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 nOTURE COMMISSION. 127 tury, and since then they have had the censorship of the State. Would that not rule in this matter^ Mr. Towner. No; for this reason: An act of Parliament in Great Britain can take away the liberty of the press or could blot cut the press and abolish every human right. Of course they will not do it, l3ut, so far as the power is concerned, they have the right and power to do it. They have no constitutional restraints whatever, because they have no written constitution. An act of Parliament is their fundamental law. An act of Congress is not our fundamental law; the Constitution is the fundamental law. Every act of Congress must pass in accordance with our written Constitution, which is the case also in the State as well as in the Nation. Every act of the State legislature must be in accordance with the State constitution or it is unconstitutional and void. They can not say in England that any act of Parliament is unconstitutional, because it never is. t)r. Chase. But they could say that the censorship is contrary w the principle of the freedom of the press. Mr. Towner. Oh. yes. Dr. Chase. Initiated by their parliamentary act? Mr. Towner. Yes. Dr. Chase. That is what I mean. Mr. Towner. That is according to their generally acknowledged constitutional ideas, but they have no restraints such as we have. Dr. Chase. Our law comes from them and their parliamentary acts. The common law in England is the common law in America. Mr. Toavner. Yes; and still further than that. Our Bill of Rights is based upon the acts of Parliament of Great Britain, most of them; ihe Magna Charta and those rights. Dr. Chase. Following up that idea, I want to call your attention to the fact that what Judge Gaynor vetoed was an act similar to the one in Chicago, wliich forbids the showing of pictures that are not cen- sored in places of amusement. It does not prevent my taking a ■noving picture of my family and friends and showing it to my neigh- bors. It does not prevent the taking of a picture of President AVilson and showing it to a heal club without charging an admission fee. It only prevents it in licensed places of amusement. It is analagous to enacting a law that only books which have been examined and ap- proved by a commission shall be shoAvn in the public libraries. It is in certain places where it is forbidden and that because it is for the public welfare. The question as to constitutionality of the Chicago censorship law has been considered by the highest court in Illinois twice, and that law in Chicago has been twice unanimously reaffirmed. Just within a few weeks in Chicago this man who has been de- scribed by one of the opponents of this bill as an objectionable cen- sor, Avas summoned before Judge Tuttle by some who objected to the censor's decisions. One of the results was that the rigid censor- ship of the moving pictures was declared imperative by the judges of the municipal court fur the welfare of the children. This was within a couple of Aveeks in Chicago. Judge Gaynor cites no legal decisions in his veto of the censorship ordinance Avhich the alder- men adopted by a vote of 70 and which cardinal asked him to sign. He argues as if power of government resides to-day not in the people but in one man—a King or a Czar. He speaks as if it were