Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

REEL and SLIDE 25 Americanization Through Motion Pictures Advocated by Expert By Leslie Willis Sprague (Community Motion Picture Bureau) Americanization is an imperative need, following the war, and must for years engage the serious attention and earnest effort of practically every community in the United States. The war has brought to light many facts indicating a serious neglect, on the part of all Americans, of those who have come in such large numbers from other lands to labor and live in this country. During the decade preceding the war more than a million each year came from other lands to swell the volume of the foreignborn and to add their numerous offspring to the increasing generation of children growing up under home influences in which the ideals of other lands dilute, if they do not neutralize, American ideals. The larger part of this enormous immigration came from the South and East of Europe, out of lands whose traditions, ideals and governments have been least in accord with the American spirit and practices. For the millions of the foreign-born, and their children, comparatively little has been done, except to afford them a more or less free opportunity in the competitve struggle for existence. They have lived in the congested centers of industrial communities, or in isolated groups scattered over the wide reaches of America's agricultural regions. They have been quite largely sections of the old world dropped down in the new, increasing and expanding by the continual arrival of others of their own nationality and race, crowding and displacing Americans who occupied the border line surrounding the foreign settlement, themselves very slowly disintegrating as the more ambitious and more prosperous few have migrated into the areas still occupied predominantly by older Americans. Must Teach English Language Perhaps the danger in an awakening nationalism at the present time is that measures too forceful will be adopted against the aliens, which may result in retarding rather than in advancing the process of assimilation. The English language must be taught to the foregn speaking peoples, and citizenship should be acquired by aliens as rapidly as possible. But the language of the country and a formal citizenship therein are not in themselves more than tools to be used in Americanization. What is needed is to win the heart and mind of the foreign-born and of their children to the ideals of America. Amid the many agencies at hand for the winning of the alien and of those reared under alien influences, as well as of the Americans who are less than fully imbued with the national ideals, one of the greatest agencies may easily be the motion picture. It speaks a universal language, and conveys to the minds of those who do not read English the lessons of American history, literature, industry, community and national progress, and much else which cannot wait upon the mastery of the English tongue. Let it not be ignored that there are millions of Americans, born of the old stock, whose education has been so limited that even the solid and serious parts of the daily press are either unintelligible to them or of insufficient interest to hold their thought. It is this large body of illiterate or partly educated Americans as well as the foreign speaking millions in America which constitutes a large volume of unreasoning unrest, always more or less a disturbance to the ordered progress of American life. To the challenging and winning of the immigrant and of the uneducated the motion picture lends itself in a manner by few appreciated. Even in the theater, where the chief purpose is recreational, the motion picture has done and is doing much to put into the minds and hearts of millions the facts and truth about American life. Organized for the purposes of Americanization, programs selected and adapted to the particular needs of special groups, the motion picture will be more effective than all other agencies combined in producing an immediate result in the way of Americanization. Public School Instrumental Most immigrants have seen only the seamy side of American life. Let the motion picture show them the better side. They have seen only the neighborhood in which they have lived and toiled. Let them see the beauty of the fertile plains, the majesty of the hills, the glory of the rivers, lakes and ocean-swept shores. They have been shut in tenements. Show them the smaller cities of the land, with their comfort and beauty. They live in cities largely. Show them the farms and open fields. These people have met no Americans except those whom they think, perhaps not without some justification, are exploiting them. Let the motion picture bring to them the people who all over the land are doing things of moment in their behalf. If there is need that the well-to-do should learn how the other half lives, there is greater need that the stranger within the gates should see how real Americans live, what that life is to which a worthy ambition and continued effort may lead him and his family. To show this is part of the service of the Community Motion Picture Bureau. There are precious half-hours at the noontime when in the mill the worker may be refreshed for other hours of toil by looking at motion pictures which will fill him with new and truer ideas of the country to which his allegiance is due. There are hours after the work of the day is over when the immigrant worker and the native of unawakened mind may gather — with their wives and children — in the mill or in the community where they live and, entertained by motion pictures, learn more about American history, progress and purposes than is taught in text books. Perhaps the public school will prove the proper place for the seeing of the picture programs. In other instances the workers of several industries may well be assembled in a public hall or a theater once or twice a week to view programs especially selected to meet their interests and needs. Why should not the churches be used in this admirable cause so clearly akin to both home and foreign missions? Make Use of Available Films The way of education in Americanization as in all other lines is most easily along the lines of vocation. Therefore, Americanization is essentially the task of the industry in which the immigrant and the untaught American are employed. Let the worker follow the line of his daily toil out to its relationships with American life, and he will sooner or later discover himself not only a necessary part in a great industrial whole, but also — an American. In the task of Americanization many agencies must have a contributory part. Industry must exemplify justice. Education must seek to win the young to love of America and zeal for her unfolding institutions. Fellowship must bind old and new Americans in mutual helpfulness, opening the homes of each to the friendly visits of the other. The churches can help in many ways to break down the barriers of race and nationalistic prejudice. The press is capable of a great service, encouraging on the part of older Americans a respect for the newly come, and on their part an understanding of the opportunities other than economic which America offers them. Motion pictures alone cannot carry the great burden, nor can all other agencies, however energized to this task of Americanization, afford to neglect motion pictures as their great ally. The present challenge to the motion picture industry is to assemble all available films suitable for service in Americanization and then to produce many other programs especially conceived for this great purpose. The challenge to industry, education, the church and every social agency, including the theater, is speedily and continuously to make use of all available films that the ends of Americanization may not be delayed in their achievement. Canton, O., Christian Church Work Told in a Film E. J. Meacham of the Standard Publishing Company of Cincinnati is in Canton, Ohio, to assist with the work of taking the motion picture of the First Christian Church and Bible School. A scenario has been passed upon and pictures of the entire work of the church and school will be taken. The pictures at the church will be made by the Cincinnati Motion Picture Company and the' Sales Service Company of the same city. These two concerns are the Pathe correspondents. The pictures will be taken to California, where they will be started east on a trip around the world. Noted Bird Mimic Shows Colored Slides for Realism Bird lovers of Springfield, Mass., recently heard Edward Avis, the noted bird mimic, in his "Birdland" lecture. By means of his voice and his violin, Mr. Avis gives such realistic interpretations of the birds which are reproduced in colors on the screen before his audience that they seem to have come to life. His program includes "The morning concert, early dawn in the New England woods," "Twilight hymns," "The wood pewee and the country church organ," "The mocking bird" and "Vesper songs." The lecture was given in Central High School hall under the auspices of the Museum of Natural History and the Allen Bird Club, and the admission was free.