STATEMENT OF MISS MAUDE M. ALDRICH, NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF MOTION PICTURES, WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION, WINONA LAKE, IND.

Miss ALDRICH. I am the national director of motion pictures for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, director of child and family welfare in the department of moral welfare of the Presbyterian Church, United States of America, and recording secretary of the Federal motion picture councils in America.

The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union convention, Detroit, 1925, passed the following resolution:

Because of the magnitude and nature of the motion-picture industry, and because of its national and international influence on life and character, be it resolved that in the interest of prohibition, purity, and peace, we work for Federal, State, and local regulation of motion pictures of such a nature that each may supplement the other and all may seek to preserve American ideals at home and guarantee a right interpretation of American life to the nations of the world.

Federal regulation establishing higher standards of production is the only form of regulation that can meet the actual need expressed in this resolution, namely, the preservation of American ideals at home and the guarantee of a right interpretation of American life to other nations. We gratefully acknowledge the value of the censorship legislation that is in effect to-day, and pay our tribute of respect to the law makers of the cities and States where this legislation exists, and to the public officials who are trying to make it as effective and valuable as they can, by weeding out the worst of scenes and subtitles in the pictures shown in their States and cities. From personal experience I am persuaded censorship is the only effective method by which, up to the present time, pictures have been improved morally to any appreciable extent. This form of regulation while it is the best the State can offer to protect its boys and girls, is powerless to prevent the production and distribution of pictures which portray and even exalt the worst in American life to American boys and girls or to prevent the world-wide distribution of the most objectionable pictures, and America produces 85 per cent of the pictures shown around the world. Cooperation with the motion-picture industry on the part of the American people for over 16 years has also been powerless to check the constant production of pictures misrepresenting the ideals and standards upon which depend the strength and leadership of the Nation. Only Federal regulation establishing higher standards of production can authoritatively check this constant portrayal of the lowest and most lawless levels of American life and guarantee the production of pictures portraying normal American life and interpreting us at our best to our own boys and girls as well as to the other nations.

Prof Norman Richardson, of Northwestern University, made the following statements at the national motion-picture conference:

The permanency of any civilization depends upon its power to transmit to succeeding generations those ideals which represent its best life. History surely gives us again and again illustrations of civilizations that have failed to do this thing and have been swept out to oblivion.

Then speaking of the influence of the motion picture, he said:

That which represents not the best but the worst in our present civilization is being transmitted very effectively to innumerable members of this new generation. This is a new experience speaking now in terms of the centuries as they come and go. There has always been that condition where evil has been transmitted accidentally or in somewhat spasmodic way, but we have come upon a day when this thing is organized, what it has come to be, we are told, the fourth largest group of financial resources in this Nation of wealth, and we are led to ask this question, if the worst in our present civilization is being transmitted effectively to the members of the new generation, how long can that which is best in our present civilization be maintained.

We are not only transmitting our worst to our own boys and girls, but are portraying the worst in American life to the nations of the world. A few years ago, America was held in the highest repute by the nations of the Orient, but now thoughtful travelers return to tell us this same Orient is looking at us with questioning eyes, that many unconscious influences have brought this situation about, but chief among these is the influence of the American motion picture. Sooner or later our boys and girls must stand face to face with grave international problems brought about by this misinterpretation of American life abroad, whereas if our home and national life were rightly interpreted by our motion pictures alone, it could not but assist in building up international understanding and sympathy.

In this inquiring gaze with which the Orient is looking at America to-day, the question which stands out most plainly is: "Is your liberty license? If it is, we do not want it." If we were to weigh our assets and liabilities, perhaps our greatest liability is this lack of respect for law. This attitude toward law is not a matter of a few years or a few laws, much maligned by their enemies. It is a result of abuses and corruption which have grown up through many years and grown out of the violation of all laws. However, one of the greatest causes of lawlessness to-day is very often overlooked, namely, the motion pictures in which, in comic and thrilling scenes, the officers of the law are evaded and violators of the law are made clever and heroic. This probably has small effect upon normal adult America, but no one can overestimate its effect upon young America. The Federal Trade Commission, after stating that 20,000,000 people attend motion pictures daily, estimate that 15,000,000 of these are under 24 years of age and state that motion pictures are a greater potential power to influence character, habits, dress, morals, and general conduct of our youth than the public-school system.

