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)

210 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. ties will follow your example by enacting censorship laws. Censor- ship has only been passed in three States, so far as I am informed, and only one State has it now in actual operation, and that State is absolutely unable to cope with the situation, as has been pointed out to your committee by one of the previous speakers. The Chairman. We will now hear from Mr. Prosser, a member of the Commission of Vocational Education. Mr. ScHECHTER. I thank you, gentlemen, very kindly for the at- tention given me. STATEMENT OF MR. C. A. PROSSER, NEW YORK CITY, SECRE- TARY OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION, AND A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON FEDERAL AID FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Mr. Prosser. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am here purely in a personal capacity on the invitation of your chair- man. About five years ago I served for one year as a member of the national board of censorship for moving pictures, leaving the board when a new position called me for the time away from New York City. My belief, briefly stated, is that the board has done as well as any private and voluntary body either in New York or elsewhere could do in passing upon the films for use in all the States; that the cen- sorship which they have exercised has met with the approval and the satisfaction of the country, and that the only solution of the problem lies in the establishment of a Federal board of censorship able to deal with it from an official and nation-wide standpoint. We are only beginning to realize, amid the rapid development of the moving-picture business, the tremendous possibilities for good and for evil in the films which have become such an important com- modity in interstate commerce. There are 25,000 moving-picture houses of all kinds in the United States. Assuming that each of these show every day to an average audience of 100 persons, 2,500,000 people are being entertained and influenced in their thought and conduct every 24 hours. If 200 persons see, on the average, the movies at each photo-play house, 5,000.000 persons are reached daily. Startling as are these numbers, they have probably been much under- stated, since those most intimately" connected with the business state that more than 10,000,000 are daily patrons of the film shows. Moreover, the ordinary moving-picture house will crowd into an evening's entertainment from three to four films on widely varying subjects, each one of which may present a play in pantomine that would re(}uire for its presentation on the regular stage from two to three hours. In this way the movies probably make three or four times as many impressions during an evening upon their patrons as do the regular theaters, which is but saying in other words that their influence is probably as great as would be produced by the regular theaters if they were showing to 20,000.000 people or more. Film shows* are given at such small cost as to put them within the reach of every class of people—5 and 10 cents for general ad- mission; 25 cents for a reserved seat. Rich and poor alike can now see if they wish the marvels of the world, and the greatest plays are staged for the camera at enormous expense. The moving-picture