Article Eleven

The recent censorship of radio commentators Drew Pearson and Walter Winchell exemplifies the inconsistency of high-sounding speeches proclaiming the sanctity of civil liberties with unjustified limitations on those liberties. Last Sunday night Blue Network officials stood over these two men during their broadcasts and handed them copies of musty, almost forgotten statutes forbidding "Derogatory remarks concerning members of Congress, the Cabinet, or any Federal agency." The mere reference to such legal atrocities is sufficient to recall vividly the quickly repealed Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and the notorious redbaiting of the Palmer Raids in 1920.

Pearson's script was definitely blue-pencilled. Out of the text was removed a charge that Senators Wheeler and Nye have opposed the impending trial of 33 alleged conspirators, a disclosure that Willkie is writing a book condemning the State Department for "selling democracy short in North Africa," and an unfavorable reference to taxwizard Beardsley Ruml. It was also made known that Senator Wheeler is chairman of the committee that handles radio legislation in the Senate.

The American radio public suffered no great loss by missing a few sentences of what Pearson and Winchell had planned to say. The particular situation which led to the sudden strictness may not, in itself, be significant. But the unheralded censorship of nation-wide commentators by an unknown hand could lead, particularly in wartime, to the abolition of all unfavorable criticism of the government, deserving or not. At present, the radio stations are in no position to stand up for their "freedom of speech," for they well realize that too-strong insistence may cause the revoking of their licenses.

The line between suppression of news and criticism whose promulgation would actually endanger the war effort and suppression solely because the criticism is embarrassing or inconvenient to some public group is admittedly difficult to draw. But it must be drawn with as much care as the line determining the freedom of the press, of speech, and of assembly. Holding cheesecloth over the mouth of radio commentators could very conceivably lead to the complete cutting off of all "derogatory opposition," first to the war in general, then to the particular military strategy of the day, and finally to any disagreements with a specific domestic policy.

Milton in 1943 would plead just as eloquently for freedom of the air waves as he did for freedom of the press; so would Thomas Jefferson. As the influence of radio becomes increasingly far-reaching, its extent and method of supervision must be watched all the more carefully. Up to now, freedom of the air waves has not been dangerously impaired, but the mysterious censorship of the political charges of radio commentators is the first step in the opposite direction from which we want to travel.