Arkansas State press. [volume] (Little Rock, Ark.) 1941-1959, 1941-12-12

BY Mare Moreland, Ph. ID.
Providence. II. l., Gene Tai
madge, Roger Williams and
Civil Liberty
Providence, Rhode Island, glor-
iously founded by that great de-
mocrat and The First American,
Roger Williams, and Atlanta, Ga,
ingloriously bounded by that arch
anti-democrat and more or less
conscious fascist, Eugene Talmad-
ge, Governor, are shockingly in
the news again.
At Providence, Police Censor
George W. Cowan, has banned
without ever having seen, Greta
CARLOS new MGM movie, "Two
Faced Woman, giving as his rea-
son, the Establishing" of the NOV
lie by the Legion of Decency, Hol-
lywood's Mrs. Grundy, The Le-
gion of Deeency "condamned'
Miss Garbo's movie as "immoral
and suggestive, ;" At At
lanta, Governor Talmadge sat in
courtroom asking clemsncy for
six Klu Kluxwes who beat pro
union mill workers in an Atlanta
suburb in 1888 with "whips you
could kill a bull elephant with
admitting that he was something
of an cold flogger" himself, re-
ferring to the time ha had
whipped a colored man" well,
the papers said he said "colored
man. which h. probably didn't.
If it is wondered why the case
of the movie censor at Provi-
dence and the case of Talmadge's
plea for clemency for the Ku
Kluxers pluguglies are mantion-
cd together, it is because they
both have to do with civil liberty
Ultimately they are of a piece
For TIE self-appointed keepers of
the morals of our citizens fand
these are invariably people who
insist on bringing thir religious
preoceupations and precepts gra-
tuitously into the civil equationl
and those who set themselves up
to judge the degree of civil lib
erty accorded pro-union men, no
less gratuitously, are equally
enemies of the coed life and the
disciplnes of liberty, equality,
tolerance and religious freedom
which nurture it and are, indeed
its warp and wool.
OF course, Rhode Island has
long since passed from the ra-
fical democracy of Roger Will
Inns to q stubborn social reac-
ton. But it is to be doubted that
Rhode Island, at is most reac
, tionary, can maintain, for long,
ban on a movie on the grounds of
its being immoral" and sug-
gestive", in this day when re-
ligious prejudicas are increasing
ly losing ground in the conflict
with civil liberties and civic re-
sponsibility. After Miss Garbo's
picture, has gotten some unpur-
chasahla publicity, the ban will
more than likely be lifted, and
the people of Providence, many
of them at any rate, will feel silly
over the action of their Mr.. Co
wan.
Mainly, one regrets the Provid-
ence ban on Miss Garbo's picture
because it remarks again the fail
ure of some people to mark off
the domain of civil liberty and to
understand the proper relation of
the RELIGIOUS conscience to it.
While this failure is, in such in
stances, litla more than a NUS
arce, 1t is, in other instances the
source for many more serious eco
romic. political and social inius-
tees.
As FOR the spectacle of tn
Governor Of q stato and a Jewish
attorney, Ike Wingrow, asking
clemency for Ku Kluxcrs who
flog pro-union mill workers, the
Governor quoting the Apostle
Paul to justify flogging and the
Jewish attorney declaring, at may
seem strange for a Jew to say
this but | honor the Ku Klux
Klan honored them in the old