The Connecticut labor news., 1925-03-14
BY THE WAY
Comment and Criticism About Things
 Doing in the World

Theodore Dreiser, noted author, sounded a note that should strike a re- sponsive chord i'll the heart of every real believer in freedom, in discussing recently the so-called E'clean book bilr' before the New York State Legislature
 Denouncing the bill as a two-edged menace to liberty, MT. Dreiser declared that besides hampering the free produc- ton of great literature, the proposed measure would forge a weapon for every powerful and intolerant institution that resents criticism. The bill would, he said, make it possible to suppress a work, irrespective of its moral effect, if institutions that resent criticism persuad- ed jury that one paragraph was ob- scene.
 Therein lies the danger in all attempts at censorship a point that was again emphasized by Mr. Dreiser when he said:
 They know, these reformers, that their attempts to fasten censorship on us will keep the truthful artist in the side street while the procession of rIc- diocrity passes, with bands playing, down the main highway.
 What they do not know, perhaps, is that their bill would make every novelist every poet, every social critic the prey of institutions that hold themselves above criticism. They may not know it, but their bill would throttle the free expression of social, political, religious and economic theories in fiction form. That is why every American who bel lieves in free speech, whether it agrees with his views or not, should oppose this double-edged instrument"
 Mr. Dreiser's words should be heed ed. They are worthy of the consider ation of every lover of American tra- ditions of freedom of speech, press and assemblage.
 Georgia, where hourishes child labor, mob rule, savage race hatred and the masked and night-gowned Ku Kluxer, has distinguished herself by another out break of barbarity.
 At Rockyford an unidentified Negro who is alleged to have confessed to attacking a 14-year old white girl, was burned at the stake by a mob. The press dispatches state that the man "was brought back to the scene of his crime and identified by his victim"
 Under the circumstances, it is very likely that the Negro was innocent of the crime, as girl who had been at lacked as had the Georgia girl would be in terribly overwrought mental and physical state and in no condition to make an Identification
 But a little thing about being sure of an Identification would not worry a Georgia mob, which lynches first and investigates afterward, if, indeed, it in vestigates at all As for the "confes- sion' of the Negro it may or may not have meant anything, as it was made after he had been chased for nearly ! day and wounded in the back by rifle shot and was in condition where 1t is | likely he would have confessed" to anything, from stealing the Pope's i triple crown to assassinating Abraham Lincoln.
 The state of mind of the mob which committed the latest atrocity is illus trated by the following quotation from the press dispatches:
 "Men we'll known in the community were in the mob. There was net at tempt at concealment"
 And yet, Georgia preachers, oditors and politicians are wont to boast that Georgia is a Christian State" If some of the things that go on in Geor- gia are samples of Christianity, humane and fair-minded men and women may tianity. But of course many Georgia well pray to be delivered from Chris happenings are not Christianity. They are simply cruelty and savagry run rio:.