Roy Early Blick (1899 – 1972) was the director of the Morals Division (the vice squad) of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD) in the United States during the mid-twentieth-century.[2] He oversaw investigation of and apprehension for offenses related to burlesque, pornography, child pornography, and other obscenity and indecency, prostitution, crimes of "sex perversion" including homosexuality, and gambling. Even before becoming director of the Morals Division, during his preceding career with the MPD, he was consulted by US federal lawmakers,[3] testified before Congress on several occasions,[1][4][5][6] and worked with the FBI on related law enforcement matters. Freedom of Information Act lawsuits in the twenty-first century revealed previously-classified documents indicating frequent meetings and correspondence between the Central Intelligence Agency and Blick during his service as a police official.
Blick oversaw operations similar to the later 1989 DC prostitute expulsion: en masse coercion of sex workers to leave the city.
In 1954 a newspaper report stated that US senators Styles Bridges and Herman Welker threatened to compel Blick's resignation if he did not take steps to ensure the prosecution of the son of fellow senator Lester C. Hunt—Lester Hunt, Jr.—who had been arrested for soliciting an undercover policeman.[7][8]
Blick married Lee Anna Embrey, an author and charter staff member at the founding of the National Science Foundation[9] who later joined the National Academy of Sciences. His career in the MPD began in 1931[6] and he rose to the rank of Deputy Chief of Police.
[Pornography] is more dangerous than narcotics, because you inject narcotics to an individual and it is over with. These pamphlets, these booklets, can be passed from one to another.
It is the same as a prostitute that can infect an army of men if she is permitted to hang around the camp. It is the same as this pornography that is being passed around. It can be passed from one hand to another, and it is causing a lot of headaches in the country. It is causing kids who are just at the age that they should know right from wrong to become perverts and homosexuals.
— Blick testifying to the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, May 26, 1955[6]
References
- ^ a b U.S. Congress, House, Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, Investigation of Literature Allegedly Containing Objectionable Material: Hearings before the Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, December 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, 1952, 82nd Congress, 2nd session, 57-65.
- ^ Kelly, John (January 10, 2015). "In the 1950s, D.C.'s hardest working comedian killed it at the Coral Room". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
- ^ Adkins, Judith. ""These People Are Frightened to Death"—Congressional Investigations and the Lavender Scare". Prologue. Vol. 48, no. 2. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
- ^ U.S. Congress, House, Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, Report of the Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials pursuant to H. res. 596, a resolution creating a select committee to conduct a study and investigation of current pornographic materials, December 31, 1952, 82nd Congress, 2nd session, House Report 2510, serial 11578, 44.
- ^ Senator Langer on March 29, 1954, 83rd Congress, 2nd session, Congressional Record 100, part 3:3937.
- ^ a b c U.S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, Juvenile Delinquency (Obscene and Pornographic Materials): hearings before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency Pursuant to Senate Resolution 62, Investigation of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States, May 24, 26, 31, June 9 and 18, 1955, 84th Congress, 1st session.
- ^ Pearson, Drew (June 22, 1954). "The Washington Merry-Go-Round" (PDF). Detroit Free Press. Detroit, Michigan. p. 16. Archived from the original on February 17, 2012. Retrieved February 28, 2011.
- ^ Pearson, Drew (February 21, 1974). Abell, Tyler (ed.). Diaries, 1949-1959. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 325. hdl:2027/uc1.$b325265. ISBN 0030014263. OCLC 707040.
- ^ Lomask, Milton (1976). A Minor Miracle: An Informal History of the National Science Foundation. Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation. p. 77. hdl:2027/uc1.31210023571076. OCLC 880010382.
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