Mayor LaGuardia yesterday pledged his cooperation with the Inter-Faith Council of the Legion of Decency, which holds as its original purpose the purging of salacious motion pictures, it was announced shortly after he, Police Commissioner O’Ryan and License Commissioner Paul Moss had met with delegates of the council at City Hall.
Protestants, Jews, and Catholics yesterday organized not only to clean up motion pictures and the stage but also to put taxi dance halls out of business in New York City.
The Inter-Faith Conference, held in the priest’s home at Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church, was attended by: Dr. Sydney Goldstein, assistant rabbi of the Free Synagogue, and Dr. William F. Rosenblum of Temple Israel, representing Jews; the Rev. Father J. Henry Carpenter, secretary of the Brooklyn Church and Mission Federation, and the Rev. Joseph A. McCaffery, rector of Holy Cross Church, representing Catholics; the Rev. Frederick B. Newell and the Rev. Dr. Walter M. Howlett, both of the Greater New York Federation of Churches, representing Protestants.
Shortly after the conference three of the council went to City Hall where it secured the Mayor’s promise of cooperation.
Immediately following the conference Father McCaffery announced that Inter-Faith Committees would be established in various districts of the city, and that through these committees efforts would be made to reach those who do and do not go to church or synagogue.
“It has been proposed that we conduct a house-to-house campaign to ask people to sign our Legion of Decency cards,” Father McCaffery told the press. “I expect that this suggestion will be effective within the next two weeks.”
As spokesman for the conference, Father McCaffery declared, “We will have the motion picture industry understand that this is a serious effort on the part of Jews, Protestants, and Catholics to eliminate indecency, lewdness, and crime portrayal from the films.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
