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diff --git a/79231-h/79231-h.htm b/79231-h/79231-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..beb09b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/79231-h/79231-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1158 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + Judge Ben B. Lindsey on The Child—The Movie—and Censorship | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +.noindent {text-indent: 0;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.bbox {border: 4px double; width:50%; margin:auto; padding:5px;} + +.x-ebookmaker .bbox {border: 0; margin:auto; padding: 5px;} + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w100 {width: 100%;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.tnote { + border: dashed 1px; + font-size: smaller; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + padding-bottom: 0.5em; + padding-top: 0.5em; + padding-left: 0.5em; + padding-right: 0.5em + } + +.x-ebookmaker .tnote { + margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 + } + +p .tnote { + text-indent: 0 + } + +ins { + text-decoration: none + } + +.float-left {float: left; margin-left: 5%;} + +.float-right {float: right; margin-right: 5%;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp05 {width: 5%;} +.illowp45 { + width: 45% + } +.x-ebookmaker .illowp45 { + width: 100% + } + +.titlesmaller { font-size: 0.75em; } + +.titlemuchsmaller { font-size:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.67em; text-transform: uppercase;} + + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79231 ***</div> + +<main> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp45" style="max-width:100.0em;" id="cover"> +<img alt="" class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" id="img_images_cover.jpg"> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + +<h1><span class="titlesmaller">Judge Ben B. Lindsey</span><br> + +<span class="titlemuchsmaller">on</span><br> + +The Child—The Movie—and<br> Censorship</h1> + +<div class="bbox"> +<p class="center">“I defy anyone to show that one city or state with +censorship is any better than other cities or states +like our own where there is no censorship.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="center">“The movie is a real League of Nations, binding the +world together through seeing that they are all just +the same as each other.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="center">“Pontius Pilate was the first great censor.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="center">“I believe in real religion and real education.”</p> +</div> +<br><br> +<figure class="figcenter illowp05" id="title" style="max-width: 23.6875em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/title.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> +<br><br> +<p class="center">Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc.</p> + +<p class="float-left">WILL H. HAYS, Pres.</p> +<p class="float-right center">469 Fifth Avenue<br> +New York City</p> +<br><br> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Judge_Ben_B_Lindsey"> + Judge Ben B. Lindsey + </h2> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Judge of the Juvenile and Family Court of Denver, +Colorado.</i></p> + + +<p>Judge Lindsey is one of the best known of +Americans. He is an authority on child welfare +and juvenile treatment—a writer of note on +the subject, a lecturer, a man whose opinions are +sought.</p> + +<p>In January, 1899, he was appointed public guardian +and administrator of the County Court of +Denver, that under the first Colorado Juvenile +law of April 12th, 1899, became the Juvenile +Court. The following year he was appointed, and +ten times since has been elected Judge of that +Court, in which he is now serving his twenty-sixth +year. In Who’s Who for 1925 he is listed as the +“promoter of the juvenile court system and originator +of some of its features and has international +reputation as an authority upon juvenile +delinquency.”</p> + +<p>Judge Lindsey is author of the Colorado Juvenile +Court laws and with his collaborator (Wainwright +Evans) the recent much discussed book +“The Revolt of Modern Youth.” In this book +Judge Lindsey takes a firm stand against censorship.</p> + +<p>The following address was delivered by Judge +Lindsey at the Fourth National Motion Picture +Conference in Chicago, Ill., in February, 1926.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="The_Child-The_Movie-and"> + The Child—The Movie—and + Censorship + </h2> +</div> + +<p class="center">By JUDGE BEN B. LINDSEY</p> + + +<p class="noindent"> + Ladies and Gentlemen: +</p> + +<p>As stated in your program, “This is an open conference with +a free platform—all are welcome.”</p> + +<p>I trust that I may be of some service. Even though we differ +in methods, our purposes are the same. We want clean, wholesome +motion pictures and we want to protect the youth of this country +against any evil in this popular form of entertainment, as well as to +secure for them the best that is to be had in this new, marvelous +method of human expression. And whatever may be our differences, +I wish to express my own appreciation of the value of an association +like this in bringing about a free and open discussion that may help +to disclose to us real remedies against the evils that we all oppose.</p> + +<p>I have friends here in this conference with whom I differ as to +methods to that end, but I have the highest respect for the sincerity +of their purposes, as I believe they will have for mine. <b>For my views +on the subject of governmental censorship are well known. They +have been formulated after nearly twenty-seven years of experience +in a Juvenile Court that came into existence under our Colorado law +of 1899</b>—the same year as that of the Juvenile Court of your own +great city of Chicago, which, next to Denver, I count as home, because +here reside some of my dearest friends.</p> + + +<h3>VIEWS ARE WELL-KNOWN</h3> + +<p>When it was suggested that, having engagements in and about +Chicago, under the auspices of the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, having +its main offices here, I might be of service in presenting my views on +censorship at this meeting, I said I would prefer to do so under the +auspices of some disinterested group. As a result of this preference, +you have heard read the request of Mrs. Virginia Palmer, Chairman +of the Motion Picture Division of our Colorado State Parent-Teacher +Association, requesting that I be heard here.