Split Screen:
Dual Movie Takes on Seattle Labor

The story of the Seattle General Strike began well before the event itself. Nationwide, union membership rose considerably between 1916 and 1919, peaking when the U.S. entered the European war.^[1] Seattle had a large union population to begin with, but wartime production boosted union employment to nearly 50% of all jobs, key among them the metal trades. Many of these labor organizations fell under the jurisdiction of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which was, according to historian Robert Friedheim, considered by some to be radical. “To understand Seattle labor,” he explained, “one must realize that the appellation ‘radical’ was loosely applied. Anyone was considered a radical who vociferously demanded rapid and far-reaching changes on the position of labor in society. Enemies of radicalism…used the term as a pejorative and made little attempt to distinguish between shades of opinion on the left.”^[2]

Radical or no, Seattle labor had long taken an active hand in the lives of their fellow brethren, and not just in the workplace, operating several co-op businesses for the benefit of union families. Seattle had, among other things, labor-run grocery stores, a bank, a laundry and, most importantly, a newspaper, the Seattle Union Record. Whereas the Daily Times and Post-Intelligencer tended to reflect the conservative establishment, while the Star, the city’s most popular newspaper at the time, was more center-left, the Union Record was unabashedly left – pro-labor news for pro-labor people. This was a unique feature giving voice to union leaders and activists who sometimes had difficulty getting their messages into Seattle’s traditional dailies. Its writers reflected its readership; although the Union Record employed seasoned journalists, the paper also ran articles from everyday workers whose commitment to labor principals sometimes took precedence over literary skill.^[3]

The tipping point for labor unrest in Seattle occurred in November 1918, right at the end of World War I, when the Emergency Fleet Corporation, which oversaw the buildup of wartime merchant vessels, set new wage rates for tradesmen working on government projects.^[4] Known as the Macy Award, it bound the nation’s shipyards to specific pay scales for portions of their work, which was already dwindling due to the end of hostilities. In the Northwest, however, the Macy Award was actually pay cut for certain workers, prompting concern from local labor leaders. In response the Metal Trades Council, representing more than 20 smaller unions, countered by proposing a slightly higher wage scale for workers in Puget Sound shipyards. But local employers had their hands tied when it came to these wage requirements and had no choice but to reject the proposal out of hand. In January 1919 the two sides met to discuss the matter but talks broke down and the Metal Trades Council voted to go out on strike. When the start date came – January 21^st – some 35,000 shipyard workers in Seattle, plus another 14,000 in Tacoma, walked off the job.

What began as a strike within the shipbuilding industry, however, quickly grew in proportion. Other Northwest unions, too, were being impacted by the abrupt shift away from wartime production levels, and were soon considering sympathy strikes to support the metalworkers. Eventually the Central Labor Council of Seattle put the question to membership, who approved the measure, setting the stage for a city-wide general strike to begin at 10 a.m. on February 6^th, when around 65,000 additional workers from a variety of professions agreed to walk off the job. Given Seattle’s high rate of union membership, the move effectively shut the city down, with even nonunion businesses (particularly those downtown) closing up for fear of possible strike violence.

Fighting never erupted, but the potential for things to get out of hand was always there, simmering beneath the surface, and the city was rife with rumors about what was or was not happening. When Federal troops were called in on the Strike’s second day, it was a development that was either comforting or confrontational, depending on where one’s sympathies lay. All the ingredients were there for a heated clash, something exacerbated by the intense media coverage being heaped on the event by news outlets from around the country.

Strike leader Anna Louise Strong, daughter of prominent clergyman Reverend Sydney Strong, penned a front-page editorial for the Seattle Union Record on February 4^th, two days before the General Strike began, acknowledging the historic moment by claiming that organized labor was “starting on a road that leads – NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!”^[5] And indeed, she was correct, just not for the reasons she probably imagined. While Seattle labor was unified in its desire to orchestrate a city-wide strike, they were scattered in what they hoped to achieve. Rifts between competing trades opened almost immediately, and Strike organizers had a difficult time keeping everyone together. Some saw the folly of the General Strike right away – streetcar workers, for example, walked off the job on February 6^th but returned after just two days. While organizers (and the editors of the Union Record) were focused on keeping workers united, actual reporting on the Strike was often ceded to Seattle’s more established newspapers, who tended to set the tone with their commentary – which then got picked up in the national media.^[6] Papers like the Daily Times and Post-Intelligencer openly speculated, for example, that the Strike could be used as a front for radical agitators. This was on top of whispers about bomb plots and shootings, or wondering aloud whether the goal of organized labor was to eventually confiscate private property.

These were powerful ideas that traditional media outlets used to frame their reporting. On their pages, the Seattle General Strike was a Bolshevik-style revolution that had to be put down in the name of law and order – the counterargument, coming from the much smaller Union Record, wasn’t typically making it into print, at least on a national level.

Despite the media hyperventilating, the Seattle General Strike fell apart rather quickly, ending with a whimper on February 11^th. “The fizzling of the Seattle general strike,” Friedheim concluded, “is probably the most anticlimactic moment in any major mass effort by American working men.”^[7] The event was a debacle, poorly organized and badly executed, ending with labor desperately attempting to frame the Strike as a moral victory. They had to, because it did little for actual workers – at the Skinner and Eddy Shipyard, where the strike originated, postwar business reductions eventually eliminated about 90% of their 1919 workforce.^[8] By 1921, union membership throughout Seattle had fallen by two-thirds.

The Seattle General Strike was an underwhelming event for organized labor, but a smash hit for the media. For a brief moment the eyes of the nation were squarely focused on Seattle, and for many the General Strike appeared to be a triumph of capitalism and the squashing of a Red rebellion. Yet, at the same time, labor leaders tended to view the Strike as one more step on the long journey toward better wages and conditions for working families. In time, those competing views would play themselves out on movie screens across the country.

