Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/82

 dreams of the late Mr. Comstock, the publication and circulation of books.

I have argued that they and our own Platos and Tolstoys, propose the impossible when they propose the control of imaginative literature by legislative enactment. They have resorted to an improper and an ineffective instrument.

Must we then wholly abandon the attempt to modify this potent element of our environment, as quite uncontrollable? Other instruments of control have been suggested. Mr. Bennett thinks that if suppressive societies were suppressed, and if prosecutions were left to the police, then—authors would be reasonably safe! But what about the Public? A revival of the informal censorship once managed by publishers themselves might be proposed; possibly that informal censorship is still faintly in operation; yet the old-style publishers are giving way before authors of the new style; in the last analysis, few publishers are 'in business for the fun of it'; and the supreme question asked of the average submitted manuscript must be: 'Will it sell?' A body which exists for 'the furtherance of literature and the Fine Arts,' the American Academy, might be asked to designate a committee of men of letters to pass official judgment upon questionable books; and if that body desired to diminish its popularity, this would perhaps be an effective step in that direction.

I am sure that I shall be charged with coming to