Censorship

Last week General Lincoln C. Andrews, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, called for the largest dictionary procurable at the Treasury Department, turned to words beginning with "O," read:

OBSCENE: Filthy, foul, disgusting, offensive to chastity or modesty; expressing or presenting to the mind or view something that delicacy, purity and decency forbid to be exposed; to be impure, indecent, unchaste, lewd.

To General Andrews' duties as U. S. Prohibition head had been added the job of U. S. literary censor. Last fortnight New York customs authorities had held up imported, unexpurgated editions of the Arabian Nights and the Decameron, acting under Section 305 of the Tariff Act, which forbids importation of indecent printed matter. Publishers protested, argued that these were standard classics, immune as such.

General Andrews decided that the books in question should be released since identical volumes had been for several years imported through the Port of New York without question. He added that the Treasury Department was giving the matter of allegedly obscene importations thorough study, and would, as promptly as possible, promulgate a set of regulations covering the subject. Further importations of the questioned editions of the Arabian Nights and the Decameron were ordered suspended until the announcement of the Treasury Department's findings.

Works of art as well as works of literature come under the "indecent matter" section of the Tariff Act. Last year the U. S. imported more than $68,000,000 worth of books and art, a great increase over previous years.