Objection Overruled

In spite of their undoubtedly good intentions, the film distributors who have ostracized conscientious objector Lew Ayre's may be classed with the school principals who expelled juvenile Jehovah's Witnesses for their religious views. It would be different if there were some doubt as to Ayres's sincerity. If he had suddenly been converted to the stand he has taken, or if there were any other reason to believe that his views were purely opportunistic, then there might be some justification for banning his pictures. But the fact is that nobody has denied his sincerity, and no informed person doubts it. Ayres has been a conscientious objector for almost ten years; he is supposed to have formed his views at the time he played the lead in "All Quiet on the Western Front." Since that time he has also been a vegetarian, in the belief that it is wrong to kill animals. In other words, the anti-Lew Ayres pressure is not directed against his individual case, but against all conscientious objectors, against all who refuse to fight on moral or religious grounds.

Already the criticism has had its effect. Nicholas Schenk, president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, has announced that Ayres will never get his job back with MGM. And since Metro is a subsidiary of Loew's, Inc., which controls almost half of the country's movie houses, it is not hard to predict that attitude of at least a large proportion of the country's theatre-owners in regard to exhibiting Ayres's films. Moreover, it is probable that what few managers have the courage to show his pictures will meet with a stiff boycott, arising not from spontaneous public opinion but from the pressure of civic and church groups in addition to a large part of the country's press. Such pressure is being exerted on Boston theatres at present. This sort of hysterical condemnation is like refusing to teach German, or boycotting Wagnerian operas. But to attack his right to obey his own conscience is worse than absurd; it is dangerous. It is attacking a right which is regarded as fundamental, so fundamental that we exercise it even in wartime, although it may interfere ever so slightly with our efficiency in waging the war.