In the Autumn of 1973, English teacher Bruce Severy ordered Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five for use in one of his classes in Drake, North Dakota. On 7 November, on orders from the Board of Education, Mrs. Sheldon Summers, school custodian, burned 32 copies of the book because the Board members had decided that it was pornographic. After reading a brief article in the New York Times on the incident (16 November 1973), Vonnegut wrote to Charles McCarthy (head of the Drake Board of Education). His letter … presents an unsual approach to censorship, it illuminates a feature of Vonnegut's character that many readers overlook when reading his books: his moral intent. (p. 631)

[The following quote is from Vonnegut's letter:]

If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hard-working men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered chldren know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don't damage children much. They didn't damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

                                              (p. 632)

[Vonnegut] avoids the usual debate over prurient interest, community standards, and definition of pornography. Instead he attacks the accuracy of the charge by insisting that he and his books are highly moral….

[No] matter what else one might say of Vonnegut's books, they do, upon close inspection, reflect a moral outlook on life. If the self-appointed censors read his work, they ignored Vonnegut's appeal that men treat each other in a more humane fashion, or they read selectively to determine that earthy but common words appear, having defined pornography exclusively in terms of four-letter words to which they believe minors should not be exposed. The most outrageous possibility … is that they acted as a formal, deliberative body to undermine a writer's reputation without even having read the book that they condemned. (p. 634)

Vonnegut's letter may not have accomplished what he hoped (to cause McCarthy and the Drake citizenry to reconsider their actions), but it presents an interesting perspective on censorship. Moreover, in the process of presenting his response to censorship problems, Vonnegut reveals an important aspect of his character and literature. The tone of Vonnegut's books is often irreverent and satiric (one element of his popularity among young readers and iconoclasts). If Vonnegut perceives hypocrisy, mindless routine, evil, or irresponsibility, he satirizes the malady in a precise but very humorous fashion. Since many of these maladies plague members of the so-called Establishment, alienated persons have mistakenly assumed that Vonnegut's sole intent is to take the Establishment to task, without regard for morality. And some of the persons who are the objects of the biting satire fail to perceive the point that he articulates eloquently in his letter: far from being immoral or amoral, he desires to promote a better world in which people are kinder to one another than they are presently. For disillusioned American readers who do not wish to recognize that Vonnegut is doing more than sniping at the System and for supporters of the status quo who have been disconcerted by his attacks on their way of life, Vonnegut's letter to Charles McCarthy should provide convincing testimony that he is actually issuing a call for responsible, decent behavior and has a serious, moral purpose in mind as he writes his books. (pp. 634-35)