The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America

Hollywood: Larry Edmunds Book Shop. Near Fine. (c.1967). Reprint. Stapled wraps. [nice clean copy with faint handling wear only]. (Cinema Classics, No. 1) Series (cartoon illustrations) Reprint of Griffith's famous manifesto, originally published in 1916, when he was still in a high dudgeon over the various protests and censorship actions that had been taken against his film THE BIRTH OF A NATION. In it, he decries "Intolerance" as the Root of All Censorship, "a real national peril, because the day may not be far off when censors, under the shadow of the American flag of independence, will be empowered by legislative enactment to foist their individual whims, hobbies, or prejudices on the suffering public." (It's worth noting that Griffith didn't devote a single word of his screed to his upcoming super-epic, coincidentally (not) entitled INTOLERANCE -- yet when the publication originally appeared in April 1916, the film was actually mid-production. Looked at from that angle, it's hard to escape the suspicion that plastering "Intolerance" in ALL CAPS at the top of almost every other page was, whatever else it might have been, a not-very-subtle bit of pre-release publicity.) .