The Cordova daily times., 1922-10-26
BOOK POO BAH
 NOT WANTED
 BY PUBLISHERS


 Association of Book Publishers is op- posed to the proposal of pre-publica- tion censorship of manuscripts, ac- cording to a statement by Executive Secretary Frederic G. Melcher, in spite of the assertion of John s. Sum- ner, Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, that large pro- portion of the publishers approached favored the plan.
 Horace B. Liveright, who threatened suit for libel against MT. Sumner be- cause of his reflections on limited editions, argued in favor of the jury treatment of books after publication, though opposing the appointment of any single individual as an arbitrary monarch to preside over the literary field. Other writers and authors op. posed the whole plan.
 OPPOSE A POOH BAH CENSOR
 "To organize a censorship commit tee presided over by some Pooh Bah of literature who would decide upon the advisability of publishing a manu- script would, to my mind, sound the death knell of literature. I, for one, would not submit one manuscript to such a committee, and from converse tions that I have recently had, know of no intelligent publisher who would,
 "While appreciating the work the Vice Society does in other fields and desiring most certainly that all Amer ican publishers should maintain the highest possible standards for them selves, the National Association of Book Publishers disclaims any inter- est in the censorship plan outlined in MT. Summers interview and depre- cates his attack on the younger school of authors and the present conditions of literature and publish ing"
 Samuel Merwin asserted the estab- lishment of such a censorship would standardize all literature on the plane of the Rollo books. Lawrence Grant urged that censorship begin with the classic volumes on the shelves of the public libraries, where they are avail able to the young.
 "Why give house room," he said, 'in the New York and other public libraries to the sonnets of Shakes peare, the poems of Bryon, the obscen- ities of Dean Swift Several copies or which will be found at Forty-second Street much thumbed at the Celia poems) or the later improper suggest iveness of Donnay?"
 DUNCAN SARCASTIC AS TO PLAN
 May l say" wrote Walter Jack Duncan, "that heartily approve of the proposal of MT. Sumner, Secretary of the New York Society for the Sup pression of Vice, to censor all new literature appearing in the United States? Any movement to deprive us of our individual judgment has my sincere sympathy. The growing ten dencv of the public to accede to SUI pervison, to acknowledge that they are incapable of thinking for them selves; to confess, in word, that they are imbeciles, marks great step TOT ward in America. The time is com ing. and I trust soon, when we as a people will see the wisdom of sur rendering our absurd right to vote to one great overlord or dictator, and then our felicity will be complete
 "The tendency to submit all pro auctions to boards or committees said Laurence s. Steiner, "is the first step toward stifling initiative. O1 course, we shall become hopelessly good, perfect paragons of Puritanlt virtue. Give us a Richardson to exto us then. Let him wander among us and find real Sir Charles Grandson
 "Fow much is this in accord witt democracy, this movement to censor all things? What sublime truths evel emerged from system like this which slowly but surely strikes its letters into what is noble as well as what is base? Restrictions coming one after another are the precursors of moral stagnation, the very thing they are designated to prevent. His tory shows what happens after periods of severe restraint. Some day the yoke is thrown off and the powers are de stroyed."