Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-12
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL y. COLLINS.

villains in Heaven, on an equality with
Deity Satan enters at will. and talks
with God who contradictS st. Peter in
declaring Satan lunatic. Copyrighted
blasphemy!
The authors of book discussing cen-
Sorship. entitled ITO the Pure" by Nor
ris L. Ernst and William Seagle, bring
this charge against the Federal situa-
ton: III
1.-THE Copyright Once Is perhaps the
most disgraceful unit in the game. It's
dereliction of duty is all the more rep
rehensible, since it stands at the very
source of infection. The copyright law
expressly commands the Copyright ONCE
to refuse copyright to books which are
obscene. Yet it has issued copyrights
to every one of the books which the
Post Once has ever excluded from the
mails or State authorities have ever
| suppressed or attempted to suppress.
provided, of course, they are ones which
have been published in this country.
If the copyright law were at
all strictly enforced, then such q pre-
v1ous censorship as has always alarmed
loertarians would come into existence.
The very sinister nature of the copy
right against obscenity explains the state
OF desuetude into which it has been
permitted to fall. OF course an author
might stu publish If copyright were
refused. but then he would be deprived
OF all literary property. A kind fate has
allowed the copyright law to become the
most moribund Of all dead letter laws
IN this respect" II
The same authors add: q
when a shipment comes into this
country by express the customs and
post Office do not come into direct con-
n1ct: But when books enter from abroad
IN the mails, both the customs and the
post once have Jurisdiction Lately, the
POST once Department at Washington
llSz0) awoke to the horrible fact that
the customs of New York were admit
ting Rabelais, Boccaccio and the
ARABIAN Nights into the country in
unbowdlerized versions when thew came
through the foreign mails The order
went forth from Washington at once
70 hold the books until further notice.
Inc CUSTOMS became so frightened that.
as the story goes, they even barred a
thoroughly expurgated 'Decameron.'"
The penalty of law upon "clerk's
who lets in an obscene book is $1,000
me and Imprisonment, hence clerks are
cautious. III
1t is recorded that since the World
ing upon the subject of censorship!
against obscene literature. Even irii
Soviet Russia, in Roman Catholic and
Protestant countries, in the Occident
and Orient, every nation is agitatina
the question of safeguarding its literal
ture. While the Communists advocate
the abolition of family life and of ali
religion, 1t transpires that they want .
TO suppress literature which opposes It'll
influence against their own ideals. Iri8
the western countries, and in ChinS
and Japan, determined fight is BENZ
made against sex-perversion. At GenevatI
in 1922, an international conference Oh
obscene literature was held under thdi
auspices Of the League of Nations. III
The greatest diffculty comes in de
hning what is obscene. It seems verEl
simple until an attempt is made tdI
check 1t up with the changing stand%
ards, as the years 60 by. It would ID
difdcult to explain why Shakespeare
should be admitted and Charles Land
excluded, or why New York published
refused, in 1924, to use a certain cartoortI
until the artist had decked the figure IN
corset and stockings (Which wereI
rolled" to expose the knees, but tho
same publisher found the original pic4
ture of nudity in 1929 entirely unob-
jectionable, and used 1t on his same
readers.
Japan Is eagerly joining In the inter-
national campaign for more modesty
Until recently, 1t had always been the
custom there for men and women TO
battle at the seashore in pure nudity (f
you know what mean, but the
Emperor issued an edict that compelled
all bathers. when the sexes used the
ocean together. to don bathing suits.
The loyal subjects did so most faith
fully, thereafter, but saw no reason why
they should be bothered with the suits
until they entered the water; while they
summed themselves upon the sands, they
discarded the useless toggery, since the
Emperor had said nothing about that
Well, 1t is less than 10 years since
even New York goggles squinted at
statue Of Civic virtue"
and enabled women to bathe in one-
piece suits exposing their neither ex-
tremities." Now skirts are growing
LONGER and literature must beware.
MAI soft, etc,
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