Mr. CONNOLLY. They do not come to us. Mr. FLETCHER. That statement was made here. Mr. CONNOLLY. It is just the contrary. Colonel Joy will touch upon that question. You are referring to the Chinese situation. Mr. FLETCHER. It was stated yesterday by a witness on the other side that complaint comes from Americans who are overseas. Mr. CONNOLLY. For every such complaint, we probably get 10,000 letters of commendation and approval of the pictures. Colonel Joy will go thoroughly into the Chinese situation. I would like at this time to introduce Mr. Edward F. McGrady, representing the American Federation of Labor. STATEMENT OF EDWARD F. McGRADY, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR Mr. MCGRADY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Edward F. McGrady, and I am representing the American Federation of Labor. 66 The American Federation of Labor is opposed to this proposed legislation. This is an attempt to place Federal censorship over the moving-picture industry of the United States. The proponents of these bills do not like the word " censorship," and they use the word regulate," but censorship means regulation, and regulation means censorship, both of them mean the muzzling of the motion-picture industry of our country. The American Federation of Labor feels that free pictures are just as essential as free speech and a free press. If you attempt to muzzle free pictures in this country, you are establishing a precedent that may eventually mean the muzzling of a free press, or it might mean the muzzling of a free people in the exercise of free speech. I have some personal observations to make on this bill, but I am quite sure that you would rather hear what American Federation of Labor is thinking of when you discuss the censorship of moving pictures. We have had this matter before our conventions annually since 1915. We have given a great deal of attention to it, because the children that our good friends here want to regulate, or many of them, are our children. We have 4,000,000 workers in our organization, and I presume that those workers have millions of children. Therefore, we have been vitally interested. Now, this is what the American Federation of Labor has said: In the recent past efforts have been made to secure both State and Federal legislation providing for Government censorship of moving pictures. These proposals have had the support of a number of well-meaning persons who really desire to protect the children of the country and to promote a sense of high morality. However, there is involved in the proposal something more than is generally appreciated. The number, the variety, and the uses of motion pictures have been so greatly increased that they now constitute an important means of expression. Motion pictures are something more than an instrumentality for recreation. They are an agency for education, for dissemination of current information, comparable in many respects to the daily press and the public forum. They have a determining influence in directing and educating public thought and opinion. Motion pictures supplement the spoken and written word by a powerful appeal to the mind through the eye. The event or the thought to be conveyed is visualized. Since motion pictures are a means of expression and have become established as an agency supplementing our older methods, they must be protected by the same guaranties of freedom that have been bestowed upon oral utterance and upon the press. It is fundamental for the protection of free institutions that freedom of speech and discussion should be assured. Only when there exists most complete freedom to express thought or to criticize is there established a guaranty that political and other representative agents shall not violate the rights of others and shall not arrogate to themselves power and authority that they do not rightfully possess. Freedom of speech is inseparable from free institutions and the genius of a free people. This freedom must be protecetd against abuse by holding the individual responsible for his utterances. Legal restrictions in advance of presentation limits research, investigation, and inquiry for broader and deeper truths. It has ever been the theory of the few that people can be "made to be good by law." This same theory underlies the efforts of those who propose Government censorship. By establishing either State or Federal boards to review motion pictures, it is proposed to present to the public only such things as they may be permitted legally to see. This is putting very dangerous authority in the hands of a few for it enables the board of review to restrict and determine the very fountainheads of information, and it is indeed too difficult to understand how the work of an author, a composer or writer, artist or painter can well be permitted the freedom of the press, when these self-same expressions if exhibited on the screen may be censored or denied freedom of expression. There is involved in this whole realm of censorship a danger boundless in extent and permeated with a purpose to stifle and suppress the venturous spirit of a free people, and to enforce by law a predetermined moral, social, political, and economic code and a bureaucratic form of government. While appreciative of the need and desirability of exhibiting only clean and wholesome motion pictures and while unsympathetic with any means of communicating thought that tends to weaken the bonds so essential to an improved civilization, time and experience have demonstrated that the principle underlying governmental censorship are such as to threaten to convert the liberties of our people into license and subjugate the rights