DISCRIMINATION

Three or four mayors or boards of aldermen have already forbidden the showing of Chaplin films in their municipalities because of the charges of immorality brought against him by his wife in her suit for divorce. If his wife proves her point we may not unreasonably expect such a procedure to be nation-wide.

What causes such ridiculous antics in the name of public morality? It Chaplin's films had in them anything which the strictest Puritan could object to, the municipal censors might be justified. But no evil that he does lives on the screen. His pictures are clean in addition to being funny. When "Searing Kisses", "Bachelor Husbands", and "The Gilded Bed" are allowed, it seems strangely paradoxical that Chaplin's off-stage actions should be considered subversive of popular morality.

Besides misleading and overwhelming newspaper publicity, the blame for the above-mentioned municipal ostracism can be laid to the prevailing inability to separate a man from his actions, to discriminate between the flower and the soil. Chaplin's films are, the really important thing about him, but they are barred because he is suspected of not being fit to teach Sunday School. Also symptomatic of the same disease working in a contrary direction is the public refusal to discriminate between Ty Cobb's batting average and his personal honesty.