By Eric L. Flom – June 2025

Notes:
[1] See Steven J. Ross, “The Revolt of the Audience: Reconsidering Audiences and Reception During the Silent Era,” in Melvyn Stokes and Richard Maltby (editors), American Made Movies: From the Turn of the Century to the Early Sound Era (London: British Film Institute – 1999), Page 101.
[2] Robert L. Friedheim, The Seattle General Strike (Seattle: University of Washington Press – 1964), Page 39.
[3] Ibid., Pages 51-52.
[4] See Phil Dougherty, “Seattle shipyard strike begins on January 21, 1919,” HistoryLink website (https://www.historylink.org/File/11158), accessed 20 February 2022.
[5] Anna Louise Strong, “No One Knows Where,” Seattle Union Record, 4 February 1919, Page 1.
[6] Friedheim, Page 15.
[7] Ibid., Page 178.
[8] Ibid., Pages 162, 163-164.

Organized labor didn’t get what they wanted from the Seattle General Strike, but that’s not to say there weren’t winners. At the center of the controversy, for example, was Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson, perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the extensive media coverage, in that he tirelessly devoted himself to staying directly in the spotlight. Mayor Hanson was, after all, the leader who single-handedly put down an American revolution, something he accomplished without spilling a drop of blood. The Strike’s extensive media coverage handed Mayor Ole Hanson a bully pulpit, and he, rather shamelessly, wanted to use it to the fullest.

Hanson was born in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1874. Extraordinarily gifted, by age 13 he was already teaching at a local school, something he did before leaving to study law. Even there he was ahead of his time. Hanson passed the Wisconsin bar exam in 1893, but because he was only 19 at the time, he had to wait two full years before he could actually practice.

In 1902 Ole Hanson moved West, prompted, in part, by tragedy. Earlier that year he was in a train derailment that took his daughter’s life and injured Hanson so badly that doctors feared he’d never walk again. Partially as a result, the grieving family hitched their wagon and started out for a new life in the Northwest, but not before Hanson connected a second harness to the wagon, forcing himself to walk much of the trip in an effort to rebuild foot strength.

Upon arriving in Seattle Ole Hanson, who had already given up the practice of law, got his start as a grocer, buying a small store on Beacon Hill. He eventually sold that business and went into insurance, before settling on real estate as a profession. Intelligent and engaging, it wasn’t long before he gravitated toward politics. In 1908 Hanson was elected to the Washington state legislature on an anti-vice platform, and on March 5, 1918, he was elected to serve a two-year term as mayor of Seattle. It was a trying time to be involved in city politics; in his first 11 months in office, Hanson had to navigate not only the Spanish Flu pandemic but the Seattle General Strike as well.

Ole Hanson was generally pro-labor, but his handling of the Seattle General Strike turned that reputation on its head. The Strike highlighted his leadership, and Ole Hanson was too ambitious to pass up the opportunity he’d been handed. “[Hanson’s] political career is a case study of how far a man can go in American politics by first discovering the direction of public opinion and then giving the public what it wants,” wrote Robert Friedheim in 1964. Almost overnight, Hanson remade himself into a journalist’s dream – patriotic, tough-talking, endlessly quotable and an aggressive self-promoter. Hanson kept himself front and center, getting profiled in newspapers and magazines across the country as a staunch defender of American values. Such was his meteoric rise that there was talk that it might propel him into the Vice-Presidential slot on the 1920 Republican ticket.

Despite a General Strike that fizzled after only five days, Ole Hanson continued looking for ways to extend his newfound fame. He landed a book contract, with writing that took him away from city business – he spent a good deal of 1919 outside Seattle, in California, where he worked on the manuscript between media interviews. When this volume, Americanism Versus Bolshevism, finally appeared in 1920, it was one part biography, one part history and one part prescription against the dangers facing the United States. Hanson framed his arguments around the prevailing Red Scare in America, using Trumpian language that sounds all too familiar a century later.

Morally debauching every [labor] member by the teachings of cowardice and hate, the propogandists have used the ignorant and the mattoid and the moron for their foul purpose…A government which will not defend itself cannot stand. We have had enough of weakness, conciliation, and pandering. We must run the United States of America primarily for the United States of America…
          America First!^[1]

Eventually Ole Hanson resigned as Seattle’s mayor on August 28, 1919, right about the time Americanism Versus Bolshevism was handed over to the publisher. But though he continued milking his media notoriety, Hanson was never able to parlay his newfound fame into higher office. Following his resignation he left Seattle for California, passing away in 1940, at the age of 66, with two entirely different reputations.^[2] In the Northwest he was the former Seattle mayor who used the General Strike to pursue his own political ambitions, while in southern California he was the real estate visionary who helped, in the 1920s, create the planned community of San Clemente, later home to President Richard Nixon. “[Hanson’s] handling of the [Seattle General Strike] really wasn’t all that impressive one way or the other,” observed Trevor Williams. “His actions were neither heroic nor villainous. What is impressive is his meteoric success as a self-promoter, the near-fanaticism of his admirers, the bitter rhetoric of his detractors, and his sudden disappearance from the national stage. Everybody had something to say about Ole, but only for about fifteen minutes.”^[3]

At the height of Ole Hanson’s celebrity, however, in early 1919, he was such a media sensation that Hollywood decided to give his story a closer look. Veteran actor Frank Keenan, releasing films through Pathé, latched onto Ole Hanson and his handling of the Seattle General Strike as the basis for a motion picture. This was a story that had, in his opinion, a great foundation – a timely tale of labor and capital that could be plucked from the headlines and dramatized for the screen within weeks. The story couldn’t be used literally, of course, because it lacked all the components for a feature film, so Keenan (who had a hand in adapting the story) changed a few things to make it work. A romance was introduced, for example, and the villains were made more villainy. Still, just weeks after the end of the Seattle General Strike, Keenan had a working scenario in hand and pre-production began on the film, which was titled The World Aflame. By August 1919, the same month Ole Hanson stepped down as Seattle’s mayor, this production had already been shot and edited, with Pathé prepping to release The World Aflame to theatres across the nation. Given Mayor Ole Hanson’s delusions of grandeur, this movie (not to mention his forthcoming book) undoubtedly played a role in his decision to walk away from Seattle politics.

