STRANGE ACTIONS IN U.S. LITERARY PURGE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27094, 18 July 1953, Page 3

STRANGE ACTIONS IN U.S. LITERARY PURGE

TOM SAWYER~ (, UN-AMERICAN’ >

‘America’s information libraries overseas, it was revealed in Washington recently, have begun removing from their shelves a wide variety of books supposedly written by Communists, “fellowtravellers” and a number of writers who have had no known sympathies with communism. A staff correspondent of the “Sunday Herald” (Sydney) in New York wrote the following article about a subject that is taking strange turns and causing deep concern to many Americans.

Whether or not zealots or timid men in American officialdom have actually consigned any notable books to the flames, the phrase “spiritual bookburning” has become current, and has taken on a real and ugly significance Many Americans are alarmed at the extent of a literary purge that is taking place not only in those libraries overseas, but also in university and public libraries in many parts of the United States. They have learned that a book by the European secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association has been banned in the United States State Department libraries in Western Germany; and that a body of unofficial censors in one American city has condemned Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer” as un-American.

President Eisenhower, too, is alarmed. When he urged American university students “not to join the book-burners,” many Americans became more uneasily conscious of a sinister pattern of cultural repression that has been set over the last few months by official and unofficial investigators.

The first official statement on the book-burning report came from the Secretary of State, Mr John Foster Dulles, when he said it was true that 11 books had been burnt in the United States libraries in Singapore and Sydney. The library officials denied it, but the State Department’s press officer in Washington, Mr Lincoln White, later insisted that the report was true. What is more important is the fact that the wave of protests over this supposed burning has not halted the State Department’s policy of banning more than 300 books from its libraries. The policy was laid down, according to most observers, after Senator McCarthy’s investigators, Messrs Cohn and Schine, made their now famous tour of American agencies in Europe. Soon after they returned, Senator McCarthy claimed there were 30,000 “Communist” books in United States libraries in Germany and tens of thousands in other parts of Europe. Amid McCarthy’s charges, the State Department quietly ordered the removal of all books by “controversial persons, Communists and fellow-travellers, etc.” There were reports from all over the world naming books which had come under the State Department directive. In Germany more than a score of American writers came unde : the State Department blacklist. They included Walter Duran ty, author and former “New York Times” correspondent. Others the late Richard E. Lauterbach, former “Life" magazine correspondent, who wrote the book “These Are the Russians"; Edgar Snow, former member of the staff of the “Saturday Evening Post”; Theodore White, formerly of “Time” magazine; Laurence Rosinger, formerly of the Foreign Policy Association; Langston Hughes, poet and essayist; John Abt, former special attorney to the Department of Justice; and Paul Anderson, European secretary of the Y.M.C.A. In the United States libraries in two sensitive Far Eastern ports, Bombay and Calcutta, the banned books include “Mission to Moscow,” by former Ambassador Joseph Davies; “Union Now,” by Clarence Streit' , “The Stilwell Papers,” by the late General Stilwell.

In Bombay books by a Nobel Peace prize-winner, Pearl Buck, were also taken from the shelves. At least two American diplomats have been courageous enough to protest against the book purge. One is James Conant, former president of Harvard University and now High Commissioner for Western Germany. When he received the original directive banning the use of material “by controversial figures. Communists, and fellow-travellers, etc.,” he cabled a brief request to the State Department. It read: “Please define ‘etc.’ ” The other diplomat was Ellis Briggs, Ambassador to South Korea, who protested in a long cable that the directive was an outright betrayal of everything America stands for. Although many Americans are appalled by what has taken place in overseas libraries, educators point out that foreigners should not lose sight of the fundamental sanity of the majority of Americans and the great strength of the country’s constitutional safeguards. However, they admit that even inside America a concerted campaign is under way to censor school and college textbooks and other reading. In a recent survey the f*New York Times” found that:— (1) Voluntary groups are being organ-

ised in almost every State to screen books for subversive and un-Ameri-can statements. The groups are not accountable to any legal body and are sometimes doing great harm in their communities.

(2) Librarians are being intimidated by outside pressure in their choice of books and other materials. Unwilling to risk a public controversy, they meekly accept the demands of the sellappointed censorship groups. In a few American towns pressure by super-patriotic groups has greatly increased the scope of official censorship. In St. Cloud, Minnesota (population 30,000), 2000 books are now on the Police Department banned list, and new books are being added to the list at the rate of 30 a month. Among these are: “Of Human Bondage,” by Somerset Maugham: “Sanctuary,” by William Faulkner; “Tobacco Road.” by Erskine Caldwell: “What Makes Sammy Run,” by Bud Schulberg, and “Native Son,’.’ by Richard Wright. In Akron. Ohio, Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer” was banned by a self-appointed pressure group because it is “un-American.” The pressure on schools and universities and on the public in small towns is rising. Some of it is from religious groups, but much of the pressure is from groups who are using anti-com-munism to serve their own ends. It can have some tragic effects. Last week the Long Island University decided not to make this year’s award for the man or woman in America who has done most for academic freedom. Among the reasons given was that an award could subject its recipient to an investigation by Senator McCarthy. At the Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, books that attack communism are available to students, but books praising communism are kept in a separate locked section and are available for use only under supervision. The works of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin are restricted at the Marquette University in Milwaukee. Students who need these books for reference must submit their names to the librarian, who in turn submits their names to the dean of the university. In manv parts of America fear has allowed good sense to be tossed out of the wi.idow and replaced by a jittery tension which demands authoritarian action. The president of Princeton University, Dr. Harold Dodds, said last week, “fear of communism is justified, but communism cannot be fought by going into hiding.” President Eisenhower has said that to fight communiism we must know what it is. Most Americans are looking to him to curb reckless acts which are leaving America open to ridicule. There have not yet been any reports of ceremonial public book-burning, but the hysteria of a section of Americans might yet make it possible, for that is one of the less enlightened human customs whose roots run deep. Book-burning was common for religious reasons in the Middle Ages and even later. In 1497 Savonarola, the Italian monk and reformer, celebrated a religious carnival in Florence by his famous “burning of the vanities,” the “vanities” being masks, books, and pictures (some of great artistic value) which he held to be vain or indecent. The most famous of modern bookburnings was the ceremonial destruction by the Nazis in 1933 of about 20,000 “un-German” books on a bonfire in front of the Berlin Opera House. Goebbels delivered an address to a cheering throng. It “can’t happen here.” Perhaps not. But to many sceptical foreigners the present fuss over “controversial” books conjures up the picture of a powerful America, a country with the world’s highest living standard, terrified by its own shadow and attempting by decree to banish the thoughts it hates. This may not be a fair picture, but America is realising it is one that is being portrayed overseas. The spiritual burning of books now proceeding in all American diplomatic missions abroad has had disastrous effects on American prestige.

HOME IS WHERE YOU MAKE IT (Herbert Jenkins. 196 pp.) is written by Nina Warner Hooke, who describes how she and her husband abandoned London life to settle in a village in South Dorset and how they transform'd a row of ruined hovels into an attractive home. The process is amusingly described and illustrated with photographs of the cottage Before and After. The book will appeal to all those who are tempted to flee from urban life. It reflects a very general attitude in this decade among a section of the intelligentsia. The slogans of “Cultivate Your Garden” and “Return to Nature,” excellent as they no doubt are, reflect a mood of escapism, almost of “ostrichism,” in the face of the world’s increasingly baffling problems. Not all who want to flee, however, are able to support themselves by writing and so to achieve the comparative freedom to build the house and garden of their dreams that this (childless) couple have succeeded in finding. Their achievement may nevertheless encourage others to follow their example, and show them how to go about & I