DEMOCRACY IS INDIVISIBLE

...See how they control the nation," they will say...

...Thus, the element of truth or non-defamation in certain declarations would justify their right to be received and delivered by the Post Office, even though they were meant to be injurious to members ^of a race or religion...

...to hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy, or tend to cause such persons to be shunned or avoided, or to be injured in their business or occupation...

...Is it the intention of the advocates of postal censorship to leave the broadcasters of the spoken word to later regulation...

...Remove one of this trio and you deny the essence of democracy...

...In a later, calmer era than this war period, German-Americans could likewise properly seek to prevent postal delivery of literature which attributed militarism or bestiality to the innate Teutonic character, opinions which in many hysterical sources now find unquestioned and respectably patriotic acceptance...

...Democracy in which information is withheld from the people, or in which they are not free to hear any expression of opinion, or in which their own opinion is ignored, is a misnomer...

...Problems Of Enforcement Even under the Lynch bill the test of truth is not adequate in view of the most glaring difficulties of enforcement...

...You can't even expose them...

...You cannot have two-thirds or one-third democracy...

...Reported out favorably by a subcommittee of the House Post Office Committee, these bills have the support of organizations and trade unions who are concerned about race hatred, but who fail to see that such measures merely create a legislative trap in which they, themselves, may some day struggle...

...Rankin harangues the lower House of Congress on the degeneracy of the Jews, is the Congressional Record containing his speech to be granted or denied the postal privilege...

...nder such a provision statements could be rendered non-mailable regardless of their intent or truth...

...The New York Times factually quotes from the priest's remarks purely as a news item and without any editorial comment...

...The radio would still remain more far-reaching and effective as a means of communication and influence...

...Three Forces Of Democracy Naturally the Post Office could not be a complete barrier to anti-group propaganda...

...Again, where is the line to be drawn between (1) quotation of a speech in a publication for mere public information, (2) quotation for the purpose of refuting or ridiculing the speech, and (3) quotation to arouse additional animosity against the people defamed in the original speech...

...Will the Post Office be burdened with the gigantic task of censoring all mailed literature...

...Similarly, a postal official with some Negro blood in his veins could on the same grounds close the mails to an article which pointed to the comparative illiteracy, unsanitary or immoral living conditions, or the social diseases of the Negro...

...On the other hand, if Rep...

...Even so, such measures would not prevent dissemination of slanders...

...The Lynch Bill (H...

...J. Res...

...The measures' sponsors, however, reach the conclusion that such harmful assertions warrant a second evil, censoring and curtailing expressions prior to circulation among the public...

...Should it then be banned from the mail...

...Suppose it may do so but that it then adds one line after the Congressman's address: "We agree...

...Tomorrow we may bemoan the same "underground" circulation by fascists in the blossoming democracy of America...

...R. 2328) covers "any defamatory and false statements which tend to expose persons designated, identified or characterized therein by race or religion...

...If anything stimulates the feeling and behavior of martyrdom among bigots, it is most likely suppression...

...For example, imagine that Father Coughlin falsely defamed the Jews in a speech in Detroit...

...If you seek democracy, rig up the machinery to give them this trinity...

...Moreover, it would impose on the Post Office the superhuman responsibility of being the custodian of all knowledge in order to determine the accuracy of every statement...

...Let us examine these bills...

...Attempted state strangulation of such fanatics nourishes the "sporting" sympathy of large parts of the ignorant public...

...It is another instance of the delusion of the lesser evil...

...The Dickstein Resolution (H...

...But in a long-range view the second wrong which is permitted may well become more vicious than the original one it sought to prevent...

...Or will it devolve on private groups to protest...

...There would still remain the powerful interstate agencies of organized religion, business, and politics that could reach into widely separated communities by a campaign of meetings and local hand-distribution of literature...

...Democracy to work must rely on three forces: information, freedom of expression, and on the resulting opinion of the masses...

...If so, in addition to the loss of privacy of personal correspondence which would not be sacred under either proposal, great delay in distribution would result from the necessary inspection of the periodicals...

...If granted, may Social Justice then reprint it with impunity...

...Which publication should be suppressed...

...and Father Coughlin's own newspaper, Social Justice, also cites the identical slanderous passage in quotes, the contrary intimations being equally evident for the same reasons...

...Yet all three of them would be guilty Of only one thing: printing the truth, namely that Father Coughlin spoke as they said he spoke...

...49) applies to matter "designed or adapted or intended to cause racial or religious hatred or bigotry or intolerance...

...Or is the Times to be closed to mail circulation because what it reported was adapted, though not intended, to create group friction...

...Democracy Is Indivisible By HIRAM ELFENBEIN ALL too little public attention is being focussed on two proposed laws now before Congress to ban from the mail literature offensive to racial or religious groups...

...the Jewish Forward objectively publishes the same excerpt although the unstated implications of the article are apparent because of the group issuing the periodical...

...Delusion Of The Lesser Evil The first mentioned is the broader of the two for it aims to exclude from the mailing privilege anything that is adapted, that is, suited, to group animosity...

...If so, in one case the censoring will come after circulation of the objectionable matter, in which event it will be futile...

...It will topple over...

...Today we boast of the "underground" distribution of pamphlets by patriots in the subjugated democracies of Europe...

...The second bill is less drastic since it relates to expressions which in the first instance must be both defamatory and false...

...Democracy, like a three-legged table, simply won't stand up minus one leg...

...Under the Dickstein resolution a treatise analyzing the Holy Catholic Inquisition, no matter how objective it was or tried to be, could be deemed adapted to produce ill will toward American Catholics of today, especially by a Postmaster General of the same faith...

...That either piece of legislation would trespass on freedom of the press is obvious...

...To them the Government's intervention to protect the ones who are accused of being responsible for various public evils seems to corroborate the extravagant claims made against the very1 ones protected...

...On what basis...

...or in another case the postal authorities will present the mailed newspaper or magazine to the offended group for its objection, in which circumstance the censorship will be secondary and the results may easily be visualized if every racial or religious element in the community has a board of review of posted literature...

...This infringement of freedom of the press must therefore be defended on the principle that two wrongs make a right...

...Yet the targets of these suggested laws, such remarks as hurt racial or religious segments of the population, are undeniably an evil...