Saunders Says Elizabeth City Doesn't Want High Quality Moving Pictures, March 30, 1923

You Get What You Want

This newspaper does not harp continuously upon the crying need of better moving pictures in Elizabeth City because this newspaper does not believe that there is a large demand for better pictures. A town gets just what it wants in the way of moving pictures and nothing more or less. If the pictures shown in a town are bad, the fact is not so much a reflection upon the management of the moving picture houses as upon the moral and intellectual standards of the people of the town. Moving picture men are just shrewd business men with pictures of sell. They feature the pictures that sell best, which is to say the pictures the greatest number of people will buy tickets for.

Are there perhaps 300 adults in Elizabeth City who would really appreciate high class motion pictures—hardly more than that. Three hundred people can’t make a moving picture house pay or determine the quality of the pictures its shows.

The way to attack the moving picture evil is at the root, not the top. At the root is an untrained, uncouth, unappreciative hoodlum population. That’s the honest to God’s truth about the whole matter. Before we can uplift the moving pictures, we must uplift the people and train their eyes, minds and hearts to an appreciation of things that are truly beautiful, helpful and healthful. We have made the terrible mistake of supposing that we had done enough for the people by promising them a heaven in the hereafter in which everything would be straightened out and made lovely. That is not enough.

If we are going to hobnob with the people in a New Jerusalem the time to quality for their companionship and equip ourselves to enjoy a Hallelujah picnic in the skies is now—right now. Our schools and churches should be open all the time to all the people and the activities of our schools and churches should be directed at all times to a democratization of the social life of the communities they serve, bringing all the people together in a democratic fellowship. In this way, and only in some way, will a unity of community ideals ever be achieved. That so many people do not appreciate better pictures, better books, better music, better sermons—and better government—is because they have never had an opportunity to study better pictures, better books, better music, better sermons—and better government. And if the doors of opportunity are to be opened to those whose minds and morals are untrained, it must be opened by those to whom opportunities for a better life and a better vision have not been denied. In an editorial written more than a year ago I said something like this: “Clean up the minds of the people and the pictures will clean up themselves.”

From the editorial page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., March 30, 1923, W.O. Saunders, editor