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370 ^> ^> ^> The Motion Picture Industry
Maryland legalized censorship in 1916, New York and Florida in 1921, and Virginia in 1922. 8 The application of censorship has been on a rather large scale. In 1924, for example, New York censors suppressed as indecent 624 films, as inhuman 924, as immoral 816, and as tending to incite crime 1,318. During 1928, 2,532 deletions were made throughout the world in feature pictures, and 869 in short subjects. Pennsylvania, according to the Association of Motion Picture Producers, imposes the severest censorship laws in the United States; Ohio is believed to be second. By 1922 the courts of New York,9 Pennsylvania,10 Kansas,11 and Illinois 12 had sustained as constitutional, under the police power, censorship statutes for motion pictures, including newsreels and educational films. Furthermore, by 1928 censorship was operating, through municipal licensing ordinances, in over 30 cities.13
In addition, several federal censorship bills had been presented in Congress. In 1915, Mr. Hughes in the House of Representatives and Mr. Smith in the Senate introduced legislation to create a federal motion picture commission to be appointed by the President. The commission was to be a part of the Bureau of Education, in the Department of the Interior. The bill provided a six-year term of office, and salaries of $3,500 for members and $4,000 for the chair
8 Md. Laws, 1916, C. 209; N. Y. Laws, 1921, C. 715; Fla. Gen. Laws, 1921, C. 8523; Va. Acts, of Assembly, 1922, C. 257. Connecticut has a species of censorship in the Tax Commissioner (Conn. Laws, 1925, C. 177), as has Massachusetts under Lord's Day Observance Provisions (Mass. Gen. Laws, 1921, C. 136) vested in the Boston Commission of Public Safety.
9 Pat he Exchange, Inc., v. Cobb, 236 N. Y. 535, affirming sans opinion 202 A. D. 450 (1922).
10 Buffalo Branch Mutual Film Corporation v. Brutinger, 250 Penn. State 255 (1915).
11 Photoplay Corporation v. Board of Review, 102 Kansas 356 (1918).
12 Block v. Chicago, 239 111. 251 (1909), declaring constitutional an ordinance which placed films in the class with penny arcades and first declared for preview of films in United States.
13 See "Official Censorship Legislation", pp. 170, 172, of Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (November, 1926). See also Message Photoplay v. Bell, 100 Misc. 267 (1917), reversed 179 A. D. 13 (1917) and Woods v. Gilchrist, 200 A. D. 128 (1922), affd. 233 N. Y. p. 616.