not use either the episode or the whole novel for pornographic ends, unless he himself is already perverted." Can Elliott be unfamiliar with Dr. Kinsey's listings (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, pp. 164-165) of the variety of sources of erotic excitement among 291 boys-from taking a shower to sitting in church. from being late to school to hearing the National anthem? If Elliott is truly unaware that a wide variety of objects and experiences is stimulating to a wide variety of individuals, and that one man's perversion is another's normality, his is a dangerous ignorance.

It is dangerous in that Elliott, presumably honestly, believes himself to be right-and righteous. With horror he notes: "Conceivably the First Amendment will be taken literally ('Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press') and many or all legal restraints against pornography may in fact be removed." He would prefer a situation where, concerning "pornography for adults, the law should rest content with a decent hypocrisy: 'Keep it out of the marketplace, sell it under the counter, and the law won't bother you.'" He chooses to ignore the raids and arrests one reads about nearly every month in the newspapers. The law does bother booksellers and publishersand bother is too light a word; it ruins many. But Elliott wants not the rule of the Constitution but "decent hypocrisy" with no guarantee that it will be observed.

१९

He also suggests the setting up of committees consisting of ministers, professors and psychologists to decide on what is and what is not pornographic. With a book, if the board decides the gravity of the offense outweighs such literary excellence as the book may have, the book is banned-not burned, just no

longer offered for public sale." Note the horrified "not burned!" Mr. Elliott would not for a moment want to be identified with the Nazis. He is blind to the fact that effective banning is the same as burning, and that abridging the First Amendment is a step toward totalitarianism.

The freedom to read is basic to our democracy. Only a literate and informed electorate can make the system work. This is why we have universal free public education. By abolishing the schools we could effectively reduce the danger of children reading what the neo-puritans consider unsuitable. At such a proposal George P. Elliott and the Citizens Committees would surely balk, but in fact their aim is closer to this than it is to the concept of free access to learning from the printed page.

Countless lives have been warped at worst, unfulfilled at best, under a expression with evil-doing and that system of morals that confused sexual supported this confusion in print. The neo-puritans, from whatever motive, are seeking to re-establish this climate of opinion. Homosexuals, at this stage in their fight for the right to have honest sex lives as free as those of heterosexuals in our society, would be among the heaviest losers should the neo-puritans succeed.

If you find evidence of their activity in your neighborhood, encourage your supermarket manager, your liquor dealer, your druggist, to ignore the prudes and not to do their you don't censoring for them. That read girlie magazines does not mean their presence on the news racks has no importance for you. It has. Protecting the other fellow's right to read protects your own. We cannot expect to enlarge our freedom until such freedom as we have already gained is made secure.