The screen writer (June 1946-May 1947)

correspondence carpenters for the simple reason that they supported me. Upon which SWG President Emmet Lavery comments: With all due respect to The Scully, who is a mighty collector of votes as well as a mighty wielder of words, I still think it the better part of political wisdom for the Screen Writers’ Guild not to endorse members for public office, as a general rule. Granting that there are moments when the right candidate and the right issue are the very real and the very immediate concern of all guilds and unions, this fact still remains: guilds and unions, like de¬ mocracy itself, are places which unite men and women of different beliefs, not people of the same belief. The basic question always is: what will unite the largest number of members behind a given proposition? It would seem, in all logic, that — no matter how desirable direct political ac¬ tion may be at times — it is more diffi¬ cult to get general agreement on politics in a guild or union than it is on any other subject. I agree this may not be so in other guilds or unions. I can only report on the situation as it seems to me in the Screen Writers’ Guild at the present time. Emmet Lavery’s comments on the lessons learned from his recent unsuc¬ cessful campaign for the Congressional nomination from Beverly Hills will ap¬ pear shortly in this magazine in an article titled You Never Can Tell. ON ANTI-SEMITISM Having himself observed instances of prejudice, Eliot Gibbons comments as follows on one phase of Leonard Spigelgass’ widely read and quoted Kiska Journal in the June Screen Writer: In this respect I would criticise the article . . . Spigelgass was fortunate in being able to obtain a remarkably repre¬ sentative cross-section of anti-Semitism at a time of stress when it was most clearly focused; and he is an intelligent person, well able to look out for his feelings. What I, as a reader, wanted to know was how those people got that way. Had I been Leonard I would have gone to any length to find out, including whatever sacrifice of feeling was neces¬ sary. Such a report would have made his article truly valuable, because the roots of anti-Semitism, exposed, are the most obvious and powerful weapon for its destruction. In the outfits I personally served with, anti-Semitism was rare, and the reasons given too trite to be worth re¬ cording here. However, to the best of my ability, I made sure that the reasons were given, and that those who gave them were thereby led, by their own words, to discover the inadequacy of their thoughts upon the subject. This method made only friends, and possibly planted some first germs of independent thought. WRITERS’ CREDITS Jay E. Gordon, Visual Aids Coordina¬ tor, Headquarters Sixth Army, San Francisco, writes in to say: I noted in several issues the reference to screen credits and I wonder just how strongly the screen writers are pressing this issue. I am in favor of credit for creative work, but have worked these past four years in obscurity due to the Army’s apparently quite stern rule to give no credit to anyone. For example, my countless reams of creative writing have gone to press over the signature of the Adjutant General. My job entails the distribution and utilization of nearly 2000 separate motion pictures, not one of which exposes the name of the screen writer, director, musical director or ac¬ tors. Now here is my point. These hun¬ dreds of motion pictures made by and for the Army and Navy, and hundreds of others produced by or for other govern¬ ment agencies, represent a sizeable por ' tion of American motion picture produc¬ tion — and you gentlemen stay up nights figuring ways to improve the stra¬ tegic and cultural position of the screen writer, but regardless of how many of you worked in anonymity, I fail to recall anyone’s proposal of vigorous action to 47