MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Dudley M. Hughes (chairman) presiding. Present also: Mr. Doughton, Mr. Abercrombie, Mr. Baker, Mr. Clancy, Mr. Platt, Mr. Treadway, Mr. Fess, and Mr. Rupley. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, the committee will come to order. I wish to say that this is a bill "To create a new division of the Bureau of Education to be known as the Federal Motion Picture Commission, and defining its powers and duties." pleased to hear from Mr. Crafts. We will be STATEMENT OF REV. WILBUR F. CRAFTS, SUPERINTENDENT AND TREASURER OF THE INTERNATIONAL REFORM BUREAU. Mr. CRAFTS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I think I will read the bill, as some of the members of the committee may not have read it, although it will go into your record. The CHAIRMAN. All of the members have the bill before them. [H. R. 14805, Sixty-third Congress, second session.] A BILL To create a new division of the Bureau of Education to be known as the Federal motion picture commission, and defining its powers and duties. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a Federal motion picture commission be, and the same is hereby, created, to be composed of five commissioners appointed by the President, not more than three of whom shall be of the same political party. The commission shall be a division of the Bureau of Education. SEC. 2. That each commissioner shall hold office for six years, except that when the commission is first constituted two commissioners shall be appointed for two years, two for four years, and one for six years. Each commissioner shall thereafter be appointed for a full term of six years. Vacancies shall be filled in same manner as the original appointment. The salary of the chairman shall be $3,500 a year, and of each other commissioner, $3,000 a year. SEC. 3. That the commission shall elect a secretary, whose salary shall be $1.500 per annum. The commission may appoint inspectors and fix the compensation of each, provided that in no case the compensation of an inspector shall be more than $5 per day exclusive of traveling expenses. Actual and necessary traveling expenses shall be allowed to those who travel on the business of the commission. SEC. 4. That the commission shall license every film submitted to it and intended for entrance into interstate commerce, unless it finds that such film is obscene, indecent, immoral, or depicts a bull fight or a prize fight, or is of such a character that its exhibition would tend to corrupt the morals of children or adults or incite to crime. The commission may license any film, subject to such excisions, amplifications, or alterations as the commission may direct and require to be made. The commission may, by unanimous vote, withdraw any license at any time for cause shown. SEC. 5. That the commission shall adopt an appropriate seal, which shall be affixed, in such manner as the commission may direct, to every film approved by it. SEC. 6. That when any film has been approved the commission shall issue a certificate in the form adopted by the commission. These certificates shall describe the film and shall bear a serial number, and shall state its title, the day upon which it was approved by the commission, and the number of linear feet contained therein. SEC. 7. That the commission may if it has licensed a film issue a seal and certificate for each duplicate thereof without an examination of such duplicate. SEC. 8. That no copyright shall be issued for any film which has not previously received the certificate and seal of this commission. SEC. 9. That no person, firm, or corporation shall carry or transport any film from one State into another State of the United States, or from any foreign country into any State of the United States, unless such film has been licensed by the commission and a true copy of the certificate accompanies it. SEC. 10. That no moving-picture film that has not been licensed by the commission and which does not bear its stamp shall be exhibited in the District of Columbia or any place under the jurisdiction of the United States or in any of the Territories of the United States. SEC. 11. That a fee of $3 shall be charged for the examination by the commission of each film of one thousand feet or less. Any change or alteration in any picture on the film after it has been licensed, except the elimination of a part, shall be a violation of this act and shall also void the certificate and seal of such film. SEC. 12. That the commission shall annually, on or before the first day of January in each year, submit a written report to the United States Commissioner of Education. In this report, and by other means, the commission shall make recommendations to importers and producers of films and to the public regarding the educational and recreational use of motion pictures. SEC. 13. That the penalty for violation of this act shall be a fine of not more than $500, or imprisonment not more than one year, or both, in the discretion of the court, and the films unlawfully changed, exhibited, or transported shall be confiscated. SEC. 14. That this act shall take effect immediately, except sections eight, nine, and ten, which sections shall take effect nine months after date of the approval of this act. Mr. CRAFTS. We, will, perhaps, want to read it for amendment at the end of my remarks. I have here the greatest expert on the matter of motion-picture investigations in the country, Mr. William Sheafe Chase. I shall speak on the matter in a preliminary way, relying on him and Mr. Pringle for the details that the committee will want. The first thing that I want to bring before the committee is that there is a distinct precedent for the passage of this bill in the action of the last Congress, when Mr. Roddenbery, of Georgia, had a bill passed to prohibit films representing prize fights. That bill went through Congress without any serious opposition because of States' rights or other objections. That is now the law of the land. We have begun the national censorship-which we prefer to call national licensing in this bill of moving pictures. Then, in the tariff bill, passed in this Congress, power is given to the Secretary of the Treasury to exclude immoral films from abroad. There are two fragments of this bill already in existence, and to bring those together and to complete the framework is the purpose of this bill. The demand for such a bill is shown from the fact that there are four States that have censorships already at large expense. Each one of them is as expensive as if the whole country was being taken care of. Ohio, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and California have official censorships. Then there are many cities, including San Francisco and, I think, Chicago and Cleveland, that have boards of censorship. The number is multiplying in the various States and cities, and on account of this the moving-picture men themselves are coming to feel that while they are not in favor of what they call censorships, they would rather have one censorship than the inevitable multiplicity of State and local censorships. A film is an article which is essentially an article of interstate commerce. I do not know of anything in the United States that is more essentially and exclusively an article of interstate commerce than a motion picture film. Of course, some of them are only used in a single State, but the greater proportion of them are made to go from town to town across the whole country. It is preeminently a question of interstate commerce, and here at Washington is the normal and natural point for handling the question of censorship. Furthermore, the films have to come here for a copyright. I have been consulting with the Librarian of Congress, and he tells me that all films are sent here for copyrighting, and it would put no additional transportation expense upon the men who manufacture them to first send them to the motion-picture commission of the Bureau of Education, after which they could be copyrighted unless prevented by being refused a license. There is an unofficial board of censors in New York, but they have no authority to compel film manufacturers to submit any pictures unless they choose to do so. Therefore, the worst pictures are not sent there, and, furthermore, they have no adequate funds to do the work, and the State and local boards have turned down a great many of the pictures which they have passed. The country in general is not satisfied with this unofficial nominal board. What I want especially to emphasize here is that this is distinctly and preeminently an interstate-commerce business. A picture is made at great cost, sometimes as high as $50,000 being spent on one picture. Men are sent far off, to Burma, to the polar regions, or to the battlefields of Greece to make pictures, and they necessarily must have a wide constituency, and are as well adapted to one State as to another. They must come to Washington to start with, and then go out on their national journey. It is the most logical and normal thing to have them sent here for the purpose of being licensed or refused a license. Another very interesting precedent for I am talking more particularly about precedents at the beginning of this hearing-is in regard to the copyrights. I think the most valuable feature in this whole matter is that the films will get no copyright unless they have passed this board and have received a license. And that is in accordance with the precedent which Mr. Putnam, of the Library, gave me, that while they do not ordinarily exercise any judgment in granting a copyright to anything, whether good, bad, or indifferent, there was this one exception, that when a book has been declared obscene by the courts it can not get a copyright in the United States. So that anything that has been rejected by this board can be refused a copyright on the same grounds. |