Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1912)

MUSINGS OF "THE PHOTOPLAY PHILOSOPHER" 131 When the drama first appeared in ancient Greece, it was made the vehicle of patriotic sentiment and moral teachings. The first admission fee charged was two oboli, which is about five cents in our money, and this fee was furnished out of the public treasury to all who applied for it. Since Motion Pictures have now come to replace the stage as a moralizer, and since their educational value is now universally recognized, why does not the State adopt a similar policy to that of the Greeks ? Perhaps it is not necessary, for everybody can afford five cents. But what the State can do is this: give official recognition to the Photoshow as an educator and as an innocent, beneficial form of amusement, or throw open the doors of the public schools and armories for evening entertainments of Moving Pictures. BY-LAWS AND CONSTITUTION FOR A MOVING PICTURE CLUB Art. I. — This club shall be known as The. Photoplay Club. Art. II. — Its object shall be to improve our time by profitable amusement, to see the most notable Photoplays of the week, to meet and discuss them, to seek to promote a higher standard in Moving Pictures, and, by improving them, to improve ourselves. Art. III. — Meetings shall be held every night, and the officers shall be a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary and a Treasurer, who shall be elected at the annual meeting, which shall be held on the first of January of each year. Art. IV. — The order of business shall be: 1. — Calling of roll. 2. — Reading of minutes. 3. — Reports of committees: a. — Public Education, b. — Improvement of the Photoplay, c. — Entertainment. 4. — Debate. 5. — Essays and criticisms of the Photoplays of the week, and a vote on which was the best. 6 — Reading of a story from The Motion Picture Story Magazine. 7. — Miscellaneous business. 8. — Adjournment. Certain it is that all Pictureshows are not objectionable, particularly when we remember such films as "Enoch Arden," " Elaine, " "The Story of Esther, ' ' " Herod , and the New-born King, ' ' and the various scenic and educational ones. And certain it is that all Photoshow theaters are not badly conducted, particularly when we remember that we have some theaters which governors, mayors, preachers and congressmen attend regularly. If this be true, why this perpetual cry against Motion Pictures ? If there are bad theaters, or bad films, by all means bring down the law upon them and drive them out of existence; but why speak generally against the whole industry, when only a few are objectionable? Therefore, oh, ye small-minded critics, be specific, not general. If you know of any theater or film that is objectionable, point it out ! Nobody will deny that occasionally an objectionable Photoplay is produced, but if all the objectionable Photoplays were put down in a column, and all the objectionable books in another, and all the objectionable dramas and vaudeville acts in another, it is safe to say that the first would be the shortest column. Opinion founded on prejudice is always enforced with prudish bigotry. It squints when it looks, stammers when it talks, and blunders when it acts. We are hot after the man higher up, whereas we should be hot after the man lower down, for if there were no low-down men down there would be no low-down men up. Government is usually a reflection of the governed. Socrates says that the study of philosophy is the studying how to die. In that case we shall not study philosophy, for we are busy studying how to live.