H.L. Mencken is arrested on obscenity charges on Boston Common.

The editor of the American Mercury is arrested for selling a copy of his banned magazine to New England Watch and Ward Society secretary J. Franklin Chase before some 1,000 people at the corner of Park Street and Tremont Street. Released on his own recognizance, Mencken is found not guilty by Judge James Parmenter on April 17, 1926, speaks that afternoon at Harvard, and dines that night at the St. Botolph Club. Weakened by the incident, the Watch and Ward Society’s agreement with the Boston Booksellers Committee is ended on October 18, 1926. The organization subsequently changes its name to the New England Citizens Crime Commission and its focus from campaigning against obscenity to inveighing against drug use and gambling.