Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1917 - Jun 1918)

FILM TRADE PAPER; Entered as Second Class Matter at the Post Office at Chicago, III., Under the Act of March 3,tS79, Volume VI APRIL 20. 1918 Number 17 Effort to Stamp Out Labor Outrages AFTER years of tolerance exhibitors of Chicago have united to make a test in the courts as to whether or not certain persons associated with labor organizations will be allowed to persist in their methods of violence and blackmail. The labor situation generally in Chicago has been no credit to the community in the eyes of the country at large, but the methods that have characterized the workings of certain operators' unions have been a public disgrace and menace. Counterparts of some of these methods could only be found in the annals of frontier days or in the records of Western mining camps before the advent of law and order. With an utter disregard of the law, of personal and property rights, several of these so-called labor leaders have gone on in their mad careers in a manner that might suggest that they are seeking to follow the example of a Jesse James. These men are not only enemies of the theatremen, exchangemen and the motion picture business at large, but they also are enemies of the union men that they claim to represent. Time after time they have brought the entire body of operators into grossest disgrace; in many instances where an operator is content and satisfied with his position the nagging of these so-called leaders results in these men betraying their employers and in the end they suffer themselves. The film industry has been unpardonably delinquent in rising to action against this menace. A large number of exhibitors in Chicago and elsewhere have suffered financial reverses, destruction to their property through the lawlessness of these men, and standing alone they felt they could not afford to strike back. Finally, however, the allied interests have come together and from now on — unless there are an excessive number of faint hearts among the exhibitors and exchangemen — the outlaw labor men will have to face a new order to affairs. Exhibitors are not of the so-called capitalistic class, whose interests are foreign to those of the decent labor men. Exhibitors as a unit believe in organized labor and are willing to make every reasonable concession for the benefit of united workers. But it would be a terrific indictment against their manhood if they would allow the lawless practices of certain of the so-called labor leaders to continue. Matters of this kind already have been allowed to go too far. Through the tolerance of the exhibitor the honest operator has been allowed to be exploited, brow-beaten and robbed by blackmailing leaders who have continuallv ground him down under the spiked heel by the threat of blacklisting from the union. The false policy of might is right is now receiving a test before the righteous nations of the world. The plight of the people of Germany today is evidence of what indulgence in this policy by the Prussian leaders has brought about. The anarchy in Russia today is another indication of where this policy leads. The effort of the allied trade interests to stamp out the practices of the grafting labor leader will be successful, but its success will be assured earlier if those exhibitors who have not as yet realized the seriousness of the situation come forward and lend a hand in the much needed restoration of law and order in the relations between certain representatives of operators' union and the exhibitors and exchangemen. 13