Pledge of the Legion of Decency (1934)

 

PLEDGE OF THE LEGION OF DECENCY (1934)

I wish to Join the Legion of Decency, which condemns vile and unwholesome moving pictures. I unite with all who protest against them as a grave menace to youth, to home life, to country and to religion. I condemn absolutely those salacious motion pictures which, with other degrading agencies, are corrupting public morals and promoting a sex mania in our land. I shall do all that I can to arouse public opinion against the portrayal of vice as a normal condition of affairs, and against depicting criminals of any class as heroes and heroines, presenting their filthy philosophy of life as something acceptable to decent men and women. I unite with all who condemn the display of suggestive advertisements on billboards, at theater entrances and in newspapers and the favorable reviews often given to immoral motion pictures in the daily press. Considering these evils. I hereby promise to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality. I promise further to secure as many members as possible for the Legion of Decency. I make this protest in a spirit of self-respect, and with the conviction that the American public does not demand filthy pictures, but clean entertainment and educational features. 

Name:__________________________

No dues whatever for the Legion of Decency. 

No meetings. 

Millions of Americans, pledging themselves individually, can rid the country of its greatest menace—the salacious motion picture. 

Source: here

The image of Toxic Waters is taken from the book: Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen & The Production Code Administration, by Thomas Doherty (page 59).

When Christians & Jews Cleaned Up Hollywood

Image: Paramount photographer "Whitey" Schafer's "Thou Shalt Not" (1940)

“The Storm of ’34"

As Protestant clergy urged their congregations “to unite with Catholics in their campaign to raise the moral standards of pictures,” the Central Conference of American Rabbis called for cooperation “with other religious and civic bodies in bringing home to the picture producers their responsibility for taking immediate steps to elevate the standards of pictures.” American Jews had special reason to work shoulder to shoulder with Christian America. An antisemitism that was never too thinly veiled lay behind at least some of the attacks on Hollywood as the Sodom on the Pacific. Largely ruled and disproportionately populated by American Jews, the motion picture industry was a conspicuous national stage for a people whose every historical instinct counseled against conspicuous displays. Perhaps noting the significant omission of the “Judeo” from the possessive “our Christian civilization” in Cardinal Dougherty’s pastoral letter, Rabbi Sidney E. Goldstein of the Central Conference of American Rabbis averred that Jews should be more concerned than other religious groups in making sure movies were wholesome, “for if the screen is not kept clean, the disgrace will fall on the shoulders of the Jews.”

Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934 (p. 322)