In The World Aflame Frank Keenan plays Carson Burr, a wealthy businessman concerned with the deteriorating labor situation in his city. In his own household, for example, his personal driver spends more time gambling than working, and Burr must dismiss his cook because he’s become obsessed with radical politics. But it’s not just the Burr household where these problems are occurring. Carson Burr sees them throughout society – in restaurants, on streetcars and elsewhere. From his viewpoint, many (if not most) able-bodied workers have fallen into idleness – they’re demanding but lazy, their minds poisoned by the fanciful ideas espoused in his city’s left-leaning newspaper. Startled by these conditions, Carson Burr arranges a private audience with the mayor, only to find Hizzoner so engulfed in own personal affairs that he gives little consideration to the businessman’s concerns.

Angered, Carson Burr challenges the mayor in the next election cycle, running on a platform to fix local labor conditions, winning the race handily. Mayor Burr then gets to work implementing his program, one that looks to unite labor and capital under shared interests. Right out of the gate, however, he runs into fierce opposition. Labor leaders, who are violently opposed to Burr’s policies, decide to bring in the bearded anarchist Nicolai Poppoff to coordinate a general strike, aided by city’s radical newspaper, The Red Messenger. With the help of Poppoff and other Bolshevik sympathizers, organized labor focuses their efforts on halting the local streetcar system, which would effectively cripple the city’s ability to function. Mayor Burr cannot let this occur, so after ordering soldiers to guard the city’s factories and other businesses, it’s up to him to personally break the strike by running a streetcar through downtown streets, armed guards at his side, all the while maneuvering through hostile, pro-labor mobs.

Ultimately Burr’s dramatic streetcar ride, which is followed by a passionate speech directed at the working class, convinces the strikers to break with their radical organizers. But just as the strike appears to be coming to an end, the foreign agitators make a last-ditch move by kidnapping Burr’s son and threatening to kill him. But Mayor Burr and local police eventually get the upper hand, with Poppoff and the other kidnappers apprehended while other strike organizers are rounded up and sent back to their Russian homeland.

A denouement reached, The World Aflame ends with Carson Burr bringing labor and capital together through a profit-sharing system ensuring fairness for both sides, a utopian solution that finally ends the city’s era labor unrest.

Obviously, The World Aflame was a very Hollywood take on the Seattle General Strike. Ole Hanson was not a wealthy businessman, nor did he campaign on fixing Seattle’s labor situation. There were no bearded Bolsheviks attempting to overthrow local government, despite the rampant media speculation. The Seattle Union Record may have helped rally the troops throughout the Strike, but its onscreen counterpart, The Red Messenger, openly colluded with foreign agitators. Very little of this squared with the facts, but it didn’t need to. The Seattle General Strike had been such a massive news story that motion picture audiences wouldn’t have missed the parallels, even with a plotline stuffed full of movie hokum.

The World Aflame was a distorted version of Northwest history, specifically designed to engage movie audiences around the country. But would it?

By Eric L. Flom – June 2025

Notes:
[1] Ole Hanson, Americanism Versus Bolshevism (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company – 1920), Page ix.
[2] Information about Ole Hanson’s life comes from “San Clemente: History,” myOC website (http://www.myoc.com/community/sanclemente/history), accessed 30 July 2003; “Ole Hanson’s Vision,” San Clemente website (http://www.sanclemente.com/HeritageCenter/OleHanson.htm), accessed 30 July 2003; and Dan Kindred, “The Legend of Ole Hanson,” San Clemente website (http://www.sanclemente.com/Historic/ole.htm), accessed 30 July 2003. Kindred’s article originally appeared in the San Clemente Journal.
[3] Trevor Williams, “Mayor Ole Hanson’s Fifteen Minutes of Fame,” The General Strike Project (http://faculty.washington.edu/gregoryj/strike/hansondoc.htm), accessed 30 July 2003. In 2018 the website became known as the Seattle General Strike Project (http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/index.shtml).

Given continued U.S. labor unrest in 1919, The World Aflame was tapping into a current event story and Pathé marketed the film to exhibitors as a topical showpiece. Under the showy title “Actor Deals a Blow to Bolshevism,” for example, Motion Picture News chronicled a personal appearance tour that Frank Keenan undertook to help promote the film, which included a swing through the Northwest in July 1919. Occurring just weeks before The World Aflame was set for national release, this was one in a long series of public events designed to promote the film. Frank Keenan started the Washington leg of this tour in Spokane, where he arrived on the morning of July 15^th, being met at the train station by former Mayor Charles Fleming and a group of local businessmen. The actor was whisked up to the Presidential Suite of the Davenport Hotel, Spokane’s finest, where he rested briefly before addressing a Chamber of Commerce luncheon. The subject of Keenan’s talk was the interplay between capital and labor, something he was delivering at almost every stop on the tour. This was a canned, studio-written speech that treaded lightly over its subject matter, avoiding direct mention of the Seattle General Strike. That was by design; the promotional campaign looked to position the actor as above the fray, speaking of the labor/capital divide in broad terms that would help sell The World Aflame without alienating the potential audience. The actor was warmly received in Spokane, but was only in town for about 12 hours. After the Chamber of Commerce meeting he appeared briefly at the Clemmer Theatre, where one of his earlier films, Gates of Brass, was screening. He then hopped a train and headed over to Seattle.^[1]

