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THE FIRST YEAR IN HOLLYWOOD, I922-I923 329
gether and went ahead. Few men have been given a finer post-graduate course in the theory and practice of compromise, though I prefer to call it harmonization.
Sooner or later many appellations were bestowed on me. They included "Film-Master," "Movie-Man," "Landis of the Films," "Family Doctor of the Movies," "The Cat's Whiskers," "Film Co-ordinator," "Hoosier Crusader," "Doctor of Celluloid," "The Little White Father of the Cinema." In the years following, "Czar" was most often used. And that reminds me of Governor Milliken's observation that this common use may have been partly due to the fact that a single column of type has room for only four letters of the largest size used. If so, this was an unfortunate trick of fate, for if there was anything that I was not, as executive of the new and voluntary association, it was a "czar."
One reference to a trade-paper opinion may help to round out the picture. The Exhibitors' Herald of March 18 carried in its announcement the subtitle, "Former Cabinet Member Announces Purposes and Aims during First Day as President of New Producer-Distributor Alliance." The mere statement must have sounded a bit brash! They reported me correctly when they quoted: "I want to make it clear that I do not come into this industry to crusade or do any of the radical things that have been pointed out as part of my work. I realize that I am entering a gigantic field of which I know little. My sole work for some time will be to acquaint myself with affairs so that I can best aid the men with whom I am associated to do jointly those things they are mutually, but not competitively, interested in doing. It is a tremendous undertaking and I approach it with much concern, but with that confidence which springs from an earnest purpose, and with the conviction that we will have the generous help of everyone in accomplishing what must be recognized as an effort for the good of all."
When I said that "my sole work for some time" would be to acquaint myself with affairs, I hadn't met the affairs! When I did meet them they were not disposed to wait for me to conclude any deliberate, academic study. They were already lying there on my desk, marked "urgent." So, in the reverse slogan of one of our military services, it was a question of "learn while you earn."
Although I couldn't have known it when I entered the new office on Monday morning, March 6, 1922, there was what modern executives would call a "ten-point program" waiting for attention. Every item on the agenda had to be reached during the first year. At least the first five of them could be dignified by the now familiar term "emergency." They were:
Internal Disorders, such as bad trade practices and scandals Censorship and other threatened restrictions Mexican Diplomatic Crisis over American films