Film History, Volume 1. pp. 307-325. 1987
Printed in ihc L'SA. All rights reserved
0892-2160/87 $3,00 + 0
Copyright © 1987 Taylor k Francis
Betumeen Reform and Regulation
The Struggle over Film Censorship in Progressive
America, 1909-1922
by Nancy J. Rosenbloom
Abstract The establishment of the Board of
Censors of Motion Picture Shows (later known
as the National Board of Review) in New York
in 1909 is discussed. The paper deals with the
Board's relationship to the motion picture industry
and its efforts to avoid a formal structure
of centralized film censorship. The establishment
of official censorship boards in several
states and the industry's formation of the
MPPDA in 1922 ultimately undercut the National
Board's authority by 1922.
Nowhere is the relationship between film and the
society that produced it more lantahzing and
perhaps less understood than in the progressive era.
During the first two decades of the twentieth century,
reform captured the political imagination of a
generation of Americans who witnessed the development
of the moving picture trade from its nickelodeon
origins into a major competitive industry. Political
liberals and moral conservatives struggled to
create a response to film that satisfied tbe goals of
uplifting civilization without hampering its progress.
If at first it appears reformers agreed that censorship
was the most effective social and political response to
moving pictures, then closer analysis also shows that
reformers disagreed sharply as to whether their
target should be exhibition conditions or film content
and whether censorship should be official or voluntary.
While some reformers advocated prior censorship
of film by municipal or state agencies, others argued
that such official legal censorship violated the
first amendment.
The threat and reality of censorship between
1909 and 1922 politicized the film industry as no
other issue of the day. Members of the moving picture
trade, particularly the exhibitors and manufacturers,
reacted to the threats of external regulation in
several ways. At first, they cooperated with civic reformers
in New York City to establish the National
Board of Censorship, a body committed to the principle
of voluntary censorship. Only later did they organize
and develop an aggressive political campaign
to protect themselves against the potentially hostile
legislation of municipal, state, and federal governments.
This campaign culminated in the creation of
the Hays Office in 1922. Unlike the National Board
of Censorship which was directed by the reformers,
the Hays Office directly represented the interests of
tbe motion picture trade.
Although film had been a form of popular entertainment
since the 1890s, it did not become an object
of close scrutiny until after 1907. By then, the popularity
of moving pictures had begun to spread
beyond the working class neighborhoods and ethnic
ghettos of urban America.^ Moving pictures were a
public form of entertainment, and, because of their
public character, they became a center of controversy.^
The controversy that developed over how best
to regulate both the content of the moving pictures as
well as the conditions of exhibition pitted reformers
against each other. In New York City, public concern
peaked in 1908 when Mayor George McClellan created
a furor within the film trade and film-going
public by closing the nickelodeons at Christmas.* In
the aftermath of the theater closings, representatives
of the motion picture trade, many of whom were si-
307
Nancy J. Rosenbloom
Figure L New York Mayor George B. McClellan: the man
who closed the nickelodeons. NYPL Picture Collection.
multaneously involved in establishing the Motion Picture
Patents Company, negotiated a policy of voluntary
censorship with reformers. This effort at accommodation
between the moving picture trade and
reformers had a national impact and led to the establishment
of a formal relationship that remained in
effect throughout the progressive era.
The struggle over film censorship began during a
period historians have labelled "the progressive era."
In spite of a decade of historical scholarship to clarify
the meaning of progressivism, the movement defies
easy definition.^ Some historians have attempted to
identify progressives from the perspective of their affiliations
and ideologies. On this point, there remains
basic disagreement as to whether progressives as a
group represented entrepreneurs or corporate interests.
Richard Hofstadter has argued that progressives
came from a declining middle class anxious to
protect itself against the assault of modernity. Robert
Wiebe, on the other hand, locates the progressives
among the rising middle classes of professionals,
managers, and bureaucrats who were a product of
the new economic order. If there is debate about the
socio-economic origins of progressives, then this is
also true of their value systems. Hofstadter sees progressives
as nostalgic, backward-looking reformers,
mourning the loss of individualism. In contrast,
Wiebe ciarifes the extent to which reform ideology
complemented the organizational model of industrial
America by seeking to modernize social and political
institutions through increased legislation, regulation,
and bureaucratization.^
Amore meaningful approach to illuminate the
historical context in which the censorship question
unfolded is to begin with the changes that took
place within the political system itself.^ As Richard
McCormick has shown, the fundamental changes in
government between 1900 and 1915—in particular,
the increased reliance on administrative solutions to
social problems, the enlarged sphere of public action,
and the recognition of special interest groups—were
particularly profound in New York State. In the first
decade of the twentieth century, New York experienced
a series of political crises, each followed by an
explosion of reform activity.' This, in turn, had a
profound effect on moving pictures. At once a tool
and a target of reform activity, moving pictures elicited
attention in an era of political transformation.
The relationship of film to the society that produced
it has been addressed most notably by Robert
Sklar, Garth Jowett, and Lary May.^ In his landmark
study Film: The Democratic Art, Jowett has chronicled
the efforts at municipal, state, and federal control of
moving pictures. He describes the battle that developed
between progressives and motion picture interests
as concern for child welfare, health, and morality
led social workers to take a closer look at the
new medium. This concern, in turn, resulted in attempts
at regulation of moving pictures through legislation.
It was against the background of these developments
that Jowett explains the establishment of the
National Board of Gensorship—after 1915 called the
National Board of Review—as a body that actively
campaigned against censorship but ultimately failed
to "become the official public voice of the film industry."^
Jowett's interpretation of the National
Board of Gensorship, however, ignores its impact on
the politicization of the film industry and the industry's
mobilization against legal censorship. The
extent to which the industry began to organize as a
special interest group and entered into debates concerning
its own welfare was directly related to the
ability of the National Board of Censorship to mediate
between the public and the film industry.
Lary May approaches the question from a different
perspective in his provocative study Screening
Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion
Picture Industry. Focusing on the transition of
308
Between Reform and Regulation
America from a producer to a consumer culture,
May argues that moving pictures helped ease public
accommodation to consumer values. In this context,
he sees the reformers at the National Board of Censorship
as "vice crusaders." According to May, the
reformers and the motion picture trade forged a
consensus that lasted from 1909 until the uproar
over the racism in D. W. Griffith's THE BIRTH OF
A NATION in 1915.'» While it is true that THE
BIRTH OE A NATION simulated a vigorous debate
over the need for film censorship, May's interpretation
overestimates the strength of the consensus that
existed not just between the reformers and the film
trade, but even among the reformers themselves.
What May's argument has tended to obscure is that
reformers disagreed on the appropriate response to
film regulation. The lively debate among reformers
over official and voluntary censorship should not be
overlooked.
For all of the attention that the societal pressures
for film censorship have received from social historians
like May and Jowett, surprisingly little work
has been done on the organized response of the
moving picture trade to the campaigns for legal censorship
prior to the establishment of the Hays Office."
The following essay focuses on two questions
that previous studies have not fully answered. First,
precisely what was the basis of the relationship that
developed between progressivism and the moving
picture trade interests with specific reference to the
censorship question? And second, how did this relationship
influence the strategy the film trade pursued
in response to the campaigns for legal censorship
prior to the creation of the Hays Office in 1922?
These questions help illuminate the process by which
the film industry learned to lobby effectively and
prevent the imposition of federal control over
moving pictures. By the time Will Hays accepted the
invitation to help fight censorship in 1922, the
moving picture industry had experienced a decade of
struggle over the censorship question.
The establishment of the Board of Censorship of
Programs of Motion Picture Shows in New York City
early in the spring of 1909 signaled the beginning of
the courtship between the moving picture interests
and progressive reform. Founded on an experimental
basis in the wake of theater closings during
the previous Christmas holiday, the Board of Censorship
was created by a number of civic bodies in
response to a resolution passed by the Association of
Motion Pictures Exhibitors of New York.^^ Members
of non-partisan educational reform groups such as
the Public Education Association originally dominated
the governing board, but it quickly expanded
to include more representation from middle-class,
Protestant reform societies. The People's Institute in
New York City becanie its main sponsor when the
Board transformed itself into a national agency in
May 1909.*^ The project carried the imprimatur of
an advisory committee consisting of nearly sixty
public figures, as diverse as Lyman Abbott, Andrew
Carnegie, Samuel Gompers, Lenora O'Reilly, Mary
Simkovitch, and Stephen S. Wise.'*
As the sponsoring institution of the National
Board of Censorship, the People's Institute played a
significant role in organizing its work. Its leaders,
Charles Sprague Smith and John Collier, identified
with the agenda of progressive reform.^^ The
founder of the People's Institute in 1897, Smith had
taught comparative literature at Columbia and Harvard.
