Freedom to Read Week: Ben Hecht on Front Page …of The Ottawa Citizen

The Ottawa Citizen, 31 October 1947

Freedom to Read Week: Eight Men Speak

Freedom to Read Week Hump Day. Have you bought your banned book yet? If not, may I suggest Eight Men Speak? Written in 1933, reissued just last year by University of Ottawa Press, it's not so much a banned book as a banned play once – only once – staged as part of an effort to free Communist Party of Canada leader Tim Buck from Kingston Penitentiary. The Toronto Police didn't approve, nor did their Winnipeg brothers.

The Globe & Mail, May Day, 1934

The Ottawa Citizen, 2 May 1934

Where mail carriers once worked to prevent its spread, today's will happily deliver Eight Men Speak to your door… er, post box.

Freedom to Read Week: Robertson Davies' Dad Against Censorship (and Misleading Cover Art)

Senator William Rupert Davies
12 September 1879 - 11 March 1967
RIP

For my part, I do not believe this senate has any business at all legislating what I or anyone else should read. This is a free country, and we are not the keepers of our brothers' consciences to that extent. It would be going to far to try to tell adult Canadians what they should read… I think we should have confidence in the rising generation and try not to protect them too much. After all, character is formed by overcoming obstacles and resisting temptation.

— William Rupert Davies, 5 May 1953  

The Globe & Mail, 6 May 1953

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