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^Reproduction of Our General's Address given at Screenland's Annual Banquet
A Message on Laughter
I
IL^/ADIES, gentlemen and movie fans. Not since the election of 1920 have I been so touched. [Sobs.] Not since my appointment as guardian of the movies has the industry been so touched. [Lots of silence.]
"You ask me to give you a message. You ask me to talk straight to the hearts of the movie fans. [Cries of 'Hear, Hear.'] Why not? We are all brothers in the screen world, all paitners in this art which is second in greatness only to the Ford spare parts industry. [Rattles of applause.]
"My motto is Confidence and Co-operation. [Faint coughs.] My watchword is progress. [Cries of 'Louder and Funnier.'] And so I will speak to you in terms of progress.
"The fiscal year just past has been one of progress and uplift. According to reports made to me by my captain, Mr. Bronx Jones, many changes have been effected in the motion pictures to make this the Empress Art ol Creation. [Cheers and hysterics.]
"Do you know that 109,879,789 laughs were heard in motion picture theatres last year? [Tremendous applause.] This is not guess work. My aids actually counted the laughs. And, my friends, 71 per cent of the laughs took place during shooting scenes. This proves that civilization has advanced to a stage when it laughs at crime. [Loud sighs.]
"Do you know, partners, that our organiza
tion fostered Better Potato Week in Minnesota with the result that potatoes may be found in hash in practically all parts of the country except portions of New England and three counties of Alabama? [Yawns.]
"May I remind you that we have fostered educational pictures to take the place of dry text books in the schools? After witnessing The Planting of Coffee in Java, How Bees Make Honey and A Day on a Rubber Plantation, three high school students of Venice, Cal., passed their college examinations. [More cries
OF ' AND FUNNIER.']
"Before I close, I wish to bring out some other salient points of film progress. 372,456 suits were made for ushers, of which 7,896 includes sets of brass knuckles (although this vast and magnificent industry naturally does not encourage tipping); the number of bathing beauties in pictures has been reduced 47 per cent and the bathing suits of the remainder increased 63 3-10 per cent [Hisses]; a woman in Green Bay, Wis., who shot her husband, was dissuaded from going into pictures and caused to earn an honest living in another field [Cries of 'Hear, Hear']; and 2,762 classic dancers obtained employment in movie prologues.
"But [gestures] to return to the God-given benison of laughter. There is nothing in our great and glorious land like clean and wholesome humor." [GREAT CHEERS.]