Upon arrival, Mayor Ole Hanson and a delegation of Seattle movie men (in upwards of 200, according to Moving Picture World) met Frank Keenan at the station, after which they went to the Duthie Shipbuilding Company to christen the vessel Seattle Spirit. Keenan was primarily a showpiece at this event, with speaking slots going to Mayor Hanson and Rev. Dr. Mark A. Matthews. The actor made a few remarks to the crowd, however, before Hanson gave his “widely known tirade against anti-Americanism as represented by exponents of bolshevism…”^[2] Unlike his time in Spokane, Frank Keenan stayed in Seattle for the next few days, long enough to attend a public “Screen Ball” dance organized in conjunction with a convention of Northwest movie exhibitors, while also making personal appearances at the Colonial Theatre on Fourth Avenue. Hollywood stars Bessie Love, Beatriz Michelena, Fay Tincher and Wallace Reid were also in town for the Screen Ball and put in their own set of personal appearances in and around Seattle.^[3]

What was interesting about Frank Keenan’s visit in 1919, coming mere weeks before his filmic version of the Seattle General Strike was to hit the screen, was that almost nothing was said about The World Aflame or its connection to local events. At the Duthie Shipyards, even, Keenan stood next to the model for his screen character, Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson, with neither man acknowledging a thing. It was a tell: even months the Strike ended, the film’s topic was still too hot for Seattle, so Keenan and Hanson kept their mouths shut, at least in public.

Still, there were publicity pieces that promoted The World Aflame after Kennan’s visit. On August 3^rd, the Post-Intelligencer’s Sunday edition printed excepts from the address Keenan gave to the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce – the same speech he also gave in Spokane. (There’s no record of the actor giving this speech in Seattle – yet another indication that the subject was a little too raw for the locals.) This was followed by yet another promotional article that ran in October, boldly titled “Vital Problems Solved by Film,” and another the following month lauding Frank Keenan for “prophesizing” the labor unrest that swept the country in 1919.^[4]

All these notices in local papers were designed to sell The World Aflame to audiences in Seattle. And yet, the film never arrived so anyone could see it.

Undoubtedly, a big reason Frank Kennan undertook a personal appearance tour for The World Aflame was its controversial subject matter. This was no ordinary release – the plot was derived from an inflammatory public event, and the picture touched on issues that might alienate parts of the audience. That didn’t mean The World Aflame couldn’t succeed, but Pathé definitely had an uphill climb when it came to selling the picture. A look at how the trade papers suggested The World Aflame should be promoted demonstrates how the film’s central theme and topical nature made for tricky marketing.

Many new films got special writeups in the trade papers, so The World Aflame wasn’t unusual in getting this kind of treatment. For exhibitors, these columns were a key resource – detailed, advance analysis on an upcoming film release, with suggestions on how to promote it to audiences. Pathé was marketing The World Aflame as a special feature, outside normal contractual terms, which is probably why the picture didn’t this treatment in one trade paper, but several. With money on the line, Pathé wanted to ensure that any theatre booking The World Aflame was fully equipped to present it successfully.

Wid’s Daily was one of the papers offering advice. After previewing the film, they felt it was a timely tale of capital and labor, and one that would resonate in many communities, particularly in light of the Seattle General Strike. That said, they also thought its simplistic solution and stereotyped characters dampened the film’s impact. For Wid’s, in fact, this made the film less overtly political than it appeared. “The World Aflame will go either very big with your crowd or will not go at all,” they observed, in perhaps the least helpful advice they could offer. “You can be sure of newspaper comment on this one, and if your house is one drawing patronage from the ‘masses’ by all means show them [the film]. No doubt many labor leaders will disagree with some of its argument, but such stuff is only going to crowd your house the more.”^[5]

Variety felt the topical and earnest nature of Frank Keenan’s story would win the day. They were less positive, however, about the overall plot and the work of the film’s leading man. “Its six reels are full of melodrama and faults abound,” their columnist admitted. “Frank Keenan’s acting is too exaggerated, but the public wants officials like Ole Hansen and will approve actors in plays like this one with an equal gusto.”^[6] Moving Picture World also found flaws in The World Aflame, pointing out the uneven tempo that made the ending a drawn-out affair. But the core advertising angles were there: sell the picture as an honest look at a topical subject, note that Frank Keenan not only acts but had a hand in writing the story, and emphasize that the plot offered intellectual engagement along with thrills, laughter and heart-interest. “To get the full value of this story it would be advisable to do extra advertising…The story deals with the most vital problem of the day. Keep your advertising upon that factor and announce that the eventual solution is offered in this story…Sell that.”^[7]

Far and away the most detailed promotional suggestions came from Motion Picture News, which had not one but two columns addressing The World Aflame, both in the same issue. Laurence Reid, author of the shorter piece, knocked the film for being too “talky” with its frequent and extended subtitles, but thought it was a winner based on Keenan’s performance and director Ernest Warde’s deft handling of the strike scenes. By and large Reid’s marketing tips were similar to those expressed over at Moving Picture World. But, after the exhibitor did all that, he added a specific promotional recommendation. “…[S]end out [mailed] teasers – red teasers of the title announcing that Frank Keenan will be at your theatre in a vital play of today – a play that will set everyone thinking.”^[8]

In the same issue of Motion Picture News, however, the paper ran a larger “Special Service Section” on The World Aflame that went even deeper into how the film might be handled – material that Pathé clearly had a hand in developing. “This is a film for no half way [sic] measures,” the article warned. “If you let it slide by with your usual advertising…this film is liable…[to be] a dismal failure. On the other hand, if you take advantage of the opportunity which is presented from almost every angle, you will reap a great harvest of financial profit, deliver a message of vast importance…Spend money like a drunken sailor on this, for you will get it back many fold.”^[9] A good ploy, they suggested, would be to hold a special preview screening for area journalists, clergy and public officials, along with representatives from both capital and labor. Arrange for speakers on both sides to address the crowd briefly before the screening (this was a key point – make those speeches before running the film), then let the audience decide how they wanted to react. Securing an impartial master of ceremonies – someone who could engage and entertain, but otherwise keep the conversation focused – was a key element to making this advance screening a success.

