Vendors & Censors

As the Voice of Moscow in the U.S., New York's Communist Daily Worker (circ. 23,400) has caused many an anti-Communist American to wonder if it is entitled to all the privileges of a free press. Last week the executive board of New York's Newsdealers Association, whose members run the city's newsstands, decided that the Worker was not. The board voted to bar the Worker from newsstands and asked the association's members to approve the proposal.

The Worker was quick to scream "freedom of the press," and it got quick support from solidly capitalistic and bitterly anti-Red sources. Said Scripps-Howard's World-Telegram & Sun: "We know how the newsdealers feel . . . However, there are authorities properly empowered to discipline traitors and silence their publications. It certainly is not for the newsdealers to set themselves up as censors." The New York Daily News agreed and added: "The Worker is one source from which Americans can learn plenty about their Communist enemies. We hope . . . that the ratty little hate-sheet will continue to be available ... to the handful of people who ever want to buy it."

All this (plus a court restraining order obtained by the Worker) gave the Newsdealers Association pause. It decided to poll all New York newsdealers, both in & out of the association, before it acted.

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