Another Bill to Amend the Postal Laws by S. B. Horton

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jan 6, 1916

Another Bill to Amend the Postal Laws

By S. B. Horton

THE matter of amending the postal laws has again been brought before Congress. One measure (H. R. 491), by Mr. Siegel, was introduced on the first day of the present session, reference to which has already been made in these columns.

Now comes another measure (H. R. 6468), introduced by Mr. Fitzgerald, who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the House, and is as follows:—

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever it shall be established to the satisfaction of the Postmaster-General that any person is engaged, or represents himself as engaged, in the business of publishing any obscene or immoral books, pamphlets, pictures, prints, engravings, lithographs, photographs, or other publications, matter, or thing of an indecent, immoral, or scurrilous character, and if such person shall, in the opinion of the Postmaster-General, endeavor to use the post office for the promotion of such business, it is hereby declared that no letter, packet, parcel, newspaper, book, or other thing sent or sought to be sent through the post office by or on behalf of or to or on behalf of such person shall be deemed mailable matter, and the Postmaster-General shall make the necessary rules and regulations to exclude such nonmailable matter from the mails.”

The provisions of Mr. Fitzgerald’s bill place in the hands of the Postmaster-General a most unwarranted power. The Roman Catholic Church has been endeavoring for several years to secure from Congress a law against transmission through the United States mails of such publications as “outrage religious convictions of our citizens, and contain scurrilous and slanderous attacks upon our faith.”

At the 1912 convention of the American Federation of Catholic Societies a statement from Postmaster-General Hitchcock was submitted, from which we quote in part:—

“I have to inform you that there is no provision of law under which newspapers or other publications containing violent criticisms of any particular religious faith may be excluded from the mails, unless such criticism takes the form of personal slander, scurrility, or obscenity, in which case the publisher becomes amenable to the criminal laws of the United States, and may be fined or imprisoned, or both, and his publication debarred from the mails. It is not probable that under our federal Constitution, which prohibits interference with religious opinion in any way, a law could be passed restraining criticism of religious faiths.”

In the hearing given two bills of similar character in the last Congress (H. R. 20780 and H. R. 21183), the purpose of such measures was revealed, from which we quote as follows:—

“The Chairman: I want to get at the facts. You want the government—and by the government I mean the Post-office Department—to have authority to intervene and stop publications that contain language of the character referred to in your bill?

“Mr. Gallivan: Exactly. . . .

“The Chairman: Then you want to make the Postmaster-General the sole arbiter in determining that question?

“Mr. Gallivan: That is what I started out to do.

“The Chairman: Now, that may be a religious question, a political question, or a social or scientific proposition of any kind where this language may be used. May it not?

“Mr. Gallivan: Yes, sir.

“The Chairman: Now what is your purpose in it? Is it to protect the individual or an association against whom such language is directed? Is that the result of such language?

“Mr. Gallivan: What other purpose would the gentleman think I might have in mind?

“The Chairman: I do not know. I asked you if that is your purpose, and you say yes?

“Mr. Gallivan: Yes, sir.

“The Chairman: If that is true, are not the courts of this country open for that purpose, and cannot they all be protected? When a man oversteps the bounds of legitimate free speech, cannot the courts handle him without the intervention of Congress by an act of this sort?

“Mr. Gallivan: Apparently there are some weaknesses in the law, or the Postmaster-General would not refer to the matter in his report.

“The Chairman: . . . Is it not better, if there be any wrong or injury done, by publication or otherwise, to any sort of an organization or individual, that that individual or organization be permitted, as they now have a right to do, to step into the courts for protection and vindication rather than to invoke the arbitrary action of a government official, and especially when that action is confined to the judgment of a single individual?

“Mr. Gallivan: May I answer that by asking the chairman of this committee if he believes that the United States mails should be permitted to circulate any scandalous, scurrilous, indecent, or immoral books, and so forth?

“The Chairman: No.

“Mr. Gallivan: Should a man be forced to go to law, and should the government be used as an agency for distributing such things?

“The Chairman: The trouble about it is that while technically you are correct in the fact that the government ought not to permit such things, yet you cannot stop that by the judgment of a single man being pronounced in advance of the publication, and determining what is scandalous, scurrilous, and so on. He would have to know about each issue to determine that fact, and that could not be done until after the issue was made. Therefore, a citizen can be more properly remitted to his rights in the courts, it seems to me.”

These same interrogatories will apply to Mr. Fitzgerald’s bill, and it is to be hoped that it will meet the same fate in this Congress that his bill and Mr. Gallivan’s suffered in the last Congress; but, as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it is well that the watchman continue to sound the alarm. S. B. HORTON.