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MOTION PICTUKE COMMISSION. 43 Mr. Bush. Xo; it Avoiild not, but you mi^yht as Avell remember that there is not one picture made in this country Mr. Powers (interposing). That is not interstate commerce. Mr. Bush. That is not in interstate commerce. Mr. Powers. One other question on that point, if I may? Mr. Bush. Certainly. Mr. Powers, You say that the laws are ample now to deal with every obscene or objectionable motion picture which may be dis- played to the public? Mr. Bush. Yes, sir. Mr. Powers. Now, just what laws do we have? I mean the gist of the Federal laws on that question, if you know? Mr. Bush. I can not say that I am sufficiently familiar with the Federal lav/s to answer that question as fully and as intelligently as it ought to be answered, but, as far as the various State statutes are concernedL, at common law in every State an indecent exhibition is a misdemeanor. Mr. Powers. Yes; I know. Mr. Bush. And I know that the Federal authorities exercise close scrutiny over the publication of obscene and immoral pictures. Mr. Fess. I see your point of view there. Censorship looks to prevention. Mr. Bush. Precisely. Mr. Fess. And absence of censorship would look to a j-emedy afler the thing is done? Mr. Bush. Exactly, Mr. Fess. To remedy the error? ]\rr. Bush. Exactly. Mr. Fess. And while it is a question with me how far we ^^hould go on censoring anything, yet I am wondering whether there would not be less harm to come, all things being considered, from the exer- cise of a censoring agency rather than to wait until after the thing is done and hope for a remedy. For example, take the newspapers. In the freedom of the press we go u}:)on this basis: Print Avhat you want to, hut you will be responsible f'^r a suit. Now, I can see both sides there, and it seems to me that it is an open field, but I am not quite sure that censoring would do more harm than the other. Mr. Bush. Well, it is just as you point out. The punishment of the overt act is now Avithin the power of the law. We have the juris- diction to do that now, and that is ample. All law, after all, is noth- ing but a crystallization of public sentiment. Mr. Fess, You are not in doubt at all as to whether or not that is ample ? Mr. Bush. My doubts have been entirely dissipated since the con- viction of the men in NeA\ York, whose example I have just cited, Avho showed pictures purporting to portray the horrors of the so- called white-slave traffic, I was present when the question of an in- junction against the place, after they had decided to interfere, came up before Justice Gavegan in tiie supreme court, and Justice Gavegan in the opinion that he wrote, said that there was not any doubt at all that at common law the portrayal of scenes in the interior of a house of prostitution constituted an indecent exhibition within the meaning of the statute, and he not only denied the petition to make the temporary injunction permanent—the injunction had only been alive