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"'For Adults Only': The Constitutionality of Government Film Censorship by Age Classification." Yale Law Journal, 69:141-52, November 1959. F203
American constitutional issues in adopting the British system of film classification. Notes on Paramount Film Distribution Corp. v. City of Chicago, 172F Supp. 69, the first court test of age classification in the United States.
Forbes, Archibald. "War Correspondents and the Authorities." Nineteenth Century, 7:185-96, January 1880. F204
An historical and critical review of government censorship of news in wartime.
Forbes, M. Z. "Obscene Publications." Australian Law Journal, 20:92-99, July 1946. F205
Consideration of the more important provisions of the New South Wales Act (1901) as interpreted by judicial decisions and the effect of the Obscene and Indecent Publications (Amendment) Act, 1946. The occasion for the review was the prosecution of Angus & Robertson for publication of Lawson Glassop's We Were the Rats.
Forbush, William B. "Barnyard Literature." Christian Century, 40:1615-16, December 1923. F206
A complaint against the disgusting fiction coming from the "new school of unrestraint." He advises readers and critics to ignore this "barnyard literature."
Ford, Douglas M. "The Growth of the Freedom of the Press." English Historical Review, 4:1-12, January 1889. F207
The history of freedom of the press in England from the repeal of the licensing act in 1695. Mostly concerned with the history of newspaper publishing, the achievement of the right to publish full and fair reports of parliamentary debates, and the newspapers' struggle against strict libel laws.
Ford, Frederick W. Broadcasting Political and Controversial Issues. Washington, D.C., U.S. Federal Communications Commission, 1962. 9p. F208
A FCC commissioner, in an address before the Ohio Broadcasters' Association, points out the difficulties in applying the "fairness doctrine" and urges that the FCC be given "the authority to make rules, regulations and interpretations on the use of broadcast facilities for political campaigns, and for affording a reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance."
-------. "The Fairness Doctrine." Journal of Broadcasting, 8:1-16, Winter 1963-64. (Also issued in pamphlet form by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, 1963. 13p.) F209 §
Commissioner Ford discusses the history and application of the "fairness doctrine" in broadcasting, maintaining that it does not result in regulation and censorship, and does not contribute to the revocation of broadcast licenses.
-------. "The Meaning of the 'Public Interest, Convenience or Necessity.'" Journal of Broadcasting, 5:205-18, Summer 1961. F210
An analysis of the legislative and judicial history of the "public interest" standard in broadcasting and a defense of the FCC report on programming policy.
Ford, Guy S. "Censorship." Encyclopedia Britannica, 12th ed., 1922. vol. 30, pp. 591-96. F211
Special emphasis on wartime censorship in Great Britain and the United States.
Ford, James L. "Plea for the Free Theater." Munsey's Magazine, 28:148-52, October 1902. F212
Ford, John. Criminal Obscenity, a Plea for Its Suppression. New York, Revell, 1926. 143p. F213
A New York judge, shocked by finding his daughter reading D. H. Lawrence's Women In Love, carried on a vigorous crusade against obscenity as expressed in the modern novel. He was active in the organization of the Clean Books League and urged the passage of the "clean books" bill in the New York legislature. Judge Ford favors upholding and strengthening existing obscenity laws, and interpreting them according to Lord Cockburn's definition of obscenity. The appendix contains: The Law of England, King v. Curl, Queen v. Hecklin, U.S. v. Harman, People v. Muller, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Buckley, and American Laws and Statutes against Obscenity.
-------. "Judicial Repeal of Legislative Action." St. John's Law Review, 3:216-24, May 1929. F214
Judge Ford is alarmed over the narrowing judicial interpretation of obscenity legislation.
Ford, John A. "We will Gamble on the American." Library Journal, 74:917-19, 15 June 1949. (Reprinted in Downs, The First Freedom, pp. 329-31) F215 §
A member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors expresses his faith in the average American citizen to arrive at the truth when faced with controversial points of view represented by books in the public library.
Ford, Paul L., ed. Journals of Hugh Gaines, Printer. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1902. 2 vols. F216
Censorship in the American colonies is discussed on pages 56-62.
Ford, Worthington C. "Benjamin Harris, Printer and Bookseller." Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 57:34-68, 1923. F217 §
Harris was publisher of the first newspaper printed in the American colonies, Publick Occurrances, both Foreign and Domestick, and suppressed by authorities after the first issue (1690).
-------, ed. Thomas Jefferson and James Thomson Callender, 1798-1802. Brooklyn, Historical Printing Club, 1897. 45p. F218
"Of all the foreigners who were connected with journalism in the United States at the beginning of the century, James Thomson Callender was easily first in the worst qualities of mind and character." Jefferson befriended the man, only to have him turn on him as he had on other public figures "as ready to libel him as any member of the Federalist Party." A collection of letters between Jefferson and "this scandalmonger and partisan scribbler." Ford also published a general account on "Jefferson and the Newspapers" in Records of the Columbia Historical Society, vol. 8, pp. 78-111.
