No News is Bad News

There are times when the why's and wherefore's of the Boston public conscience border on the inscrutable. Some of the stunts that the city fathers and their representatives have pulled in the past, such as banning issues of Esquire and tearing pages out of Life Magazine, have proven merely ludicrous, but the latest ruling from the municipal bag of tricks cannot be passed off with a tolerant shrug. Last Monday the City Council, by unanimous vote, moved that "the sale, display, or distribution on the streets of the City of Boston of all newspapers published out of the state of Massachusetts be prohibited" unless the news dealer or individual newsboy peddling said papers lays ten dollars on the line for a permit from the City Clerk.

Even if this ordinance did no more than limit to the large dealers who are willing to pay the required fee, the sale of the less widely circulated out-of-state papers such as the so-called pressure group and party organs, there would be ample all for its veto. But the precedent set by such a ruling, as well as its immediate implications, cut a good deal deeper. From all angles it adds up in the end to a check on the freedom of the press. It shifts the choice of reading matter from the public to the City Council, who may grant permits or refuse them at its very will and whim. At the same time it is a step on the dangerous road to an inbred, provincial, and correspondingly one-sided press.

Numerous petitions and cries for annulment of this ordinance have already gone up, with such men as Professors Schlessinger, Owen, Chaffee, Murdock, and Friedrich among the protesting voices. Mayor Tobin will be side-stepping a definite obligation if he fails to heed this widespread demand for immediate veto.