Despite its benevolent and highly public-spirited intentions, the Massachusetts Advisory Committee is an especially good example of a potentially serious threat to the free dissemination of artistic works. When the Committee declares a book "unfit" for juvenile consumption and notifies booksellers of this fact, it in effect bans the book from any public sale. If a dealer is warned of the obscenity of a specific publication, he will not in most cases make a distinction between an adult and a youth: he will simply lift the book and return it to the distributor, taking no chances.

Sometimes, however, the dealer will choose to make a distinction. He will keep the book on his shelves with the intention of peddling it to adults only.

But in such cases, the dealer is very likely to get his fingers burned. Mrs. John L. Pitko, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the advisory group, and an executive in the Massachusetts Parent-Teacher Association, cites one such example.

"On one occasion," she relates, "I happened to see prominently displayed in the window of a large Boston book shop a pocket book which the Advisory Committee had ruled 'unfit.' Now if that book was put in such an eye-catching spot as the window display, it was probably being sold indiscriminately to juveniles made the assumption on the basis of the attention-getting position of the book. "I notified the Attorney General," she continued, "and the next time I passed by the shop, that book wasn't in the window."

In citing this instance of civic virtue and duty, Mrs. Pitko highlights the gravity of the dangers of unseen censorship system.

Cooperation

Essential to such a system of censorship is a feeling of cooperation. Most booksellers, according to Thomas M. Moroney, manager of the Old Corner Bookshop in Boston, are "...not interested in making cases out of these books. I'll admit frankly that I and my publishers are interested chiefly in making money. We don't want to get wound up in these things..."

Sellers and distributors want the nickel or so profit they can pick up on 25-cent reprints. The crusading spirit, the desire to quelch this net of understated but forceful censorship, does not draw its strength from this group. These men are all too willing to cooperate, and one can hardly blame them. Profit and not principle is their bread and butter.

Trump Card

But the "I don't give a hoot" attitude which the guardians of virtue identify as "voluntary cooperation" is a source of grave danger. It is present-day censorship's trump card.

The attitude of one distributor is vitally significant. Earle D. Mullare of the Greater Boston Distributors, one of the biggest New England outlets, said, "Compared to the number of books and magazines we handle and sell, it's relatively unimportant if they ban some of them All they have to do is tell us they don't like a book. We'll give them 100 percent voluntary cooperation.