"Rough going had been encountered by The Masses in its efforts to remain a medium for free interpretation in a time of hysteria. Because of its pitiless reporting in trying to reveal true causes, its lack of respect for commercialized religion, and its attacks on sex taboos in art and literature, the magazine had earlier been barred from the reading rooms of many libraries, ousted from the subway and elevated news stands in New York, and refused by distributing companies of Boston and Philadelphia; and our right to use the mails in Canada had been revoked by the Dominion government"