The war on books and ideas: the California Library Association and anti-Communist censorship in the 1940s and 1950s - The Role of Professional Associations

Library Trends, Fall, 1997 by Cindy Mediavilla

In Los Angeles, the situation came to a head in August 1952 when the Board of Education held a series of public hearings to decide whether or not to ban the study of the United Nations doctrine. Though it was agreed that teaching about Unesco was allowable, the book The E in UNESCO was ordered off school library shelves with a warning that "other documents and publications ... may have to be withdrawn after review by the board in line with the formulation of a comprehensive policy on controversial matters" (Benemann, 1977, p. 307). For some 150 school librarians this censorship nightmare, which would last another five years, had just begun.

A similar campaign against "world understanding" in the classroom was waged in Marin County but was lost in 1953. Campaign leader Anne Smart remained undaunted; however, after changing strategy, she renewed her attack. Bypassing the school district, she sent a letter to the San Rafael Independent-Journal, claiming that twenty-four books on the local high school library reading list were written by authors "well documented from state and federal government sources" as communists or communist affiliates (Benemann, 1977, p. 307). She then prodded the grand jury to investigate further. They found "that some of the books [on the library's list] ridiculed our American way of life and were definitely placed in our school library to plant seeds of Communism in the minds of our children" (Mosher, 1959, pp. 56-57). Moreover, the grand jury recommended that each school board should "appoint a group of three or four responsible and interested citizens to check the present books [in the library] and review all new books with the assistance of the librarian" (p. 57).

The district superintendent of schools and the board of trustees did not cave in to Smart's tactics and, in fact, voted to retain all the library books in question--an action which the CLA wholeheartedly endorsed (Smith, 1955, p. 121). But Smart's words did not fall completely on deaf ears. In January 1955, State Senator John F. McCarthy of Marin County, along with Senator Nelson S. Dilworth of the California Un-American Activities Committee, introduced a bill, SB 241, which would have required the formation of special boards to review materials being added to school library collections. The CLA Executive Board voted quickly to pass a resolution in opposition to the bill (Mosher, 1959, p. 58), while CLA members were urged to write the Senate Education Committee advising them that this bill "violates the principles of intellectual freedom" ("Senate Bill," 1955).

Though sponsorship for this bill was eventually pulled--due, apparently, to the number of protests McCarthy received (Moore, 1955,1). 58)--other legislation soon followed promoting a similar agenda. SB 1671 (1956), or the "Book Bill," as Assembly Education Committee Chair Donald D. Doyle (1957, p. 43) called it, and its companion bill AB 987 (1958), prohibited the selection or retention "of books or other materials which teach, advocate, sponsor, or otherwise tend to propagate ideas or principles contrary to or at a variance with the duties required of teachers" (Moore, 1955, p. 228). In particular, "the duties" targeted here were those which impressed "upon the minds of the pupils the principles of morality, truth, justice, and patriotism" (Doyle, 1957, p. 43). SB 1671 was supported by the California Teachers Association, the Affiliated Teachers Organizations of Los Angeles, the California School Board Association, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Anne Smart (Moore, 1955, p.227). It was opposed by the CLA Intellectual Freedom Committee, as it was now called. Using "inside" legislative contacts, the committee sent a delegation of librarians to testify before the legislature if necessary (Mosher, 1959, p. 59). Ultimately both SB 1671 and AB 987 died in committee.