FOR ages the interest of the individual in dramatic episodes in real life was in direct ratio to his propinquity to the locality in which these episodes occurred. Until recently, a civil war in China seemed to be of less significance to the average New Yorker than a Tong outbreak in Chinatown, just as to his ancestors Aaron Burr’s treasonable schemes were of greater moment than Napoleon’s efforts at world-dominion. But the New Yorker has learned, since 1914, that what happens in Peking or Canton may affect him more vitally than anything which may occur in Mott or Pell Street. Against his own volition he has become, perforce, a citizen of the world and is compelled to subscribe to Terence’s dictum, sensationally delivered to the Romans centuries ago: “_Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto._” This change in the mental attitude of the average American toward what may be called the real perspective of current events, a change that has had an effect upon the screen as a peripatetic journalist by making it constantly more cosmopolitan, has not as yet revolutionized its activities in its earlier and more important rôle as a photoplay producer. As a medium for drama the screen is only just beginning to break away from the influences that controlled it when it first set out on its career as a pioneer in a new art, namely, the silent presentation of plays and stories. It is still necessary for us who enjoy a photoplay of real merit to exercise care at the entrance to a movie theatre lest we be confronted presently by a screen drama unworthy the attention of intelligent observers. Why this deplorable situation continues to exist it is worth our while to consider. There are those among the erudite who assert that the oldest of the arts is Poetry. Like Lord Byron, mankind “lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.” Homer and his brother bards, Latin, Teutonic, Norse, twanged their lyres, harshly or majestically, as the case might be, in glorification of only two themes, namely, War and Love. And so was it later on with the troubadours and minnesingers, they harped and sang the splendors and the mysteries of combat and of passion. Long ago was Man’s belligerency set to word-music and the martial hero owes to the poets the false and misleading radiance that throughout the ages has surrounded his name and deeds. And when they sang of love it was the love of a Lochinvar for a maiden not of a Lincoln for a people.