Mr. WILLKIE. Oh, no.

Senator CLARK of Idaho. Well, Twentieth Century pictures.

Mr. WILLKIE. What has this fight against alleged propaganda on the screen to do with that?

Senator CLARK of Idaho. I think there might be some question as to whether Mr. Zanuck had the right to turn the employees of the studios out at 4 o'clock, inasmuch as they were working for stockholders, many of whom probably did not entertain those views. But you may proceed, Senator Nye.

Senator NYE. I shall not ask-Yes; I think I will: Does the chairman of the subcommittee have knowledge that notices of this sort were posted in the studios at Hollywood preceding the appearance of himself and Colonel Lindbergh?

Senator MCFARLAND. Well, at least I was not there. Maybe you better introduce them in evidence.

Senator CLARK of Idaho. We have them.

Senator NYE. Another publication out of the same corporation, signed by William Koenig, addressed to all department heads in the studio, unit managers, assistant directors, and script clerks, read as follows:

All personnel of each department will be dismissed today at 4: 30 p. m., in order that they will have time to go to the Hollywood Bowl to hear Wendell Willkie make an important speech.

Mr. WILLKIE. I thank you.

Senator NYE. Don't thank me. This is what William Koenig did. Mr. WILLKIE. Well, I thank him, too.

Senator NYE. I continue to quote from that publication:

Also, with the exceptions of the Ford, Renoir, and Walter Lang companies, all shooting companies are to be dismissed at 5:30 p. m.

Everyone should be instructed to go direct to the parking lot behind the American Legion post on North Highland Avenue, where they will be given a badge admitting them to the section reserved for the motion-picture industry. They will then form a parade and at 6:15 p. m. will march from the American Legion post to the Hollywood Bowl. It is important that everyone leave the studio immediately upon dismissal so that they can be at the American Legion post by 6 o'clock. You will not be able to park your cars at the American Legion post, and that is why we are dismissing everyone early, so they will have time to find a parking space.

Please post this letter on your bulletin boards immediately, and be sure that everyone in your department or in your company is notified. WILLIAM KOENIG.

Senator TOBEY. Was there a statement also at the foot, "Fail not at your peril"?

Senator NYE. I think not, but perhaps that was understood.
Senator TOBEY. It was either implied or expressed.

Senator NYE. Well, I have letters I am going to turn over to the subcommittee written by employees of the studies making it quite clear that they did feel it was imperative that they go, that they put in an appearance at that meeting, that they participate in that party. Senator MCFARLAND. And even then they did not go?

Senator NYE. And then they went.

Senator MCFARLAND. Oh. I thought you said they did not go.
Senator NYE. Oh, no.

Senator CLARK of Idaho. You may proceed, Senator Nye.

Let it be noted that these motion-picture executives made imperative upon the employees of the studio their attendance at the Willkie rally and their response to the arrangements which had been made for a parade and for the filling of the bowl. I have a letter in my possession by one who attended this Willkie rally saying that over half of the audience in attendance was there in response to this command appearance by motion-picture executives and authorities. [Laughter.]

I am reliably informed that before the President of the United States surprised us all with that trade which dispossessed us of 50 destroyers another motion-picture executive, the head of one of the great and leading corporations, had circulated a petition appealing to the President and the Congress to give Britain certain of our destroyers. That, it is alleged, was Mr. Harry Warner, of Warner Bros.

Now, if there is individual spirit like this dictating moving-picture policy, is it unfair to assume that such spirit might enter into the producton of motion pictures with propaganda to be flashed upon an unsuspecting audience gathering at theaters to be entertained? More and more I am inclined to believe that these propaganda pictures are caused often by something more than "a bottleneck of blurred judgment."

I have spoken of the prejudicial influence by certain producers, such as Warner, Balaban, and Schenck might quite naturally bring into production of pictures in these days. It is only fair in this connection to make note that many more in the industry come from foreign lands; that they, too, bring and entertain hatreds toward things in the old country much deeper than are ours as Americans, who can look back over generations of history and find Europe everlastingly involved in her old hates, her new wars or continued wars, and in her power politics. It was freedom from all this that Washington, Jefferson, and their copatriots so proudly presented the United States. It was freedom from this about which the same great patriots warned us against ever surrendering. But those who come to us from abroad-motionpicture directors, motion-picture actors and actresses, stage artists, stage property experts, and some executives-those who may have some or only a little influence in shaping the trend of pictures-these people often come with inborn hatreds and prejudices, well founded, no doubt, which can readily occasion interests which are quite foreign to America and her best interests and the lessons of memory and experience. Some of this talent, some of these executives, have failed to become citizens of our country, though they have been here for years engaged in their professions. Some are still citizens of distressed lands today, with hearts bleeding for their one and only homeland.

