Scouting, Volume 74, Number 4, September 1986 Page: 8
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THE WAY
IT WAS
BATTLE OF
THE BOOKS
Franklin Mathiews,
appointed Chief Scout
Librarian by James E.
West, waged war
against book publishers
who exploited boys in
fictional accounts of
Scouting activities. In
1919 Mathiews' efforts
were rewarded with the
establishment of
Juvenile Book Week
which encouraged
parents to buy good
books for their children.
By Keith Monroe
In the space of a few years, the Reverend
Franklin K. Mathiews rose to unique promi-
nence in the book business and the Scout move-
ment. A zealous Scoutmaster, in 1910 he
worked Tuesdays, unpaid, at the BSA's national
office in Manhattan. Chief Scout Executive
James E. West, who took a personal interest in
each clerk—even the part-time volunteers—dis-
covered that young Mathiews had known John
D. Rockefeller Jr. at Brown University and was
still a friend of Rockefeller's chief adviser in
philanthropic matters. Soon it was arranged for
Mathiews to give up his pastorate in Scotch
Plains, N.J. (population 800), and join the paid
BSA staff.
He was given a splendid title of his own devis-
ing: "Consulting Book Physician." Mainly he
prescribed reading lists for problem boys. But
soon, noticing that most books he specified were
sold for $1.50 and up, he began to wonder if the
BSA could publish good books at a lower price.
The low-price market was huge. Like
freckles, boys' books had broken out in clusters
all across America. Each year, a million books
were bought by, or for, boys at prices from a
dime to a half-dollar (new, not used).
These always included some of the 208 sepa-
rate novels about Frank Merriwell, mightiest of
boy athletes; the long-running series about the
Rover Boys, perennial students at prep school;
and the 40-odd books about Tom Swift, boy
inventor. To the BSA's chagrin, there were fast-
proliferating new series about imaginary Boy
Scouts who captured bank robbers, flew aero-
planes, foiled plots to dynamite the Navy. Math-
iews warned West that such fantasies might
make real-life Scouting seem too tame.
Infuriated, West announced, "The boys' taste
is being constantly vitiated and exploited by the
mass of cheap juvenile literature. To meet this
grave peril the Library Commission of the Boy
Scouts of America has been organized." Math-
iews became Chief Scout Librarian.
West was already warring on manufacturers
and merchants who purveyed Boy Scout under-
wear, Boy Scout ginger ale, Boy Scout germici-
dal soap, Boy Scout rifles, and Boy Scout grave
markers, to mention a few. As a base for law-
suits, he wanted a Congressional charter such as
the Red Cross had. But Congress was slow to
act. In 1910, 1914, and 1915 committees killed
bills that would have chartered the BSA and
given it "sole and exclusive right" to BSA
emblems and uniforms as well as the name "Boy
Scout."
But war could be waged in other ways on the
book front. Mathiews told the 1913 convention
of the American Booksellers' Association
(ABA) that "perhaps a million" books about
pseudo-Scouts had been sold in three years.
"Some were bad, some perhaps very good,
some not good or bad," he said, but noted that
Anthony Comstock, the dreaded moral cru-
sader, included half-dollar juveniles among his
"traps for the young." Mathiews added omi-
nously, "The Boy Scout movement must defend
itself against the exploiting of boys." Book-
sellers listened to him.
Some popular boys' writers of the era did
meet Mathiews's standards—Ralph Henry Bar-
bour, William Heyliger, Harold M. Sherman,
Joseph Altsheler, and others. He asked these
authors, and their publishers, to permit Grosset
& Dunlap to reprint some of their works in 50-
cent hardbound editions, with distinctive khaki
covers and Scout emblems. G&D was the big-
gest hardbound publisher; its salesmen covered
every city and town. It would promote the books
—as would the BSA—under the name of "Every
Boy's Library, Boy Scout Edition."
The series would also include novels by illus-
trious earlier writers—Stevenson, London,
Masefield—so the current authors would glow
by association. The authors (or their heirs) on
Mathiews's list not only consented but allotted
their royalties—about four cents a copy—to the
BSA. The literary world was awed by Math-
iews's persuasiveness.
MM
September 1986 4? Scouting
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 74, Number 4, September 1986, periodical, September 1986; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353661/m1/8/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.