Speech By Kinetophone

Picking up from yesterday's post, this is longer item from later in the month when another Kinetophone film had evidently been made featuring the Street Cleaning commissioner. This film was shown at the New York Hippodrome, which is remarkable for its size—the theater holds more than 5,000.

“Big Bill” Edwards Host To 5,000 Men

Commissioner Gives an Entertainment at Hippodrome
for Street Cleaning Employes.
Speech By Kinetophone
Department Workers Congratulated on Their Splendid
Work in the City Clean-Up.

Nearly 5,000 men of the Department of Street Cleaning attended a special performance arranged for them yesterday at the Hippodrome. The entertainment opened with a concert by the Department of Street Cleaning Band, and then Commissioner “Big Bill” Edwards stepped forward on the stage. When the cheering had died away Mr. Edwards welcomed the workers of his department, and congratulated them on the splendid manner in which there had gone about the recent Spring clean-up of the city.

The special performance was arranged for the Commissioner, as a mark of appreciations of the work of the men of the Department of Street Cleaning throughout the last year generally, and in particular during the recent Spring clean-up campaign.

Mr. Edwards, wearing a silk hat and frock coat, was t the main entrance of the big playhouse when the first of the guests began to arrive for the performance. He stayed there until the house was filled to its capacity, acting as a special escort to many of the veterans of his department, whom he led by the hand to their boxes and seats. When Mr. Edwards appeared on the stage, following the band concert, he said:

“I have seen most of you men before, and I am glad to welcome you here this afternoon. I am not going to make you a speech, because later you will hear me give to the men of the Department of Street Cleaning a new kind of talk on the kinetophone, recently perfected by Thomas A. Edison. I hope you will all have a profitable and pleasant afternoon.”

The kinetophone was then put in operation while Commissioner Edwards retired from the stage to his box. In the prelude was shown a crowd of college boys, who started to sing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” until they were drowned out by the audience applauding. When the college boys finished their song one of them stepped to the front in the picture and made the presentation of the Commissioner.

For a few moments it was simply a motion picture performance by Mr. Edwards, for his words were lost in the uproar created by his 5,000 loyal men as he came forward in the picture to address them. When the audience was quieted his speech could be plainly heard until interrupted again by the enthusiastic street cleaners.

“I am allowed through the courtesy of Mr. Edison to make an address to the 6,500 men of the Department of Street Cleaning,” said he, “and I am very glad to thank you for the good work you are giving to the City of New York.

“Few people realize that every morning 6,500 men start out to clean the streets of this city, and I am glad to speak to the men of this department who earn their money by the sweat of their brows. Their work is the hardest of any city department, and there is not the slightest question that your salaries should be increased. I am confident that this will come sooner or later. The people of this city ought to arise and call you most efficient. I believe that a large majority of them do.

“The cleaner the streets are the fewer will be the beds in the city’s hospitals, because clean streets largely do away with unsanitary conditions.

“Nothing tends toward good street cleaning conditions so much as the cooperation of the people themselves. This city must realize that it can do just as much as the Department of Street Cleaning. The street cleaners leave their jobs at 4 o’clock in the morning, and after that it is up to the citizens of the city to decide whether the streets shall be kept clean. They should consider how much paper and rubbish they throw on the streets. It is estimated that it costs the city $50,000 additional each year for the time used by the department in picking up paper and other rubbish thrown in the streets.

“Those who criticise must criticise intelligently. Those who want clean streets must help. Every one is responsible for the condition of the streets of New York City. My whole idea of co-operation is contained in the following verse:

Why don’t they keep the streets a little cleaner?
You ask with keen amazement, not undue.
Why don’t they keep the parks a little cleaner?
Did you ever stop to think that this means you?

“Yes this means you and every other citizen in this city. You have a responsibility to bear. See that you bear that responsibility, and see that your neighbor do something to keep the streets clean. It is hardest to help those who will not help themselves. In some localities the streets are littered ten minutes after the street cleaners have left them clean.”

Source: “‘Big Bill’ Edwards Host To 5,000 Men,” New York Times 26 May 1913, 16.

Mayor Gaynor on the Kinetograph

In April 1913, Mayer Gaynor of New York and a number of his commissioners were the subject of Kinetophone film. Whether this was for publicity, goodwill or an attempt to find a new market for the sound film is unclear, but it received quite a lot more press attention than any previous Kinetophone subject. This first item reports on the "posing" of the film.

Mayor In Talking Pictures

With Waldo and Other Commissioners, He Talks and Poses.

Patrons of the talking picture houses will have an opportunity soon to see and hear Mayor Gaynor, Police Commissioner Waldo, Fire Commissioner Johnson, Street Cleaning Commissioner Edwards, and Robert Adamson, the Mayor’s secretary, explain the workings of the city government. Yesterday the Mayor and his Commissioners went up to the Edison studios, at Valentine and Decatur Avenues, the Bronx, and posed for a series of moving picture films. At the same time they talked into a phonograph, and every word and gesture were duly recorded. The Mayor explained that he had promised representatives of the Edison Company long ago that he would talk and “act” for them, and that he found his first opportunity yesterday.

