Numerous Authors They Assemble at a Cinema Congress -and Talk At the International Congress of Motion Picture Arts (in Manhattan) one saw numerous authors, some serious, some gay. Here was Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, a serious stately lady, clad in gray and black. I was tempted to ask her where she obtained her information on Yale displayed in The Courage of the Commonplace; but didn't quite dare. W. B. Maxwell, whose The Day's Journey is a really fine recent English novel, was the British delegate. He is tall, dignified, with a much lined face that still gives an impression of softness. We talked for a time of the heat. Of what else can one speak on such a day? Fannie Hurst, not wanting to be photographed, though looking quite as radiant as usual, told me that she has chosen Lummucks as the title of her new novel -the one which is a study of a foreign born servant girl working in America. George Middleton, the playwright, excited because of the difficulties between the Actor's Equity Association and the theatrical managers, and concerned for fear the poor author would fall in ruins between them: Here, too, Jesse Lynch Williams, a compiler of Why Not? and Why Marry? Clayton Hamilton, rescued from Hollywood and the motion pictures but apparently still interested in them; Robert Stead, President of the Canadian Authors' Association; William Rose Benet, planning, doubtless, to put poetry into the movies, and so on and so on. Of the speeches I heard I liked best the statement of Archbishop Hayes, read by Father Kelly of the Catholic Writers' Guild. Here, too, was Elmer Rice, author of The Adding Machine. I understand that he is to frame the statement on book censorship from the radical standpoint for the Author's League, while George Barr Baker will draft one on the conservative side. In my humble opinion, political censorship of books is inevitable, though tragic. It is inevitable because of the attitude of certain authors and publishers who definitely trade on the sensational and salacious character of some of their books. For the sins of these few, the rest, apparently, must suffer. For the sake of publicity, largely, these authors demand this and that. Their lack of dignity would obscure their genius, even if the actual quality of their work did not preclude their consideration as serious artists.