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. 61 liberal the laws may be in any given State if the national law says that a film shall not go in interstate commerce that prohibits it, and the only question with regard to interstate jurisdiction would be this: If, after the national board had declared that the film was un- objectionable, then some State might declare it to be objectionable and hold it up. In other words, it would only be operative in a nega- tive sense. You say that the censorship of a nation is tyrannical? Is it any more tyrannical than the power which is exercised by the Nation now in excluding objectionable matter from the mails? Mr. Bush. So far as I recollect, I have not characterized the cen- sorship as tyrannical. Mr. TowisER. Well, I think that term was my own, Mr. Bush. But I do know, on the authority of one of the greatest statesmen that ever lived and one of the greatest lights in the history of the English race, John Milton, that ever since we have had censor- ship, ever since it has become known to mankind in all ages, that it has invariably been and it must needs be the engine of suppression and tyranny. Mr. Towner. Well, we have a great many engines of suppression and tyranny, according to that general definition. Let me call your attention to another exercise of this arbitrary power on the part of the General Government, that is, as to the determination in advance, by the exercise of this absolute power of censorship, as to what form of advertisement regarding questionable enterprises, fraud enterprises, might or might not be sent through the mails, many of themi involving hundreds of thousands of dollars of invested capital. Enterprises in which millions of dollars have been invested have been thrown out of business and ruined because the United States would not allow their advertisements to go through the mails. Is not that an exer- cise of arbitrary power, and has it not been for the inestimable bene- fit of the people? Mr. Bush. No ; I think that is one of the functions of Government from time immemorial; I think there is absolutely no analogy, at least I am unable to perceive any, between that line of reasoning and the principles applicable to censorship. Mr. Fess. Your contention is that the public furnishes its own censorship ? Mr. Bush. That is summing it up in so many words. Mr. Fess. And further, that the newspaper can publish anything it may see fit to publish and suffer the consequences ? Mr. Bush. Exactly. Mr. Fess. And that the motion-picture people can put out any- thing they see fit to exhibit and take the consequences ? Mr. Bush. That is precisely my opinion, and that was the opinion written by William J. Gaynor, a great Democrat and a great jurist, when he vetoed the ordinance passed by the board of aldermen at- tempting to place the power of censorship in the New York board of education. He said, " You can not do it," and turning to those who appeared before him, he said, " Your ancestors, at one time, were under censorship. You could not print a thing until you had the permission of the Government, but those days have passed and it is too late to resurrect them." That was his stand, and I think that is about the only American stand that can be taken.