His credentials satisfied even Charles Beard,
among the most critical of the progressives.'^ Besides
his involvement with the People's Institute and the
National Board of Censorship, Smith experimented
with social reform in creating the Ethical Social
League in 1908 and, as a member of the Wall Street
Commission, in investigating the Stock Exchange in
1908 and 1909. John Collier, first chairman of the
Executive Committee on Censorship and the General
Secretary of the National Board, worked closely with
Smith on the question of film censorship. He had
charge of organizing the censorship committee and
communicating with the manufacturers. At the same
time Collier remained committed to child welfare,
and, in this regard, he supported the ideas of the
progressive eciucators. He argued that moving pictures
had a significant role to play in the development
of the child and held that ". . . education involves
a positive liberation of the forces within the
child . . ."'^ Both Collier and Smith enjoyed a good
relationship with the film manufacturers and helped
shape the relationship between them and the Board.
In the beginning, cooperation characterized the
relationship between the trade and the reformers as
well as between the film manufacturers and the exhibitors.
Although the New York Exhibitors initiated
the establishment of the Board, the Chairman of the
Executive Committee on Censorship, John Collier,
quickly invited the cooperation of the manufacturers.
Collier suggested that the manufacturers voluntarily
submit their films to prior censorship under standards
adopted by the Censorship Board in consultation
with the New York manufacturers, renters, and
exhibitors. To convince the manufacturers of the advantages
of voluntary submission of their films to
censt)rship before exhibition. Collier suggested that,
besides improving the moving picture business in the
public's estimation, censorship would result in in-
309
Nancy J. Rosenbloom
creased patronage in every neighborhood and undercut
those who were trying to destroy the business
through unreasonable laws.*^
Exactly who aimed to harm the business is difficult
to assess because the moving picture exhibitors
and manufacturers had found themselves under
siege from a number of enemies in addition to those
reformers who had targeted the moving picture
shows. The moving picture trade offered stiff competition
to the saloons, vaudeville houses, dance halls,
and even the popular press for the nickels that the
working classes spent on entertainment. Hard
feelings erupted when moving pictures successfully
attracted patrons away from other forms of leisure.
Accusations appearing in the trade press implied that
vaudeville interests and the popular press, in particular,
sought publicly to humiliate moving pictures.
The moving picture trade feared that such smear
tactics, if not petty graft on the part of their enemies,
might lead to external censorship.'^ Yet instead of
seeking protection from Tammany Hall, itself under
indictment by reformers, the moving picture exhibitors
saw tactical advantages in forging an alliance
with an assorted group of civic, social, political, and
even moral reformers. At the same time, the exhibitors
and the reformers understood they could accomplish
little without the active support of the man-
ufacturers.
As members of the Board of Censorship had
hoped, the manufacturers responded favorably
to Collier's proposals for voluntary censorship.
Those licensed manufacturers who had formed the
Motion Picture Patents Company only shortly before
began to cooperate with the Board of Censorship
within weeks of its organization and submitted their
first films for inspection on 25 March 1909. The independent
producers, perhaps following the lead of
the influential International Projecting and Producing
Company, also agreed to submit their
product to the National Board of Censorship.^** By
August 1909, the Board boasted it censored 75 percent
of all films exhibited in the United States. However,
the Board did exempt two categories of films
from their inspection; special releases and secretly
produced pictures.^'
The cooperation between the Motion Picture
Patents Company and the Board of Censorship reflected
their common goal of improving the quality
of pictures produced. Shortly after its formation, the
Patents Company had circulated an announcement
to the exhibitors detailing their objectives and clarifying
the advantages of such improvements not only
to the exhibitors but also to the permanence and welfare
of the moving picture business. The elimination
of "cheap and inferior foreign films" and the encouragement
of patronage by "the better class of the community"
justified, in part, the formation of the Company.^'^
As the main leaders of the trade, the
members of the Company ceased fighting against
each other and instead focused on what they regarded
as the demoralizing impact of greedy foreign
interests. The Board of Censorship, like the Patents
Company, saw itself as safeguarding an American
standard which excluded certain vulgar scenes popular
in foreign films.^^
At the inception of their cooperative venture,
representatives of the trade and of the reformers
agreed to the advantages of making the New
York censorship board a national body. Regardless of
the atypicality of New York's cosmopolitan and heterogeneous
culture, it was still the geographic center
of the trade. Frank Dyer, the Vice President of the
Edison Manufacturing Company who also served as
the President of the Motion Picture Patents Company,
encouraged Collier in his efforts to transform
the New York organization into a National Board.
Arguing that the existence of many local censorship
boards could cripple the industry. Dyer agreed with
Collier that a responsible National Board seemed to
be the only possible solution to moving picture censorship,
an event that loomed as inevitable. Although
the manufacturers reacted reluctantly at first. Dyer
assured Collier that they would learn to accept the
Board's decisions, much as they had learned to accept
adverse court decisions.^"*
While the moving picture trade interests supported
the National Board out of enlightened self-interest,
the members of the Board and most particularly
Collier admitted from the beginning that self-interest
also motivated them. In March, Collier had
indicated to the manufacturers that the Board
wanted to introduce "moving picture apparatus" into
the public schools.2^ The licensed manufacturers believed
that this was a fair exchange, even if it was not
directly useful to their own goals of improving public
relations, avoiding adverse legislation, and increasing
commercial opportunities. Collier actively campaigned
to win the confidence of urban educators
and found an influential ally in George Kleine, an
original member of the Motion Picture Patents Company.
Both agreed that the moving pictures—commercial
films—had an educational value and that the
pedagogical possibilities of the new industry had significant
implications for the classroom and churches.
Still, the dollar remained the bottom line. When Collier
suggested several months later that moving pic-
310
Between Reform and Regulation
tures be shown in New York Gity's recreation centers
free of charge, Dyer objected on the grounds that
this would unfairly harm the moving picture theaters'
profits.^**
The National Board of Censorship and the
moving picture interests established a number of important
precedents during the first six months of
their cooperative venture that set the pattern for
their relationship over the next decade. Yet, in spite
of what appeared as general agreement, there also
arose points of contention that would resurface and
hinder the effectiveness of their work. The production
of higher quality pictures emerged as the primary
goal of censorship. Seen almost as a panacea
for the instability—often verging on chaos—that
characterized the moving picture industry in 1909.
censorship implied greater uniformity in product
through the exercise of peer pressure. In order for
the smaller manufacturers to survive, they would be
forced to conform to national standards set by the
leaders of the trade, namely the licensed manufacturers
and the more important of the independent
producers.^' Both the reformers and the manufacturers
agreed that approval by the Board should be
advertised as a way to popularize acceptable films
and gradually uplift public tastes and the films that
satisfied them.^^ The trade interests, however, seized
upon this idea too enthusiastically, and the following
year Charles Sprague Smith, Collier's boss at the
People's Institute, warned the manufacturers and exhibitors
against exploiting the Board's approval.
Such publicity, according to Smith, jeopardized the
work of the Board.^^
The moving picture manufacturers and the National
Board of Censorship jointly defined how the
work of the Board should proceed. At the least, botb
sides agreed that tbe censorship of certain subjects
would be advantageous. Obscenity and crinie-forcrime's-sake
ranked at the top of the list of problems
to be eliminated.'*'* During the first year of operation,
the committee on censorship rejected films submitted
by members of the Motion Picture Patents Company
for depicting "the criminal passion and rough handling
of a white girl by Negroes" as well as for developing
themes of infidelity, suicide, and the ridicule
of the insane.^' A typical communique between Collier,
as General Secretary of the Board, and the
members of the Motion Picture Patents Gompany
listed the films seen at the offices of the Patents
Gompany and then specified the causes for the rejection
of a particular film. For example, when the committee
rejected the Pathé film RAT D'HOTEL after
three viewings, Gollier explained the film "hinges on
,778-1
L
ïuggcttions (ai
A Model Ordinance
for regula ling
Motion Picture Theatres
1 R ^ L..
Tlie National Board of Censordiip
ol
Motion Pictures
50 MADÍ5ON AVENUE
PBKZ TIN CENTS
Figure 2, Front cover of a 16-page pamphlet published by
the National Board of Censorship promoting local regulation
of motion picture theaters, c. 1912. American Museum
of the Moving Image.
the successful perpetration of the crime of burglary
accomplished by chloroforming the victim."^^ Gollier
and the others worried that the ease ofthe crime was
suggestive.
The committee had several alternatives besides
rejecting a film entirely. They might also suggest specific
eliminations or changes. For example, the committee
requested the elimination of a woman "reeling
drunk" from one film and the display of drawers
(underwear) from another.^^ In Lubin's MAMA'S
ANGEL, the shots of a youngster throwing a banana
peel on the pavement had to be removed, while in
other films made in 1910, the committee objected to
shots of burglars engaged in various activities. Nor
could the Katzenjammer kids get away with sawing
the legs of a chair in half.^** At other times, the committee
would commend the pictures they saw in an
effort to encourage the production of certain themes
or even influence more aesthetic criteria. The Board
311
Nancy J. Rosenbloom
congratulated the Selig Company, a member of the
Patents Company, for its choice of an industrial subject
and its "journalistic treatment of every day subjects.^^
Commenting favorably on an Edison film.