</p> + +<p>However, I wish to assure you that this is not by way of any +apology whatever in presenting these views under any auspices, interested +or disinterested. There can be no crime in any event for +a man to do that when his sincere views are as well known as mine +are and as, in recent years, they have been expressed literally hundreds +of times.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>In nearly every public lecture I have given on childhood +and crime during recent years, I have stated over and over +again my opposition to governmental censorship of the +movies as a remedy for evil.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span></p> + +<p>In our recent book, THE REVOLT OF MODERN YOUTH, we +took a firm stand against Censorship, and within a few days, it will +be exactly five years ago that, in the City of Detroit, I delivered an +address dealing with censorship and crime in the movies. That address +was very widely circulated. Part of it was printed and thousands +of copies were distributed. And so, when I left Denver with +the request of Mrs. Virginia Palmer, the State Chairman of Motion +Pictures of our State Parent-Teacher Association, that I take part in +this conference, I redictated an old address of five years ago and +brought it with me. To this I have added some more extended observations +in confirmation of the conclusions there expressed after +much thought, much study and much experience.</p> + + +<h3>SANER METHODS BY COOPERATION</h3> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>This all compels me to favor what I consider the saner, +more constructive censorship by cooperation between social +agencies, the public, the producers and exhibitors as against +what I believe to be the more questionable and dangerous +power of governmental censorship.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Palmer, the Chairman of the Motion Picture Department +of our State Parent-Teacher Association, supplied me for this meeting +with considerable literature of that organization in support of +their stand for the former kind of censorship as against the latter. +The Parent-Teacher Association of Colorado is a part of that great +national organization of the best motherhood and womanhood of this +country. In recent years, they conducted a series of discussions and +debates on the entire subject of so-called “censorship” or state regulation +of motion pictures. This involved an investigation of what +is being done in this regard in all other cities and states. It resulted +in the adoption at their State Convention at Colorado Springs in May +1921, of the following resolutions:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>WHEREAS, The picture loving public should be given an +opportunity to act as their own censors, and</b></p> + +<p><b>WHEREAS, Pictures cannot be adapted to the mentality +of the lowest type of person and potential criminals are much +in the minority, and therefore, may not be considered as representing +the patronage of the Motion Picture Theatre, and</b></p> + +<p><b>WHEREAS, All lasting reforms are derived from within,</b></p> + +<p><b>BE IT RESOLVED: That it be the continued policy of +the Mothers Congress and Parent-Teacher Associations to +work for the Better Film movement through cooperation, +selection and for public education.</b></p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3>EDUCATION AND SELECTION</h3> + +<p>This organization has never found any reason to change their +opinion thus expressed. At their recent state convention, they again +reaffirmed it. A most successful constructive work, formulated at +their state conventions, has been carried on in behalf of better pictures. +They oppose censorship with their motto: “Education and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>Selection.” In addition to this definite plan, there is a constant propaganda +carried on among its various units for the type of picture that +they think deserves encouragement. Their efforts to create a public +demand for better pictures and to support the producers and exhibitors +in their efforts to furnish them, has been so superior to any +city or state censorship boards that any demand for any such remedy +in Colorado has become extinct. No one would think of giving it the +slightest encouragement in face of the big, constructive work of the +Parent-Teacher organization of our state.</p> + +<p>I am glad to avail myself, not only of the privilege afforded +through the request referred to, that I take part in this program, but +also to give some of my own views, after more than a quarter of a +century in the Juvenile Court, on the whole subject of the problem +of good and evil as it relates to motion pictures.</p> + + +<h3>THE MOVIES, CENSORSHIP AND CRIME</h3> + +<p>I do not agree with those who claim that crime among youth is +so largely due to what is shown in motion pictures. Of course, some +of the <ins title="Original has 'week-minded'" id="weak">weak-minded</ins> and the vicious have doubtless been stimulated +to crime by something good or bad that they have seen in the movies. +This may also be said of what they have read in the Bible, the newspapers, +magazines and all kinds of literature, or through the misuse +of automobiles, dancing or music. <b>But we must always keep in mind +that far more good than evil has come out of all these things.</b></p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>Good and evil is a matter of relativity. It is comparative. +If motion pictures are to reflect from nature the face of +virtue, they must also show the image of vice. To make +virtue lovable and vice despisable, we must know what they +are. We all admit there are decent and indecent, acceptable +and unacceptable methods by which this ought to be done. +<ins title="Original has 'yet'" id="Yet">Yet</ins>, it must be done or there can be no lessons from life; there +can be no strengthening of character. By no system of wet-nursism, +can you solve the problem of crime by hiding bad +things or the truth about them, or by depriving children of +the right, under proper conditions, to see, to hear and to know +what they are.