The Defense of Civil Rights
KONVITZ, MILTON R.
The Defense of Civil Rights The Post Office Goes Clerical By Milton R. Konvitz ^Vf December 80th, PoatmMter Gen Vjml Walker deprived "Esquire pj|M|a%* ef Its second-class mailing privileges...
...From Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, not to mention St...
...And he has shocked others who cannot see why a man who is an eminent Catholic philosopher should be dismissed for professing views which are those of Bishops and Popes...
...One morning I had letters from three individuals who solemnly promised to "bump me off" before the week was over...
...But this, apparently, mesns nothing to the Postmaster General and the wetoh ana-warders who move in a world where there is no youth, no dreapi, no pulchritude...
...It was •t»rerl y,-itri vehemence on postal cards *he on 4*a?^Mmttbna stationery that be was a rascal, a pain in the neck, a disgrace to the University, a red and a perverter of the people...
...Undoubtedly the President or the University found his mom-.pW* Ml, week » and week out, pjupmeu.wrar ettaDecattve comment on S**t the'lVticeanWwee saying...
...A hearing is required only if the Department wishes to revoke the second-class mailing privilege...
...Rice called for a Senate committee investigation, but without success...
...After revocation, if the publisher wishes to go to court for judicial review of the order, he has only a slender chance ef success, for courts will not upset the orders of the Department in the absence of proof that the action was a "gross abuse of discretion...
...As to McMahon, the Catholic public certainly didn't aak for his dismissal...
...Prior to Pearl Harbor, I replied over Columbia to an address delivered to the Steuben Society by Senator Nye...
...Therefore you come to feel that if you could only get rid of the source of the trouble, you* could put your head back on the pillow and rest easily...
...Wo analyzed some of those epistles, and found that their signers included every major group in the district, both religious and national...
...Among the magatines whose sacond-clasa mailing privileges were revoked were "Police Gazette," "Col-lag* Humor," "Film Fun" and "Real Detective...
...The Customs Bureau seizes the matter.and «ubmits it to a specialist in Washington If he judges it obscene or 'seditious, a libel action is instituted against the publication, and a trial before a judge and jury take* place...
...They threatened us with everything from excommunication to sudden death...
...He get scared when it was imperative that he stand his ground...
...McMahon was thrown •oU But it la net too difficult to do a «t(e cuessing...
...It seems to me that, quite apart from the issue of academic freedom, which is a very important one, he made a grave tactical mistake...
...In the days when I Was on its staff, the Commonweal office sometimes got an even bushel of such epistles on a single day...
...kttabon undoubtedly offended some fesptflest the campus, because like all •*m**der* he was sometimes given to •brasive remarks...
...Thus it seized issue* of the "Militant," Trotekyist weekly, without charge* or a hearing...
...I can tell you that it is at first a good deal like being squirted at with some highly disagreeable acid...
...Despite constitutional guarantees, this action is authorized by Federal law...
...N the "Esquire" case, Walker's legal * brain-trust thought up a new line of attack: while the hearings were conducted on the charge of publishing "obscene" literature, the order barring the magazine says nothing about indecency or obscenity, but only that the magazine failed to meet the requirements of being "originated and published for th* dissemination of information of a public character or devoted to literature, the sciences, srts or some special industry...
...The sltustion is so like what It waa in Germany prior to IfM In miniature that one is frequently -tartled...
...We jest simply can't afford te get scared...
...Walkers a judge of what publication does or does not contribute to the public welfare...
...list April, Elmer Rice, chairman of the'National Council on Freedom From Censorship, pointed out that there was a striking cw^aestM3batwe»n tab lists of "indecent literature'.' pebiishsd monthly in the "Acolyte," Bishop Noll's organ, and the actiea, ef the Pest Office Department against the maga sine...
...Walker is in a position to dictate to miDion* of American citi-*ene, snd to compel them to prefer a bad toothache...
...Perhaps, unlike Heine, Mr...
...the lesson of the McMahon rase...
...While this magazine* might bemble to pay this tariff, smaller journals would have to close up...
...Walker would rather have a bad tooth acb* than a bad conscience: this is, admittedly,* matter of taste...
...Say that something iu bad and it will only whet the appetite for it...
...Who wanted him ousted...
...This is a very dangerous doctrine: it makes Mr...
...City, still a jury trial provides safeguards thst ire absent from the bureaucratic censorship by the Department, i Blue Nose WITCH-HUNTS and Blue Law* are an old American tradition...
...It is likewise clear that tbefsenhy ef the University did not eWrnjhe action taken...
...But I can see why the President of a university like Notre Dame might get cold feet After all, it is a rather tranquil, cheerful, easy-going kind of place...
...WHO writes these letters...
...But the writers themselves are not neces-, sarily Catholics...
...t .? ¦ • • pAPrrULATING to the pressure of the National "Federation of Decent Literature, directed by Bishop John F. Noll of Fort Wayne, Ind...
...And when I say every major group, I mean just, that...
...He at one time or another barred some fifty publications, among which "Esquire" and |he avant-garde art maga line "tW are the latest victims...
...IT is easy to understand that the * President of the University may not have known what to do with such mail...
...Augustine, Florida, have come editorials which state flatly that the Mr Mzbog dismissal is a blot on the Catbo-* escutcheon...
...The Defense of Civil Rights The Post Office Goes Clerical By Milton R. Konvitz ^Vf December 80th, PoatmMter Gen Vjml Walker deprived "Esquire pj|M|a%* ef Its second-class mailing privileges This wee bis Xmaa present to^ke American people...
...Cotton and Increase, in Puritan New England to the ludicrous antics of Anthony Comstock of the Society fur the Suppression of Vice...
