Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-02-23
Y. M. C. A. MOVIES
PLEASE BOYS IN
TRAINING CAMPS
Army and Navy Associations
Are Worlds Biggest
Exhibitors

Movies tonight" cautiously
queries the American counterpart of
Files on Parade" to the high pri-
Vate at his elbow
Movies Tonight" Jack eagerly
asks as he gets his three day leave
atter safely completing his last jaunt
to France.
Movies tonight" is the stock
inquiry in every Y. NJ. c. A. build
ing.
Movies tonight" affirm hun
areds of Army and Navy Y. NJ. C.
A. secretaries from Portland, Maine,
TO San Diego, California, and from
vancouver, Washington. to Key
west, Florida
Good!' is the satisfied comment
OF tens of thousands of Sammies and
Jackles and Marines all over the
length and breadth of the land.
~ is pretty much as an old timer.
one OF these picturesque military
institutions. the Regular Army drill
sergeant put it: "Soldierin' amt
what it used to be. With the inocu-
latin and the vaccinatin" and the
paradln there amt nothing to get
SICK or grochy about, and you amt
really got any kick comm But if
you think you have, there's always
the W movies to go to, and there
you forget all about it,"
Ihe doughty old soldier was right:
soldering is not what it used to be.
NO constructive provision was made
Tor the old-timer's hours of leisure.
IIhe odds then were all in favor of
the ever-be-setting influences that
degrade.
Now all that is changed. Wher-
ever he goes, the soldier and the
sailor finds the Red Triangle at
hand to minister his social. recrea-
uonal, and religious needs and to
stimulate the mental side of life in
war time.
There is its hundreds of huts and
tents, its thousands of secretaries. it's
athletic activities, it's entertain
ments and stunts" it's educational
classes in English and French and
the entire long list of modern aca-
demic courses, its voluntary relig-
lous meetings, its sings s'-and last
but by no means least, it's movies.
In the Eastern Department at
present more than $50 movie pro-
grams are given monthly in sixty
seven camps and naval stations in
these six states. over $50 moving
picture machines are used, including
both fixed and portable types.
The Eastern Department is now
running 5,241,500 feet of film month
ly for the entertainment of our
boys in khaki and blue. That is each
month the Y. M. C. A. will show in
its 120 odd buildings in this depart
ment the equivalent of film more
than 954.S miles long.
From the New York City office
of the Community Motion Picture
H. fnI1 -. = l.,
distributing agent for practically all
the films shown by the Y. NJ. C. A,
between four and five million feet of
film is the total recorded weekly as
being distributed through it's eight
offices. When the full quota of Army
"Y" buildings called for are in oper-
alton, seven and a half million feet
of film will be required weekly.
If one man were to watch a pic
ture the aggregate length of time
that all the soldiers and sailors in
the country watch the movies every
two weeks. that man will still have
a century to sit and watch, assuming
that he first sat down before the
screen at the beginning of the Chris
tian era and had remained there
eight hours day, six days a week
ever since.
With the American eXpeditionary
forces, too. the Red Triangle movies
are shown, secured lover there"
mostly from European producers.
many is the dull hour, the home
sick heart and the disconsolate
"Sammie" that is relieved by the
click, click of the projectors crank
and the alluring magic of the screen.
The Army and Navy Y. NJ. C. A.,
through the Community Motion Pic
ture Bureau, is now showing more
film at more places every night than
any other one agency; it is the big
gest moving picture exhibitor in the
world to-day, and all of it's shows
are free to our soldiers and sailors.