Motography (Jan-Mar 1916)

February 12, 1916. MOTOGRAPHY Board of Trade Entertains President Wilson BY CHARLES R. CONDON THE motion picture industry will never have another Thursday, January 27, 1916. Not only because the calendar provides for but one, but also by reason of its being the first annual dinner of the industry's only representative body, the Motion Picture Board of Trade, which combines the manufacturers, middlemen, and exhibitors in a protectixe and progressive organization to promote the best interests of the film business. That President Wilson should be present at this first festive gathering of the members of the Board of Trade and their friends is a distinct honor and a sign of worthy recognition. Although the organization is but little more than four months old the nation's chief executive recognized it as being representative of the fifth industry of the country, and at its first annual dinner delivered a speech which is better classified as a me-to-you talk. He spoke extemporaneously, wittily and most interestingly. International problems and the weighty matters of the day gave way to an intimate talk on how the president must look to some people and how some people do look to him. Accompanied by Mrs. Wilson, her guests. Secretary Tumulty, Dr. Cary Grayson and several secret service men. President Wilson arrived at the dinner shortly after ten o'clock. After speaking he left with his party, Mrs. Wilson bowing her way out from her seat in the gallery opposite the speaker's table. The affair was held in the ball room of the Hotel Biltmore whose capacity of eight hundred and fifty guests was fully engaged. Many were disappointed by not making reservations while they were to be had. The enthusiastic delight which pervaded the gathering was very much like the joy of a child on reaching the age where it realizes that it has a birthday. This was the Motion Picture Board of Trade's first birthday party and Executive Secretary J. W. Binder's promise that there would be more of them was received with sincere anticipation. At the speaker's table were seated : George H. Bell, Martin W. Littleton, Robert Adamson, J. W. Engel, Roy Howard, Nicholas Power, David Bispham, George Eastman, Dudley Field Malone, W. W. Irwin, Dr. Cary Grayson, J. W. Binder, J. Stuart Blackton. Woodrow Wilson, John Purroy Mitchel, J. R. Freuler, Hudson Maxim, W. Stephen Bush. Edwin Markham, J. P. Tumulty, B. S. Weeks, E. A. MacManus, Dr. Cyrus Townsend Brady, William F. McCombs and Bainbridge Colby. Commodore J. Stuart Blackton, toastmaster. read congratulatory telegrams from Thomas A. Edison, Thomas Dixon, D. W. Griffith and Carl Laemmle, and proposed standing toasts to the President and the ladies. He then addressed the assembly as follows : The purpose of the Motion Picture Board of Trade is stated in its insignia, which is printed on all the menus ; the eagle without spread wings, hearing on his breast the words, "Progression, Protection and Promotion." Protection in every branch of this great industry; protection for every member in that industry ; promotion of harmony, of unity, and community of interestsj promotion 0I fa'r and honest business methods presented with malice toward none and with charity to all. To hark back to the beginning of motion pictures is not so very far. We have to turn back time for about twenty years, and I know of no other industry that has grown with such wonderful rapidity and reached such startling magnitude as this industry. In perhaps ten years, one might say, because it_ is in the last ten years the wonderful strides have been accomplished. And it was when it was discovered that the picture could' play upon human emotions, could evoke tears or laughter at will — it was then that that other great art was enlisted, the are of literature ; and so Shakespeare, Thackeray, Dickens, Victor Hugo, Dumas, became known to millions of people, who before that had never known even what those names meant. When standard and classic literature began to be shown on the screen in every city, town, village and hamlet in this country and in every other country in the world, men learned! that things and places existed of which they had never dreamed, and a new and wonderful world full of marvelous possibilities opened up before the vision of all mankind ; and it was the motion picture that presented that new world to their vision. What have pictures done for humanity? Rather let us say what have they not done? Campaigns against disease have been, conducted successfully through the motion picture — warfare against carelessness and campaigns for the prevention of fire have, I am told by our fire commissioner, resulted in decreasing greatly the destructive fires in this and every other large city. The widowed mothers' pension allowance was passed in the state of New York because of the widespread exhibition of a motion picture showing the need of such an allowance and' through the efforts of one of the ladies who took one of these films to Albany and showed it in the assembly chamber. Preparedness and the seeds of it are being sown to millions of American citizens now. The latent and perhaps dormant pattriotism in their hearts is being aroused. The fear of God and the fear of the enemy is being implanted in their hearts, and the motion picture is doing it. In the mining districts of Pennsylvania ten years ago there were 4,000 saloons flourishing. Today in that same district there are less than 500, and the motion picture has driven the rest of them out. What has become of the common burlesque show, the low vaudeville, the cheap claptrap melodrama? The motion picture was so much better, so much more real and SO' much cleaner that it has put all of those very objectionable shows entirely out of business. We hear frantic appeals from professional agitators and notoriety seekers about the need for censorship. What has become of the plays of two years ago,, the indecent plays ? The public, that great American public, censored them through the box office, refused to go to see them, and they died' in anywhere from two weeks to less than a season. But remember that "The Old Homestead" and "In Old Kentucky"' have been running for from twenty to twenty-five years, and are still running and making money for their authors and owners. It is the public, the fifty million people who every week go to the motion picture shows, who are the real censors. The Picture is the Drama I was asked the other day to state what effect the motion picture has had upon the drama. My answer to that was, the motion picture today is the drama. The stage play will always be a power, but the power of the motion picture is an hundredfold. As an illustration, a popular stage favorite such as Maude Adams or E. H. Sothern plays to perhaps one thousand' people a night, six nights in the week, and two matinees, or approximately eight thousand persons during one week. Multiply that by forty weeks, the average theatrical season, and you have three hundred and twenty thousand people who have seen that play and that player in one year As a contrast take the motion picture star or any one of the players. They appear in from thirty to fifty different pictures each year. Those pictures are reproduced in great numbers, and are shown simultaneously every day, in every city, town, village and hamlet in the United States. So that in one year the audience of a motion picture star is over 50,000,000 people, multiplied by as many times as the film appears in different towns. In other words — and to conclude, the motion picture shows to more human beings in one year than the star of the stage drama shows to in his entire lifetime if he lives to be a hundred. The motion picture, ladies and gentlemen, is the drama nf the rich and poor alike; it is the drama of the universe. It carries its sob and its laugh, its message and its lesson, to