Stickers

"Matter of an indecent, lewd, lascivious, obscene, libelous, scurrilous, defamatory or threatening character" is barred from the U. S. mails and the sender is subject to a fine of not more than $5,000 or not more than five years imprisonment or both-- Section 212, U. S. Penal Code.

Citing this statute, Postmaster John J.

Kiely of New York City informed the All-America Anti-Imperialist League last week that letters embellished (on the back) with certain little yellow stickers, were barred from the U. S. mails; that he was returning such letters to their senders or burying them at the dead-letter office.

The stickers, about one-inch square, sold by the League in booklets of 20 for $1, carried the legend: "Protest against Marine rule in Nicaragua." They were to Liberals what Christmas stickers are to Christians--a greeting and an expression of opinion. Fifteen hundred of them had been sold before Postmaster Kiely took action.

U. S. Postmaster General Harry S. New, quick to approve the action of Postmaster Kiely, said: "It is a manifest absurdity to permit political agitators and advocates of various governmental policies to utilize the United States mails to propagandize the public. . . ." The All-American Anti-Imperialist League replied by printing several thousand new stickers bearing the same legend plus a cartoon of a huge boot, with U. S.

outlined in hobnails, crushing Nicaraguan homes. Also the League planned to seek through the courts a writ nullifying Postmaster General New's order.

That the National Tuberculosis Association will ever have its Christmas stickers barred from the U. S. mails is unlikely. Yet Dr. Maurice Fishberg, of Montefiore Hospital, New York City, in the leading article in the February American Mercury, asserted that the Tuberculosis Association had used the income from the seals for unsound and unscientific purposes. This income has totaled $47,500,000 between 1907 and 1927. Dr. Fishberg's point was that the money was used largely to educate the public to prevent tuberculous infection. But it is well known that 90% of the U. S. urban pop- ulation carry tubercle bacilli, which are often immunizing factors.

Concluded Dr. Fishberg: "Why do most of those infected with tubercle bacilli get along very well for the rest of their lives while a comparatively few develop a disabling or fatal form of the disease? The day we find the reasons for this fact we may be on the way to eradicating tuberculosis."

The Tuberculosis Association wondered whether Dr. Fishberg's article was worthy of a public reply. Professor Eugene Lindsay Opie, director of the Henry Phipps Institute at Philadelphia, which is devoted almost entirely to tuberculosis research, is a greater authority on the immunology of tuberculosis than is Dr. Fishberg. After following diseased individuals and couples for years, he opposes Dr. Fishberg and believes that tubercular reinfection is possible.