Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1915-02-17
YOUNG AMERICAN PUT
POPE IN THE MOVIES

y. sS . wv Va
IN the American Magazine, Cleveland
Moffett writes the story of the remark
able adventures of Il young American
who persuaded the pope to appear in.
motion pictures. The title Of the articles
is Doing the IMPOSSIBLE the
man who accomplished this piece OF
work is James Slevin. who spent IS
months at the task. To accomplish his
purpose he learned Italian, showed the
pope all sorts of fiims--even made spe-
cial motion pictures of the king of Eng
land to use as an argulnent--and final
iy succeeded in removing every objec-
ZION. One q a good Catholic, who
tried to get moving pictures OF the pope,
was communicated for his over zeal.
Another spent $1,000 at the task and
tailed. Mr.. SleVin succeeded because
he was ~tactful. ingenious and persist
ent almost beyond comprehension. AS
a result of his efforts, Pope Plus x
posed for the pictures. and 800. 1000 900
Catholics and others can see him in the
movies. How success finally met MIR.
Sievin's efforts is described i'm the fol-
lowing passage taken from the article.
The reader should remember that MIR.
Slevin had spent is months at the job
when the events described below hap
pened-and 1t ooked as if failure were
staring him i'm the face:
FINALLY. one day in the early sum
mer of 1914 the American called upon
Cardinal Merry Del Val and announced
his departure for America. And he
begged the cardinal to accept a little
souvenir which he desired to offer to
his holiness.
There is no need of a souvenir
said the cardinal, YOU will be pleas
antly remembered here.
The American Insisted. however.
that he wished to spare his holiness
future annoyance in connection With
motion picture exhibitions, and had
collected from various motion picture
companies in America "a large number
of the best films that he could find,
On all suitable subjects. These films
they were worth thousands of dollars)
he was presenting to the vatican with
gratitude for lsindnesses and honors,
together with u very fine projecting APP
paratuS. The pope could now nave his
own motion picture entertainments.
The cardinal was much pleased with
this generous gift and assured his en- =
terprising friend that If it had been
possible to grant the motion picture
privilege to anyone it would have gone
to Slevin. Whereupon the American
expressed himself as happy at this
mark of confidence, and withdrew.
II had done all that ! could think
OF for the moment" explained Slevin
and if my efforts had failed."-he
III - slli)OSS L SuOulu 10N0
found some other way to get those pic
lures
But his efforts did not fail. A few
days later Il note cam saying that if
MIR. Slevin would present himself at
a certain door of the vatican at a rer-,
tain hour with his motion picture APP
paratus it was possible there would
be- developments of q nature tina would;
much interest him.
THE developments We're that he was
allowed to take a motion picture of
Plus X in an imposing And
on subsequent occasions he was given
similar opportunities to take other
scenes In the vatican. other motion pic
lures of his holiness in other cere-
monies, n to take motion pictures In
st. Peters and in the Sistine Chapel,
motion pictures of the pop addressing;
vast audiences from the balcony of the
vatican. motion pictures of cardinals,
archblshops, royal chair bearers, mace
bearers. trunnpters, chamberlains of the
Sword and Cape also the famous Swiss
Noble guard. marching and drilling in
the papal court. In short, he was al
lowed to get the pictures that he had
come to Rome to get and that no one
else had been able to get.
l don't know exactly how it came
about explained Slevin. You might
say that never had formal permission
to take those pictures. / just went
ahead and took them. and no one OBJ
jected or paid any attention to me. 1
was never obstructive and never asked
for anything. but things seemed to hap
pen in a wonderful way. Doors would
open and professions would come along
and the pope would appear, just as 1
had my picture machine ready. I think
they saw l was sincere and they felt the
force of my arguments. although thew
could not say 80 officially and. sum-
ming 1T all UP, 1 guess it was a case
where you onquer by yielding"