Collier tentatively added his own personal observations
in a note to Horace Plimpton, tbe studio man-
ager:
The conditions under which pictures are
shown at the Patents Co. are well-nigh ideal,
yet 1 had to get right under the screen to obtain
a satisfactory view of the people's countenances.
They are too small on the screen to be
personalities. You'll notice, with an ensemble
scene of French or Italian make, that there
may be a crowd of people on stage, yet a few,
the central characters, are in the foreground
and are satisfactorily visible; you can watch
their facial play.^^
On occasion, these suggestions threatened the
good will between the manufacturers and the censorship
committee. When the committee began to intrude
more directly into their affairs, the manufacturers
objected vehemently. One such crisis developed
late in the fall of 1909 when American Mutoscope
and Biograph Company ceased submitting its films to
the Board. Biograph's president, J.J. Kennedy, who
also served as Treasurer of the Motion Picture
Patents Company, admitted that censorship was desirable
and even necessary under existing conditions
but criticized the leaders of the project at the People's
Institute. Angrily, he complained to Dyer;
The producing and marketing of film is an
industry of too great importance, both commercially
and in its relation to the public welfare,
to be subjected to those who, after being
afforded every facility to accomplish the good
work that they set out to do, now assume an
attitude of controlhng or dominating the busi-
ness.
37
The licensed manufacturers took this as well as
other issues to a meeting with Charles Sprague Smith
that representatives from Biograph did not attend.
The manufacturers requested that the committee on
censorship that had been formed under the auspices
of the People's Institute refrain from commenting on
the pictures outside of either rejecting them or suggesting
changes. Concern for their independence,
especially as it appeared to the public, led the manufacturers
to insist that the censorship committee not
give interviews or publish articles claiming that they
were influencing or directing the manufacturers "in
any way in regard to the kind of pictures or method
of treatment thereof, which are being made by
h " ^ ^
Smith disagreed with this criticism and cautioned
that the censorship committee relied on such publicity.
Even though he conceded that the public
should not think that tbe censorship committee directed
the Patents Company, Smith insisted that the
legitimacy of the National Board of Censorship depended
on its freedom to publicize its role in reviewing
the films produced by the Patents Company.^^
Moreover, Smith insisted that Biograph's
withdrawal threatened the efficacy of the censorship
effort. Again, the Patents Company, this time represented
by Secretary George Scull, argued for the independence
of the manufacturers not only in relationship
to the Board of Censorship but among
themselves as members of the Motion Picture Patents
Company.^" Each of the licensed manufacturers decided
whether to submit their films, and Scull
stressed that, while the Patents Company would provide
a viewing room for their convenience, it would
not force its members to comply with the desires of
the National Board. Shortly after this altercation,
Biograph reconsidered its refusal to submit its films
and began cooperating again with the Board. Subsequently,
other members of the company witheld their
films from the Board for various reasons but never
for a long period of time.
Challenges to the work of the National Board of
Censorship came from within its own ranks as
well. Mrs. Josephine Redding, editor of Vogue and
among the first members of the censoring committee,
decided to resign from the project, ostensibly
because of internal strife on the committee. In a
frank letter to her friend, Mrs. Horace Ply[i]mptom,
she criticized both the film manufacturers for producing
violent pictures and the censoring committee
for passing such films. Mrs. Redding expressed concern
that film portrayals of violence engendered
trouble from local magistrates and from a group she
referred to as "REEORMERS" or "Pseudo-Reformers."
She worried that these reformers would
succeed in having appointed a Public Recreation
Committee with jurisdiction over Motion Pictures
and Cheap Theaters. Moreover, she feared the attempts
to establish local censorship committees outside
of New York City, "each with its individual and
in most instances unintelligible and hostile views of
stage production.'"*' Mrs. Redding requested that the
Plimptons use their influence to "make the Producers
reaUze the unwisdom" of exploiting violence
in their pictures."*^
An even more serious challenge came the following
year when two of the charter members withdrew
their support from the Board in the fall of
1911. Representatives of the Woman's Municipal
312
Between Reform and Regulation
Figure 3. New York Mayor William Jay Gaynor, considered an ally of the motion picture interests,
replaced George McClellan at City Hall in 1909. NYPL Picture Collection.
League and the Society for the Prevention of Crime
undercut the work of the Board by appealing for official
censorship at a public hearing of a special
mayoral commission appointed to examine the
moving picture shows in New York City. Decrying
the methods of the Board as inadequate, they argued
that only an official, legal censorship would protect
children under sixteen.^^ The public dissent of the
former board members against the mayoral commission
had the character of a political as well as a moral
challenge.
Mayor William J. Gaynor, the New York politician
responsible for appointing the committee, had been
considered an ally of the moving picture interests
since December 1908. At that time, as ajustice of the
appellate division of the Supreme Court of New
York, he had granted an injunction against Mayor
George McClellan's orders to close all the moving
picture theaters. Elected mayor in 1909, Gaynor had
displaced McClellan as the choice of Tammany Hall
Democrats. Initially, Gaynor had the support of
many anti-Tammany reformers as well and began a
campaign that included a massive dean-up of the police
department, support for better housing, improved
education, better health care for pregnant
women, and more children's recreation facilities. But
Gaynor soon alienated the anti-Tammany reformers,
including Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst whom he
denounced as bilious.'*'* Parkhurst had been a leader
of anti-Tammany reform groups for two decades. In
the 1890s, he had campaigned against cigar stores
and saloons and had led an anti-vice crusade. Influential
in the City Vigilance League and in the Society
for the Prevention of Crime, Parkhurst's opposition
to moving pictures was very much in character.'*^
In the early spring of 1911, Gaynor had appointed
a special commission under Raymond Fosdick.
Commissioner of Accounts, to examine the conditions
of moving picture shows in New York City.
Fosdick distinguished between the character of the
films and the conditions in which they were exhibited,
the same distinction the National Board of Gen-
313
Nancy J. Rosenbloom
sorship had allowed in determining what fell under
police jurisdiction and what belonged to their own
censorship work. Fosdick concluded that present
laws and ordinances in New York City were inapplicable
to moving picture shows and suggested more
uniform legislation. At the same time, however, the
report strongly endorsed the work of the Board of
Censorship in improving "the character of the pictures."^^
While the mayor accepted Fosdick's report,
the altercation outside his office caused by the resignation
of the two former board members tarnished
the image of the National Board of Censorship.
Those who favored legalized censorship and opposed
the National Board vehemently objected to the
portrayal of crime on film. The Board of Censorship
had already made its position on sensational representations
of crime or of crime for crime's sake clear,
and the manufacturers had agreed to eliminate these
offensive themes. Answering the criticism that the
depiction of crime continued to appear in moving
pictures, the Board defended its position "on [both]
the theory that the motion picture is a form of dramatic
art and, together with the theater, must be allowed
a certain liberty in depicting moral
problems."^'
If the incident outside of Gaynor's office offered
evidence that the proponents of official prior censorship
were serious in their efforts to pressure the
administration into acting. Mayor Caynor had no intention,
then or later, of giving in to their overt demands
or covert manipulations. On the question that
freedom of the press included moving pictures, no
public figure was more outspoken than Mayor
Gaynor. Gaynor objected consistently to legal censorship
of moving pictures, and, when he died in September
1913, the entire moving picture trade
mourned his death. Shortly before, in December
1912, Gaynor vetoed a New York City ordinance
passed by Tammany and Fusion aldermen that established
procedures and fees for classifying moving
picture shows but to which was added at the last moment
a censorship provision. Gaynor carefully analyzed
the issue for the aldermen, basing his veto on
the understanding that "no censorship can be established
by law to decide in advance what may or may
not be lawfully printed or published."^^ Arguing that
"the press" includes "all methods of expression by
writing or pictures," Gaynor insisted that the criminal
punishment for the publication of obscene, immoral,
libelous, and indecent literature offered adequate
legislation on the question. Moreover, Gaynor
stressed that censorship was not only unconstitutional
but that it went against the historical development
of free governments all over the world and was
antagonistic to mass society. It was as a friend of
democratic society that Gaynor commented that, in
contemporary America, moving pictures were:
attended by great bulk of the people, many of
whom cannot afford to pay the prices charged
by the theatres. They are a solace and an education
to them. Why are we singling out these
people as subjects necessary to be protected by
a censorship? Are they any more in need of
protection by censorship than the rest of the
community? Are they better than the rest of
us, or worse?*^
The confrontation outside the mayor's office in
November 1911 and the subsequent pressure to
amend the municipal ordinance highlighted two critical
problems the Board of Censorship and the manufacturers
then faced: how to explain publicly the
nature of their relationship and how to convince the
public that voluntary censorship was working. These
were not easy tasks since their opponents exploited
the two most vulnerable points they could. First, the
manufacturers, in fact, did finance the work of the
Board, although they insisted that they did not bribe
the Board into passing undesirable films. Second, the
Board, in reality, had no legal authority to enforce its
decisions but relied on the good faith of the manufacturers
and exhibitors to implement the changes
they suggested or to refrain from circulating offensive
films. The Board of Censorship responded to
these complaints by emphasizing that, although they
had no legal authority, they were effective in the
numbers of films they examined. Moreover, the
Board's published reports stressed that the People's
Institute funded their work and that there never had
been any attempt to disguise the financial contributions
by the trade to the People's Institute. Ironically,
the close relationship between the Institute and the
trade on the question of responsible voluntary censorship
appears to have been an underlying cause in
the campaign for legal censorship.
