The Moving picture world (May 1922)

May 6, 1922 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 45 Hays Enlists Newspaper Co-operation in Drive to Raise Standard of Films As guest at the dinner of the publishers of the United States in New York on April 26, Will H. Hays seized the opportunity to enlist the press in the movement for the uplift of motion pictures. He told the publishers how they can aid, and the response was immediate and gratifying from such editors as Arthur Brisbane and S. S. McClure. Speaking of Mr. Hays, the motion picture industry and censorship, Mr. Brisbane said : "Mr. Hays, a very young Postmaster-General and Republican chairman, is chosen to umpire moving pictures, a very young and important industry. "As Postmaster, Mr. Hays dealt with the entire population. In his present work he deals also with the entire population. The world will see in Mr. Hays a sort of young Milton. As Milton fought successfully to raise the standard of literature and to crush stupid, meddlesome censorship, so will Hays, I suppose, work to raise the standard of moving picture teaching and suppress, by making it unnecessary and by making it ridiculous, meddlesome censorship that would diminish the teaching power of the screen today. "Moving picture men that do their work well and conscientiously — as an overwhelming majority do, taking pride in their profession and in their product — may be called the newest, most effective world teachers. And in that great gathering of teachers Hays is to be the principal, the superintendent, or, if you like, the Commissioner of Public Education. Much power and usefulness to him." Mr. Brisbane said that one of the important things the world must watch over and protect is freedom of speech. "I do not mean simply freedom to utter words — words that just occur to you. I mean the utterance of thoughts that come to you and which you desire to set forth in speech and in print. And there is but little difference in the motion picture. Censorship always menaces new ideas. Such is the educational power of the motion picture that I dare say that in half an hour I can show at least half the men here things they do not understand clearly about the history of man, let's say, from the beginning to Genoa." General Hays spoke, in part, as follows : "To the publishers of America I would come, for the motion picture industry as one approaches an older brother. The motion picture is essentially, of course, a source of amusement, the principal amusement of a great majority and the sole amusement of millions, and as such its importance is measured only by the imperative necessity of entertainment for our people. In this your concern is constant. "You. who are the custodians of the printed word in America, have arrived at your present position of stability as the fruit of six centuries of development. "But consider how different it is with this other mechanism for the distribution of intelligence. What with you has come about slowly, through six centuries, has with our motion picture industry, come about in the incredibly brief space of twenty years. Is it any wonder that we have problems in our industry which you gentlemen of the printed word solved decades or generations ago? "We, in contrast with you, have nothing from the past. We must make all these things and achieve all these things for ourselves. The men who first took up this new thing are still alive. The pioneers of our institution are the men who are still in the business. We in the motion picture industry are at this moment in the very midst of achieving those standards of our relation to each other and to the public and in our responsibilities to the world. "And it is exactly for the purpose of aiding in the arrival at those standards that our Association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America has been organized. Quoting from the formal articles of association as filed in Albany under the Board of Trade Statute of the State of New York, these gentlemen have stated their chief purposes of fostering the common interests of those engaged in the industry 'by establishing and maintaining the highest possible moral and artistic standards in motion picture production,' and 'by developing the educational as well as the entertainment value and the general usefulness of the motion picture,' to which purposes I earnestly direct your attention. "Too, mechanically and financially, as a matter of organization and technique, it has been much the same. Here was a great new invention that burst upon the world. Here was a great vacuum of need and demand to be filled. Men who had the vision, who saw the opportunity and the possibilities of profit rushed into it. Their accomplishment in the last decade has been like an Arabian Night story. And there can be little wonder that these crowded years have been a period of chaos. "Now. at the end of this period of increditably compressed physical, mechanical, financial and artistic development, these men find themselves not only the responsible leaders and custodians of one of the greatest industries of the world, with limitless commercial possibilities and perhaps more income than all the public utilities of the country combined, with a total investment in real estate, studios, equipment and properties of over $500,000,000, with possibly over 50,000 people constantly employed and $50,000,000 paid annually in salaries and wages, with $800,000,000 paid annually for admissions and possibly $200,000,000 spent annually in production with an annual turnover in the business of $1,000,000,000— not only are they the leaders and custodians of such an industry, but also they find themselves the responsible leaders and custodians of an instrument and means of an entirely immeasurable usefulness in educational and moral influence. "Now let us see what we have. First of all. note the scope of the opportunity. In the ITnited States, in all the big cities and in all those maple shaded towns and villages that compose America there are perhaps fifteen thousand motion picture theatres, and in those tlieatres sixteen million scats. Taking into account the at least twice a day performance and applying the collected stati<itics, we estimate that within every twenty-four hours between Maine and California twenty million American men, women and children come to look for an hour or two on the picture screen. "They come with no other pre-occupation, they come indeed in a mood which has deliberately put out of their minds all other distractions. They come not out of duty, but as a master psychologist, a great teacher, would want them to come, having in mind the desire to make the strongest impression upon them, to have them in the most plastic state for the receiving and holding of impressions. "Now that is our opportunity. "What then shall we do with it? The first and most important thing is that there shall be no attempt to do too much with it. First of all there must be no notion of implanting particular ideas. Our first duty must be to keep our institution free. There must be no seeking for any monopoly of ideas, no attempt to 'put over' any pet ideas of the industry's own for which our only sanction is our own pride of opinion. "Neither, and this is even more important, must there be any proscription of any opinions of others responsibly held. We must in short take on that same attitude of trusteeship for public opinion and public thought which you gentlemen of the printed word have evolved as your own. We must take on that same code, chiefly tacit and only partly written, but nevertheless wholly binding, that governs you of the newspapers and periodicals in your relation to the public and in your relation to each other. We must avoid the faintest taint of the propagandist in our attitude towards the agency that is our trusteeship. "But while this must be our broad and general policy, it is as true of the press and of the motion picture as it is of statesmanship that there are, of course, certain common standards so indisputable in their appeal to the common sense of right, so universally accepted as the highest standards of taste, art and morals that to promote them is as emphatically our duty as is that declaration of intention, 'to promote the general welfare,' in the preamble of the American Constitution. "We say twenty million people a day see motion pictures. Very well; possibly half, I don't know, may be children and they go, too, with the same open mind referred to. Don't forget that the quick way to the brain is through the eye. There may be fifty different languages spoken in this county, but the picture of mother is the same in every language. "This movement is a Cause — with a capital C. In this Cause each of you is as interested as the men who inaugurated it. I know if ever— I say if ever — I am of any value in any situation, it is when I have a Cause. I thought I saw a Cause when I went into the work. Now I know it is there and I am going to give all I have got for this period to this Cause. And I bespeak for it and for these men your most earnest and sypmathetic co-operation. I do not know what can be accomplished. "Most certainly I will not be put in the attitude of being a judge of the morals of those who are in the industry. There has been much loose talk on that subject and the fact is that the rnorals of the thousands and thousands in this industry are just as good as those in any other. "The vital thing now is the certain good faith of those who have set about these major purposes and I do know of the certainty of that good faith. I know that these men with millions invested will go through with this thing. This industry must and shall maintain its high place in the business world along with the other great industries, offering enterprising capital a legitimate opportunity for profitable investment, established on a solid foundation, operated with reasonable economy and supported properly as are our other great industries by the investing public. And it must and shall and will take its very high place in public estimation. ".So certainly is all this a matter of your concern that we earnestly ask your advice in the situation. I have thought the problems; (Continued on page 86)