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>They may be worse off if shielded from knowledge of evil or +spared any contact with it. They will be better and stronger if wisely +familiarized with evil in order to know how to avoid it—or, facing +it, to conquer it. “Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, that to +be hated needs but to be seen.” And I would rather take a chance for +youth through their seeing vice too often than in not seeing it enough +if they are to learn to hate it and so triumph over it.</p> + +<p>We are losing sight in this country of some fundamental things +about the whole problem of good and evil. As a result, when some +of our reforms and crusades are won, we may be worse off than when +we started. If our remedies do not fail altogether, they produce +worse evils. The “kick” that some people get out of reforming often +blinds them to the facts about good and evil and how to overcome +evil. A man on a jag is always blind to the things about him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span></p> + + +<h3>CHILDREN ELEVATED, INSPIRED</h3> + +<p>Now, I am here to say, after talking it over with Court officers, +who have worked with me for years, that we have yet to find one +case of crime among youth that could fairly be traced just to the +movies. I do not recall more than two or three cases in my experience +of over a quarter of a century on the bench, where there was even +reasonable ground to believe that the cause of crime was due just to +what the offender had seen in the movies.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>But I do know of thousands of children who have been elevated, +inspired and made happier because of the movies; +who have been kept off the streets, out of the alleys, the +vulgar story-telling of the barnyards and a multitude of idle, +evil associations, by the wholesome appeals and opportunities +of the movies.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>I also know that other agencies—against which no censorship, +local or national, has ever been proposed—have done far more toward +producing crime than the movies. If we did not have any motion +pictures at all, we would have far more crime than we have. Nothing +in the last fifty years of the most eventful history of all time, +has done more to reduce sin and crime and add to the happiness, +education and progress of the human race than motion pictures. And +it is going to do more and more in this regard in the years to come.</p> + +<p>I am satisfied that most of the cases of crime which good people +trace to the movies are generally caused by misunderstanding or +misuse of perfectly proper stories as well as bad stories thrown on +the screen. This is shown by the fact that there is certainly no more +and probably less crime, especially among youth, in cities, where +there is no local or state censorship.</p> + + +<h3>CENSORSHIP DOES NOT IMPROVE</h3> + +<p><b>I defy anyone to show that one city or state with censorship is +any better in this regard than other cities or states like our own, +where there is no censorship, and where such organizations as our +Parent-Teacher Associations are firmly against it.</b></p> + +<p>They show us a messy lot of contradictions and silly absurdities +in mussing up films, aggravating, useless annoyances, and frequently +petty politics and tyranny as the result of their differences of opinion +about what is good and what is bad, but they cannot show that they +are any better or that they have accomplished anything provably +worth while, that could not have been as well, or better done without +these, to me, ridiculous hobbles.</p> + +<p>Anything they have done has been far better done in cities like +Denver, through cooperation of civic agencies with the producers and +exhibitors themselves. Any good that has ever come out of city or +state censorship is sure to be overbalanced by just as much evil and +just as much nonsense as any that has been prevented—if any has +been really prevented.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p> + + +<h3>MOVIES BATTLE AGAINST WAR</h3> + +<p>The movies are going to do more than any other agency to prevent +the greatest of all crimes, horrid war. Through motion pictures, +all nations, people, races and creeds, all speaking the same language, +of the movies, are being brought into concord, acquaintanceship and +understanding. And when they know and understand each other, +they will love and cease to hate each other and war shall be no more. +<b>It is a real League of Nations in binding them together through seeing +that they are all just the same as each other</b>—that there are no +bad people and no good people when properly understood, but there are +bad things and good things as they reflect through the bodies or behavior +and conduct of people, depending on causes, which as yet we +know little about, and that the great lesson of Life is to learn how to +wisely fight evil more and people less.</p> + +<p>Mankind has conquered all the reptiles and the wild beasts that +threatened his mastery of this planet. Why? Because, primarily, +he could see them, because they were known to him. But he hasn’t +conquered all disease—that remains to threaten his dominion. Why? +Because it is mostly the unseen beasts—the bugs, parasites and +germs just now beginning to be seen. As with evil and disease, the +movies will do more than all else besides to make them real—to make +them known.</p> + +<p>IT IS THUS THE GREATEST EDUCATOR THE WORLD HAS +EVER HAD—THE VISUAL EDUCATOR.</p> + +<p>And when all things are seen and known to man, he becomes +forever the undisputed <ins title="Original has 'soverign'" id="sovereign">sovereign</ins> of the world. Through visual education +the average child of twelve is in the future to know more in +academic education than the present college graduate. Largely +through the movies, among the future great inventors of the world, +we shall behold children from ten to twenty-one years of age.</p> + + +<h3>OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD</h3> + +<p>How, O Master, shall we overcome evil—is still the eternal question +of a war-ridden, hate-ridden, fearful world. Instead of any +longer listening, it is growing listless to the eternal answer—“Overcome +evil with good.” He never said to overcome it through governmental +suppression and the hate-breeding violence of forcible censorships. +That was the answer of Pontius Pilate. <b>And Pontius Pilate +was the first great censor</b> and Jesus Christ the first great victim of +censorship. On behalf of this nation’s childhood, whose destinies are +to be injured by such false remedies, I appeal from the gospel of +Pilate to the gospel of Christ.