CHAPTER XVIII

THE MOVIE AS THE HOPE OF CIVILIZATION

NO conscientious writer begins the final chapter of a book that has engaged his energies for a considerable period of time without a feeling of mingled regret and apprehension. He lays aside reluctantly a piece of work which, at its inception, seemed worth doing, and whose doing has given him real pleasure; and, at the same time, he is haunted by the fear that for the attainment of the purpose which he has had in view he has left something of vital importance unsaid, has failed to marshal his facts, figures, suggestions and arguments to the best advantage, and may have allowed at times his own enthusiasm for the subject he has had in hand to repel his less sympathetic readers. This latter possibility is especially disquieting to a writer who has endeavored to stress the significance of the movie, in its constantly multiplying manifestations, as a new but possibly determining factor in the struggle of modern civilization to save itself from the many foes besetting it. It is hard for “the man on the street,” a clear-headed but rather unimaginative being, for whom, among others, this book is written, to admit that what has seemed to him for years past to be but a more or less interesting form of amusement, too much given to errors of taste and judgment, has become, of late, through an amazingly rapid process of evolution, a world power, the influence of which upon the lives of individuals and of nations can not easily be over-estimated. But the business, politics and international affairs of the world are dominated for the most part by this same man on the street, and it is imperative, for the sake of his own ultimate welfare, as well as for the good of the race at large, that he be made to realize that the screen as an entertainer, educator, drummer, possessing a monopoly of the race’s only universal language, is worthy of his most earnest attention.

In a letter recently written by President Harding to President Sills of Bowdoin College is to be found the following interesting prophecy:

We shall from this time forward have a much more adequate conception of the essential unity of the whole story of mankind, and a keener realization of the fact that all its factors must be weighed and appraised if any of them are to be accurately estimated and understood. I feel strongly that such a broader view of history, if it can be implanted in the community’s mind in the future through the efforts of educators and writers, will contribute greatly to uphold the hands and strengthen the efforts of those who will have to deal with the great problem of human destiny, particularly with that of preserving peace and outlawing war.

This recently accepted broader view of history which, as President Harding says, is an influence making for peace, a new ally to the world forces struggling for a higher and better civilization, can not be implanted in the minds of the public, as I have demonstrated in the first chapter of this book, through educators and writers employing only the old media for the dissemination of their teachings. Neither the book, the rostrum, the pulpit, the printed word, nor all of them combined, have made, nor can they make, that kind of impress upon the much-too-illiterate public which will compel the race to cease committing its habitual crimes and blunders.

But, strangely enough, at the very moment when the enlightened minds of all nations, through the words of contemporary statesmen, scholars and writers, have become convinced of the “essential unity” of human history there has been granted to mankind a medium for the universal dissemination of new ideas, discoveries, facts and generalizations that has in it the power to perform for the race a service the necessity for which President Harding has eloquently demonstrated. Scientists and historians have of late served as continuity writers for the great picture drama of man’s past, and, lo, the story of the race reveals itself not as scattered, unrelated incidents but as a majestic, coördinated tale, but partially told, whose dénouement may be more splendid than we have hitherto dared to hope it could be.

No student of world affairs can fail to be impressed, despite the cataclysm that overtook the race in 1914, by the pathetic but hopeful and inspiring fact that mankind, by a reasonable and not too difficult confinement of his energies to civilized, peaceful, constructive activities, could raise itself to a much higher plane of civilization in a comparatively short time from the slough of despondency in which it now finds itself. All that is necessary to give Man the buoyancy, courage and incentive necessary to overcome the evils that beset the world is the assurance that the iconoclasm that periodically destroys his own handiwork, the destructive mischievousness of an evil spirit that he has not as yet exorcised, shall never again be allowed to function, that wide-spread wars shall be permanently relegated to the bloody, accusatory past. The osteopaths assert that a slight maladjustment of even a small bone in a man’s skeleton may doom him to death from some fatal malady seemingly unrelated to the framework of his body. Whatsoever may be the truth in this assertion, it serves to illustrate the point I am making, namely, that the cause of war—any war, small or great,—appears to be almost always ludicrously insignificant compared to the damage it does. We are always face to face with the hideous fact that any slight dislocation of the bony structure of modern civilization might, as was shown by the recent war of wars, bring about its complete annihilation. Surely it is incumbent upon us, if we are not, as a race, madmen or morons, to take full advantage of any new medium or method that presents itself for the safeguarding of peace on earth, for the furtherance of good will to men.

