February 25, 1957
The US Supreme Court voided Michigan law banning sale of books that might corrupt youth. In Butler v. Michigan Justice Frankfurter wrote: “The State insists that, by thus quarantining the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juvenile innocence, it is exercising its power to promote the general welfare. Surely, this is to burn the house to roast the pig.“ He added: “ The incidence of this enactment is to reduce the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children.” The book at the center of the controversy was John Howard Griffin’s “The Devil Rides Outside,” a fictional account of a young man’s experiences when his music studies lead him to a monastery in the French countryside.
