The memoirs of Will H. Hays (1955)

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FULL STEAM AHEAD 46 1 ation's Articles of Incorporation had stated one of the ways of fostering "the common interests of those engaged in the motion picture industry in the United States" to be "by securing freedom from unjust or unlawful exactions/' we tried to use our good offices in helping to answer unjust attacks and to avoid unlawful exactions. Among the measures contemplated in various states in 1937 were a 2 per cent admissions tax, the raising of censoring fees from $18 to $120 a feature, "control of sponsored commercial films in theatres/' the "exclusion of newsreel cameramen from courtrooms," and the requiring of "a toilet for every 150 theatre seats." Our industry was a happy hunting ground! That hardy perennial, bureaucratic censorship, naturally had a much harder time to keep alive in the face of improved Code administration. As Variety picturesquely put it in the autumn of 1936, "Picture Censors Jittery. Joebreening to K.O. their jobs." (Joe Breen was the efficient head of the Production Code Administration.) "Self-Regulation by Hollywood Leaves Little or Nothing for Sundry Censors to Do." Both press and public were overwhelmingly with the industry in resisting the arbitrary, illogical, or humorless decisions of official censors. Both believed in self-censorship by the industry and were sporting enough to say, "Give 'em a fair chance." Langdon Post came out with the crisp statement, "Censors are incompetent." And the Committee of Catholic Bishops, as eager as anyone to see moral standards preserved, had no use for political censorship. As part of our educational publicity program, a wealth of humorous press comment was published by the Association in June of 1936 under the title Concience by Proxy— Americas Indictment of Censorship. Right here I want to take my hat off to that great American institution, the cartoon, and the artist-philosopher-satirists who have made this medium of expression such a force in American life. In my own public activities the cartoon seems to have played quite a role. Plentv of times I was the subject, with my big ears as the favorite trademark. Once when Ring Lardner wrote a piece about me, it was illustrated by a drawing showing me as a traffic cop, with the legend: "Traffic had to detour around his ears." It was in the same vein that Irene Dunne, at an Indiana Society dinner in Chicago, pulling my ear, referred to me as "the Clark Gable of Indiana." The great cartoonists have stood right alongside the great editors as molders of public opinion. Two of the most distinguished— both good friends of mine— whose work began in 1896, come to mind. Our grand Hoosier, John T. McCutcheon, born in Tippecanoe County in 1 870, was one of the great figures on the Chicago Tribune for almost half a century. Indiana was always proud of him. I remember when I was a sophomore in Wabash College how we followed in the papers his trip around the world on a U.S. dispatch boat. It was through his eyes and his drawings, made on board during our