University of South Carolina Libraries
SPEECH DELIVERED BY WILL H. HAYS At a Dinner Tendered Him by the Publi?hers of the United States The following is the speech delivered by Will H. Hay*, president Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc., New York City, ai a dinner tendered to him by the publishers of the United States, April 26, 1922: To the publishers of America I would come for the motion picture \ industry as one approaches an older brother. The motion picture is essentionally, of course, a source of amusement, the principal amusement ? of a great majority and the sole amutement of millions, and as such it* importance is measured only 'by the imperative necessity of entertainment for our people. In this your concern is constant. You, who are the custodians of the printed word in America, have arrived at your present position of stability as the fruit of six centuries of development. From the Gutenberg Bible to the newspaper and magazine of todav is indeed a long and slow procession of invention and develop-! ment?through wooden blocks, metal J ~ " ^ V?a-rn-1 r?r>mr.r>citi ATI tn ma-' aiiu uauu ? chine composition; through hand / power and flat bed to rotary press; from no mails to air mails;'from no telegraph to wireless. All of these processes, which are : essential parts of yo.ur business, have, come to you as the slow and orderly; development of six centuries of pro* * * gress, with frequently a century lapsfrom step to step. But consider how different it is with this other mechanism for the w"- t igi ' / i distribution of intelligence. What with you has come about slowly through six centuries has with our: motion picture industry come about ! ?' * - I--? J? - -C i in tjie mcreaiDiy onei space ui iwcu-; ty years. Is it any wonder that we havfc problems in our industry which , you gentlemen of the printed word solved decades or generations ago? Amazing Rapidity of Growth We are in confusion because of ! the very rapidity of our growth and I development. Your standard of | ethics, the relationship of your pap-! ers to the public, your sense of what can be done and what must not be done, your responsibilities for the j expression and guidance of public j opinion?all that hafe come a'bout with | the ease of an inherited fortune? i you received it from your predeces- j sors?from your ancestors, so to j ipeak, in the trade?2s a gift, a be- J quest. It did not come without difficulty nor without- struggle, but that, struggle has been distributed over j fifteen or twenty generations, and j you have your standards, your rules, j your accepted practices, your knowl-! edge of what is right and what is ! wrong; you have that like the British ' people -have their ; constitution and l like the American people have their j freedom?as a bequest from the' gr$at figures of your past. "What John Milton did for you in the fight for the freedom of the press, what Benjamin Franklin did for you,1 what was done for you by Horace : Greeley, by Charles A. Dana, by Jos- j eph Pulliizer, by Ccionel Nelson and Ifenry Watfersonfc ahd'by other hero-j ic figures ].n the Jong pull for hner. and better service and for the con- j i'JJ? ? * , i stitutional protection of your free-: dom from the aggressions of official; control?all that we must achieve liere and now. We, in contrast with you have no-; thing from the past. We must make all these things and achieve all these things for ourselves. The men who first took up this thing are still alive. TBe pioneers of our institution are the men who are still in the business. "We in the motion picture industry are at this moment in the very midst of achieving those standards of our relation ta each other and to the public and* our responsibilities to the world. And it is exactly for the purpose of aiding in the arrival at those standards that our association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, has been organized. Quoting from the formal A ^ r A _ . A.: 221 ^ J AT Aiticxes ui Association as niea in Albany under the board of trade statute of the state of New York, these gentlemen have stated their chief purposes of fostering the common interests of those engaged in the industry "by establishing and maintaining the highest possible moral and artistic standards in motion picture production" and "by developing the educational as well as the entertainment value and the general usefulness of the motion picture," to which purpcaes I earnestly direct your attention. . Men Who Had Vision Too, mechanically and financially, as a matter of organization and technique, it has been much the same. ( f Hero was a <rreat new invention that burst upon the world. Here was a great vacuum of need and demand to be filled. Men who had the vision,' who saw the opportunity and the possibilities of profit, rushed into it. Their accomplishment in the last decade has been like an Arabian Nights Ftory. And there can >e little wonder that these crowded years have been in some respects a period of chaos. In the old days when gold was discovered in California there was a mad rush for it and in the strife of feverish competition men struggled ?" ' Tt ic 9 far frv from that <;:;u to the development of this industry, but there is not an entire absence of analogy. Certainly 'there is no anal ogy between the development of this industry and any other industry. We have had competition of the fiercest1 kind. There has been no