Interestingly, this article in Motion Picture News felt there was value in directly connecting the plotline with the Seattle General Strike, provided the exhibitor wasn’t located in the Northwest.

There is one point in covering the story of this subject which we think is worth attention of second consideration and that is that this idea was developed by Mr. Keenan himself and that the plot has its origin in the recent street railway strike in Seattle, Washington, the role which Mr. Keenan enacts being that of Ole Hanson, Seattle’s energetic executive official, who by prompt measures killed what threatened to be a strike movement of alarming proportions. In sections where an interest in Seattle means more than a few headlines in a newspaper this fact that the story of The World Aflame is based on what has actually happened will be of great value and certainly it is worth mentioning if you are located on the Atlantic instead of the Pacific coast.”^[10]

Motion Picture News was right about that point. The World Aflame would be tough sell in the Pacific Northwest, and particularly in Seattle. But Pathé set out to try.

Every motion picture offers a unique set of marketing challenges, and Pathé needed a special campaign to put over The World Aflame with exhibitors, who would ultimately sell the film to the public. Frank Keenan’s personal appearance tour was part of that effort. But the studio also looked to promote the film as a significant event, and arranged a series of pre-release screenings designed to portray the film as something more than just a commercial enterprise.

The first of these occurred in Washington, D.C., on July 31, 1919, three weeks before the film was released nationally, when Pathé held a private screening for William B. Wilson, the U.S. Secretary of Labor. He was joined by members of the Senate Committee on Immigration, the House Committee on Labor and various other officials, not to mention correspondents for the nation’s most influential newspapers. The screening went well and was dutifully written up not only in the trade press but also in several key dailies around the country. The private secretary for New Jersey Senator Walter Edge even conveyed to Pathé that the Senator was delighted with Keenan’s “treatment of the immigration problem involved in the play and the calm but effectual disposal of all alien agitators.” In the picture, of course, this involved mass arrests and the deportation of radicals back to Russia, which was, apparently, nicely aligned with Senator Edge’s personal views.^[11]

Pathé wasn’t breaking new ground with this Washington, D.C., screening. But in convening a group of key political leaders to view and comment on the film, they were attempting to convey status on the picture and reinforce it as an undertaking of great importance.

The studio didn’t stop there. On August 8^th, nine days before the official release date, they held a similar event in Chicago. Screenings were held in other cities, as well, even after the film started to roll out. In Boston The World Aflame was the first film ever shown at the State House, and that was followed by a private screening for Rhode Island Governor R. Livingston Beeckman. Ditto for Minnesota, where Governor J.A.A. Burnquist expressed his hearty approval following an August 27^th screening at the Garrick Theatre in Minneapolis. Elected officials in Virginia, too, were so impressed with The World Aflame that the General Assembly passed a special resolution endorsing the picture. And state officials were not the only groups being courted as part of Pathé’s charm offensive. In Fort Collins, Colorado, the studio arranged for the picture to be shown at the Empress Theatre during the annual convention of the State Federation of Labor which, in turn, prompted that body to pass a resolution endorsing the film.^[12]

All of this, of course, was in advance of the film premiering in the Northwest, where it might find its most supportive audiences. Or not.

In the normal course of things, all this buildup would have lead to the Seattle premiere of The World Aflame, where most films were shown before they played other Washington cities. But that didn’t happen – not by a longshot. The average studio film usually turned up in Seattle within one or two weeks of national release, but not so for The World Aflame, which didn’t turn up at all. And it remained that way for nine months, or roughly the amount of time it would have taken for the film to complete its initial Washington run. So by the time it turned up at Seattle’s Rex Theatre in May 1920, it was pretty clear that local exhibitors consciously avoided booking The World Aflame, most likely for fear of alienating their audience. While some topical films went big at the box office, this one hit too close to home.

Instead, Pathé’s film cut a wide path around the Puget Sound region, playing a handful of dates in eastern Washington and in smaller towns before anyone in Seattle had the opportunity to see it. The picture was supposed to have a two-day run at the Colville Theatre in February 1920, for example, though for reasons unclear it never screened and only got back onto their schedule in mid-June. But The World Aflame did have short runs in both Lynden and Oroville in January, not to mention a three-day engagement at Olympia’s Strand Theatre in early April.^[13] It wouldn’t be until May 23, 1920, that The World Aflame finally got its Seattle premiere.

It took a circuitous route to get there, but when it finally did, it was clear that Rex management had paid careful attention to the trade marketing suggestions. Their advertising campaign began only four days before the opening, when the venue ran small teaser ads in local papers stating only the name of the film and asking the semi-provocative question “Are Strikes Necessary?”^[14] The theatre wasn’t named, and the start date wasn’t given – just “Are Strikes Necessary?” and The World Aflame. This was a minimalist approach designed to raise curiosity, but to some degree it’s almost as if the Rex was holding the picture at arm’s length, just in case there was backlash even before the engagement began.

As the week progressed, however, these cryptic teasers gave way to a more traditional publicity campaign. The World Aflame opened at the Rex Theatre on Saturday, May 22^nd, and was paired with Haunted Spooks, a Harold Lloyd comedy also being distributed through Pathé. Calling the film “a burning message of the moment to those who would have more and live better,” the Rex pitched A World Aflame as an important motion picture with something to say.

