Mr. LOWREY. You might repeat briefly that statement as to the investigation made by the Legislature of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Swoope. When I was acting as a deputy attorney general, the censor board of Pennsylvania held a private exhibition of the films which they had censored or rejected, for the information of the legislature. There were 250 representatives and 50 State senators there, and an immense majority of all present agreed that the films were not fit for public_exhibition.

Mr. HOLADAY. It might be a good idea to place in the record the names of those 35 cities that you say have censor boards.

Mr. SWOOPE. I have not that list here: I think I have it in my office.

Mr. HALE. Do I correctly understand that your position is that if this bill should pass, that it would prohibit as a practical proposition the constitution of State censorship boards?

Mr. SwOOPE. Not necessarily; no. There is such a thing as concurrent jurisdiction.

Mr. HALE. That is what I supposed.

Mr. SWOOPE. The States could make whatever regulations they desired, but the idea of most people is that if there were a national board, that would not make it necessary to have the local boards; it would be better to have one national board to cover the whole matter. Mr. HALE. Well, any bill we can pass must be limited to films that are transported in interstate commerce.

Mr. SWOOPE. Yes.

Mr. HALE. If a picture were manufactured in a State and exhibited simply in that State, we would have nothing to do with that; we could not prevent its exhibition in that State by any bill we could pass here. Mr. SWOOPE. That, of course, is true; but that applies to everything as well as motion pictures.

Mr. HALE. I wanted to clear that point up. I got the impression that you stated that if we passed this bill it would do away with the necessity of any motion-picture producer exhibiting his picture to any State or municipal boards.

Mr. Swoope. It would not necessarily do away with all other censorship. The State boards, I suppose, might make different regulations, if they continue to exist, from the regulations of the national board. One other thing I might say in answer to the question about immoral pictures. I got a communication from Habana, Cuba, written in Spanish, as to films that were exhibited there which were considered indecent. I could not read the Spanish, but I had the letter translated. It protested about something I had said about immoral pictures that had been produced in Habana, and the answer was that they were produced in America before they were produced in Habana, and then sent to Habana and then after that the exhibitors down there had been prosecuted. That was the answer.

Mr. BLACK. You make a point to the effect that there are so many censorships now that it would be a good thing to establish this national censorship and that would obviate all these others. Now, it seems to me as a practical thing all you do by this bill is to propose to add another censorship to those already existing, that you would simply add to the trouble.

Mr. SWOOPE. I have a letter here from the producers saying that they would be in favor of Federal censorship, signed by the counsel

for the Paramount Pictures Corporation, the Famous Players, Jesse L. Lasky, and Morris Rosendahl, attorney for the World Film Corporation, and Equitable Motion Pictures Corporation, and here is one sentence on page 4 which I would like to read:

The Federal regulatory commission should prove a fearless surgeon, and we, therefore, favor such a commission.

Mr. BLACK. That is probably on the theory that they would rather have one than 48 censors, but they would rather have 48 than 49. Mr. SwOOPE. But remember that any way there are only seven States that have censorship boards.

Mr. BLACK. You are not going to do away with the State censorship and the municipal censorship by this bill.

Mr. SwOOPE. I think they would naturally go out of existence, because all the films are the subject of interstate commerce. Nobody produces a film simply for one State.

Mr. BLACK. Do you think that as soon as we pass this bill, the States will do away with their censorship boards?

Mr. SwOOPE. I think they naturally would. I don't know what they would do, but I am sure nobody would produce a film just to be shown in one State. Nobody does that. Most of the films are produced either in New York or Hollywood, and they are sent all over the world from those places.

Mr. ROBSION. I was wondering whether the attitude of the motionpicture producers toward this regulation by the Federal Government was something like the attitude of the railroads of the country, rather favoring the Interstate Commission's regulations in preference to the regulation by 48 States, they finding it difficult to meet the regulations of all those States.

Mr. SwoOPE. Well, of course, they have been against censorship. They sent Judge Lindsey to the conference to speak against any form of Federal censorship.

Mr. BLACK. When was the censorship letter written?

Mr. SWOOPE. It was in 1916.

Mr. BLACK. That hearing on the House bill was in 1916?

