 According to testimony before the Chicago Motion Picture Commission, the plan took shape following an incident over a film based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel "The Scarlet Letter".A delegation of women, having seen the film, requested the police to allow it to be shown.The official in charge replied that he did not know how he could explain to his fifteen-year-old daughter what the scarlet "A" meant, therefore he could not pass the film.