Hays Flayed

Against the cinema in general and its U. S. tsar, Will H. Hays, in particular, were trained last week the editorial cannons of The Churchman, Episcopal weekly.

In Washington had met an Editorial Council of the Religious Press. One of the questions discussed was: "What should be the attitude of the religious press toward the movies?" The Churchman took opportunity to editorialize as follows: "[Church journals] were willing, like other groups in America, to accept the statement of the motion picture industry that Will Hays had been employed to 'clean up the movies.' The editors are under not the slightest illusion that Mr. Hays has done so ... Mr. Hays ... is a skillful writer of letters to editors and leaders of religious groups. Anyone who has heard him speak at church gatherings knows his gift for pious lamentation, though we wonder whether he has ever really deceived anyone by his sobbing piety.

"The motion picture industry is concerned not at all about standards either of taste or morals. ... It conceived the bright idea, a few years ago, that simpleminded and possibly sensitive church folk could be lured into supporting the movies and keeping their mouths shut about censorship if the industry could be dressed up with a Presbyterian elder. And it has worked pretty well. . . . But it isn't going to work much longer. . . ."

Editor of The Churchman and last week's Hays-baiter is Guy Emery Shipler who on weekdays tends to the publication of his magazine, on Sundays preaches to the congregation of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Chatham, N. J. of which he is rector. Editor Shipler, native of Warsaw, N. Y., studied at Hobart College from 1902 to 1905, then turned to reporting for the Boston Traveler. He went to The Churchman in 1917, became its editor five years ago. Other Shipler crusades have been: Attacks on censorship of any sort; pleas for the liberation of Mooney & Billings, California's Socialist-pacifist prisoners; defense of the Rev. Lee Heaton. Rector of Trinity Parish (Episcopal), Fort Worth, Tex., who was nearly ousted from Texas by the Ku Klux Klan and the Rev. J. Frank ("Two Gun") Norris, Baptist (TIME, June 30, 1924).