Word: smoots
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...Bronson Murray Cutting, to discard the present system whereunder Treasury agents on steamship docks seize and destroy imported books which they judge obscene or immoral (TIME. Oct. 21). Appalled at the prospect of a flood of dirty foreign literature washing up on clean U. S. shores, Senator Smoot made a collection of volumes recently seized by the Customs agents and during his Christmas holiday pored over improper paragraphs to amass arguments for the retention of censorship (TIME, Jan. 6). His threat to read aloud blush-provoking passages, if necessary, helped to pack the Senate galleries last week. After twelve hours...
Three Plans were before the Senate: 1) Censorship of foreign books, as at present, by U. S. Customs agents whom Senator Smoot called "men of education and broad information, with a knowledge of the world," but whose "knowledge of the world," according to Senator Cutting, "is how to get from the Bowery to the Hudson River piers and open trunks and leave them in confusion." 2) No censorship, leaving control of obscene books entirely to the States. 3) Censorship by the U. S. courts, as a body of intelligence and literary discrimination above that of Customs agents...
Through its protagonists the censorship conflict threw into relief two phases of western culture-the Old West, personified by Senator Smoot, Utah-born. Mormon-educated, moral, righteous; and the New West, personified by Senator Cutting, New York-born, Harvard-educated, "sophisti-cated," broadminded...
...Senator Smoot began the debate with a thoroughgoing outburst of indignation. Cried...
...obscenity, order its destruction. The book importer would have all the privileges of appeal to the highest court. Senator Cutting declared himself satisfied with this liberalizing compromise, predicted that Customs agents would not be so reckless in seizing books if their opinions had to go before a court. Senator Smoot, happy that censorship had been restored, felt that the country had been saved...