During these months of struggle on the efficacy
of voluntary censorship, there occurred a change in
leadership at the People's Institute that had a great
impact on the future direction of the National Board
of Censorship. While Smith had a finely developed
sense of politics, his untimely death on 30 March
1910 left the National Board of Censorship largely in
the hands of the politically inexperienced John Collier,
just at the moment when those favoring legalized
censorship were beginning to lobby against those
advocating voluntary co-operation. In the months
before his death, Smith expressed concern that reformers
from outside the Board were attempting to
take control of the censorship project. While Collier
314
Between Reform and Regulation
and Smith both agreed that cooperation among reformers,
particularly on the question of child welfare,
could only help their cause, they were particularly
reluctant to give up control considering the instability
of municipal politics. If the city
administration under Mayor Gaynor had a liberal
bias. Collier and Smith were far less sanguine about
the future.^*^
In casting about for a new leader, the People's Institute
invited Frederic C. Howe to assume the position
of director. During Howe's tenure—he resigned
in September 1915—the work of the National Board
of Censorship became the main activity at the
People's Institute. At the time of his appointment,
Howe presented an impeccable progressive profile.
The publication of The City: The Hope of Democracy
earlier in 1910 represented his most recent achievement
and influenced his move from Cleveland to
New York City. Almost a decade of ])olitical experience
with Mayor Tom Johnson in Cleveland had involved
him in such divergent issues as economic debates
on Henry George's single tax program and humanitarian
discussions about penal reform. In
addition, his earlier career as a partner in the prestigious
law firm of Garfield, Garfield and Howe, as a
city councilman, and as a Ohio state senator completed
his political education. Most importantly,
Howe already had developed a national reputation.
Even while director at the People's Institute, Howe
actively supported his old friend Senator Robert La
Follette in his stillborn bid for the presidential nomination
and then rallied behind Woodrow Wilson,
whom Howe had known from his student days at
Johns Hopkins. In 1914, Wilson appointed Howe
Commissioner of Ellis Island. Yet, in spite of Howe's
impressive résumé and his personal popularity, he
did have enemies. Not only had he antagonized
many in Ohio politics by sbifting from the Republican
to the Democratic party in 1903, but his stubborn
nature alienated powerful interests, as his much
publicized run-in with the food supplier to Ellis Island
showed.
In New York City, the intellectual energy of
Greenwich Village excited Howe. He invited Emma
Goldman and W. E. B. DuBois, among others, to address
the People's Institute. Radical political ideas interested
him, and he later recounted that during the
years immediately preceding the war it was "good to
be a liberal." An outspoken advocate of direct primaries,
municipal ownership, labor legislation, and
women's suffrage, Howe believed in and worked for
constructive change. This commitment radicalized
the political environment at the Institute. Yet, even
though Howe moved further to the left, he remained
Figure 4. Frederic C. Howe, Director of the National
Board of Censorship during the critical 1910—1915 period.
NYPL Picture Collection.
loyal to democratic politics and progressive ideology.
After the war, he finally resigned as Commissioner of
Ellis Island rather than deport political radicals, and,
for the following fourteen years, he continued to
support progressivism until he returned to public
service in Roosevelt's administration.^'
During Howe's tenure as chairman of the National
Board of Censorship, the Board strengthened
its public stance that official prior censorship was unconstitutional.
While Howe stressed the necessity of a
free exchange of ideas in a democratic society, he
also offered new justification for the work of the National
Board of Censorship. Rather than represent
the interests of the trade or of the reformers, the
Board now identified itself with the moving picture
audience and espoused the position that it tried to
"reflect what the people of the United States would
think about any given picture were they sitting en
masses to view it."^^ According to Howe, the Board
sought for the censoring committee as broad and
representative a body as possible. Moreover, Howe
insisted that the Board operated from the premise
that "the general conscience believes in free speech
315
Nancy J. Rosenbloom
on religious and political matters; in the right of
people to live and enjoy themselves in the way they
see fit, so long as fundamental morality is not in-
jured."^^
Howe reahzed that the censorship question was
complicated, and, in particular, he was concerned
with the difficulty of applying general standards to
criticizing specific films. Taking as an example the
depiction of vice and crime and the dramatization of
street life in New York, he cautioned that in one audience
it might encourage the desire for reform
while in another the desire to imitate. Howe believed
that any censorship, whether voluntary or vested in
federal and state officials, provoked dangers to a free
society. Keenly sensitive to the importance of the medium
in the formation of public opinion and to the
role of public opinion in a democracy, Howe understood
the political imphcations of legalized censorship—in
fact of any censorship—as well as any man
of his day. On this point, Howe frankly admitted
Aside from the question of the constitutionality
of such (official) censorship is the question
ofthe ultimate effect ofthe assumption by
the State of the right of regulating this most
important avenue of expression (the motion
picture). Should the State pass upon the desirability
of the portrayal of labor questions, of
Socialism, the Industrial Workers of the
World, and the other insistent issues crowding
to the fore? . . . If such (official) censorship be
provided for, will not this great field of dramatic
expression be subjected to the fear of
suppression, so that only tbe safe and sane, the
purely conventional, the uncontroversial film
will be produced? . . . Tben the control of this
offical board would be a prize worth struggling
for—a prize comparable to the control
of the Associated Pre.ss, and almost as dangerous
to the freedom of the country.^**
Howe feared official censorship because it was
even more vulnerable to government and narrowly
individualistic bias—if not outright graft—than voluntary
censorship. The mistakes that the National
Board made in judging particular films might pose
temporary problems, Howe admitted to his critics,
but tbis paled in comparision to the dangers posed by
legal censorship. Howe feared that legal censorship
would
stifle, or threaten to stifle, the freedom of the
(motion picture) industry as a mirror ofthe everyday
life, hopes and aspirations of the
people. The motion picture show is not only
democracy's theatre. It is a great educational
agency, and it is likely to become a propagandistic
agency of unmeasured possibilities.^^
Howe's appointment as executive chairman ofthe
National Board of Gensorship had promised greater
legitimacy for its work. The moving picture interests,
preoccupied with commercial and artistic problems
in the quickly expanding indtistry, did not realize
bow far short of its goal the National Board of Gensorship
had fallen by 1915. Between Smith's death in
1910 and Howe's resignation five years later, the National
Board of Gensorship offered the motion picture
industry an alliance with progressive reformers.
Yet, in spite of their successful campaigns to uplift
the industry, increase patronage, introduce moving
pictures into schools, and generally improve the
public image of the industry, their joint efforts to
allay the effect of those who favored legalized censorship
met strong and organized opposition. While
the most powerful segments of the moving picture
trade recognized the legitimacy of the National
Board of Gensorship, enemies of the trade exploited
the establishment of the Board to reorganize their
opposition. As an external agency that promoted
quality control in film production, the Board certainly
helped the industry achieve greater stability between
1909 and 1915. But rather than disarm opponents
by the general improvement in the moving pictures,
the cooperation of progressive reformers with
the moving picture interests seemed only to provoke
more hostihty. From the beginning, tbe Board tried
to answer its critics publicly, hoping in this way to
gain new support for its work. But as support for legalized
censorship increased, the Board became a
mouthpiece against censorship. The irony did not
escape them.
Between 1912 and 1915, the two-pronged attack
against the National Board of Gensorship and for legalized
censorship began to succeed. Proponents of
legalized censorship challenged the effectiveness of
the Board on the grounds that it approved too many
undesirable films and scenes, that it did not enforce
its decisions, and that the manufacturers exerted
undue influence by paying for the censorship. These
accusations resulted in proposals for legalized censorship
in several states and a number of municipalities.
Gensorsbip legislation passed in Pennsylvania in
1911, in Kansas and Ohio in 1913, and in Maryiand
in 1916. Moreover, in February 1915, the decision
from the United States Supreme Gourt in Mutual v.
