FROM TREASURY TO CINEMA

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 3778, 3 May 1919, Page 1

FROM TREASURY TO CINEMA

MR WILSON'S SON-IN-LAW TO FIGHT FILM TRUST. A EEE OF £-0,000 A YEAR. New York. Mr MeAdoo, President Wilson's son-in-law and formerly Secretary to the United States Treasury and Director-General of .Railways, acaeceptcd tbe offer of Mary I'ickford, Chnrlic Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and William S. Hart, to become their general counsel in a fight against the film producers' trust at a 'salary reported to bo £20,000 n year. When Mr MeAdoo resigned the Government post for which he received £2100 a year lie gave as his reason the inadequacy of the remuneration and the necessity of making better provision for his family. Since then the country has watched with great interest to see how far private persons would go.above the Government in bidding for his services.

The four cinema stars made their offer, it is said, because they intend hereafter to place thoir productions on the market without the agency of private corporations as middlemen.

When the directors of the principal film corporation at a recent meeting showed their intention of forming a trust for the purpose of squeezing the enormous salaries of cinema stars and putting money in their own pockets, Mary I'ickford, Charlie Chaplin and their two colleagues, whoso aggregate annual incomes are estimaJtcd 'at more- than £400,000, resolved to safeguard their own interests. They hired Mir D. W. Griffith, the famous film producer, as their general director ,and by acquiring Mr MeAdoo as legal representative they now consider that they are in a position to defeat the trust and perhaps increase their own earnings. Mr MeAdoo lias issued a statement declaring that his clients are determined not lo permit any trust to destroy competition, to blight their prospects, or to interfere with the .high (jualiy of their work. They feel that it' is of the utmost importance to secure artistic development of the cinema industry, and this will be ininossible if the trust obtains possession of the field and menaces business.