An Appeal to Reason and Conscience
In Defense of the Right of Freedom
Of Inquiry in the United States
On June 8 the Board of Superintendents of New York City
schools closed the schools to 'I'll E NATION, the oldest liberal
magazine in the United States.
This action was taken without advance notice to THE
NATION or to the people of the city, without hearing, and
announcement of any kind, cither to the magazine or to the
public.
The only opportunity afforded to the magazine to defend
itself, or to citizens to ne
heard, was at a meeting of
the Hoard from which the
press was excluded, and
which was called as the re
sult of public protests some
weeks after the decision had
accidentally become known.
Following this proceeding, the
board reaffirmed its decision by
unanimous vote. Other communi
ties thereupon followed suit by
similar unilateral action. In Mas
sachusetts, THE NATION was
banned from the state’s teachers’
colleges by a public official who
admitted he had not, It the time
of the banning, himself investi
gated the reason given by the
Stifling Free Expression
(Editor’s Note: We’re devoting our entire page today to the pre
senting of a single issue. This, we know, is a bit unusual. However, we
feel completely justified. In our opinion, the issue at stake here is one
about which each student at the University should feel vitally con
cerned.
What would you sav if the state board of higher education
were to suddenly ban a certain magazine from the shelves of
the University librarv because the board members had decided
that the magazine, in their opinion, had printed objectionable
material which you should not read?
You’d holler, wouldn’t you? Some one of you would very
likely organize a committee to fight for the removal of the ban.
On I line 8, the board of Superintendents of the New York
city schools shut its doors to THE NATION, the oldest liberal
magazine in the United States. Monday of this week 107 prom
inent Americans, acting as a special committee, made public
a request for the liftingof the ban by issuing a 1700-word docu
ment entitled "An Append to Reason and Conscience."
Included among the signers of the document is Palmer
Hoyt, University graduate, former editor of the Portland Ore
gonian. and now publisher and editor of the Denver Post. Other
members of the committee include such outstanding Americans
as Henry Steele Commager, professor at Columbia university;
Dorothy Canfield Fisher, noted author: Dr. Harry Emerson
Fosdick, religious leader; Sumner Welles, former undersecre
tary of state; Dr. Robert M. Hutchins, chancellor of the Uni
versitv of Chicago, and Dr. Zechariah Chafee, Jr., professor,
I Iarvard law school.
Chairman of the committee is Archibald MacLeish, well
known author-poet, former assistant secretary of state, and
United States representative in UNESCO.
The ban was placed on THE NATION because of a series
of articles bv Paul Blanshard. for many years commissioner of
investigation and accounts in New York under Mayor Fiorello
l.aC.uardia. in which Blanshard described and criticized the
official position of the Catholic church in such matters as edu
cation, science, medicine, marriage, divorce, democracy, and
fascism.
In challenging the New York board, the document, which
appears on this page, draws striking attention to the dangerous
consequences to the country if the premises on which the ban
was based are accepted.
Should these premises be accepted as precedents for the
establishing of similar rulings in the United States, this country
might one day find itself marching swiftly down the disastrous
road toward fascism.
A fellow named Hitler not so many years ago used similar
methods to stifle opposition to his dreams for a glorious new
Germany.
The Ori'i'ov D \u.\ Km krai d. published daily during the college year except Sundays,
Mondays, holidays, and final examination periods by the Associated Students, l niversity of
Oregon. Subscription rates: $J,00 per term and $4.00 per year. Faltered as second-class matter
nt the postoffice. Eugene, Oregon.
BILL YATES, Editor VIRGIL ll t KEK. Business Manager
Don Fair, Managing Editor Tom McLaughlin, Adv. Manager
Associate Editors : June Goct/e, Boholee Brophy. Diana Dye. Barbara Iloywood,
Boh Feed. Assistant Editor
UPPER NEWS STAFF
Mike Callahan. Stan Turnbull
Co-News Editors
( A nn Gillespie. Sports Editor
Vinita Howard, Women’s Editor
Boh Funk. Clutroh Editor
Don Smith. Assistant Managing Editor
Evelyn Nill and Ann Goodman
Assistant News Editors
Phyllis kohlmeior. Editorial Secretary
New York board for its action.
