Conservative Women’s Group Seeks to Ban Radical Magazines From the Mails
The Woman Builders of America, a conservative group dedicated to fighting domestic radicalism, on this day protested the use of the U.S. mails by three radical magazines: The New Masses, the Daily Worker, and the Young Worker. The group voted to send a letter to the Postmaster General demanding that the publications be barred from the mails.
The group’s action was inspired by a speech at its meeting by Major General Eli Helmick, Inspector General of the U. S. Army. Helmick warned about radical political activity across the country. He also warned about many “sincere and honest persons” who were members of certain non-radical groups who were aiding the radical cause by supporting military disarmament. He named the ACLU in particular, citing the participation of Clarence Darrow, Norman Thomas, and Eugene V. Debs in the organization.
Helmick also declared that radical groups were active on college campuses, City University of New York, Bryn Mawr College, and Northwestern University.
During World War I the Post Office was one of the major instruments of the repression of dissent, declaring radical publications “non-mailable.” In the absence of today’ mass media, mailed publications were the primary means by which political group communicated with their members and were able to spread their message to others. Freedom of speech and press enjoyed a brief victory in mid-1917 when a U.S. District Court judge overturned a ban on the radical Masses magazine. The Court of Appeals, however, overturned the ban and heavy censorship continued until the end of the war.
Read about censorship in the 1920s and before: Paul Boyer, Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Book Censorship in America (1968)
And more: Leigh Ann Wheeler, Against Obscenity: Reform and the Politics of Womanhood in America, 1873-1935 (2007)
Learn about the “dark side” of the 1920s here
Read about the struggles for civil liberties in the 1920s: Samuel Walker, In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (1990)