Pornography on Rails: Trains and Belgium’s “War on Pornography,” 1880–1891

Abstract

I n t h e s u m m e r o f 1891 , J u l e s V a n d e n p e e r e b o o m , a Belgian Catholic politician who had become the first minister of telegraphs, mail, and railroads in 1884, declared a “war on pornography” by banning the transportation of five pornographic journals by mail and train. The minister proclaimed in Parliament: “We are invaded by pornographers. . . . I declare war on these scoundrels.”1 In a manner similar to what scholars describe as “concept wars,” such as “the war on terrorism” and “the war on drugs,” Vandenpeereboom used the metaphor of war to stress that his responsibility was to stop the “transportation of pornography.”2 Vandenpeereboom’s declaration of war can be seen as the final step of a process in which pornography became understood as a danger of movement; hence, it was the responsibility of the government to stop its transportation. Vandenpeereboom’s ban on the transportation of pornographic material was almost immediately contested by liberal politicians and some publishers of the targeted journals, with one of them even suing the Belgian government. The court ruled in favor of Vandenpeereboom’s actions. Celebrating his win, he wrote a letter to Jules Lammens, a Catholic Party member of the Belgian Senate, informing him that the court agreed with him and that the state could “refuse the transportation of [pornographic] writings [by train and mail].”3 Lammens was pleased with this news, since