Protest

Veteran Producer David Wark Griffith's 23-year-old The Birth of a Nation is the most famous motion picture ever made. When the film was first released in 1915, its vindictive story of Reconstruction race hatred and avenging Klansmen roused considerable passion. Manhattan Negroes secured the elimination of several scenes that contained an "appeal to race prejudice." In Washington, during the Anti-Lynching Bill filibuster last winter (TIME, Jan. 24), it was picketed off a local screen.

Last week, for showing this old rabble-rouser at his East Orange, N. J. cinema theatre, retired big-league Baseball Pitcher Adolph J. ("Otto") Rettig faced the possibility of three years in jail, a fine of $5,000. The complaint: violation of a State statute, passed in 1935 to curb Nazi activity, forbidding any representation that "incites, counsels, promotes, advocates or symbolizes hatred, violence or hostility against any group of persons by reason of race, color, religion or manner of worship." The complainants: representatives of some 5,000 East Orange Negroes.

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