While the idea of censorship of motion pictures is distasteful to our clients as well as to others in the business, our support of the principle of regulation embodied in the bill before you is due to our realization of unfavorable cutditions in the industry which can not be corrected by ordinary means nor by sporadic and occasional criminal prosecutions, procured by the better elements of the business or by individual or organized reformers. The motion-picture business, now of vast financial importance, has had a mushroom growth and is not yet homogeneous and standardized. Too many persons engaged in the business look upon it as a temporary means of getting money instead of a permanent business, the continued profit of which is dependent upon the quality and character of the productions. They are like miners who quickly exhaust the high-grade ore and leave the low grade on the dump. They are get-rich-quick artists, looking for a quick "clean-up and a get-away." They find the oppor tunity for such methods in producing and exhibiting sensational productions which display scenes of lust and crime.

Unfortunately, the public is not yet discriminating and goes to see both bad and good, which are usually to be found upon the weekly program of the same theater. Still more unfortunately, the vicious picture brings the larger return to exhibitor and producer, because it gets the money of the regular customer and the sensation seeker also. This state of affairs constitutes a temptation hard to resist and, in fact, the production of vicious pictures is constantly increasing just because they are more profitable. If the industry is to endure, if decent people are to stay in the business, this cancer must be cut out. A Federal regulatory commission should prove a fearless surgeon and we therefore favor such a commission.

The motion-picture business has three well-defined divisions-production, distribution, and exhibition. The producer deals with authors and performers and makes the pictures. The distributor contracts with the producer for his product and through local offices, known as exchanges, places it in the hands of the exhibitor. The exhibitor deals directly with the public. All three divisions of the business would be affected adversely by an act providing for Federal regulation which overlooked the practical needs of the business. In order that those needs may be served, we urge you to include in any bill which you may report provisions as follows:

(1) Local offices for the commission in New York and Los Angeles, so that the producers, most of whom operate in those cities or their vicinity, may have ready access to the supervising authority and prompt consideration of their product.

(2) Authority to the commissioner or deputy in charge of a local office to grant or refuse a license. This is necessary to procure the prompt action on applications, which the producer requires in order to meet his engagements with the distributor, covering a constant and frequent supply of pictures, and which the distributor requires in order to enable the exchanges to supply to the exhibitors the daily and weekly changes covered by their contracts. Delay would certainly be costly and might be fatal to the organized business.

(3) A provision for condemnation of specific parts of a film, which, when the same are eliminated, shall become entitled to license.

(4) A provision for review by the commission when the examiner refuses a license. As the determination of the question whether a film is entitled to license is not based upon exact standards but is a matter of opinion only, it should not be possible for one man, in his discretion, to destroy the large investment represented by a modern photoplay.

(5) A provision for an appeal to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia from a refusal to license. As the determination by the commission would be really arbitrary because of the absence of legal tests or recognized standards, it is of the greatest importance that the commission should not be vested with supreme power. Where great property interests are involved, the citizen should always be afforded an opportunity for relief from the court, if he feels that he has been treated unjustly.

(6) A prevision permitting the producer to transport films prior to application for license. The producer should be free to transport a film from its place of manufacture to his home office or other place, where it will be cut and trimmed and otherwise prepared for exhibition.

7. A provision for substantial salaries for the commissioners, so that the President can secure the services of capable men, who will accept office as a career and not for the purpose of carrying out preconceived and perhaps prejudiced ideas as to reform of the film industry.

(8) An exemption from the operation of the act of (a) films exhibited to the public prior to its enactment, and (b) films which do not contain any dramatic or fictional element, such as pictures of current events, commonly known as news pictures and topical reviews, and pictures of places and peoples, geographical in nature, and commonly known as travel pictures.

(9) A provision granting discretion to the commission to issue a permit under which films may be exhibited pending revocation of the permit and application for license. Such a provision would enable the commission to adjust the burden of temporarily accumulated applications by granting permits (in effect, temporary licenses) to producers whose history and reputation entitle them to a. presumption of complying with the law.

As we are moved by the sincere purpose of cooperating with your committee in procuring a draft of an act which should prove effective and workable and at the same time fair to the decent people in the motion-picture business, we respectfully request that when a bill is ready for action by the committee a copy shall be sent to us, and we shall be given an opportunity to appear before the committee and make such suggestions and criticisms as may occur to us.

MEYERS & CLARK,

Attorneys for Paramount Picture Corporation.