Ohio upheld the state's right to censor films before
exhibition. Mutual Film Gorporation had challenged
the constitutionality of the Ohio censorship law first
in the District Gourt of Ohio and then on appeal in
316
Between Reform and Regulation
the United States Supreme Court. W. B. Saunders,
the attorney for Mutual, contended that the Ohio
censorship law violated tbe federal constitution in
three ways: by placing an unlawful burden on interstate
commerce, by interfering with freedom of
speech and publication, and by unlawfully delegating
legislative power.^^ In February 1915, the Supreme
Court affirmed the decision of the federal district
court. Justice Joseph McKenna delivered the opinion
of the Court on these three complaints. First, since
the censorship extended only to film intended for exhibition
in Ohio, he wrote, it did not place an unlawful
burden on interstate commerce. Second,
McKetma accepted the argument that moving pictures
may be "mediums of thought" but refused to
consider here the guarantees of free opinion and
speech. Third, McKenna denied that the Ohio
statute delegated legislative power to an admininstrative
agency and further recognized the difficulty of
an exact separation of powers, stressing that the Ohio
censors had discretion only in executing the law.^'
The unfavorable decisions in Mutual v. Ohio, as
well as in its companion case Mutual v. Kansas,
shocked the moving picture world. In the nearly
twenty years since moving pictures had begun to
compete as commercial entertainment, the industry
had undergone remarkable growth and had successfully
distinguished itself from the class of common
shows where it had originally been licensed. Arguing
that moving pictures were comparable to circuses.
Judge McKenna ignored the social respectability film
had attained by improving the dramatic value of the
pictures. Surprised by the decision, many in the trade
continued to claim first amendment protection in defending
themselves against further state, municipal,
and federal legislation and before the lengthy congressional
hearings in 1914 atid 1916 on the question
of a federal censorship commission. By pursuing this
tactic, however, the film trade interests may actually
have hurt their own goals. By 1915, the slogan "free
speech" had become the battle cry of political dissidents
including labor organizers like the International
Workers of the World. The failure to stave off
legalized censorship through adjudication left the
trade divided on which tactic to pursue next. Although
in 1909 the exhibitors and manufacturers
were unified in their support of voluntary censorship,
by 1915 there was little consensus on how to
best defend the industry from the the harmful effects
of legalized censorship.
Amid this turmoil, the Motion Picture Board of
Trade, a newly chartered association, attempted to
organize support to defeat censorship legislation. Its
efforts were complicated by the recent dissolution of
the Motion Picture Patents Company in the wake of
anti-trust legislation. The Edison Manufacturing
Company refused to contribute funds or attend any
censorship meetings held by the new association.^^ In
spite of this rebuff, the Board of Trade established
an executive committee that included some former
members of the Patents Company as well as representatives
from the independents. The Motion Picture
Board of Trade helped to organize political lobbying
against specific censorship bills. For example,
when the New Jersey legislature took up the issue in
February 1916, the Board sent a delegation of manufacturers
to Trenton to prevent the censorship bill
from passing.^^
Even though the Motion Picture Board of Trade
did not survive as a trade association, its energies
were not entirely wasted. Many in the film industry
agreed that a cooperative effort among them was
necessary if they were to protect themselves from unfavorable
legislation. On 8 June 1916, representatives
of the motion picture industry sponsored a luncheon
at Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City to
discuss strategy for "bringing about united opposition
to the enactment of further censorship legislation
and the determination of definite policies on
other matters affecting the industry as a whole."^^
Two months later a new industry association, the National
Association of the Motion Picture Industry
(NAMPI), was created. Boasting that is represented
the interests of tbe movie fans, the Association's
founders felt that the whole motion picture world
"was suffering from dangerous, inimical and altogether
unintelligent legislation."^* The NAMPI
operated on the premise that, for the motion picture
interests to be successful in the state legislatures,
public support was necessary. The new association
purported to "bring the motion pictures closer to the
public."^^
To assure its public success, the NAMPI turned to
the world of partisan politics seeking support from
both the Democratic and Republican parties. The Association
organized a delegation to represent the industry
at a luncheon of the Republican National
Committee in October 1916, where one of the honored
guests was former governor of New York and
presidential hopeful Charles Evans Hughes.^^ Only
three weeks later, the Executive Secretary of the Association
circulated editorials representing the
opinions of President Woodrow Wilson and Hughes
on the subject of film censorship. He claimed their
statements represented the "first large achievement
of the organization."^"*
317
Nancy J. Rosenbloom
Learning from the experience of the Board of
Trade, the leadership of the NAMPI was determined
to unify all the branches of the industry under its organizational
umbrella. Producers, exhibitors, suppliers,
distributors, owners of the exchanges, and
trade journalists sat on the Board of Directors and
defined the policies of the new association. In
seeking out new members, the leaders described
themselves as an "intelligent and progressive leadership."^^
In the beginning, they had the support of
George Eastman, D. W. Griffith, William Fox, Adam
Kessel, Jesse Lasky, Patrick A. Powers, Alfred Smith,
and Edwin Thanhouser, among others. Yet, in spite
of these signs of cooperation, significant leaders of
the industry refused tojoin. George Kleine, in particular,
distrusted the new association. In a frank letter
to a Washington associate—a letter which Kleine
never sent—he did not even try to veil his dislike for
the Association's leaders.®^ Kleine remained outside
this association, as he would later explain, for a
number of reasons. He disagreed with the attitude of
the Association on censorship, disapproved of its financial
expenditure to influence legislation, and rejected
the idea that one association could represent
the divergent interests of producers, distributors,
and exhibitors.^'
In some ways, Kleine's analysis was justified given
the conflict-ridden relationship between the producers
and not only distributors but also exhibitors
over block-booking.^^ The hostility that arose between
these two groups on the censorship question
threatened the very stability of the association. Both
the exhibitors and the manufacturers used the censorship
question to gain leverage against each other.
While a full blown controversy arose after the war,
even before then these tensions threatened the goals
of the NAMPI.
In January 1917, a squabble that focused on the
association's special anti-censorship committee
chaired by D. W. Griffith turned into a major
problem when Lee J. Ochs, President of the Motion
Picture Exhibitors League of America, called upon
Pat Powers, as a representative of the Universal Manufacturing
Company, to resign from the committee
only one week after he became a member. Ochs,
acting in his official capacity, condemned Universal
for publishing a charge that "exhibitors like smutty
pictures."^^ This claim had appeared in an in-house
paper at Universal sometime in 1916, supposedly to
inspire the exhibitors' protest against such pictures.™
Both agreed that the "enemies of a free screen" had
exploited the original editorial to prove the necessity
for motion picture censorship.'' Yet Ochs believed
that this published position, easily manipulated by
tbose advocating censorship, compromised the anticensorship
committee and demanded Powers resignation.
Although Powers remained on the committee,
the accusations between representatives of
the manuacturers and exhibitors boded ill for the future
of the association, especially in presenting a
united front on the censorship question.
While the motion picture trade attempted to organize
industry wide associations to deal with issues
such as censorship, the National Board of Censorship
continued to operate. Howe resigned as chairman
early in the spring of 1915, and Cranston Brenton,
Figure 5. The approval seal of the National Board of
Review as it appeared on the leader of a General Film
Company release du?ing the CrarLston Brenton period, c.
¡916. Marc WanamakerlBison Archives.
318
Between Reform and Regulation
Director of the American Red Cross, replaced him.
The Board underwent an identity crisis, realizing the
disadvantages of calling itself a Board of Censorship
when it vociferously opposed official prior censorship.
Its members agreed to change the name by
eliminating the offensive reference to censorship and
henceforth called themselves the National Board of
Review.'^
The National Board of Review supported the
anti-censorship campaign of the NAMPI. When the
Association appointed a committee to take administrative
control of an organized anti-censorship campaign
under the leadership of D. W. Griffith, the
Board of Review pledged its active cooperation in
opposing political censorship.'^ The test would come
in the spring of 1917 when seventeen state legislatures
threatened to present censorship bills.'^ Once
established, the joint conference of members from
the National Board of Review and the Censorship
Committee of the NAMPI immediately raised the
question of financing their work. The leadership of
the Board of Review approached George Eastman to
raise the possibility of collecting an assessment on
negative film from the producing companies.
Eastman agreed to broach the issue with his attorney.
The National Board wanted access to the funds
raised by the joint committee but was concerned that,
without Eastman's intervention, it might appear that
the Board received money from the organized motion
picture industry.'^
In spite of public suspicion that the Board of Review
reflected the desires of the industry too closely,
the record reveals no evidence of unsolicited funds to
influence the Board's decisions. On the other hand,
the censorship committee of the NAMPI did involve
itself in partisan politics at the municipal level,
funding candidates who were friendly to their interests.
For example, in March 1918. the committee
solicited support for the Democratic alderman in the
25th ward in Chicago, normally a Republican ward,
to reward him for his staunch support for the
moving pictures in this difficult city where censorship
wars had been fought for ten years.'^ The committee
met a similar appeal to influence a municipal election
in Kansas City.
