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. 205 Tlie national board has^ been discussed. Canon Cliase laid threat stress upon the fact that the nuinufacturers paid the expense of the four secretaries, and said that consequently the board, bein^ de- pendent upon the manufacturers for such contributions, was influ- enced by them in its opinions. I ask you whether it is support, when all the manufacturers together pay $15,000 for the salaries of those secretaries and for other office work, when there are over 135 persons constituting the board who give their attention to this business. The value of their services, if we actually tried to compute it, I think, w^ould be upward of a quarter of a million dollars, and they do not receive any compensation for it. Would he rather have those gentlemen who do this good work be also compelled to pay this amount? At the outset I understand the expense of the secretarial work of the national board Avere met by the People's Institute, and subse- quently the large manufacturers saw the benefit of this board and they volunteered to pay the secretaries, and have been doing so ever since. P'or a tiuie. I believe, these gentlemen paid half of the ex- pense and the manufacturers paid half, but later on the manufac- turers assumed the entire amount. I say that is not a controlling feature. We do not liave anything to do Avith the management of the board. The manufacturers never see these paid secretaries. About an hour ago I was introduced to Mr. Coxe, and I learned then for the first time that he was one of the secretaries to the board. I do not know the other secretaries. Hoav could we properly influ- ence these gentlemen? Mr. Platt. There is one objection to that board, and that is that it depends upon the close control of the theaters throughout the coun- try. You have no means of enforcing anything, except that you can prevent the pictures from being exhibited in theaters which you con- trol. Mr. ScHECHTEK. You are apparently misinformed on that point. We do not control any theaters anywhere, Mr. Platt. The Moving Picture Trust does. Mr. ScHECHTEK. There is no such thing as a Moving Picture Trust that controls theaters, so far as I am aware. The Universal Co. itself is no trust; it is a group of manufacturers representing about 20 per cent of the producing end of the moving-picture business, but it does not own one single theater anywhere in the country. The same is true with the Mutual Co. and with the General Film Co. So far as I am informed, neither of these companies control any theaters throughout the country, and yet directly or indirectly these three companies control about 75 per cent of the manufactured films produced in this country. Mr. Platt. What is to prevent any of the pictures from being taken out and exhibited anywhere by a man who can make some money out of it ? Mr. ScHECHTER. There is nothing to prevent that, if a man has the money to pay for it. I explained the nature of the business and its method of handling it at an earlier hearing, which I am sorry you did not attend, but I might in short say that is dependent upon the kind or nature of the film, whether it has been exhibited before in the particular locality, by what company it was produced, whether 44072—No. 2—14 10