Will H. Hays was an American politician. He served as a chairman of the Republican National Committee, 46th United States Postmaster General, and chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA).
Background
Will H. Hays was born on November 5, 1879 in Sullivan, Indiana, United States. He was the son of John T. Hays and Mary Cain. Although christened "William Harrison, " he never used his full given name.
Hays described himself proudly as a "100 percent American. " His British and Dutch ancestors had come to the American colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. "One could hardly ask for a family tree, " he asserted in the 1950s, "with more varied and more hardy branches. The fruitage of such branches, multiplied by the millions, is the America we know. " This rather narrow view of twentieth-century America was reflected in his actions as attorney, politician, and arbiter of what was shown on American movie screens. He assumed that the nineteenth-century values of Sullivan, Indiana, ought to be imposed upon the entire United States.
His father exercised a powerful influence over Hays' mature opinions, values, and actions. The elder Hays, a successful attorney-businessman and local Republican party official, earned the respect of all who dealt with him. He refused proffered judgeships more than once because acceptance might place him in the position of deciding cases in which his sons, both attorneys, held an interest. On Will's twelfth birthday, his father attached a set of maxims to his son's Bible with the note: "A Code: Presented by his father to Master Willie Hays, February 26, 1892, with a belief that it will be observed--and observed it was. " This code included such instructions as: "Never be idle. If you cannot be usefully employed, attend to the cultivation of your mind"; "Good character is above all things else"; "Drink no kind of intoxicating liquor"; "Never borrow if you can possibly avoid it. " John Hays imbued in his oldest son a desire to arbitrate all disputes to which he became a party, and a mastery of the techniques--especially continuous effort and patience--that almost always proved successful in such disputes.
Education
Hays' father introduced him to Republican politics early in life, so that when he entered college the young man already knew that he attended classes in preparation for a career as a lawyer and as a Republican politician.
After graduation from Wabash College in 1900, Hays began legal training in his father's office, and the firm of Hays and Hays was soon formed.
Career
By Hays' twenty-first birthday, his fellow Republicans had elected him precinct captain. Hays's demonstrations of careful organization and hard work, his cheerful optimism, and his father's wide contacts soon brought him to the attention of high Republican officials in Indiana. In rapid succession, the party named him county chairman (1904), head of the Republican state speakers' bureau (1906), district chairman (1910), state chairman (1914), chairman of the Indiana delegation to the Republican national convention (1916), chairman of the Republican National Committee (1918), member of the Republican party platform committee (1920), and postmaster general in President Warren Harding's cabinet (1921).
During these two decades as a Republican official, Hays held elective office only once, when he filled a three-year term as city attorney of Sullivan early in his career. He lost his other attempt at election, a contest for prosecuting attorney of Democratic Carlisle County, by fifty-three votes. He then shied away from further personal campaigns, preferring the more certain rewards from his party for hard, successful organizational work and unswerving loyalty. After a year in Harding's cabinet, Hays resigned to accept, in 1922, a much more lucrative, and possibly more influential, post as chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc.
A series of scandals within the relatively new but highly profitable movie industry, together with public complaints against immorality on movie screens, had led to powerful demands for public censorship of motion pictures and to a number of state censorship laws. Hays's reputation made him an ideal choice as public spokesman for the besieged industry.
Although ostensibly given a free hand in approving motion pictures or sections of them, Hays refused to act as an outright censor except in a few absolutely necessary cases. Instead he used his talents as an arbitrator to persuade the public that movie producers were trying to give them the wholesome pictures they supposedly wanted, to persuade producers to remove offensive scenes and words, and to convince newspapers not to run suggestive advertisements for movies. Such policies coincided with Hays's established procedures for settling disputes. He also liked and trusted the judgment of the "folks" (as he called them) who viewed movies, and his memoirs reveal a movie fan's pleasure at contact with well-known "stars, " directors, and producers.
Naturally, some segments of the industry contended that Hays was too stern, while sectors of the public protested that he was too lax. Most producers, however, appreciated both his tactics and the respectability he obtained for their industry, and the public, by and large, seemed satisfied that motion pictures were controlled by a man who could be trusted.
Hays pointed out that seven states had passed movie censorship laws, and many others were contemplating such action when he took office. In addition, a large segment of the public was demanding drastic federal action. Soon afterward, however, Massachusetts voted down a censorship plan - which had been expected to pass - by a 2-1 margin. Thereafter, so long as the public believed that Hays directed an effective motion picture censoring operation, no state adopted movie censorship.
After twenty-two-and-a-half years as head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors, Hays resigned in September 1945, shortly before his sixty-seventh birthday. He continued to carry on business and legal careers in New York, California, and Indiana until his death in Sullivan.
Achievements
Will H. Hays went down in history as a prominent Republican politician. Both as state chairman and as national chairman, played a major role in uniting badly split party organizations. As postmaster general, he won nationwide fame for his hard work, fairness, and organizational abilities. In one year, he practically ended the previously disabling labor strife within the department, simplified the bureaucratic structure, extended free rural delivery, ended censorship of "radical" publications, and reduced that department's expenses by $15 million. Hays also brought prestige to the MPPDA. He initiated a moral blacklist in Hollywood, inserted morals clauses in actors’ contracts, and in 1930 was one of the authors of the Production Code, a detailed enumeration of what was morally acceptable on the screen.
Like other young attorneys with political ambitions, Hays joined almost every respectable association in town--among them the Masons, the Elks, and the organizations associated with the Presbyterian Church--and delivered speeches on every available occasion.
Personality
Hays was a skillful and influential politician; fair-minded negotiator; extraordinarily hard worker; and friendly and tolerant man.
Connections
Hays was survived by his second wife, Jessie Herron Stutsman, whom he married in 1930; an earlier marriage, in 1902, to Helen Louise Thomas, ended in divorce.
