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)

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44 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. 24 hours—i)ut he dictated to his stenographer the order denying the petition, nialiing tlie injunction permanent. Now, the tAvo men were then arraigned before the special sessions. In New York County a charge of misdemeanor does not carry with it the right of jury trial. That is optional with the supreme court, and these men moved for a jury trial, thinking that 12 men might be found, who, by liaving a lot of reformers appear in favor of such exhibitions, might be swayed and might be induced to say. "AVell. the thing has an educational value; it has a deterrent value." But 12 men were selected, and the jury f(;und these men guilty, after seeing the pictures. I think that is the American way of doing things. In Kussia it would have been different. In Prussia it would have been different.. There the police would have said, "We want (o look at every picture before you dare to put it on the screen." Mr. Powers. I have no doubt but that tlie common law in all the States of the I^nion. aside from any statutory enactments, is amply sufficient to take care of tlie situation. The only point is this: That the public goes to .see these things and thev see them exhibited and sometimes they are obnoxious to the better taste of patrons, and they go aAvay and they say, " Oh. well. I will not take the time or trouble to look into it and bring the parties to justice." It looks to me as if that is the greatest loophole, as the matter now stands. Mv. Brsii. Of course, you will appreciate that there is a sharp line of demarcation in such matters between taste and ethics. Mr. Powr:i:s. Oh, yes: but I mean those pictures which are suffi- ciently obnoxious to compel people to say away fi-om them. Mr. Bi'sii. Exactly. You take the average audience that goes to motion pictures, and I do not care whether you go to the fashionable West Side or whether you go away over on the Lower East Side, but I think that in every aggi'egation of normal human beings there is a point where we all feel that certain things oHVnd that instinct which has been bred in us through centuries of civilization, and (hat is offensive; that is bad. and we do not want that. That was the very question at issue before tlie court of general sessions at the trial of these men who were charged with an indecent exhil)ition in dis- playing these white-slave films. That was the Acry question. Ml-. TirAciiKif. You refer to the pictures displaying the white-salve trade and the fact that they wei'e brought into coui-t afterward, and. very properly, were covered by the vState law. Ol' coiu'se, I unck'r- stand that the State hiws ihi-oughout the several States would cover cases of that sort. Mr. Bt'sir. Yes, sir. Mr. TiiACiiKK. If the pictur<'s are indecer.t or (ibiecti()nal)le? Mr. Brsii. Exactly. Mr. TiiAciiKij. liut dangerous lihn.s arc not coxered by the law. For e.\ain|)h'. couhl not a fibn be (hmgerons witliout being indecent; and that would not be co\ered by the law. would it ( Mr. Bi'sii. I do not think so. Mr. TiiAciiKR. Did you s(>e a statcnicnl iimdc 1»\ a judge a few wee]<s ago that he thought the tendency to criuu- among cliihh'cn had been increased by the fa^'t that tilnis showing bnrghirs and other criminals as heroes had had a bad effect upon them t Do you remem- ber that statement by a Xew York judge? Ml'. Brsn. Yes: T ha\e seen that statemtMit.