The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-12-28

All we can do Is to tell you 10 Ect out. Beat itl Here is one-way ticket to globe you choose to hibernate in Stand not upon the order of your goo ing, but go at oncet'
 Now. it may be thought that. under this rule. the board of public express atop would have to get rid of naJor- ity of our citizens, leaving only small group of delightful persons to browse on the remains. Not so. Com plete power in any one direction makes men conservative The board would acquire at once a deep sense of re- sponsibility. They would first listen tc man. and then give him prelimi- nary warning They would take feI- low quietly aside and say: "Old Top. we didn't like that last play of yours. We don't mind a good, hearty laugh; in fact. WIG need it. But your play doesn't give us that. one more like It and off you go.'
 To the delegate of labor confer ence they would say: ''We have noth- ing to do with your personal opinion. but we can't stand to have you express them in such a way as to block the wheels of justice for all. It's all aboard for you Oext time
 To a congressman: We waded through that last speech of yours with a good deal of discomfort. In fact, it took all the will power we had to get through it. Don't do it again. old man. or we'll have to tether you to the big sphinx
 To an author: Your book is writ ten to sell and that won't do. Write it over and put some soul into it or we'll put a cowben on you as first call"
 Right here get another objection. Somebody says that the board of public expression couldn't get through with 9 fraction of all the stuff that comes out; before they got a fair start they would all collapse. If they attempted to read all the short stories published in one month they would all fall into coma and would have to be fed on stimulants and carried about in stretchers before they began to sit up and take notice again.
 If they had to look at all the bad movies of one week, listen to commercial troubles, read the jokes written by profess sional humorists' or attempt to absorb any quantity of magazine poetry and free verse they would be carried off to untimely graves and the country would be worse off than it was before.
 Bless you. they wouldn't have to do all this Mr Schwab, when he was at the head of the shipping board, did none of the actual work The board would nat orally delegate it's powers to others ''trusties. In every state there would be a head inspector of public expression. He would appoint subordinates for every city and hamlet. They would, in turn, make their appointments. There would be no suppression. Libs-ty of speech would not be curtailed. Everybody could still continue to do exactly as he pleased, but not here. If you invite man to your home and he climbs on the dining room table and does a foxtrot while your wife is bringing in about $50 worth of Irish stew; if he makes love to your youngest daughter in voice loud enough to be heard at the city hall, or regales your grandmother with minute account of a movie scenario he has seen the night before, you cannot hit him over the head with a meat ax or shoot him down in cold blood. But you can keep him from coming again. No country can control the thought or utterance of any individ- ual. If the utterance is seditious, the in- dividual can usually manage to say what he wants in such way as to evade the law. But no country, any more than any individual, needs to associate with any one it doesn't wan to.
 All that country has to say is: "Go and tell this to the natives of Patagonia Maybe they'll like it, I don't" Practically all trouble is caused by fool ish talk in the beginning. If a man is duly lectured by his Wife, he might not say "Oh tell that to the marines" But under this plan he would say;
 "Please repeat that to the local inspec- tor" She would be careful after that. bloody would be exempt. The board of public expression would have power to fill all vacancies and thus to perpet- uate itself It would undoubtedly be backed up by public opinion, for up to the present time there has been no ade- drate relief from foolish utterances. They arc so intangible that it is hard to get at the guilty ones and no matter