Many of the factory workers are young men and young women, whose
starved imaginations seek an outlet that will not be denied. In lieu
of wholesome recreation and material, they will find "clues to life's
perplexities" in salacious plays, in cheap vaudeville performances, in
the suggestive pages of railway literature, in other ways that make for
a lowering of moral tone. The reaction that craves amusement of any
sort is manifest in the nightly crowded stalls of the cheap theaters.
Eight million spectators view every moving picture film that is
manufactured. It is estimated that one-sixth of the entire population
of New York City and of Chicago attends the theaters on any Sunday of
the year. One Sunday evening, at the instance of Miss Jane Addams, an
investigation was made of 466 theaters in the latter city, and it was
discovered that in the majority of them the leading theme was revenge;
the lover following his rival; the outraged husband seeking his wife's
betrayer; or the wiping out by death of a blot on a hitherto unstained
honor. And of course these influences extend to the children who are
always the most ardent and responsive of audiences. There is grave
danger that the race will develop a ragtime disposition, a moving
picture habit and a comic supplement mind.