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352 MOTION PICTURES I 922-I 945
we could enlist the public to help us, and thereby to share our huge problem. In obviation of externally imposed legal censorship, we could and did bring the public in on 'our side/' The screen had become, as we lawyers say, "public domain"; it had outgrown the right or the power of any narrow interest to control. And it was a little surprising to find that the public held motion pictures to a higher moral standard than any other form of general entertainment or of writing. Perhaps this was because we made the standard partly the public's responsibility. To me, this gradual development of a unique attitude toward movies was a fascinating thing to watch during the 1920s— and a reassuring thing.
Everybody agreed that the movies needed "something," and the best way I knew to answer public criticism was to welcome it. This meant setting up a genuine, conscientious complaints department and a workable procedure for taking the complaints to Hollywood. "Everybody has two businesses: his own and motion pictures" soon became a by-word around the Association offices. This was our "open door" policy, and it reflected in earnest operation the lessons I had learned from more than twenty years of political activity that "politics is people" and that the enlightened people show irrefutable common sense in choosing the right policies and in seeing that they are carried out. When the most popular after-dinner speech in America became "Let's go to the movies," the public was fully aware of its "half interest" in the business.
The co-operation of newspapers has played a big part in every public cause with which I have been connected. You can count on the American newspapers to be on the right side "when the chips are down." And they know news when they see it. They realized that anything affecting the standards of motion pictures or the theatre-going habits of 80,000,000 people was news, so they gave an enormous total amount of space to our activities, and their interest in turn enabled us to acquaint the public fully with our program. For instance, Harry Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, who previously had not shown special interest in motion pictures, listened to my description of the serious efforts being made to improve movies and arranged a pilgrimage for representatives of something like 1 50 of the country's leading newspapers to Hollywood so they could really see what the motion picture colony was doing. From that day on there was a fairer attitude toward the industry on the part of prominent newspapers.
In announcing our "open door" policy toward the general public, we uncovered voluntary interest that had already taken form in various places. The Indiana lndorsers of Photoplays had been active since 191 5, and in 1922 the Southeastern Conference for Better Films was held in Atlanta, at which was adopted the principle of "selection rather than