As members of the motion picture trade association
and the National Board of Review focused
on strategies to prevent further censorship legislation,
the entry of the United States in the World War
in April 1917 brought about a change in the relationship
between the moving picture producers and
manufacturers and the federal government. Patriotism
aside, the joint efforts of the motion picture
industry and the National Board of Review to cooperate
with the federal government presented them
an opportunity to gain public approval for their
work. In this respect, the National Board of Review
attempted to play a significant role by offering to coordinate
the efforts of the moving picture interests
with the needs of the government. While a discussion
of the role that the NAMPI and the National Board
of Review played in the organization of leisure for
servicemen during the war is beyond the scope of this
paper, it should be noted that the further erosion of
power the national Board of Review suffered during
these years affected the response of the film trade to
the pressure for legal censorship after the war.
Shortly after the entry of the United States into the
war, the motion picture industry offered its services
to the War Commission on Training Camps Activities.
Chaired by Raymond Fosdick—the member
of Mayor Gaynor's administration who had been in
charge of investigating the motion pictures for him
in 1911—the War Commission was charged by the
President with "looking after the welfare of the enlisted
men in the various training camps and naval
stations in America."" The Commission insisted that
it be made clear that the sub-committee was a committee
of the motion picture interests and that it
should take the name'The Producers and Distributors
War Camp Motion Picture Committee cooperating
with the Commissions on Training Camp Activities
of the War and Navy Department" (War Camp
Motion Picture Committee).'^ But in April 1918, all
the members of the War Camp Motion Picture Committee
who were employed by the National Board of
Review were asked to resign from that committee on
the grounds that their membership in it represented
a conflict of interest. Members of the National Board
of Review realized the importance of maintaining its
reputation as a disinterested agency reviewing films
for the public and they did not want to threaten their
already tenuous position in their on-going struggle
over legal censorship. Yet, however innocent the patriotic
gesture of the motion picture industry and the
National Board of Review to join in the war effort
might have appeared, it belied the very real power
struggles behind the scenes that forced the resignation
of the members of the National Board of Re-
view.
The major question as to whether members of the
National Board of Review should serve on the War
Camp Motion Picture Committee developed out of
controversy among the social service organizations.
The YMCA led others in exerting pressure on
members of the National Board to force their withdrawal.'^^
A number of issues underlined the disunity
within the social service agencies, some that dated
319
Nancy J. Rosenbloom
from before the war and others that would resurface
after the war. First, the YMCA apparently resented
the sub-committee appointed by the National Board
of Review and the NAMPI to work with the War
Commission because it challenged the YMCA's control
of the distribution of films to the services camps.
Second, other social agencies including the Red
Cross, the American Social Hygiene Association, and
the Food Administration, were now producing films
in cooperation with the Committee on Public Information
(Creel Committee). Some members of the
NAMPI expressed their concern that this was unfair
competition in production, distribution, and exhibition
of films, even under the special circumstances of
the war. However, there seemed little the National
Board of Review could do, and its exclusion from
playing any role in mediating between the NAMPI
and other social agencies, contributed to its emasculation.
Privately, the Executive Secretary oí the Board
of Review bitterly lamented this outcome:
It is unnecessary to me to refer to the more or
less obvious spirit of distrust and lack of enthusiastic
assistance which we encountered
from the first on the part of those very
persons from whom we originally felt we
might legitimately expect the heartiest cooperation.
. . . It is to be regretted that among the
enormous issues raised by the World War
there still remains in the field of social service
a lack of magnanimity which apparently prevent
two organizations working unhampered in the
same field for the national good.^**
Although the war allowed the possibility of closer
cooperation between the government and the film interests,
the relationship that evolved was far from
untroubled even on simple matters. The question of
trailers added to the films bearing the emblem of the
Creel Committee and signifying that they had been
approved by it affected the censorship question. Although
the National Board of Review objected to the
use of such emblems, some film companies attached
them. The National Board of Review feared that
such voluntary advertisement would lead the public
to conclude that the motion picture industry willingly
accepted federal censorship.^'
Efforts for censorship legislation recommenced
nationwide at the conclusion of the war. Representative
Randall of California introduced a bill in
Congress for a Federal Motion Picture Commission
on 10 January 1919, and state legislation was introduced
in North Carolina and for the second time in
New York. The censorship committee of the
NAMPI, a standing committee chaired in 1919 by
Gabriel Hess of Goldwyn Pictures, expanded its
membership to meet the challenge. Perceiving a crisis
situation, the committee devised a concrete plan
based on nation-wide propaganda against censorship.
This plan included distributing trailers and
slides to the exhibitors, producing short satires on
censorship with prominent stars, organizing state
committees to lobby against legislation, and advertising
extensively in the trade papers against censorship.
The work was to be financed through contributions
from the film companies.^^
The campaign proposed by the censorship committee
of the association sought to alert its
members to the imminent dangers of censorship. Before
the war, the National Board of Review had complained
that the moving picture producers did not
recognize the gravity of the situation.**^ After the
war, the National Board of Review found itself in an
untenable relationship with the NAMPI as the film
industry became more directly involved in anti-censorship
work. While the National Board of Review
did not directly represent the interests of the film industry—and
the growing dissension between producers
and distributors on the one hand and exhibitors
on the other makes it difficult to refer to any
community of industry interests—the National
Board of Review and the NAMPI ostensibly agreed
in their opposition to official prior censorship. Still,
the National Board of Review thought of itself as a
public voice and not as the voice of the industry. In
this role, the National Board of Review found itself
on more shaky grounds than before the war. Between
1919 and 1921, what little influence the National
Board of Review retained in the industry
eroded largely as a result of conflicts within the
moving picture world.
In the spring of 1919, the censorship committee
of the NAMPI proposed self-censorship by the trade
itself. Directly at issue was the distribution and exhibition
of films about venereal disease made during
the war by the American Social Hygiene Assciation
and now being shown in theaters to mixed audiences.^"*
Labelling these films immoral, the NAMPI
appeared to be leading a purity crusade. The real
issue at stake, however, was competition in the manufacturing
and distribution of films between the government,
social, agencies, and commercial producers.
Yet, the NAMPI saw the exhibitors as culprits and
attempted to close down exhibitors showing such
films. Arguing that the Association could police its
own films, the president of the Association, William
Brady, issued a press release announcing 13 resolutions
passed by the producers and distributors. They
intended to exclude their own films from theaters exhibiting
films not passed by the Association.^^
320
Between Reform and Regulation
The publication of these resohitions infuriated
W. D. McGuire, the Executive Secretary at the National
Board of Review. Not only was self-censorship
ridiculous, as he wrote to his long-time friend Pat
Powers, but Brady and the National Association were
seriously damaging the campaign against official censorship.
McGuire complained that Brady's statements
discredited the National Board of Review by suggesting
that pictures circulated tbat sliould not be exhibited.
Moreover, McGuire believed that the pressure
tactics introduced by the Association against the
exhibitors were reprehensible. The National Association
contradicted the policy strictly adhered to by the
National Board of Review that only public pressure
should be used to force conformity. Finally, McGuire
asked Powers to make a statement to the press that
first clarified Universal's preference to submit their
pictures to the National Board of Review, a disinterested
organization and, second, insisted that public
confidence could only be won through a disinterested
censorship.'**' Soon thereafter, McGuire convinced
the leadership at the NAMPI to retreat from
the position of self-censorship. In 1919, the NAMPI
passed a series of resolutions reconfirming the important
role of the National Board of Review.**' It
was a hollow victory.
In the months that followed the resolutions
passed by tbe NAMPI, the National Board struggled
to re-establish its position with the National Association.
Their relationship remained strained in spite of
pronouncements to the contrary. The move on tbe
part of the National Association towards self-censorship
diverged from a decade of experience with the
censorship question and represented a shift in policy
that would be consolidated in the establishment of
the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors AssoFigure
6. Cecil B. DeMille and Jesse Lasky greet Will Hays on his arrival in Hollywood, 1922. Marc Wanamaker/Bison
Archives.
321
Nancy J. Rosenbloom
ciation — the Hays Office—in 1922. Although the
National Association retreated from its original position
of self-censorship and insisted films be submitted
and reviewed by the National Board of Review,
the Board soon found itself in constant struggle
with the industry. Trailers showing that the films had
been passed by the Board were inadvertently or deliberately
left off films, and the Board suffered from
the lack of publicity. More and more often the Board
found itself in financial difficulties, and McGuire
constantly asked for temporary funds, which Powers,
who was manufacturing the trailers for the National
Board of Review, usually provided.**^
In the meantime, the moving picture industry,
plagued by persistent organizational crises, had difficulty
confronting the assault on it launched in favor
of legal censorship. The passage of a state law in New
York in 1921 was among their most striking defeats.
Unhappy witb the efficacy of the NAMPI. members
of the trade turned to Will Hays, former chairman of
the Republican National Party, during the Christmas
holidays of 1921, to discuss the creation of a new association
to represent the interests of the producers
and distributors. The censorship question ranked
high on the agenda the new association set for itself
that spring.
Much had transpired between 1909 and 1922.
The phenomenal growth of the film industry, the
fragmentation of reform in America, and the shifting
context of American pohtical life were all interrelated.
