And in this connection, it is interesting to note that the claim of France to a high place in that triple alliance which made the movies a tremendous power for both good and evil in a perturbed world does not rest wholly upon Daguerre and his invention of the daguerreotype. No account of the evolution of the motion picture would be complete without reference to the impetus given to the new industry in “Daddy” Paul’s halcyon days by the Messrs. Lumière and Sons, of Paris, France, manufacturers of photographic apparatus, dry plates, etc. The Edison kinetoscope had come within their purview in 1893 and they had realized at once, as had Paul, that a motion picture that could have but one observer at a time was merely a butterfly in the chrysalis. The Messrs. Lumière solved ingeniously, and in their own way, the problem that had confronted Paul and are entitled to a part of the glory that goes to those who changed the kinetoscope from a peep-show for one to a screen display for hundreds. It was the French machine that brought Edison’s one-eyed toy back to the country of its birth raised to the dignity of an amusement for adults. Through the energy and far-sightedness of Richard G. Hollaman, head of the Eden Musée, of New York, the Lumière apparatus, in the Fall of 1896, created something of a sensation in the American metropolis. To the Eden Musée, known to fame for its presentation of historic personages of the past, belongs the honor of making the path to glory easy to the celebrities of to-day. Fame was now to discard stuffed effigies as a reward for greatness to use the screen to bring the exalted of the earth down to the masses. The movie had been finally launched upon a career that was to lead it toward heights from which to-day it can see a future that, unless the human race wantonly commits hari-kari, will be unimaginably glorious. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV THE MOVIE GOES TO THE BAD _The Era of Fly-by-Night Speculation—The Mushroom Movie Craze—The Screen’s Youthful Indiscretions—Stupidity and Cupidity as Partners—The Degradation of a New Art-Form—Boy-Made Scenarios—The Stage Versus the Screen—A Future for Both._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV THE MOVIE GOES TO THE BAD