Syphilis Rumpus

A modest educational two-reeler, bearing the portentous title To the People of the United States, caused a row last fort night. Its subject: syphilis. Object: to help prevent the disease, by telling the facts.

The film was made by Producer Walter Wanger at the request of U.S. Assistant Surgeon General R. A. Vonderlehr, for free distribution. Both the U.S. Public Health Service and OWI approved it. Then, at the behest of Archbishop Francis J. Spellman, the Legion of Decency's Executive Secretary, the Very Reverend Monsignor John J. McClafferty, wrote OWI's Elmer Davis :

"The film is in violation of that provision of the Production Code of the Motion Picture Industry which reads : 'sex hygiene and venereal diseases are not subjects for motion pictures. . . .' " He also enclosed a rousing letter in which Bishop John F. O'Hara described the film as "insulting to Americans, dangerous to health, and definitely a menace to chastity, since it contains not one word of condemnation of the unchastity which is an even greater scourge than the disease it spreads."

Promptly OWI suspended its approval. As promptly Surgeon General Thomas Parran, himself a Roman Catholic, with drew the approval of his U.S. Public Health Service.

But Producer Wanger talked back: "... I believe that the problem of controlling venereal diseases is not only a moral problem, but also a very serious public health problem. As a citizen, concerned with public welfare, I take issue with the Legion's contention that un chastity is a greater scourge than venereal disease. . . . The protest [that the film violates the Production Code] is not valid. The Code does not and was never intended to apply to educational government films. . . . The film has not been withdrawn . . . a method ... to show it will be worked out."

The picture is not one of those adults-only affairs in which women in heron plumes and wolves in waxed whiskers prowl after each other on divans. It is a straight forward, dramatically naive little lecture in which the syphilis-nicked pilot of a bomber--and the audience-- are told some practical facts about syphilis, its effects, its prevention. The Legion is quite correct in observing that it does not mention the most practical method of prevention, continence, yet some of its facts are well worth circulating:

P:Out of every thousand men up for induction, 47, otherwise ablebodied, are rejected for syphilis.

P:In a 10,000,000-man army syphilis puts 300,000 men out of action each year.

P:The Veterans Administration spends $82,000,000 a year on hospitalization and disability for syphilis cases; syphilitic blindness alone costs the U.S. taxpayer an annual $10,000,000.

P:In 1943, in the U.S., some 96,000 babies were born to syphilitic mothers.

The simple message of To the People: syphilis can be stamped out, and the first step toward its eradication is individual blood tests. Says the Doctor, who is played gratis by Jean Hersholt: "Yes--I mean you. The need for a blood test means you and me, as well as the village idiot."

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