We turn to the question of violation of law most under fire to-day, and can not but recognize that untold damage has been done to prohibition by constant and varied misrepresentation upon the screen. This misrepresentation follows three chief lines, first, the presentation of the use of alcoholic liquor on the screen is very often unscientific. School laws in nearly every State require the teaching of scientific temperance to the boys and girls. Yet here is an instructor of children that reaches them before school age, teaches through the eye gate, the most effective means of conveying ideas, and its teaching is contrary to the scientific truth.

For instance, in one of the best pictures I know, men are presented as drinking themselves staggering and hilariously drunk in order to shoot straight enough to shoot tin cans from each other heads. I do not care to have any man shoot a tin can from my head, but if I

must submit to such a procedure, that man must be bone dry. I know too many records of accidents caused by drivers and engineers who had only a glass or two. I know too well the scientific truths of the effect of alcohol, but the little child in the front row at the motionpicture theater does not know and has not yet been taught.

Second, the presentation of drinking and drunkenness is often used to add a bit of comedy to the picture. The trail of sorrow that follows in its path I have never seen presented on the screen except in pictures definitely designed to instruct. Most of our younger boys and girls to-day have never known the blow of a drunken father or the hunger and cold that belong to the days when the laboring man's check was cashed at the corner saloon. These pictures which show drunken scenes as comic are blinding our youth to that which hundreds of thousands of women and children once knew so well, namely, whenever you laugh at a drunken man some one is weeping at this same spectacle.

Third, it is not uncommon to present violation of the eighteenth amendment and the Volstead law as comic, clever, or heroic. Officers of the law are outwitted and the violator of the law makes a grand "get away." In so far as there is lawlessness among the youth in our land to-day I believe no one factor is more responsible than the manner in which violation of the law is constantly treated upon the screen. How can we expect to present lawlessness, to show in detail the way the violator of the law evades detection or outwits the "cop " to a daily audience of 20,000,000, 15,000,000 of whom are under 24 years of age, and not expect to reap a harvest of lawlessness. We are sowing to the wind when our children and our immigrants see these things; we can not but reap the whirlwind. I believe that if for one year law-abiding citizenship could be exalted and lawlessness justly and adequately punished in all pictures shown upon the screen, the effect would be felt in the life and conduct of young and old.

It is unreasonable to trust to any financially interested group complete control of any industry, especially one yielding large financial returns, which so vitally affects the ideals and institutions of the Nation or is so potent in affecting international relations. Ar industry with such vast potential power for good or evil needs the wisdom of the keenest minds, the inspiration of the noblest characters, and the legal safeguarding and protection of the Nation. In view of these facts we ask for Federal regulation establishing higher standards of production in order to guarantee pictures that portray the best in American life, that exalt obedience to law, and rightly interpret the value and growth of prohibition to America and the world. Why should it not be so, for hundreds of thousands to-day know the joy of a peaceful home life and the strength of sobriety who before prohibition knew but the sorrow of hearts that break at that which makes others laugh.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions? Thank you very much, Miss Aldrich.

Canon CHASE. I will ask Mr. Martin to speak next.

(No response.)

I will ask Miss Mary Caldwell, of Chattanooga, Tenn., president of the Tennessee Woman's Christian Temperance Union and a member of the Southern Methodist Church, which I believe she is in a way authorized to represent.

STATEMENT OF MISS MARY CALDWELL, CHATTANOOGA, TENN., SUPERINTENDENT OF MOTION PICTURES FOR THE TENNESSEE WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION

Miss CALDWELL. I am not president of the Tennessee Woman's Christian Temperance Union; I am superintendent of motion pictures for the Tennessee Woman's Christian Temperance Union. I am president of several other organizations, all of which have their motion-picture departments, and I was called before I left, all the morning, so that I barely had time to dress, and finally I had to get some one to come and take care of my telephone calls from different organizations all over the city, and different churches, asking me to represent them. I have not had any requests from these two larger organizations to represent them, but I am quite sure that if they had known I was going to be here I would be representing them, because I was up to their conferences and I succeeded in presenting the question to the social service committee and to the Holston Conference of Tennessee, which passed this recolution:

That we urge every auxiliary—

There are 185 local auxiliaries in this conference

and as many individuals as will, to take membership in the Federal Motion Picture Council in America, and that we study and indorse resolutions passed by this council for wholesome pictures for the protection of the children of America and the world.

