Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1916-11-08
IOWA OPINION AND NOTES.

IOWA OPINION AND NOTES.
taE 52.5 I'll 800 .------ " W. Is 49, q
Politics is at 1t Is. When q fight is
on one must fight with the weapons
that are at hand. anyway, one does, :
says the Sioux City Journal But 1t
is foolish to keep UP the fight after the
issue has been settled. Lets ali drop
the hammers, and try to get back to q
neighborly basis"
The Burlington Hawkeye says. THE
layman finds many things hard to un.
Thus the Rock Island system has been
making fine progress under a receiver.
And 1t is stated that therefore steps
are being contemplated to take the
road out Of the receivership and place
it into the hands of the stockholders.
The innocent layman would suppose
that it would be the proper thing to
leave the road in charge Of the man
or men who have succeeded in turning
big deficit into very handsome
profit"
The farmer has as much right to
have mail addressed to his home post
office-the place nearest his home and
where he does his trading-as the city
man has to have his own mail ad-
dressed to that city," declares the Day.
export Times.
The Sioux City Tribune says Henry
Ford is more than manufacturer.
He is an institution"
Nobody loses anything by living in
Iowa. says the Davenport Democrat.
Even the soldiers on the border save
their vote. which would be true Of few
other states" -sr.t
The Movies Versus the Dime Novel.
Censorship, insofar as it. has gone,
is an acknowledged farce. National
censorship does not work, local cen-
sorship is a failure, and federal CEN
sership is being fought tooth and nail.
And. in the meantime, 1000, 900 oof our
boys and girls are sitting daily In bad
ly ventilated, unsanitary amusement
halls. while their youthful. impression
able brains are being fed on pictures
OF sordid crime and saiacious passion
which, if presented in the spoken
police on the opening night
Nearly four hundred millions of dol
lars annually are paid by the Amer
lean public to see moving pictures. If
that amount of money or one-half of 1t
were spent on good clean movies. the
educational effect on the minds and
morals of our country would be tre74
mendous. ..aE
Twenty years ago the dime novel
was the bette noir of every careful
mother. Boys sneaked them into the
house and hid them between mat
tresses so they could read them after
bedtime In homes that boosted OF
three or four sons these tabued publi-
cations could be found under the rugs
in the parlor. hidden between the back
and the seat of the mahogany daren-
port, and on the stairs between the
carpet and the cotton pads. But you
who have read these lurld sheets viii
recall that, while they were full Of,
cheap melodrama, the crook always
was sent to jail and the hero was al
way good, clean fellow who won
out by honest fighting. Women were
protected at any cost.
That erstwhile menace Of the home
the dime novel-7was a Sunday school
sheet compared with some OF the NOV
ing pictures that boys Of an impress
sionable age see today. The sons OF
the fathers who once bought dime
novels are now spending that same
amount to see moving pictures which
show them how to rob safe, or how
to forge a check. or how TO choke a
Of oil NJ
distorted sexual life. : s.. Ec
AT least 25t per cent of the people
who go ro-the@ movies are. under 16
years of age. and the answer to the
world-old question Where il my
wandering boy tonight finds as al
logical answer. AT the movies"
certain well-known educator made
survey Of the pictures shown in city
of West Virginia. This report read.
Good and not bad pictures, IS per
cent; bad and very bad. 70 per cent
Drink was shown in 80 per cent and
gun play and murder in SO per cent"
The better class of producers ac-
knowledge these facts and are fighting
for clean pictures-to purge the indus
try They and their pictures should
be supported by all risht-minded peo-
Pile on the other hand certain other
producers clamor against any kind OF
regulation, arguing that it will take the
life out of the movies That Is not
what the public wants; it wants to|
take the death out Of them, as one
clever critic puts it, death to every
good moral feeling, and everything the
best of our race holds dear Granted
that the moving picture industry ii
not a charitable institution, 1t would
be worth while finding out how many
good, clean, wholesome, patriotic pic
lures of domestic dramas and COM
edies have been financial failures
Have not the most successful, the
longest lived. movie plays been OF the
unobjectionable type?-Pfctorial Re
view.