Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

208 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. VI, No. 5. service as a part of their organization. Why is it not possible for the balance to pay more attention to this decidedly valuable part of the industry? What is film advertising? Can a manufacturer make the sale of an additional reel by advertising? Yes; if he is not restricted by any output regulation. Properly to advertise, it should be the aim of an advertiser to increase the desire of an exhibitor for a particular film. This can be done by a direct appeal to the exhibitor and by an increase in the public interest in a particular manufacturer's film. Motography has a newsstand circulation that reaches the film fan. Increase his interest to the point of demanding a film from his local exhibitor and you will have added another string to those your advertising has already tied around the interest of the exhibitor to the point of making him demand particular films. But your advertising should be real advertising, not merely a full page card with miscellaneous illustrations. Make a direct appeal. habitual tramps and beggars might be committed for terms as high as three years and in an atmosphere of good-will and practical training have an opportunity to work out their salvation by rational employment in agriculture. The thoughtless may laugh at this application of the motion picture. But the regeneration of the hobo is not to be lightly regarded. It is estimated that there are a quarter of a million tramps in the United States today. They fill our police stations, hamper our lower courts and destroy annually a great deal of property. If pictures can save them, the work will be a greater one than any amount of pure entertainment-. PICTURES TO REDEEM THE HOBO. ■^T7"E generally laugh at the hobo. He forms prob~^ ably the greatest source of material for the humorous cartoonists. In short, he is lightly regarded all the way around, except in the country districts, where his depredations around the chicken yard and his habit of smoking in the hay, cause some worry. Yet the hobo is essentially an American product, and one of which we are not proud. James Forbes, director of the National Association for the Prevention of Mendicancy, of New York knows more about hoboes than most men learn in a lifetime of contact with them. He knows the processes by which they are made, and the peculiar temperament that forces them to take to the road even when they have the opportunity to live a respectable life. And his efforts are all devoted to curing the tramp evil and making good citizens out of those young men who even now are tempted to the apparently free and easy existence of the hobo. The peculiarly interesting feature of this work is that Mr. Forbes purposes to use motion pictures in rescuing the embryo tramp and showing him the error of his ideals. He says : How, then, to cope with the evil at its source? By a propaganda of education along popular lines, bringing home to boys and to their parents the real life of the road and the physical and moral dangers characteristic of the life. To this end we propose, if successful in raising the funds necessary to begin operations, to put several field secretaries at work, equipped with all the material in pictures and text necessary for the effective operation of traveling exhibits. Our plan is to divide the country into four prinicipal sections — northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest, and put one good man into the field in each section. Starting from central cities, as, for example, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, or St. Louis, we conterplate showing the exhibit and lecturing in all railroad towns uf the section involved, and probably maintaining permanent exhibits in the central cites serving as bases. In the field work we should rely largely upon moving pictures showing the actual facts of tramp life and by original photographs of tramps of all ages and grades show the real story from start to finish. We have on hand a great mass of material suitable for such lectures as would accompany the pictures and should expect the field work to be fruitful not alone in preventing the recruiting of boys to the road, but in arousing public interest in the whole question of tramps and tramping and possible preventives of the evil which must still exist for some years to come, even if all sources of new supply be cut off. In this connection we should expect to initiate in every state a campaign for the establishment of a state farm colony to which HIP POCKET ESSAYS. ~\A OVING pictures are the clearing house certificates ■*■*■•■ of the patents and sales compaines. They were first discovered in America by a man named Edison twenty-five years ago and have been discovered by nearly everyone else since. Moving pictures are a natural evolution. Before their discovery we had side shows, three-card monte sharks, short card experts, gold brick artists and green goods men to extract the superfluous from the many. Now those methods are considered crude and have fallen into disuse. In the beginning the moving pictures were of robberies, hold-ups and similar semi-amusing frivolities. Now they are. Once you had to hunt for a moving picture show. Now they hunt you up an alley to get your nickel. There are several reasons why moving pictures are good things. The first of these is, they get the money. The second one is, they induce the public to give up without a squeal. The other reasons are not considered in making pictures. There are four kinds of moving pictures — good, bad, worse and rotton. All pictures belong to one of these classes. Fashions change in moving pictures. First we had the acrobatic chase picture. Then the chantecler fad swayed us. This seems to have died out and now we have the "back to the Bible and Noah" fad. Everyone is against the moving picture. The legitimate theaters revile it, the clergy abhor it, the censor boards restrict it and even the saloon keeper says it is hurting his business. The picture houses have taken to inviting the "cloth" to exhibitions just to get the approval of the"Holy See." No class is overlooked by the moving picture — there are sea pictures for the sailors, dockhands, longshore men and parlor yachtsmen ; Italian scenes and Columbus Day parades for the representatives of the fruit trust; comedies for the parlor comedian and the man who kicks your stool from under you ; "western's" for those Indians who like them ; heart tragedies for the ladies' maids, and fool pictures for the fools. Everyone can thus be satisfied. The State insane asylum in Pueblo, Colo., has adopted moving pictures for restoring reason to the mentally afflicted. The authorities have installed a picture show and it is hoped the weekly diversion will be a big factor in effecting cures at the institution. Dr. Busey, superintendent of the asylum, has adopted the plan of setting aside two days in each week for the pictorial entertainment of the patients. One day will be devoted to the 550 women, the other to the 650 men. The hall will seat about 400 and the patients will be taken to the show in squads.