</p> + +<p>But what shall we do, you may ask, to guard that destiny which +we all equally have at heart? It is not an easy thing always to know +just how to overcome evil with good. It is much easier for some +parents, teachers, unwise, if not ungracious pastors, to leave the job +to a board of censors or some new-fangled statute law with its abuses, +blackmails, grafts, persecutions, stupidities and tyrannies. Are we to +be a nation of dodgers, of weazened shirkers, putting responsibility on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>laws, laws and more laws, bureaus, bureaucrats, censors and regulators +until we are glutted, choked and suffocated with laws to let any +George do it, but the right George?</p> + +<p>Are we to become a nation of “squealers,” passing the buck from +parents, homes, schools and churches for their responsibility for +Youth, to some perfectly human-to-err censors who may be wise and +good but likely to be mostly foolish, if, as in the case of some of our +prohibition regulators, they are not crooks and grafters, to flounder +in their own helplessness because they do not know what is good or +what is evil or how to fight it.</p> + +<p>Consider the fact that even now a picture that one governmental +censor board says is good, another in some other state, condemns as +bad. And consider the rank injustice of city or state censorship +authorities passing a “bad” picture as “good” in one such city or state, +and this same perfectly “good” picture as “bad” in another, as these +different censorship boards often do.</p> + + +<h3>FATHERS FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM</h3> + +<p>Only gradually and painfully, through science mostly, now more +and more handmaiden of real education and real religion, shall we +know how to overcome evil. It is always with good. It is too big a +problem for me to give all my views on here. In our “Revolt of Modern +Youth” I took an entire book to tell more about it as I see it. But +I do not believe Christ was wrong nor that the people of this Republic +are wrong, who since its foundation in the wisdom of our Fathers, have +fought for just such liberties as governmental censorship will deny us.</p> + +<p>Now, I think a great deal of good could be done in the fight +against evil if our parents and Sunday-school teachers would question +youth more as to their motives for righteous conduct, and with more +time and patience set them right as to their real meaning. You ask +them why they do right and they will generally tell you that it is +“to keep out of jail,” or “the cop’ll get me,” or “I’d get a licking” or +“I’ll go to hell.”</p> + +<p>Thus, from perfectly well-intentioned teaching, what we are putting +mostly in their lives is misunderstanding. That is, we are trying +to get virtue mostly by artificial <ins title="Original has 'restaints'" id="restraints1">restraints</ins>—the same kind of restraints +that are now being proposed through forcible censorship and regulation. +These fears no longer serve as restraints and we are very much +at fault in doing so little to substitute natural restraints as these +artificial ones are passing.</p> + +<p>Fundamentally, it is our overstrain in the demand for these artificial +restraints upon human conduct—restraints that come from +without—that is making most of the crime in this country. And their +over-emphasis to the neglect of natural restraints is due far more to +ignorance in churches and schools than the motion pictures. There is +such a thing as going too far in our insatiate demand for these artificial +restraints. It is a greater crime against youth, fostered mostly +by well-meaning church people who are ignorant about youth. They +are causing us to forget all about the more important restraints, or to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>indulge in a lazy indifference regarding them because of our mistaken +faith in restraints so largely artificial.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>As against these, what we need most in the lives of youth +are the natural restraints. They come from within. They +enable children and people, in the face of every evil and temptation, +without being afraid to know about it, to see it or to +hear about it, to be so fortified from within against it that +they will stand up to meet it and conquer it. In other words, +to have the strength of character to do right because it is +right—not through the fear of punishment or the hope of +rewards—but through true education and religion.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>These artificial restraints, so long thus over-emphasized in schools +and churches, and beheld on every hand in demands for more suppressions, +regulations, prohibitions, punishments, coercions and censorships, +are failing. And it is our insistent refusal to substitute more +of the natural <ins title="Original has 'restrains'" id="restraints2">restraints</ins> in homes, schools and churches, that is the +great cause of crime in this country. You do not cure evil by more +censorships and prohibitions, don’ts, verbotens and taboos. You are +just adding fuel to the flame you are setting up in this country. The +restraints of hell-fire and damnation are gone. They do not frighten +any more. Those of policemen, prisons and fears of punishments are +going just as fast. The thing that makes most people good in this +country is not any of these things. The thing that will make the bad +ones good is more of the thing that has made the good ones good—the +natural restraints.</p> + + +<h3>GOOD AND EVIL ARE RELATIVE</h3> + +<p>I said good and evil are relative. You cannot helpfully know one +without the other. They should, of course, appear in proper perspective. +Their relationship for moral uplift should be clear. I insist that +the great majority of the movies do thus emphasize them in their true +light. Vice is ever shown as the enemy and destroyer of human happiness; +virtue as the only true course to secure the real joys of life; +that achieves the only victories worth while.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>In the movies, righteousness wins; sin loses. The hero triumphs. +The villain bites the dust.