Medicine: Facts of LIFE (Cont'd)

LIFE's Publisher Roy E. Larsen had himself arrested last week in The Bronx, New York City, for selling "indecent literature"—a Bronx-banned copy of LIFE containing the "Birth of a Baby" pictures* (TIME, April 18). This week, as Publisher Larsen prepared to go on trial for the first time in his life, the American Institute of Public Opinion revealed that it had cut a quick cross-section of U. S. voters, of whom 17,000,000 (by Institute estimate) had seen the disputed pictures in LIFE.

The Institute asked them: "In your opinion, do these pictures violate the law against publication of material which is obscene, filthy or indecent?" "No," replied 74%. To the question: "Do you approve of this method of teaching the public about childbirth and care of mothers?" 61% answered "Yes."

In Washington Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt told her press conference, apropos of the LIFE pictures: "I never think honest things are bad. I think that suggestive things which do not deal honestly with a subject are much more harmful." She told how a small boy she knew had been merely bored by the pictures, had remarked: "The ostrich in school had a much harder time laying an egg."