Juvenile delinquency (1955)

228 JUVENILE DELINQUENCY in trying to expose and ferret out and get these people to stop doing a lot of things they are doing. Mr. Jacobs. Well, Senator, we would bo opposed to even industry codes such as were discussed here this afternoon. We would think that this is a form of censorship. You say self-imposed censorship. It seems to us that the good taste and intelligence of the American people is a forceful guide and a sufficient guide to a mass media as to what goes on the screen. We don't think that anybody has the right to determine for anybody else what they ought to see on the screen or what they ought to read within the limits of what you indicate your- self, that is of salacious material. But salacious material can be han- dled by coast pu lication, trial if necessary. If somebody publishes an obscene book, he could be tried. While prior censorship of this means that some group of individuals, in this case in the movie industry, hap- pens to determine what all of us shall see on the screen. Now, perhaps wo might agree with that. But on the other hand, it sets a kind of uniformity and a kind of conformity of the pattern of all the movies that we see, and I'm not sure that we think that that is a desirable thing. We would rather when people complain, and that I am sure they do, and I am sure that their complaint is quite legitimate about what they see in the movies or what they see on television or what they read. It seems to us that the simplest solution is for them not to look at these things. It's a very simple matter to shut the television set otl'. It's a simple matter not to go to a movie if one thinks it is a bad film, and certainly children ought to be directed by their parents. We subscribe to this completely. If a parent thinks a lilm is a bad film, he ought not to allow his child to see that film. But for adults— and it's extremely difficult to censorship something for children with- out ending up censoring it for adults—it seems to us that the whole concept of democracy is based on a man's individual right to choose for himself what he wants. And there are lots of people who Avould think James Joyce Ulysses is an obscene book. I don't happen to think so. I wouldn't force them to read the book. On the other hand, I wouldn't like the book publishers to say to me that I can't read it. Chairman Kefauver. Mr. Jacobs, of course in the movie code and the other codes that we have, I think it should be pointed out that a producer doesn't have to work with the code authorities uidess he wants to. lie can go on and write his plays and then get them pro- duced and get pictures to show it. It is just a voluntary method of trying to meet certain standards that the\' have imposed on tliem- selves. I can appreciate that in a highly technical, legalistic sense that you do have a point. On the otlier hand, we all censor ourselves a certain amount even in our own person. We say we have freedom of speech. That doesn't give us freedom to go out on the street and curse and take the Lord's name in vain and call ])eople bad names, to expose ourselves. Mr. Norman Thomas for whom I know 3^ou have great respect wrote us a letter in New York when we were there and asked for per- mission to testify. We didn't call him; he came himself. The burden of his testimony was that while he has been the greatest defender of civil liberties always, he was in favor of outright censorship of the pornographic material. You remember his testimony. Mr. Jacobs. Yes; I do.