of free men to the whims and fancies of governmental censorship commissions. Because of the dangers inherent in these censorship commissions to the rights and liberties of our people, the executive council of the American Federation of Labor is impelled to reiterate the approved declaration of a year ago in protest to the proposed Federal censorship commission. We are sensitive to the grave dangers involved in this proposal in federal regulation over methods of communicating and distributing thoughts of human expression. Freedom of speech and publication is guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States. It is the cornerstone of free government. The censorship of motion pictures which are a form of publication will lead inevitably to the censuring of the theater and the press, and in our judgment marks the first step toward the death of free speech and free press in this country. We believe this legislation is needless and we point to the fact that the motion-picture producers and distributors of America, under Will H. Hays, the Author's League of America. the Actor's Equity, the American Dramatists, the Screen Writers' Guild, the Stage Mechanics and Motion Pictures Union, the Cinema Club, the Motion Picture Directors' Association, the American Federation of Musicians, and the International Printing Trades Unions, have already undertaken a program which will embrace the advancement of all that is good in motion pictures and on the stage and to inculcate into all those persons engaged in the production and promotion of motion pictures and plays and writings a higher technical standard. We affirm our declaration of previous years that we oppose all forms of political censorship over the freedom of expression and freedom of the press." Now, about the difficulties of this legislation: As I have stated, we have 4,000,000 members in our organization, embracing all creeds and all races. We have discussed this legislation in committee, and we have conferred with many good people who want to censor the moving-picture industry. Some of them suggested that drinking scenes ought to be eliminated, others suggested that all kissing ought to be eliminated, others suggested that kissing and embracing ought to be eliminated, others suggested that boxing ought to be elim inated, and some other good people who are opposed to war suggested that all war pictures, all pictures that glorify war, all pictures that showed soldiers marching down the street to the beating of drums and waving of flags should be eliminated, because they inculcated a war spirit. Therefore, if you start to regulating, God only knows where you will end. You are going to stifle, strangle, or muzzle this industry, and that is what we do not want to see take place. From our experience with moving pictures, we have found some fault with them. There is no question about that. We have put out a moving picture ourselves. Perhaps artistically, it was not a very good picture, but it was as good as we could afford. It was entitled "Labor's Reward" and it was a patriotic picture. It showed the struggle of labor to advance, but that picture has been denied the right to be shown in some cities in this country. Mr. FLETCHER. By whom was it denied? Mr. MCGRADY. By the local authorities. Mr. FLETCHER. For what reason? Mr. MCGRADY. This was in North Carolina, and the real reason, we believe, was that they did not want to show scenes that depicted men and women on the picket line, and they did not want to show scenes of workers as strikers demanding better working conditions. That is what we believe they wanted to suppress, but they told us that, unfortunately, the hall was not available, or, unfortunately, that the gentleman who had the power to license it, or to give the permit, was away from town. Of course, we were strangled censored. Mrs. KAHN. How many such refusals have you met with? Mr. MCGRADY. I am not sure as to that, but I can easily find out for you. Now, that is censorship. There are various kinds of censorship. You have it in connection with the Passaic strike. They have a censorship there, and that is a censorship at the source. Going up to the men who were taking the pictures and smashing the cameras so that the people of the Nation can not see what is taking place. That is censorship. Mr. FLETCHER. Who did that? Mr. MCGRADY. The police, the hired detectives, and men of that kind who are brought in to suppress and hold down those people who are seeking a better livelihood. Mr. FLETCHER. Who is responsible for that-the employers? Mr. MCGRADY. I would say that the State authorities are responsible, because they were the ones who committed the act. However, that is censorship at its source. We have had a great strike in Pennsylvania involving 168,000 men who had stopped work. They stopped work for months, almost six months. That was a strike to correct evils that had existed in that industry. Mr. UPSHAW. Will you permit a question at this point? Mr. MCGRADY. As soon as I finish this thought. Of course, where men are not bringing in wages for five or six months, there is hunger, and the children are poorly clad. Well, Pathe people wanted to show pictures of those children that were hungry, and pictures that would show their condition so far as shoes and clothing were concerned, but they were not allowed to be shown because the Censorship Board of Pennsylvania did not want pictures scattered around the country so that people might see the real conditions there. That 22126-26- -16 . is censorship, and that is what we are crying against. We say, give us free pictures, as you give us a free press, and as you give us free speech. I believe