E. J. LUDVIGH,

RALPH A. KOHN,

Attorneys for Famous Players Film Co.
ARTHUR S. FRIEND,

Attorney for Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Co. (Inc.).

NEW YORK, January 25, 1916.

MORITZ ROSENTHAL,

Attorney for World Film Corporation and Equitable Motion Pictures Corporation.

(NOTE.-H. R. 456 was the original bill, which was amended by the committee and reintroduced as H. R. 15462.)

1st

ᏢᎪᎡᎢ 2.

FEDERAL MOTION-PICTURE COMMISSION.

MAY 22, 1916.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. DALLINGER, from the Committee on Education, submitted the

following

MINORITY VIEWS.

[To accompany H. R. 15462.]

This bill proposes to regulate by a Federal commission the principal amusement agency and what is rapidly coming to be one of the chief educational agencies of the people of the United States. It is not proposed to censor the plays or operas produced at the high-priced theaters throughout the country, but it is proposed to give five men at Washington the absolute power to determine beforehand what the great mass of the American people shall be permitted to see depicted upon the motion-picture screen. Before the National Government undertakes to thus exercise the local police power hitherto reserved to the States, and to regulate purely local amusements, thus stretching the implied power of the interstate-commerce clause of the Federal Constitution to the breaking point, it is incumbent upon the proponents of such legislation to show that a widespread evil exists with which the State and local authorities are unable to cope.

At the hearings before the committee practically no real evidence was introduced tending to show that any significant proportion of the moving-picture films now being exhibited in the United States are objectionable. In the last analysis it appears that what the proponents of this legislation really desire is to prevent the exhibition through the agency of the motion-picture film of any book or play which in any way depicts crime or immorality, or paints the evil side of human life, on the ground that such scenes tend to corrupt morals and incite to crime. It is obvious that any such test as this would prevent the great mass of the American people, whose limited means will not permit them to patronize the high-priced theaters, from seeing depicted on the motion-picture screen practically all the great works of literature from the beginning of time. Judged by any such standard most of Shakespeare's plays and even many parts of the Sacred Scriptures would be barred. That there are occasional

indecent and obscene motion-picture films exhibited here and there, is perfectly true, just as there are obscene and indecent plays produced in high-priced theaters and indecent and immoral books published. Such productions, however, are already prohibited by the laws of the several States, and their transportation from State to State is also prohibited by Federal statute under severe penalties. In our opinion, an amendment to the United States Penal Code including motion-picture films in the list of objects barred from interstate transportation will answer every purpose and is as far as Federal legislation should go. Such an amendment is proposed in s bill introduced in the present Congress and now pending before the Committee on the Judiciary.

Moreover, there was no evidence whatever before the committee that local regulation of the exhibition of motion-picture films has proved ineffective where it has been tried. It is entirely within the power of the several States to provide that the executive or police authorities of the local communities shall have absolute power to grant and revoke licenses for all places of amusement within their several jurisdictions, and in many communities this power is now being effectively exercised. Furthermore, most of the States already have laws making it a criminal offense, punishable by fine and imprisonment, to exhibit any obscene or indecent picture. Where the local police power is thus ample to effectively deal with whatever evils exist in the motion-picture business, regulation by the National Gov ernment is manifestly uncalled for, unnecessary, and unjustifiable. The overwhelming weight of opinion amongst those producing motion pictures is against the proposed censorship bill. The opposition to the bill represents more than 85 per cent of the total number of motion-picture films produced. Those manufacturers who favor the bill represent a very insignificant proportion of the output. The attitude of this inconsiderable minority is naturally and frankly selfish and commercial. They believe that it would be less expensive and troublesome to deal with and perchance control a single Federal censorship commission than to deal with or to control the several State authorities acting under their already ample police powers. The notorious effectiveness of the prepublicity censorship of theatrical productions in England has undoubtedly influenced this minority of the moving-picture manufacturers to believe that a like national prepublicity censorship as provided in this bill will have a similar effect in this country.

In England the evidence produced before a special parliamentary committee which made a very exhaustive investigation and report in 1909 has established the following facts:

(1) Prepublicity censorship "tends to hinder the growth of a great and serious drama" by discouraging distinguished authors whose time is valuable from jeopardizing their time by writing plays which might be destroyed by the whimsical opinion of a censor.

(2) It fails to prevent the production of immoral plays.

(3) It atrophies the exercise of the local police power over local production of immoral plays because they have been licensed by the national censorship authority.

(4) The censorship authority falls under the influence of the large theater interests and tends to exercise its censorial powers with undue consideration for box-office receipts.