I think we owe it to ourselves and our country to see to it that there is prevention of a small group of misguided people, all on one side, using tremendous instruments like the moving picture to jeopardize the peace and security of our country. The movie is primarily an instrument of entertainment. It reaches more people than any other form of communication or entertainment in the Nation. Because it is an instrument of entertainment, it has been left free to be guided by the dictates of those who own and shape the policies. But some of its proprietors and employees are using it now in a way that reflects upon the entire industry. Indeed, in Hollywood it is understandable

when one speaks, not of the foreign policy of the United States but the foreign policy of Hollywood. Unquestionably there are in Hollywood today, engaged by the motion-picture industry, those who are naturally far more interested in the fate of their homelands than they are in the fortunes of the United States. To me it is shocking that there should be such influence having any part in influencing public thought in America in this critical time. I would myself call it the most potent and dangerous "fifth column" in our country.

Let there be no misunderstanding. The motion-picture industry, whatever might be appearances here under its counsel, has by no means been united on this question of propaganda pictures. Rows of a most violent nature have many times occurred in the councils of the industry on policy. When anyone associated with the industry says there is no propaganda in the pictures they need only to be referred to the councils in which they themselves have sat more than once. That there have been and still are differences of opinion in the industry on this issue of the wisdom of producing certain propaganda pictures is rather well revealed, in a friendly way, by Don Whitehead, of the Washington Star Special News Service, and published in the Washington Evening Star on August 23, 1941.

Mr. Whitehead reports:

Hollywood never before has faced a situation such as that which confronts it today, and the film center seems to be in a paradoxical position. National income is up 11 percent over last year. Wages are rising and unemployment is at the lowest ebb in years due to the billions pouring into the defense program. Yet the movie box-office figures do not reflect this prosperity.

Business, it is generally agreed, is off about 25 percent in the country's movie palaces. Foreign markets which long ago became virtually nonexistent sliced 10 to 30 percent from the grosses.

While the movie stars drew salaries which appear fantastic to the average film fan, the industry's revenues aren't hefty enough to keep the colony in the style to which it has become accustomed, and the moguls are sweating over the situation.

What is wrong? They know more money is in circulation than ever before. Movies still are the chief form of entertainment for the masses. Logically, the business should be booming.

Nobody knows to what extent the defense program is responsible for the sharp drop in theater patronage. None in the movie center will hazard a guess, although producers say that if the entertainment is good enough, people will attend theaters regardless of worry over the rising cost of living and the depressing threat of war.

And so, Hollywood says, it is concentrating on entertainment, but few can agree on a definition for the term. The industry is going to put aside prestige pictures which appeal to the class, and other experiments in showmanship, in an effort to give the masses pictures they want. Usually the film folk sort of coast along during the summer months, making only the secondary pictures necessary to meet release schedules. The heavy thinking and big picture making ordinarily is left to the cooler fall and winter months. But they are thinking harder now.

With a demand from exhibitors for big pictures with big names, every studio is operating at capacity in an unusual flurry of activity.

Joseph I. Breen, the former Hays office censor who now heads R-K-O studio production, believes the public wants pictures in which it can forget the war and the social and economic implications of defense preparations.

"Give the people movies in which they can escape the realities of life," says Mr. Breen. "Make them light and diverting."

J. L. Warner of the Warner studio says, however, the defense program has brought no major changes in the type of stories being filmed and he is supported by Darryl Zanuck, head of the Twentieth Century-Fox studio, who says that "even the grimmest, most tragic stories can be entertaining, if they are made right."

An increasing demand for comedies and a smashing comeback for musicals is predicted by director Cecil De Mille, one of the founding fathers of Hollywood. Both he and Mr. Breen point to the outstanding success of comedies, notably those of Abbott and Costello, of Bob Hope and Jack Benny.

Mr. De Mille does not believe the pictures of modern war and those with sordid problem backgrounds will sell at this time, although some studios are making pictures of this type, including those of Zanuck and Warner.

"There is great drama in tragedy." Mr. Zanuck says, "and where there is drama, there is entertainment. Because the Nation is thinking about war is no reason to avoid war stories. We are making them because even though they may be grim, they are great entertainment."

As always, the people will be the final judge of what constitutes good entertainment by casting their votes in cash at the box offices.

Mr. Chairman, if what Mr. Whitehead reports is only in small part true-and I have no reason to doubt any of it-there is still some hope that the industry itself will purge the screen of that which propagandizes in the name of entertainment.

If what Mr. Whitehead reports is only in small part true (and I have no reason to doubt a word of it) there still is hope that the industry itself will purge the screen of that which propagandizes in the name of entertaining.

