The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1922-06-02
WILL II. HAYES
AND THE MOVIES

Speech delivered by him in New
York City, April 26, 1922
To the publishers of America
would come for the motion picture
industry as one approaches an Older
| brother. The motion picture is es
sentially, of course, a source OF
amusement, the principal amusement
! of great majority and the sole
! amusement of millions, and as such
! its Importance is measured only by
| the imperative necessity Of enter
| tainment for our people. In this
| your concern is constant.
You, who are the custodanS of
the printed word in America, have
arrived at your present position of
stability as the fruit of six centuries
of development. From the Guten-
berg Bible to the newspaper and
magazine of today is indeed a long
and slow procession of invention and
development-thro wooden blocks
metal type and hand composition to
machine 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 your business, have
come to you as the slow and orderly
development of six centuries of prog
ress, with frequently century laps
ing from step to step.
But consider how different it is
with this other mechanism for the
distribution of intelligence. What
with you has come about slowly
through six centuries has with our
motion picture industry come about
in the incredibly brief space of TWEEN
W years. Is it any wonder that we
have problems in our industry which
you gentlemen Of the printed word
solved decades or generations ago?
Amazing Rapidly of Growth
We are in confusion because of the
very rapidity of our growth and de-
Velopmcnt. Your standard of ethics,
the relationship of your papers to
the public, your sense of what can be
done and what must not be done.
your possibilities for the express
sion and guidance of public opinion
all that has come about with the !
ease of an inherited fortune-you .
received it from your predecessors
from your ancestors, so to speak, in
the trade-as a gift, bequest. 1t
did not come without difficulty nor
without struggle. but that struggle
has been distributed over fifteen or
twenty generations. and you have
your standards, your rules, your ac-
cepted practices. your knowledge of
what is right and what is wrong;
you have that like the British peo-
al
the American people have their free
dom-as a bequest from the great
figures Of your past.
What John Milton did for you in
The fight for the freedom of the
Dress. what Benjamin Franklin did
or you. what was done for you by
Horace Greeley. by Charles A. Dana,
oy Joseph Pulitzer, by Colonel Mel
son and Henry Watterson and by
other heroic figures in your long pull
'or finer and better service and for
he constitutional protection of your
freedom from the aggressions of of
'icial control-all that we must
achieve here and now.
We. in contrast with you, have
nothing from the past. We must
make all these things and achieve
Ri theSe Things Tor ourselves. Inc
nen who first took up this new thing
ire still alive. The pioneers of our
institution are the men who are still
n the business. We in the motion
picture industry are at this moment
II the very midst of achieving those
standards of our relation to each 9th
II and to the public and in our re-
to the world. And it is
Exactly for the purpose of aiding i'll
he arrival at those standards that
,ur association, the Motion Picture
Producers and Distributors of Am
,rica, has been organized. Quoting ;
rom the formal articles of associa-
ion as filed in Albany under the
Board Of Trade Statute of the state
f New York, these gentlemen have
tated their chief purposes of fos-
ering the common interests of those
ngaged in the industry by estab
shing and maintaining the highest !
ossible moral and artistic standards
n motion picture production" and
by developing the educational as
yell as the entertainment value and
he general usefulness of the motion
icture," to which purposes | earnest
' direct your attention.
Continued next week.