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Not only decency but the pocketbook guarantees these general +averages, and that general average is the best we can hope for in anything. +Nothing is perfect and censorship will not make it so. You +cannot legislate right understanding into the human mind. By the +more and more decent methods of showing life, as I believe to be more +and more the rule in the movies, they furnish a great outlet, not only +to the natural, wholesome craving for excitement and adventure, but +for a necessary and legitimate amount of sex expression which otherwise, +from sheer suppression, is far more harmful and more likely to +result in sin and crime.</p> + +<p>Some of the gossamer fabric of unreality, as in fantasies, dreams +and fairy tales, is just as necessary in the movies as are the realities +of life, to minister to the complexes and, as governors, to release the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>strange suppressions of nature. There is always to be expected the +decent licenses of poetry and the exaggerations of fiction.</p> + + +<h3>NATIONAL HOBBY TO ATTACK</h3> + +<p>It has become a national hobby of ours, in the absence of much +good sense, to indulge in these thrilling and adventurous battles +against evil until we are becoming so ridiculous that only a modern +Cervantes, with another Don Quixote, can bring us to our senses. +Each time, in each onslaught, we have some one thing for the “goat.” +Then we all assemble for the chase. For many of us, it is great fun. +For others, it is a grievous concern. At one time it is the legalized +liquor traffic; at another, it is the cigarette or the automobile, the +racy literature, the dance or jazz music. Each time it is this or that +one thing that is causing all the sin. I do not know what it is going +to be when the kids begin spooning in the clouds in the aerial autos +of tomorrow. Neither the censors, nor the parents, nor the laws can +follow them there. At the present time the “goat” is the movies.</p> + +<p>We have the admission of the advocates of censorship that evil +among youth may come from other agencies besides movies. Some +of these agencies are automobiles, music (jazz or grand opera), department +store windows, newspapers, books, magazines, ordinary pictures, +etc. Now their logic must be that the youth of this nation are lost +beyond redemption unless we apply their censorship for evil in the +movies, to evil in all these other agencies. Unless this is their purpose, +of what shall it avail us to get evil out of the movies by censorship—unless, +by the same methods, we extract it from all other agencies +of usefulness or happiness?</p> + +<p>On the other hand, if our youth are not to be lost because of our +failure to apply censorship to automobiles and other agencies, then +why apply it to the movies? In the case of the movies, as in the +case of all these other agencies for both good and evil, why should +we not depend on existing laws against crime, and in addition, what +is far more important, why should we not trust to the <b>good old institutions +of parents, homes, real education, real religion and the development +of scientific truth to fortify youth against evil, by equipping +them with strength in their own souls to conquer it.</b> I tell you that +it cannot be done in any other way.</p> + + +<h3>BUILD SELF RELIANT YOUTH</h3> + +<p>Our vision in this matter of censorship must not be limited to +the mere entertainment of motion pictures furnished by the present +motion picture industry. It must go far beyond that. For, in addition +to censoring all forms and agencies of pleasure now contemplated, +the amazing power demanded by the censorship advocates includes the +power to also censor every teaching of science (evolution and otherwise), +economics, patriotism, religion and government. As one after +the other shall fall to the fetters of censorship, we shall get further +and further away from real remedies for evil, only to become more +and more enslaved to the forces of reaction of fanaticism, ignorance, +superstition, despotism and tyranny. All this crusading for such false +remedies is making us more and more the laughing stock of the world. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>If we yield to the demands of its well-meaning, but mistaken zealots, +we shall nurse up a generation of human jelly fish, of weaklings, +dependents, morons and criminals instead of a nation of sturdy, self-reliant +boys and girls.</p> + + +<h3>IMPROVEMENT RAPID</h3> + +<p>No one deplores more than I do the commercialization of certain +phases of what we call the sex appeal or improper crime stories in the +movies. No one deplores more than I do some of the stupid, inartistic, +vulgar, uncultural, silly things in the movies. They are there as in +books and newspapers. If censorship were a practical remedy for +anything, we might better have it against bad taste, bad manners and +some of the stupid, boresome movies that can do no harm to anyone +except waste their time, and because of their very insipid stupidity, +would meet with approval of any board of censors. It is all to be +naturally expected in an industry or <ins title="Original has 'artistery'" id="artistry">artistry</ins> so new. More patience, +time and education are needed to correct them. No one is more anxious +than I am to see them corrected. But it would be highly unjust +not to, at the same time, keep in mind all that is right with the movies.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>In their short life of scarcely a quarter of a century, they +have done more to correct these follies and mistakes than literature +and newspapers have done in a century.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>When I deal with naughty children, I always find more good than +evil in them, though their accusers seldom admit it. I get more out of +them by praising them for the good they do than by condemning them +for the evil they do. In this way do I succeed best. By working with +them and not against them. (Let us then, with this equally human +thing, see all the wonderful improvement that has been made in recent +years, not only artistically, from the standpoint of the producer, but +also from that of the growing demand of the public for clean shows, +and the splendid work of the producers in furnishing them.)