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)

130 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION". They think it is a censorship controlled by the manufacturers. A few* people must, in the nature of the case, decide what pictures are to be exhibited for the children of America. Shall the few peo- ple who do the deciding be manufacturers who are making a profit out of it. or the Federal commissioners, who decide it for the benefit of the Avhole people? Our contention is that it is not safe to let it be decided by the people who are going to make money out of it, because the commercial spirit is too shortsiglued. It would rather see 50 cents to-day than $5 next week. It has not the vision long enough to see what is its own best ad\antage. The commercial in- terests would like alone to control this Avhole situation, if they could, for their own advantage and profit. They feel that it will be an in- trusion and interference if the Nation should compel the manufac- turers to make only moral pictures. Now, I gave my word to the chairmai; that I would not talk more than 15 ininutes, and I have only 5 minutes left. I hope you will find that I keep my word. I wanted to call attention to the misstatement that Ava> made in ref- erence to the film. " The wages of sin." '" The wages of sin " was approved by the National Board of Censorship. I have at home in my office, which I Avould like to send to the committee, the state- ment of Dr. IIoNve why they approved it. The editor of the Moving- Picture News said it was disgusting. He protested against it to the board. This film exhibited the pictures of Jack Rose. Harry Vallon, and Sam Schepps. It was simply exploiting notorious gamblers. There was not a particle of good influence in the })iciure. It adver- tised gami)ling. No sin was punished in it. A fellow Avas caught at murder and the corpse of the murdered man Avas tlirust upon him in the i)rocess of the third degree. He was frightened into confess- ing his guilt of the murder. There Avas no merit in the picture, and yet after rejection by the censoring committee, and after reconsid- eration by the general committee, this National Board of Censorship approved it. •'The Traffic in Souls," which was rejected here in Washington and by the Chicago Board of Censorship, was approved by this National l^oard of Censorship. I saw that picture. There were disgusting scenes of dancing—immoral dancing—in it. and if I had more than three minutes left I wotild try to show you what the effect of that picture was. If you knew me better you would not accuse me of speaking of this matter from a narrow standpoint. I believe in bringing sex matters before the public, but the effect of that " Traffic in Souls" was simply to stimtdate boys into becoming cadets, in mak- ing easy money, and especially to the girls, showing them how easily they could make money by the sale of their virtue. The effect of that picture, I believe, was simply to demoralize the community. Some very good people approved that film. Two editors of the Outlook went to see the film and came back and reconnnended it, and an article appeared in the Outlook to that effect, but within three weeks the Outlook had to publish letters from men like a Y. M. C. A. secretary in Iowa, and one of the women in charge of the Florence Crittenton Mission in New York City, in which they de- scribed the demoralizing effects of this film. Mr. Thaciier. AVas that picture. "The Traffic in Souls." confined to the one and two dollar theaters?