At the center of their relationship stood the
censorship question. Disagreements over the positive
role of government in society, the viability of legislative
and bureaucratic solutions to social problems, the
recognition of special interest groups, and the protection
of individual rights informed the dialogue between
reformers on the question of censorship.
Championing the cause of free speech, the progressives
were beleaguered by their more conservative
counterparts in the world of reform. Nor did unity
prevail within the industry. Open warfare replaced
cooperation between exhibitors and manufacturers
even on the question of censorship. Peer pressure, so
effectively exercised in the early period, turned into
a powerful weapon used against each other after
1917. Although in the beginning the film interests
eschewed partisan politics, by 1922 they wanted to
exploit the political world to their advantage. Will
Hays was not a gratuitous choice on the part of discrete
film interests. When the film trade agreed to
him as their representative, they finally rejected the
model of social policy offered by the progressives
and their allies at the National Board of Censorship.
•
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
* The idea for this paper originated in an NEH
Summer Seminar, "American Political History in
Comparative Perspective," which Morton Keller offered
at Brandeis University in the summer of 1985.
An NEH Summer Stipend in the summer of 1986
made completion of this article possible.
REFERENCES AND NOTES
1. See Robert C Allen, "Motion Picture Exhibition in
Manhattan 1906-1912," in Film Before Griffith, ed.
John C. Fell {Berkeley: University of California Press,
1983), 162-175, ancl Russell Merritt, "Nickelodeon
Theaters, 1905-I9I4: Building an Audience for the
Movies," in The Ameriain Film Industry, ed. Tino Baiio
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976),
83-102.
2. Richard S. Randall, Censorship of the Movies: The Social
and Political Control ufa Mass Medium (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1968).
3. See especially Robert Sklar, Movie Made America (New
York: Random House, 1975); Garth Jowett,/-"i/wt. The
Democratic Art (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976); and Lary
May, Screening out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and
the Motion Picture Industry (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1980).
4. See especially Daniel T. Rodgers "In Search of Progressivism,"
Reviews in American History 10 (1982):
113-132. for a historiographical discussion oí the
scholarship of the last fifteen years. See also Richard
Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR (New
York: Vintage, 1955) and Robert Wiebe, The Searchfor
Order: 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967).
5. Wiebe, 164-195.
6. See Richard McCormick, The Party Period and Public
Policy: American Politicsfrom t/ie Age ofJackson to the Progressive
Era (New York: Oxford University Press,
1986), especially "Progressivism: A Contemporary
Reassessment," 263-288; "Prelude to Progressivism:
The Transformation of New York State Politics,
1890-1910," 289-310; and "The Discovery that Business
Corrupts Politics: A Reappraisal of the Origins of
Progressivism," 311-355. See also Richard McCormick
and Arthur Link, Progressivism (Arlington Heights, IL:
Harían Davidson, 1983).
7. McCormick, "Prelude to Progressivism," 309.
8. See especially Sklar, Movie Made America; 30-32 Jowett,
Film: The Democratic Art; 74-138 and May
Screening Out the Past, 43—59.
9. Jowett, 126.
10. May, 86-92.
11. See for a survey of the trade associations in the film
industry David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin
Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Ciriema: Film Style
and Mode of Production to I960 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1985), 96- 112.
12. John Collier to Manufacturers, 15 March 1909, Document
File, Edison Archives, Edison National Historic
Site, National Park Service, United States Department
of the Interior. The original letterhead of the Board of
Censorship lists nine civic bodies that were represented
322
Between Reform and Regulation
on the governing board. These civic bodies are the
Public Education Society, the Public Schools, the
People's Institute, the Federation of Churches, the
Woman's Municipal League, the Ethical Social League,
the Society for the Prevention of Crime, the Neighborhood
Worker's Association, and the League for Political
Education. The Reverend George William Knox of
Union Theological Seminary and the Ethical-Social
League served as chairman of the governing board.
The executive committee on censorship consisted of
Mr. lohn Collier of the People's Institute; Mrs. Josephine
Redding of Vogue magazine; and Albert Shiel[d]s
who was Superintendant of Public Education on the
lower East side. Also on the executive committee were
two representatives of the Association of Motion Picture
Exhibitors of New York State. See David Hammack,
Poiver and Society: Greater New York at the Turji of
the Century (Russell Sage Foundation: 1982), and
Richard Skolnick, "Civic Group Progressivism in New
York City," New York History 51 (1970): 411-39. For a
study of the National Board of Censorship, see Charles
Matthew Feldman, The National Board of Censorship (Review)
of Motion Pictures ¡909-1922 (New York; Arno,
1977).
13. See, for example. Collier to Frank Dyer, 1 November
1909, Document Eile. Edison Archives. Between March
and November 1909, the letterhead had been changed
to National Board oí Censorship of Motion Pictures
Established by the People's Institute. New groups represented
on the governing board included the Charity
Organization Society, Children's Aid Society, and the
City Vigilance League. If anything, these three associations
were characterized by their Protestant orientation
and moralizing reforms, see Hammack, passim. It is interesting
to note that, throughout its formation,
women dominated the membership of most of the reform
groups associated with the Board. In fact, several
of the groups had originated as women's auxiliaries to
politically oriented organizations.
14. Some other easily identifiable figures of the 57 names
on the advisory committee include Felix Adler, a
German Jew who advocated the Americanization of
Eastern European immigrants; R. F. Cutting, active in
private civic reform; Edward Devine, writer; R. W. deForest,
reformer with a special interest in tenement reform;
Richard Watson Gilder, advocate of tenement
reform and one time president of the Kindergarten
Association; E. R. L. Gould, active in social welfare and
municipal reform; George McAneny, journalist and
civic reformer; William H. Maxwell, first Superintendant
of greater New York's public schools; James B.
Reynolds, social worker, school reformer, and former
Roosevelt ally; Jacob Riis, photojournalist, housing reformer,
and school reformer; Jacob Schiff and Issac
Seligman, both German Jewish investment bankers;
and Albert Shaw, editor of American Review ofReviews.
See Hammack, passim.
15. See Robert J. Eisher, "Film Censorship and Progressive
Reform: The National Board of Censorship of Motion
Pictures, 1909-1922" Journal of Popular Fibn 4 (1975):
143-156.
16. Charles Beard, "The Democracy of Charles Sprague
Smith," The Civic Joumal (1910), Document File, Edison
Archives.
17. For biographical information on John Collier, see his
autobiography From Every Zenith (Denver: Sage Books,
1963). See also John Collier, The Problem ofMotion Pictures
{New York: National Board of Censorship, 1910),
and H. C. Judson, "Censoring Motion Pictures, an Interview
with John Collier," in The Moving Picture World,
5 April I9I3, 25-26. While Collier is best known as
U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the 1930s, he
served as General Secretary and Educational Secretary
of the National Board of Censorship.
18. Collier to Manufacturers of Motion Pictures, 15 March
1909, Document File, Edison Archives.
19. See, for example, "The Press and the Moving Picture,"
The Moving Picture World 4 (20 March 1909): 325; Stephen
W. Bush, "A Word of Good Cheer to all Friends
of the Moving Pictures," The Moving Picture World 6 (26
March 1910): 462; "Newspaper Neurasthenia," The
Moving Picture World 1 (30 July 1910): 234-35.
20. Collier to Robert Adams, Central Branch YMCA, Philadelphia,
6 May 1909, Document File, Edison Ar-
chives.
21. National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures, 14
August 1909, Box 38, George Kleine Collection
(Manuscript Division, Library of Congress). See also
the The Report of the National Board of Censorship of Motion
Pictures, I May 1911, 7.
22. Announcement to Exhibitors from Motion Picture
Patents Company, I February 1909, Box 1, Motion
Picture Patents Company Administrative File, Edison
Archives.
23. Even among the members of the Patents Company,
Pathe Frères seems to have had more than its share of
eliminations and rejections. See the weekly reports of
the Board of Censorship, April through July 1909,
passim, Document File, Edison Archives.
24. Dyer to Collier, 7 May 1909, Document File, Edison
Archives.
25. Collier to Manufactuers, 15 March 1909, Document
File, Edison Archives.
26. Scull to Collier, 28 October 1909, Document File, Edison
Archives.
27. Collier to Adams, 6 May 1909, Document File, Edison
Archives.
28. (killier to Manufacturers, 15 March 1909, Document
File, Edison Archives. Letter from the Board of Censorship
of Programs, New York City, to Mr. Dwight
MacDonald, 26 March 1909, Box 6, George Kleine
Collection.
29. Charles Sprague Smith to Dyer, 15 January 1910, Document
File, Edison Archives. Smith realized that the
culprit might be the distributor and not the producer
but all the same he warned Dyer that ". . . it is clearly
unwise that such advertisements should be used, because
the natural tendency would be to attach them to
those subjects which were the most risque, and the result
of that would be to tend to discredit the censor-
ship."
