we are not the Government. The foreign actors can come into this country and we can regulate their admission to membership in the Actors' Equity Association, and we do; we say how and what aliens. are members and we watch them; we have a virtual monopoly on the legitimate actors in the country, and it is a very effective check; but we cannot send those aliens back at the end of the engagement for which they were contracted and the purpose for which they are brought into the country and all about it. We have these cases where the managers have come before the council of the Actors' Equity Association and have said:

We want to produce so and so. There is an alien actor who is absolutely essential to that play in this particular part. We want the Actors' Equity Association to exercise its discretion and admit this alien to membership, and if you do not admit him to membership the play will not be produced, and the other members of the company who are natives will not get any work.

The Actors' Equity Association considers it on these grounds and admits this alien and despite the fact that the play may only last 2 weeks, the man will come in. At the end of that 2 weeks this actor then has at least 6 months to stay in this country and is perhaps snapped up by the Hollywood producers or by the National Broadcasting Co. or the Columbia Broadcasting Co. or some of the local hotels. They are used by the hotels and by the night clubs and cabarets in New York and of course they are foreigners, and because an appetite has been created in this country in the minds of the public to see the foreign actor, that impression having been created by advertising and by bringing up that there is something superior, or especially desirable, about the foreigner so that they are given considerable employment at the expense of American artists, and the man who came over here under contract, under the provision of law that exempted him from the labor-contract clause of the immigration laws, fills his contract in 2 weeks' time and then stays here 6 months and takes all kinds of employment away from our people.

There have been instances, and I have been present in the conferences where this was taking place, where a manager has come to us with his associates and tears in his eyes, because many of the managers are wonderfully good actors, and said, "If you do not let this particular actor in"-if the council will not let him come in, that he, the producer, could not produce the play. Now there have been times when that petition has been granted and the Equity has been persuaded that it should be granted. There have been cases where Equity has not been persuaded, where Equity has thought that the manager was motivated by some other desire than the conviction that he could not secure an actor in this country or an actress who was capable of serving in that part, and Equity has refused to exercise its discretion and said, "We are very sorry and regret it, but we think there are lots of our actors who could play the part," and we have gone so far as to suggest 2, 3, 4, or 5 persons, and I have known of no instance where the play was not produced with an American actor. As to whether it would have lasted longer or shorter with the alien in there is no standard, and we do know that with aliens in they have lasted some times but a short time and then again, with Americans, they have lasted for many weeks, so that there is no standard from which you can judge that.

Mr. SCHULTE. May I ask if another such as Will Rogers could be obtained?

Miss HOLT. Such an actor would be an actor of distinguished ability and could come into the country.

The CHAIRMAN. He would be the exception.

Miss HOLT. There would be no question about him. This would apply to actors not of distinguished ability.

Mr. SCHULTE. Do you think Will Rogers could be substituted? Miss HOLT. I do not think you could get another Will Rogers or a W. C. Fields or a Charlie Chaplin, but that personally has no bearing here. All the Will Rogers are permitted to come in.

Mr. FOCHT. You say you are of the Actors' Equity Association? Miss HOLT. Yes, sir.

Mr. FOCHT. Are vaudeville performers members of the Actors' Equity Association?

Miss HOLT. The Actors' Equity Association has not organized the vaudeville field. We have organized what we call Equity proper, that is, 100 percent Equity in the legitimate theater, but many of our people are vaudeville performers.

Mr. FOCHT. I just made the statement about Ted Lewis and if it is true of Ted Lewis and his organization it is true of every American artist who goes to foreign shores. When he goes to these foreign countries, we will take France, for instance, I wonder if it is the law of the land, or if it is the law of the union whereby the American actor is compelled to hire just as many people as he has in his organization. Miss HOLT. It is the law of the land in both England and France. It is not a labor-union provision.

When Texas Guinan took her group to Europe, the French would not let them land and kept them on board and made them return.

Mr. FOCHT. You made a statement very valuable to this committee relative to the alien who comes for several weeks' engagement and subsequently goes into other lines of business.

Miss HOLT. Certainly.

Mr. FoсHT. He goes on the radio?

Miss HOLT. Yes, certainly.

Mr. SCHULTE. How about Eddie Cantor?

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Focht.

