Motography (Jul - Dec 1915)

190 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. XIV, No. 5. guided and God-forsaken alleys of gloom, will doubtless take away from vou before many moons — think this matter over. The Revolution itself was a fight in this direction— the God-given, beautiful thing of free speech. Afterwards the first assault on the right of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution occurred in 1798, when Congress passed the Sedition Law, which made it a crime for any newspaper or other printed publication to criticise the government. The integrity of free speech and publication was not again attacked in this country until the arrival of the motion picture, when this new art was seized upon as an excuse for meddlesome interference. It has taken but a very few short years to take away this wonderful blessing, and I tell you that not only has its accomplishment been attempted — it has been completed. You ■ may think this is an exaggeration, but I tell you that when a majority of citizens in any community allow the censorship of one single motion picture — particularly showing to an audience of adults — the right of free speech in that community has once and for all and forevermore ceased to be. They tell you you must not show crime in a motion picture. Do not listen to such nonsense. These people would not have you show the glories and beauties of the most wonderful moral lesson the world has ever known — the life of Christ — because in that story you must show the vice of the traitor Judas Iscariot. Let these people follow out their belief to its logical conclusion, there would have been written no Iliads of Homer; there would not have been written, for the glory of the human race, that grand cadence of uplift called the Bible: there would have been no Goethe. There would be no thrilling, beautiful dramas given as the grandest heritage of the English-speaking race — the plays of Shakespeare. None of these things would these worthy persons have left in your possession, had they had their way. On the matter of censorship we think there has been very little common sense displayed by the public in general. We will agree with you in the argument that for the sake of the children censorship for a class of pictures may be allowed. But for the motion picture presented to adults at the same place, in the same theater, and under exactly the same conditions as the regular drama of the stage, we demand the same fair treatment accorded the drama, and we are unable to see why this is not the case; but, as you know, it is very far from being the case. When the first little board of censorship was established six years ago we took it seriously, then expected exactly what" has come to pass — when a man of the caliber of the captain of police of Chicago can tell two million American people what they shall and shall not go to see in the way of a moving picture. The policy of the censorship is to approve of pictures which offend no one. That is one way of saying, "We will have nothing in the pictures but milk and water," ridiculous, insipid mediocrity that could not possibly interest anyone. A motion picture of this class would be as interesting and efficient as a newspaper that never steps on anyone's toes, and you can imagine how people would be interested in that kind of a newspaper. We believe that we have as much right to present the facts of history as we see them, on the motion picture screen, as Woodrow Wilson has to write these facts in his history. We believe it as a right under the Constitution of the United States, and we are supported in this belief by wise judicial decisions in cases where the matter has been presented to the courts in the right way. Judge Cooper, in his decision allowing "The Birth of the Nation," to be shown in Chicago, said in part; "Every night in every fair-sized community in this broad land, where the stage instructs or entertains, each and every play has its good characters and its bad characters portrayed, both of which are essential to a play in the rounding out of the moral of the play, and without which moral a play is of no educational value * f * If * * all the plays in which a villain had played were stopped * the theater as an educator and entertainer of the people would become a memory of the past, and there would be nothing to fill its place for the education and enjoyment of our people." I have already quoted one passage from the veto message of the late Mayor Gaynor of New York, but Mr. Gaynor went even further than this in his expression of legal opinion. He declared in so many words that the censoring of moving pictures is a direct violation of the United States Constitution, because it is an abridgement of the freedom of publication. The press of the country can awaken the people to the truth of these conditions. What have you done to help awaken them? The gentlemen of the press are human beings, subject and liable to be persuaded one way or another, the same as you or I. Talk to them, put up your side of the case you will find that you can open their eyes to things they have never dreamed of. Already some of the greatest journalists of the country have been brought to see the light. I quote here from Mr. Lewis Sherwin, the eminent dramatic critic of the New York Globe, who, upon hearing of the efforts to suppress the "Birth of the Nation," wrote : "This is absolutely against public policy, against the spirit of the Constitution, against the very life and essence of what should be true American and democratic ideas. The mere fact of the races constituting the population of the United States in an unpleasant light is no argument whatever. If this factor is to be seriously considered, there is hardly any limit to which censorship may not go." The press, the theaters, and the great majority of the people — these are only too ready to line themselves on your side of the battle, if you only have the nerve and the brains to let them know what your side is. In heaven's name — get to it! You have forgotten that you are American citizens. You seem to forget that this is America — the boasted land of the free, and by God's splendor, I think we have all forgotten the land of the brave. You are not fighting for anything to be ashamed of. You are fighting the most beautiful battle — and the only battle — that should be allowed to be fought in the world — a battle for freedom. The thing you have — the motion picture — is a form of speech as beautiful and clean as that ever discovered by the mind of man — in many ways, and in most ways, as far above any other form of expression as that shining sun is above the earth, where frightened-to-death Americans are allowing themselves to be made into images resembling the denizens of Russia. The result of the election which took place on the last day of the convention, Friday, July 16, was as follows-: Marion S. Pearce declined the presidential nomination, and Fred J. Herrington of Pittsburgh was elected president; M. E. Cory, vice-president; L. W. Brophy, Muskogee, Okla., second vice-president ; Peter J. Jeup, Detroit, treasurer. The executive committee will elect the secretary. On this day there were short talks given by Hobart Bosworth, Mack Sennett, Raymond Hitchcock, Kenneth O'Hara and Frank Keenan. Tom Ince, who was scheduled for a speech, was absent. There was a luncheon and auto parade in the afternoon and a grand ball in the evening. The grand march was led by Blanche Sweet and Carlyle Blackwell. There were three thousand people present ; among them were thirty-one well known motion picture stars. Geraldine Farrar, Jesse L. Lasky, Mr. and Mrs. Hodkinson and Mr. and Mrs. Morris Gest were spectators from a box. THOUSANDS SEE BULL FIGHT STAGED FOR LASKY' S "CARMEN" In the presence of 20,000 persons the "bull fight*' for the Lasky production of "Carmen" with Geraldine Farrar as the star, was held in Los Angeles, and voted one of the most elaborate specially planned scenes for a photoplay production in the history of the industry in Southern California. Special permission and permits had to be obtained from the city government of Los Angeles for the occasion. An entire bull fighting arena was built, with tier on tier of wooden seats. This was constructed by the Lasky Company, under the supervision of the municipal building and amusement bureaus. In every particular, the structure was a duplicate of some of the famous bull-fighting rings of Spain. Cecil B. DeMille, director general of the Lasky Company, had the general supervision of the scene,