From 1900 to 1918, Hays served in a plethora of positions representing the
Republican Party in various capacities within his home state of Indiana, beginning with his tenure on the 3rd Precinct Republican Committee.
Teapot Dome scandal The oilman
Harry Ford Sinclair devised a scheme in which twenty-five cents was diverted from the sale of every barrel of oil sold from the oil field leases that were the focus of the
Teapot Dome scandal. Sinclair testified that he "loaned" Will H. Hays, then-chairman of the Republican National Committee, $185,000 worth of
Liberty Bonds, later getting back $100,000. Sinclair also gave Hays $75,000 as an outright gift to the committee. At the time, Hays was attempting to pay off the 1920 Republican campaign debt. Hays later approached a number of wealthy men and told them that if they would contribute to pay down the committee's debt, he would reimburse them for their contributions with Liberty Bonds. In 1924, after his resignation from the Harding administration and while he was serving as President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Hays was called to testify before the Senate Committee on Public Lands. When asked how much money Sinclair had contributed to the Republican Party, Hays testified that his contribution was $75,000. In 1928, after more details of Sinclair's scheme had emerged, Hays was called to testify again. Hays then told the full story of Sinclair's contribution, including the donation of $185,000 in Liberty Bonds and the $75,000 cash contribution. He stated that he had not mentioned the bonds in his earlier testimony because the Committee "had not asked about any bonds." While there was some public perception that Hays was attempting to conceal Sinclair's large contribution to the Republican National Committee, he testified that he was "using the bonds to raise money for the deficit."
Chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Hays resigned his cabinet position on January 14, 1922, to become Chairman of the
Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America shortly after the organization's founding. He began his new job, at a $35,360 annual salary (), on March 6 of that year. There was speculation that he would be paid between $100,000 and $150,000 a year. The goal of the organization was to improve the image of the movie industry in the wake of the scandal surrounding the alleged rape and murder of model and actress
Virginia Rappe, of which film star
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was accused, and amid growing calls by religious groups for federal censorship of the movies. Hiring Hays to "clean up the pictures" was, at least in part, a public relations ploy and much was made of his conservative credentials, including his roles as a Presbyterian deacon and past chairman of the Republican Party. In 1934, to deal with "inappropriate" industry personnel (alongside the Code's concern with the industry's output), Hays created a list of 117 names of performers whose personal lives he thought made them unfit to appear in films. As an example of Hays' philosophy, he reportedly said to a movie director: "When you make a woman cross her legs in the films, maybe you don't need to see how she can cross them and stay within the law; but how low she can cross them and still be interesting". Hays worked with the U.S. government, particularly the
State Department and the
Department of Commerce, to maintain Hollywood's domination of overseas movie markets.
Central Casting When the entertainment industry started to take off in the early 1920s, thousands of people flocked to Hollywood with hopes of becoming the next big star. These hopefuls were called "
extras" because they were the extra people who filled out scenes. The main way to find work at this time was to wait outside the gates of studios, hoping to be hired on the spot. With little regulation on hiring film extras, many people were exploited while looking for work. In an effort to fix the employment issues and exploitation that plagued the industry, Hays commissioned several studies of the employment conditions in Hollywood, including one from
Mary van Kleeck, a prominent sociologist with the
Russell Sage Foundation. After reviewing the results of the studies, Hays adopted a suggestion of van Kleeck's and created the
Central Casting Corporation in 1925 as a way to regulate the hiring of extras in Hollywood.
Production Code The production code enumerated three "General Principles": • No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin. • Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented. • Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation. Specific restrictions were spelled out as "Particular Applications" of these principles: :*
Nudity and suggestive dances were prohibited. :* The ridicule of religion was forbidden, and ministers of religion were not to be represented as comic characters or villains. :* The depiction of
illegal drug use was forbidden, as well as the use of liquor, "when not required by the plot or for proper characterization." :* Methods of crime (e.g.
safe-cracking, arson, smuggling) were not to be explicitly presented. :* References to sex perversions such as homosexuality and venereal disease were forbidden, as were depictions of childbirth. :* The language section banned various words and phrases that were considered to be offensive. :* Murder scenes had to be filmed in a way that would discourage imitations in real life, and brutal killings could not be shown in detail. :* "Revenge in modern times" was not to be justified. :* The sanctity of marriage and the home had to be upheld. :* "Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing." :* Adultery and illicit sex, although recognized as sometimes necessary to the plot, could not be explicit or justified and were not supposed to be presented as an attractive option. :* Portrayals of
miscegenation were forbidden. :* "Scenes of Passion" were not to be introduced when not essential to the plot. :* "Excessive and lustful kissing" was to be avoided, along with any other treatment that might "stimulate the lower and baser element." :* The
flag of the United States was to be treated respectfully, and the people and history of other nations were to be presented "fairly." :* "
Vulgarity", defined as "low, disgusting, unpleasant, though not necessarily evil, subjects" must be "subject to the dictates of good taste." :* Capital punishment, "
third-degree methods", cruelty to children and animals, prostitution and surgical operations were to be handled with similar sensitivity. ==Personal life==