Mr. SWOOPE. Yes.

Mr. BLACK. That was before the State censorship boards were established.

Mr. SWOOPE. Ours was established in 1915.

Mr. BLACK. I think New York came after that.

Mr. DOUGLASS. How did your 1915 Pennsylvania law work out? Mr. SWOOPE. That was the point I made. From my own experience I can say it is working out fine; we are all in favor of it there. Mr. ROBSION. Are there any other questions? If not, we will hear Mr. Upshaw, who has introduced the bill H. R. 8263.

STATEMENT OF HON. W. D. UPSHAW, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA

Mr. UPSHAW. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I want to say in the very beginning that there is no antagonism between the Swoope bill and the Upshaw bill. They have a comradeship much of the way. It is thought by the proponents of the bill which I introduced that it goes a little further, perhaps, and therefore they like it better. My remarks are both preliminary and

prefatory, and it is thought only proper that Doctors Chase and Scanlon, and others leaders here, who have given their attention to this type of business so many years, shall really develop the discussion. At the outset, I wish to acknowledge the high honor paid me by the committee that came from New York, Pittsburgh, and other places to ask me to have comradeship with them by introducing this bill for the regulation of motion pictures. This bill is one of constructive friendship for the motion-picture business. It is a bill not for meticulous and meddlesome censorship of pictures already produced at heavy expense; it is intended, rather, to purify this great fountain of influence at its source, so as to prevent its poisonous and devastating overflow upon the plastic youth of America.

It is a bill of ideals and of standards of production. It is intended to make unnecessary the hindering restraints of municipal and State censorship boards that now exist-boards which have been made. necessary by the unwholesome character of many movies. If it be objected that Federal control is objectionable on the ground of centralization, we answer that motion pictures are interstate and national in their operation, and therefore a Federal regulation is required to keep the motion-picture business from becoming a national curse instead of a national blessing.

Five years ago the Federal Trade Commission issued an official complaint against the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and five other organizations, and after four years of searching investigation a report covering 17,000 pages has been issued, setting forth "unfair and unscrupulous methods" in orepating this great monopoly. With $1,500,000,000 invested, with annual admissions amounting to $1,000,000,000 with 20,000 theaters and a daily attendance of 20,000,000, three-fourths of them young people, and with many screens reeking with social rottenness and flashing defiance to every decent law of God and man, only the strong arm of the Federal Government can cope with this colossal menace to the ideals and the morals of the homes and the youth of the Nation.

There is no "blue-law" dictum in this proposed bill; it is a "red, white, and blue" law for a proper guardianship of the boys and girls who, as Jacob Riis said, are "the to-morrow of the Republic."

And the motion-pucture monopoly has nobody to blame but itself for arousing the militant decency of America to a sane protection of the very "seed corn " of the Nation.

"We had hoped," as the disciples said as they walked to Emmaus with the Master, with their eyes yet holden, "that He who wrought such miracles would deliver Israel at this time," and we had fondly hoped that Will Hays, with keen discernment, lofty ideals, and masterful ability, would strike the shackles that bound the motionpicture business to so much that was unclean. I think Will Hays really meant to do it, but he has been like the Irishman who joined the Methodist Church, when the preacher asked: "Will you renounce the devil and all his works?" Pat, feeling the limitations of human weakness and knowing the power of temptation, replied: "Yes, Parson, as far as the divil will let me."

Will Hays has done all, I suppose, that the "devil" of monopoly would let him do. In other words, he was called from his high

position as an alibi for the movie monopoly and a lullaby for the conscience of decent, God-fearing America.

If Mr. Hays tells us that we "simply have no idea how many bad pictures he has kept off the screen," we reply that we do know how many bad ones he has allowed to go on the screen.

In proposing a commission to license only such pictures as do not violate decency nor outrage "that righteousness that exalteth a nation," we are simply proposing to stand at the door of our homes, our churches, and our schools and fight back the wolves of immorality, that are crouching to destroy the hope and strength of the Nation.

Let me remind you in conclusion what I said in the beginningthat this bill is one of constructive and protective friendship for the motion picture business. I am a movie fan, I count the motion picture one of the most marvelous productions of genius the world has ever seen. It should be used only for clean entertainment and educational, patriotic, moral, and spiritual uplift.

