"ANTI-BRITISH ATTACK A SMOKE-SCREEN"--MUZZEY

"The campaign for 'America first,' now being conducted in Chicago by Mayor Thmpson is nothing more than a smoke-screen, thrown up by the group in power ther to cloak their real purposes," was all that David Saville Muzzey '93, Professor of History at Columbia University, would say specifically about the situation existing in Chicago at the present time, when questioned by a CRIMSON reporter yesterday. One of Professor Muzzey's books was included in the large number of volumes on American history formerly kept in the Chicago public libraries and which "Big Bill" ordered withdrawn from circulation and immediately destroyed by fire. Professor Muzzey could not refer directly to the existing situation because he has a suit for libel pending against Mayor Thompson and has been forbidden by his lawyers to refer to the case for publication.

Mayor Thompson claimed that the offending works perverted the real facts about the early days in America and presented the matter in such a light as to contaminate the minds of Chicago's citizen with the viewpoints of our country's onetime enemies. He particularly feared "Angelicizing" of the viewpoint of inhabitants of Chicago, although he did not use quite that expression.

Interrogated as to just what the result of the suppression of his own and other history books used in the schools would be, Professor Muzzey replied, "It can have no possible effect on the teaching of history, either in method or matter." Professor Muzzey's book has been used considerably in schools and it has been suggested that the suppression of it might lead to a general overhauling of the teaching of history in the schools of the country.