This is the missionary conference of the Southern Methodist Church of Holston Conference only.

Then I went to Raleigh, N. C., to our missionary council, which is the biggest thing we have in the whole Southern Methodist Church among the women. That council puts over practically everything it wants to put over with its members. The members are extremely loyal to it, each one trying to do exactly as the council asks them, each little band in each local auxiliary rivaling the other band to come up to full requirements. This represents between six and seven thousand auxiliaries. My own auxiliary is nearly 400 members, and I presume--I did not get the membership, did not think to get it, because I was not planning for this talk, but I should say at a rough guess that I am representing about 700,000 women of the Southern Methodist Church when I bring this before you.

The Woman's Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church South at its meeting November 10 to 17, 1925, at Raleigh, N. C., passed the following resolution: That resolutions be addressed to the chairman of the committee of the House of Representatives on education, asking that some bill on Federal regulation of motion pictures be reported; also to write the State Representatives.

The council went on record the year before, 1925, for Federal regulation, so this is the second year for Federal regulation. This council-there was some mistake as to the date-I was taken sick while I was at the council, and I am now only just able to get out again, otherwise I am afraid your chairman here would have been swamped with letters from the Southern Methodist Church.

This is the church, I think, to which Mrs. Richardson, of Atlanta, belongs. She was speaking of it, and I am very sure of its stand; I am very sure of its backing. Two years ago I do not think I had

in my city more than 200 people that I could depend upon to back me, if I had that many. I do not think that I had in the State of Tennessee more than three or four hundred. To-day I am representing the State W. C. T. U. with a nominal membership-that means that many on our books; if they do not pay their dues they are dropped, so we can not tell until the end of the year just what it is a nominal membership of 10,000, every woman of whom is solidly back of me. Now, that is the way we are standing, and they are standing for this bill and they are pleading to you men to do something to protect their children.

Now, do we need it? We have had repeated attempts to get better things. For five or six years we have tried awfully hard. In 1923 I began-I was called out to a suburban place. I own a projector and I show pictures in order to teach the children what good pictures are. I bought it at my own expense. I have put a great deal of money into all these things. Nobody ever paid a nickel for any of it but myself, and I am doing it for the good of the children of America and the children of my own locality. I went out there and I found a great deal of opposition to my coming with my camera and showing the pictures. One mother said, are you coming from town to keep my children away from the motion pictures? She said, "I am surprised at you, Miss Caldwell, for standing for this." Well, out of the 30 members there that day, 24 of them urged me to come and give the picture, because they thought they could keep their children at home. Then the mothers began, "What do you suppose I took away from my daughter last week?" I said, "I don't know." I do not remember that I can give you these books just in order, but among the books were The Shiek, Flaming Youth, Common Law, Six Days, Three Weeks. And I won't tell you of the tragedies that those people have had.

There is no use going into details. I immediately wrote Mr. Hays, protesting against Six Days. Three Weeks had not been released at that time, I think, and protesting against Three Weeks ever being made. I told him that Six Days was advertised as "peppier than Three Weeks," and our school boys and girls got them and read them together. That is the shocking part of it. Now, there is a book that the industry went out of its way for. They went back to a book that was 15 or 20 years old and dug it up because it was filthy and gave it to the children of America to read, millions of them. There is no question at all about that.

Mr. FENN. You mean reading or shown on the screen?

Miss CALDWELL. On the screen. They filmed them.

Mrs. KAHN. These were books that they put on the screen?

Miss CALDWELL. These are books that were filmed.

Mrs. KAHN. You said the children read them.

Miss CALDWELL. The reason I said they read them, here was Six Days that had been filmed.

Mrs. KAHN. And they got the books?

Miss CALDWELL. It was advertised on the screen and all over the city as "peppier than Three Weeks," and so of course they went back to Three Weeks and read that. Three Weeks was very old, and Common Law-why I remember, I helped stop that shall I call it a boycott, I guess it was, against the Cosmopolitan through the