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)

76 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. Censorship are, for the nioi-t part, mothers and fathers; a hirge pre- ponderance of them are religious people, connected with churches or identified with organizations that might be classed as uplift organi- zations. Undoubtedly there is not a member of that board who does not think in the terms of the children all the time, and those perscms who thought that these films ought to be presented to the children honestly felt that it was the best way of helping the children; that it would enable them to see Avhat would happen to them, to see that they would end their days in the gutter. Now. on the other hand, many of the members of the board did not take that view of them; they said these pictures ought not to be presented. Mr. TiiACHER. If a majority of the board felt that these films, such as The Lure and similar productions, presenting scenes of vice and houses of prostitution, were good things to present to the chil- dren, it seems to me it is high time for the Government to have censorship. Dr. Howe. The Lure and The Fight were presented in theaters. Mr. Thacher. I mean any picture in which vice is exhibited with flieidea of pre.^enting them as educational features. Dr. Howe. I think I had better read the standards adopted by the board on that subject. Mr. Thacher. I wish ycu would. The Chairman. Doctor, you have taken Dr. Howe (interposing). I know that I have trespassed upon my time, but I would like to read these standards. February 16, 1914. The action of the general committee of the National Board of Censorship on films dealing with the social evil— T think I ought to interpolate that in discussing the white-slave pictures I was endeavoring to show the variety of opinion upon the board and the fact tliat there is a difference of opinion, and that all of these questions are awakening a difference of opinion among all classes of people. But here is the standard finally adopted by the board, and after this was adopted I think there were no pictures dealing with the white-slave traffic approved by the board unless Smashing the Vice Trust might be considered as such, and I doubt if it could: The members (^f the hoard recognize that moving-pictnre houses and the vaudeville I he. iters are in-imarily iilaces of amust>nient and not of serious dis- cussion and ednc-ifion. They .-igi-ee that the only .ir.stitii-ation for the ])ortrayal of the social evil by motion ipictures is that they shall be LHlucational. They further appreciate that the motion i»ictnre, by reason of the lack of <lialogue and the necessity of oiniiliasis on th.e dramatic, is a diHicult medium for this form of education. And tlicy hold that wlucation in tlio normal and abnormal fads of sex is fi;;light with ditticulty jiiid must be bundled with tact and deli- cacy and given under the right surroundings to be effective. These considerations have led the board to agree as follows: The board will critically examine all films presenting various forms of sex lajises. for those clfecls on audiences which ari>uso rather than minimize pas- sion, which tend to iierpetuate the double standard of morality, wlueh reveal easy ways of gratifying desire and t)f m,>king money in the " trade." or which simply indicate the weaknesses of humanity or recite the dreary detail of the lives of those unfortunate mer.ibers of society called prostitutes. Since those who worl<e<! most widely and skillfully on this problem have couA'! to the conclusion that the most fruitful line of i)rocedure is in the region of prevention, the board will give its sujiport to those subjects and Hlms which present facts in a sincere, dramatic way, leading to repression or to the removal of the causes of connierci!'.! or subi'osa jirostitution.