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. 155 country. This will be accomplished not by the commission condemn- ing many pictures, but by inducing the making of pictures to con- form to the higher standard. In England in the last 60 years the censor refused to license only 97 plays; 60 years, 97 plays. Well, that does not mean that if there had been no censor in England that in those last 60 years there would not have been more than 97 bad plays; it means that the existence of that censor raised the whole standard of the stage, thus reducing the number of bad plays to 97. If the censor were abolished in England the stage would very soon be much degraded. And it is a curious thing that in England the people who want the abolishment of censorship of the stage are the playwrights. The owners of the theaters, stage managers, and managers of the theaters are practically unanimous for censorship. They say that it would lower the moral standard if censorship were abolished, and they say that it would injure their business, and, therefore, they want censor- ship of the stage. Men like Bernard Shaw, and some other men, take the other position, but a man like Chesterton, who is just as bright a man as Bernard Shaw, and just as keen a man, is on the other side. Mr. Fess. I was very much impressed at first by the effectiveness of the National Board of Censorship; then I looked over the direc- torate of it and my impression was increased that the personnel was such that there was every assurance that it would be fairly effective, if not entirely so. But I am confused by the fact that these inter- ested parties, who are largely, or pretty largely, supporting this National Board of Censorship, are opposing an official censorship, and I am wondering just why there is that opposition, whether offi- cial censorship is to be more effective, or whether the national board is unconsciously subject to these people. I can not quite understand why they are raising this objection. Dr. Chase. I would like to address myself to just that question. Mr. Fess. You were coming to that? Dr. Chase. Yes, sir. May I start with the history of the Na- tional Board of Censorship; it has been presented to the committee by the Rev. Mr. Carter, but I would like to just supplement his account. The People's Institute made an investigation into the con- ditions of motion pictures along in the fall of 1908, as I remember it, and they appeared with a large body of people before Mayor Mc- Clellan at a hearing in the city hall. At that time they said that one picture out of every three in the motion-picture shows was bad. There was a tremendous moral uprising against motion pictures at that time. -Mayor McClellan withdrew the license of every motion- picture show house in New York, a thing which I did not advise. But I remember that on Christmas Day we read the notice that he had withdrawn the license of every motion picture in New York City. They went to a judge and the judge granted an injunction; it was never argued out in the higher court, but I believe he had absolute power to do it, although, I think, it was a foolish thing for him to do. But that was the condition that confronted the motion- picture people. It was at this time that somebody proposed having a so-called board of censorship to help to restore the confidence of the public as to the morality of motion pictures. I was invited to go on that board and I said: " Is there anything that will compel all