RCMP banned books in the 1920s - including poetry by Stephansson and Edmonton labour newspapers
- Tom Monto
- Mar 2
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 8
in the 1920s and (and likely before that and after that), the RCMP and other police forces banned certain publications and on occasion charged possessors, distributions and writers with criminal offences.
A list of such publication can be found online at
see also online
(1929). RCMP Register of Subversive Publications, 1919-1929. R.C.M.P. Security Bulletins. Retrieved from https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/RCMP/article/view/9369
Most of the banned publicationswere left-wing -- socialist, anarchist, pro-Soviet.
(apparently fascistic writings, being pro-capitalist, were beyond reproach.)
included among the banned works was Lenin's Against the Plague of Nations
BAnned Canadian works included:
The Statesman newspaper (Edmonton)
The Searchlight newspaper (Calgary)
Stephen Stephansson Book of Poetry. (Even though living in Alberta, he was highly-regarded as Iceland's greatest poet.)
OBU Bulletin (the One Big Union had arose after the similar-minded Industrial Workers of the World had been outlawed.)
Canadian Ukrainian newspaper
British Columbia Labour News
and works by the Workers and Farmers Publishing Assn., Winnipeg
(I can't see anything they published in the Peel's PP bibliography online, so don't know what)
"S.T.J. Knight literature" is likely literature in possession of Sarah and Joe Knight, two Edmonton activists and Socialist Party leaders - author of the books was not recorded.
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Can anyone spell censorship?
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it is sometimes said that left-wingers should oppose censorship, as eventually it gets turned against them, and right-wing expression is allowed.
That could be correct, unfortunately, but opposing censorship for that reason assumes that the Establishment and the business community worries about appearing to be hypocrits, for which I do not see much evidence.
Irrespective of the left's stand on censorship and of how it may make them look, the Right will do what it can to suppress free thought on the left, or any kind of critical thinking.
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