The Moving Picture World/Volume 1/Number 1/A Long-Felt Want
A LONG-FELT WANT.
Editors, Moving Picture World:
For some time past, it has been patent that the trade actually required a medium through which its requirements could be made known, but that medium to be absolutely fearless and independent. Thus far no publication has been introduced, and it is, therefore, with great pleasure I hail the advent of The Moving Picture World and View Photographer and wish it Godspeed. If, as it has been reported, The Moving Picture World will be subject to no certain class (and I believe it will be all that is claimed for it), your success is assured.
The only regret I have at the present time is that you cannot discriminate between the legitimate and the illegitimate, and by that I mean, refuse to accept advertisements from those who do not originate, but who copy all that is good in machines and films and have the brazen audacity to claim that they are originators. However, that may come later on.
There are pirates in all branches of trade, and it could not be otherwise than that they have been introduced in this line; but I frankly believe that the public, to use a popular expression, is becoming wise to the fact, and the angel born every day, popularly designated under a more homely term, will be induced to make extended inquiries before he invests his money.
There are sufficient good machines and good pictures on the market to-day to supply the demand without going into the cheap imitations. These imitations appeal to the "cheap" class of showmen, who lose sight of the fact that, generally speaking, an article cheap in price is likewise cheap in quality, and this explains more eloquently than words why a machine breaks down during a performance, whether it is concert or Nickelodeon work, and the audience invariably condemns the operator, whereas they should condemn the proprietor, who, in order to save a few dollars, has bought a worthless article.
I hope in your editorials you will try to train a prospective purchaser of an outfit to buy a good article at a slight advance in price and thus save him the humiliation he will be subjected to if he buys an article merely because the catalogue is handsomely illustrated.
I wish you unbounded success, and remain,