</p> + + +<h3>PUBLIC OPINION RULES</h3> + +<p>And even when crime and vice are presented, when it must be +done, more and more is it being done within the bounds of decency +and with due regard to well-established rules that most every one +knows and accepts. Few minds differ upon what is really <ins title="Original has 'abscenity'" id="obscenity">obscenity</ins> +and indecency. Nothing is being more frowned upon today than the +stories written for a mere pornographic, sensual appeal, without any +good purpose intended or accomplished. For all of such cases, we have +the laws against obscenity and indecency which are not near as much +used or enforced as they might be and could be.</p> + +<p><b>And we ever have the appeal to public opinion.</b> I believe it is in +the end safe and sane in this country. And then there is being held +out to us by the producers themselves the open door invitation to join +hands with them to give the public the thing that it wants most and +that is, clean, decent, wholesome pictures. The children are being provided +with special films and opportunities to see them.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>Cooperation between public and producer and exhibitor is +being successfully accepted as one of the best methods of carrying +on propaganda in this country for better, bigger and +cleaner pictures.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span></p> + +<p>And, as a result, we are getting more and more of them all the +time. From every standpoint in theme, story, purpose, photography, +artistry, amazing progress has been made in the last few years. We +have never had so many marvelous, unobjectionable pictures as now +before the public. One of the very latest of these, “The Big Parade,” +is here. You have seen “The Ten Commandments.” “Ben Hur” is +being shown. Hundreds of others could be mentioned. I hold here a +list of several hundred such, selected by Mrs. Virginia Palmer, State +Chairman of the Motion Picture Department of our Colorado Parent-Teacher +Association.</p> + + +<h3>COOPERATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT</h3> + +<p>The work of Mr. Hays and his associates in courting cooperation +and in receiving it from so many worthy sources deserves encouragement +instead of criticism. It has been a great success. Any fair +investigation of what the producers are doing under his able management +will disclose an amazing improvement in the short time for its +accomplishment. Let’s work with them and not against them as the +very best way to bigger and better things in the movies.</p> + +<p>Especially is this course important when the best minds of this +country—like Professor Ross, who has just addressed you—have +warned us against the dangers of abuses sure and certain to come +under governmental censorship, and who, for many reasons, almost +without exception, firmly oppose it. We have overwhelming proof +that the people of this country do not want any more of such governmental +regulation and that they are opposed to such dangerous +powers being vested in any set of bureaucrats. This is confirmed by +the recent vote in Massachusetts that in their referendum to the people +buried the demand for motion picture censorship with a tidal +wave of “noes.” It was certainly loud enough to be heard all over +this country. The vote was 553,173 against censorship to 208,252 for +it—a majority of 344,991 against.</p> + + +<h3>REAL EDUCATION AND RELIGION</h3> + +<p>I am not questioning the sincerity or good motives of anyone. I +simply question their understanding. How people can make the statements +that are being made in some quarters, that the movies are +getting worse instead of better, I cannot understand. I do not believe +it. If they are, then it is a terrible indictment of our schools and +churches, far more than of the movies. It is proof that they are failing. +For if this thing be true, that, without the kind of governmental +censorship and regulation that is being proposed in some quarters, the +movies are to get worse and worse, then the churches and schools +had better close their doors, for the claim is equivalent to a confession +that they are failures. I do not believe they are failures. <b>I believe in +real religion and in real education.</b> I think their power and influence +are on the up-grade in this country. It is from their wise application +that we must look most for our remedies in the fight against evil. +The great duty to childhood today is that of parenthood and its handmaidens, +the school and the church—real education and real religion.</p> + + +<h3>RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE NEEDED</h3> + +<p>We must have in this country people responsible for these agencies, +who will acquaint themselves with what evil is and equip themselves +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>with the wisdom to teach children how to fight it, how to overcome +it; that they shall come to know that the child’s greatest safeguard +against evil is not censorship—the policeman with the club to +direct what he shall say, hear or do—the city, state or national wet-nursism +from the day he is born until he becomes an adult man or +woman.</p> + + +<h3>PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY</h3> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>Rather do I appeal for the simpler and saner expedient of +parental responsibility in companionship, spiritual training, +education, ideals and confidences that will educate that child +as to what evil is, to know where it lurks, and what he must +do to avoid it; that will teach him to hate it and despise it.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In this work, we need the cooperation of this great, new institution, +the movies. It can be done best by thus seeking the cooperation +of those who have the economic control of this new power, this new +means of education, the greatest that has ever appeared in any civilization.</p> + +<p>I believe it can be done, and in a very large measure, it is being +done, with glowing opportunities and prospects for greater accomplishment +in the future than in the recent past. It is this sort of +remedy that I heartily advocate rather than any censorship or regulation +through city, state or national boards composed of people who +are to be given arbitrary, tyrannical and dangerous powers over the +development of the human mind. Such a remedy, I believe, will never +be accepted by the American people. If it ever is, it will be the saddest +day in the history of human progress since the bigotries and +tyrannies of the Middle Ages. It would mean that the issues of the +Scopes case in Tennessee would be as nothing compared to this new +power of a few people to tell the balance of America what they shall +see, hear or know, or what they shall be taught, to direct the human +mind which alone can retard or advance the progress of the world.