time for ad- , equate reflection. The mere physical , and mechanical expansion has been so great and so rapid that there has' not been time and there has not been , ; the mood to consider in the midst of , these early years of mad scramble? to consider adequately the moral and edu'cationanl responsibilities and op- ( portunities inherent in this new thing. . Now, at th$; end of this period of ^ incredibly comprise# physical, me- . chanica!, financial and artistic development these men.find themselves not only the responsible leaders and custodians of one of the greatest industries of the world, with limitless commercial possibilities and perhaps r^ore ( income than all the public utilities f 5 the country combined, with a totu1 ' \ investment in real estate, studios, equipment and properties of over 1 $500,000,000, with possibly over ] 50,000 people'constantly employed ( and $50,000,000 paid annually in Gal- | aries and wages, with $800,000,000 1 paid annually for admissions and possibly $200,000,000 spent annually in 1 production with annual turnover in c the business of $1,000,000,000?not t only are they the leaders and custodians of such an industry, but also * they find themselves the responsible * leaders and cutodians of an instru- r ment and means of an entirely im- ^ measurable usefulness in educational and moral influence. j Scone of the Opportunity Now let us see what we have. First 1 of all, note the scope of the oppor- v tunity. In the United States?in all the big cities and in all those maple * shaded towns and villages that com- ? pose America?there are perhaps fif- ? teen thousand motion picture thea- 2 ters and in those theaters sixteen r million seats. Taking into account v the at least twice a day performance 1 and applying the collected statistics, t we estimate that within every twenty ' four hours between Maine and Gali- c fornia twentv million American men, L ? T - 3 a/\w\a 4" a iaai' "f av 4 women ana tanuieu tvnw iu ar hour or two on the motion picture screen. They come with no other c preoccupation, they come indeed in a v mood which has deliberately put out ? of their minds all other distractions. v They come not out of duty, as they v go to work or to school; they come c not out of solicitation, as they go to ^ political or other public meetings; they come ^ut of their own wish and ^ inclination They come, in short, in a mood of relaxation, of reception v ?in precisely that state of mind and J # \ emotion in which a master psycholo- " grist, a great teacher, would want t them to come, having in mind the de- c sire to make the strongest impression A j. upon them, to have them in the most ; pla?tic state for the receiving and 1 folding of impressions. If a man had * the wish to influence the thought of j the nation towards common ideals | he could not more intelligently create s a situation better adapted to that * ' purpose. . ; < ! Now that is our opportunity. 5 * ? ?% mi_ -j i What then shall we do witn it: ine j first and most important thing is that ] there shall be no attempt to do too much'with it. First of all there must 1 be no notion of implanting particular < ideas. Our first duty must be to ( keep our institution free. There must < be no seeking for any monopoly of ' ideas, no attempt to "put over" any, pet ideas of the industry's own for i which our only sanction is our own ( pride of opinion. Neither?and this 1 is even more important?must there be any proscripnon 01 any ujkmwj? : of others responsibly held. We must 'tin short take on that same attitude of trusteeship for public opinion and pu'blic. thought which you gentlemen of the printed word have evolved as your own. We must take on that same code, chiefly tacit and only ; partly written, but nevertheless whol1 ly binding, that governs you of the newspapers and periodicals in your j relation to the public and in your re1 relation to the public and in your rela tion to each, other. We *must avoid I the faintest taint of the propagandist i in our attitude towards the agency | that is our trusteeship. This instii tution of ours so far as it affects the ' ideals, the opinions, the standards of t i taste and conduct of the people must be as free as you have kept your institution of the printed word?with channels open to the expression of any honest and reasoable idea within the world of art, of public opinion, of everything within the field of education. .Ju?t as we must embrace and carry on that American tradition of insistence upon freedom of resistance to official or political censorship of the press, the pulpit, 'college teaching ov of public speech and public assembly. so must we obey, as you of the press obey, the obligation not to force upon the public we serve any unnreaconably arbitrary standards of ..'il ^-Fntmr> n-F nr o crni nst our OWII fJIIICI 111 Iflivi VI particular varieties of opinion or taste. But while this must bp our broad and general policy, it is as true of the press and of the motion picture as it is of statesmanship that there are, of course, certain common standards so indisputable in their appeal to the common sense of right, so universally accepted as the highest standards of taste, art and morals, that to promote them is as emphatically >ur duty as is that declaration of intention "to promote the general welfare" in the preamble of the American constitution. Standards of Taste and Morals I remember very well the definite idvanc-e in public standards of taste and comfort that was achieved in this country through means of ordinary " 1 TU;? r\ r? 3iiotoj2rrapns ot deutt'iiumfx am.