Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-06-23
MOVIES ON SHIP
AND TRAIN HIS
PREDICTION
Picture Shows Only in Their In
fancy, Says President of Ex-
hibitors' League of America.

NEW YORK, June ga Neff
President of the Motion Picture Fx-
hibltors' League Of America who hos
just arrived to make arrangements
for the annual convention of +ba
league, predicts historical libraries
composed of moving picture films.
and ocean steamers and Iong-dis-
tance trains equipped with motion
picture shows, These, Mr.. Ner
prophecies, will be in existence with
in half a dozen years.
Although our league was only or
ganized September u, 1910, we now
nave thirty eight State leagues" said
Mr.. Neff. "The State of Maine will
organize another one next Monday.
There are no manufacturers in our
league and none is connected with IT.
We are not an association of man
ayers but Of men who own theaters. A
man cannot belong to the league un-
less ne owns at least part of a thea
ter or course, we co-operate with
manufacturers but we also co-ODer-
ate with many humane societies. We
are now running tuberculosis slides in
ana OF campaign our tuberculosis
League in Cincinnati is waging.
U. S. Surpasses in Films.
The motion picture business is
the largest business in the world to-
DAY. In the United States alone there
are 1900 moving picture shows. and
these represent an outlay of ANY,
where from $1,000 to S15O,O00 apiece.
while some are being built now that
viii go beyond the higher figure"
Is 1t true that the hest films nova
days are made abroad?" he was ask
ed.
mo; America makes the best films
in the world. 1t has all the other
countries skinned to a finish. Ameri-
can manufacturers make from So to
30 per cent of the films used abroad
Several American manufacturers are
establishing plants in other coun-
tries.
80 many new things are contin-
ually coming up in the moving pic
ture business that you can hardly
pick up paper in the morning and
not find some new development. The
time is not far distant when every
ocean passenger steamer will be
equipped with a first-Cl picture
show. That would be a paying in
vestment You have your audience
right there on the boat and it can't
get away. You could give the same
show every night and the chances
are you would gather in the whole
crowd, because there would not be
any rival attraction.
Every long distance train will
have a car fitted up containing a mo-
ton picture show. l believe that every
first class railroad station in the
country will sooner or later have a
motion picture waiting room. It
would be the best way in the world
for persons who are waiting for trains
to kill time. Instead Of having mega
phones roaring out announcements in.
different parts Of a great station,
these would be thrown on the NOV
ing picture curtain and everybody
would read that a train was ten min
utes late or that a train was COM
ing in on track "a, and so on.
Great Aid to Press.
THE motion picture has come ire
mendously to the fore as a dissent
nator of news 1t has become a ire
mendOus auxiliary to the press, be-
cause people see with their own eyes
portrayals of events that the papers
have just told them had happened.
! predict that within a very few years
a great historical library Of motion
pictures will be founded. The his
torian who has been writing the his
tories of countries for centuries, aft
or all. presents these histories from
the standpoint of one man, who has
gathered his information from other
men. No two men who witness an
automobile accident will describe
that accident exactly alike, though
both may be truthful. When you
show by a moving picture how the
accident happened, you nave rec
ord that cannot be questioned. How
much would we give to-day for pic
lures showing Abraham Lincoln de-
liVering his Gettysburg address or
Grant receiving the surrender of Lee
at AppOmattOX; or, to go back FUR
Their, Of Washington crossing the
Delaware. Mere stories of those events
cannot give the inspiration that NOV
ing pictures could The public gem
orally does not know that the NOV
ing picture man has planted the
American flag in every city and town
of the world where civilization eX-
lists. and that he has given people Of
all the countries of the world an OPP
portunity to realize what this coun-
try over here is like. As an educa-
tor, especially with regard to teach
ing unraveled people about the
United States, the moving picture
has done inCalculable service.F
Christy Mathewson finally mas awak-
ened to the fact that the Phillies have