Education by Radio (1932)

Censorship.7 Every one of us practises censorship in some form or other every day of our lives. Too much tolerance is often re¬ sponsible for some new racket which has a degrading effect on our national life. “Thus the crooked politician, whose business it is to fool all of the people all of the time, is a vociferous advocate of tolerance,” writes Dagobert D. Runes in the March 1932 issue of The Modern Thinker. “And we tolerate him, because we are so broadminded, so intellectually advanced! A swarm of social parasites — quack doctors with sure cures for new diseases, glib salesmen with a new gadget to unload, pur¬ veyors of pornography, political opportunists, mystical fakirs — all are out for their ‘share’ of the public blood. Hollywood skims layer after layer of sentimental slime from its boiling pot for the public consumption; radio injects nauseating hypodermics of ballyhoo into its broadcasts ", the tabloids . . . pander to the worst instincts of the semi-literate populace. And behind these sit the myopic moneymen, vain of their cynicism, expecting to profit by this pollution of the public mind and taste. “We know that the channels of public information are tainted, that this poison is gradually corrupting the growing youth and degrading the thought and spirit of the great commonwealth at large. Yet because we are lazy, or because we cling to an abstract principle of ‘free speech,’ or because we are making our own profits thru social exploitation, we refuse to take the one practical step: censorship. “Sometimes it is objected that censorship would interfere with a certain individual freedom of choice which is whole¬ some. . . . The aim of censorship is not to fix a single stand¬ ard of good and truth and beauty; it is not to prevent choice, but to enable the better to compete for man’s attentions against the wellfinanced worse. . . . “Assuredly, what they [the people] need is a chance to de¬ velop their judgment thru the exercise of choice. But the pres¬ ent lack of censorship secures them no such wholesome free¬ dom to choose. Where, for instance, must the average citizen exercise the greater personal choice in the matter of radio en¬ tertainment, in Great Britain, where broadcasting is under government supervision, or in the United States, where such censorship is shunned in the interest of ‘free speech ? . . . “We censor the environment of our children, attempting to keep them away from pernicious influences. But we cannot protect our own homes unless we protect the communities and in a larger sense, the country in which we live.” Who should exercise this needed censorship in radio in the United States? Should it be private commercial interests with exploitation as their sole objective, or should it be a competent, educated, and cultured group whose sole interest would be to raise standards of taste and apprecia¬ tion in the fields of both education and entertainment? The substantial citizens of this country will not tolerate the present radio situation much longer. When they do rise up, they will put advertising off the air and adopt a system operated entirely in the public interest. Then education and culture by radio will become a reality. Commercialism or Altruism? Nine cleared channels and twenty-seven shared chan¬ nels will be available for Canadian radio broadcasting as a result of the recent agreement made by the State Depart¬ ment of the United States with the Canadian government. A few years ago, the United States made a “gentleman’s agreement” with Canada whereby the ninety-six available fre¬ quencies in the broadcast band were divided between the two countries. Canada was given the sole use of six of the chan¬ nels; eleven were used with limited power by both countries; while the remaining seventy-nine frequencies were left for the exclusive use of the United States. It is wellknown in technical circles that the number of broadcasting frequencies needed in a country is dependent upon geographical factors. When Canada’s immense area is considered, this increase in radio facilities cannot be ques¬ tioned. Surely a country’s need for radio is not contingent on its population. Do not the rights of the individual listeners count most? Yet Orestes H. Caldwell, editor of Radio Retail¬ ing and former member of the Federal Radio Commission com¬ plains that the United States got the worst of the deal. He says, “Canada, with a population about the size of New York City or the state of California, already has three times the radio facilities per capita that are enjoyed by the United States with its 125,000,000 population.” As a matter of fact the population of Canada according to 1930 figures was one and one half times that of New York City, and larger than the total population of the states of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Ari¬ zona, and Wyoming. These states, by the way, represent over one fourth the area of the United States. Canada’s climate is another factor that should be considered. How much more representative of public interest would be such a statement as “The United States recently agreed to make available additional radio broadcast frequencies for Canadian use. The fact that the area of Canada is greater than that of the United States, and that her population is more scattered, makes the use of radio a greater necessity to her than to our own more closely settled country.” However, until radio broadcasting in this country is divorced from the com¬ mercial motive, it is unlikely that its spokesmen will make such altruistic statements. Radio Aids Quacks The radio nightly repeats: “Sunshine mellows,” “Heat purifies,” “It’s toasted,” . . ., ad nauseam. However, there evolves an association that brings profits to a certain cor¬ poration. Repetition lulls the desire to analyze, and the trick of association brings action — without ratiocination . . . once upon a time, the fakir and the quack could reach only those who came to the rear of their wagons. Now the radio brings fakirs and quacks without number to every fireside, each one accompanied by a crooning tenor or even more persuasively by the chords of beautiful orchestration. — Walter R. Hepner, Superintendent of Schools, San Diego, California. [78]