Cambridge and 'Avatar'

To the Editor of The CRIMSON:

I am writing in hopes that the Crimson can give a little public ventilation to some fairly outrageous things which are going on in Cambridge concerning the Avatar. The Avatar has been a focal point for opposition to Mayor Hayes' anti-hippie campaign, the war in Vietnam, and other problems of interest to at least part of the Cambridge and Boston Community. The newsstands in the square no longer sell the Avatar. (City Hall has absolute discretion, according to the City Manager, as to whether or not they can retain their licenses.) The Paperback Booksmith in Boston is currently appealing from a recent conviction under the obscenity statute for selling issue number 10. A street vendor in Cambridge was arrested last week for selling the next issue, and many more arrests are expected this week when the new issue hits the street. In short, selling or even giving away the Avatar is not exactly a recommended past-time for anyone who feels disinclined to spend some time behind bars.

In a naively optomistic effort to create some kind of dialogue with the people at City Hall, several of the Avatar staff and two Harvard law students from the Civil-Rights-Civil-Liberties Club met with City Manager DeGuglielmo. The whole interview was a bizarre experience.

To everyone's amazement we discovered that the Avatar was not a newspaper but a "commodity" (sort of like a cantelope perhaps?). Since it was a commodity, the City Manager has the authority to issue a permit to distribute or not to issue such a permit depending on his general frame of mind or any whim that may strike him. Not only need there be no hearing or other due process of law, but he need not even express or indeed have any reason for his action, according to the City Manager. Mr. DeGuglielmo was conspicuously unimpressed by the suggestion that this "commodity" (he seemed to view it as sort of a piece of rotten fruit) was a vehicle for news, for the expression of ideas, and for political criticism.

This bizarre point of view and his kind of prior censorship of publications is not only thoroughly repellent to the whole concept of freedom of expression, but it has been explicitly declared unconstitutional. The problem is, however, that in order to vindicate these rights, the staff and friends of the Avatar must "put their heads on the guillotine," to use the City Manager's phrase. With meager financial resources, and in the face of this constant, insistent harrassment, the Avatar may have to close up shop in frustration and disgust. Long, expensive legal battles are a drag--and in this case, they may not even be possible.

The blame for this unhappy situation lies with misguided public officials. If some kind of pressure cannot be brought to bear on the City Manager and the other officials who are responsible for the problem, the Avatar may soon be extinct. M. Pope Barrow Jr., 3L