The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1921-11-03
of our wars has just ended.

bl our WAITS HAS JUST tlluNus
l should say that the popular hero of
America today is Henry Ford
When he makes some changes in his
plant and pays his debts, the public
is so interested that the metropolitan
newspapers print three and four col
umns on their front pages about It.
and continue to comment for days.
Now we will make comparison.
II person were to show a motion
picture ten times better than any yet
made; and he were to show this with
music better than any ever composed
In America; and II he were to give
away as a souvenir volume OF poetry
far better than any yet written In
America: and he were to have painted
on each of these volumes a miniature
better than anything yet by an Amer
lean artist-do you suppose If this
were done, the newspapers of this
country would give It three columns
on the front page?
To Awaken America.
Indeed not, and the editors would be
silly to give such space for If they did
the public would be largely bored For
people don't care to be artists and are
MT particularly interested in what ar
lists achieve.
But the hero has been changed from
the soldier to the Industrial leader; and
| think In fifty years. or perhaps a hun
dred. America will awaken to an ap-
probation of art. When it does, think
the golden era of art will come again
for whatever interests US as people,
that we can do better than anyone else
Perhaps motion pictures will do more
to stimulate this artistic interest than
any other force. One must remember
that our children today, ten. twelve
fourteen years old, have had more
dramatic experience than all their an
cestors combined.
Take your own family. How many
plays each year did your father see
and his father? Three or four, or less
And as we go back, the less plays they
saw until in the time OF the masques
only one in many years--if ever.
So we have a peculiar condition in
our audiences--a dramatically mature
audience Of youths and dramatically
youthful audience in our adults. with
no intent to strain for a paradoxical
quip, it Is truth that the older mo-
tIon picture audience is, the younger 1t
is; and again, the younger II is, the
older II is
They Ask Censor.
of the history Of the stage, its conven-
tions, customs, privileges, liberties or
experiences. They see nothing in mo-
tion pictures that has been common to
the stage for a hundred years, yet, be-
cause they are superlatively ignorant
Of stage drama, they are horrifed at
something that is absolutely common
place to the play-goer.
With confidence that only such
prospering Ignorance can bring. these
persons are determined that the public
shall not see these things which they
think shouldn't be seen. This is the
type that demands the censor
SO the censor now will have to play
with pictures for few years until
they get tyrannical and are cast out. or
become merely clerical and unimport-
ant.
Censorship is an IDEAL and when you
try to localize an ideal In three per-
sons who need their small salaries and
play politics to get them, 1t isn't diff
cult to believe that the ideal may get
jostled The type of mind that demands
censorship has advanced the argument i
that we censor meats and therefore |
should censor pictures, and I presume
they would feel quite satisfied to have
the same person decide the fitness OF a
pigs carcass and a Aim.