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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MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. 189 ing in behalf of the bilL I will try to get through in an hour, if 1 possible can. Dr. Crafts. AVe think the people of the United States are a good deal more concerned than the small number who are manufacturing these films. Mr. ScHECHTER. But they are going to the people and we are manufacturing them. Dr. Crafts. You represent the small interests that have money in- vested in this motion-picture business, but we represent the great masses of the people Avho are looking at it from the moral stand- point. Mr. Brylawski. Do you know that there are many pictures for church and school purposes—do you not know that? Dr. Crafts. Well, I said there were 400 that I have heard of. (Thereupon the committee adjourned to meet Tuesday, May 19, 1914, at 10 o'clock a. m.) Committee on Education, House of Representative, Tuesday^ May 19,1911^. The committee this day met, Hon. Dudley M. Hughes (chairman) presiding. The Chairman, The committee will hear first this morning from Mr. Schechter. STATEMENT OF JACOB SCHECHTER, ESQ., REPRESENTING THE UNIVERSAL FILM CO., OF NEW YORK, N. Y. Mr. Schechter. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committte, I have read over the transcript of the proceedings of the last hear- ing before the committee, and I find that a great deal which has been said is mere repetition, and I will not take all of the hour and a half which the committee was kind enough to allot to me this morning for the purpose of answering the arguments advanced by the proponents of the bill. I Avill direct my answers particularly to the new matter introduced. Mr. Chairman, I listened very carefully to the remarks of Canon Chase, open-mindedly, w^ithout any preconceived prejudices, and attempted to disassociate myself, so far as possible, from the interests which I represent. But I must say nothing which the canon stated has in any Avay tended to change my opinions that censorship of moving pictures is wrong in principle, unjust, illegal, and unconsti- tutional. On the other hand, I have grown more firm in my convic- tions since listening to him. In the first place, as portions of the bill under consideration by the committee have been discussed and analyzed by Canon Chase, and in view of the fact that the committee has seen fit to call upon me to explain some of the practical results of several sections of the bill, I think it is not out of place at this time to call your attention to the woeful lack of understanding or appreciation by, and the ignorance of, the drafters of the bill with the business attempted to be regulated. 44072—No. 2—14 9