</p> + +<p>For let it be remembered that moving pictures, as a medium of +expression in influencing the human mind, as yet, are in their infancy. +They will be greater than the printing press, and whoever controls +this power will do most to control the future of the human race.</p> + + +<h3>TRUST TO ALL THE PEOPLE</h3> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>I would rather trust it to all the people than to a few people, +especially when that few are backed, as <ins title="Original has 'it'" id="is">is</ins> proposed, in +their censorship regulations, by the powers of force and violence +to impose their will upon all the others.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Once having put in the hands of a few individuals, whether puritans +or politicians, of good or evil purpose, the power to say what +books shall be screened, what stories shall be pictured, what scientific +knowledge or achievement shall be presented, what reform espoused +by capital or labor, class or church, group or party, and, what shall +not, it will demand the same right as to the newspapers, books and +other forms of human expression, possibly the platform itself, until +all liberty and all freedom shall be lost unless such madness, as I +believe it to be, should, if ever successful, be met by revolt and revolution.</p> + +<p>The progress of art, science and literature in this country depends +upon an unfettered, original creative imagination. There can be no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>progress or creative work anywhere with the hobble of censorship on +these things at the helm. Freedom of thinkers, scientists, and artists +does not mean degeneracy. It means justice, truth, progress, happiness, +health and beauty. The chains of censorship mean irritation, +reaction, bigotry, vice, immorality, gloom, degeneracy and death. Of +course there are dangers in everything—good and evil in everything—all +dependent on its use and understanding. But I would a thousand +times rather take my chances on too much freedom than too much +of these artificial restraints.</p> + + +<h3>ALREADY REGULATED</h3> + +<p>There is, of course, some regulation of certain phases of the +moving picture industry that is defensible. But it seems to me very +unjust to compare the demand for censorship power to the same kind +of governmental regulations of industrial affairs which have to do +with business competition between individuals or corporations, or +with the distribution of foodstuffs as to deleterious substances, on +which no two minds can well differ after science has given its verdict.</p> + +<p>Reasonable regulations as to business competition, labor, shipment +of films, protection from fire, ventilation, seating, spacing and +lighting of halls may well apply to the movies. But as a more justly +analogous case, who would say even as to foodstuffs or drugs, about +which we hear so much, that a board of bodily appetite censors should +have a right to say whether a city’s diet should not include pork chops, +if a person preferred them to mutton chops, simply because of the +views or tastes of the censors, or because great religious teachers have +censored the hog and approved the lamb; or that tea and coffee +should be censored because other teachers say the taste of too much +of it is worse than a moderate use of booze. The so-called badness +of most pictures may be due far more to that which is bad in the +taste of the censors than that which is really bad in the pictures.</p> + + +<h3>LAWS ARE SUFFICIENT</h3> + +<p>And while I am not here discussing prohibition, yet as one of +its original champions, I would be false to the truth if I did not, at +least in discussing this new kind of prohibition of the thoughts of the +human mind, refer to all the evils that have followed our efforts thus +to curb by law the appetite of bodies. But even the case of the movies +is different. Booze was believed to be poison for the body and the +remedy was supposed to be complete outlawry. Well, at least we are +not prepared to say what the final result is going to be, even though +there may be justification there where none is here. What is poison +for the body is much easier of ascertainment than what is poison for +the mind. Acknowledged poisons of the mind are all met by laws +against obscenity with their penalties and punishments. They are +accepted as fair and just to everybody.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>But human thought, which is back of all human progress +and of all change in the customs, morals, habits, traditions +and affairs of mankind, is an entirely different matter. It is +in no way justly comparable to any other form of arbitrary, +forcible censorship regulations that any state has ever undertaken. +It seems to me that this is so true that unprejudiced +minds cannot justly question it.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p> + + +<h3>HUMAN THOUGHT NOT TO BE TAMPERED WITH</h3> + +<p>In the regulation of human thought, as presented through instruction +or entertainment in the motion pictures, books or newspapers, +we have an entirely different problem. It is too dangerous to +tamper with in any governmental, regulative, arbitrary way. To +attempt it is to court the greater evils of bigotry and fanaticism, of +racial, religious and class prejudices, of hatreds and tyrannies.</p> + +<p>I would a thousand times rather see civilization subjected to all +the dangers which may lurk in an entirely, unregulated and uncensored +press, or of books, plays or motion pictures, than to risk the far +greater evils of arbitrary, forcible, governmental censorship regulation.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>There are no committees of people on earth who have any +such super wisdom or right to exercise any such power, no +matter how commendable its purpose may be.