Adolf Frank Reel '28, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, read a paper on "Newspapers and Censorship." Reprinted in part, it follows:

When you ask a New England farmer what he thinks is the substance of a college education, he will answer "Book Larnin'". That response will not be far from the truth. Certain modernistic notions to the contrary not with standing, reading comprises the greater part of our waking hours in college, and books of one sort or another are the most evident concomitants of the academic atmosphere. But in spite of our private shelves of volumes, in spite of our wonderful library with its millions of tomes, its acreage of information--there is one wholly extraneous class of printed matter that in time consumed and interest manifested can be said to equal even our beloved books. I refer, of course, to the daily newspapers.

A survey of the front pages of modern newspapers convinces us of the truth of most of the charges levelled against the journals. The newspaper art of making much ado over unimportant events and neglecting matters of political and historical interest is demonstrated to us day by day, not alone by tabloids, but by high-minded and supposedly intellectual journals. . . .

The tremendous increase in news of crime and sport events during the past 25 years has made necessary the cutting down of space given to the naturally increasing number of real news items. . . .

I have been able to give you but a small reminder of our questionable press conditions; there is little doubt that they merit intelligent alteration. But how to alter them? One answer is, of course censorship and fascist methods. . . .

But caution! We must stand off and see where the current leads. Well do we know the evils of censorship, the glorification of bootlegging, the emasculation of conscience. Well do we know that although in the beginning this sacrifice of principle might apply only to news of crime and scandal, it would soon fall on politics. History tell its unambiguous story of the fate of any state that prohibits opposition, and we know that the destruction of safety valves has caused more than one explosion. Let us remember that to free press, democracy owes most of her important victories. Political advances and governmental achievements as well as the exposure of wrongdoing, are concomitants of newspaper activity. Journalism has its evils to be sure, but if in order to abolish those evils we must also dispense with the functions of political support and opposition, by all means let us keep the entire field.

We must trust ourselves and net raise insuperable barriers in a moment of panic. Opponents of prohibition tell us that the lamp of liberty burns but dimly in our land. However that may be, it burns, and we must guard what light there is, guard what remains of our old right, the freedom of the press. That Liberty's torch be not smothered by the cloak of Fear, we must stand our ground and be our own censors.