"Foreign Policy and a Free Press." Nation and Athenaeum, 33:108-9, 28 April 1923. F219
Because of false information on foreign affairs the nation is faced with a serious menace to freedom. "We hope the Labor Party . . . will devote its whole mind and resources to devising ways and means of surmounting this obstacle."
Forer, Lois G. "A Free Press and a Fair Trial." American Bar Association Journal, 39:800-803, 843-49, September 1953. F220
The 1953 winner of the Ross Prize Essay. The author suggests that "comment and report by all media of mass communication be unrestricted except during the limited period commencing with the empanelling of the jury and ceasing with the rendering of the verdict. During this time, no information which has not been introduced into evidence should be disseminated." A voluntary code could accomplish this. An appendix lists and classifies cases involving contempt by publication since 1928.
"The Forgotten Village: The Board of Regents of the State of New York; in the Matter of Appeal from the Action of the Director of the Motion Picture Division in Refusing to License a Motion Picture Entitled the Forgotten Village; Petition for Review." Twice-a-Year, 8-9:321-42, 1942. F221
The Forgotten Village was a motion picture, with actual native scenes depicting Mexican life, written by Steinbeck, directed by Herbert Kline, and produced in Mexico. The motion picture censors in New York objected to the showing of a native woman nursing her baby and a woman in labor as "indecent." The legal counsel for the film company defended the movie for its artistic and social integrity. After two appeals the Board reversed its decision and granted a license. The article includes text of documents in the case as well as commentary.
Forman, Harry B[uxton]. The Vicissitudes of Shelley's Queen Mab. A Chapter in the History of Reform. London, Printed for private circulation [by Richard Clay], 1887. 23p. (Twenty-five copies printed) F222
"This book, which [Shelley] never even published, but merely printed for private distribution and circulated sparingly, appears and re-appears in his life . . . and he was as powerless to check its vitality as his wife's imaginary Frankenstein was to unmake the monster he had made." Shelley composed his iconoclastic Queen Mab when still in his teens and, failing to find a publisher, he had it printed about 1813 (approximately 250 copies). In 1816 the poem was used as evidence against Shelley in his trial to get custody of his two children. The work was charged with being anti-religious, anti-King, and anti-marriage. In 1821 William Clark issued a piratical edition in London. Shelley, then in Italy, was amused but embarrassed. "Because I wish to protest against all the bad poetry in it, [Shelley wrote] I have given orders to say that it is done against my desire, and have directed my attorney to apply to Chancery for an injunction, which he will not get." The Society for the Suppression of Vice stepped in, however, and secured the arrest and conviction of Clark for the sale of the poem. Some of the unbound stock fell into hands of Richard Carlile, who used it in his pirated edition. Hetherington and Watson later put out a better edition. Various booksellers over the years were prosecuted for the sale of Queen Mab. When Mrs. Shelley's collected edition of her husband's work was published by Mr. Moxon, W. J. Linton arranged for a test case against the publisher. "There should not be one law for the 'low bookseller of the Strand' and another for the aristocratic booksellers of Dover Street." Moxon was prosecuted for blasphemous and seditious libel and, despite the eloquent plea of his attorney, Talfourd, was heavily fined. Shelley had brushes with the censors early in life. He was expelled from Oxford for writing a pamphlet denying the existence of God; he attacked Lord Ellenborough because of the sentence he passed on Daniel I. Eaton for publishing the third part of Paine's Age of Reason; and he defended Richard Carlile, arrested on a similar charge.
Forster, E. M. "Liberty in England." In Forster's Abinger Harvest, London, Arnold, 1936, pp. 63-70. (Reprinted from London Mercury, August 1935) F223
Paper read at the International Congress of Authors held in Paris, 1935. Includes remarks on the wartime Sedition Act and recent British cases of obscene libel.
[-------]. "Mr. D. H. Lawrence and Lord Brentford." Nation and Athenaeum (London), 46:508-9, 11 January 1930. F224
A critique of Lawrence's Pornography and Obscenity and Lord Brentford's Do We Need a Censor? The two have in common emotional uncertainty; each would censor "genuine pornography"; each detests indecency, but would define it differently. "Lord Brentford wants to suppress everything except marriage, and Mr. Lawrence to suppress nothing except suppression . . . the one sounds the trumpet of duty, the other the trumpet of passion . . . in the valley between them lie the inert forces of the general public." Signed "E.M.F."
[-------]. "The New Censorship." Nation and Athenaeum, 43:696, 1 September 1928; 43:726, 8 September 1928. F225
An unsigned letter from Forster in the 1 September issue and a letter signed jointly by Forster and Virginia Woolf in the 8 September issue deal with the suppression of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness.
