The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1953-07-08
THE WORLD
TODAY
On lAIAEs MARLoW

Department would finally take 4
stand, in nnmistakabIe language,
on what is the purpose Of the U. S.
overseas libraries some Of the con-
fusion about book purging might
end.
This country has almost go
Libraries overseas, with perhaps
100. 900 books on their shelves, run
b. the international Information
Administration II Al. which Is
part Of the State Department.
Months ago. Sen. Mccarthy
charged 1000 OF these books were
BIZ Communists or prof. Comm.
nists and demanded their removal.
The State Department began to
do so.
Altogether II issued az least 10
direetives TO its overseas librar.
ians on what books to remove and
how TO Judge 4 book as Communist
or pro-Communist. A number Of
books were moved from the
shelves. A very few were burned,
News Of the burning unloosed q
storm in this country. The Ameri.
can Library Association upheld the
..fredom to read" President FL
senhoWer contributed no clarity in
the confusion.
On June ia at Dartmouth Col
lege, he said: Don't join the book
burners. = Some people interpreted
this as 4 dig at Mccarthy but il
Eisenhower had any such thought
in mind he certainly didn't men
ton the senator.
Actually, the only book burners
were the librarians, carrying out
orders from the State Department.
If Eisenhower didn't like what
they did he could have fired
them or their superiors who gave
the orders.
Shortly afterwards, at d news
conference, he said it would be
silly for the government to spread
books urging its overthrow; as for
burning any such books, he said
the State Department could suit
itself.
If the State Department, or ia,
simply contents itself in its direc-
ltiyes with new guidance on what
books TO remove 1t will be avoiding
the main issue and the main ques-
ton:
just what Is the purpose Of these
overseas libraries? Are they, has
icaily, meant TO be propaganda
agencies of the U S. government?
or are they meant to be libraries
in the highest sense of the word,
which might be defined this way:
A place where a man can find
on the open shelves the whole
range of mankind's thinking the
hateful idea as wen as the benevo-
lent, the radical and revolutionary
and conservative, the authorita-
rian and the democratic, one idea
lined up against another-and ex.
ercise his right as q free man
to examine, judge. accept or reject
as he pleases.
Removal of books because of
their content or authorship from
that kind of a library would be
an act of intellectual tyranny or
cowardiee. But no one is seriously
suggesting or pretending that the
u. S. overseas libraries are meant
to be libraries in that highest
sense.
One section Of the 1913 Law Great.
ting the Information service and
the Libraries says that he purpose
of the service is to:
That puts them in the class Of
special purpose libraries. Pro-
Communist books would not have
. place in a library set up to
spread policies laid down by Con-
gress or the President.
Eisenhower himself has en-
phasized the overseas libraries are
speciai-purpose Libraries. This, he
said, restricts the selection Of
books to those which depict the
American way Of life and further
II. S. interests abroad.
But a library set up to depict
the American way Of life and furth-
CIR Y. S. interests abroad brings
Iii pretty close to being q propa-
ganda agency.
If the State Department once
admitted the overseas Libraries
we're propaganda agencies, the
k-burning issue would evapor-
ate No one contends, for instance,
that the Voice Of America, which
is frankly a propa ganda medium
for the government, should broad
cast the propaganda Of Lenin,
Stain or Marx Or slip in the Com
munist propaganda Of The Daily
Worker.