# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S824
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

824 Publication Matters

Church; 3. such (and this is by far the largest class) as are
downright unchristian and often utterly filthy, either in expression
or in plot. All of the “best sellers” during the last years had to be
placed in the third class, and the alarming thing is that these books
are being recommended by public iower and higher schools and
are being read with avidity by our junior and senior readers,
especially those living in larger cilies, where such contacts are
‘unavoidable. The chairman of your Board has examined every
one of the recent “best sellers” and has found them to be un-
speakably horrid; for they contain, almost without exception, the
most dreadful blasphemy, the most horrible obscenity, and a most
vicious misrepresentation of the biological facts of sex. If we re-
member that many of these books are written by women and that
woman readers compose the largest part of the “lending libraries’ ”
clientele, we may understand why the moral ruin of our nation
is so very imminent.

With regard to the books that belong to Classes 1 and 2 your
Board hardly knows how to act. In the past, books containing
such things as work-righteousness, dancing, and the like, were
simply rejected. This formerly left a small number of book that
might be recommended; but today your Board is hardly in a posi-
tion to recommend a single book; so thoroughly has become the
general demoralization. We are facing a nation without a con-
science, without a clear understanding of what is proper, not to
say of what is right and wrong. Our movies have been somewhat
cleansed; our books are spreading the plague of immorality and
impiety to every part of the land. This is no exaggeration but the
result of a careful study of recent popular books. Since some
books in Classes 1 and 2 often are valuable and objectionable only
in spots, may they not be listed in the special catalog with the
necessary warnings added? This seems to be the only way left
to supplement the lists which your Board has prepared in the past.

Your Board asks that the following recommendations receive
the earnest consideration of our Church:

1. That our pastors, teachers, parents, and whoever is in a
position to study the book situation in our country, make our
present-day book problem the object of their most conscientious
study and that the problem be considered in voters’ meetings, our
various societies, especially also our ladies’ aids and other groups
where mothers may be shown the danger that lurks in the present-
day literature;

2. That we, as citizens “seeking the peace of the city,” Jer.
29:7, consider the book problem also from the viewpoint of the
welfare of our nation and therefore confer with the libraries in-
our communities, with publishers that put out unbecoming books,