Publisher Calls Mass. an Exception To Usual Police Action on 'Tropic'

The publisher of Henry Miller's controversial novel said yesterday that the Massachusetts treatment of Tropic of Cancer was "the civilized exception" to a general pattern of unofficial harassment on the part of local police throughout the United States.

Barney Rosset, President of Grove Press Inc., felt encouraged that Massachusetts had at least given the book a trial. He of course disagreed with Judge Goldberg's verdict, but was pleased that it took the judge six weeks to decide that Tropic was obscene.

Elsewhere, in places like Dallas, "the book is being lynched," he declared. Local police have given unofficial notice to booksellers not to stock the book, and none of them are looking for trouble," according to Rosset.

Action is being taken against Tropic in Chicago suburbs, Marin County, San Francisco, and Hartford, as well as Dallas. New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire are also moving to ban the book.

In Rhode Island, the President of Brown University, some faculty members and some students are protesting the Attorney General's banning of the book without a court hearing. While at Dartmouth, according to a New York Times report, some faculty members are upset over New Hampshire's banning of the book.

In Minneapolis, a book seller was arrested by the police for selling Tropic, but the mayor of the city later issued a statement declaring that the book is not obscene.

And in San Francisco (where else?), the San Franciso Chronicle ran an amusing story under the headline "Miller Book Isn't Smut, Cop Says." Some years ago, Captain William Hanrahan was severely criticized for his hasty action in impounding some copies of poet Alan Ginzberg's beat epic, "Howl." Now, according to the story, Hanrahan is a sadder and a wiser cop. After his unhappy experience with "Howl," he is cautious, and only judges a book like Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer in "its total context."

"Parents, not police," should decide in most cases, according to Hanrahan. And Tropic of Cancer may be "hard reading, but it's not obscene.