together." The president of the club suggested that the club turn the school house into a community house. Mr. Meyers, the patriarch of the community, deeded the house to the Woman's Club for this purpose. The men at the request of their wives repaired the house and stained the outside, cleared up the prem ises. The women stained the floors, alabastined the walls, made curtains, equipped a kitchen, built book shelves and bought a piano. The club meets there for its demonstrations twice a month, in the afternoon. Once a month a community meeting of men, women, boys, girls, and babies is held in the evening. Community singing, games, plays, talks by visitors from the county seat or the State Extension Force's pictures and suppers are enjoyed by all.

This small community actually entertained the district federation of about seventy-five delegates at their club house, the beautiful decorations and delicious refreshments being "home grown.'

We hear a great deal about the town helping to break down prejudice and bring about better feeling between town and country but this story shows how average farm women solved their own problems and brought the town out to them, thus making for good feeling and giving opportunities for the exercise of hospitality.

The power of co-operation is well told by the old stage driver out west. He was expert with his whip. An admiring passenger sitting by him watched the old stage driver flick a fly off a horse's ear and kill it. Again he flicked a grasshopper off a grass stem and killed it. A lazy lizard on a ledge was dislodged by the same keen whip while the coach was careening rapidly along. Just then they approached a tree from which a big gray ball was suspended. The passenger said, "You killed the fly and the grasshopper and dislodged the lizard, let's see you bring down that hornets' nest." The old driver drawled out, "No sir! A fly's just a fly, and a grasshopper is just a grasshopper and a lizard ain't nothing but a lizard, but that thing is an organization."

The important matter in looking for co-operation is to understand the other parties viewpoint as well as your own. A great many well intentioned plans for helping the rural woman have

failed because they did not take into account what the farm woman herself can do.

County wide co-operation helps women to solve their financial problems. In one county hard hit by the boll weevil, the agent taught the members of the county council to make beautiful baskets of the native honeysuckle vine, and thus establish a valuable fire-side industry that brought in a handsome income without taking the women away from their home duties and in case of the girls, without their having to leave school. Poultry, dairying, canning and floriculture were promoted in the same way. In another county sixteen women packed and sold three thousand jars of fig preserves from trees in their own yards.

Meal planning, clothes clinics, health campaigns, illiteracy campaigns are quickly spread to every part of a county through the activities of these community leaders who meet in a county council to get instruction and inspiration. The aim of the county council is summed up in the statement of our honored President, "An organized body of women in every community who may be depended upon to promote movements looking toward the betterment of life."

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 28.

8:00 o'clock. Amphitheater.

MOTION PICTURE EVENING.

Motion Pictures will be shown illustrating the various departments of work of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, together with their divisions and sub-committees.

Mrs. Thomas G. Winter and Mrs. Woodallen Chapman, Chairman of Committee on Community Service

Through Motion Pictures, Presiding.

Message from Chairman. Mrs. Woodallen Chapman.
Address: "Upbuilding the Nation's Life Through Motion Pic-

tures." Mr. Will H. Hays, President, Motion Picture Pro-
ducers and Distributors of America, Inc.

Music.

UPBUILDING THE NATION'S LIFE THROUGH MOTION PICTURES.

WILL H. HAYS.

I want to talk about motion pictures. I want to approach the subject, not merely from the viewpoint of the men who have millions of dollars invested in the business, but from the viewpoint of the fathers and mothers who have millions of children invested in the business.

First, I would express my profound appreciation of that aristocracy of intellect and character that makes up the membership of the General Federation of Women's Clubs of this country. There is nothing that has done the good in the nation that has been done by its womanhood, and there is no organized movement of people that has accomplished more or which can accomplish more for the general welfare than the organized womanhood of the country as it is represented by you.

This is a frank statement of fact, and I am mindful of this opportunity.

In that appreciation of this presence and with the certain assurance of our common interest in this subject matter, I want earnestly to discuss it with you.

