Exceptional precautions were observed in the censoring of films destined for export. This work was in charge of the Customs Division of the Treasury Department, the films being viewed by a board composed of representatives of the Customs, Military and Naval Intelligence, and the Committee on Public Information. If a member of this board made any objection to a film it was sent to the custom-house for review by another board of censors. If the matter to be deleted was unimportant, the objectionable parts were cut out in the projection room. If the film was approved, a letter of clearance was issued by the Committee on Public Information and an export license was then granted by the War Trade Board; should the film be rejected, the license was, of course, refused. In censoring commercial films and photographs, every effort was made to prevent the export of pictures which might reveal the war secrets of the United States, which might be distorted and used as enemy propaganda, or which might give a wrong impression of the conditions prevailing in this country. For example, no pictures dealing with the influenza epidemic were permitted to leave the country, for the German Government would almost certainly have used them as proof that the man-power of America was seriously impaired, thus encouraging the German people to prolong their resistance. An export license was refused to a picture showing the effects of a cyclone in Tyler, Texas, because, had it reached Germany, it would, in all probability, have been given a caption something like this: “American city after bombardment by German aircraft.” The fact that there were no German aircraft on this side of the Atlantic would have made no difference; the credulous German public would have greeted such a picture with wild applause. As a matter of fact, thousands of pictures of crumbling castles in England and of French ruins dating from the Crusades were used in such manner by the Germans. For a similar reason, the beautiful poster drawn by Joseph Pennell for the Fourth Liberty Loan, depicting New York City in ruins as the result of a raid by German aircraft, was not permitted to go abroad, for it would have been only too easy for the German Government to publish it as an official picture of the devastation wrought by German airmen in the American metropolis. I have wondered, indeed, why the German propaganda bureau did not publish a picture of Pompeii with a caption to the effect that it was an Italian city destroyed by the Austrian fleet.