that is about all I want to say. Mr. UPSHAW. Were those stories which you have tried to get upon the screen published generally throughout the country? Mr. MCGRADY. I should say so. There is another thing I want to bring out, or another thought: What is going to happen to the Federal Government when you have the State authorities on its back in criticism of what is done? You will have the State authorities, as you have never had them before, in criticism of this Federal activity. We have heard complaint in connection with some of our good people down in Georgia. They opposed some pictures and said that they ought to be censored because they glorified the Roman Catholic Church in its marriage ceremonies. Therefore, they said, it ought to be censored. They said that the Catholic Church should not be glorified so much, and that they should not take scenes of marriage ceremonies inside of the church, with lighted candles, costumes, etc. I am mentioning this just to show what you will drift into when you start to regulate and censor moving pictures. Mr. FLETCHER. Who censors the pictures on that basis? Mr. MCGRADY. Nobody censors pictures on that basis, but that was a suggestion that was made. Mr. FLETCHER. How universal was that demand? Mr. MCGRADY. I heard of it in just one town. I want to say that I think you should appreciate the fact that in this discussion there is not a thing that has been said in criticism of moving pictures that you could not say about the press, and there is not a thing in it that you could not say about magazines. Now, why muzzle one and not the other? Mr. FLETCHER. How about the stage? Mr. MCGRADY. The stage is the same thing. If you start to muzzle moving pictures, you must muzzle the stage, and, eventually, you must muzzle the spoken word. There is no question about that. For these reasons we ask you not to pass this bill. Mr. UPSHAW. My friend knows that the American Federation of Labor has in the gentleman from Georgia, who now speaks to him, a record of about 100 per cent in support of legislation for the man in overalls. Mr. MCGRADY. You have been a very good friend of ours, Congressman, and we appreciate it very much. Mr. UPSHAW. Therefore, I do not like to be misunderstood. I want to make this matter clear. Up to the present time your statement or argument—and it has been a very brilliant argument, may I say—has been against all forms of censorship. You have contended against censorship as a whole, and that would throw you out, so to speak, with every industry that is not opposing censorship by municipalities, States, etc. Your position, it seems to me, from this standpoint, should not be against censorship by communities or cities, because our friends over here are not complaining against that. Mr. MCGRADY. I want to make it clear that, regardless of what the industry may say or do, we are against censorship of pictures in any form, just as we are opposed to the censorship of free speech or the free press. Mr. UPSHAW. What we are trying to get at The CHAIRMAN (interposing). Let us have order. Mr. UPSHAW. Pardon me, I had his permission to ask a question. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; and it was granted. We always extend to Members of Congress the courtesy of the floor when they ask it. Mr. Upshaw asked a question, and it was answered, and we want to give everybody here an opportunity to be heard. Mr. McGrady, have you finished your statement? Mr. MCGRADY. I am through, unless there are some questions. The CHAIRMAN. I have received this telegram, and it is only fair to you that I have it read while you are present. This telegram is from Baltimore, Md., and is dated April 17, 1926. The telegram is addressed "Chairman of Committee on Education, House of Representatives, care of Canon William Sheafe Chase, Congress Hotel, Washington, D. C.," and reads as follows: Baltimore Evening Sun reports to-day that Edward F. McGrady represented the Federation of Labor before House committee to-day stated the federation was opposing the Upshaw and Swoope censor bill. Henry F. Broening, president Maryland Federation Labor, stated to me to-night that no action against these bills by organized labor in Maryland has been taken. This disqualifies Mr. McGrady's statement for Maryland, and further investigation will be made for other States. Mrs. HOWARD D. BENNETT, President Citizens League for Better Motion Pictures. Mr. MCGRADY. Let me say that I do not know who this lady is. I do know Mr. Broening. I do not know what Mr. Broening said to this lady about the action of the American Federation of Labor. Let me assure you that, while we have not discussed these two particular bills, we are against all censorship. It is because we are opposed to all censorship and not particularly these two bills that I appear. Mr. DOUGLASS. Was not that an official communication that you read to the committee? Mr. MCGRADY. Those are the words of our executive council. Mr. GIBSON. Mr. McGrady, in answer to Mr. Upshaw you stated, in general terms, that you were opposed to censorship. Of course, we understand that, as a representative of your organization, if there was an objectionable picture you would use your influence to see that it was taken off the screen. Mr. MCGRADY. Not only that, but the laws we already have take care of that. It could be handled under the present laws. Mr. FLETCHER. Does Mr. Green represent the American Federation of Labor? Mr. MCGRADY. He is the president of the American Federation of Labor. Mr. FLETCHER. Does he agree with this position you have expressed? Mr. MCGRADY. He agrees with the policy of the American Federation of Labor as enunciated in convention. |