Local Police Start New Campaign Against Sexy News Stand Wares

Cambridge detectives this week began a city-wide drive to eliminate so-called "obscene and pornographic" literature from local newsstands. Two twenty-five cent reprints have been banned by the police in the last four days, and officers searched the book racks of one store in the Square yesterday in a hunt for copies of the two blacklisted volumes.

The police move came as Alfred Velluci, candidate for the Cambridge School Committee, announced that he was calling a meeting of local veterans' organizations for next week to fight the "sex books" "threat to the morals of Cambridge's youth. Velluci told the CRIMSON that Police Chief Patrick F. Ready would be the featured guest speaker.

Rousing Tales

Vellucci flooded Cambridge last week with leaflets calling for an immediate ban on "all disgraceful literature on the news stands." Under a big black headline of "ROUSE, YE CITIZENS!," the leaflet contends that "our children are being sold cheap books and magazines, loaded down with filth and obscene language... that are demoralizing our youth."

Reactions from newsstand and spa owners in the Square were varied. One storekeeper's comment on girlie magazines and other quasi-erotica was, "I feel bashful just handling them. We try and carry as few of those things as possible."

Other stand owners held different opinions, however. "I don't see why the police have the right to ban these books in Cambridge," one storekeeper said. "People should be allowed to read whatever they want."

Cambridge police have refused to disclose the titles of the two books banned so far, but it was learned that the magazine "Night and Day" will probably join them soon on the official blacklist.