Moving Picture World (Jan-Mar 1918)

March 2, 1918 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 1203 Entered at the General Post Office, New York City, as Second Class Matter Published Weekly by the Chalmers Publishing Company 516 FIFTH AVENUE, AT 43D STREET, NEW YORK CITY (Telephone, Murray Hill, 1610, 1611, 1612, 1613.) J. P. Chalmers, Sr President J. F. Chalmers Vice-President E. J. Chalmers Secretary and Treasurer James L. Hoff Managing Editor A. MacArthur, Jr Advertising Manager The office of the company is the address of the officers. CHICAGO OFFICE— Suite 917-919 Schiller Building, 64 West Randolph St., Chicago, 111. Telephone, Central 5099. PACIFIC COAST OFFICE— 610-611 Wright and Callender Building, Los Angeles, Cal. Telephone, Broadway 4640. SUBSCRIPTION RATES. United States, Cuba, Mexico, Hawaii, Porto Rico and Philippine Islands $3.00 per year Canada 3.50 per year Foreign Countries (Postpaid) 4.00 per year Changes of address should give both old and new addresses in full and be clearly written. Two weeks' time should be allowed for change. ADVERTISING RATES. Classified Advertising — One dollar for twenty words or less ; over twenty words, five cents per word. Display Advertising Rates made known on application. NOTE — Address all correspondence, remittances and subscriptions to MOVING PICTURE WORLD, 516 Fifth Avenue, at Forty-third Street, New York, and not to individuals. CINE-MUNDIAL, the monthly Spanish edition of the Moving Picture World, is published at 516 Fifth Avenue by the Chalmers Publishing Company. It reaches_ the South American and Spanish-speaking market. Yearly subscription, $1.50. Advertising rates on application. Saturday, March 2, 1918 Facts and Comments AS between Uncle Sam's soldiers at the various military cantonments and his prisoners in the Federal prison at Atlanta the prisoners have the best of it when it comes to motion pictures. Under the present arrangements the Y. M. C. A. has the monopoly of showing all the junk it can beg or buy at junk prices at the cantonments and that is the best the soldiers are allowed to see. But at the Atlanta prison all of the very latest productions are shown to the various malefactors confined there, furnished by the film exchanges of Atlanta. The pictures shown include practically all of the Fairbanks and Hart releases, the Burton Holmes travelogues, "Intolerance," and Pathe Weeklies. Arbuckle, Sennett and Fox comedies are prime favorites. Of course all of this is free to the inmates of the Atlanta prison, but the soldiers seem unable to get anything like them for love or money, thanks to the thrifty policy of the Y. M. C. A. Regarding the above mentioned situation there is promise that something will be done to correct conditions. Elsewhere in this issue of the Moving Picture World a news item tells of the appointment of a special committee by Raymond B. Fosdick, with P. A. Powers as chairman, to co-operate with the Commission on Training Camp Activities of which Mr. Fosdick is chairman, the purpose being to provide up-to-date pictures at the various military training camps. The membership of this new committee includes some of our most representative picture men who, it is reasonable to believe, will be able to correct the present disgraceful situation. Mr. Fosdick is to be congratulated upon the selection of Mr. Powers as chairman of the committee ; the job of cleaning up will appeal to Pat and he will make it thorough when he gets started. * * # UPON the subject of the assistance given to the Government by the moving picture interests the Moving Picture World is in receipt of a letter from the chairman of the New York State committee in charge of the "Four-Minute-Men," which will be appreciated by moving picture theater managers generally. This is what he says : We would appreciate it very much if you could arrange to have published in the "Moving Picture World" our appreciation of the hearty cooperation which the motion picture theater managers have extended to us in the work of the Four-Minute-Men. It would be impossible for us to do what we are doing unless we had the aid of this patriotic body of citizens. Through them the Four-Minute-Men are able to give the Government's message to an average of 24,000 people a night in New York City. This is something which the motion picture theater managers may well be proud of, as their cooperation is of the greatest assistance to the Government. Sincerely yours, JAMES C. AUCHINCLOSE, Chairman New York State. It should be gratifying to theater managers that by doing so little they have assisted on accomplishing so much. OUR Washington correspondent intimates that the persistence of certain exhibitors in rushing down to Washington and talking to Congressmen and Senators about amendments to the tax law as affecting the exhibitor is likely to get the whole business in "dutch." If any suggestions are to be given Congress on the subject of taxation those suggestions should come from some authoritative source in the trade after the differences of opinion in the trade have been threshed out and a definite policy determined upon. When this has been done something concrete will have been devised to present to our Federal lawmakers and the trade will stand a chance of getting an even break if changes in the existing law are to be made. Remember that "too many cooks spoil the broth." We are suffering from just that sort of thing right now. Moving Picture World readers will readily recall how Ochs and Varner and Brady all went to Washington, each with a different idea of how the law should be framed, and after the shouting was over, Mr. Kitchen put it over all of them with a perfectly good alibi that the picturemen were not in accord and didn't know what they wanted, so he gave them what he thought was good for them. Such a situation should not be allowed to occur again. But it certainly will if the exhibitors and others in the trade do not quit butting in on the game.