Pornographic Items Sent In Code House Unit Told, Evening Star (Article, January 1958)

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Pornographic Items Sent In Code, House Unit Told

By MARY McGRORY

Star Staff Writer

Purveyors of pornography are becoming not only bolder but more ingenious, a House Judiciary subcommittee heard today.

The subcommittee which is considering bills aimed at one publisher of obscene material in California--the chief source of such literature--sends out his materials in code. The key costs $10 and enables the receiver to decipher what the witness called "as outright pornography as any I have ever seen."

Martin H. Work, executive director of the National Council of Catholic Men, also told the committee that parents do not understand why "our United States Government mails are being used for the sending of obscene literature."

He was one of six witnesses who appeared in support of measures which would make it possible to prosecute publishers of obscenity where their materials are received.

Two witnesses spoke against the legislation.

Horace S Manges, counsel for the American Book Publishers Council representing 147 publishers, said "if such a proposal were to be enacted any publisher of a book thought by the Post Office Department or its officials to be obscene might find himself compelled to respond to an indictment in almost any judicial district in the United States, since the books presumably will have been transported thought a great many judicial districts in its course through the mails.

"Reputable publishers in good faith of books of a high literary standing may well find themselves hailed into distant jurisdictions under such a provision."

Constitutional Issue

Another opposing witness, Irving Ferman, director of the Washington Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he feels that the proposed legislation violates at least the spirit of the Sixth Amendment which permits a man to be tried by a jury of his local peers.

Mr. Ferman added that his organization is considering what to do about filthy literature, but that he feels that it must be combatted in the home, the school and the church.

Other witnesses told the committee that present laws are not sufficient to counter the rising flood of corrupting literature being sent through the mails.

Speaking from the General Federation of Womens Clubs, Mrs. Genevieve Oslund, said, "We know it is illegal to send obscene literature through the mails but we also know the mails are being used for the sending of obscene literature."

A spokesman for the United Church Women, Mrs. Clarence T. Nelson, a former school teacher, pleaded with the committee to end this "pollution" of young people by such literature.

"This literature is on the increase," she said. "The present legislation is not adequate to deal with it."

Charles H. Keating, jr., chairman of the Citizens for Decent Literature with headquarters in Cincinnati, said prosecution of mailers of pornography on the local level is a practical impossibility because the sender is in California or New York. Much of this material goes to juveniles, he said.

Representative Hillings, Republican of California, read to the committee a list of books offered to teenagers which included such titles as "Torture and Love," "Male Homosexuals Tell Their Stories" and "Masochism."

Clerics Back Bill

Three churchmen appeared in support of the bill. John Gates, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bethesda and a representative of the Christians Life Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention said his group has repeatedly called for action to bring the situation under control.

A. H. Rulkoettter, associate secretary of the Religious Liberties Association, said "the man who sells this material and offends the mind is equal to the offender who molests the body."

An evangelist, Bill H. Hood, of the Churches of Christ of Texas, said he thought this bill "would do a lot to put the fear of the Lord into the publishers of this filthy material."

The committee anticipates no further hearings on the subject.