diplomatic governess, in reasonable time, may bring about.

The producer has the man in the audience who cares for the art peculiarly
at his mercy. Compare him with the person who wants to read a magazine
for an evening. He can look over all the periodicals in the local
book-store in fifteen minutes. He can select the one he wants, take this
bit of printed matter home, go through the contents, find the three
articles he prefers, get an evening of reading out of them, and be happy.
Every day as many photoplays come to our town as magazines come to the
book-store in a week or a month. There are good ones and bad ones buried
in the list. There is no way to sample the films. One has to wait through
the first third of a reel before he has an idea of the merits of a
production, his ten cents is spent, and much of his time is gone. It
would take five hours at least to find the best film in our town for one
day. Meanwhile, nibbling and sampling, the seeker would run such a
gantlet of plot and dash and chase that his eyes and patience would be
exhausted. Recently there returned to the city for a day one of
Griffith's best Biographs, The Last Drop of Water. It was good to see
again. In order to watch this one reel twice I had to wait through five
others of unutterable miscellany.

Since the producers and theatre-managers have us at their mercy,
they are under every obligation to consider our delicate
susceptibilities--granting the proposition that in an ideal world we will
have no legal censorship. As to what to do in this actual nation, let the
reader follow what John Collier has recently written in The Survey.
Collier was the leading force in founding the National Board of
Censorship. As a member of that volunteer extra-legal board which is
independent and high minded, yet accepted by the leading picture
companies, he is able to discuss legislation in a manner which the
present writer cannot hope to match. Read John Collier. But I wish to
suggest that the ideal censorship is that to which the daily press is
subject, the elastic hand of public opinion, if the photoplay can be
brought as near to newspaper conditions in this matter as it is in some
others.

How does public opinion grip the journalist? The editor has a constant
report from his constituency. A popular scoop sells an extra at once. An
attack on the wrong idol cancels fifty subscriptions. People come to the
office to do it, and say why. If there is a piece of real