Nevertheless, in spite of this wise and spontaneously taken decision, those
responsible showed themselves incapable of carrying it into effect and it
appeared that the producers and the operators were not disposed to stand by the
principles to which they had bound themselves. Since, therefore, the
above-mentioned undertaking proved to have but slight effect and since the
parade of vice and crime continued on the screen, the road seemed almost closed
to those who sought honest diversion in the motion picture.
In this crisis, you, Venerable Brethren, were among the first to study
the means of safeguarding the souls entrusted to your care, and you launched
the "Legion of Decency" as a crusade for public morality
designed to revitalize the ideals of natural and Christian rectitude. Far from
you was the thought of doing damage to the motion picture industry: rather
indeed did you arm it beforehand against the ruin which menaces every form of
recreation which, in the guise of art, degenerates into corruption.