IF you are an employer of men—
IF you belong to any commercial organization—
IF you are a working man or woman—
IF you have your community at heart—
HERE is the play meant for you.

At the same time, however, the Rex hedged its bets by describing The World Aflame as the story of “a mayor who learned a lesson and gave that lesson to his people,” while specifically noting that “[t]his production does not pretend to present a condition that Seattle has just passed through.”^[15]

The Rex’s tentative approach in their advertising campaign continued through the opening date, until the venue may have made a mistake. Whereas they seem to have begun their promotion with hesitation, the Rex finally jumped in by taking out a large ad in the Sunday Times, the day after the picture opened. This was a quarter-page spread anchored by a still from the film (Frank Keenan on a streetcar, navigating through an angry crowd). The structure of this ad was typical for movie advertising in 1920. But this image of Keenan was paired with a headline proclaiming The World Aflame as “[a]n intense drama of a social evil; it is permeating the universe…” If the marketing for this picture had, up to that point, been treated with kid gloves, claiming that the film showed a “social evil” that “permeated the universe” was probably not the best way for the Rex to sell this picture to Seattle moviegoers. The ad’s language and format were probably suggested in marketing materials received from the local Pathé exchange, but this was nonetheless an abrupt shift in tone.

While there was no outward controversy about this ad in the Daily Times, it became very clear, very quickly, that Pathé’s special feature wasn’t meeting with local acclaim. On Tuesday, less than halfway through its run, a third feature was suddenly added to the bill, and the Rex began advertising all three of their pictures on an equal basis – The World Aflame, Haunted Spooks and Mack Sennett’s Yankee Doodle in Berlin, a year-old comedy starring Bothwell Browne. That was a telling change, and even though the Rex maintained that the Keenan feature was drawing well, elevating one picture while adding a third took valuable advertising space away from The World Aflame. It seems all was not well at the Rex that week or, at the very least, the venue’s big attraction wasn’t drawing as hoped.

Eventually The World Aflame slinked out of town on May 28^th. No one was sad to see the film go, least of all the Seattle Union Record, which served as the basis for The World Aflame’s anarchist newspaper The Red Messenger.^[16] Although they claimed, incorrectly, that the film was pulled off the screen early, the Union Record nonetheless declared victory in an article entitled “Vicious Play Ends Run in Short Order.”

          After widely advertising The World Aflame, a motion picture presumed to be founded on the Seattle general strike of 1919, the Rex theatre will take the play off at the end of four days owing to the refusal of the public to countenance a slander upon labor and an insult to the city. The play was seen by a few score daily and at each showing the majority were said to have departed from the place and registered a protest.
          Labor advocates will refuse to be upset over the showing of the picture. It was never meant for anything but the crudest sort of propaganda and this does not have any effect upon students of labor even though it is touted by the kept press as having a “message and a mission.”
          Even the most bitter antagonists of labor refused to believe that a play founded upon Ole Hanson or any of his acts could have been a message for Seattle and the Rex found it was not profitable.
          As a burlesque the play might have gone over, but for a show house to put it on seriously only convinces the public that there still are men to whom intelligence appears as no asset.^[18]

In the end The World Aflame was a middling release from Pathé that had its box office take hampered by its subject matter. Some topical films earned healthy returns, in that they tapped into the public zeitgeist at exactly the right moment. But that wasn’t the case with The World Aflame. Instead, the various labor incidents of 1919 were having a negative impact on the national psyche. “…[M]any in the middle class began to believe, further egged on by outrageous press coverage of the fall of 1919 nationwide steel and coal strikes, that a radical American revolution was just around the corner,” remarked Michael Slade Shull.^[18] Steven J. Ross, writing in Working Class Hollywood, felt similarly. “Using the choreography of crowd scenes [in period labor films] to deliver strong ideological messages, directors turned crowds of strikers into a dangerous mob by clustering large numbers of actors into a tightly bunched group and having them shake their fists or wooden bats at outsiders in a threatening manner. These films also echoed the claims of many employers by portraying strikes as the work of Bolshevik agents acting under orders from Moscow. The underlying causes of industrial unrest, such as postwar inflation and low wages, were simply ignored.”^[19]

Ultimately The World Aflame, like the General Strike that inspired it, failed to spark larger change. Despite claims to the contrary, the filmmakers created a screen story that was a lot more capital than it was labor. In a Hollywood studio system growing evermore streamlined and corporate, it’s not too surprising that major releases from this period tended to reflect the values of the businessmen who made them.

But…what if an independent company took the same filmmaking apparatus and harnessed it to make a pro-labor argument? That would be the inspiration for the second feature film to come out of the Seattle General Strike, the locally-produced The New Disciple.

