Birth of a Nation is a movie with a cloud over its head. Whenever anyone has tried to show it, an ominous thunder has been heard from those who, in the name of tolerance, will not tolerate its exhibition.

Take today's case. The University showing of Birth had scarcely been announced when the rumble that terrorized the Boston City Censor last year, started again. City Hall got some phone calls. Just a few, but they were enough to stir spectres of domestic insurrection--or at least political repercussions--in the minds of civic authorities. As a result, the City Fathers say they must make sure opposition will not be violent before they license tonight's showing.

Were there the slightest possibility of the production arousing riots and violence, we would not protest a ban. After all, the most cherished liberties are not so sacrosanct that governments cannot limit them in the public safety. But this will not be the case at New Lecture Hall. The only group prone to organize a protest in the past, the Boston NAACP, learned that printed warnings distributed to students beforehand seem to nip supposed prejudicial reaction in the bud. The NAACP, in fact, proposes to question the members of today's audience on their reaction, to see whether their hunch is right.

Rather than from large organizations, the protests that furrowed brows at City Hall came from supersensitive individuals representing no one but themselves. These are the people who spell tolerance with a capital T and search for bigotry under every billboard. They find it impossible to judge any form of art except on the basis of whether it is "good" or "bad" for race relations.

Interestingy enough, some of the protesters were Harvard students themselves, fearful of their fellow students' reaction. Their fear betokens a strange lack of faith in the College's brand of liberal education. Evidently, they believe that the tolerance gained through constant association with Negroes in classes, dormitories, and athletics is hollow and dry. Apparently they think the views of a notoriously "liberal" faculty have had no influence. How else could one film, no matter how blatant its propaganda, effectively inject bigotry into the phlegmatically tolerant Harvard audience?

The trouble with Tolerance people is that they have too narrow an idea of the concept. To them tolerance is not the realization that there are values and goals other than their own, ones worthy of respect, indulgence, and protection. To them tolerance ends when its products approach views contrary to their own. They view every issue, be it cinema or what have you, through the same prism, a prism which blots out all but one consideration: racial tolerance.

It is perhaps asking too much for city officials, who must about city-wide racial tension, as well as buck pressure groups every day, to take the broad view toward tolerance. But maybe the issue should be put in their own terms: there are many people who would like to see Birth of a Nation and judge its art and propaganda for themselves. They may not be vocal now, but a ban will surely create considerable ill-will. It will take a good deal of tolerance on their part to dilute the bitterness that comes when small groups or individuals try to force their standards of taste on others.