Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-26

| Modification of the original provision
| that foreign books brought into the
| United States should be censored by
! customs officers has not ended the con-
troversy. The new section Of, the tariff
bill provides that books which are re-
garded with suspicion by the port ON
Gals shall be passed upon by Federal
courts. This satisfies some critics, while
others feel that the court proceedings
would discourage importations Of needed
books. There is still substantial class
that objects to any censorship.
THE modified Smoot amendment
| leaves decision as to the true character
of the books up to the courts, where, If
it has a proper place anywhere, it be-
| longs" says the Baltimore Sun. The
New York Sun feels that these provi-
sions do not expose the works of great
writer's to the arbitrary decisions or the
ignorance of minor officials; that they
do provide a means for the use of rea-
sonable and informed discretion" The
New York Evening Post suggests that
the action at least deprived customs
clerks of the autocratic authority to
say what the rest of US might or might
not read"
AS to the courts, the Manchester
Union fears that those already over
UuIQGIleu
the addition to their tasks, but their
rulings will be likely to command re-
spect.'' The Fort Worth Record-Tele-
gram advises: 1.-THE troublouS problem
of passing on imported books should not
be difficult to solve. One method APP
pears astoundingly simple. 1t is to
appoint an additional customs inspector
for each port of entry and require the
applicants to qualify as to literary at
tainments."
Seizure is still left to the within of
the customs officers, who can subject
the admission of books to delays Incl
dent to obtaining court decision" de-
clares the st. Paul Pioneer Press. THE
extent of the improvement, merely a
matter of practice, will be determined
by the application of the censorship.
But, however 1t works out in
practice, the principle is most offensive.
Individual liberty assumes the right of
each man to be his own censor. In that
achievement censorship Of literature Of
fers Earring note of diScord." The
Oklahoma City Times fears that it
might "be used to halt a freedom that
makes for enlightenment" and the
Waterloo Tribune asserts that "the CEN
sors may burn and destroy some books,
pamphlets and other things, but people
will find way to get and to read the
kind of material they want"
X X X
"1ike the purblind prude who ordered
that Sapphois poems be burned as an
act that is rightly thought by competent
critics to be the gravest literary tragedy
of the centuries" states the Birmingham
News, "Mr Smoot would now give to
the flames the poems of Catullus and
Bion, of Burns and Byron, of Shake
speare and Solomon" The Detroit
is based on an assumption of infalli-
bility, which history should teach us is
a dangerous thing to assume. Socrates,
wisest man of his age. was handed a
cup of hemlock because a Jury of his
peers had found him guilty of corrupt
ing the youth of Athensl What he
had tried to do was to replace the tot
tering authority of Greek polytheism
by rational ethics"
Censorship is forever delivering de-
crees," says the Chicago Daily Tribune,
(which time makes ridiculous or proves
erroneous and obstructive to human
progress. It has always been the serv-
ant of some sort of tyranny which
new generation or subsequent age
escapes or overthrows. The confident
moral judgments of Senator Smoot are
dissented from by many even of his
contemporaries who under the American
system are, or ought to be, as free to
make their own judgments as he. He
or they may be right or both may be
wrong. The point we would have those
who demand censorship in America con-
slider more respectfully than they do
is the right of the individual to his
own intellectual and moral freedom"
X * X
It is held by the Salina Journal that
sit is a question of dealing with the |
situation In an effective manner-one |
that willzkeep good books before young