Since that red day in June, 1914, when the assassin Gavrilo Princip fired the shot that not only echoed around the world but almost overturned the very pillars of civilization’s temple, two antagonistic tendencies upon the part of mankind have displayed themselves with unprecedented impressiveness. Man’s destructiveness has been raised to the nth power, while his constructive ingenuity has been exhibited in an amazing and encouraging way. The laboratories of the world to-day are solving problems the solution of which places the human race absolutely in control of its own destiny. It may, if it so chooses, commit suicide through high explosives or poison gas, or it may devote itself successfully to the overthrow and annihilation of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War, Famine, Poverty and Disease.

Now what bearing has all this upon the subject-matter of this book, what has a biography of the movie got to do with the choice mankind must presently make between a higher civilization and a return to savagery, between the call of the millennium and the lure of the jungle, between science making earth a paradise and science making earth a hell? If my preceding chapters have not supplied a convincing answer to this query, let me, even though I repeat myself, endeavor, before I bring this labor of love to a close, to formulate a concise, but comprehensive and convincing, answer to a question that future generations may consider the most important that the soul of Man ever asked of the physical universe. Is it not conceivable that posterity will laud us of to-day for inventing the Esperanto of the Eye and marvel at us because we failed to make full use of it to attain that enlightenment which is the _sine qua non_ of our race’s salvation? May not our descendants revere us for inventing the screen, while, at the same time, they mock at us for our delay in taking advantage of its highest possibilities as an ally to progress, as a defense against racial deterioration?

In various parts of the world of late, in the Arctic regions, in South and Central America, in Mexico and New Mexico, in South Africa and Egypt, in Asia Minor and elsewhere, archæologists have, through excavations and allied activities, brought to light the remains of prehistoric civilizations so remote in time and so high in character that a new aspect has been given to various periods in the progress of the race from the cave and jungle to Paris and New York. It is unquestionable that Man during the countless ages that have passed has attained at times in various localities a condition of cultured enlightenment that appears admirable from our modern point of view only to lose it again either through internal or external foes, or through both combined. The outstanding and highly significant fact is this, that the human race, no matter how splendid a development it might display sporadically and locally, could make no general and permanent progress until the nations had devised some method of wide-spread intercommunication. The earth is a graveyard of great cities and great peoples who were forced to pass into oblivion without revealing to the outer barbarians of their time the secret of their greatness. Nor was a highly civilized people in one part of the world able to form ties with some equally advanced people far afield—and so, though they both possessed the key to the higher knowledge, they were ignorant of each other and both were doomed eventually to perish.

To-day civilization, so far as its surface manifestations are concerned, is not a localized but a world-wide phenomenon. It can not be completely buried, as have been so many of its miniature predecessors. The Congo has its telephones and the Arctic region its wireless. But in so far as modern civilization is more comprehensive than the Babylonian or the Egyptian, is not provincial but cosmopolitan, so would its downfall be more tragically appalling than any catastrophe that has yet afflicted the human race. And from all parts of the world come to us the voices of observant men and women who, alive to the warnings vouchsafed to us by the recent war of wars, are imploring humanity to look not with passion but with reason at the situation of the world to-day and to take measures at once that shall drag us back from the edge of the precipice we have reached.

Has the Esperanto of the Eye, the only medium the race has ever devised for universal intercommunication, come too late to rescue mankind from impending doom? Not if rulers, law-makers, teachers, preachers, diplomatists, statesmen, all men and women who influence the heart, mind and conscience of human groups, small or great, realize in time that in the screen the race has found a medium which, rightly used, could mould for it a future infinitely superior to its deplorable past.

There will be, I fully realize, those who will jeer at the basic idea underlying the contention that I have made in this little book, ridicule me for believing that, although a man cannot raise himself by his boot-straps, mankind at large can elevate itself by means of the regenerated, ever-increasingly-potent movie. Nevertheless, as I have been describing in some detail the evolutionary steps that have raised the screen from a toy to a world power, have broadened its scope from a plaything to a sleepless influence affecting the destinies of men and nations, I have been constantly more convinced that the suggestion regarding a great world centre for the enlightenment of mankind through visual instruction, made in my first chapter, becomes every month more feasible, as it also, as the days pass and the world appears to go from bad to worse, grows more imperatively necessary. The screen is a mirror in which the race can see itself as it has been and as it is, and a tongue, comprehended of all men, that might, if it rises to its great mission, bring salvation to the world.

