Kendall Banning

Kendall Banning (1879-1944) was an American poet.

Life
Banning was a World War I veteran, the author of over a dozen books (including books on Annapolis and West Point), and an editor of Cosmopolitan, Popular Radio, and Hearst Magazine.

During the 1926 debate on revising the tariff legislation that allowed United States customs inspectors to ban and seize imported books they deemed "obscene", Banning reprinted his Censored Mother Goose Rhymes &ndash: the traditional rhymes with words blacked out to suggest obscenity – and had it distributed to members of Congress. Gertrude Stein owned a copy of the work.