Source: “Mayor In Talking Pictures,” New York Times 18 April 1913, 1.

This next notice is more a publicity item, which suggests that the Kinetophone might have an important role in preserving the historical record.

Films for Posterity

Edison to Present Gaynor and Others in Records for Centuries.

Thomas A. Edison, who recently perfected the kinetophone, will formally present to the Modern Historic Records Association at the City Hall this afternoon at 1 o’clock the talking-motion-picture records that were lately made of Mayor Gaynor and other department heads of the city Government. The records, including both the motion picture films and the phonographic cylinders, will be received by William George Jordan, Managing Director of the Modern Historic Records Association, in the presence of Mayor Gaynor and others of whom records were made.

Mr. Edison will also present a piece of parchment on which there will be an inscription explaining that the records are intended to be preserved for centuries, and below the inscription will be the signatures of those whose records were made, certifying their genuineness. Until the Modern Historic Records Association builds its own home the records will be deposited in the New York Public Library. At a demonstration a few days ago in the Union Square Theatre the records were approved by the Mayor and his associates. In addition to Mayor Gaynor, there are records of his secretary Waldo, Fire Commissioner Johnson, and street Cleaning Commissioner Edwards.

Source: “Films for Posterity,” New York Times 1 May 1913, 6.

This is the report of the premiere of the film. Note that as of May the Kinetophone is still installed at four Keith and Proctor vaudeville theaters.

The Mayor In the "Movies"

Mayor Gaynor, Secretary Adamson, and Commissioners Waldo, Johnson, and Edwards made their vaudeville debuts yesterday afternoon at three of the Keith theatres, the Colonial, the Union Square, and the Alhambra, and Proctor’s Fifth Avenue, the simultaneous appearance being accounted for by the fact that they were seen as stars of an Edison talking moving-picture record. The Mayor’s secretary and the three Commissioners each spoke a few sentences for the recording machine, and then Mayor Gaynor gave a three-minute talk. The scene was set to represent the Mayor’s office, and the five speakers were seated around a large table when the picture was flashed on the screen.

The Mayor began by saying that he wished it were possible to have all the heads of city departments on the screen to tell the people about their activities, but he had to content himself with having three of them there. Some of the “corrupt newspapers,” said the mayor, had been endeavoring to raise a public clamor to have some of his Commissioners dismissed, but he had stood by them. He said that he believed the public was beginning to realize he as right in standing by them. He closed with an argument in favor of the Workmen’s Compensation bills, which he said he hoped to see enacted into law.

Source: “The Mayor In the ‘Movies,” New York Times 6 May 1913, 20.

This is an excerpt from "Observations By Our Man About Town," a regular column that appeared in Moving Picture World. From this column it seems likely that Edison was exploring the possibility of increasing the market for the Kinetophone by using it to record lectures and other educational events.

Mayor Gaynor, Police Commissioner Waldo, Fire Commissioner Johnson and Street Commissioner Edwards made their debut in motion picture studio work one day last week. They figured in talking moving pictures and, while some people look upon it as a joke, the event will do much towards demonstrating the value of the pictures in the exemplification of the work attached to the various civic departments. Communities finding it impossible to secure the personal attendance for lectures of men who become prominently identified with municipal, state and national departments will find a valuable acquisition in such pictures. Chatauqua circuits and lecture platforms will be particularly interested in the development of this branch of the industry. It is to become one of the most important factors in the educational line. Each day brings forth some new development or undertaking, showing clearly that the day is not far distant when the motion picture will become as indispensable in educational circles as it has become popular in the world of entertainment. It is no longer a question as to how long the pictures will survive. Truly they are in their infancy.

“Observations By Our Man About Town,” Moving Picture World 3 May 1913, 476.

Suffragettes Pose

Below is an interesting short item on the filming of a short suffragette meeting. What is particular noteworthy here is the description of the shoot, which included, it seems, the use of the coconut shells as a rudimentary clapperboard to establish the initial points of synchronization.

Suffragettes PosePhotographs and Speeches Taken for Talking-Picture Records.
In the year 2013 the world will know that the suffragists of 1913 could make five good suffrage speeches in five minutes. Suffragists went to the Edison Studios yesterday morning to act and talk before the moving and talking picture machine. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the National President and champion suffrage speechmaker, was prevented by illness from attending the meeting.

Miss Harriet May Mills presided at the meeting and Mrs. Raymond Brown, Miss Elizabeth Freeman, Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw, and Mrs. John Rogers, Jr., made the speeches. With the introductions of the Miss Mills, the whole session was over in five and three-quarter minutes. The women, when they found what they had to do, held three rehearsals of their speeches, then they talked to the phonograph, which gave their speeches back to them, and then came two genuine acts, as they were actually to be reproduced—the words and motions together.

The meeting began at the sound of the cocoanut—a couple of cocoanut shells clapped together—and each time the women came out on time in their minute speeches. What interested the moving picture men in charge of the work was that, while the women kept to the time limit, their speeches were so far impromptu that they never gave them twice alike.

Source: “Suffragettes Pose,” New York Times 20 March 1913, 9.