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100 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. Mr. Towner. Of course the question will arise, and I am wonder- ing whether it did arise in that ease, as to whether it was within the municipal power under the authority given to the municipality under the State constitution. Mr. Seligsberg. That did not arise. Mr. Towner. It was assumed that the legislature of the corpora- tion had the same power that the State legislature would have under the constitution?- Mr. Seligsberg. I think so; assuredly under the city charter. They tried to make the censoring a phase of the licensing. Mr. Towner. Does the municipality of Greater Xew York have a constitution? Mr. Seligsberg. No; it has a charter subject to amendment by the legislature. As I remember the ordinance, it was an ordinance providing for the licensing of buildings of a certain class, and providing for the revo- cation of the license if they exhibited films which had not been passed by the censors. Mr. Towner. The reason I asked my question was that the impli- cation that he seemed to raise might be applicable to an argument against the exercise of municipal power, while it might not be urged against the application of the power conferred by the National Gov- ernment or by the State legislature. Mr. Seligsberg. I have not so understood the message of Mayor Gaynor. I do not think I need cite to you from the authorities at very great length in regard to the value of the liberty of the press, but I find a statement in an old textbook on the subject which is very interesting to me. It says: Gentlemen of the committee, you may think that has very little application to the United States of America in the year 1914, and j'^et in the city of Chicago, which is no mean city, our friend, the censor, has been permitted to reject a farce comedy in which a policeman was thrown into the lake by some practical jokers, and the intelli- gent reason he gave for it in Chicago was that it brought the consti- tuted authorities of that city into disrepute, and that indicates to you what a censor will do. Now, let me take up this measure and go to the question, which is a very vital question, as to the practicability of a national censorship here. This is one of the vi'tal questions in this argument to me. We are to have five censors, and while it may be that the committee, if it approves this bill, will see to it that the salaries will be at least suffi- cient to enable the Federal Government to get men to give their time to it who are fitted to pass judgment on matters requiring intellectual and moral judgment, I want to ask who are to be the five censors? There are a great many religions in this country. Are the Hebrews to have a censor? Are the Catholics to have a censor? Are the Presbyterians to have a censor? Are the atheists to have a censor. And then we must not forget the women. They will want a censor, and if the woman censor is a suffragist the antisuffragists will want a censor, then the labor people and the Socialists will want censors, and what will the labor censor do to a picture which endeavors to express the ideas of either socialism or syndicalism? We may not