30. Collier to Manufacturers, 15 March 1909, Document
File, Edison Archives. See also Board of Censorship to
MacDonald, 26 March 1909, Kleine Collection.
31. Report of the Board of Censorship to the Gentlemen
of the Motion Picture Patents Company, 23 April 1909
and 27 April 1909. See also the letter to Mr. Dwight
McDonald, 30 March 1909, Document File, Edison Ar-
chives.
32. Report of the Board of Censorship to the Gentlemen
323
Nancy J. Rosenbloom
of the Motion Picture Patents Company, 12 )uly 1909.
Document File, Edison Archives,
33. Report of the Board of Censorship to the Gentlemen
of the Motion Picture Patents Company, 2 and 24 July
Í909, Document File, Edison Archives.
34. Report of the Board of Censorship to the Gentlemen
of the Motion Picture Patents Company, September 6
and October 17, 1910, as well as 10 May 1912, all in
Document File, Edison Archives.
35. Collier to Gentlemen of the Motion Picture Patents
Company, 29 October 1909, Document File, Edison
Archives.
36. Collier to Horace Plimpton, 26 May 1909, Document
File, Edison Archives.
37. J. J. Kennedy to Dyer, 15 November 1909, Document
File, Edison Archives.
38. Dyer to Smith, 17 November 1909, Document File, Edison
Archives.
39. Smith to Dyer, 19 November 1909, Dotumeni File, Edison
Archives.
40. Scull to Smith, 23 November 1909, Document File, Edison
Archives.
41. Josephine Redding to Mrs. Ply[i]mpton, 9 June 1910.
Document File, Edison Archives. In fact, Mrs. Redding
did not resign.
42. Ibid.
43. "New York Picture Theater Ordinance Discussed," The
Moving Picture World 10(18 November 1911): 543-45.
See also Feldman, The National Board of Censorship.
44. For biographical information on WilliamJ. Gaynor, see
especially "From Van Wyck to O'Dwyer" in The Greater
City. New York. 1898-1948 Eds. Allan Nevins and John
Krout, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948),
72-81, and Eouis Heaton Pink, Caynor: The Tammany
Mayor Who Swallowed the Tiger (New York: International,
1931),
45. See Hammack, passim.
46. A Report on the Condition of Moving Picture Shows in New
York, 22 March 1911, 8-10, Document File, Edison
Archives.
47. A Report on the Conditions ofMoving Picture Shows in New
York, 9.
48. Mayor Gaynor, "Mayor Gaynor's Veto," The Moving
Piciure World 15(11 January 1913): 135-36.
49. Ibid.
50. Smith to Dyer, 31 lanuary and 20 March 1910; Collier
to Dyer. 22 and 30 March 1910, all in Document File,
Edison Archives.
51. Frederic C. Howe, The Confessions of a Reformer, intro.
by John Braeman (New York: Quadrangle. 1967). For
Howe's analysis of his years at the People's Institute,
see especially pp. 240-254. See Eugene M. Tobin. Organize
or Perish: America's Independent Progressives,
19I3-Í933 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 159.
52. Howe quoted in W. P. Eawson, "Standards of Censorship,"
Harper's Weekh (16 January 1915): 63.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Mutual Film Corporation vs. Industrial Commission of
Ohio, 236 U.S. 230 (1915). See also Ira H. Carmen,
Movies, Censorship, and the Law (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan, 1966), 10-20.
57. Mutual V. Ohio.
58. C. H. Wilson to Horace Plimpton, 21 Itine 1915, Document
File, Edison Archives.
59. J. W. Binder to Carl Wilson, Thomas Edison, Inc., 19
February 1916, Document File, Edison Archives.
60. Invitation to Euncheon and Conference of the Motion
Picture Industry, 3 June 1916, Document File, Edison
Archives.
61. Press Release from F. H. Elliott, Executive Secretary of
the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry
(NAMPI), "The Motion Pictures Big Part in
America's War for Democracy," 25 February 1918,
Box 38, Kleine Collection.
62. Ibid.
63. Elliot to Kleine, 5 October 1916, Box 38, Kleine Col-
lection.
64. Elliot to Kleine, 27 October 1916, Box 38, Kleine Col-
lection.
65. Ibid.
66. Kleine to Kendall Banning, Director of Moving Pictures,
Washington. D. C, 11 July I9I7, Box 65, Kleine
Collection.
67. Kleine to Patrick A. Powers. 17 July 1918, Box 38,
Kleine Collection. Powers of the Universal Manufacturing
Company was a member of the executive committee
of the NAMPI. Powers became very involved in
anti-censorship work, and, through his role on the censorship
committee of the NAMPI, he developed a close
relationship with the Executive Secretary of the National
Board of Review. He also was chairman of the
War Camp Motion Picture Committee, Powers resigned
from NAMPI in September 1919 because the
Association passed a resolution in opposition to organize
labor. 30 September 1919. Box 20. Aitken Bros.
Papers (Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison,
Wisconsin).
68. See lor a brief discussion of block booking, Lewis
lacobs. The Rise of the American Film (New York: HaicoLirt
Brace, 1939). 164-66.
69. An Open Letter from Lee J. Ochs, President of the
Motion Picture Exhibitors League of America Replying
to Published Statement by R. H. Cochrane, Vice President
of Universal Manufacturing Co., 18 January
1917, Box 13, Aitken Bros. Papers.
70. Statement by R. H. Cochrane, Box 13, Aitken Bros.
Papers.
71. Open letter from Ochs and statement by Cochrane.
72. "Censors at Luncheon." The Moving Picture World 25 4
September 1915: 1625.
73. W. D. McGuire, Executive Secretary of the National
Board ol Review, to Powers, 18 January 1917. Box 14,
Aitken Bros. Papers.
74. These states included California, Colorada, Illinois,
Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Arkansas,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Tennesee, Utah,
Washington, West Virginia, and Vermont. "Suggestion
lor a letter to be written by the National Board to the
Members of the Producing Companies," [1917], Box
13, Aitken Bros. Papers.
75. Report on the Joint Conference of Committee of the
National Board of Review with the Censorship Committee
of tbe NAMPI, 10 February 1917. Box 13,
Aitken Bros. Papers.
7fi. Tbeodore Mitchell, Secretary of the NAMPI Censor-
324
Between Reform and Regulation
ship Committee, to Powers, 18 March and 15 April
1918, Box 16, Aitken Bros. Papers. Mitchell was also
the general press representative of Epoch Product Corporation,
which had produced THE BIRIH OF A
NATION. The correspondence is on the letterhead of
Epoch. See also Kathleen McCarthy, "Nickel Vice and
Virtue: Movie Censorship in Chicago, 1907—1915,"
Journal of Popular Film 5 (1976): 37-55.
77. McGuire to Powers, 31 January 1918, Box 16, Aitken
Bros. Papers. McGuire sent Powers copies of correspondence
between himself and LeeJ. Hanmer, War
and Navy Commissions on ! raining Camp Activities,
30 January 1918, in which he suggested that Mr. Fosdick
write to Powers.
78. Hanmer to Powers, 18 February 1918, Box 16, Aitken
Bros. Papers.
79. McGuire to Powers, 24 April 1918, Box 17, Aitken
Bros. Papers.
80. McGuire to Powers, 17 April 1918, Box 16 Aitken
Bros. Papers.
81. McGuire to Powers, 22 November 1917, Box 15,
Aitken Bros. Papers; McGuire to Powers, 17 December
1917, Box 16, Aitken Bros. Papers.
82. Gabriel Hess to Powers, 23 January 1919, Box 17,
Aitken Bros. Papers.
83. McGuire To Powers, 18 January 1917. Box 13. Aitken
Bros. Papers.
84. W. H. Zinsser, Director, Department ot Public Information
for the American Social Hygiene Association,
to Powers, 12 May 1919, And Zinsser to Hess 10 May
1919, both in Box 19, Aitken Bros. Papers.
85. Elliott to Powers, 28 April 1919, Box 19, Aitken Bros.
Papers. Included also was a NAMPI press release
"Clean Motion Pictures Barred from Theaters Exhibiting
Indecent Films," 30 April 1919, Box 19, Aitken
Bros. Papers.
86. McGuire lo Powers, 20 June 1919, Box 19, Aitken
Bros. Papers.
87. McGuire to Powers, 15 May and 10 June 1919;
McGuire to Hess, 14 May 1919; Resolutions in Reference
to Motion Picture Censorship, Adopted by Joint
Conference Committee of Motion Picture Proucers
and National Board of Review, Box 19, Aitken Bros.
Papers.
88. McGuire to Powers, 11 July 1919, Box 19, Aitken
Bros.; McGuire lo Powers, 16 August 1919 and Elliott
to Members of NAMPI, 3 November 1919, Box 20,
Aitken Bros Papers; Elliott to H. M. Berman, Universal
Mfg. Co., 6 February 1920, Box 21, Aitken Bros.
Papers.
325
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