The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

November, 1943 Page 339 associated for the purpose of presenting a united front. There are some com- panies of fair importance which are not members. From the time of the Patents wars there had been efforts to form and main- tain theatrical trade associations, more among exhibitors and distributors than among producers. Local "film clubs" and motion picture boards of trade were es- tablished throughout the land, and, in 1920, the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of .'\merica was set up as the national body, with many State organizations af- filiated. In the widening geographical interests of American business in that period, the extending lines unobstructed by frontiers as in many other countries, industrial protective associations .laturally arose in all activities and, while these steps of the film men were of much practical good in correcting methods of operation and lifting ethical standards, they did not fully meet the attacks of other groups much older and more com- pactly united. However, the attacks, being made with such concerted power, made the film men painfully conscious of their own weaknesses in defense machinery, and they sought a better means of mobilizing their forces. As it happened, in 1920, a striking ex- ample was set for all other industries which had found themselves uncom- fortably in the public eye. Organized baseball had been led by serious criti- cism of the commercialization of popular sports to appoint an arbiter of its own behavior. Kenesaw Mountain Landis, distinguished judge in the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois, resigned to become commissioner for the American and National Leagues of Professional Baseball Clubs. His vigorous handling of his new duties resulted in an immediate correction of the threatening public at- titude and a decided improvement of base- hall itself. American film men took this salutary demonstration as a useful hint, and de- cided to replace their own impersonal committee decisions with the executive acts of a recognized, individual head. They might just as well have profited from the example of our native form of Govern- ment. Many celebrated names were con- sidered for this responsible place, but the choice eventually fell upon Will H. Hays, said to have been a protege of that organization genius, the Morgan partner, George W. Perkins, lie had been Post- master-General of the United States and head of the Republican National Com- mittee in the presidential campaign which placed Warren G. Harding in office. Hays resigned his high Government place to become, March 4, 1922, president of the M.P.P.D.A., with headquarters in New York City. The incorporation papers were formally completed about a week later. The problems confronting him were ex- traordinary and extremely difficult of solution; but he managed them so skill- fully that, at the time of this writing, lie has held his unenviable post by acclaim of the majority for jj^enty-one years, with an indefinite further number in prospect. The chief menace to the film iridustry, when "General" Hays took com- mand, was in an impending political censorship of all motion pictures—some- thing that in my opinion would have been as disastrous to non-theatricals as to the "professional" theatre. Enemies contended that scandals in private lives of a few motion picture stars had proved the inability of the motion picture to govern itself, and called upon Congress to take over the responsibility. The first efforts of Hays in the main, therefore, were to avert censorship. While it was a task of herculean proportions, he could find encouragement in the calm opinion of most thinking .Americans outside the film industry, that censorship in any national form would be a major catas- trophe, with clergy and schoolmen among the most agonized sufferers. Will Hays works for the theatrical motion picture industry. He serves the non-theatrical field as long as its activities do not interfere. Surely this attitude is reasonable. In 1922, time of the approximate start of "the visual education movement," Hays was to be found, in a Boston ad- dress, inviting the schoolmen of the country to benefit from the waiting, will- ing and anxious cooperation of theatrical producers and exhibitors. A year later, at the Oakland, California, General Ses- sions of the National Education Associa- tion, Charles H. Judd, as chairman of a special committee to cooperate with the motion picture producers, reported that the M.P.P.D.A., had financed a meeting in New York to bring the committee into direct contact, giving said com- mittee $5,000 with which to conduct a study. Crandall, of the New York City Schools, selected films from the vaults of the producers for members to see and to choose for their own purposes; and F. Dean McClusky, of the University of Illi- nois, Miss A. Loretta Clark, of the Los .Angeles public school system, and Charles Roach, of the extension division of the University of Iowa, were sent to visit forty-two schools, universities and mu- seums where "educational" films were em- ployed. The report then presented by Dr. Judd at the General Sessions was that: 1. Fire risks observed call for leg- islation; 2. The next succeeding committee must not attempt censorship or ap- prove any projector or film; 3. Experiment and research must be undertaken; 4. Entertainment films must be in- vestigated in their relation to cla.ss work; and, 5. It is certain that only meager information is available now. The next succeeding committee ap- parently did not hew to the line despite the admonitions given, for, at the San Francisco meeting of the National Coun- cil of Education, the spokesman delivered a violent attack on the motion picture producers. This seems to have squashed further development; and one must look for a report entitled "A Last Word," published in the Journal of the National Education Association in 1925, to see the official end of it. However, the work of the teachers interested in communicating their "visual education" experiences to fellow members went on and flourished regardless, one might say, of either the Hays Office or the N.E.A. Skirmishes with exhibitors in various parts of the country had put many ex- cellent organizations in a hostile frame of mind and, while their leaders declared a short truce when Hays was placed at the head of the M.P.P.D.A. to see what he might do, it was maintained in a state of cold distrust. When it was then dis- covered that Hays would not commit himself wholly to their views of the situation, they poured their vials of wrath on him as the visible head of a supposedly outlaw industry. One of the most militant attackers was Mrs. Charles E. Merriam, of Chi- cago, chairman of the Better Films Com- mittee of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. In that position she had long condemned professional producers for their manufacture of al- legedly salacious pictures. In June, 1924, w hen she resigned to become head of the newly organized Film Councils of -America, which was to have broader scope in ticketing recommended films for various age levels, she continued her charges and insinuations. In an opening announcement of her Film Councils she said in small part: The one thing we may be sure of now is that no one connected in any way with the motion picture in- dustry is in our organization. The game of the producers has been to put some of their paid workers into every organization which has opposed them at all and then to create a feel- ing of distrust among the other workers. It has been tragic to see how the industry has been able to put into places of responsibility, es- pecially into the departments controll- ing motion picture action, the wives of attorneys for the industry and others who could be relied upon to do their bidding. . . . The industry realizes that the movie theatre is the poor man's club, and if its backers are interested in drawing the poor man's sons and daughters into lives of vice and crime, there is no easier way to do it than to portray to them constantly such scenes as they are