New Britain herald., 1929-06-07
'CANDaD||E||' BUT OVE
 Of BANNED SCORES
@iect d Custoas C1als M
 Joins Lr9s CenpW
(NEA Mrvicel

(NEA 06FS1CeJ
 Washington. June 7.-Voltaire's great classic 'Candide" cannot be brought iate the United States but 1t has euite few respectable com panions en the index expu-xatorius of the. Customs Service, along with several score books more wild and riotoua.
 In Ill, there are about 800 books. most of them printed in French. German Spanish or Italian. which customs collectors and inspectors are ordered to seize as often as they n.ake their appearance on the American shore. under the ls:: tariff act which forbade importa- tion of "obscene" literature.
 All collectors of customs are per- mitted to act as censors and 70 set up as experts on pornography, but the boss censor of all is the Hon. Seymour bowman, assistant secre- tary in charge of customs and pro- hibition. When an appeal is taken from the customs officials at the port 1t comes here to Lowman's di- vision in Washington.
 When your correspondent went to see MT. bowman about all this Mir. bowman had in his desk . copy of D. H. Lawrencc's Lady Chatterley's Lover." privately printed in England in . limited edition. Some subordi- nate had thoughtfully put paper book marks in all the pages con- taintnE objectionable passages and MT. bowman was good enough to read them to your correspondent just to show what books the GUS toms people have to guard Ameri- ca's morals against. Neither Mir. bowman nor your correspondent fainted-or even turned pale-but the paragraphs were extremely ex- plicit.
 Mir. bowman wanted it underst ood that the copy of Candide barred by the customs people in Boston was an expurgated French copy which contained certain shocking sex de- tails. He said it didn't make any difference whether obscene books were printed in English or not. Other customs officials of course, have often boasted that they were just as firm against offending clas- sics as against books obviously writ ten for low purposes.
 This work isn't discretionary with the customs." bowman said. Congress demanded that We keep out obscene books.
 Customs officials don't have to make many decisions of their own now except on new books. We have a long list of nearly 800 that we keep out and those are barred au- tomatically because the customs courts have already decided against them. The importer has a right to appeal from the collectors decision. first here and then to the customs courts.
 ''The law against obscene books "pplies whether they're mailed or hipped otherwise or brought here
 ya passenger on liner When
 C seize books the importer has the
 7portunity to export them back to
 urope: if he doesn't do that, they're turned. A fellow who gets an ob scene book by mail generally lets it he burned. Our customs offices have linguai experts 70 that writers 'n foreign languages don't put over anything.
 There isn't anything in the law Which AYAnNnfn printed limited editions like this one. either. They're the worst kind. anyway"
 bowman said the list of banned hooks wasn't made public "because everybody would want to buy them 'nd what people don't know won't hurt them"
 Your correspondent obtained \ s1uint at the list elsewhere. how ever. and was surprised to find quite q few we'll known works listed, besides Candide. which are common. 1v on sale in American bookstores. Customs courts or officials have de. rsded rsainst: Rosseau's Confes- s'nns. Ten Droll Stories by Ralzac. the Decameron (three different ""itinnsl. Abeiard and Heloise. F~afft- ;bing's Psychopathia sexu- ?'is. t,'e unexpurxated Arabian Nights. Radc1yffe Halls Well of Loneliness. the Golden Ass, the Satyricon of Petronts and the birth control books of Marie Slopes and other experts.