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Show Illinois Town Rallies To Defend Free Press; Editor Stresses Peril CHRISMAN, IU.-The 1200 people of Chrisman recently celebrated a "freedom day" and topped it off with a meeting at the high school gymnasium as the first home town expression of opposition to governmental govern-mental regulation and the growing threats to control free speech. Cecil E. Smith, superintendent of Chrisman schools, who presided, estimated es-timated about 300 of the town's population pop-ulation attended the night meeting. Sponsored by the Chrisman American Amer-ican Legion post, the Chrisman Commercial club and the Lions club, the "freedom day" is believed to be the first expression by a home town against regimentation and controls. con-trols. Principal speaker was Charles A. Crowder, editor and publisher of the Flora Sentinel at Flora, 111. The editor warned against "present "pres-ent and ever growing threats to control con-trol free speech and a free press and radio." He said these threats already have been demonstrated in Illinois and other parts of the nation na-tion in attempts to control these free institutions. He then outlined four major threats against freedom of the press and radio: 1. Political control of news through pressure on editors. 2. Economic boycotts by advertisers advertis-ers or other groups seeking to control con-trol the press. 3. Judicial pressure whereby a judge could interpret a law to gag the press. 4. Legislative attempts to legislate legis-late controls of the press. |