The Moving picture world (May 1922)

248 MOVING PICTURE WORLD May 20, 1922 Moving Picture World Special Photograph of M. P. T. O. A. National national censorship. One phase of this has been the introduction of a resolution in Congress by United States Senator Myer of Montana, proposing an investigation of the motion picture business. At the hearings before a special Senate committee on this resolution, representatives of reform organizations sought to establish as a fact the necessity for such regulation. This effort of theirs was not attended by much success, and while representatives of the motion picture business were ready to offer many more arguments than were introduced to set aside this contention, it remained, however, for Senator Ashurst of Arizona and Senator Shortridge of California to completely refute the contentions of advocates of the Myer resolution. "The imposition of a music tax on theatre owners for having certain musical compositions played in their theatres, has become an evil which will require drastic action. A certain combination of publishers of music, operating with a few selected composers, essays to control the music situation in the country and impose such levies as may be agreeable to them upon those who use any part of the music they claim is copyrighted. Music and songize rather than uplift and edify. This group have always been among a nation's freest elements. It was not until recently that any attempt was made to place an embargo on this vitalizing phase of national life. Nothing so stimulates and nerves men and women into lines of patriotic activity as does music and song. "Francis Scott Key wrote 'The Star Spangled Banner' and gave it to the nation. No music tax was ever charged for the privilege of rendering its inspiring notes. Others in like form have added to the store of our nation's music without permitting some combination of publishers, who have no musical genius themselves but simply coin that of others into dollars, to tax the people of the nation for the privilege of singing or playing it. "The dollar alone marks the time for the music trust. Merit in composition from the standpoint of helpful stimulation mentally and morally has no place with this trust. Because its processes strangled lofty efTort, it has held American musical talent to the lower levels and gave us many compositions which tend more to debase than elevate, to demoral has placed the nation on a jazz basis because of its throttling influence along the whole range of musical eflort. To what extent this baneful process has eflfected national morals is a question the people generally must consider. Before Congress "The Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America have brought these facts before Congress, and Congressman Florian A. Lampert of Wisconsin, chairman of the patents committee of the House of Representatives, has a bill now before Congress effecting certain modifications in the copyright laws which will prevent the imposition of this music tax on theatres and also, to a certain extent, loosen the grip of this music trust on American genius. "A hearing will be held in Washington on the Lampert bill this month. I strongly urge every theatre owner to see the senators from his state and the members of Congress from his district and urge them to vote for the Lampert bill. It draws the fangs of the music trust to some extent and its passage