-> c?lcation of the public. thj? indirect mplanting of standards of taste and norais and art in the public mind is nherent in the motion pictures. We :an not avoid it if we would. Since he nature of our .business maker, it nevitable that we shall portray some ;tandards, the duty involved in our elation to the public makes it ir.'umbent to hold up the best. Ar.d above all, perhaps, is our duty o the youth. We must hive toward :hat sacred thin?, the'mind of a child, oward that clean and virgin thing, hat unmarked state?we must have owara tnai ine. same *c.:^c m *?ponsibility, that same care about the mpressions made upon it, thar the )est teacher or the best clergyman, he most inspired teacher of youth, vould have. Things are taken a go 3d deal for granted, and I wonder jf you jus:j:eilize, you men who have at heart ir.e general welfare?I wonder :f yoj iodize just what the motion picture neans to tiie youth. During the timevhen I had the acceptance of this lew work under consideration I took hree little cowboy suits home to Sulivan, one " 'or my buy, aged six. and ine each ?or his cousins, ag-:js nv- ana '"ght. They took these i.t:!e nto tr.? bed'com to put t>:?m on ai.d ome out and .~>how me. I heard them juarreling in +he bedroom, and I v'ondered what they could be fussing ibout under those circumstances. I Vent to the door and listened. They vere having a real quarrel as to which >ne when they came out to show me vould be Bill Hart. Maik you, ages ive, six and eight. And finally my )oy, in a very vigorous voice said, 'All right, then; all right, then; I vill be Doug." Well, it was a lcc;on. It used to be when we were )oys that possibly we quarreled a litle over who would be Abraham Lin oln or George Washington, or if we ^ J n?V?+ ViO\rn tTTOTlforJ vere ifai inn.v wc iingm nave o be Buffalo Bill, but now it is who vill be Bill Hart or # Douglas Fair)anl:3 or Charlie Chaplin, and so :'orth. We say twenty million people a day ;ee motion pictures. Very well; possibly half, I do not know, may be hildren, and they go, too, with the :ame open mind referred to. Don't forget that the quick way to the brain s through the eye. There may be lfty different languages spoken in th":3 country, but the picture of mother is the same in every languige. C::viously it is true that the influ\ 2r.ee of the motion picture on our national life is indeed absolutely limitless?its influennce on our ta>ste, its infiuece on our conduct, its influence on our aspirations, its influence on our youth and its consequent immeasurable influence on our future. Our Cause I wonder if you realize just what it means for these men who pioneered in this industry, who had the vision, initiative, industry and nerve, if you will, to have made this thing what it is in twenty years. I wonder if you realize what it means for the general good for these men now to unite and nuke it their first business to do everything in their power to reach the highest possible moral and artistic standards of motion pictures. This movement is a Cause?with a capital C. In this Cause each of you is as interested as the men who inaugurated it. I know if ever?I say if ever?I am of any value in any situation it io when I have a Cause. I thought I saw a Cause when 1 wet: into the work. Now I know it I there, and I am going to give all have got for this period to thi: Cause. And i bespeak for it and foi these men your most earnest aiu sympathetic cooperation. I do nol know what can be accomplished. A man is safe if he knows when he does not know. What I do not know aboul this industry would fill the Encyclopedia Brittanica, but I am going tc work very hard to learn it. and I dc know that there exists the most honest and earnest purpose. And righl here, talking to Democratic and Republican editors alike, let me suggcsl that I am glad finally to be in ar activity where we are all on the same side of the table. Most certainly I will not be put in the attitude of being a judge of the morals of those who are in the industry. There has been much locse talk on that subject, and the fact is that the morals of the thousands and thousands in this industry are just as good as those in any other. The vital thing now is the certain good faith of those who have set about these major purposes, and 1 do not know of the certainty of that good faith. I know that these mer with millions invested will go through with this thing. This industry must and shall mantain its high place in the business world along with the other great industries, offering enterprising capital a legitimate opportunity for profitable investment, es tablished on a solid iounaauon, up erated with reasonable economy and supported properly, as are our other great industries by the investing public. And it must and shall and will take its very high place in public estimation. i So certain v is all this a matter of your concern that we earnestly ask your advice in the situation. I have thought the problems would be solved if we could make certain the establishment'of two things: confidence and cooperation. We must have confidence and cooperation between those 1? ' * ** s* rw\ QA*rvr\n& nnrl r?n in I/It' IIIU US LI ^, U k.uiinui.ii>.w ???..