[-------]. "The Tercentenary of the Areopagitica." In his Two Cheers for Democracy. London, Arnold, 1951, pp. 62-66. F226
Forsythe, Richard H., and Carl Hamilton. "Freedom and the Student Press." News of Iowa State, 17(6):6, July-August 1965. F227
Two faculty members of Iowa State University express different points of view on the extent of freedom that should be permitted a student newspaper. Forsythe argues for some editorial guidance from faculty because the monopoly makes the campus paper different from the commercial newspaper; Hamilton argues for freedom, even at the cost of controversy. "The alternatives to freedom are infinitely worse."
Forsythe, Robert. "Who Speaks for Us?" New Theatre, 3(8):6-9, August 1936. F228 §
Censorship in the theater.
Fort, Charles. "The Law of Libel as Applied to Newspapers." Law Times, 68:28, 8 November 1879; 68:48-49, 15 November 1879. F229
In a paper delivered before a meeting of the Incorporated Law Society, U.K., Fort traces the growth of the law of libel as it applies to newspapers and considers what changes are called for.
Fortunoff, Daniel G. "Liability of Radio Corporations for Defamatory Statements Uttered on the Air." Air Law Review, 12:316-33, July 1941. F230
Forum on Newspaper Censorship as Presented during National Newspaper Week. October 1-8, 1955. Gainesville, Fla., School of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida, 1955. 24p. F231
Foster, George, Jr. "The 1931 Personal Liberties Cases." New York University Law Quarterly Review, 9:64-81, September 1931. F232
Background and analysis of two cases involving the right of free speech and the press--Stromberg v. California (283 U.S. 359), concerning the so-called "red flag" law, and Near v. Minnesota (283 U.S. 697), involving the newspaper "gag" act. The latter involved a statute that permitted the suppression of a newspaper as a public nuisance.
Foster, Henry H., Jr. "'Comstock Load'; Obscenity and the Law." Journal of Criminal Law, 48:245-58, September-October 1957. F233
Anthony Comstock's crusade against vice is being revived today by a number of well-organized pressure groups. This article examines "the history of the concept of 'obscenity,' its meaning, the different tests which have been applied in obscenity cases, and some of the psychological and constitutional questions inherent in the problem."
Foster, J. Donald. "Another Side to Censorship." Christianity Today, 6:22-23, 2 February 1962. F234
The author, an instructor in sociology and editor of the quarterly, Religious and Theological Abstracts, defends censorship of obscenity.
Foster, J. Herbert. "Necessities of Censorship and of Free Inquiry." Sexual Life, no. 35, February 1909. F235
The motive of the author and the character of the readers should be the basis of judgment against a work charged as obscene.
Foster, James E. "Censorship as a Medium of Propaganda." Society and Social Research, 22:57-66, September-October 1937. F236
An analysis of censorship as a negative form of propaganda. While propaganda attempts to control the conduct of a group by directing stimuli that reach it, censorship sets up barriers between the stimuli and the group. "Censorship at its best can do nothing more than protect an attitude from competing propaganda, and in any complex civilization even the most firmly rooted attitude needs something more than mere protection if it is to survive."
Foster, Roger. "Trial by Newspaper." North American Review, 144:524-27, May 1887. F237
In light of unfair news coverage of the trial of New York aldermen for bribery, the author suggests that some of the controls of the press which the courts inherited from England and long since abrogated, need to be restored. He calls for the press to "stand off" in news coverage until a verdict has been rendered.
"Foster Lyrics, Southern Fried Style." Variety, 207: 1+, 31 July 1957; 207:47+, 28 August 1957. F238
Congressmen and music teachers object to radio and television network and textbook censorship of Sewanee River, Ole Black Joe, and My Old Kentucky Home to meet Negro criticism.
"The Fourth Estate." North British Review, 13:159-88, May 1950. F239
A review of F. K. Hunt's The Fourth Estate, with specific attention to his discussion of freedom of the press, and some new information and interpretation.
Fowell, Frank, and Frank Palmer. Censorship in England. London, Frank Palmer, 1913. 390p. F240
A history of British stage censorship from the fifteenth century to about 1913. A documentary rather than critical presentation, with special attention given to the celebrated Masters of Revels, Examiners or Licensers of Plays, and the changes in the legal control of dramatic productions. Chapter 10 devotes considerable space to the report of the 1909 Select Committee and the widespread criticism of dramatic censorship. The appendix contains, a table of plays licensed and refused, 1852-1912; text of play licenses issued by the Lord Chamberlain; Lord Chesterfield's speech in the House of Lords protesting the 1737 stage censorship bill; text of the 1737 Theatre Act; and the 1912 petition to the king against the Lord Chamberlain's censorship of plays, signed by some 60 British dramatists.
