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)

MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. 29 qualified to pass ui)ou such intricate, psychological questions as are necessary to determine what would be the moral effect of certain pictures ui)on the minds of children. The author of the " Inside of the White Slave Tratfic." which the local police and courts of New York City have condemned as tending to corrupt the morals of youth, is said to be in favor of official censorship, because he believes that such a board would be better qualified intellectually and artistically to de- termine the moral purpose which he claims has inspired his production. Mr. Dyer's reply to my contention that a United States Federal censorship will decrease the number of local censorship boards is amazing. He says: "As a matter of fact, at the i)resent time films are being censoi'ed by the National Board of Censorsliip, 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 Censorshij)." The gullible public believe that these pictures have really been censored. Here are the reasons which show why the work of this volunteer boaid is ineflicient: 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 fi iends, the film makers. Because the volunteer " censors " are not regu- lar in their attendance, and in their absence the paid secretaries do the " censor- ing "; because the law does not forbid any pictures to be shown in the theaters without the approval of the board. The Cleveland board of censoi s has recently rejected 15 per cent of the pictures presented to it, and most of them bore the inscription "Approved by the National Board of Censorship." My opponent has a curiously interesting argument to show why he approves of a fake censorship which the film makei's control, but opposes a real one which the duly elected representatives of the Government control. He says that the (Government does not represent the peoi)le, because there are only 15,000.000 who vote out of 100,000,000 men. women, and children who are citizens. The public can not be beguiled by this argiunent 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 ;>liices of amusement. His claim that the film makers desire large audiences and make pictures which will bring tliem fails to prove that the film makers 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 j)ublic. which is only a part of the whole peojile, these manufacturers are always temi)ted to make pictures which will sell at once, rr.ther than those which would meet the moi-al 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, regard- less 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 i)eople, and not merely of the theater goers. The whole peo))le should not allow a small band of business men to make money by manufacttir- ing pictures which, though not bad enough to arouse the indignation of the theater goers and lead them to become accusing witnesses in the court, are yet far below the moral standards of tlie peo])le. My opponent's charge that I am a dreamer, longing for the impossible, and his rejection of my claim that censorshii) such as I would advocate would lucreaso the confidence in and the patronage of motion-jiicture shows, is not ratified by the results of censorship in Cleveland. Mr. K. (). I>artlio]omew, the head of the censor board there, says that the attendance has increased since the censorshi]) I.nw there went into operation. Motion j)ictures, with proper reasonable official censorship, do not teach young children the morals of the underworld nor give them the impression that what