POPULAR CENSORSHIP OF HISTORY TEXTS
Joseph Schafer
Wisconsin has now a unique law on the subject of school history texts. That law provides, section 1:
No history or other textbook shall be adopted for use or be in any district school, city school, vocational school or high school which falsifies the facts regarding the War of Independence or the War of 1812 or which defames our nation's founders or misrepresents the ideals and cause for which they struggled and sacrificed, or which contains propaganda favorable to any foreign government.
The method provided in other sections of the law for banishing textbooks which have been adopted but which are repugnant to the above provision is as follows: Upon complaint of any five citizens, filed with the state superintendent of public instruction, a hearing shall be arranged, to be held before the state superintendent or his deputy, in the county from which the complaint came. Previous notice must have been given through the press to the public and by mail to the complainants and to the publishers of the textbook complained of. A decision must be rendered within ten days. If the book shall be found obnoxious to the provisions of the law, that fact shall be noted by the state superintendent in the list of books for schools which he publishes annually. Thereafter the book so listed may be used only during the remainder of the year in which the state superintendent publishes it as proscribed. The penalty for retaining it beyond the time limit, shall be the loss to the school or district concerned of the state aid normally falling to its share.
The passage of this bill in the senate with only one vote against it, created a good deal of surprise, which changed to admiration for the oratorical powers of its author and sponsor, Senator John Cashman of Manitowoc County,