Mr. FосHT. What I am trying to bring out and what I think we are all trying to do is to show that these foreign actors do not confine their activities solely to that field, but when their contracts expire they go into other activities, such as the radio and other avenues whereby they obtain revenue. I am glad the speaker brought that out, as it shows that the American actor does not only meet the competition of the foreign on the legitimate stage, but in other avenues such as on the radio and night clubs and the like.

Mr. TRAEGER. They come here on a 2 weeks' contract with a 6 months' visa and when the 2 weeks' contract is concluded they go into other entertaining fields and use up the balance of the 6 months taking work from American actors.

Miss HOLT. I would like to give an illustration of that. It was suggested to my mind by reference to Eddie Cantor. Eddie Cantor, like Will Rogers, does not concern us, but the mediocre and undiscovered foreigner who is picked up by the scouts or managers in Europe because perhaps of certain peculiarities they may have-in

contrast with that, we do not have scouts of European managers in the United States looking for artists to take abroad.

The best illustration I can give you is this: Earl Carroll, who is the largest importer of performers, went to Europe 2 years ago and he stayed in Paris, and he had with him several associates, and I am told that he spent 2 days in one hotel suite and the glasses had become fairly rosy after having been in Paris for a week. He saw all these performers come in and gave auditions and he engaged them all wholesale for what probably might be called a "Folies Bergere" which he was going to give in New York. He engaged them before he left France. I am speaking now of my own knowledge. He wrote to practically every one of these people whom he had put under contract guaranteeing them 2 weeks' employment and subsequently he wrote that he had reconsidered and if they wished to reconsider and withdraw he would be very glad to cancel the contracts. Nevertheless, all of these being very anxious for engagement, they decided to come over and they came over in hordes. They had a reception committee and they marched up to the theater and there were 35 or 40 performers. When Earl Carroll put that group together there was no cohesion, or rhyme, or reason to it. He only used half. The other half-because it was my duty-because they became members of our organization it was my duty to collect from Earl Carroll 2 weeks salary for each one of those foreign actors, and the amount that they got from Earl Carroll for salary and transportation to and from this country ran into hundreds of dollars. And they never worked in his company. But they went into the various hotels and night clubs and other activities of the city and so if Earl Carroll had not had as you propose to enact it, with a nice, sober American consul sitting in his office in Paris hearing people and passing upon the necessity of this emigration to the United States, if all these contracts that Earl Carroll had signed in his hotel suite had been scrutinized by the consul and made ineffective unless visas had been granted on the passports, we would have been spared their influx for a period of 6 months, and in some cases, extensions. Two of them at least had extensions and they all took many hundreds of dollars out of the pockets of the American producers and I know actors who might have had employment if they had not come in. That is an illustration that is entirely different from those Dr. Moskowitz and Mr. Pemberton have given, but that is in the field of the legitimate drama.

Much has been said about the young Englishman Stephen Haggard, who gave an excellent performance in Coming of Age. I saw that and Mr. Chappelle is to be congratulated for having done a very fine thing in doing it. Julia Sanderson was the star. The play was something of a novelty, a departure in the dramatic field. favorably reviewed, not enthusiastically reviewed as a dramatic work. The critics looked at it lukewarm as drama. It was beautifully mounted, and they gave well-deserved praise to Stephen Haggard. But to say that Stephen Haggard kept the show going for 4 weeks is in my opinion to mislead the committee. That play was the object of considerable controversy and I remember that Robert Garland of the World-Telegram had a running comment with one of the representatives of the management, urging them to keep the play

on because it was such a fine experiment in the theater; not so the public could flock through the doors to see Coming of Age, but because it was something new in dramatic endeavor, something new in the mounting of plays, and something which should be encouraged, and Mr. Chappelle took the challenge and kept it alive.

Stephen Haggard's performance was a factor, because it was a fine, nice piece of work, but to say that Mr. Chappelle could not have produced Coming of Age if this talented young Englishman had not been discovered and brought over here, I think is assuming a great deal. I think we could discover Stephen Haggards in this country if we used even a little judgment and care in selection.

I think I have said enough about the legitimate theater. I do not want to repeat the arguments which have been made before you, but I have prepared a brief analysis of a written argument which was presented by the motion-picture producers and distributors at the hearing yesterday, and I would like to refer to them very briefly. I find that there are only six contentions which they make, and not one of them, nor all of them together is worthy of even hesitation upon your part in deliberating upon it. However, it may be helpful to you to offer the analysis which we have made.