...Why Notre Dame Got Scared By George N. Shuster President, Hunter College THE ease of Dr...
...Walker added that the magazine does not contribute to the public welfare and the public good "to the extent that this publication should be relieved ef payment of more than J600.000 in postage per annum...
...Most of them probably are not...
...feMr Walker it-meant nothing that gJhsns of men in the erases forces, Spd and tired and aiofc, wffl no longer ST the MQdye eJM»M«lre Maga St"'wh» i|» Van^rjtrl drawing*, iu Lrtotma, tbi starts...
...That most unfortunate controversy,which get very hot without all right being on either side, will take s long while to Hve down...
...He has seriously alarmed many Catholics, who have begun to doubt the quality and moral integrity of the education provided by the University...
...Why, you will ask, are these people left alone...
...Well, the simple truth of the matter is that the normal American citizen is still too gentlemanly to take the trouble to raise a fuss: He writes letters of protest, but he doesn't threaten to burn Notre Dame down...
...From the very " start there were a number of self-appointed custodians of somebody else's moral* endowed with superior precepts of right snd wrong...
...Having been the recipient of a good deal of it myself...
...The ring-leaders are men born jn Ireland who follow the De Valera line with a vigor all their own...
...Today, Postmaster General Walker ride* the Comstock trail...
...It instituted a hearing only after it had exercised its right of seizure of single issues on a number of occasions...
...It has by no means been quick to pounce upon the -private failings or ideological idio ryneraeiea of its faculty...
...These people concentrate on Catholic "liberals" of the McMahon type because, since the Franco controversy, they feel that the Church is their possession...
...Nobody goes around vowing murder or arson...
...as I see it...
...Of course, Dr...
...As indefinite as are the< term* "obscenity" and "indecency," even more so is-this- language of the order...
...That is...
...After a while you get used to it and save the choicest items for your scrap-book...
...The sltustion wss summed up in an Old Masses cartoon showing a cop hailing a womaa with a nightgown into court saying: I charge this woman with giving birth to a naked child...
...But un-fortunstely Mr...
...Francis E. McMahon, * erstwhile professor of philosophy at Notre Dame, hi obviously a case for Kllery Queen or Sherlock Holmes...
...But the American temper is a perverse thing...
...Perhaps an illustration from my personal experience may be pardoned, for the sake of the point it makes...
...After a hearing, if the Department orders a revocation of the second-class mailing privilege, the magazine may be sent through the mails under fourthclass, but this la much mere costly—in the case ef "Esquire," it has been said, the difference in cost would be about $600,000 yearly...
...meant nothing to him that the man waiting in the mjtkmf* office to have a tooth extracted will net be able to forget his pain for a «Mit by scanning the pages ef this puurasine...
...Personally I never, found it desirable, except in a fancy barber shop, to re sort to "Esquire" aa a mean* of escape from urgently pressing ideas, plsns snd notions...
...The line goes from the straight-barked Mather brothers...
...While a Jury may also convict, a* was shown in the case of "Wine, Women and Song" in New York...
...The American Civil Liberties Union has recommended the adoption of the method employed in connection with the importation of publications...
...And it was furthermore asserted that unless the "rat" was "fired" the writer would no longer patronize the institution...
...These who imagine that Nazism la the special product of the Teutonic seal might do well to remember thst the total number of the rabid who manifest the same characteristics as did the Hitlerites wss probably larger here in America in 103* than it was in German) in 192...
...The . second-class privilege is really a farm of government subsidy, and it based on the belief that the public benefits from a mail subsidy to periodicals...
...A long list of magazines have heard the official voice intoning: "Reform your way* or your second-class mail privileges are lost...
...but one must recognise the feat Jhat in this world in which there is mere then enough of ugliness, cruelty and pain, this magazine has afforded to many persons a way of temporary escape from their cares and worries...
...Anthony Comstock hailed an art dealer into court for displaying a demure nude posed aa September Morn, and clever publicity agents sent Comstock books, pictures, plays, etc., seeking his disapproval in order to zoom the ssle ef the item...
...Milton Konvitz of the New York University Law School tells what's behind the current campaign...
...Single issue* of newspapers and magazine* Were seized by the Post Office Department, excluded from the mails, without charges or hearings...
...One result was a hatch of several hundred letters from a certain Eastern area, one letter being more virulent, threatening and abusive than the other...
...One aspect of the Notre Dame situation which seems especially baffling is the fact that there is on the campus an unmolested little clique of rabid obstructionists...
...Lately the popular magazine Esquire and th* surrealist art magazine "View" were banned from the mails...
...That is at bottom why the action of President O'DonneU of Notre Dame ia so deplorable...
...And, of course, beyond that is the fact that Americans of other faiths and creeds will continue to reflect on the President's action in blank amazement...
...At least three important diocesan papers have been sharply critical of the University's action, and diocesan-paper* keep still when the bishops dislike the *fcw» of the editor...
...I am, of course, not saying that this is what the President should have done...
...Yet it is asserted •a good authority that the faculty was astonished by- the event 1 shall frankly concede that I don't Plane...
...It is, of course, the Cough Unite crowd, supplemented by rabid snti-Hritish-ers, anti-Semites and anti-Roosevelt people, and augmented as well by a corps of letter writers who are, even today, in favor of Nazism and Fascism...
...Postmaster General Walker has during the past year conducted an unprecedented drive against newspapers and magazines...
...Notre Dame, in spite ef seme incidents of the sort to which nearly all academic flesh is heir, can claim to have been a fairly gener-ous and hospitable institution...
...About half of those letters were from people who had some affiliation with the Catholic Church...
Vol. 27 • January 1944 • No. 3