Fowell, Myron W. A Suggested Approach to the Problem of Obscene Literature for Local Church Social Action Committees. Boston, Massachusetts Council of Churches, 1959. 4p. mimeo. (Also in Bay State Librarian, Summer 1959) F241 §
Fowle, Daniel. An appendix to the late Total eclipse of liberty. Being some thoughts on the end and design of civil government; also the inherent power of the people asserted and maintained; that it is not given up to their representatives . . . Boston, [D. Fowle], 1756. 24p. (Reprinted in Magazine of History with Notes and Queries, 40(2):35-55; extra number 158, 1930) F242 §
Fowle, a Boston printer, spent six days in prison in 1754 for offending the Massachusetts House of Representatives by his humorous satire, Monster of Monsters. He described his persecution in this pamphlet. In 1755 Fowle sued the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for £1,000 for false arrest, but lost the case. He moved to New Hampshire, but continued to press for recompense. In 1766, 12 years after the prison sentence, the persistent printer was awarded £20 by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts "on account of his sufferings."
-------. A Total Eclipse of Liberty, Being a True and Faithful Account of the Arraignment, and Examination of Daniel Fowle before the Honorable House of Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, Octob. 24th 1754, Barely on Suspicion of His Being Concern'd in Printing and Publishing a Pamphlet Intitled, The Monster of Monsters. Also His Imprisonment and Sufferings . . . Written by Himself . . . Boston, Printed in the Year 1755. 32p. (Reprinted in Magazine of History With Notes and Queries, 40(2):5-34; extra number 158, 1930) F243 §
Fowler, Albert. "Can Literature Corrupt?" Modern Age 3:125-33, Spring 1959. F244
A discussion of the conflict over moral censorship between the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Office for Decent Literature. "The Civil Liberties Union is right," the author asserts, "in arguing that the method of compelling the removal of publications from neighborhood racks is ill suited to a problem of this magnitude, not so much because it violates the right of the individual to buy and sell as he chooses as because it does almost nothing to change the state of public taste and responsibility for the values of modern literature.'' This emphasis on the things that should not be done, however, "tends to minimize the importance of the problem itself and to discourage sincere efforts to deal with it." The author criticizes the ACLU for failure to explore with the NODL a positive approach to the problem.
Fox, Harold G. The Canadian Law of Copyright. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1944. 770p. F245
Fox, Jay. "The Nude and the Prudes." Mother Earth, 7:28-29, March 1912. (Reprinted from Agitator, 1 July 1911; also published in broadside form by the Free Speech League) F246
The author was given two months in jail for publishing this article, which the court said tended to create disrespect for law. The case is commented on in "Two Months in the Tank," Agitator, 15 February 1912.
Fox, Sir John C. The History of Contempt of Court. Oxford, Eng., Clarendon, 1927. 252p. F247
A classic work on the development of the concept of contempt of court. The author maintains that the modern judicial doctrine that courts have an "inherent" power to punish contempt by publication is founded on a false view of the scope of summary judicial power at common law.
Fox, R. M. "Censorship in Ireland." Nation, 128:570-71, 8 May 1929. F248
An article from Dublin describing the current censorship situation in Ireland. A new Censorship Bill has just passed the Dail. It is based on findings of the Committee on Evil Literature. The writer comments on the findings of that Committee and on the activities of other supporters of censorship, concluding that the struggle "in essence is the same as that between the fundamentalists and the modernists . . . The only way to insure that people will not read the wrong books is to keep them ignorant."
-------. "Censorship in the Irish Free State." Nation, 133:49-50, 8 July 1931. F249
Books in Ireland are subjected to two censorships, official action by the Censorship Board and unofficial action by public opinion. "Certain authors, certain publishers are unofficially 'discouraged.'"
Foxon, David F. "John Cleland and the Publication of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure." Book Collector, 12:476-87, Winter 1963. F250
An account of the author and the circumstances surrounding the publication of the oft-banned Fanny Hill.
-------. "Libertine Literature in England, 1660-1745." Book Collector, 12:21-36, Spring 1963; 12:159-77, Summer 1963; 12:294-307, Autumn 1963. (Also issued as a separate publication, London, Book Collector, 1964. 63p.) F251
The first part deals with the earliest references to erotic literature in England and the legal proceedings against it. In 1660 John Garfield was imprisoned for writing The Wandering Whore; in 1668 in his diary Samuel Pepys records buying a "mighty lewd book . . . L'eschalle des filles" and after reading it burning it "that it might not be among my books to shame." In 1688 there were convictions for the sale of the English edition of the same book, The School of Venus, and in 1708 was the famous decision, Rex v. Read, in which the publisher of The Fifteen Plagues of a Maidenhead was freed on the grounds that obscenity was a matter to be dealt with by the ecclesiastical rather than civil courts. In 1728, in a reversal of the Read opinion, Edmund Curll was found guilty of obscenity for publishing Venus in the Cloyster. The second and third parts of Foxon's article deal in detail with six erotic works, including The School of Venus and Venus in the Cloyster. The author makes general observations on the aesthetic and moral problems that pornography raises. He concludes that erotic fantasies have their functions, if properly used, in providing "a temporary escape from the stresses and deprivations of real life . . . but the personality which clings to a fantasy view of the world is clearly sick."
