The memoirs of Will H. Hays (1955)

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462 MOTION PICTURES I922-I945 war against Spain— including the battle of Manila Bay— that many of us saw these events. Clifford Berryman, on the other hand, was born in Kentucky and came to cartooning from the field of general illustration. It was his drawing of me in the Washington Star, as someone being kidnaped from the Post Office Department by movie bandits, that drew attention to a transition that seemed to many people inexplicable. Both the editorial comments and cartoons were sprightly, to say the least, with censorship taking quite a beating. By the mid-thirties we had made real gains. The Charlottesville (Va.) Progress commented: "The activities of the Board are completely useless inasmuch as they merely duplicate the strict code of the Hays Office, and they cost the people some $25,000 every year." So it looked as if, by sticking to our objectives, we were at least making progress, and the "Joebreening" had reached a point where many people felt that the situation was getting fairly well in hand by 1936 or 1937. Among the interesting events of this period, illustrative of a type of attack which often threatened and which I had to try to forestall, was my meeting with Father Charles Edward Coughlin at his Shrine of the Little Flower at Royal Oak, near Detroit, in August of 1934. This was shortly after the Production Code Administration had gotten under way. For some time Father Coughlin's had been a voice of wide influence. His broadcasts were listened to in many homes. His pronouncements on any subject were accepted by thousands, possibly millions, of people. He had built up a great army of loyal followers, as well as a conscientious opposition. Here was a public relations factor of consequences: if he were publicly to take any strong position on the movies, it must be reckoned with. In midsummer of 1934 a report did reach me to the effect that Father Coughlin planned to make a speech in the Chicago Coliseum in the near future in which he was going to attack motion pictures. It was further reported that he was likely to use motion pictures as the means of an attack on the Jews, claiming that they dominated the business, and blaming its evils on them. There seemed to be too much substance to the report to overlook it. From my viewpoint, any such pronouncement would be not only intolerance but intolerable. Such a thing must not happen if it could be avoided. Under the circumstances a face-toface talk was the only thing. Having already planned to go up to Leland, Michigan, to spend a few days with my brother and his family, I decided to stop off at Detroit and call on Father Coughlin. He had the reputation of being a tough opponent in a fight, but politics had introduced me to a number of tough opponents, and I had found that the right side of a question could usually stand up. But I believed this should be handled as a confidential mission. Seeking in advance whatever information I could get as to Father