American Library Association

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM
Author(s): Everett T. Moore
Source: ALA Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 5 (May 1961), pp. 403-404
Published by: American Library Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25696150 .
Accessed: 20/06/2014 23:48

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

American Library Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ALA
Bulletin.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.118 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 23:48:45 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 mountains to make them cower, to judge them
selves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the
house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the

weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who

might be the target of thewell-read man? Me? I

won't stomach them for a minute.'"

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM We recently asked Mr. Bradbury if the future

of civilization would look any less bleak to him
if he were writing his book today. His answer
T. Moore was as follows:
by Everett
"When I wrote my novel Fahrenheit 451 dur

A RATIONALE FOR BOOKBURNERS: A FURTHER ing the years from 1949 to 1953, we were living
at the heart of what is known now as the McCar
WORD FROM RAY BRADBURY
" thy era. We were very close to panic and whole
'The bigger your
market, Montag, the less
" sale bookburning. I never believed we would go
you handle controversy, remember that!'
all out and destroy ourselves in this fashion. 1
It is Captain Beatty speaking, explaining metic have always believed in the power of our Ameri
ulously how it got started?this job of the fire can society to rectify error without having to re
men of the future, inRay Bradbury's Fahrenheit a long
sort to destruction. Sometimes it takes
451. It is the story of the firemenwho answer
time to swing the pendulum back in the direction
alarms not to put out fires, but to start them.
" of sanity.But the pendulum did swing.McCarthy
became a nice blend of vanilla
'Magazines is dead, and the era that carried his name buried
Books, so the damned snobbish critics
tapioca. with him.
said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped
"Still," Mr. Bradbury added, "I feel thatwhat
selling, the critics said. But the public knowing I had to say inFahrenheit 451 is valid today and
what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic to be valid coun
will continue here and in other
books survive. And the three-dimensional sex
tries in other years."
magazines, of course. There you have it,Montag.
Mr. Bradbury referred to a scene in Fahren
It didn't come from the government down. There
heit 451 which epitomizes the attitude of the
was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to
bookburners. It is the one from which we have
start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation,
already quoted, in which his fireman hero, Cuy
and minority pressure carried the trick, thank
Cod.'"
Montag, suddenly realizing that foryears he had
been destroying the mind of his community,
In Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1953,
future was one that seemed pleads illness and does not report forwork. The
Bradbury's imagined comes to visit Montag,
fire chief, Beatty, and,
to have come about almost painlessly. If there
says Mr. Bradbury, "to talk him back to 'health'"
had been those who resisted the soothing tide
with the following rationale:
of conformity most of them were now comfort "
" 'When did it all start, you ask, this job of
ably out of the way. 'We're the Happiness Boys,
ours, how did it come about, where, when? Well,
the Dixie Duo, you and I and the others,' says
I'd say it really got started around about a thing
Beatty. 'We stand against the small tide of those
who want to make con
called the Civil War. Even though our rule book
everyone unhappy with
claims it was founded earlier. The fact is we
flicting theory and thought. We have our fingers
didn't get along well until photography came
in the dike. Hold steady. Don't let the torrent of
into its own. Then?motion pictures in the early
melancholy and drear philosophy drown our
Twentieth Century. Radio. Television. Things
world.'"
" began to have mass.
'You always dread
the unfamiliar,' Beatty "
'And because they had mass, they became
explained. 'Surely you remember the boy in your
simpler,' said Beatty. 'Once, books appealed to
own school class who was exceptionally "bright," a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could
did most of the reciting and answering while the
afford to be different. The world was roomy. But
others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him.
then the world got full of eyes and elbows and
And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for
mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population.
beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it
Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down
was. We must all be alike. Not
everyone born
to a sort of paste-pudding norm, do you follow
free and equal, as the Constitution says, but
me?'
everyone made equal. Each man the image of
T think so.'
every other; then all are happy, for there are no
'Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his

Quotations from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the
451,
copyright 1953 by Ray Bradbury. Twentieth Century, speed up your camera. Books

403

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.118 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 23:48:45 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids.
Everything boils down to the gag, the snap end
ing.
"Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows,
then cut again to fill a two-minute book column,
winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dic

Have discovered this tionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dic

you
tionaries were for reference. But many were those
exciting new series?
whose sole knowledge ofHamlet (you know the
KEYS TO THECITIES I title certainly, Montag;
faint rumor
it is probably only a
of a title to you, Mrs. Montag)
i The aspect, people, landmarks whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a
and rich history of the one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at
world's cities last you can
great read allthe classics; keep up with

TheKey toNewYork
your neighbors. Do you see? Out of the nursery
into the college and back to the nursery; there's
By Alice Fleming your intellectual pattern for the past five cen

TheKeytoPhiladelphia
turies or more.'"
Mr. Bradbury adds, in passing, that the Rus
By Dorothy Loder
sians, thinking he had written an exclusive criti

TheKey to London
cism of McCarthyism in the U.S.A., pirated
Fahrenheit 451 a few years ago. Published and
By Alicia Street sold in an edition of some 500,000 copies, the
"The first three volumes in Lippincott's authorities suddenly discovered he meant tyranny
Keys to the Cities series are by authors over the mind at any time or place.
who have an intimate knowledge and too. The novel has
"In sum," he says: "Russia,
special enthusiasm for their subjects ...
now gone underground, I hear. Which makes me,
Each book is indexed and illustrated
with well-chosen and maps. I gather, the clean Henry Miller of the Soviets."
photographs
Of interest to all ages. Recommended."
? Junior Libraries

New titles just published:

THE KEY TO BOSTON Atbooth520...see thesetitles
By Mildred and George Weston, Jr.

THE KEY TO PARIS

By Marjory Stoneman Douglas

THE KEY TO SAN FRANCISCO

By Charlotte Jackson
Ages 9 up $2.95 each

Add this to your

Portraits of the Nations Series

THE LAND AND PEOPLE

OF PORTUGAL Librarians with a keen eye to circula
By Raymond A. Wohlrabe and Werner tionfigures utilize the titlesfromall the
Krusch. "Another good addition to the
Portraits of the Nations series. Covers following B/P Series: Button Family
the geography, history, people, industry,
' Adventures Cowboy Sam What
agriculture, art, architecture, literature, Is It Dan Frontier Sailor Jack.
and festivals of Portugal. Individual
deal with Lisbon and the
Pick up your copy of the catalog
chapters
various regions, provinces and islands." ''Good Books forChildren"
LALA Booklist. Ages 12-16. $2.95

COMPANY I ^^ 1; Divisionof Beckley-Cardy

Publishing
* PHILADELPHIA
AND NEW YORK *^ 1900 N. NARRAGANSETT, CHICAGO 39, ILL.

404 Please Mention the ALA Bulletin When Writing Our Advertisers May 1961

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.118 on Fri, 20 Jun 2014 23:48:45 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions