The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-17
.EDICT ON BOOKS , ]. WASBIG FAILURE
Chinese Emperor Tried To Stop Them By Having Volumes
 Burned

an old resident in this vale Of tears. Prohibitions beard is almost as long as Father Times. An ancient chronicle lies before us and we read from it's mildewed page these strangely familiar words:
 'The4 act or prohibition was received with open mutterings from the people, and silent though deeply rooted oppO- sitfon in high places. As time went on the law was broken more and more frequently. Large quantities of forbidden goods were secreted in hidden places. Soon the matter became public scandal, for it was found that even high officials in the government had cOntraband in their possession and kept it in daily use. The government in its efforts to enforce the law ap- pointed large corps of inspectors, enduing them with extraordinary pow CTS of search and seizure. At last no home was safe from intrusion, and punishments became more severe"
 It sounds almost as if the writer of that ancient chronicle had stolen a march OH posterity by setting down On parchment the record of our own times. Says the New York Times.
 Yet the events that he descibes took place between the years 213 and 206 B. 0.
 Not Booze, But Books
 1t was in China where that happened, and it was not liquor but literature, not booze but books, that prohibition en- deavored to suppress.
 The story of the Burning of the Books" may be found in any reliable encyclopedia. The Volsteadian william in the piece in one Ts'in Shi-huang-ti, known to history as "the First Elm peror."
 Before Ts'in's advent on the stage of world events, in 221 B. O., China was in the hands of fuedal princes. Fuedal- ism, with it's gay hazards and dark uncertainties, breeds chivalry and hero- ism and conduces to romance. Poets and, minstrels vied with one another in hymning the exploits of their patrons. But philosophers won the greatest vogue of any of the literati of that time, for they offered comforting the ories regarding the joys of the here after that would recompense the com mon people for the miseries of their harried existence. .4- Then out of the murk and the con- fusion of barOnial conflict emerged the war lord ,Ts'in. Always a doughty fighter, Ts'in having, routed the last of his rivals, found himself in posi- ton to start something new in Chinese history.
 Off With The Old
 He began by having himself pro- claimed the first emperor. Thinking it over, Ts'in decided to start every thing new. There should be new laws, new customs, new education and yes, even new literature.
 Of course, the first move to make in rearing a new structure is to tear down the old He gave the order that the reading matter of his people should be destroyed to the last book. It was not meet that any vestige of the old ideas should remain to hamper the new administration.
 Forth went the historic edict that was to bring about the celebrated Burning of the Books" All the books in China were included in the ban, save only a. few dealing with. medicine, divination and agriculture. s..s : Tons Of Books Burned =s Wild.was the outburst that followed the edietlt But to prayers and threats the emperor was indifferent. Every udy lOHS OlI UOOkS were DuIucQ III Ine public squares, while the reading public stood aghast, watching the bright thoughts of lChina's best minds go up in smoke and wondering that the heav- ems did not fall.
 Soon the adroit among the popula- tion were busy devising means of beat ing Ts'in's ediet. Something had to be done, they said, to preserve at least modicum of China's literary weath. Before year every man of means had stocked his cellar with volumes cum ningly hidden away behind false walls. Poorer fanciers of literature secreted their beloved stock of reading matter in holes in the back yard, above which they planted Chinese lilies and beds of rice as a blind.
 One day Ts'in was stunned when a delegation of citizens called upon him at the palace to inform him that his highest court officials were the most fragrant violators of the law, and that every one of his imperial advisers had library. Prohibition of books, they complained, was a rich mans law and should be repealed.
 Enraged was Emperor Ts'in. He tackled the death penalty upon the orig AAoA PAoAAOASiOh att, anu uc Ucucdutu teachers and members of local boards of education in single week. Natural ly these drastic measures broke the backbone of the rebellion, although vio- lations continued to keep the headsman busy.
 The Edict Repealed
 Statistics show 460 scholars of noble lineage lost their heads in his reign for the sake of their precious libraries, to say nothing of many thousands of commoners too unimpOrtant to be counted. The Emperor Han, succeed ing to the throne after the death of Ts'in in 206 E. O., and desiring to be popular, rescinded his predecessors edict.
 As if by magic, thousands of copies of valuable works appeared, dragged from their hiding places by the heirs of those constant readers who had died for possessing them. And the heirs