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- Title
Censorship and the Soldier.
- Authors
Jamieson, John
- Abstract
This article reports on wartime censorship in the Army libraries at the time of Second World War. Most of the censorship of soldiers' reading materials at the time of war resulted from the War Department's efforts to enforce Title V of the Soldier Voting Law. Fathered by Senator Robert Taft, Title V was designed to prevent the Government and Government officials from using their strategic position to influence the soldier vote in favor of certain candidates. The sweeping character of Title V's prohibitions was emphasized, and in view of the criminal penalties invoked, officers were admonished to resolve any reasonable doubts in favor of prohibition. Newspapers for which a soldier preference had been established might likewise be disseminated without regard to the political nature of their contents. The testimony of librarians indicates that in 1942 and 1943 about a dozen books and magazines retailing Axis propaganda and not more than two or three other books, clearly not Axis-inspired, were "banned" by the Special Services Division, presumably by direction of higher authority. Evidently the higher levels of the War Department decided sometime in 1943 that book banning was more harmful to morale than the free circulation of occasional pieces of undesirable literature.
- Subjects
CENSORSHIP in libraries; WORLD War II; FREEDOM of information; ARMIES; BOOKS &; reading; LEGAL sanctions; MILITARY personnel voting rights
- Publication
Public Opinion Quarterly, 1947, Vol 11, Issue 3, p367
- ISSN
0033-362X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1086/265863