State Committee Kills Bill Asking Rigid Censorship

The first of a series of frigid censorship bills to come up in the Massachusetts State Legislature was recently defeated in Committee.

In an attempt to drive lurid 25-cent editions off State newsstande, Representative James D. Doncaster recommended the establishment of a decency review board to screen such literature. The board would have consisted of three members, one of them a clergyman and the other an educate.

Shortly after a public hearing on the bill, it was voted down by the Legislative Committee on State Administration. Opponents claimed that present laws are adequate to keep the situation in hand.

A Crying Need

Sponser Doncaster said the law would awaken people to the need for control over the lurid editions that feed the newsstands. Patrick A. Tompkins, State Commissioner of Public Welfare, supported:". . . there is a crying need for review and restriction of the publication and distribution of such obscene and lewd publication peddled in most corner stores."

The bill was opposed by several H. Brarians, and by representatives of book-cellers and publisher. The legislative counsel for Time, Esquire, and Cowles Magazine, James D. St. Claire, said, "If we have to satisfy a board of three we will be unduly hamstrung in what we publish and we publish deceit things."