Fraenkel, Osmond K. "For Free Speech." Menorah Journal, 24:97-101, April-June 1936. F252
The author objects to laws such as one in New Jersey, prompted by anti-Semitism in Germany, which punishes as a misdemeanor any publication that "incites, counsels, promotes, or advocates hatred, violence or hostility" against any person in the state by reason of race, color, religion, or manner of worship. Such laws run counter to American guarantees of free speech. "Reason will not flourish where men are punished for their ideas and the expression of them--not even when the ideas are hateful ones." He calls on Jews to disassociate themselves from anti-Nazi laws and join the movement for freedom of speech.
-------. "The Lynch Bill--A Different View." Lawyers Guild Review, 4:12-15, March-April 1944. F253
The author considers a bill prohibiting false and defamatory racial and religious matter from the mails as a violation of the First Amendment. "Repression of the expression of opinions will never save democracy; eventually it will undermine it. Only truth beats falsehood. Repression breeds martyrs, neurotics and criminals, and fosters the dictator." An article in support of the Lynch Bill appeared in the January-February issue.
-------. "One Hundred and Fifty Years of the Bill of Rights." Minnesota Law Review, 23:719-75, May 1939. F254
On pages 751-62, the author discusses the changing legal concepts of freedom of the press and speech, largely in the area of political expression.
-------. Our Civil Liberties. New York, Viking, 1944. 277p. F255
Chapter 7, Freedom of Speech and of the Press summarizes legal aspects of libel, obscenity, blasphemy, sedition, race libel, and distribution of literature.
-------. The Supreme Court and Civil Liberties; How the Court Has Protected the Bill of Rights. 9th ed. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., Published for the American Civil Liberties Union by Oceana Publications, 1963. 189p. F256
A classic study of the Bill of Rights by a leading constitutional lawyer and general counsel for the ACLU. The chapter on Freedom of Expression summarizes court decisions under the following headings: restrictions on the states, censorship and permits, post office restrictions, punishment based on "clear and present danger," punishment for content (seditious matter, disorderly conduct, obscenity, defamation, contempt of court), punishment depending on the manner of expression, indirect restrictions (newspapers "guilt by association," government employees, unions and employers, registration and reports), and the right to be silent. Leading cases are listed in the appendix. Introduction by Joseph O'Meara, dean, Notre Dame Law School.
France, Joseph I. "Bourbonism against Free Speech; History Will Repeat with Same Disastrous Consequences the Results of the Alien and Sedition Laws, Opposed by Washington, Hamilton and Jefferson." La Follette's Magazine, 12:26-27, February 1920. F257
"Reprinted [from the Congressional Record] because of the unanswerable argument advanced by him for the toilers whose viewpoint on this legislation he so characteristically presented."
France. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Conférence Internationale relative á la Répression de la circulation des publications obscénes. Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1910. 148p. F258
A complete record of the transactions of this conference, instigated by the antiobscenity crusade of French Senator Bérenger and resulting in the International Agreement for the Suppression of Obscene Publications, signed at Paris, 4 May 1910. An early effort to distinguish frank literary expression from pornography.
Frank, Dorothy. "I Was Called Subversive." Collier's, 131:68-73, 28 March 1953. F259
A Los Angeles housewife describes her experience as education chairman of a women's committee to promote the study of UNESCO in the city's schools. The article describes the nightmare of bigotry and hate which attended the efforts of certain individuals and groups to keep a discussion of UNESCO out of the schools.
Frank, Glenn. "Critical Function in Democracy." Vital Speeches, 1:550-52, 20 May 1935. F260
The president of the University of Wisconsin believes that the press and the universities face "the common problem of preserving unhampered the prophylactic process of corrective criticism in the midst of pressures from the world around for an uncritical surrender to the will, if not indeed to the whim of excessively centralized power."
"Is Free Speech Dangerous?" Century Magazine, 100:355-60, July 1920. F261
A defense of free speech in the form of 14 principles in which the author believes in relation to freedom of thought and expression in a democracy.
[Frank, Jerome]. A Man's Reach: The Philosophy of Judge Jerome Frank. Edited by Barbara Frank Kristein. New York, Macmillan, 1965. 450p. F262
The chapter Censorship: The First Amendment, includes an abstract of Judge Frank's opinion in the U.S. District Court in the case of Samuel Roth v. Albert Goldman in which he analyzes the obscenity statutes. Reviewed in ALA Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, May 1965.
