ABSTRACT
Historian and journalist, Gerald W. Johnson was best known for his pungent and reflective observations on the American scene. For almost half a century he had examined and consistently dismantled the sacred cows of his time. Optimists among people have cherished the delusion, in recent years, that the United States has attained a level of intellectual maturity at which public opinion will no longer tolerate attempts by magistrates to set themselves up as censors of morals, as far as literature and the arts are concerned. In the absence of religious fanaticism, the only explanation of tolerated censorship is fear. Superficially, it would seem to be preposterous to suggest that the United States is terror-stricken. Economically, the wealth of the United States, as measured in money, is greater than at any previous time, and this in spite of frightful expenditures during the war.
