Motion Picture Commission : hearings before the Committee on Education, House of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, second session, on bills to establish a Federal Motion Picture Commission (1978)

20 MOTION PICTUEE COMMISSION. first article, is no foe to freedom of conscience of the press, or speech or of per- sonal liberty. In his first article President Dyer says that an official body of censors would have the power " to require that no picture should be shown anywhere in the United States until first submitted to the censors." President Dyer seems to think that I am advocating something as impracticable as Plato did when he advised, in the laws of his Republic, that no poet should so much as read to any private man what he had written until the judges and lawkeepers had seen it and allowed it. It would clearly be absurd to advocate giving any such power to a Federal board of censorship, even if our form of government allowed the National offi- cials to exercise such a power in the sovereign States. It would also be unwise to grant such a power to a State board of censorship, although the State of Ohio has done so. Nothing that I have sa.id would favor forbidding any citizen the privilege of taking a uiotiDU-picture film of his family of children jilaying tag or romping with the house dog. and exhibiting that or any other in his house or uiion the jiublic conunon. without even going to the board of censors at all. If he wants the privilege of interstate conuuerce, he should secure a license for his motiou picture from a Federal board of censors. But if he wants to show it only in his own State in licensed jtlaces of anuisement, he should ob- tain a license from a State board of censors, unless the State has authorized that any motion picture can be shown in such pl.ices which bears a seal of the api)roval by the Federal board of censors. 4. Upon rellection, I hope that President Dyer will realize that a Federal law, such as I advocate, will not increase, but rather greatly diminish the number of censor boards. For I am persuiuled that as soon as there is an effective State and Federal censorship all village and city censorships will (lisapi)ear. It is likely that niauy of the State censor bo:uds will ;!ccei)t the licensing of the Federal board. 5. I hope also he will come to realize in spite of what he has said to the contrary, that while a i>icture, which has been licensed by the censor board, will be still subject to the police power of the State, yet it will be practically impossible to get any court or jury to convict a maker or exhibitor for showing a licensed film. This is true of censored plays in England. 6. Is President Dyer speaking from theory or actual knowledge when lie says that experience teaches us that we must assume the worst, and expect ihat official censorship would be :ulmiuister(>d unfairly? Is he convinced that graft has to be paid in Chicago, in San Francisco, and other ]ilaces. in order to get good pictures api)roved? Is there not an effective remedy, which is in the hands of the motion-picture makers. If they want real justice done? My conviction is that the local jiolice are more likely to be inrtueucetl by graft than are censor boards. Furthermore. Federal and State ceusorshi]) will largely eliminate village and city censorships, and thus v.istly reduce the number of persons who can demand graft. My i)lan would red\ice graft to a miniiuum. 7. When President Dyer speaks of censorship as being contrary to Am.'^rican ideals he argues as if we were living in the days when pow(M' resided in kings, emiierors, l)islio])s. .-iud popes, who acted arbitrarily, and as if I were proposing that we return to what the people have won from them by hard strugg!;'. r<nt it is not so. Power in America now resides in the whole people. I am asking merely th.at the will of the whole people sh.all be effectively executed, ami that criminals, who are breaking the laws and making money by corrupting chil- dren, shall be effectively iirevented from so doiuir. Such criminal motion-picture manuf.Mcturcrs are like the aihitrary kings or bishops of old. who claimed a divine right to make money by robbing the in'ople of their rights. The people who exert tyramiical power to-day are no longer kings, police, or clergy, but unscrniiulous business men who use their v.ist finan- cial res(Uirces to corrupt offici.ils and demoralize the iteople. These are the autocratic iiowers which claim that they ought tf> be free from all law to d"fcat (he will of the peoiile, in order that they may be free to m.iki' money without rest r.M int. President I)y(>r is reiireseuting the reactionary tendency when he says: "It is not iiropeily within the power of any man to tell us or our children wh;)t we shall or shall'not see." For he is denying the i-itizens the right to pass laws which will be for the peoi)le"s w<^lfare in order th.it his own business may make money without iiroper restraint. If the peoi)le decide it is unwise for the children to see bullfights, cockfiglits. naked men or women, the electrocution or