- ~ ? operation that will bring a mutual appreciation and action together in these things in which vre -are mutually interested. And in this I include, of couiae, the exhibitors as well as the producers and distributors. With this established, and it- is being estab! :hed, if we can just have the confidence and cooperation of you of the pres-. as our elder brother, having been through much of the same travail and having come out victorious, then if we can have the .'deserved confidence and cooperation of the public, our problems will ;e solved. It its not a one-sided matter. It has been raid repeatedly that certain object t!onable pictures which Urve been made are the class of pictures whicit the public wanted, and that such productions have bc-en a meeting of the demands of the public based on box office receipts. If this :s so, then the public has a duty in the situation, and your duty in relation to that phase of the matter is clear. One of the largest of the producers has told me, however, that in his opinion the outstanding financial successes in the !;st eighteen months have been clean pictures. I know te American public. I know that its manhood and womanhood is sound and, of cours-2, ic.wil! support the cleanest pictures. And the American public is the real censor for us, just as it is for you. Our Responsibility The people of thj* country are against censorship ' fundamentally, against censorship of the press, of p'ulpit and of pictures. Just as certainly is this country against wrongdoing and the demand for ' censorship will fail when the reason for the demand is removed. As we move towrads the consummation of the obnf tliic vjst in like degree will recede the demand which seems more or less prevalent for censorship. The problem of censorship with which we are now faced was faced by you and fought out and settled?settled right here in New Yorls by the way, so far as American la-** is concerned?in one of those prolonged and 'bitter contests for the unrestricted freedom of intelligence more than two centuries ago. Those in the indi^try do not underestimate the responsibility nor woulc we shirk it. I p* ornise that this agency for the distribution of informatior and thought, this agency for tht amusement of the millions and foi the inevitable inculcation of standards of taste in art and conduct?! promise that this agency shall meas ure up to its oppportunity and its re sponslbility. I would repeat, that the motior picture industry accepts the challenge in the demand of the America! pu'blic for a higher quality of art am interest in its entertainment. 1 The industry accepts the challeng* in the demand of the Americai tfyouth that its pictures shall give t<> I s them the right kind of entertainmt ;it j i and instruction. s We accept the challenge in the r righteous demand of cne American' 1 mother that the entertainment and t amusement of youth be worthy of l their value as the most potent factor . ; in the country's future. : We accept our fu'i respons'bi-ity.' - It is a service, a service which com? mands the very best from all, and I > have great faith in it?s fulfillment. Mystic symbols and signs were dis- j /covered recently, chiseled on volcanic . rock in a remote section 01 uwynee; t county, Southwestern Idaho. Certain t: of the inscriptions resemble Chinese alphabet characters and this resemblance was taken by some to substan- i tiate the theory that the North Am-! jerican natives descended from a race' which came from Asia by way of Bering strait. j Soldiering; is an expiring profession ! 1 in Germanv. Many former armv of-. . | licers are doing menial work. Drcah-; i i kies, taxis and other horse-drawn vehides in German cities are />eing . ? i ' j driven by former commissioned of; ficeiG. Common soldiers in the ranks ' i are faring better than their officers. ! [ Thousands of soldiers turned to agriculture and trades for a living but i i , j the officers, who had made a career . of the army, had no other training i j . to make a livelihood. J We ar i * i ; Temporarily i machines that wer ready for business, We have rep] cars rolling, and ai l 1 trade as usuai. Newbe I Mem i ; ?- ',.2 "w "" T~Z7 0 \ J / f W or appr 'i able > I \ 4" : I I lit: r I j Cc-J tl: t! ljn.:c.a:i i Price* F _ i Cix sss i ! Carolin r * L i -1 [ j _ ! 484 i i mtm* jt. <? :i M A, ii 6a===_^ Simmer Camp For B In. The Mounts Southern Railw in Western Nort And North Accommodations ?< every feature of an education available. SUMMER EXCURf ' Tickets on sale dai % turn until October 3 allowed. For furthe apply to: S. H. McLEA: , _ ? a i^iSiriciL rassc Columbia, S. ( mmmmmk ww ? ?<?r *<ni 11?<**mmxmjamammwmmm?a???? e running n ive have rigged up a e not so badly dama I laced our stock and re in position to take ;rrv Lumber ^ Phone 56 J / ber Newberry Chamber of Commerce i . . V Btan/ nen particular! eciate the xemarl riding comfort c go.od Maxwel p.jn-skid Iron: cr rear: disc steel wheels, de ^!o at rim and at huh; drum type lamps; Alemite i~n; meter driven horn; unusually long springs; . O B. Detroit, revenue tax to he added: Touring '5; Roadster, $S35j Coupe, $13S5; Sedan, $1485 ia Auto Corns The Good oys And Girls lins On ay System h Carolina < i ^ Georgia easonable, and nusement and 5ION FARES ^ :ly, good to re- j 1st. Stopovers ] :r information # V. N, < nger Agent, ? # t ow. ( fka 1CW UX iliw ged and are have several care of our Co. *> '/"? . '* : ) # . * > . ... . * " i ' ' i t / ' ~ * .V . y m L 1 I . ' ' i ianv iS mini