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. 103 should be free throughout the States^ It is not like food or cattle inspeclion or even the inspection of immigrants Where positive stan(hirds are established a physical article can be physicall}' judged. The qualities of food or cattle, the ability of immigrants to fend for themselves are determinable. It is pos- sible to say positively are eggs rotten or are they not rotten: are cattle diseased or are thev not diseased; has a man a hundred dol- lars or has he not. Those are tilings that can be established by in- spection; but you can not inspect a moral (juestion. What may seem jnoral to me may be immoral to anothei-, and what may seem moral 10 another may be immoral to me, and what may seem right as coming from me may seem w^rong in coming from others. The question of personality is involved. The Oermans have a little story they tell c)f a famil}^ where the father comes home in the evening, tired and out of humor, and reads to the family at the dinner table a telegram that he has received from his son, saying, " Father, send me money, I am sick,"' and the father casts the telegram aside in disgust, because of the brusqueness of its tone. Then the mother takes the telegram and in pleading tones reads the same words, and it produces an entirely different effect, and the father sees tliat he did not read it correctly at all. What comes from one may seem right and what comes from another may seem wrong, and the censors are human beings, and they can not get away from the personal effect. The Chairman. I understood you to say awhile ago that you thought the New York censorship did good. You did not object to it'^ Mr. Seligsberg. I do not object to it seriously, because it is vol- untary, because we can control the abuse of it. We are free to crit- icize it, although in our relationshi}) to it we are strangers. Mr. Towner. You would not cooperate with them unless you thought it would be beneficial to your business? Mr. Seligsberg. It is not beneficial directly, but it does tend to create a higher standard among our com])etitors and it has brought the business from disrei>ute to repute. It has reduced the numbers of those who produce films which have been subject to criticism. The CriAiR^MAN. Excuse me for asking this, but we want to get at the facts. Now. you not only cooperate with them, but you furnish all the money to pay the expenses of that board of censors. Mr. Seligsberg. I confess I do not know how nuich we pay. Dr. Howe said the manufacturers now contribute enough to pay all the expenses. The Chairman. I think $1.5.000 or more. Mr. Seligsberg. $15,000. I think the companies I represent con- tribute $2,500, but I do not know what the others contribute. The CiiAnniAN.'To meet the requirements of this bill, I think it is estimated about $40,000 would pay all tlie expenses of the National Censorship Board. Mr. Seligsberg. I could not say as to that. Mr. Towner. I move that the connnittee adjourn until 10 o'clock next Tuesday morning. Mr. Seligsberg. AVhat I have said already is mostly what I de- sired to say, but I will be out West next week. The Chairman. Can not you incori>orate what you wish to add in the hearing?