The Washington herald., 1922-07-03

- lawyer 50 years old, of Hamilton Mont
has introduced in the Senate a bill providing
for very reasonable and mild censorship of NOV
ing pictures in the District of Columbia"
The pages of the Congressional Record where
the words of distinguished statesmen are recorded
in agate type, sometimes profound, sometimes
interesting, sometimes exasperating and some
times-merely amusing. In the last mentioned
class must be placed Senator Myers defense of
his BILL
He says:
Il believe that great deal of the extravaganza
of the day, great deal of the disposition to live
beyond ones means yea. great deal of the crime
OF the day comes from moving pictures. Through
them young people gain ideas OF fast life. shady
ways, laxity Of living, loose morals. Crime is
freely depicted in allurirs coors. Lax morals are
held up lightly before them The sensual is
strongly appealed to. Many of the pictures are
certainly not eeyatng; some, at least, not fit
to be seen.
About eighteen months ago, in this city, there
occurred foul and most shocking murder. There
many such that it is hard to particuarize,
but ! have in mind one particularly atrocious Four
youths of this city, in age from IS to years. as
| recollect, stole automobile, and in it followed
an honest, peaceful industrious barber he was
going to his loving family and quiet home after a
jumped out of the automobile, in a residential
section of the city, and murdered him by firing
pistol at him at close range. The victim dropped
dead The youths became panic-stricken account
Of close-at-hand pedestrians and fled in the stolen
machine
"A year elapsed before they were discovered
and arrested, with the evidence of their atrocous
/ crimnality They admitted the crime, or at least
some of them did. They admitted the motive
robbery. The District Attorney did everything
he could do, and satisfied did his fun duty;
but owing to the extreme youthfulness Of the
perpetrators and much sentiment for leniency for
them, and the improbability Of procuring first
degree murder verdicts against them, the young
criminals permitted to plead guilty of second
degree murder, mansaughter, and even lesser de-
grees OF crime, and wkre given varying terms of
imprisonment
Il have no doubt those young criminals got
their ideas of the romance of crime from moving
pictures. l believe moving pictures are doing as
much harm today as saloons did in the days of
the open saloon-especially to the young They
are running day and night, Sunday and every day,
the year around, and in most jurisdictions with
out any regulation by censorship"
We know not what sort of films are shown
in Hamilton Mont. But we wonder whether
Senator Myers found time, in the midst
OF his strenuous labors for public good, to at
tend moving picture performance in the city
of Washington.
Lax morals are held up lightly" THE
sensual is strongly appealed to-" Moving pictures
are responsible for a shocking murder"
The Senator might have made his case stronger
still along the line of reasoning.
Five years ago the German army rode rough
shod through Belgium and sections Of northern
France, destroying towns and churches, shooting
non-combatants in cold blood, and horrifying the
world
For all these things, were not the moving
pictures shown in Berlin responsible? If the
Kaisers soldiers never had seen moving pictures
would they not have been as gentle as little
white lambs?
few years ago the Turks massacred few
thousand Armenians taking extreme delight in the
sufferings of their victims. What terrible result
of the uncensored moving pictures in Con-
| stantinople?
Last year Black and Tans were shocking
| civilization by of their atrocities in south
Ireland. Would they have committed such
outrages if it had not been for the moving
pictures exhibited in Dublin, Cork Belfast and
London?
Two weeks ago union miners in Herrin, Ill.
massacred defenseless nonunion workers. Could
this have happened if there had been no moving
picture theaters in Herrin? The union miners
never might have known about the possibility oi
such things.
I Films shown in Washington must be censored
of course. Otherwise will not the depraved czenry
blow up the Capitol and boil all the legislators
in oil some fine, sunny afternoon? But why was
Senator Myers derect in his duty as not to
have mentioned the blood-curdling incidents OF
the evils traceable to uncensored films which we
have cited above?
1t certainly is reasonable to blame motion
pictures for the Turkish outrages in Asia Minor
as to blame them for the murder of the poor old
Washington barber by some irresponsible youth.
lured by the prospect of easy money.
We agree with Senator Myers that great
many film actors not estimable characters
that many among them are gluttons, drunkards