The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

5* CO > Z z < z w w H Pt. »— < Pt, injunctive relief and would demand a Federal investigation of the entire motion picture industry. Ernest Pascal, Horace Jackson, and Francis Faragoh were instructed to confer with the Actors Guild on mutual problems, and to determine, if possible, whether the proposed directors' organization planned to join with the actors and the writers in their fight on Article 5 of the NRA Code, and what the SAG's attitude was in regard to a possible strike, though no binding commitments were to be made. ONE of the principal activities of the Guild was the operation of a Commission on Conciliation and Arbitration, which handled disputes between members and between members and producers, and credit questions. Seton I. Miller was Chief Commissioner, and Frank Butler, Assistant Commissioner. On November 6, 1933, the Readers Branch of the Guild asked that a second joint mass meeting of actors and writers be held, since the joint meeting of October 15 protested against the establishment of maximum salaries in the Motion Picture Code, but took no action towards inclusion in the Code of minimum salary provisions. The Readers also wanted the Board to take steps to bring New York readers into the Guild. The Board voted to notify the Artists Managers Association that, because it had failed to comply with the terms of its contract with the Guild, the Guild was rescinding that contract. Ernest Pascal was instructed to meet with Laurence Beilenson and Dudley Nichols to draw up an Article for the Guild's own Code, to replace Article 11, which had apparently embodied the now disaffirmed contract with the Agents. John Howard Lawson was authorized to enter into negotiations or discussions with the newly organized newspapermen's union in New York, looking toward cooperation and affiliation. He was also urged to proceed as rapidly as possible to conclude arrangements with the Dramatists Guild and the Authors League, in order to "reach finality with the contract" between SWG and those organizations. On November 16, Eddie Cantor was asked to discuss informally with the President of the United States the Screen Writers' Guild's attitude in regard to the NRA code. Mr. Cantor had been invited to confer with the President, but our Guild had received no invitation. Wells Root replaced Dudley Nichols as Chairman of the Guild's own Code Committee. On November 20, a long telegram was sent to Eddie Cantor in Washington. It gave figures from The Hollywood Reporter regarding the arbitration agreement of 1931, entered into by the producers and the Academy, at that time the only employee body in existence. It pointed out that Article 5 of the proposed NRA Code was almost identical, and said that "Competitive bidding for employees according to our figures has been stifled. 700 employees who come under the agreement are working without contract . . . only two received outside offers while working . . . the employing producer virtually has the protection of a contract without any obligations . . . producers even though they have the right will not openly bid for the valued employees of another producer. . . . Surely the Government will not write it into the law as Article Five." John Howard Lawson went to New York again, and Ralph Block was appointed Acting President. On November 28, the Guild wired President Roosevelt asking that John Howard Lawson and Frances Marion be appointed to the Code Authority. A copy of the National Recovery Act, Motion Picture Code, was received here on December 5. The Board took this unanimous action : "It is the opinion of the Executive Board that although there are some provisions in the Motion Picture Code . . . which the Board believes to be unfair and prejudicial to the interests of employees generally, that nevertheless the Board . . . intends to cooperate to the best of its ability under the terms of the Code as it is laid down, and take such advantage of its provisions as will allow them to better the conditions of employees generally." Marc Connelly, President of the Authors' League, sent a telegram to a membership meeting on January 4, 1934, assuring the Guild that the proposed clauses in the Code which the Guild found objectionable would not be put into effect until after an investigation of Hollywood conditions had been made. Mr. Connelly said, "Producers' contentions that investigation was not necessary were ignored largely as result of your efforts. The Screen Writers' Guild has reason to be proud of the outcome of its first public encounter with producers. The Guild is to be congratulated on its victory. The Screen Writers' Guild and the Authors League of America are now the undisputed spokesmen for authors." A meeting of all screen writers, to be held under SWG auspices, was called for January 15, at the Writers' Club, to nominate representatives for positions under the NRA code. The Credentials Committee decided that to attend this meeting, a writer must have received a screen credit on a picture released in the United States within 18 months prior to the meeting. On March 20, 1934, Jack Natteford warned the Board, in a long letter, that another group was forming within the Guild, that this dissident group had held a meeting, and was circulating rumors that the Guild hadn't a dime left in its treasury, that a radical element was using the Guild for its own purposes, that the leadership of the Guild was so unacceptable to the Producers that they had brought pressure to bear upon the President and the Code Administrator to appoint Academy, rather than Guild, members to NRA offices. Mr. Natteford quoted this group thus: "Are we aware that the present Board has shown how little writers are to be trusted with money, by their extravagant dissipation of nearly thirty thousand dollars in one year, 28 The Screen Writer, April, 194