The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1922-06-13

Here was Il great new invention thdt
burst upon the world. Here was a
great vacuum Of need and demand to
be flied. Men who had the vision
who saw the opportunity and the pcs
sbihties Of profit, rushed into It,
Their accomplishment in The last dec
ade has been ike an Arabian Nights
story. And there can 1e little Won
der that these crowded years have
been in some respects a period OF
chaos. In the old days when gold was
discovered in California there was a
mad rush for it and in the strife Of
feverish competition men struggled
and fought. 1t is far cry from that
to the development Of this industry,
mt there is not an entire absence Of
analogy. Certainly there is no anal
ogv between the development Of this
industry and any other industry. We
have had competition of the ferceSt
kind. There has been no time for ad-
eouafe reflection. The mere physical
and mechanical expansion has been
so great and so rapid that there has
not been time and there has not been
the mood to consider in the midst OF
these early years of mad scramble
to consider adequately the moral and
educatonanl responsibilities and op-
portunities inherent in this new thing.
Now, at the end of this period OF
incredibly compressee physical, me-
chanical, financial and artistic devel-
epment these men.fnd themselves not
only the responsible leaders and Gus
todians of one of the greatest indus
tries Of the world, with limitless COM
mercial possibilities and perhaps n'9re
income than all the public utilities +
the country combined, with tots>
investment in real estate, studios,
equipment and properties of over
100000, with possibly over
$4,000 people constantly employed
and s50,O00,OO0 paid annually in cal
aries and wages, with $780, 100000
paid annually for admissions and pos
sibly $500, 100000 spent annually in
production with annual turnover in
the business of S1,000,00o,0OO-not
only are they the leaders and custo-
dians of such an industry, but also
thew find themselves the responsible
leaders and cutodians of an lnstru-
ment and means of an entirely i'm
measurable usefulness in educational
and moral influence.
Scope of the Opportunity
Now let us see what we have. First
of all, note the scope of the oppor-
tunity. In the United States-in all
the big cities and in all those maple
shaded towns and villages that com
pose America-there are perhaps fif-
teen thousand motion picture thea
ters and in those theaters sixteen
million seats. Taking into account
the at least twice a day performance
and applying the collected statistics,
we estimate that within every twenty
four hours between Maine and Cali
fornia twenty million American men,
women and children come to look for
ar hour or two on the motion picture
screen. They come with no other
preoccupation, they come indeed in
mood which has deliberately put out
of their minds all other distractions.
They come not out of duty, as they
90 to work or to school; they come
not out of solicitation, as they 60 to
political or other public meetings;
they come cut of their own wish and
inclination They come, in short,
in a mood of relaxation. of reception
in precisely that state of mind and
emotion in which master psycholo-
g5st, a great teacher, would want
them to come, having in mind the de-
sire to make the strongest impression
upon them, to have them in the most
plastic state for the receiving and
holding of impressions. If man had
the wish to influence the thought Of
the nation towards common ideals
he could not more intelligently create
a situation better adapted to that
purpose.
Now that is our opportunity.
What then shall we do with it? The
first and most important thing is that
there shall be no attempt to do too
much with it. First of all there must
be no notion of implanting particular
ideas. Our first duty must be to