The contentions that they make as I have analyzed them are these: First, that certain recognized stars of the screen, notably Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and so on, would have been excluded from this country if this bill had been a law when they were admitted.

Second, that the present enactment of this bill would "close the doors of Hollywood" to foreign talent.

Third, that the effect on foreign trade, and the fostering of it by the exhibition of American films in foreign countries should defeat this bill.

Fourth, that this bill leaves it to the judgment of our consuls abroad and our Labor Department here to determine the ability of an actor, and is, therefore, unsatisfactory.

Fifth, that the public is "fickle" and its appetite for new faces and personalities must be catered to by the development of aliens as well as native actors.

Sixth, and lastly, that the need for approximately 150 persons annually who are capable of rendering screen dialogue in foreign languages is paramount to consideration of the unemployment and distress of 8,000 or 9,000 American actors on the speaking stage, and from 10,000 to 15,000 actors and extras in the motion-picture industry.

I will endeavor to give you briefly the outstanding and most cogent answers to each of these contentions in turn. I need not further extend the discussion of these answers, unless it is your wish to have one or more of them further elaborated.

To the argument that the earlier enactment of this law would have excluded the Garbos, Pickfords, and Chaplins, we say this: These players are of such a caliber that most of them would have achieved such distinction in their own countries as to render them eligible under the very terms of this bill:

Further, that had they not come into this country at all, other personalities and actors of talent would have been discovered among the 120,000,000 people in the United States, and thirdly, that conditions

in the world, in this country, and even in the motion-picture industry have changed radically since the actors referred to emigrated to America. All our immigration laws have been extensively amended since Chaplin, Pickford, and Garbo came here. Conditions in every civilized country have caused legislators to protect the employment of their own nationals. As other countries have raised barriers against us, we must protect our own actors, as our foreign avenues of commerce have been taken away from us, and the best way we can protect the employment of our people is to enact this bill.

In the picture industry itself the introduction of sound and dialogue have caused the producers of pictures to look not to new talent, but to the experienced actors of the speaking stage. Today it is the actor who has served his apprenticeship in what we term the "legitimate" drama who is at a premium in the studios. We American actors know that our stage is still as capable of developing first-rate actors and actresses as it has been in the past. But the opportunities for gaining experience and of working should not be given to the foreign actor to the exclusion of our own. And this applies, not to the foreign actor of distinction who has won his spurs, but to the rank and file of unknown or undiscovered players.

Lewis Stone is an example of the graduate of dramatic stock companies into the studio. More recently, actresses like Katherine Hepburn, Helen Hayes, and Ann Harding have demonstrated the capacity of this country to develop its own stars and its own theater.

When Corse Payton, who recently died, operated his stock companies and developed scores of actors like Richard Bennett and Ernest Truex, he did not have to spend $104,000 in 2 years on one of them to learn English and make tests as Samuel Goldwyn recently is said to have done to the Russian Anna Sten It is further said that something like $400,000 was scrapped in the first taking of that film. Think of it. $52,000 for 2 years, and $400,000 wasted. That is a half a million dollars. Think how many American actors you could develop and publicize if one half a million dollars were devoted to that purpose. In that connection, I would like to refer to a remark that was made by the motion-picture people last year, which I think has a very interesting connotation here, and is a very important thing, and you can convict them out of their own mouth.

In the statement of William A. Orr, representing the MetroGoldwyn-Mayer Pictures Corporation at the hearings before this committee on February 24, 1932, Mr. Orr said (reading):

Then we found in our foreign business that the European nations and South America did not want any American pictures with foreign stars, their own people. They had been led, by American motion-picture advertising, to become familiar with American motion picture stars and they stayed away by the thousands in Europe and in South America when we gave them their own actors and their own actresses in the American films.

Now, are we to assume that when the motion picture people gave the foreigners their own actors and actresses in the films that they were taking people not qualified or that they took qualified actors--but what did the public want to see-why, what the appetite had been created for. Now, the viciousness lies in this: The Anna Stens, Greta Garbos- I enjoy seeing a movie just as much as others do, but the advertising appears in magazines, billboards, and goes into every possible kind, and the ballyhoo is creating an appetite to see