Abstract

How Pure Are the Mails

A solicitor at Washington has arbitrary power to bar from mails anything he may judge to be fraudulent or offensive. His ruling can be reversed only by expensive recourse to the federal courts. Alert postal inspectors are constantly on guard in all sections of the country ready to swoop down on any offending bit of mail. An unfavorable report to Washington set the machinery of investigation and censorship in motion. The discrimination of the postal authorities, on the other hand, has been seriously challenged. It is fair to judge the department by its works. What is barred from mails is more or less common knowledge. Mary Ware Dennett's pamphlet "The Sex Side of Life" was the last notable object of post-office censorship, though it has since been reinstated as fit for mails by three federal judges.