SHEARER'S BROTHER

Once again the clarions of the moral purists are sounded in the already tired cars of the country as works by Balzac. Rabelais, Rousseau, Boccaccio, and many others, on route to a Cambridge book store are declared to be of an "obscene nature" and kept from entering the country by the New York Customs House officials.

There was a time when one could laugh at the smug hypocrisy of the Boston censors, but it becomes almost necessary to "view with alarm" a movement which threatens to wipe out the lawful study of a whole field of literature. In the welter of material which has appeared on the subject vilifying the censors, the one thing that has been overlooked is the possibility of disclosing an insidious publishers lobby. All books printed in a foreign language are admitted duty free into the country and they may sometimes compete with American publications and thus reduce the per'capita spendings of each man woman and child on American printed books. It has been shown lately that American "Big Business" stops at practically nothing, and a Senate, investigation might find Shearer's brother stifling the import of French publications.