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)

214 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. The moving-picture business in this country has much more of good than evil in it; all the good needs to be encouraged; all the evil controlled. Only two remedies present themselves: One would be a sweeping national law prescribing the character of the pictures which could be exhibited; this w^ould still make necessary a Federal board to determine whether or not the films conform to the standards established. The other would be to create a central Federal board passing on the entire question and equipped with the funds neces- sary to employ experts and to deal with the question in a country- wide way. When such a board is appointed the question of the per- sonnel and authority of the board w^ill be a grave educational, social, and moral question. STATEMENT OF DR. WILBUR F. CRAFTS, OF WASHINGTON, D. C, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL REFORM BUREAU. Dr. Craj'ts. In closing the House hearings on this Smith-Hughes motion-picture commission bill (H. R. 14895; S. 4941), let me repeat that the friends of this bill are friends of the " movies." Complaint has been made that we talk more of the bad pictures than of the good, but the very word " censorship " implies good pictures worth saving from bad company. We do not sift a bushel of chaff. In Kansas recently I said that censored motion pictures were the best thing to provide a nickel's worth of day dreams and sweet for- getfulness for young and old wherever saloons are put out—and they are going fast. Here is a great chance for expansion of the motion- picture business after censorship is made complete and satisfactory. Reformers themselves may be expected to promote the use of motion pictures systematically by States as substitutes for the saloon, not only where it has been abolished, but where it exists, when satisfac- tory censorship has been secured. Churches and uplift societies will go in for a weekly recreation night in motion-picture halls that will cater to that kind of patron- age when censorship clears the way for a nation-wide arrangement for that purpose, which needs to be run like the schedule of an ac- commodation train, on frequent stops, bringing four pictures a week in regular order to one ]>lace Monday, another Tuesday, and so following. It is not the best plan for churches to have machines of their own for this occasional recreation—for one reason, because it will increase fire insurance fees—but rather to encourage the regular motion-picture halls to provide special programs for them. There is also a great future for motion-picture evening schools, using "educational films" not in a haphazard, disconnected way. but as I understand Mr. Fldison proj)Oses, as regular courses oi study—with a diploma and increa.sed earning capacity, as well as increased manhood, as the incentives. These motion-picture evening schools might be carried on iu regular niotion-])icture halls, which could be used at other hours for purely recreational films. Y. M. C, A. evening schools will have to enlist such educatioual films for their students all over the land or some new national motion-picture evening school will " beat them to it." I am myself anticipating the establishment of a motion-picture evening school of history and