Dr. Thomas Dixon has no regard for boards of censors to pass upon the decency and value of motion pictures. He condemns them all, sparing none and brushes them aside with the somewhat flippant counsel that they are made up of pinhead politicians. Dr. Dixon knows a great deal more about the operation of censorships than we do, but he is a partisan and, therefore, his opinion must be diluted to a rather considerable extent.
Whether, however, censors are needed or not, it is obvious that the great industry of moving pictures is inclined to swing too extremely toward the salacious. The motion picture is a great institution; it could be made as great an educational and socializing institution as the schoolhouse if it was properly controlled and operated. Unfortunately, it seems to be operating on the theory that is supposed to be only for what the people want it. The great excuse for putting on a picture that is suggestive of the evil and immoral is that such a picture is demanded by the public. Probably so, but the same sort of people once demanded the saloon and the brothel and they had their desires fulfilled until the intelligent conviction came to the balance of the people that what was band for one was bad for all, that no one group of people can get what they want without involving a great man other groups do not want.
It is perfectly defensible, therefore, for society to erect barriers against the immoral picture even though it is admitted that such a picture is the desire of a large part of the patronage of the movies. It has the same right to put a censor at the door of the theater as it has to hang a yellow card on the door of the home in which there is a case of smallpox. It inherits this right from the democratic theory that the whole is greater than any of its parts and that the many are entitled to protection from the few.
The easier solution of this whole problem would be for the producers of the films and the promoters of theater performances of all sorts, including the popular vaudeville, to bring a heavy foot down upon the tendency to include on the screen such pictures as are so palpably evil. It certainly is not a difficult matter to decide what sort of picture is inherently good and what sort inherently evil and what sort of a joke on the stage is decent and what sort is indecent. If they could eliminate the idea that they are bound to put in a little dirt occasionally in order to please a part of their patronage, they could arrive at a basis upon which to establish this great industry and one that would not necessitate the attention of the constabulary.
From the editorial page of The Charlotte News and Evening Chronicle, Feb. 21, 1921, Julian S. Miller, Editor; Jasper C. Hutto, City Editor; and W.C. Dowd Jr., Managing Editor.
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