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

74 THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE derers, burglars and immoralists. We believe that the tendency of these pictures would be to make you and your children defy the laws and become law-breakers. We believe that they will make you and them cruel and bloodthirsty. We believe that they will have a tendency to make you and your children commit suicide. Now, entertaining these beliefs, and with the earnest desire to protect you and your children so that we may elevate the moral tone of the entire community and reduce crime and vice, we reserve the right to look over these pictures before you see them, and if there are any pictures that in our opinion you and your children ought not to be allowed to see, then we shall condemn them and not permit them to be shown any where. ' ' What do American citizens, inheriting the great const itutional rights of religious freedom, and freedom of speech and of the press, think of such a proposition as this? Here is a body of persons claiming the superior right to do the thinking for the multitude on the subject of what they shall or shall not see. They object to a picture ! Out it goes^ never to be seen by the common man. Should not the common man have the right of deciding for himself whether he approves? Censors are only men, with all the frailties and weaknesses and prejudices of their fellow men. Will they never make mistakes? Remember that recent English censorship condemned the " Mikado," and that one liberalminded censor refused to license any drama in which the word "heaven" or "angel" appeared. The fact must not be lost, sight of that these opinions of the all-powerful censor are not to be confined to a single body, but, if the principle is adopted, in time will be extended to every State, city, and township of the country. Furthermore, we must not forget that no censor or body of censors can take away from the State its police power, so that even if a picture is approved by all the censors of the country, the owner of a theater still might be arrested and prosecuted for exhibiting it, because of its alleged violation of some law. The advocates of censorship must not delude themselves into the belief that their approval of a picture is going to grant to it the slightest immunity from attack by the police authorities. Now, as opposed to the above views, the opponents of censorship maintain the following position: "We believe that it is not within the power of any man or body of men to tell us or our children what we shall or shall not see. We reserve that right " It is not properly within the power of any man or body of men to tell us or our children what we shall or shall not see." to ourselves. We refuse to allow any one to lay down to us what shall be our code of morals or taste. We insist that we shall decide those questions ourselves. If our children go to the theaters where improper pictures are shown, that is our lookout, and not the lookout of the State. If an improper or grossly immoral or licentious film be exhibited by any chance, the proprietor of the theater and the producers of the film should be punished with the greatest severity. We say the situation is precisely the same as when a newspaper prints a libel. We cannot prevent the paper from printing the libel, but we can hold the paper strictly accountable for doing so. We cannot prevent a man from uttering scandal, but he can be arrested and prosecuted for doing so. We believe the American people are the proper censors of pictures. We do not believe that a theater can exist at all, unless it represent a respectable public sentiment. A theater showing improper films will not be patronized except by those persons who always are seeking evil, and in that event the theater