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>No, my friends, those who propose such remedies are honest but +mistaken. I wish they could all be convinced. I know their purposes +are good. I wish they would join the multitude of constructive +fathers, mothers, preachers, teachers, business men and citizens, +through the work of the home, school, church and press, enlisting, as +I believe we can, the cooperation and help of those who produce and +distribute the movies themselves, to get bigger, better and cleaner +pictures.</p> + +<p>Decorating the walls of this room, we have held up to us a picture +of the crusader, St. George, in pursuit of the Dragon. It is an interesting +poster. I have seen it held up to children and parents in +Sunday-schools and churches. It has for us a great lesson. But I +sometimes wonder if it is understood. In this picture, St. George is +clad in armor.</p> + + +<h3>USING ONE’S OWN STRENGTH</h3> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>It is the symbol of HIS OWN STRENGTH and power to meet and +slay the dragon—the evil he encounters.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Thus, down the path of life you have him started. He goes alone. +He is protected by no governmental wet-nursism. No censors have +preceded him to chase the dragons from his path. Now, just imagine +the censors doing that, be they a certain type of dear, old ladies who +never will be satisfied that anything is good if it pictures vice or crime, +or well-meaning Puritans with worse complexes, or crafty politicians +with itching palms, snooping into every crack and cranny for the +smell of dragons (evil) to shoo them off the path before young +George may proceed upon his way.</p> + +<p>I hear them saying, “Come on, Georgie, dear boy; the path is +clear; we censors have done your work; we have seen to it that not +even a suspicious tabby cat can cross your path. You have no fight +to make; we will spare you even the sight of a dragon (evil) on the +road.”</p> + +<p>Is that what you are going to do to Young America? Change the +noble knighthood of conflict and struggle to the milksophood of apron +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>strings? Yet such is governmental censorship. Against it, I protest. +Against it, modern youth revolts. I beseech you in their name, that +you avoid a step so fatal and so false.</p> + +<p>I know you do not want to make mollycoddles of this younger +generation because a few morons or even alert, but vicious-minded, +persons, have become criminals from something good or bad they +have seen in the movies. I do not want to see methods adopted in +mistaken purpose of fighting evil whose effect is only to make insipid, +dependent, hot-house plants of modern youth.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>I want to see a self-reliant Young America. I want to see +it grow to sturdy manhood, like the oak that faces and fights +the storm and fights best where the foe is known best and encountered +most.</b></p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3>PREPARE YOUTH FOR THE PATH</h3> + +<p>This is the only right way to successfully equip the youth of +America with moral, physical and mental efficiency. Then, and only +then, as modern St. Georges, thus armored, they can be trusted +THEMSELVES to meet the dragons of evil that cross the path of life. +For down that path they have to go. You cannot prepare the path +for them. You cannot clear it of the dragons. Forcible governmental +censorship can’t do it and ought not to do it.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>It’s our job to prepare youth for the path, the big job +parents, teachers and preachers are neglecting in their mistaken +effort too much to prepare the path for them. I do +beseech you to direct your efforts more to preparing youth for +the path and less to preparing the path for youth. Then, +with perfect faith, you can trust him to go down that path, +and though it be strewn with dragon’s teeth, he will emerge +triumphant, the glorious youth that he is—Young America, +the noblest, bravest, wisest, most loyal, generous and just +that the world has ever seen—his own best censor.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="tnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note"> + Transcriber’s Note + </h2> + +<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> + +<p>Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.</p> + +<p>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> + +<p>Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following changes:</p> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tbody> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#weak">5</a>: “some of the week-minded”</td> +<td class="tdl">to</td> +<td class="tdl">“some of the weak-minded”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Yet">5</a>: “to be done. yet”</td> +<td class="tdl">to</td> +<td class="tdl">“to be done. Yet”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#sovereign">7</a>: “forever the undisputed soverign”</td> +<td class="tdl">to</td> +<td class="tdl">“forever the undisputed sovereign”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#restraints1">8</a>: “mostly by artificial restaints”</td> +<td class="tdl">to</td> +<td class="tdl">“mostly by artificial restraints”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#restraints2">9</a>: “of the natural restrains”</td> +<td class="tdl">to</td> +<td class="tdl">“of the natural restraints”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#artistry">11</a>: “an industry or artistery”</td> +<td class="tdl">to</td> +<td class="tdl">“an industry or artistry”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#obscenity">11</a>: “what is really abscenity”</td> +<td class="tdl">to</td> +<td class="tdl">“what is really obscenity”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#is">13</a>: “are backed, as it”</td> +<td class="tdl">to</td> +<td class="tdl">“are backed, as is”</td> +</tr> + +</tbody></table> + +</div></div> + +</main> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79231 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/79231-h/images/cover.jpg b/79231-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd7909a --- /dev/null +++ b/79231-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/79231-h/images/title.jpg b/79231-h/images/title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7898c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/79231-h/images/title.jpg |
