The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1911-04-28

Anywhere, everywhere, you find them In the
United States you will have to hunt town of
less than 1000 inhabitants if you wish to escape
the moving pictures.
Five millions of Americans daily visit these
shows
The exhibitors pay $1S,0OO000 a year for their
films The public pays S575OOOOO year to see
them.
Mr.. Edison has an average weekly royalty
therefrom of IS ,000
So it is a pretty big business. pretty thor
oughly organized quite universal in its reach.
soap-bubbly in It's universally.
The child of the poor with clay pipe and the
suds from the weekly wash, can have just as
good time any rich young fellow with an I'M
ported meerschaum and the best CASTLE.
So it is with the movingpicture shows 1t re-
quires little capital to run them long room,
easily darkened, ninefeet square patch of white
CLOTH some benches for the spectators an oper.
ator at ten dollars week, and rented film now
takes the place of a company of actors, stage
scenery, properties lights and a properly
equipped building. And the poor boy gets as
much value for his nickel as the rich boy can get
for any number of dollars
Yet they run into dangers that no soapbubbles
can allure Fire is Of these the most patent
OF the moral dangers We will speak later. 1t
is through the moral soap-bubble that we can see
more clearly the moving pictures gossamer
tinsel
Fire however, is the first and most vital dan
ger. The Charity Bazaar fire in Paris in which
so many women were tramped to death by cow
ardly men, was caused by the fall of a spark
upon some ceuloid moving-picture films which
had been dropped into basket In Canton 600
men, Cinnamon. were burned to death in fire
in a moving-pcture show house In Quito Ecua-
dor, fifty men and women lost their lives in a
similar calamity
1t speaks well for the widespread and con-
6 of tha fro orto -
United States that no great catastrophe has vet
come to the moving picture houses of this
country
Lives have not been lost in the moving picture
shows. Lives have been lost through the moving.
picture shows
Where the dime and nickel novels sug-
gested ways of crime to unbalanced youth the
moving picture has come to make a more ready
and more potent appeal. The printed word Is
never ardent with impressionable mind as
the acted word
Several ways have been thought of to lessen
these obvious evils. Charles Sprague Smith, late
chief OF the Peoples Institute in New York
thought he had solved the problem when he In
duced the manufacturers of the moving pictures
to agree to a national board of censorship
The manufacturers good trade diplomats
readily assented. and then saw to It that the
board of censorship should be advisory and not
antagonistic The result is that many pictures
that create havoc among youthful minds when
shown on the public screens get by" the ma
tional board of censorship
No, This bubble that Edison has oosed upon
will play itself out Just far as the instincts
of the whole people of this country will permit;
no farther no sooner.
One night went to prize fight. Only men
were present. The casual observer might have
said they were all tough men. After the fight
canvas erected in the ring and an an
nouncer said AN exclusive film will now be
shown to the members of this club"
The picture proved to be of French manufac-
ture and portrayed a vile situation in a dive
Instantly Kisses and a storm of execration burst
from the audience. The running of the film was
stopped and the picture removed before It was
all shown. Grim silence greeted the removal of
the canvas
The crowd that gloried in the action of the