But at the moment there are very positive influences in the motionpicture industry, men who will not compromise with the slightest degree of "go easy" words of caution. There are men there who are themselves, at heart, already in this war and who will not tolerate the slightest degree of tolerance with those who have not toed the mark on every step that would take us nearer war or afford larger help, even at our own expense and danger, to certain foreign causes.

For instance, Harry Warner is reputed to have given notice that under no condition would he approve or accept the selection of a certain member of the House of Representatives who was being considered for the place of official censor for the industry, to succeed Breen upon his recent retirement. Mr. Warner is alleged to have most emphatically told his associates that this particular candidate would not be considered for a moment since he, Mr. Warner, had learned that this candidate had voted against the lend-lease bill.

Again, Mr. Warner is said to have voiced the wish-and those who heard it are ready to testify-that Ireland might be bombed and destroyed, to recently lecture his associates and employees with bitterness unlimited toward certain beings abroad.

I acknowledge that what I have just reported is not good evidence. But it is word that comes to me from authority I believe most reliable, and word which I am assured this committee can substantiate if and when it should seek the facts. I shall, of course, impart to the committee the sources through which these allegations can, I think, be proven. I cite them here and now, not as proof, but only as substantial background as to what kind of forces and influences seem to be at work within the industry producing these alleged propaganda pictures.

I submit, Mr. Chairman, that the motion-picture industry, those who control it, not only seem to entertain no time for pictures that might have a quieting effect upon the nerves of a people of a nation at peace but seemingly deeper in war than some of the actual belligerents, but the industry will not give a chance to a reasonable showing of an independently produced picture portraying another honest American view on the issue of possible involvement in war.)

I say this because of a letter which I have before me from James Friedrich, president of Cathedral Pictures, having to do with the fortunes attendant upon a production entitled "The Great Commandment." Let me preface this information with a brief portrayal of what I understand to be necessary for an independent producer to hurdle in order to produce a picture and win a chance for its showing in the exhibition houses of the country.

The independent producer with a play he wants to picture will find opportunities in the studios of the larger producers if they will pay the rental price and pay the charges inflicted for use of certain appliances and patents. Such a producer, however fine or great his picture, can win the talent of popular stars for his picture only as the main producers will loan the services of these stars. And after the picture is produced and paid for, it can be shown only as these producerdistributor exhibitors will buy or rent or contract to show the picture. In other words, the independent producer, however fine his product, cannot reach the moving-picture public without the consent and the cooperation of these people.

I might add that it lies within the power of these producers to bury the production of an independent producer if they choose to do it.

Take, now, the experience of Cathedral Pictures, the president of which, under date of August 11, in a letter dated at Hollywood, writes me as follows:

I have just read of your recent criticism of the motion-picture industry as an instrument of war propaganda. I know you are absolutely correct in everything you have said. There is no doubt that the men who control the motion-picture industry today are working hand-in-glove with the warmongers in their attempt to persuade public opinion to fall in line with their policies.

May I call to your attention a picture that our company made over a year ago—called The Great Commandment. The picture was bought by Twentieth CenturyFox. It is based on the idea that is embodied in the great commandment, "Thou shall love the Lord thy God and thy neighbor as thyself."

For some unexplainable reason Twentieth Century-Fox refuses to give the show any billing or publicity and, in order to escape criticism, is releasing it in littleknown theaters without any effort whatever to call it to the attention of the public. However, when the picture was previewed in Joplin, Mo., and Emporia, Kans., where it was first shown to the ministerial associations of those towns, to the parent-teacher associations and other leaders of civic-minded groups, it grossed 15 percent more than two of Hollywood's big million-dollar productions of that year-The Woman and Hollywood Cavalcade.

Three weeks ago it was shown in Waycross, Ga., where Mr. Pichel, the director of the picture, was making another picture for Twentieth Century-Fox in that section of the country. Here again the ministerial association and the parentteacher association and civic leaders backed the picture and it did the biggest business the theater manager ever enjoyed. True, the picture carries Christ's message, "Peace on earth to men of good will-and all they that take up the sword shall perish by the sword." This is a message America needs today and it's told in one of the most dynamic stories ever screened, in a simple but yet powerful manner. I suggest that you ask the Twentieth Century-Fox people to screen it for your committee in Washington.

Senator MCFARLAND. Don't you think Hitler needs that picture too? Senator NYE (continuing reading letter:)

It seems to me that this film ought to be given prominence today along with pictures such as Sergeant York, Man Hunt, Convoy, etc., in order that the people might see both sides of the question, and there is no doubt in my mind as to which side they will take if they have the opportunity to see both presented.

May I suggest that your committee ask Twentieth Century-Fox why they refuse to show The Great Commandment in their first-run houses. Can it be possible