The Devil's Advocate
Will H. Hays and the Campaign to Make Movies Respectable

Stephen Vaughn

Although Will H. Hays's name remains synonymous with movie censorship, he should be remembered as one of his generation's successful practitioners of public relations, the man who ushered motion pictures into respectability in the United States. Hays was an apostle of progress, an optimistic advocate of new media, and a skilled user of publicity. He believed in the "absolutely limitless" power of movies to influence national life, public taste and conduct, and the dreams of the young—indeed, no more potent means existed "to influence the thought of the nation towards common ideals." The medium, he predicted, would change the future.1	1
Will H. Hays as a young man. Born in Sullivan, Indiana, Hays chaired the state and national Republican Party organizations before accepting the position of Postmaster General under President Warren G. Harding. Courtesy Indiana Historical Society
The philosopher Mortimer Adler once described Hays as "a fascinating mixture of political astuteness and naiveté about the arts, the sciences, and philosophy." It is one of the paradoxes of Hays's career that he came to symbolize the traditional values of small-town America while promoting a modern means of communication that not only eroded those values, but seemed to many people to directly assault them. In attempting to balance tradition and modernity in his work, Hays confronted a dilemma not unlike that faced by other Hoosier political and cultural leaders during the early twentieth century. Residents of Indiana (and the United States) were rapidly adopting modern ways of living, while many tried to cling to traditional social and political values. In ushering the movies into this mainstream culture, Hays benefited from his image as a parochial prude, and may have encouraged this perception. But in his enthusiasm for cinema, and by his linking entertainment technologies to capitalism, Hays became modernity's champion.2	2
In the wake of a sensational sex scandal, Hollywood studio heads created the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and asked Hays to become its first president in 1921. They charged him with running Hollywood's business affairs and official communications, and convincing a skeptical public that the industry could regulate itself. The MPPDA soon became known simply as the Hays Office, and Hays remained its president until 1945. Under Hays's leadership, the MPPDA adopted a twofold strategy. Hays is most remembered, of course, for the Production Code, the legendary rules of censorship that tried to bind movies to the Ten Commandments by limiting any treatment of sexual, social, or political issues; eliminating scenes of violence and crime; and forbidding offensive language. Hollywood adopted the Code in 1930, more than eight years after Hays took the reins of the MPPDA, and only after circumstances converged to force the hand of Hays and the studio heads. Furthermore, enforcement of the Code did not come until 1934, after the Hays Office created the Production Code Administration (PCA) and after Roman Catholics formed the Legion of Decency.	. . .