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

234 Cl)e Cbeatre beyond question. Perhaps there is hardly an editor of a newspaper in this country who does not read "Popular Mechanics," and to read it means to quote from its endless first-hand and informative articles, while the illustrations, I know from personal experience, are invariably taken by its own cameras. The motion picture, as well as the various phonographs, playerpianos, and mechanical orchestras, owe much to "Popular Mechanics," which has a bona-fide circulation exceeding 370,000 copies and constantly increasing. Moreover, the larger cities do not contribute the greater portion of this total. Being eclectic in character, selecting its subjects from the world's literature, perhaps no individual publication has accorded to the motion picture a wider or more persistent publicity than "The Literary Digest," and, being a weekly, it may be stated that its four issues a month contain more on an average concerning filmdom than on any other subject ; and, while its custom is to merely review the writings of authors in magazines and newspapers, very frequently entire articles on motion pictures are reproduced, always with credit, of course. The benefit of this policy to the film industry may not be overestimated, for very often "The Literary Digest" will reproduce lengthy essaj^s originally presented in what are called "the trade issues," v/hich, being circulated solely among those affiliated v/ith the industry, have a limited audience, v/hereas "The Literary Digest" spreads the influence of such essaj-s throughout the world, its articles and reviews being widely copied in many languages. Motion pictures as a newspaper subject on an important scale made little headway during the period 1896 to 1908. That is to say, that between the advent