Motography (Jan-Jun 1918)

DON R. EGBERT, Managing Editor NEW YORK OFFICE: 1022 LONGACRE BUILDING. Forty-second Street and Broadway Telephone Bryant 7030 CHARLES W BREHNAH. Advertising Manager LOS ANGELES OFFICE: 6411 HOLLYWOOD BLVD., MABEL CONDON, Western Representative NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS Changes of advertising copy should reach the office of publication not less than fifteen days in advance of date of issue. Regular date of Issue every Saturday ^>» • THE MOTION PICTURE TRADE JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY ELECTRICITY MAGAZINE CORPORATION E. R. MOCK, President and Treasurer PAUL H. WOODRUFF, Editor in Chief, E. M. C. Publications MONADNOCK BUILDING CHICAGO, ILL. Branch Telephone Exchange: Harrison 3014 Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second Class Mail Matter. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Per Year $3.00 Canada Foreign Single copy Per year $4.00 Per year 5.00 .15 NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS Remittances — Remittances should be made by check. New York draft or money order In favor of Motogbaphy. Foreign subscriptions may be remitted direct by International Postal Money Order. Change of address— The old address should be given as well as the new, and notice should be received two weeks in advance of the desired change. This publication is free and independent of all business or house connections or control. No manufacturer or supply dealer, or their stockholders or representatives, have any financial interest in Motography or any voice in its management or policy. Volume XIX CHICAGO, APRIL 6, 1918 Number 14 How the Screen Can Defeat the Enemy EXCEPT with the censors (who are the embodiment of exception to all rules) possession of power means responsibility. Wealthy men have come to recognize that they owe a duty to society through the potential power for good of their money. The editors of really great newspapers are daily using for the cause of right the enormous influence they wield — frequently at a cost to their publishers. When we contemplate the harm they might do, we must perforce credit them with conscience. Almost unconsciously the motion picture exhibitor holds the greatest public power of all. His screen is greater than the press, for the simplest of reasons: Not one newspaper subscriber in a thousand reads all of his paper; but practically every picture theatre patron sees all that is on the screen. The pen is mightier than the sword; but the lens is mightier than the pen. Our nation has come upon a crisis without realizing it. As this is written, we (the pronoun fits, today, all the host we have sworn to uphold) are being driven back upon an incredible battlefield, which only by the grace of God is in France and not in New York or Illinois or California. At the tomb of America's historic friend, our own General Pershing delivered his immortal five-word speech: "Well, Lafayette, we are here!" Yes, but are we? Is America's hundred million over there in spirit and usefulness and power, or are we content to send one per cent of ourselves across, to represent us in a world crisis, and then say with smug satisfaction, "We of America have done our bit"? Your patrons, Exhibitors, have loaned to their government some five billions of dollars — loaned it at an advantage to themselves they would grasp eagerly in the softest of peace times. There is little credit in that. When the five billions have become fifty billions, when our Red Cross has more than it needs, when our allies can ask us to stop shipping wheat and meat and sugar and powder — then only will we have done in equivalent what our enemy has done and is doing. It is up to you, Exhibitor, and to the newspapers, to bring that home to the people. Perhaps in an ideal state the press and the screen would not wield their influence, and the people would know by intuition when duty called. But as our lives are ordered now, you are the messengers. You cannot escape your obligation. Because you have the power, you carry the responsibility. See, then, that you give over your screen some part of every day for the work of the great common purpose. We say "work," but so far as the exhibitor is concerned there is no work about it. All the co-operation with public speakers and the running of special films and slides that the most enthusiastic of theatre men can contribute costs him nothing — not even trouble. Every motion picture theatre in the country will find a welcome and easy opportunity to use its influence for good in the third Liberty Loan campaign. The United States Treasury