“A lighthouse of the past, a university of universities, a fountain of all revealed knowledge, inculcated through a medium understood of all men, a Mecca for the pilgrims of progress from all comers of the earth,”—that is my dream, and, for having dreamed it, I know that I am a better man. By the same token, the human race would become a better race if it possessed the foresight and common-sense to make my dream come true!

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

STATISTICS SHOWING THE SCOPE OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY

Motion picture theatres in the United 15,000 States

Seating capacity (one show) 7,605,000

Average weekly attendance at picture 50,000,000 theatres

Admissions paid annually $520,000,000

The average number of reels used for one 8 performance

Average number of seats in picture 507 theatres

Number of persons employed in picture 105,000 theatres

Persons employed in picture production 50,000

Permanent employees in all branches of 300,000 picture industry

Investment in motion picture industry $1,250,000,000

Approximate cost of pictures produced $200,000,000 annually

Salaries and wages paid annually at $75,000,000 studios in production

Cost of costumes, scenery, and other $50,000,000 materials and supplies used in production annually

Average number of feature films produced 700 annually

Average number of short reel subjects, 1,500 excluding news reels, annually

Taxable motion picture property in the $720,000,000 United States

Percentage of pictures made in 84% California (1922)

Percentage of pictures made in New York 12% (1922)

Percentage of pictures made elsewhere in 4% United States (1922)

Foreign made pictures sent here for sale 425 (1992)

Foreign made pictures sold and released 6 for exhibition

Theatres running six to seven days per 9,000 week

Theatres running four to five days per 1,500 week

Theatres running one to three days per 4,500 week

Lineal feet of film exported in 1921 140,000,000

Lineal feet of film exported in 1913 32,000,000

Percentage of American films used in 90 foreign countries

Film footage used each week by news 1,400,000 reels

Combined circulation of news reels 40,000,000 weekly

Number of theatres using news reels 11,000 weekly

Amount spent annually by producers and $5,000,000 exhibitors in newspaper and magazine advertising

Amount spent annually by producers in $2,000,000 photos, cuts, slides, and other accessories

Amount spent annually by producers in $2,000,000 lithographs

Amount spent annually by producers in $3,000,000 printing and engraving

Hospitals and charitable institutions in 7,000 U. S. equipped for showing motion pictures, Jan. 1, 1923

The number of schools and churches in U. S. equipped for showing motion pictures, Jan. 1, 1923, almost equals the number of theatres.

Practically every State and Federal Penitentiary, Penal Institution and House of Detention in the U. S. shows motion pictures regularly to their inmates.

APPENDIX B

THE SCREEN AS A NEW LIFE GIVER TO LITERARY CLASSICS

The following quotations are culled from recent reports made by librarians in various parts of the United States:

“The filming of books always causes a great demand for them. A call comes immediately after the advertisement appears in local newspapers and lasts months, and, in cases where pictures are extraordinarily good, years after the film has been shown. Before the exhibition of the pictures, ‘Peter Ibbetson’ stood on the shelf. Dumas was read by few, and interest in ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ lagged. Since the films have been shown here, these books are circulating constantly.

“Not only do the films increase the demand for a particular book, but interest is aroused in the time and setting of the story. For instance, after ‘The Three Musketeers’ was shown, calls came for the life of Richelieu and the history of the reign of Charles First. Dumas is now in great demand. ‘Orphans of the Storm’ brought calls for the life of Danton and the history of the French Revolution. ‘Passion’ overwhelmed us with demands for the life of Dubarry and the life of Louis XIV.”

_Walnut Hills Librarian, Cincinnati, Ohio._

“I can say, most emphatically, that the filming of literary classics does have a very noticeable effect upon the reading of the books filmed. The increase in the demand and use of these books is noticeable from the very moment they are announced. ‘Robin Hood’ is on here now, and long before it first appeared, every scrap of our information on Robin Hood was out in use. Recently this was true of ‘The Prisoner of Zenda,’ a subject which has been dead for quite some time in library circulation and all at once it was revived with a tremendous demand. Not long ago we had a sudden call from many parts of the city for material about ‘Fanchon the Cricket’ and later learned that the film had been running in an obscure community moving picture house.”