By Eric L. Flom – June 2025

Notes:
[1] “Actor Deals a Blow to Bolshevism,” Motion Picture News, 9 August 1919, Page 1252.
[2] “Stirring Scene Marks Launching of Liberty Ship,” Seattle Post Intelligencer, 17 July 1919, Page 5.
[3] For an account of the 1919 Seattle Screen Ball and the activities of the various celebrities attending, see Eric L. Flom, Silent Film Stars on the Stages of Seattle: A History of Performances by Hollywood Notables (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. – 2009), Pages 186-198.
[4] See “Picture Play Aims to Correct Abuses of Capital and Labor,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3 August 1919, Drama and Music Section, Page 3; “Vital Problems Solved by Film,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5 October 1919, Drama and Music Section, Page 2; and “Keenan as Prophet,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 30 November 1919, Drama, Music and Motion Picture Section, Page 3.
[5] “Serious Treatment of Social Unrest is Fairly Forceful Film,” Wid’s Daily, 1 August 1919, Page 3.
[6] “The World Aflame,” Variety, 1 August 1919, Page 53.
[7] “The World Aflame,” Moving Picture World, 9 August 1919, Pages 876-877.
[8] Laurence Reid, “The World Aflame,” Motion Picture News, 9 August 1919, Page 1313.
[9] “Special Service Section on Frank Keenan in The World Aflame,” Motion Picture News, 9 August 1919, Pages 1283 and 1284.
[10] Ibid., Page 1284.
[11] See “Congressional Members and Newspaper Men View The World Aflame in Washington,” Moving Picture World, 16 August 1919, Page 998; “Notables See The World Aflame,” Motion Picture News, 16 August 2929, Page 1453; and “High Praise is Awarded,” Seattle Daily Times, 7 September 1919, Page 36.
[12] See James S. McQuade, “The World Aflame Shown to Prominent Persons at the Auditorium; Picture Was Warmly Received,” Moving Picture World, 23 August 1919, page 1123; “Governors and Labor Chiefs Concur After Special Screenings of The World Aflame,” Moving Picture World, 30 August 1919, Page 1290; “World Aflame Approved by Minnesota Governor,” Moving Picture World, 13 September 1919, Page 1646; and “Virginia Indorses [sic] The World Aflame,” Seattle Star, 11 October 1919, Page 3.
[13] See Colville Theatre advertisement, The Colville Examiner, 10 January 1920, Page 6; Liberty Theatre advertisement, The Lynden Tribune, 22 January 1920, Page 3; Liberty Theatre advertisement, The Oroville Weekly Gazette, 23 January 1920, Page 4; Strand Theatre advertisement, Washington Standard, 9 April 1920, Page 4; and “Coming to the Colville theater…,” The Colville Examiner, 24 April 1920, Page 4.
[14] See Rex advertisement, Seattle Daily Times, 18 May 1920, Page 14. Ads of this sort ran in the Daily Times and Star in the week prior to the May 22^nd opening. The Post-Intelligencer, on the other hand, didn’t really advertise the Rex’s new show, but it’s unclear whether that had anything to do with The World Aflame’s subject matter.
[15] See Rex advertisement and “The World Aflame—Rex,” Seattle Daily Times, 21 May 1920, Page 12.
[16] Ole Hanson would have agreed with the transformation of the Seattle Union Record into its onscreen counterpart, the anarchist rag The Red Messenger. “The office force of the Record is as Red as their headlines,” he blared in his account of the Seattle General Strike. See Ole Hanson, Americanism Versus Bolshevism (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company – 1920), Page 26.
[17] “Vicious Play Ends in Short Order,” Seattle Union Record, 28 May 1920, Page 6.
[18] Michael Slade Shull, Radicalism in American Silent Films, 1909-1929: A Filmography and History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2000), Page 85.
[19] Steven J. Ross, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press – 1998), Page 139.

Obviously, The World Aflame made claims of impartiality but didn’t live up to that standard. The film tackled a challenging subject, but did so in ways that blunted whatever message it intended to send. It was also released during a period of change, with audiences perhaps having had their fill of difficult topics in the aftermath of a world war and a global pandemic. “Problem” films weren’t uncommon in the Progressive Era, with stories that were centered around any number of social issues. That genre of filmmaking wasn’t entirely abandoned after World War I, but it also wasn’t as popular as it had once been. With labor-themed films, in particular, the dynamic was shifting. Thanks to the Bolshevik Revolution and ensuing Red Scare, strikes weren’t necessarily viewed as efforts to better the lives of working Americans, but increasingly seen as threatening. It’s not that The World Aflame, with its decidedly corporate take on labor unrest, was directly responsible for inspiring the Northwest-produced The New Disciple. But films of that ilk, which turned worker activism into something menacing, were sending the wrong message about the American labor movement. The screen was a powerful communication medium. If corporate America could use the movies to reinforce their viewpoint, then perhaps the working class could do the same, producing films that told the stories of average citizens and their day-to-day struggles.

That idea struck a chord with several union groups around the country, including those in the Northwest. The idea for The New Disciple originated with the Metal Trades Council shortly after the Seattle General Strike, with the realization that labor could create their own screen stories to meet “a growing demand for moving picture films free from the propaganda of the big interests.”^[1] This was bold idea, and Seattle unionists weren’t the only ones reaching that conclusion. “Although worker film-makers [in the silent era] came from a variety of backgrounds (moderate and militant trade unionists, socialists and communists) and espoused a variety of solutions to the problems of the day, they shared one central belief,” Steven J. Ross has noted, “…that movies could help force a common working-class consciousness by showing often divided wage earners that their common interests were far greater than their differences.”^[2]

As a result, a few labor organizations around the country began looking to create their own motion picture production companies to make labor-themed films. In Seattle, the Metal Trades Council set up the Federation Film Corporation in the fall of 1919, just 10 months after the Seattle General Strike and well before The World Aflame made its local debut. Funding for Federation Film would come from the sale of $100,000 in capital stock, with shares marketed specifically to union membership so labor would retain voting control over the organization. They also brought in a Hollywood veteran to helm the project, with $40,000 in Federation stock set aside just for him: John Arthur Nelson, who inked a two-year deal to get the production company up and running.^[3]

It’s not clear how Nelson and the Metal Trades Council found each other, but he was an interesting choice. Nelson was a man of socialist tendencies who not only came into the project with a good deal of industry experience but also with a good deal of baggage. Only 46, he had already run afoul of the law at least twice in his professional career. Four years before signing with Federation, Nelson was charged with misappropriating funds while vice-president of the U.S. Film Company, and was later accused of running arms into Mexico.^[4] In both cases the charges were dropped, but somehow those incidents never came up (or they were ignored) when J. Arthur Nelson negotiated his deal with Federation Film.