The motion picture is an institution operating all about us with which all are familiar, yet know little-with its potentiality recognized by few, and by many entirely misunderstood.

There has been some query as to just what this new effort which the industry is making at this time is all about. It is simply that these men who make and distribute pictures have associated themselves together to do jointly those things in which they are mutually but non-competitively interested, having as the chief purposes of such association two great objectives-and I quote verbatim from the formal articles of association which have been filed at Albany:

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'Establishing and maintaining the highest possible moral and artistic standards in motion picture production," and

"Developing the educational as well as the entertainment value and the general usefulness of the motion picture."

This is not merely a vague gentlemen's agreement; it is the legal statement of a legal purpose by a legally organized body. It creates no super-court autocratically to pass upon pictures, nor does it place anyone in the attitude and most certainly I shall not be placed in the attitude of being the judge of the morals of those who are in the industry. The purposes of the association are stated in its articles and I respectfully submit to you that no articles of association breathing a more important message could well be found.

My own connection with the matter is simply to serve as the executive head of this association to help carry out these purposes. It was first suggested to me on December 8th, last year, by a committee which came to Washington for the purpose. never known why they happened to come to me. The suggestion merited careful consideration. This I gave it for several weeks, and on being convinced of the earnestness and integrity of determination of the producers and distributors to carry out these purposes and the reasonable possibility of large plans and successful consummation, I decided to do it.

You will pardon the personal reference if I suggest that it was rather a serious thing for me personally to make this change in my whole course in life. I did not undertake this task lightly. I rather thought I had done my bit in politics and public affairs, rather wanted soon to get into private life, and when this came to me out of a clear sky it seemed to give that opportunity and yet afford an opportunity for service-and I am going to give everything that is in me for this period to that service.

We have no great "program of reform," and I do not in any sense come into the industry in any "new broom" attitude. I am a tenderfoot in the motion picture business.. I have said that what I did not know about it would fill the Encyclopedia Brittanica-but I am learning something every day and doing the very best I can, and as quickly and certainly as possible every day mean to try to be of some service in helping develop the plans and execute the purposes moving in the direction of the great objectives. One thing I do know, and that is the honest purpose involved in the undertaking, and that is the one vitally

essential thing now. And I am glad finally to be in an activity where we are all on the same side of the table. Many of the things in which I have engaged in the past have been developed where there was considerable strife. It is a great satisfaction to be in a work of this kind where we will have the generous help of all thinking people in accomplishing what must be recognized as an effort for the good of all.

The motion picture is essentially, of course, a source of amusement. It is the principal amusement of the great majority of our people and the sole amusement of millions and millionsand as such its importance is measured only by the imperative necessity of entertainment for our people. And do not underestimate that necessity. A baby is born. It cries and riots and goes red. You shake a rattle before it; the child calms and the riot is over. Just so his older brother. The people of this country must have their amusement or the country will go red. Do not forget that.

In the United States, in all the big cities and in all those maple-shaded towns and villages which comprise America there are perhaps fifteen thousand motion picture theatres and in those theatres fifteen million seats. Taking into account the at least twice-a-day performances and applying the collected statistics, we estimate that within every twenty-four hours between Maine and California twenty million men, women and children come to look for an hour or two on the motion picture screen. They come with no other preoccupation; not out of duty nor out of solicitation, but just in that mood of reception and relaxation, in that state of mind and emotion which a master psychologist, a great teacher, would want them to come, having the desire to make the strongest possible impression upon them.

Obviously, it is true that the influence of the motion picture on our national life is, indeed, absolutely limitless-its influence on our taste, its influence on our conduct, its influence on our aspirations, its influence on our youth and its consequent immeasurable influence on our future; and its integrity must be protected just as we protect the integrity of our churches, and its quality developed just as we develop the quality of our schools.

The men who have pioneered in this industry have, of course, already accomplished the most wonderful things. It has