Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-12
Amusement Stocks
Assume Leadership
In Market Advance
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
Show Strength at Re.
cent Sessions.
BY LEMUEL F. PARTON.

NEW YORK, March 12.-Caesar
Augustus had been around the Roman
world a lot and knew pretty well what
people wanted. When times got haro,
the Senate proposed bread and clrcuses.
There Is no shorthand record OF Caesars
reply, but Sallust paraphrases 1t some
thing like this:
you've got it the wrong way about.
Give them circuses and bread, rather
than bread and circuses. In fact, II we
give them plenty of circuses, the bread
will almost take care of itself"
Those who have been selling human
nature short are covering today. Amuse-
ment stocks are up in front in the
market comeback. Three have MADE
new highs for the year.
Recent Advances.
Even Fox Film, in the midst of big
receivership dog fight, Is close to It's
peak for the year and has more than
doubled its low Of 1873. Warner
Brothers hit 70. new top for all time,
in Mondays trading. Radio Keith
orpheum was up points for the day.
Eastman Kodak touched a new years
high, reaching 22912, topping its
previous high of 228, after a climb
from 1854 Paramount hit I'M, only
one-fourth of q point below its previous
high for the year. Reynolds Tobacco
touched 57%, new high Tor the
year.
In fact, Monday market gains re-
Elected almost entirely the more
frivolous side of life. Nobody seemed to
be yearning for steel, gas copper. power,
transportation or much of anything else
in the bread category. In the index
of popular interest and demand circus
es properly came first.
OF course, there are lot of folks
who have more time to blow smoke
rings or 60 to show than there were
a few months ago, but 1t is by no means
the unemployed who make up the bulk
of the heavy theater patronage IN New
York Just now. One of the big movie
show shops here hit a new high Of Sill,
600 last week. Several others crowded
up around 100000. There are two
current hits in the legitimate theater
and the demand for seats at dizzy prices
is such that the waiting line is apt to
stretch clear on down through the next
few years to the old folks home.
Herbert Hoover's committee on recent
economic changes, in its report to the
Presidents conference on unemploy-
ment, seemed to incline to the theory
that the circuses come first, although
they did not go back to Caesar Au-
gustus.
Food Standards Higher.
1.-THE committee" said the report,
finds, from study of the fact-flnding
survey on which this report is based,
that as a people we have become stead
lily less concerned about primary needs
food, clothing and shelter. We have
long since lost all fear concerning our
food supply, and so we can no longer
look on food as a luxury or as pr1-
mary source Of pleasure.
American food standards have risen,
but we hear little of the high cost Of
living and the full dinner pail is OBJ
Solete. We wear less clothing; more
rayon and silks, less cotton and wool.
Our wants have ranged more widely and
we, now demand a list Of goods and
services which come under the category
of optional purchases
Few of the current economic de-
velopments have made such widespread
changes in our national life or promise
so much for the future as the utilization
Of our increasing leisure"
OF course, one might be cynical and
point out that leisure is increasing bit
too rapidly here and there, but one
finds that leisure, in the modern equa-
ton, is more definitely q corrective for
certain economic ills than 1t was in Ro-
man days. For instance, Eastman
Kodak rides on UP with the amusement
stocks, and Eastman Kodak, therefore,
continues to be the largest user OF
metallic silver In. the world. Thus
and services" as the Presidents COM
mission puts 1t, remotely connected with
the industry.
DOWNRIGHT, Ie3OO