SOURCE: Hackett, Francis. “Brotherly Love.” New Republic 22 (20 March 1915): 185.

In the following review of the film The Birth of a Nation, Hackett condemns Dixon as a “yellow journalist … and quite disgustingly and contemptibly yellow” who perpetuates racist attitudes, and he concludes that the film “degrades the censors that passed it and the white race that endures it.”

If history bore no relation to life, this motion picture drama could well be reviewed and applauded as a spectacle. As a spectacle it is stupendous. It lasts three hours, represents a staggering investment of time and money, reproduces entire battle scenes and complex historic events, amazes even when it wearies by its attempt to encompass the Civil War. But since history does bear on social behavior, The Birth of a Nation cannot be reviewed simply as a spectacle. It is more than a spectacle. It is an interpretation, the Rev. Thomas...