of all the States or districts, so that the totals of different candidates might be easily compared. Thus, in a presidential election, the counting of the number of States for each candidate does not by any means give the whole story. The important thing is the number of electoral votes, and these would be best represented by the bar summary which would take into account the number of electoral votes of each State estimated as won by any candidate. With the combination slide showing, in the form of bars, both a map and estimated totals, any person coming out of the theater to join the election-night crowd could see instantly how the situation stood up to the moment the last slide was colored.
With the election-return method outlined, the concise telegrams in handwriting would still be shown on the screen one by one as the news came in over the wire. A popular appeal to a large crowd can always be made by snappy statements such as "Jones concedes Chicago to Smith", or "California goes for Brown". Instead of holding statements of this kind on the screen until other news could arrive, however, any statement in written words would be taken off as soon as it had been grasped by the crowd and one of the colored maps would be thrown on the screen. Slides with colored maps and colored bars would be used as fillers, to be kept on the screen continuously whenever there were no telegraphic reports to be projected on the screen in written words. It would probably be found desirable, in many cases, to show telegraphic reports in such manner that a map would be thrown on the screen between each two telegraphic reports, and also held on the screen whenever telegraphic reports should not come in fast enough.
Election returns are sometimes told to a whole city by search lights thrown from the top of some high building. National, State, or municipal election returns can be kept distinct by the search-light method if certain directions, north, east, south, or west are announced for the lantern beams referring to the different kinds of election returns. Until complete reports have been received the lantern beams can be moved gradually up and down. After complete reports are in the beam can be held steady, so that the watchers even miles away may know from the angle of the light and its position that a conclusion has been reached, and who wins.
Educational material shown in parades gives an effective way for reaching vast numbers of people. Fig. 238 illustrates some of the floats used in presenting statistical information in the municipal parade by
