Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb 1914 - Sep 1916 (assorted issues))

70 THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE comes more complex, and expert knowledge upon a vast number of intricate subjects becomes more difficult, there is an increasing need that the public shall be protected from counterfeits, quacks, charlatans and impostors, and this cannot be effectively accomplished in any other way than by the wise exercise of honest governmental power. Physicians, dentists, engineers, lawyers, teachers and chauffeurs need to be examined and licensed by the proper authority. The selling of drugs, of intoxicating liquor and explosives, the selling or carrying of arms, can only be done by persons duly licensed. Along with such new legislation as the forbidding of spitting in public places and the use of public drinking-cups, it has been necessary to enact pure food 1 a w s and those requiring the inspection of the slaughtering of animals and their preparation for sale as canned goods for food. New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth. The coming of the telephone, the automobile and wTireless telegraphy has made new lawTs necessary for the protection of property rights. Yet there are those who object to any new legislation to deal wTith the largest factor concerning child welfare which has arisen for centuries. It is claimed that we do not license newspapers or books, but allow a bad publication to be circulated, and then punish the author after it has been proved in the courts to be immoral. The answer is that. I am advocating that the very same procedure shall hold concerning Motion Pictures as books, except in the case of those films wrhich want the privilege of being carried from State to State or of being shown for pay in licensed places, of amusement. " There is much more reason for censoring Motion Pictures than plays or vaudeville performances." The Supreme Court of the United Stales has decided that the Post Office is not compelled to wait until a court has declared a book to be immoral before it can exclude a doubtful book from the mails. If the office condemns the morality of a paper, which the publisher wants to send thru the mails, the public wTelfare requires that he shall prove its good character in the courts by an appeal from the decision of the Post Office authorities. The censorship of the stage, which has existed in England since 1727, does not forbid the printing of plays nor their performance, except for pay in licensed places of amusement. Four times in the last sixty years, in 1853, 1866, 1892 and in 1909, the English Parliament has investigated the censorship of stage plays. Each time the report has advocated its retention. T h e report of 1909 showed that the theatrical managers a n d actors are . in favor of retaining the censorship of plays, tho the investigation was made at the request of forty leading persons, many of whom were writers of plays, who wished it abolished or modified. The agitation did not weaken the censorship, but strengthened it. It extended it to sketches in vaudeville performances, which had previously been allowed without censoring. Then certain Motion Picture interests, being ignorant of how much real official censorship wTould benefit their business, announced that they had united in engaging Mr. G. A. Redford, who had been the official censor of stage plays for fourteen years, to censor all their films. But because he is not an official censor, no satisfactory result has come from a pretended censorship. Liverpool, Middleboro and Carlisle have instituted local forms of censorship of Motion Pictures, because the British Board of Film Censors can no more control the character of the pictures than can our own so