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)

64 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. of the Unitarian Church, and prior to him was Dr. Knox, of the General Theological Seminary. I receive no salary. I have no financial interest of any kind in the board. It is a source of work, worry, and concern rather than anything else. The People's Institute has no financial interest, profit, or gain of any kind in the National Board of Censorship; rather for several years it aided very substan- tially in maintaining its activities. As at present organized the national board consists of a group of censoring committees numbering 135, which are divided up into smaller groups of 5, 7, or 10, who meet daily in the various studios in New York and pass upon master films as they are presented by the companies. Those censoring committees are made up of persons of more or less prominence and social activity in New York. There are some doctors, some ministers, some lawyers, and a great many Vv'omen. Tliey have voluntarily assumed to do tliis work without remuneration of any kind, and they do it very conscientiously and well. They go to a studio and see possibly one. two, three, or four reels as presented. They criticize them, make eliminations, or they condemn the film in toto and refuse to permit it to be passed. Now, that is the work of the lower court, the court of nisi prius, the original work done upon a film. These persons have the greatest variety of points of view. They were chosen really Avith that end in view, and that brings me to one of the principles which Prof. Smith had in mind in organizing the board. He said that any group of people who tried to pass upon as great an industry as this, and which affected as many people as this, ought to represent just as wide and diversified points of view as possible; that it ought to be a cross section of all America rather than a small group which might reflect almost any one of a dozen different morals or static viewpoints. So this group of 135 people differ by race, differ by profession, and differ by jxjints of view. Avith the idea of getting just as many people's minds playing on this question as possible. After the original censoring group has passed upon a film there is an appeal. It may be taken by the connnittee. the minority mem- bers of the committee, or it may be taken by the producers. That appeal goes up to what is known as the general committee, which general committee is composed of 24 members chosen—16 or 18— from the following societies, and 8, I believe, at large in the city. That general committee consists of representatives of the Associa- tion for Improving Condition of the Poor—these representatives be- ing chosen by the associations themselves, so that they come up to the general committee chosen by the organizations, so that they are democratic in that sense and represent a pretty large variety of points of view. The next organization is the Charity Organization Society; the Childrens' Aid Society; the City Club of New York; the City Vigilance League; the Federation for Child Study; the International Committee, Y. M. C. A.; Taity League of the Federa- tion of Churches; League for Political Education; National Board, Y. W. C. A.; New York City Federation of Women's Clubs; Public P'ducation Association; People's Institute and St. Bartholomew's Parish House. Then there are a large number at large. One is Dr. Henry S. Op- penheimer. an eminent physician in New York: Ralph Folks, who is