Brown, Providence Library Defy Ban Against "Tropic"

Student, faculty, and administrators at Brown University have joined in an effort to overturn a ruling by the Rhode Island Attorney General prohibiting the sale of Henry Miller's novel, Tropic of Cancer.

Attorney General J. Joseph Nugent has banned the book in Rhode Island in spite of complaints that only a court order can do so. Millers book was on trial in Boston last month in a case in which the decision is still pending.

Barnaby C. Keeney, President of Brown, members of the faculty, and students have since been planning moves to test the legality of Nugent's move. A week ago two undergraduates advertised in the Brown Daily Herald copies of Tropic for sale; Nugent will investigate them, if he finds that they have violated a state law.

The college's Dean of Student reported-learned that the students did not, in fact, have copies to sell.

Meanwhile, the Providence Public Library has defied the Attorney General's order and continued to circulate Tropic of Cancer, Nugent has threatened to arrest both the librarian and any cardholder who tries to remove the book from the library.

Counsel for the Library said in a statement: "The library will adhere to its policy, namely to circulate the novel to adults on a reserved basis until restrained or enjoined from doing so by a competent authority or until there is a final judicial determination that the book is obscene, pursuant to its firm and long-standing commitment to protect the public's 'freedom to read.'" Nugent's action, said the library, "constituted a deprivation of fundamental constitutional rights guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Arumendments."