She was sentenced to ten days in the Women's Workhouse on Welfare Island. "I expect it will be the making of me," she told reporters, and it was: it made her a household name. With time off for good behavior, she emerged after eight days, having written a poem about the scratchy blue wool prison underwear and dedicated it to the warden.

Mae West and her friends called their operation the Morals Production Company. Which begs the question: what moral ought we to draw from her travails?
Comments are appreciated.
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This text is drawn from comments author Mark Steyn made in his piece for The New Criterion [published in the March 2000 issue].
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