[-------]. "On Censorship and the Constitution." Publishers' Weekly, 155:1156-57, 5 March 1949. F263 §
Quotations from the opinion of Judge Frank of the U.S. District Court of Southern District of New York, in the case of Samuel Roth v. Albert Goldman. He finds the book obscene, but hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court "will review our decision, thus dissipating the fogs which surround this subject."
Frank, Joseph. The Beginnings of the English Newspaper, 1620-1660. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1961. 384p. F264
This comprehensive and well-documented history of the first 40 years of the English newspaper includes many references to control and censorship of the press by the Crown and by Parliament. Early editors faced not only the vicissitudes of business, including government subsidies to their competitors, but were under pressure from licensing authorities, were sometimes subject to searches and seizures, and occasionally served jail sentences. The seeds of both good and bad journalism, the author observes, were planted during this early period of political and social upheaval, civil war, and intellectual ferment.
-------. The Levellers; a History of the Writings of Three Seventeenth-Century Social Democrats: John Lilburne, Richard Overton, William Walwyn. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1955. 345p. F265
An analysis of the intellectual contributions of the Levellers as seen in their publications. Written from primary sources, including an examination of some 500 contemporary pamphlets. The author finds that many of the freedoms the western world enjoys today, including freedom of the press, were born in the struggle of these seventeenth-century reformers. In addition to extensive consideration of Lilburne, Overton, and Walwyn, there are also references to the writings of Bastwick, Burton, and Prynne who also figured in the fight for freedom of the press.
Frank, S. B. "Headaches of a Movie Censor." Saturday Evening Post, 220:20-21+, 27 September 1947. F266
Frank, Waldo. "Our Censors." New Republic, 55:12-15, 23 May 1928. F267
"A force that restrains in rhythm with organic growth is a control; a force that restrains against that rhythm is a censor . . . Censorship is the one way of ordering a world that does not create its own organic order."
Franke, Lewis. "Censorship of Obscenity in Literature--Prior Restraints." American University Law Review, 12:211-16, June 1963. F268
In the case of Bantam Books, Inc., et al. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58, the U.S. Supreme Court declared invalid the action of a Rhode Island Commission to Encourage Morality in Youth which set up an informal system of censorship, employing "extralegal means without an immediate judicial determination on the obscenity of certain publications."
Frankenstein, R. A Victim of Comstockism, being the History of the Persecution of George E. Wilson, by the Agent of the Western Society for the Suppression of Vice . . . Compiled from the original records by R. Frankenstein. Chicago, George E. Wilson, 1894. 100p. (Wilson Library, no. 16, vol. 2, 10 July 1894) F269
An Indiana bookseller was fined for mailing Boccaccio's Decameron, pronounced obscene by the Post Office inspector.
Frankfurter, Felix. "Press Censorship by Judicial Construction." In Law and Politics; Occasional Papers of Felix Frankfurter, 1913-1938. Edited by Archibald MacLeish and E. F. Prichard, Jr. New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1939, pp. 129-34. F270
The selection, appearing originally as an unsigned editorial in the New Republic, 10 March 1921, deals with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Milwaukee Leader case, which "immediately affects only a despised Socialist sheet, but which involves nothing less than the control of the press."
Franklin, Benjamin. An Apology for Printers. New York, Book Craftsmen Associates, 1955. 16p. (Also in A Benjamin Franklin Reader, edited by Nathan G. Goodman, New York, Crowell, 1945, pp. 252-58; and in Levy, Freedom of the Press from Zenger to Jeffierson, pp. 3-10) F271
Franklin's eloquent statement on the value of a free press to a free people, originally published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 10 June 1731, is reprinted on the 250th anniversary of Franklin's birth. It is unreasonable, Franklin argues, to imagine that printers approve of everything they print or that printers ought not to print anything of which they do not approve. If this were the case there would be nothing to read but what happened to agree with the opinion of printers. Also, if printers determined not to print anything that might offend someone, there would be very little printed.
[-------]. "On Freedom of the Press; an Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz., the Court of Press." Federal Gaztte, 12 September 1789. (Reprinted in A Benjamin Franklin Reader, edited by Nathan G. Goodman, New York, Crowell, 1945, pp. 261-65) F272
A satire on the press abuse in attacking the reputation of a man without giving him the opportunity of defense--a practice later known as "trial by newspaper." "If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and public opinions, let us have as much of it as you please. But if it means the liberty of affronting, culminating, and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it when our legislators shall please so to alter the law, and shall cheerfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself." Franklin recommends as a legal check to these abuses of the liberty of the press that a citizen be permitted "the liberty of the cudgel." If an impudent writer attacks your reputation "you may go to him openly and break his head."
[Franklin, Charles L.]. [Fred A. Burnham, President Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association v. Charles L. Franklin, editor of "The Interview." New York? 1901.] 18p. F273
Criminal libel charges were brought by Burnham against the editor of The Interview, a paper which had been devoting a major portion of space to denouncing the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association. The pamphlet consists of a reprinting of contemporary news articles about the case.
