MAGAZINES BANNED

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21247, 18 October 1940, Page 2

MAGAZINES BANNED

ULTIMATUM TO NEWSDEALERS Thirty-nine magazine dealers now have before them an ultimatum delivered by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, of New York, warning them that if salacious magazines were not taken off the news stands through their voluntary co-operation, he would use his legal powers to halt the circulation of such publications in the city, states the Christian Science Monitor. Standing before a panel covered by 22 lurid magazine covers, mostly sensational detective and horror fiction, the Mayor told the dealers in no uncertain tones at the World’s Fair City Hall that he was determined to check the juvenile delinquency which he said stemmed from the reading of sensational magazines by children. “The decision is the result of a most painstaking study and survey with Justice Stephen S. Jackson, of the Children’s Court,” the Mayor said. “Not until after minute and detailed study showing the effects of this reading upon youth did I take action. There is no remote suggestion of censorship here. The constitutional provisions for a free press are not applicable to plain filth and smut.”