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ORIGINAL PETITION. 7
distributed to thousands of exhibitors all over the United States. The patrons of these theaters generally demand a daily change of the entire picture program, and therefore it is essential to every exhibitor that the source of supply of pictures be at all times open and unrestrained.
Within the last ten years the moving-picture business has reached enormous proportions. It is probably true that a sum greatly in excess of $100,000,000 has been invested in the different branches of the business.
In the year 1908 and prior thereto there were ten manufacturers or importers of moving pictures in the United States; that is to say, there were that number of companies which were producing or importing reels of motion pictures and selling and shipping them to exchanges scattered throughout the United States, the latter in turn distributing to exhibitors all over the countr}\ There were at that time some 125 to 150 rental exchanges, and 6,000 or more exhibitors in the United States.
In this commerce in positive films or moving pictures, the manufacturers at that time competed with each other for the business of the exchanges, and all the exchanges competed for the business of the exhibitor. There were also a number of manufacturers of cameras and of projecting machines competing with each other.
The ten manufacturers of films and their respective places of business from which they sold and shipped as aforesaid were the following :
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, New York City, a New Jersey corporation, now known as the Biograph Company.
Edison Manufacturing Company, Orange, N. J., a New Jersey corporation, predecessor of Thomas A. Edison (Inc.).
Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, Chicago, an Illinois corporation.
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