The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-22
LETTERS TO EDITOR
MOVIES ANn MORALITY

While many newspapers are mug zled through fear of losing adver- Using patronage of the movies, it is refreshing to find 8 great number of others like The Age Herald which are outspoken in denouncing the moral rottenness surrounding most of the moving picture actors and pro- motors, of whom the Arbuckle case (outside of its fatality, as pointed out by you) is not an isolated case, but is more or less typical
 one of the newspapers in this city Is owned by this interest, and while otherwise all right, it is becoming monotonous to wade through two if it's pages looking for news that's fit to print from my viewpoint, and find them surrounded by pie lures and gossip of persons who are mostly moral lepers but who pre- tend to "uplift" people by indirection, although at particular time they are as liable as not to be raising hades and putting blocks under it with oth- CTS Ol easy NlIluGs AS iiuAidh Q is at present constituted it may be expecting too much of those who spend considerable of their time de- lineating characters in sordid plots with stuffed clubs and custard pies to spend their leisure like normal people.
 Goodnes only knows there are all kinds of room for improvement in the state of matrimony, but to a great many people it savers too much of the devil quoting scripture to be receiving first aid and comfort in marital matters from persons of both sexes who differ only from oldtime Mormons in driving tandem instead of abreast. Especially during the past two ! years the promoters most of the alleged vaudeville jokes have been glorifying personal lib- erty" While not saying so in so many words, they have by implication Dcti ouNOCdkiH6 u SO dS yOu PlCdoCt knock 'em down, kick 'em over, and everybody for himself and God for us all," as the elephant said when he danced among the chickens. They have sometimes made me feel like the representative of a western legis- lature at an early day who had been listening to his fellow members put ting through measure so extreme finally rose and asked if a man would be allowed to pay his debts if he wanted to.
 Several weeks ago the Boston newspapers devoted whole pages to the trial of states attorney named Tufts for dereliction, and among many other accusations it was shown as one of the by-products that s100,000 to lawyers and others to hush up what they regarded as "a good time" with soiled doves in 8 suburban house of shady reputation.
 
 effect box office receipts which is their yardstick of either absolute CT relative goodness), their chief concern was that it would reach the ears of their wives and children--which was something else again. Otherwise the public could be what Vanderbl. said for all they cared, and anyway millions seem to like their sort of they like. Of course, all movies do not corrupt play and caricature Of the police; but the victims in most cases are too stupidly innocent, and the betrayers too graspingly villain ous to seem real. As for the Polly anna stuff, even D. W. Griffith says that it is not the philosophic gold many people take 1t to be, but only false philosophy of gilded bunkum."
 A New York alienist, in referring to Arbuckle, admitted that alcohol short circuits restraint and frees the beast beneath the veneer" but in
  prohibition and the quality of the Volstead act. To man up a tree it would seem as if a bad matter was only made worse under the license system and prohibition in spots when 1t is remembered that the booze in use increased appetite so that the per capita consumption of all .,yo a from nc gallons in 1880 to 23 gallons in 1907. Violating laws prohibiting liquors as a beverage is liable to happen all most anywhere nowadays, but going to extremes in their defiance is about what might be expected in California, ! which gave majority of s0,000 votes against laws to enforce an amend ment to the constitution. As for vio- lation of other than liquor laws, the marriage vows are broken more Tn the three Pacific coast states, to- gether with adjoining Nevada. than elsewhere in the United States. lr the past thirteen years in California more divorced persons than widowed | persons have remarried. In Nevada | the ratio of divorces to marriages IS l to Is: in Oregon, l to 2.o; in Wash l inston. to 4 and in California l to 1 5. There are six counties in the | whole country where divorces ex | ceed marriages. Two of them are 1T | oregon, one in Nevada, and another in California.
 | HUGH M CLARK.
 Jacksonville, Fla, September ls.
 STATE FAIR PRICES
 TO the Editor of The Age-Herald: Your paper has always stood foi ! ,,, rfrhfs of the paoule and has aided