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

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70 MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE assert that I, and not Canon Chase, am asking that the will of the whole people shall be executed. It seems to me that the worthy Canon is a little extreme in his denunciation of "criminal Motion Picture manufacturers" and "unscrupulous business men who use their vast financial resources to corrupt officials and demoralize the people." No one can be convinced, no matter with what heat the charge may be made, that the American people as a whole are being contaminated by Motion Pictures, or that the manufacturers are deliberately putting out objectionable and immoral pictures. Pictures are not exhibited secretly; they are shown always in such a public way that any violation of law can be immediately reached. The laws of our country prevent the showing of indecent, immoral, suggestive and obscene pictures. Merely because the laws do not prevent the showing of pictures that Canon Chase may object to, but which other equally good men may not object to, is surely not a valid argument for censorship. 8. Canon Chase denies that censorship is an invasion of personal liberty, because the law creating the censors would be the will of the people. He knows very well that any question of voting does not represent the will of the majority at all. For instance, roughly speaking, we have a population of one hundred million people, and the electoral vote is not far from fifteen million, or about one in seven. If a bare majority, therefore, should advocate censorship, it means that one person in every fourteen, having weakly forfeited his liberty, insists that thirteen others shall be considered to have done likewise. The good Canon says: "Censorship today means licensing of what comes up to the moral standard of persons from whose decision there is a legal appeal. " If he is prepared to admit that any decision of the censors that might be contrary to law would in fact be remedied by appeal, or, in other words, if the censors in their decisions before the exhibition of a picture would go no further than the courts might go in their decisions afti r the exhibition of a picture, then I submit that this is an admission that censorship is not necessary. If the laws are rigidly and properly enforced, as of course they should be, then all that my opponent contends for would be accomplished, and the accomplishment would be brought about in an orderly, lawful and proper way. Theater owners are intelligent enough to know whether a picture is or is not wrong, and if they have any doubts they can either refuse to run the picture or bring it to the attention of the police authorities. Is it not one of the fundamental ideas of American liberty that every man shall be presumed to be innocent until the contrary is established? Surely no one will dispute this contention. Now, a Motion Picture does not create itself. It does not form itself out of thin air. It is the creature of a human mind. If, therefore, a picture is adjudged immoral, indecent, or obscene, it follows that the producers of such a picture are guilty of a violation at least of the moral law, and such violations always carry the penalty of failure and disgrace. Are not the producers of Motion Pictures entitled to a presumption of innocence ? Must they first establish the fact that they are not guilty of immorality and of obscenity before they are allowed to put their pictures on the market ? It seems almost ridiculous to ask this question, yet Canon Chase asserts with painstaking confidence that the Motion Picture producer is not entitled to the presumption of innocence that should be accorded to the humblest citizen. Thus he sa}Ts: "I am not advocating the suppression or destruction of unlicensed Motion Pictures, but only that they shall not be shown in places of public amusement until it has been proved that they meet the moral standard of the public statutes. I am asking that no doubtful Motion Picture shall be granted any special privileges by the government until it has proved its right in the courts to enjoy the confidence of the fathers and mothers of our land."