The reason was the publication
by THE NATION in 1947 and
1948 of a series of articles by
Paul Blanchard, for many years
Commissioner of Investigations
PALMER HOYT
... he signed document.
and Accounts of the City of New
York in the La Guardia adminis
tration.
Mr. Blanchard’s articles de
scribed and criticized the official
position of the Catholic church
in such matters as education, sci
ence, medicine, marriage, divorce,
democracy and fascism. The
board stated that there were pas
sages in these articles which a
Catholic would find objectionable
on grounds of faith.
It is the opinion of the under
signed that the action of the
New York Board of Superinten
dents raises an issue of the great
est gravity to the people of the
city and of the country.
IT IS NOT AN ISSUE BE
TWEEN CATHOLICS AND
NON-CATHOLICS.
There are Catholics among us
and none of us, whether Catho
lic or not, have been moved to
protest by reason of hostility to
the Catholic faith. Neither is the
issue raised a mere issue of fact
with regard to the articles
themselves.
Y've agree wan uie uuaiu
there are sincere Catholics and
men of good will who object on
grounds of faith to certain state
ments in Mr. Blanchard’s articles.
Indeed, some of us who are not
Catholics disagree with certain
of Mr. Blanchard’s statements.
The issue as we see it is the is
sue of principle which the board’s
action, and 'the board’s state
ments in defense of its action,
present.
The question before the board
was not the question of the suit
ability of THE NATION as a text
book in the city’s schools.
The question was whether THE
NATION, which had long been
one of the periodicals available to
New York City students, should
continue to be available to them.
Destructive Principles
In ruling that it should not,
and giving its publication of the
Blanshard articles as justifica
tion. the board in effect enunciat
ed two propositions both of yvhich
in our opinion are contrary to
American ideaso of freedom and
destructive of American princi
ples.
The first is the proposition that
any published material regarded,
or which could be regarded, as ob
jectionable, on grounds of faith or
creed by any group in the com
munity should be excluded from
the community’s schools and
school libraries.
The second is the proposition
that the appearance in any publi
cation of mateerial of this kind
justifies the suppression in
schools and school libraries of the
publication as a whole. In the
case of a periodical this means
that the past publication of such
material justifies the suppression
of future issues regardless of the
general character and record of
the periodical.
The vice of the second of these
two propositions is apparent upon
its face. The exclusion from pub
lic institutions, by public officials
on the basis of particular mate
rial published in the past, rather
than on the basis of the character
of the publication as a whole,
cannot be defended even as cen
sorship.
It is extra-judicial punishment
pure and simple, and it involves
a power of intimidation and pos
sible blackmail in officials of gov
ernment which no free society
can tolerate and which a free
press could not long survive.
Vicious Proposition
To permit public officials, in
their unlimiteed, extra-judicial
discretion, to stigmatize an estab
lished and respected magazine or
newspaper as unfit for students
to read because of the publication
of a specific article or series of
articles, or of particular para
graphs in a specific article or se
ries, is to confer an arbitrary and
dictatorial power which is whol
ly foreign to the American tradi
tion and to the laws and constitu
tion in which the American tradi
tion is expressed.
The first proposition—that any
publication objectionable on
R1CHAKU L. NEUBERGER
. . . helped form committee
grounds of faith to any group in
the community should be sup
pressed in the schools—though
more plausible on its face, is
equally vicious in fact. It is a re
pudiation, on one side, of the
principle of the separation of
church and statee.
The meaning of that latter ten
et, so far as education is con
cerned, is that no church may
use the public schools as instru
ments of its propaganda. To give
the churches of the country, or
any of their members who might
seek to exercise it, the power to
determine by simple veto what
shall not be available to students
in the public schools, or worse,
for public officials to exclude au
tomatically anything any group
might be expected to wish ex
cluded, is to do by negative action
what the Constitution and courts
forbid by positive action.
The argument offered in de
fense of this revolutionary pro
posal is apparently that religion
cannot be criticized in American
education.
THERE IS NOTHING IN
AMERICAN LAW OR IN THE
AMERICAN TRADITION
WHICH -SAYS THAT RELIGION
CANNOT BE CRITICIZED IN
EDUCATION, NOR DOES THE '
PRINCIPLE OF THE SEPARA
TION OF CHURCH AND STATE .
INVOLVE ANY SUCH CONSE
QUENCE.
