Let the Fire Fall

Today the N. Y. Supreme Court upheld the decision handed down by the lower court granting the Voice of God Church on injunction against the North American Publishing Corporation, its president, Orson Beamish, and writer Newell Oates, who are ordered to cease and desist the distribution of Oates’s latest book, The Paranoid Church. Meanwhile the plunder and arson of those bookstores and department stores where the book has been on display continue….

Today the CDL, Committee for Decent literature, received the official recognition and official status that it has been seeking for over a quarter of a century. Miss Grace Livingstone, retired in 1973 after teaching high school literature for twenty years, was named director of the department, which will operate under the auspices of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Miss Livingstone said that her department immediately will start a review of all materials in public schools, libraries, for sale in public places, or advertised In any media that is easily accessible to the public as a whole. A board of review, already formed, will then examine any questionable material and decide whether or not it is in the public. interest to permit it to remain where it is accessible to young, developing minds, she stated.

Today the N. Y. Supreme Court upheld the decision handed down by the once-defunct House Un-American Activities Committee, known as HUAC. HUAC has been granted an appropriation of $785,000, and the mandate to investigate the activities of “certain people and groups of people who seek to perpetuate works of atheistic views in order to undermine the freedom of religion established under the Constitution of our country.”

Crandall Worth, committee chairman, announced following the vote that the committee would hold its first hearings next Wednesday in New York City. Mr. Worth denied that there was, or could possibly be, a conflict between the freedom granted in the First Amendment and the freedom of religion amendment which he has sworn to uphold. He said, further, that those members of the House who had seen fit to vote against the motion might well find themselves in the witness chair when his meetings get under way. Citing the recent reversals of the Supreme Court, overthrowing decisions made in the sixties, Mr. Worth thanked those House members who had voted with him in reestablishing the committee. His concluding statement was, “If our committee finds evidence that any religion is being vilified, then those persons guilty of such a transgression of God-given law will face due process of law. We are a nation under God, let us not forget that. Our founding fathers were men inspired by God, and today we have among us yet another man so inspired who is God’s hand now in this time of mortal peril. Those who would question this fact will have to answer to our committee.”