Press Censorship and Dime Novels
By L. A. S.
THE propriety of a limited degree of press censorship in this country has been considered on several occasions, and is now brought before the public in the State of New York by the introduction of a bill into the legislature at Albany providing for the suppression of “so-called five-cent or dime novels.” Such a bill is favored by the Insurance Monitor, which notes that thefts and burglaries in this country are yearly becoming more numerous, and that a large proportion of these crimes are committed by youth who “receive their inspiration to their careers from two notorious sources—plays in which crime is held up as heroic, and dime novels.” The Monitor says:— While these two sources of youthful debauchery are well understood, strange to say, no effectual means have yet been found to suppress them. Freedom of the press and of the stage is assumed to be endangered if they are interfered with. Public morals and public safety must be sacrificed to a specious misconception of popular rights. . . . There is no good constitutional reason why both the drama and the novel should not be subject to a censorship for the protection of immature minds. There can, of course, be no question in any right mind of the desirability of eliminating literature and plays which exert a pernicious influence upon the minds of the youth. The harm which comes from such sources can hardly be overstated. It is, however, a question where a policy of press censorship to guard the public morals might, when once begun, find a stopping-place; for it is certain that religious prejudice would lead some to see in the teaching of certain tenets to which they were strongly opposed. a menace to public morality. To teach that Sunday is not the Christian sabbath, for example, is counted as tending to public immorality by many persons and organizations of influence in this country. The beginning of such a policy of “moderate despotism” would have, therefore, a far greater significance than that derived from the primary object of suppressing obnoxious novels and plays.
L. A. S.