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Show MILTilOXS IN "MOVIISS." What do you know about tho people of this country spending more than three million dollars In actual money last yonr at the ticket windows of tho moving picture shows? That Is what tho men of America gave up just for tho privilege of sitting in a darkened room and looking at a succession of pictures thrown on a screen. Three hundred million dollars! Why, it is more than we pay for beer. It is almost as much as wo waste in bread and such like eccentricities. That amount of money spent for ten consecutive years, would build a ten-tmcl railroad across the continent. It would in six years pay all the Philippine experiment has cost the nation. It would dig tho Panama cannl in the course of a very limited time. It would build ten battleships annually and it would reduce to productivity pro-ductivity every acre of fertile land from the Rio Grando to the Canadian border. And It hasn't been wasted money, at that. The business has come moro and moro under control of wisely exercised authority, and tho dirty pictures which nt one time threatened tho corruption of youth and tho condemnation of tho mature, havo passed Into tho limbo of tho trlod and the die-carded. die-carded. Instead havo come scones of healthy interest, in-terest, "moving accidents by field and flood," and a succession of love stories almost as impressive as the real. Furthermore, tho business is like to bo bigger boforo it Is smaller. Some of the foremost successful suc-cessful actors of the country and at least one successful nctrese of the world, Bernhardt consent con-sent to act out scones of drama undor tho blazing eye of the camorn, without a hint of rogtut.that they are to he seen and not heardi . Moro.mcmojtJs being Invested in the making of--films, and it is fair to forecast an advance In quality, as there has constantly been a growth in quality wherever moving mov-ing pictures are seen. Tho thing is Improssivo. One gaoxl. .manager declares that In ten yoars thore will not' be two theatres in Salt Lake presenting plays in the old fashion with living and present actors. And- ho points out that n thousand. Amorjoan people now have Intelligent understanding of such poems as "Lady of the Lake," or such tragedies as "Queen Bllmbeth," to one who was so blest before. Ho adds that such pictures as those depicting scenes on the Panama canal give the average citizen a knowledge of that tremendous worlc- which he never c'oild have had without the'ih. The business complements the Vlctrola. Time was when the mnn who had hoard Caruso had something to boast about. Now the' millions are familiarly acquainted with tho very best operas written, and are the better Because they havo listened to tho voices of earth's groatost singers. I don't find anything to complain about in this connection. As usual as ever there is something new undor tho sun. The thing has possibilities of benefit for a countless number of people possibilities possi-bilities for clean and healthful happinoss, for instruction in-struction and now and then for correction. Tho bad and the unworthy will pass. Tho good will bo prosorvod. People better be paying three million dollars a year to look at moving pictures than to be making mak-ing moing spectacles of themselves. lt ' |