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The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals
The Motion Picture Alliance was formed in the early 1940s by
some of Hollywood's high-profile conservatives including director Sam Wood, Walt
Disney, and Leo McCarey. When the House
Un-American Activities Committee investigated the motion picture industry, the
"friendly witnesses" came largely from the Alliance. Below is the
organization's "Statement of Principles." For more information see: The
Independent Producers Face the Hollywood Blacklist
STATEMENT OF PRINCIP
LES
We believe in, and like, the American way of life: the liberty and freedom
which generations before us have fought to create and preserve; the freedom to
speak, to think, to live, to worship, to work, and to govern ourselves as
individuals, as free men; the right to succeed or fail as free men, according to
the measure of our ability and our strength.
Believing in these things, we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising
tide of communism, fascism, and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means
to undermine and change this way of life; groups that have forfeited their right
to exist in this country of ours, because they seek to achieve their change by
means other than the vested procedure of the ballot and to deny the right of the
majority opinion of the people to rule.
In our special field of motion pictures, we resent the growing impression
that this industry is made of, and dominated by, Communists, radicals, and
crackpots. We believe that we represent the vast majority of the people who
serve this great medium of expression. But unfortunately it has been an
unorganized majority. This has been almost inevitable. The very love of freedom,
of the rights of the individual, make this great majority reluctant to organize.
But now we must, or we shall meanly lose "the last, best hope on
earth."
As Americans, we have no new plan to offer. We want no new plan, we want only
to defend against its enemies that which is our priceless heritage; that freedom
which has given man, in this country, the fullest life and the richest
expression the world has ever known; that system which, in the present
emergency, has fathered an effort that, more than any other single factor, will
make possible the winning of this war.
As members of the motion-picture industry, we must face and accept an
especial responsibility. Motion pictures are inescapably one of the world's
greatest forces for influencing public thought and opinion, both at home and
abroad. In this fact lies solemn obligation. We refuse to permit the effort of
Communist, Fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups to pervert this
powerful medium into an instrument for the dissemination of un-American ideas
and beliefs. We pledge ourselves to fight, with every means at our organized
command, any effort of any group or individual, to divert the loyalty of the
screen from the free America that give it birth. And to dedicate our work, in
the fullest possible measure, to the presentation of the American scene, its
standards and its freedoms, its beliefs and its ideals, as we know them and
believe in them.
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