Franklin, Richard (Francklin). Trial at Westminster for Publishing a Seditious Libel in the Craftsman, 1731. (In Howell, State Trials, vol. 17, pp. 625 ff., and in Abel Boyer, Political State of Great Britain) F274 §
Franklin was found guilty and given a year in prison for an article appearing in The Craftsman, which criticized the treaty between France, Spain, and England. Lord Chief Justice Raymond instructed the jury to find the defendant guilty if (1) Franklin was the publisher and (2) if the article referred to the king and his ministers. The jury was denied the right to decide whether or not the offense was libelous. In his Government and the Press, Hanson refers to a slightly different account of the trial by Richard Hollings in a British Museum MS (Add. MS. 36115).
Franklin, Robert D. "A Game of Chicken." Library Journal, 89:3918-19, 15 October 1964. F275 §
"Some librarians are afraid to apply book selection standards. Instead, pressured by cries of 'freedom,' they play . . . A Game of Chicken." While agreeing with "some aspects of the new freedoms from taboo and the disarming by the courts of would-be censors," the author believes that librarians still have a responsibility for evaluation, guidance, and selection of reading material.
Frantz, Laurent B. "The First Amendment in the Balance." Yale Law Journal, 71:1424-50, July 1962. F276
"The first amendment provides that 'Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . .' In determining whether this provision has been violated should a court 'balance' the 'competing interests' involved in the particular case?" The author concludes that "the 'balancing' test does not permit the first amendment to perform its function as a constitutional limitation . . . Not only does 'balancing' first amendment fail to protect freedom of speech, but it becomes a mechanism for rationalizing and validating the kinds of governmental action intended to be prohibited."
Fraser, Hugh. Principles and Practices of the Law of Libel and Slander. 7th ed. Edited by Gerald Osborne Slade and Neville Faulks. London, Butterworth, 1937. 371 p. F277
Standard treatise on both civil and criminal libel, first published in 1889, and continuing the efforts of Starkie and Folkard.
-------. "The Privileges of the Press in Relation to the Law of Libel." Law Quarterly Review, 7:158-73, April 1891. F278
Discussion of special defenses open to a defendant under British statutory law in an action of libel contained in a newspaper or other periodical publication. Special attention is given to reporting of Parliamentary proceedings, court proceedings, and other public meetings.
Fraser, R. B. "Free Speech and Thin Skins." Maclean's Magazine, 66:5, 74, 15 March 1953. F279
Radio censorship in Canada.
-------. "Our Hush-Hush Censorship: How Books Are Banned." Maclean's Magazine, 62:24-25, 44, 15 December 1949. F280
Canadian censorship.
"Frederick Palmer Explains 'Mysteries' of the American Censorship in France." Editor and Publisher, 50:5-6, 27, 16 February 1918. F281
Military censorship in World War I.
Fredericks, Pierce G. "Censored." Park East, 12(5):10-11, April 1951. F282
"About Huntington Cairns, T-Man extraordinary, who sifts art from pornography for the U.S. Customs."
"Free Air or Hot Air? FCC Ruling on Editorializing and Free Speech." Commonweal, 50:334-36, 15 July 1949. F283
"Free Press and Fair Trial." Quill, 52(2):8-14, February 1964. F284
A symposium on limits to pretrial newspaper coverage, in light of the ban on electronic coverage of the Jack Ruby trial in Texas.
[Free Press Association, New York]. "Constitution of the Free Press Association." Correspondent, 1:63-64, 17 February 1827. F285
This Association was founded 29 January 1827 in New York to give support to a press which, without fear of political party, private interest, or public opinion, would report the truth in all realms of knowledge. The preamble charges that books in libraries contribute to darkness rather than provide illumination; the work of journalists reflects the influence of party and private interests rather than public good.
Free Press Defence Committee, London. The Bedborough Case. London, The Committee, 1898. 7p. (Also in Adult, August 1898) F286 §
The Committee was formed to support the defense of Mr. Bedborough in the sale of Havelock Ellis' book, Sexual Inversion. Henry Seymour was honorary secretary. The Committee raised funds and held meetings, which the press ignored. Bedborough subsequently pleaded guilty and the Committee withdraw its support. An eight-page general and financial report was also issued bearing the title Bedhorough Case--Balance Sheet.
Free Press Persecution; or, The Steel Trust Alarmed; Information Charging "Seditious and Criminal Libel" against the Alleged Committee in Charge of the Free Press. New Castle, Pa., Free Press Publishing Co. [1910]. 31p. F287
A seditious libel case against McCarthy, Flannigan, and others in an industrial dispute.
"Free Speech Anarchist." Secular Thought, 23:310-13, September 1907. F288 §
Criticism of Theodore A. Schroeder's advocacy of freedom for sex discussion.
