BAD BOOKS
Chapter 12 of THIS WORLD: PLAYGROUND OR BATTLEGROUND? by A. W. Tozer Books and Moral Standards The late Jimmy Walker, playboy mayor of New York during the roaring 20s, was widely quoted for a quip viewed as the distilled essence of gospel truth by those who wanted to believe it. "I never heard," said Jimmy, "of anyone who has ruined by a book." These profound words were tossed off, as near as we can remember, during an official inquiry into the effect of certain questionable literature upon the morals of the reading public. Now, we can offer no proof that Mr. Walker had ever heard of anyone who had been ruined by a book, but that could only mean that the man's knowledge of the subject was vastly small or that his idea of what it meant to be "ruined" was not the same as that of the more conscientious persons within our population who still feel bothered about the effect of bad reading upon the collective public mind. Whatever t...