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THE FIRST YEAR IN HOLLYWOOD, I922-I923 327
betray them by becoming a political front-runner for a contaminated product.
But I knew I was still opposed to censorship.
The processes of democracy are long and slow and often discouraging. But I have always believed that the principle of self-regulation, as contrasted with regulation from without, will take firm root if given a chance; that, if watered by patience and optimism (a patience that seems weakness to reformers, and an optimism beyond discernible reason), the principle will at length flourish and prove lasting. This is because selfregulation educates and strengthens those who practice it.
And I have always felt that in a democratic commonwealth each business, each industry, and each art has as much right to, and as much duty toward, self-regulation as has the general citizenry to self-government. This, I understand, was the fundamental idea behind the medieval trade guilds— the ancestors of our professional associations as well as of our labor unions.
Now the motion picture men had proposed an Association. That was their own idea, and they were kind enough to ask me to be the head of it. All these considerations made me determine that my office would not be a mere control tower, nor would I be a "czar," but that our Association would function democratically .
However, acting as missionary for the democratic concept of "home rule" and self-regulation was only half my job, as I envisioned it. The other half was to educate the movie-going public.
Right here someone is going to ask the question: "If the producers were not giving the public what it wanted, how could they stay in business?"
The answer to that is twofold: first, they were in some danger of not remaining in business, and not merely because of reform leagues and angry legislators. Gross receipts, so large during World War I and in the early post-war period, had begun to decline. At the time I became spokesman only one banker, Otto H. Kahn, would do business with the industry at all. This one exception may be explained by Mr. Kahn's well-known benevolence toward anything artistic or even potentially artistic. He had endowed the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York, had built the Century Theatre, and later, although not a Catholic, had become the philanthropic mainstay of the Catholic Writers' Guild.
The second part of the answer is that it cannot be moral or licit to supply an immoral or illicit demand. This is readily apparent in the case of the bootlegger, the smuggler, the narcotic peddler, and the pander. None of these things is legitimate. The motion picture industry was legitimate per se, and potentially a great force for good.
But self-regulation alone would not be enough. To make it worth while, a demand had to be created for finer films. There were co