_Charles E. Rusk, Librarian, Indianapolis, Ind._

“In some cases there is a demand for the books in foreign languages such as Italian and Hungarian, and the showing of ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ brought requests for the book in the original Spanish.”

_Librarian of Public Library, Cleveland, Ohio._

“Very often not only the story filmed is called for, but others by the same author. In the case of ‘Monte Cristo,’ it has led to a great demand for all the works of Dumas. ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’ has revived the interest in others of Mark Twain’s works.”

_Report by a New England Librarian._

“The screen creates a new demand on the part of those who have not themselves seen the picture. A middlewestern librarian tells me that many of their calls for the book come from those who have seen the advertising of the picture, or who have heard their friends talk about it, or who assume that a book which has found its way into motion pictures must be out of the ordinary. By way of anticipating and satisfying this demand, that librarian has kept a display rack of books in constant circulation by placing the sign above them: ‘These Books Have Appeared in the Movies.’”

_Ralph Hayes._

APPENDIX C

WHAT MASSACHUSETTS THINKS OF MOTION PICTURE CENSORSHIP

In 1921, the legislature of Massachusetts was induced to pass a censorship law. By petition it became a referendum matter and on November 7, 1922, the public of Massachusetts voted upon the question of whether or not the people desired a censorship of the motion picture. The people defeated the measure by a vote of 553,173 to 208,252, a majority of 344,921 against censorship.

It was the first time the public of any State had ever been given the opportunity to register its opinion on this important subject. Massachusetts is a conservative State. Its people are conservative people. They rejected censorship by a vote greater than that given to any candidate on the ticket or to any issue. Their voice at the polls was based upon a thorough understanding and consideration of this issue. In this work of enlightenment, the newspapers of Massachusetts performed a tremendous service to the motion picture. Ninety-two per cent of them stood staunchly upon the principle that freedom of expression upon the screen is just as essential to its further development as freedom of the press is essential to the continued enlightenment of mankind.

APPENDIX D

SIGNIFICANT DATES IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE MOTION PICTURE

Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mandé, of France, inventor of photography, born 1789, died 1851.

Desvignes, of France, devised apparatus for animated photography, 1860.

Du Mont, of France, formulated scheme of chronophotography, 1861.

Muybridge, an Englishman, photographs a trotting horse in motion, California, 1872.

Jansen’s photographic revolver for recording the transit of Venus, 1874.

Dr. E. J. Marey’s photographic gun for studying the flight of birds, 1882.

Stern filed patent in Great Britain for chronophotographic apparatus, 1889.

Roller photography invented by Eastman and Walker, 1885.

Eastman, an American, invents celluloid film, 1889.

Edison, an American, exhibits his Kinetoscope at Chicago World’s Fair, 1893.

Robert W. Paul, an Englishman, throws first movie picture on screen at his studio in Hatton Garden, London, early in 1895.

Paul shows movies at the Royal Institution, London, Feb. 28, 1896.

Paul and Sir Augustus Harris win success at the Olympia Theatre, London, with the “Theatograph,” 1896.

Richard G. Hollaman, an American, exhibits the cinematograph at his New York Eden Musée, 1896.

Charles Urban installs his new projector at the Eden Musée, 1897.

First topical film—the English Derby of 1896—was shown by Paul at the Alhambra, London, 1896.

APPENDIX E

WHAT THE MOVIE HAS DONE FOR A GREAT RAILROAD

A little over two years ago, the loss and damage bill of the Illinois Central Railroad, on carload and less-than-carload shipments, averaged more than $2,500,000 for a single year.

Seven months after motion pictures were adopted to educate employees in proper methods of freight handling, in connection with a vigorous campaign to improve the record, that expense was reduced a cool million dollars! The reduction has averaged approximately fifty per cent for the year. Best of all, the bill is still on the down-grade.

In addition to reels on “Loss and Damage,” the Illinois Central Railroad has produced other films on methods of engineering and switching. Its “visual education department” boasts a collection of 6000 slides, in addition to nearly half a million negatives of still photographs.

There are likewise motion pictures made expressly to educate farmers along the road’s right of way in modern scientific methods of poultry raising, soil treatment, dairying, potato culture, and packing produce for shipment. A force of industrial agents maintained by the railroad holds farmers’ meetings at which talks and films are the order of the day, and conducts field days and other get-together affairs where “the movies” constitute an always dependable attraction.

