Harrison's Reports (1937)

IN TWO SECTION o — SECTION ONE Entered as second-class matter January 4. 1921, at the post office at New York. New Yark, under the act or March 3, 1S79. Harrison's Reports Yearly Subscription Rates: 1 AAtl 15 O <"> A r» W A V Published Weekly by * 1440 CKUAUWAI Harrison's Reports, Inc., United States $15.00 V J, M V Publisher U. S. Insular Possessions. 16.50 PleVT X OrK, IM. I. P. S. HARRISON, Editor Canada 16.50 Mexico, Cuba, Spain 16.50 A Motion Picture Reviewing Service Established July 1, 1919 Great Britain 15 75 Devoted Chiefly to the Interests of the Exhibitors Australia. New Zealand, ^"ff1^^ 6"6379 India, Europe, Asia .... 17.50 Its Editorial Policy: No Problem Too Big for Its Editorial HarreponT' 35c a Copy Columns, if It is to Benefit the Exhibitor. (Bentley Code) A REVIEWING SERVICE FREE FROM THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ADVERTISING Vol. xix Saturday; 'jANUARY^ri937 No. j. What the New Year Holds for the Independent Exhibitor As we enter upon the threshold of the new year, there looms up before us an awe inspiring realization that we are facing the beginning not of just another new year, but of a new era in American history. By an unprecedented majority, the citizens of this nation have put their approval on the policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and have manifested their faith and confidence in him as a leader of vision, understanding, courage, with a burning desire to cure the social and economic ills of inequality. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose actions follow close upon the heels of his promises, has been returned to the White House for another four years. Well do we remember his inaugural address in 1933, when he promised to take steps against the deplorable banking situation ; on the following morning the banking "holiday" was in effect and all banks were closed. Well do we remember his promise also to do something about that high-sounding atrocity, the "noble experiment" of prohibition ; in a few months the 18th Amendment had been repealed and prohibition had become a pitiable relic of a former age. For four years this inspired and inspiring leader has labored zealously to carry out his promises of social and economic reform. Too long for enumeration here is the list of his great achievements ; suffice it to say for the present that the record of accomplishments during Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term as President of the United States holds forth for the coming four years new hope, great promise and solid security for the people of the country. Abraham Lincoln, in his immortal Gettysburg address, recalled that this great nation of ours had been "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." The Civil War had been fought, he said, "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." It is significant, indeed, that in Philadelphia, on June 27, President Roosevelt, in accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party for a second term, spoke thus, evidently inspired by Lincoln's philosophy : "Philadelphia is a good city in which to write American history. This is fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers ; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom — to give to 1933, as the founders gave to 1776 — an American way of life. "The very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776, we fought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy. "That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man. . . . Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4. 1776. "Since that struggle, however, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. . . . "New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. . . . "There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small business men and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. . . . "And as a result, the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man. . . . "Throughout the nation opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. . . . "For too many of us, the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into its own hands an almost complete control over other people's money, other people's labor — other people's lives. "For too many of us life was no longer free ; liberty no longer real ; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness. ."Against economic tyranny such as this, the citizen could only appeal to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election 01" 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate, it is being ended. . . . "Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half and half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place." Here we have the dedication by a great President of a new kind of liberty, a liberty which means freedom from economic oppression. Here we have a pledge that the average exhibitor, like the average citizen, shall have the same inviolable right of equality to trade in the market place as he has to cast his vote in the polling place. In Chicago, on October 14, the President said: "The train of American business is moving ahead. "But you people know what I mean when I say it was clear that if the train is to run smoothly again, the cars will have to be loaded more evenly. . . . "Our job was to preserve the American ideal of economic as well as political democracy against the abuse of concentration of economic power. . . . "This concentration of wealth and power has been built upon other people's money, other people's business, other people's labor. Under this concentration, independent business was allowed to exist only by sufferance. It has been a menace to the social system as well as the economic system which we call American democracy. . . . "The struggle against private monopoly is a struggle for, and not against, American business. It is a struggle to preserve individual enterprise and economic freedom. . . . "The people of America have no quarrel with business. They insist only that the power of concentrated wealth shall not be abused." In Boston, on October 21, he told us : "We have begun the first real offensive in our history against that concentrated wealth and monopolistic power which almost destroyed the small businesses and diversified industries of New England. Most of us are in favor of that "The New England puritan spirit of simplicity, the New England passion for democracy, the New England genius for democratic statecraft, arc the very sources of that program of this Administration which set itself to end such concentration of wealth and economic power." And in his final speech before Election Day, at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, President Roosevelt summed up his pledges for the coming Administration as follows : "Of course we will continue every effort to end monopoly in business, to support collective bargaining, to stop unfair competitions, to abolish unfair trade practices. For all these we have only just l>egun to fight." Why so significant, why so prophetic, these words of our great leader and statesman? Because great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few people makes them blind to all things hut to their lust for more extensive and more massive accumulations, The inalienable rights of every citizen to (Continued 011 last pOfft)