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126 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION". could not but do harm to the moving picture business generally. I do not think I can make it plainer than that. We believe that any local board of censorship is a long step backward in the moving picture business. Mr. Towner. Therefore, you think the plan of the New York cen- sorship board would be the best means? Mr. Brylawski. As the lesser of two evils, yes. STATEMENT OF REV. WILLIAM SHEAFE CHASE, D. D.. PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK CIVIC LEAGUE AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRIME. Dr. Chase. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the spirit that possesses this committee seems to be the proper one, namely, that you are the ministers of government, and that it is not only your right, but your duty, to protect the children of our land. If 10 per cent of the audiences are children and 9,000,000 people see pictures every day, 900,000 children are seeing these" pictures every da)'-, and if one child is ruined it is a matter of concern to this Government. I intended to speak of the principle involved here first, the con- stitutionality of this matter, and to call the attention of the com- mittee to the fact that in Ohio the question is a different question, and, though the point which my opponents are making should be carried by them, that would not settle the question of this bill. In Ohio the law forbids the sale and the exhibition of all pictures unless they are censored by their State board of censorship. This [aw does not projjose that. It does not forbid the sale and does not forbid the exhibition. It forbids the exhibition ivr pay in the Ter- ritories, but that is a very different thing than forbidding the exhi- bition, whether for pay cr without pay. In the one case you prevent a ])icture being shown at all. In the other case you only prevent it being shown in certain licensed places of amusement. And so without taking the time to go into that part of it I want to call your attention to the fact that no nuitter how this case may be decided it is not the same case that is involved in the bill that is before us. I also want to call your attention to the fact that it can not be un- constitutional. Our constitutional provision with reference to free apeech and the freedom of the press are inlieritod frcm (ireat l^ritain. Fn our own State constitutions we took it from (ireat Britain. Now, m Great Britain there has been for centuries, since the adoption of the freedom of the press and freedom of speech, enactments by Barlia- Qient which have authorized the censorshij) of the stage. Four dif- ferent connnittees of rarlianienl have examined that question, and each time they have reaflirmed that it does not prevent the freedom af the press or the freedom of speech, and, therefore, it can not be contrary to the constitutional piinision of the United States. Mr. Towner. In (Jreal Britain they have no constitutional re- straints, and we have. They have no written constitution. An act of Parliament there is the fiindamentnl law. Dr. Chase. But they have a pnrliauientary provision which covers ihis matter, which was adopted, somewhere in the seventeenth cen-