On the contrary, the American ’
Republic was founded, and the
Signers of Document
Samuel Hopkins Adams, Dr. Henry A. At- 4
kinson, George Axtelle, Dr. Wade Crawford
Barclay, Ralph Bennett, Mrs. Mary McLeod
Bethune, George Biddle, Sarah Gibson Bland
ing, Isaiah Bowman, Charles C. Burlingham. *
Erwin D. Canham, Robert K. Carr, Zechariah
Chafee Jr. ,
Grenville Clark, Henry Steele Commager,
Arthur Compton, J. M. Dawson, Dale De- #
Witt. W. E. B. DuBois, Mark F. Ethridge,
Marshall Field III, Dorothy Canfield Fisher,
Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Nathan Frank
el, Gilbert W. Gabriel, Lewis Gannett, Lloyd
K. Garrison. Ray Gibbons, Bishop Charles K. *
Gilbert, Virginia C. Gildersleeve, Frank Gold
man, Frank Graham, Martha Graham, Er
win Nathaniel Griswald, Harold K. Guinz
burg, Oscar Hammerstein II. ' >
Moss Hart. Arthur Garfield Hays. Rt. Rev,
Henry W. Hobson. William Ernest Hocking,
Hamilton Holt, Mildred McAfee Horton,
Charles H. Houston, Byrn J. Hovde, Palmer
Hovt. Charles E. Hughes Jr.. Robert M.
Hutchins. Samuel Guy Inman, Alvin John
ton, Charles S. Johnson, Howard M. Jones,
Alice V. Keliher, Dorothy Kenyon, William
Heard Kilpatrick. Leon Kroll, Christopher *
LaFarge, Dr. Harry Laidler, Herbert Leh
man, Monte Lemann, Max Lerner, Eduard
C. Lindeman, Alani Locke, Robert S. Lynd,
Marshall MacDuffie. Dr. John A. Mackay. *
Archibald MacLeish. Thomas Mann. Ben
jamin E. Mays, Ralph E. McGill, Millicent
Carey McIntosh, Alexander Meicklejohn, Er
nest O. Melby, Frederick Melcher. Clyde R.
Miller. Perry Miller, Lewte Mumford, Ed- 4
ward R. Murrow, Allan Nevins, Reinliold
Niebuhr. Howard W. Odum, Bishop G.
Bromley Oxnam. Bishop Edward L. Parsons,
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Henry P. -
Russell. Rose Russell, Rose Schneiderman,
Budd Shulberg, Lisa Sergio, Charles Sey
mour, Dr. Guy Emery Shipler. Paul C. Smith,
Arthur B. Springarn. William B. Spofford
Jr., Justice Meier Steinbrink, Rex Stout,
Clarenee Streit, Harold Taylor, Norris L.
Tibbetts. Carl Van Doren, Mark Van Doern,
James P. Warburg, Goodwin Watson, Sum
ner Welles, Gene Weltfish, James Waterman 1
Wise, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Louise Leonard
Wright.
American continent was settled,
by people whose actions were in
large part an expression of their
criticism of certain established
religions.
The truth is that the suppres
sion of ideas impoverishes human
life and warps the human mind
in an increasing and progressive
sickness. Those who practice it
are led by the logic of one exclu
sion to the tragedy of the next.
If the suppression of THE NA
TION for having published the
Blanshard articles is allowed to
stand, and if the propositions up
on which it is justified are ac
cepted, the consequences to the
schools, to the press, and to the
vitality of American freedom
may well be very serious indeed.
Newspapers and periodicals
will be obliged to omit news and
comment which any group in any
denomination, Catholic or other, '
regards as objectionable or run
the risk of being suppressed in
the public schools, with all that
such suppression means in terms
of the loss of good name and good
will.
No Formula
The standard of education will
become the teaching, not of
the truth, but of that part of the
truth to which no group objects—
with the result that the bigotry
and ignorance of minorities will
dictate the knowledge of the
whole people. Scientific works
containing accepted scientific
facts about the shape of the
earth, the history of the universe
and the functions of the human
body, objectionable to various de
nominational groups, will be
withdrawn.
The events of the last ten years
should have taught us all—the
New York Board of Superinten
dents included—that there is no
escape from the difficult prob
lems of our time by suppression.
(Please turn to page seven)