The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1918-06-06

countries TO your door.
1t flashes before you the frightful
scenes of earth's bloodiest battles; it
makes the customs and manners of
other peoples familiar to you; it shows
you the world and its people marching
up and down before your eyes.
1t appeals to all classes. Educated
and ignorant, native and foreign born
crude and cultured. working man and
professional. country and city bred and
to every temperament and taste. 1t
can be mighty instrument for good or
of evil. Which shall it be?
1t is commercial asset. 1t will stay
because it pays and you can't eradicate
it from the business world.
In 1915 there were produced some
5000 plays not counting those previous
ly produced. Single plays, it is said,
have been witnessed by as many as
eight million people.
Judging by the money invested in and
handled by the moving picture business,
as commercial asset 1t is second out
side of agriculture. The question is,
what are we going to do with it? The
answer involves several propositions,
which are given by writer in leading
paper of our country.
l. "Is it fundamentally bad? If so
all consistent persons must as a matter
of principle oppose it.
2. Is it fundamentally good? If so
then all good people must approve it.
We cannot claim that either of these
propositions are true.
8. If 1t is neither fundamentally bad
or good, then it must be good or bad
according to its use or abuse.
4. whether it is used or abused,
will be determined by the policy of the
public toward it"
5. IF the thinking, cultivated. dis
eliminating, public spirited and in
huential men and women formulate an
adequate public policy it will be good
6. If such people do not form such
a public policy then an inadequate public
policy will be formulated by the inertia
of untutored, thoughtless indiscriminat-
ing masses of intoxicated pleasure and
amusement seekers, and the moving
pictures will be bad. That it is bad in
much of its work and many of its ex-
hibitions cannot be denied by intelli-
gent persons who have done even a
little investigation.
1t enjoys too much, the border line of
morals and conduct. Here it is open to
just and severe criticism. 1t goes as
far as 1t dares. not unfrequently appeal
ing to the baser element of our nature
and arousing thoughts and creating i'm
pressions that, to say the least, verge
on the immoral and impure. They are
unsuited for promiscuous presentation
to the masses especially children To
this class it loves to appeal and from
them it draws much of its patronage.
What thoughtful person would think
of taking a child or youth on a mighty
Summing tour to witness the wiles of
the scarlet woman, infdelity to the
martial life, the fires of hate and
prejudice and the destroying of the
sanctities of home? Yet this is what
is being dished up and seasoned and
made attractive by many a moving
picture house to children and the lnds-
eliminating masses and the weak who
easily fall d prey to suggestion.
A large per cent. of the audience is
children. 1t is generally conceded that
the child's pleasure should be active
rather than passive and in the open air
rather than indoors. The plays are in
tended for adults, but the child grasps
certain details and often in the most
revolving aspects. The effect then is
moral distortion and often nervous dis
organization. The influence of pictures
is very great and our Sunday news
papers that have an edition of so called
funny pictures are educating the youth,
but unfortunately in the wrong direction.
Impressions are made that will be in
delible. Wrong ideas are inculcated;
false notions of life that color the en-
tire way. Feed the child mind on that
kind of stuff and you will not realize
the great self sacrificing discipline of
moral beauty. THE funny pictures, 4"
of our papers are for the most part
denominations, flung out for the money
they bring, even at the expense of the
morals, culture and best interests of
those who study them. The world is
pleasure mad now adays.
In one of the leading colleges of the
land the undergraduates spend 81, $780,
900 year for pleasure. The price of
personal adornment is $500, 900. Cigars
and cigarettes total 500, 900, wines and
liquors cost $78, 500 or more than SO, 900
more than the cost of books. Sweet
meats cost $1,000, but boquets for the
girls is put at $23, 900. Garage expenses
were $88, 700 while taxi bills reached
TIL,