We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
96 A HISTORY OF THE MOVIES
tition and vigorous fighting never known in any other business — the accumulation of wealth by numerous individuals was proceeding at a pace and in such quantities as to stagger the very few bankers and industrial leaders who ever got glimpses behind the screen. Movies, established in opposition to the scorn and disdain of Wall Street and all sensible, well-placed commercial leaders — excepting the handful at the head of the Motion Picture Patents Company — were literally showering gold and glory on many men and women who had hitherto never dreamed of acquiring consideration from cither fortune or fame.
The partners in little show-shops were blooming into wellto-do, substantial business men; and some of them were building bank accounts and making investments that startled their bankers. Shrewd independent producers and distributors were manifesting astonishing evidences of prosperity. And as to the members of the patents company and General Flm, their fortunes were piling up at a rate that they themselves could not comprehend. James Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith had brought Vitagraph into existence in 1897 by scraping together a few hundred dollars and renting an office at $10 per month. By 1912-13 Vitagraph's gross income was between five and six million dollars a year, and the reports of a Wall Street firm of certified public accountants showed that, after deducting liberal salaries for the three partners, the net profits available for dividends, was a million to a million and a quarter dollars a year. By no stretch of the imagination could Vitagraph's original assets be given a value of more than $2,000 or $3,000. From the numerous inventions of its founder, the Edison Company has acquired large revenues, but it is improbable that from any source has it ever received a net income on each dollar of investment to compare with its profits from the movies. Each of the ten licensed manufacturers was, in theory, upon an equal footing; each was assumed to receive his share of the business, and insofar as possible this practice was followed for several years. The film trust poured into the pockets of its owners fifty or sixty millions of dollars of profits within the few years of its