Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-12-11

we know of were put to the tor
which gripped many a State
Legislature in 1854 seems to
have subsidized. One or two To-
cal police chiefs did little
unilateral banning, but not
enough to make a trend. The
only authors to appear before
congressional committees did
so at their own request; no
Capitol Hill group constituted
itself as first-readers for the
public and 331 members of the
House and Senate went on rec
ord in favor Of poetry.
Postal Attack
There was one little furry
of official censorship. but this
proved to be more diverting
than ominous. The Post Office
Department, clad in the
armor of self-righteousness,
announced its intention to
"clean up the mails" which
no one objected to except the
first thing they did was to i'm
pound a candidly illustrated
copy Of "Lysistrata."
They apparently did not
feel that age (2,700 years. had
lent any responsibility to
Aristophanes' heroine. A GER
tain amount of giggling went
on, in the course of which the
Post Office Department issued
a huffy press release saying
that ANY enlightened effort Of
this kind is occasionally open
to attack and ridicule." A few
days later. it let "Lysistrata"
go. mumbling that since 1t was
only one copy. -.
A more durably controversial
book was a new novel about
Africa by Robert Ruark, a CORY
epic called SOMETHING OF
VALUE. A member OF the
board of Book of the Month
Club judges, Amy Loveman,
dissented when the others Sc
lected it for distribution. call
ing it shocking in the ex-
IRENE" It's the first time the
bench of the club has been so
divided. Publication day found
the critics at odds. too. Opin-
ions ranged from "a stunning
book" to "a monstrous miscar-
riage of literary justice"
Book Industry's Awards
The book worlds own best
choices, the National Book
Awards, were rather amiably
received. Some felt that Will
liam Faulkner needn't have
been honored for The Fable"
which got mixed reviews, es-
pecially since he had received
MIA laurels before. But those
displeased by his bold obscure
ties could take comfort in the
orthodox pages of Joseph
Wood Krutch's THE Measure
of Man." a plea for humanism
which won the non-fiction
prize. The bestowing of the
poetry plaque on Wallace Ste
vens encountered no objec-
tions.
The Library Of Congress for
the second year running did
not give out its greatest poetry
prize, the coveted chair OF
poetry. Poets, as Shelley said,
are the ''unacknowledged
legislators of the world" but
the poets whom their peers
selected for the Library post
have not always given the &C
knowledged legislators what
the latter consider their due.
In 1858 they chose to be the
poet laureate with salary Of
$1,000 and a beautiful Office
in the Library the venerable
doctor bard William Carlos
Williams. But somehow the
Library found he wouldn't do,
and the chair has been vacant
ever since. And the Fellows
in American Letters, the
mostly poetical fellows who
used to name the poet. will not
get together any more. Librari-
an L, Quincy Mumford has de-
cided that their coming here is
a luxury the Government can
no longer afford. The Fellows
were ruff1ed by the decision
and have been planning to
protest. Seemingly. though it
is as hard to draft a protest
as sonnet. and at this writing
the Fellows. scattered all over
the world, very choice of their
words in the way of their
calling, have not been heard
from.
Congress Likes Poets
Otherwise Congress was nice
to poets and handsomely
acknowledged its debt of in
spiration to them in a fine
compendium of poetry called
The Congressional Anthology"
which was edited by the Legis-
lative Reference Service of the
Library.
The United States Informal
ton Agency which exports mil
lions of volumes annually, had
only one recorded bad moment
with a book. 1t has the deli
cate job of sending overseas
YEARS Harper, So, by
Sherwood Eddy is the auto
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