Their virtues were not the civilized virtues, nor were their vices those of the film producers, so that they saw the hero as a good-for-nothing, and the villain, often enough, as a hero. When the melodramatic “heavy” pulled out his knife and plunged it into the trusty guard, they cheered him on, and when he next dragged the beautiful heroine into his refuge in the hills by the hair of her head, they were more enthusiastic still. But when the hero appeared on the scene in the nick of time, to help the girl escape and foil the villain’s plans, they hissed like good fellows, and nearly broke up the show. Let us see for a moment just what the world market in motion pictures means to America. Not in dollars and cents, because, alone, the money side of the picture industry is neither exceptionally important nor particularly interesting. The film industry is now, I believe, the fifth largest in the country, and its exports and imports run to millions of dollars annually. American pictures for the whole world would mean more dollars coming our way, and more prosperity in this country; but that is neither more nor less than can be said of half a dozen other industries. Money is not the only thing we need to make America the greatest country in the world. Indirectly, the movies mean more, even from the money standpoint, than the tremendous direct returns from the industry itself give any idea of. The citizens of Rio de Janeiro, let us say, watch American films and become acquainted with the interiors of American rooms, American furniture and all the rest. When they have to furnish a home of their own those Brazilians have to choose, let us say, between German-made furniture and American. If they’re already accustomed to the American designs and styles, through seeing them on the screen, they will take them, unhesitatingly, in preference to the German. For what people have already accepted unconsciously as a standard—what they see others using in countries they look up to—inevitably appeals to them for their own use. And as with furniture, so with all the host of other things American, manufactured for export as well as home use. The really big thing about American films abroad—in Europe, in Asia, in Africa and South America—is that they carry American ideas, and American ideals and American influence, around the world. To-day the American girl is known all over the globe. The faces of our screen actresses—Mary Pickford, Constance Talmadge, Lillian Gish, and many more—are watched in Calcutta and Petrograd, Cape Town and Budapest. Doesn’t that make it seem a fortunate thing that Mary Pickford, with her charming smile, has come at least as near as she has to representing the real heart of America—all that is cleanest and kindest and best in us? For, when all is said and done, she more truly, perhaps, than any other one living person represents America in foreign lands.