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

76 MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE Mr. Dyer's reply to my contention, thai a Tnited States Federal Censorship will decrease the number of local censorship boards, is amazing. He says: "As. a matter of fact, at the present time films are being censored by the National Board of Censorship, and yet the police authorities of Chicago and other cities insist upon having their own censorship." The reason why Chicago and the States of California, Kansas, Ohio and other places have official boards of censorship is because they know that the so-called National Board of Censorship is neither national nor a board of censorship. It has no official power from the nation or anywhere else. It is composed of some very high-minded people who are giving their valuable services without remuneration. Nevertheless, it is fooling the public. After certain pictures, the audience sees on the screen these words: " Approved by the National Board of Censorship." The gullible public believe that these pictures have really been censored. Here are the reasons wiiich show why the work of this volunteer board is inefficient: because all the manufacturers do not always obey the orders of the board; because, as their expenses and the salaries of their secretaries are paid by the film manufacturers, the board is not free in their decisions ; they work not for the public entirely, but unconsciously for their friends, the film-makers; because the volunteer * 1 censors ' ' are not regular in their attendance, and in their absence the paid secretaries do the "censoring"; because the law does not forbid any pictures to be shown in the theaters without the approval of the board. The Cleveland board of censors has recently rejected 15% of the pictures presented to it, and most of them bore the inscription, "Approved by the National Board of Censorship." "Censorship would increase the confidence in and patronage of Motion Picture shows." My opponent has a curiously interesting argument to show why he approves of a fake censorship which the film-makers control, but opposes a real one which the duly elected representatives of the Government control. He says that the Government does not represent the people, because there are only fifteen millions who vote, out of one hundred million men, women and children who are citizens. The public cannot be beguiled by this argument that the film-makers better represent the will of the people and should, therefore, have exclusive power to say what pictures the American people shall see in the licensed places of amusement. His claim that the film-makers desire large audiences and make pictures which will bring them fails to prove that the filmmakers know what is the moral standard of the whole people or have any desire to satisfy it. Even if it were admitted that the film-makers know the moral standard of the theater-going public, which is only a part of the whole people, these manufacturers are always tempted to make pictures which will sell at once, rather than those which would meet the moral standard even of their patrons, and thus would increase their future receipts. They are like the merchant who, for a large, immediate return, puts an adulterated article in the market, regardless of the fact that he will demoralize his business and decrease his receipts in the future. But the morality of the Motion Picture show should be as high as that of the whole people, and not merely of the theatergoers. The whole people should not allow a small band of business men to make money by manufacturing pictures which, tho not bad enough to arouse the indignation of the theatergoers and lead them to become accusing witnesses in the court, are yet far below