_Visual Education, March, 1923._

APPENDIX F

FACTS AND FIGURES SHOWING THAT THE SCREEN HAS BECOME THE FIRST WORLD CONQUEROR

Buenos Aires, Argentina, has 128 motion-picture theatres, with 2,250,000 paid admissions per month.

Montreal, Canada, supports over sixty motion-picture theatres.

Santiago, Chile, has twenty-three motion-picture theatres, and a new one is now in process of construction which will seat 2,500 people.

American films depicting exciting serial dramas and boisterous comedies are popular in China. Shanghai has 20 motion-picture theatres; Canton 15; Hongkong 8, Peking, Tientsin and Hankow 7 each.

The first motion-picture drama produced in China with a native cast was screened July 1, 1921, at the Olympic Theatre, Shanghai, by the Chinese Motion Picture Society.

In Greece there are about 40 motion-picture houses, 9 of which are in Athens.

In India, Burma and Ceylon there are about 168 motion picture houses, 16 of which are in Calcutta.

In Java there are 250 motion-picture theatres. American films are the most popular. One of the largest theatres seats 2,000 Europeans and 2,500 natives.

In Japan there are about 600 motion-picture theatres giving regular performances and about 2,000 more giving occasional performances. Tokyo has about 50 houses, Osaka 30, Kobe 15, and Kyoto 10. These theatres seat between 500 and 1,500 people.

There are in the Netherlands 170 licensed film theatres, with more than 50 other theatres, town halls and society rooms where films are occasionally shown.

Bergen, Norway, a city of 100,000 inhabitants, has seven motion-picture theatres, with a combined seating capacity of 4,000. Seventy-five per cent of the films shown are American.

Lisbon, Portugal, has 3 motion-picture theatres with a seating capacity of 800 persons each, and thirteen smaller houses seating about 400 each. There are about 120 motion-picture theatres in all Portugal. American picture films are rapidly increasing in popularity.

The largest motion picture theatre in Bucharest, Rumania, has a seating capacity of 1,200.

Sweden is better supplied with motion picture theatres than any country in the world. With a population of 6,000,000 it has over 600 cinema houses. Stockholm, with a population of 500,000, has 75 picture theatres.

Great Britain has about 4,000 motion-picture theatres. The largest and best appointed cinema theatres in the United Kingdom are found in the provincial towns of England such as Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Liverpool.

France has about 2000 picture theatres, Denmark 250, Belgium about 800.

APPENDIX G

MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC RELATIONS COÖPERATING WITH MOTION PICTURE PRODUCERS AND DISTRIBUTORS OF AMERICA, INC.

The Nat’l Society of the Sons of the American Revolution National Society Colonial Dames of America National Health Council Boys’ Club Federation American Historical Association The American Sunday School Union Chautauqua Institution National Safety Council American Home Economics Assn. The Nat’l Community Center Assn. Community Service American City Bureau Central Conference of American Rabbis Safety Institute of America Child Welfare League of America Playground and Recreation Association of America Commonwealth Club Actors’ Equity Association The Woodcraft League of America American Federation of Labor Jewish Welfare Board Girl Reserve Department of the Y.W.C.A. Russell Sage Foundation Camp Fire Girls The Council of Jewish Women National Committee for the Prevention of Blindness Nat’l Assn. of Civic Secretaries Cooper Union National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations Associated Advertising Clubs of the World Girl Scouts American Country Life Assn. Nat’l Tuberculosis Association American Child Health Assn. National Education Association Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America General Federation of Women’s Clubs The Academy of Political Science National Child Labor Committee American Civic Association International Federation of Catholic Alumnæ Nat’l Catholic Welfare Council War Dept. Civilian Advisory Board Young Women’s Hebrew Association The Girls’ Friendly Society in America The Nat’l Assn. of Book Publishers The Nat’l Security League Daughters of the American Revolution The International Committee of Y.M.C.A. N.Y. Child Welfare Committee Daughters of the American Revolution The Salvation Army Young Men’s Hebrew Association Nat’l Council of Catholic Women Girl Scouts American Museum of Natural History National Council of Catholic Men Dairymen’s League Co-operative Assn. National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Associations International Federation of Catholic Alumnæ American Library Association National Civic Federation Boy Scouts of America

● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that: was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).