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344 CENSORSHIP OF FILMS thing else and so photoplays have come in for an undeserved bad name. It should be the aim of the author to restore the good name. 10. If you write clean and decent stories, you do not have to botlier about the Board of Review. If you want to revel in crime and blood- shed you must be careful to keep the actions of your character within the unwritten law. And mind you, merely because you say that your moral is a good one it does not follow that the story will pass. It must be a good one. 11. Much is seen on the screen that might better have been left undone, but it must be remembered that not all films are submitted to the censors and they should not be held responsible for the lapses in pictures over which they have no jurisdiction. 12. In general they aim not to wholly suppress the showing of scenes of crime but to reduce these to a minimum and to permit them only when they are used for some rightful purpose. There are always to be found men who are willing to take advantage of the taste for sensationalism and who will present a few salacious subjects which are snapped up by certain types of exhibitors who, like the makers of such subjects, see the immediate dime rather than the ultimate dollars that a cleaner program will assure. It was films such as these that helped to create a demand for the censorship. It injures the business in general and always reacts upon the makers in the long run. 13. It should be the aim of the author not so much to evade the censorship as to avoid the necessity for being censored. If the author will be guided by common decency and a liking for the clean he will have little trouble on the score of censorships, though some of the local restrictions are wonderful in their logic or rather lack of it. Write of the clean things of life and keep out of the dives in your stories as you would in real life and you will not receive your manu- scripts back with "Would not pass the Censors" written as the reason. 14. Again, it may seem to you that material is passed that is no worse than the incidents in your story. You w'onder why the board will pass this material and not yours. The reply is that the board has not refused to pass your story. The Editor is either afraid that it will not, or fears that you are so close to forbidden ground that the director may, in the production, carry the incident completely across the border. Studio writers who have means of knowing the rulings of the board on other submissions can come closer to the line than the outside author who is not in a position to come into possession of these facts. Permit the studio authors to take the chances and make your own stories so safe that the question of allowance will not arise. This does not mean that your stories must be puerile. It merely means that they must be clean. 15. The rulings of the board are given on the first print of the film and before the cut negative is sent to the printing room. Therein lies the value of the National Board. It helps the manufacturer to decide just what will pass before fifty to one hundred prints of the objectionable parts are made. .After the prints are made and dis-