Motion Picture Commission : hearings before the Committee on Education, House of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, second session, on bills to establish a Federal Motion Picture Commission (1978)

22 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. " I think a play of au immoral teudeucy can do very mucli harm, much more harm, I think, than the press. These things are said in public, and laughed at by a great number of people night after night, and I think it is calculated to do more harm than an article which is read privately." One of the reasons why motion pictures need to be censored is because of their unusual attractiveness for children and for those who never attend the more expensive theaters or other forms of entertainment. Fully 25 per cent, and perhaps 50 per cent, of the audience at motion pictures are children. This form of amusement makes no demand of punctuality, of patience, or of intelligence. Those who can not understand the English language and those who can not read at all are attracted. It affords a cheap and comfortable lounging place. This is one of the reasons why it has injured the saloon business. "How did you like the show to-night?" asked an exhibitor of one of the boys. "Fine; I would rather see how to build a bridge and a railroad than to see how to rob a bank." Fifteen hundred children in Cleveland wrote essays telling about motion pictures, and what kind of pictures thoy liked best. Only 2G said they pre- ferred pictures of crime; 421 preferred scenes of western life; 292 scientific and educational; 283 the drama : 241 comedy; and 224 war. The Supreme Court of Illinois, the highest court in that State, twice uiumi- mously decided that municipal officii! 1 censorship of motion pictures in Chicago, similar to the one propsed for New York City, violates no constituti<^:inl pro- vision. It was done in April, 1909, in the case of Block et al. r. City of Chicago (239 111., 251). The claim that the Chiciigo censorship of motion pictures violated the free- dom of the ])ress was so absurd that the lawyers of the motion-picture manu- facturers did not think it worth while to present to the atention of the court. In none of the many cases of appeal, which have been made in the vai-ious States against censorship on account of unconstitutionality, has the conten- tion been sustained by the courts, so far as I have been able to learn. If the case now pending concerning the Ohio censorship law should result in de- claring the Ohio law to be unconstitutional, it will not affect my contention, for the Ohio law is more sweeping in its provisons than any moderate and reasonable restriction, such as I have ever advocated, and is much more open to the charge of improperly restraining the freedom of the press. SKCOND ARTICLE FOR THE NK(1.\T1VE, I5Y PRESIDENT DYER. The argument of Canon Chase, supporting censorship, is based largely on rhe assumption that unless pictures are made to conform to the moral views of the cen-sors, their exhibition will <lemorali'/e cliildrea. In several plac<>s he j-efers to the "rights of childhood," by which apparently he means the right of a child to be protected from seeing an uncensored motion picture. Of cour.se. neither in law, nor ethics, nor morals, does any such right exist. It is not the duty of the State to protect the children in the way projiosed by Canon Chase. It is the duty of parents, the natural guardians of children, to protect them from contamination. This is the gravest responsibility of parcnth<iod, and it must not be shirked, nor must its burdens be tossed upon the insecure shoulders of the State. If the State is to assume this burden, then I ask what will the State do in enforcing the " rights of childhood " in connection with other forms of entertainment and aniu.<:ementV What about the regular theater? Are children to be allowed to attend dramatic performances, or are they to be «Mitirely excluded, or is the drama to be censored, as in l-^ngland? What about the newsijapers? \ child on the lookout for evil, or a supersensi- tive one, can tiild nuuh that is suggestive in probably every \v.\\)or published In the United States. Are books to be censored? Canon Chase unist realize that to a sui)ersensitive child literature contains much that is suggestive, and. froni his viewpoint, probably immoral. If there be such a thing as the "rights of childhood" that can be infringed by the exhibition of uut-ensored motion pictures, then I submit in :ill seriousness that those rights are just as effectively infringed by the ordinary drama, l)y newspapers, and by literature, and I insist that the same arguments in support of a censorship of motion pictures apply with equal force to the censorship of the stage, of newsp.ipers, and of books. When I speak of censorshi|) I dc not mean the ellniination of perfectly plain in-stances of indecency and innuorality, because no one questions for a moment the effectiveness of our laws lo protect the public mind from such