And no man or corporation, producer or distributor, is going to object to a bill of lofty standards like this except a somebody who wants to produce and distribute unclean and degrading pictures. The motion picture business should be reminded also that it does not have to appeal to tastes and passions that are described by the Bible as "sensual and devilish" in order to win. success. The greatest runs that have ever been thrown on the screen have been pictures whose very purity and loftiness constituted their chiefest fascination.

The motion-picture business has proven itself very ungrateful. Millions of dollars have gone into its coffers that used to go over the counter of the saloon, and yet it is the almost daily custom of the screen to reflect in every possible way upon our prohibition law, which was enacted by due constitutional process. Illicit drinking is thus encouraged and a general spirit of lawnessness engendered. The god-fearing, law-abiding masses of America are getting righteously tired also of the insidious reflections on Christian ministers and on the essence and spirit of vital Christianity.

I put into italics the fact that we love the motion-picture business too well to see it destroy itself by its own wanton mistakes. For the sake of our children and our country's purity, security, and perpetuity we want it cleaned up.

It would seem from the spirit of many pictures that I have seen that they are produced with one thought—an utter disregard of the laws of God and man. Some time ago I actually had to take my little girl out with me in the middle of a picture, had to lead her from the playhouse. I repeat that we are the friends of the movie; we love it too well to see it destroy itself by its own wanton mistakes. For the sake of our children and our country's purity we want it cleaned up.

Mr. BLACK. Where was that picture show where you had to take out your little girl?

Mr. UPSHAW. In Charlotte, N. C. I will say to the gentleman, too, if he would like it supplemented, that some time ago with

1

a party of friends we went on Christmas night to a movie just for entertainment. We had had a dinner and then we went to this motion-picture show, and in that exhibition almost all the time was taken up with the very thing that is protested against in this bill, the thematical presentation, if you please, of illicit love, that meant the breaking up of homes and that kind of deviltry. We are the friend of the motion picture, but we demand that it shall clean up. Mr. FENN. May I ask a question for information?

Mr. UPSHAW. Certainly.

Mr. FENN. I find on page 20 of your bill that it provides that a certain amount of the money received in fees, etc., is to go to the Bureau of Education.

Mr. UPSHAW. Yes. That part of it will be discussed by the Rev. Dr. Canon Chase.

Mr. FENN. As it is your bill, I would like to ask you is not that a new feature in the creation of an agency, that the receipts of one commission should go to another bureau of the Government?

Mr. UPSHAW. Perhaps so.

Mr. FENN. It would be furnished by the motion-picture people and not by the general taxation fund. I wondered whether that was not an exception to the general rule.

Mr. UPSHAW. Yes; but we think it is a most wholesome one.

Doctor CHASE. May I suggest that our side would be glad if we could be given enough time to present our case, as we did in 1915 and 1916? At that time the committee sat a week, and every night, in the consideration of this matter. That was in 1915; the committee unanimously approved the Smith-Hughes bill at that time. Then, in 1916, they did the same thing, and by vote of 11 to 5 approved a revised bill. On that occasion the committee had the advice of a lawyer of a large part of the motion-picture industry, and the committee really revamped the Smith-Hughes bill, so that what Congressman Swoope has introduced this morning is really a bill which was made up by the Committee on Education in 1916.

I recite that so as to indicate that we can not really take up this question unless we can have considerable time. Now, I think there are two of our witnesses who had to be excused this morning. Many of them come from distant parts of the country. They can wait, but these two that I refer to would like to be heard to-day. We would, of course, like to have our opponents have as many rights as we have and we want to be friendly toward them.

Mr. ROBSION. I was wondering whether you could introduce the two witnesses you have, who must leave the city, and let the others introduce the two that must leave the city this morning.

Doctor CHASE. Yes, sir. Before I do that I would like to outline some of the features of the bill.

Mr. ROBSION. We do not want you to use up the morning.

Doctor CHASE. Then, I think we will adopt your suggestion and I will, therefore, call upon the Reverend Doctor Twombly of Lancaster, Pa., who will speak upon the question which one of the members of the committee asked, as to the immorality of the pictures as they are produced to-day.