Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb 1914 - Sep 1916 (assorted issues))

64 MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE but unscrupulous business men who use their vast financial resources to corrupt officials and demoralize the people. These are the autocratic powers which claim that they ought to be free from all law to defeat the will of the people, in order that they may be free to make money without restraint. President Dyer is representing the reactionary tendency when he says: "It is not properly within the power of any man to tell us or our children what we shall or shall not see." For he is denying the citizens the right to pass laws which will be for the people 's welfare in order that his own business may make money without proper restraint. If the people decide it is unwise for the children to see bullfights, cockfights, naked men or women, the electrocution or hanging of criminals, or the picturing any crime in such detail as to suggest or teach crime, no body of men has any divine right to exhibit them. If Ave see a man is about to commit murder or theft, we do not let him do it and then punish him. We stop him. If a picture will excite children to theft and lust, we ought to take the most effective way to prevent the picture doing harm. President Dyer ought not to object to official censorship on the ground that a few persons thereby determine what the people may see. For a few film manufacturers are deciding that today. The censors represent the welfare of the people. The film-makers represent the business interests involved. The will of the people should prevail. If the state can more effectively prevent such sights from the public gaze by preliminary inspection of Motion Pictures than by punishment after the crime has been committed, the state has an absolute right to do the most effective thing — nay, it is its duty to do so. The people have the "The censor represents the welfare of the people; the filmmakers, the business interests involved. The will of the people should prevail." right to enact laws of prevention as well as of cure. The individual has no divine right to see what he pleases, and thus compel the state to punish crime after it occurs, instead of taking effective methods to prevent it. The effect of the censor law which I am advocating, does not apply to nor restrain the ordinary citizen from showing any picture he desires in any place without previous inspection. It applies only to the business man who makes a living from Motion Pictures. Because of the great temptation, which assails the Motion Picture man, to make money by demoralizing children, I maintain that it is the duty of the nation to prevent this demoralization by demanding a preliminary inspection of his pictures. 8. When President Dyer says that ' ' the suggestion of censorship is a denial of personal liberty, of free speech and of a free press,' ' he clearly indicates that he, lawyerlike, is referring to censorship, government and liberty as defined in the laws of ancient Rome, and not as used in free America of today. Censorship today means licensing of what comes up to the moral standard, by persons from whose decision there is a legal appeal. It does not mean, as in Rome, the exercise of any absolutely arbitrary power. When the government emanates from one man, like an emperor or czar, from whom there is no appeal, the exercise of any governmental power is a denial of personal liberty. But when the sovereign power resides in the people, then any law enacted for the welfare of the whole people is to establish personal liberty. It cannot be considered a denial of personal liberty, no matter how effectively it may restrain men from carrying out their wicked purposes. The personal liberty of the whole community makes it necessary to re