Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-09-27
CATCHING UP WITH THE MOVIES
Industry That Strikes the Mind With by
Its Progressveness Than by It's Magnitude and Is Thus Like
the Auto Business-Shall the Church Lag Behind?
Bv REV. DAVID M. STEELE. ID.


THROUGHOUT my trip across the con-
l. tinent, but especially in California, and
notably in Los Angeles and San Francisco,
two things most of all claimed my attention.
This they did more than the fair at San
Diego or the Panama Pacific Exposition.
They were the automobile and the moving
picture industries. In these two places, in
peculiar ways, does one have this thought
fixed on both. 1t is small wonder since the
moving picture business is capitalized as
highly today in America as the steel trust,
and the auto sales, in the past year alone,
exceed the national debt of the United States.
This has set me thinking. Has the Church
anything like the progressiveness of these
two institutions? If not, why not? Is 1t
because 1t has not the same capital? Or is
1t because 1t lacks the same faith in its own
utility and the same confidence in it's own
future? Would that from either or both
of these, the Church might learn a lesson
and take couragel Transportation is a
mania of this age; the automobile is its
modern agency. Is religion less perma-
nent, a less abiding need? Education is a
fetish of the age, while recreation is another.
The cinematograph is educational and
recreational both. Is the Church content to
be and to do less2 Why should 1t be SO
much less popular than are the moving pic
ture places, which are omnipresent and
which everywhere are crowded to the doors?
From COwpath to Auto Road
I visited one day the busy offices of the
National Automobile Tourists Association at
San Francisco. There 1 learned that over
the main three transcontinental routes the
National Parks Highway, the Lincoln High
way and the Santa Fe Trail, there has been
an average of one party arriving every five
minutes in the day this summer at the coast.
OF these three modern roadways many por-
tions are beginning to rival in skillful en-
gineering the French highways and in scenic
grandeur the mountain passes of Switzer-
land. Added to these is the Pacific High
way, which is a complete system of road
ways north and south, connecting British
Columbia with the southern limit of Califor-
mia, total distance of 1000 miles. Along
this Canine Real, the motorist guides his
car over a road as perfect in it's way as is the
gently tempered climate, which makes the
trip a possible one at any time of the twelve
month. Who has built these roads, and why?
Many a Western citys Chamber of Com
merce has Joined in memorializing the ma
tional Government for the building OF better
roads from ocean to ocean, and from Canada
Their reasoning is something like this: Cows
make cowpaths from the pasture to the yard.
and ducks and geese from the pond to their
shelter at night. A savage is simply one
who dwells in the woods; no roads are
known to savage barbarism. Even early
civilization was content with a sufficient
trail along which the horsemen rode. But
with the invention of the first crude wheeled
vehicle came the necessity for something
more. II was observed in ancient times that
ell roads led to Rome. That city was the
centre OF the civilization OF its day; hence
roads were the concomitant and the insiR-
MIA OF the civilization OF the Eternal City IN
its pristine glory. With the further develop
ment OF civilization came the railroad. with
its steel tracks for freight and passenger
cars so that. TO write a history OF roads
from the cowpath and the trail to the trunk
line railroad, would be 70 write history OF
civilization; the two would go hand In hand.
with equal steps. on every page Of the his
tory Of the race.
Now something else has come. The auto
mobile has brought into existence the need
for systems OF smooth hard highways. Nor
is this reasoning only national; 1t has inter-
national Illustrations.
Cities Shifted Over Night
In southern California also is the centre of
the worlds moving picture industry. Here
are nearly so studios. housing from two 10
20 companies apiece. Millions of dolIars
are invested In these hlm- producing plants.
the annual payroll and the annual output
totaling a hundred millions more. Southern
California Is especially adapted 20 this new
est big business on account OF its climate.
sunny days and picturesque scenery. Among
all these. In a class by itself. Il Universal
City just out OF Los Angeles. IL Is In the
foothills OF the San Fernando Valley. II Is
the only city IN the world built solely Tor
notion picture production. This magic place
can be changed 10 few days 70 conform to
any nationality required as = At sestlns. IN