Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1921 - Mar 1922)

January 21, 1922 EXHIBITORS HERALD 47 Read Page 27 "Plan to Launch School for Producing Moral Reformers" is the caption of a story published on page 27 of this issue. The headline itself discloses the menacing possibilities of the reform activities. Reading of the story will acquaint exhibitors with the program of one of the leading reform organizations. PUBLIC RIGHTS LEAGUE Screen Message No. 38 The first principle upon which the founding of this nation was based is FREEDOM OF WORSHIP and this means that the individual may select any form of worship or reject all of them. Hence, those who would seek to dictate how the Sabbath should be observed are enemies to the Spirit of America. PUBLIC RIGHTS LEAGUE. Stuffing Morals Down Our Necks Judge Ben Lindsey of Denver, as good a friend as the women and children of a city ever had, took a good brain to the bench and continued using it after he got there. In New York yesterday he described the prevailing idiotic mania for censorship well. "Censorship will weaken moral character, preventing its development, by taking from youth the responsibility of choosing the right path, and from parents the directing of children." Judge Lindsey comes in contact with hundreds of girls and hears their sad stories. He knows that the real troubles of youth are not reached by superficial censorship. * * * The duty of police and courts to punish indecency, flagrant immorality and incentives to either is plain. And it should remain the duty of police and courts. Enlightening and amusing is some work of highly intellectual censors that read and change moving pictures. For instance, in Philadelphia, the censors saw a picture, "All for a Woman," deal An editorial by Arthur Brisbane of the Hearst papers so aptly expresses the opinions of the motion picture industry that it has been published herewith in full. Propaganda of this nature is valuable to the industry in its fight against legal regulation, and exhibitors should not fail to make proper use of it in their programs and press advertising. ing with the French revolution. Danton makes a fool of himself and a subtitle reads, "He who neglects his duty to the state to revel with wantons is an enemy of the people." The order of the censor reads, "Eliminate the word 'wantons' from the subtitle." Isn't that deliciously "pure"? How fortunate for Timothy, Isaiah and the plain-spoken James that they died before the censors arrived! Timothy wrote : "But younger widows refuse; for when they have waxed wanton against Christ, they desire to marry." James wrote : "Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton." Magnificent old Isaiah tells you that the Lord has used the word that pure Philadelphia censors forbid. Read the sixteenth verse, thirty-third chapter — and, by the way, read all Isaiah, if only to improve your English, before the censors get it : "Moreover, the Lord said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet." What would the pure censors do to that beautiful verse? The whole censorship nonsense will prove whether or not Americans are mental vertebrates or jellyfish. In Paris they feed chickens, and in Strassburg geese, by stuffing food down their necks. Are we to take our morality in that fashion? Pledge 1 realize the existence of a concerted movement on the part of radical reformers to establish a dictatorship over the motion picture industry through the enactment of drastic and un-American laws. Knowing that immediate action must be taken to maintain the freedom of the screen, I pledge myself to the cause of the PUBLIC RIGHTS LEAGUE, my only obligation to be that I will use, whenever conditions permit, the slide of the LEAGUE, and in this manner do my part in arousing public sentiment against this radical and oppressive legislation. (Sign and mail tt Exhibitors Herald, 417 South Dearborn street, Chicago, if yon wish to become a member of the LEAGUE) Name Theatre City r Order Your Slides EXHIBITORS HERALD, 417 South Dearborn street, Chicago, 111. Send me, free of charge, the series of twelve slides which the Herald is supplying to exhibitors in furtherance of the PUBLIC RIGHTS LEAGUE campaign to maintain the freedom of the motion picture. I will run each slide at every performance for one week when conditions permit of this arrangement. Name (Write name and address legibly) rheatre Street City