It Didn't Happen Here

Of all the ructions of 1953, few raised more dust than the fight over book burning. Last week the American Book Publishers Council reported that whatever danger there might have been has pretty well subsided. "The censors," concluded the council, "have won a few skirmishes but lost most of the important battles." Among the battles:

P: In San Antonio. Mrs. Myrtle Hance, organizer of the San Antonio Minute Women, prepared a list of 600 library books that she thought should be "branded" as having been written or illustrated by "leftists." But the San Antonio News and the Express denounced her idea, and the library board turned it down. P: In Louisville, "the March grand jury recommended establishment of a committee to censor all magazines, comic books and other publications. The Courier-Journal . . . blasted the idea in an editorial asking: 'Who should tell an American what he can read? Congress? The churches? . . . Our own grand jury? None of them, if you ask us.' The committee was not formed." P: In Miami, the News and the Herald so severely attacked a censorship board set up by the city commission that the board's sponsor finally "declared that it would not attempt to interfere with legitimate books."

P:In Milwaukee, "when the district attorney . . . attempted to ban three well-known novels by personal edict ... he finally withdrew his ban under heavy fire from the Milwaukee Journal and citizens of the city."

P: In Ohio, Federal Judge James Mc-Namee set something of a precedent by barring the Youngstown police chief from setting himself up as a censor of "obscene literature." In New Jersey, a state judge slapped a prosecutor down for trying to ban books, ruled that he was violating the "constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press."

P: In Texas, the state legislature killed three out of four bills restricting the "free circulation of books." The Vermont legislature, by a vote of 202 to 11, killed a proposal to set up a state censorship board on textbooks. The Pennsylvania legislature stopped a bill that would have banned certain types of magazines.

Concluded the Book Publishers Council: "As 1954 began, censors were still active in Detroit, Canton, Ohio . . . and other parts of the country . . . But 1953 showed that the defenders of freedom were far more numerous and vigorous than many people in the U.S. and other countries had believed."

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