"Free Speech and Its Enemies." Case and Comment, 22:471-75, November 1915. F289
Favorable commentary on the work of the Free Speech League and its efforts in behalf of Moses Harman, indicted on an obscenity charge.
"Free Speech and Movies." Commonweal, 73:495-96, 10 February 1961. F290
Editorial comment on the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, objecting to prior restraint. "With Justice Warren and the other dissenters, we fear that the power to withhold a license from a film--or a book or anything else--without the necessity to show cause or even give a reason, is not in the best interests of a healthy democracy."
Free Speech League. Free Speech: Self Evident Truths about It, by Many Authors. New York, The League, 1916. 20p. F291
This small pamphlet reprints excerpts on freedom of speech and the press from such prominent men as Lincoln Steffens, Felix Adler, Robert Louis Stevenson, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, T. B. Macaulay, Sir Oliver Lodge, Herbert Spencer, Sir Leslie Stephen, Rev. Robert Hall, and Leonard Abbott.
"Free Speech Suppressed." Independent, 70:807-8, 13 April 1911. F292
Reference to the forced resignation of Professor Banks from the University of Florida for his article, "A Semi-Centennial View of Secession."
"Free Speech v. Fair Trial in English and American Law of Contempt by Publication." University of Chicago Law Review, 17:540-53, Spring 1950. F293
"Free State Censorship." New Statesman, 31:632-33, 1 September 1928. F294
With a sense of irony the ministers of the Irish Free State issued a text of the Censorship of Publications Bill on the same day that Yeats and Shaw were honored with literary awards at the Tailteann Games. The ecclesiastical authorities are the principal backers of the censorship bill and their main object is to prevent advice on artificial birth control.
Freedman, Edward. "Equal Time"--Then and Now. Columbia, Mo., Freedom of Information Center, School of Journalism, University of Missouri, 1960. 8p. (Publication no. 23) F295 §
An effort has been made to present an objective view of the attitude of both industry and government toward "equal time" legislation.
Freedman, Norman J. "Fair Trial--Freedom of the Press." Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 3:52-75, April 1964. F296
The article considers the American and Canadian views in an attempt to resolve "this inevitable conflict" between the bar and the press. Legislation should be enacted to the effect that "after an accused has been arrested the press may only publish the bare facts of arrest and charge, along with any procedural abuses which they may discover . . . At trial, the press should be able to accurately report the trial but without comment on the merits till after the verdict."
Freedman, Warren. "News Media Coverage of Criminal Cases and the Right to a Fair Trial." Nebraska Law Review, 40:391-412, April 1961. F297 §
The author concludes, after a review of the conflict between the concepts of a fair trial and freedom of the press, that the courts must resolve the conflict "in such a way as to satisfy a maximum of human wants with a minimum of sacrifice of others."
"Freedom in Radio." Education by Radio, 9:32-40, December 1939. F298
A history of the development of freedom for American broadcasting, beginning with David Sarnoff's speech before the First National Conference on Educational Broadcasting, continuing with the adoption of the industry code of self-regulation in 1939, and concluding with the controversy over the question: Is radio so different from other media of communications that it needs to be treated differently?
Freedom of Communication. 30 min., b/w movie. Bloomington, Ind., National Educational Television and Radio Center, University of Indiana. (Essentials of Freedom Series) F299
"Freedom of Communications." Public Opinion Quarterly, 10:85-92, Spring 1946. F300
"In the following extracts from a panel discussion held under the auspices of the American Association for the United Nations and the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, leading spokesmen of the newspaper and radio industries express the conventional concept of their limited obligation: 'When you report the facts and report full information honestly, you have done your job in either press or radio.'" Discussion, under the chairmanship of David Sarnoff, chairman of the board of N.B.C., included the following panel members: A. A. Schechter (M.B.S.), Francis J. Starzel (AP), Lyman Bryson (C.B.S.), Harry Flory(UP), and Robert Saudek (A.B.C.).
"Freedom of Expression in a Commercial Context." Harvard Law Review, 78:1191-1211, April 1965. F301
"This Note first examines the protection afforded political expression by a business enterprise or union, and then turns to the first amendment limitations on regulation of advertising, private economic elections, and picketing."
"Freedom of Film and Press." Christian Century, 55:136-37, 2 February 1938. F302
Discusses the ban of March of Time by the Chicago Motion Picture Board under the control of the police commissioner, noting the dangers of police censorship of news.
"Freedom of Information." Free World, 8:164-69, August 1944; 8:219-29, September 1944; 8:433-36, November 1944. F303
A series of articles urging international guarantees for freedom of the press, published on the occasion of the forthcoming UN conference on freedom of information. Includes articles by Kent Cooper, president of the Associated Press (he urges a free press as a means of removing the causes of war); James L. Fly, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission; Under-Secretary of State Sumner Wells; Christopher Chancellor, manager of Reuter's news agency; and Hugh Baille, president of the United Press.
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