The theatre of science; a volume of progress and achievement in the motion picture industry (1914)

194 C6e C&eatre picture art. This does not mean that they have reached the zenith of their endeavors. Even now the spirit which placed these two gentlemen in the foremost ranks is still urging them to bigger and better things, it is their claim that they are still pioneering, but pioneering on a more advanced scale, with more modem equipment and more improved appliances. Where many have set back and lolled in comfort watching the results of their efforts, these two enterprising individuals exercising the same foresight they did when entering the business, are striving toward a bigger attainment than that they have already reached, and set their aims and ambitions for a goal which looms on the distant horizon of the business. It has been proven in all their doings that they are builders — builders of the motion-picture business as a business and as an art. Their policy has always been constructive, and their aims to erect, avoiding the association of the destroyer whose influence would only be detrimental. I will delve away back in history and show how such kindred minds happened to become associated in this big enterprise. This meeting of George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson was accidental. It certainly was accidental, surely providential ; and it smirks a little of the romantic. In the conversation that ensued following the meeting, they found that their views on the motion-picture business coincided. They each realized the vastness of the future, and within a few weeks after this chance meeting the firm of Essanay was launched. It was not until February 5, 1907, however, that the firm became incorporated under the trade name of Essanay/. Everyone, of course, knows the source of the firm's name. How when it came to naming the company it