The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-26
Tue MOUieS
0 OCAsIONALBY some one writes supef-
By pR. FRANK CRANE

NGGASIOHALLI some one writes supef- .A ciliously of the moving-pieture show,
 of how cheap 1t is, hence degrading and bad for the youth.
 Any time you want to secure reputation for being a superior person, not at all ordi. nary, but exceeding fine,haired and high.bred and uppish, sit down and write contemp- tnously of something the mob likes The very fact that the multitude loves 1t shows it's naughty; for the first principle of snobbery is that what the multitude likes is low.
 Then, after awhile when you get more sepse which, pray God may come soon to pass!- you will be moved to resign your seat among the forty immortal elect, scratch their motto out of your copy-book, and learn that the In- stincts of the great mass of humanity are more to be trusted than the epigFams of the hoity-toity
 As for me and all the girls and boys in our block, we do sincerely give thanks for the movies.
 have nothing to say against the 'iegit," Only, there are a lot of people who cannot afford to spend from g to $5, or even 50 cents on an evenings entertainment, and no shame to them.
 But it's many and many who cannot do this, and must fatn set down in little book even street-car fare, and who have to look sharp for room rent, these need amusement more than do the residents on Easy street.
 The people go to the Movies,
 Not only because they are cheap, however. There are some other things that are cheap to them nobody goes; lectures, for instance.
 We go because the Movies are good.
 Their range of subjects is high. You really absorb deal of useful information, never remember getting any information to speak of in q $5 seat,
 They are artistie. You see real Iife-trees that are trees, and not painted canvas; horses actually running on mountain roads, and not on tFeadmiu apparatusi sure enough water, and not waves made of blue cloth, with stage hands waliowing under 1t.
 At a movie you are not tortured with the torture of the Engiiah language. There is no talking If thare's anything to say it's printed. Here the leading lady does not turn her back to you and mutter Heaven knows what, nor the leading man mouth semsthing no one can hear, and that Fieht at the crit ical moment. You get all that is taking place, and hence your moneys worth, even t 1t is only five cents
 If you go up in the gallery yOu;can smoke, Thank heaven, there's one warm spot where q man may commit his genial and soothing sin without the housekeepeF shooting him out to tho barn, or q gentleman in | soiied white tic inviting him to leave.
 The real refined gentry complain of the cinema as being low and vulgar. can only say that have frequented film shows in Rome, Florence and the mountain towns of Italy, in Paris and French villages, in Lon don on the Strand and Chepstow on the Wye, in Keokuk, Saint J0, French Lick, Chicago and New York, and never saw one indenecy nor one picture I would not want my boy to see. They may have them, but I missed them.
 On the contrary, I haye seen Dantas 'In- ferno" and Tasso's "Jerasaiem Delivered" and the story of Moses in EsSpt set forth in fidelity and with artistic perfection, I know my Dante as well ab the next non,pFotesslonal person, and went three times to see his divine comedy at the cinema in Rome (the one on the Piazza del Termel, and not more vivid impressions than 1 ever did from the notes of Cassini or the lectures at the Dante Foundation in Florence. And the beauty of it is that took the little GanaVaciol children and the two Casey boys (visiting), and they had as much fun as I and glory be to the saints that doesn't spoil thing for me.
 But it's dark in the movies, and boys and girls hold hands More power to their arms myself when young held Hands in church, and the upshot of it was a girl married me, and still has me, and may like fate fall on all young villains!
 hope to see the day when there will be . movie In every school house, for ana sure they are beyond books and preecpts.