Within weeks of the announcement, Federation set up an office in Seattle’s Commercial Building, at Second and Madison, and Nelson was touting the company’s first scenario, which had already been approved by local labor officials. “‘The film is based on sound economics and should have wide appeal,’” he told the Seattle Union Record in December 1919. “‘…It is a truthful presentation of the economic situation of today and will be the first serious attempt at [labor] education through moving pictures.’”^[5]

Official fundraising for Federation Film began in early 1920, with ads running in the Seattle Union Record that included a mail-in coupon for potential investors. Under the banner “Motion Pictures for Labor Mean the Emancipation of Labor,” at least some of the company’s fundraising appeal was directly linked to the General Strike. “What Are You Doing?,” the ad asked rhetorically. “The steel workers made a noble struggle but the odds too great against them…FEDERATION FILM could have saved them that struggle and made victory possible by showing up the causes and abuses behind the strike, showing them up to Mr. General Public so that he would have added his great influence on their side.”^[6]

As fundraising kicked into high gear, J. Arthur Nelson began road showing his scenario to help drum up support. At the Central Labor Council’s January 14^th meeting, he outlined the basic story: when the nefarious owner of a mill attempts to undercut the local union, the situation leads to a strike. But while the owner is focused on breaking organized labor, he’s inadvertently created an opening for a competitor, who infiltrates the factory with men who attempt to prolong the standoff and thereby weaken the business. The striking workers eventually uncover this plot, then set aside their differences with management and come to the rescue, reorganizing the mill as a labor co-operative and saving the factory from its cannibalistic rival. “Love, intrigue and a strong heart-interest is held throughout the play,” Nelson assured listeners, “…and the moral carried is based on sound economics.”^[7]

John Arthur Nelson was nothing, if not convincing. His talk got the Central Labor Council unanimously behind the project, the group recommending that each union contribute to the effort. At a cost of $1 per member, they asked each union to provide seed money to get the film into production, with these funds described (at least initially) as loans that would be repaid with voting stock in Federation Film. The Boilermakers were the first to step up, offering $10,000 (to be made in four equal payments), which was held in escrow contingent upon other unions appropriating their own funds.^[8]

Nelson wasn’t the only one making fundraising pitches. The same day he was talking with the Central Labor Council, a Mr. Bergerson was giving a similar talk to union officials in Everett. Bergerson, too, provided a synopsis of the film’s scenario, identifying the title as The New Disciple. And, like their Seattle brethren, the Everett unions heartily endorsed the project, though they were reluctant to bind their membership to a specific financial commitment. Instead, each union delegate was instructed to go back to their own membership for further discussions.^[9]

These pleas seemed to work. By the spring of 1920 Federation Film had earned $16,000 through the sale of general stock, in addition to the several Northwest union groups who also appropriated funds for the effort. Part of their fundraising success lay in the fact that the project had a broad popular appeal, since motion pictures were a common form of working-class entertainment. With a project that specifically countered the messages in films like The World Aflame, it was time for organized labor to tell their side of the story and perhaps reap a financial reward if the picture did well at the box office. As with the various co-op businesses operated by Seattle labor groups, The New Disciple was a picture that would be made by, and for, the benefit union members.

With a successful fundraising launch, Federation Film named trustee and advisory boards in the spring of 1920 as they moved toward actual production. Trustees served six-month terms and were pulled from a variety of labor groups, although these committees also included Nelson and other Federation staff. Within this two-board structure was a special finance committee with representatives from each of the Central Labor Council’s key trades, who were tasked with providing funding and production oversight on The New Disciple.^[10]

Things were falling into place, and interest in the project was high. In May, Nelson reported that Federation turned down a distribution deal that would have sold the Canadian screen rights for half of The New Disciple’s estimated production cost; he gave no reason why this deal was unacceptable. He also claimed to have an investor looking to purchase the Washington state rights for an amount that represented a quarter of the film’s budget, an option that Nelson was still weighing.^[11] Federation appears to have declined this offer as well, and shortly thereafter Nelson left the Puget Sound area for Los Angeles, where filming on The New Disciple began in the summer of 1920.

There were at least 27 Northwest unions backing The New Disciple financially when it went into production. Still, fundraising efforts continued so the picture could get over the finish line. Part of this effort included a two-part article in Everett’s The Labor Journal that ran in August 1920, touting Federation Films and its goals, and directly linking recent labor unrest with moving pictures and their use as a propaganda tool for monied, anti-union forces. Federation was labor’s opportunity to take a capitalist tool and use it for the betterment of the common man. “We must tell the real story of our struggles and ideals to the American people and we are the only ones who will do it. John W. Millionaire is busy telling the wrong story to the public and the public in the final analysis is the one who gives the decision for success for failure.”^[12]

The second of these two articles was designed to boost investment and was perhaps a sign that the Everett unions were slow in backing the project with actual dollars. “It is your duty Mr. Union Man to see that your Union does its share. The Seattle Labor movement has placed its money and its faith back of Federation Films. The rest of the labor movement must also help.”^[13] This wasn’t just a problem in Everett. It wouldn’t be until November that the Seattle meat cutters and motion picture operators (of all people) fulfilled their pledges, and they weren’t the last groups to do so. As of December 1920, in fact, Federation was still $7,000 short of being fully funded, even though The New Disciple was already in post-production.^[14]

As Federation Film continued to hammer the fundraising side, anticipation to see the finished film grew. The Seattle Union Record, for one, jumped that bandwagon early, running some publicity for the film that looked, ironically, much like the fluffy Hollywood versions that organized labor sometimes claimed to disdain. “This Pretty Girl Stars in The New Disciple,” went one notice profiling leading woman Norris Johnson, which described interesting tidbits about her screen career (which, to be honest, wasn’t much). Similar treatment was given to character actor Arthur Hull, as well as director Ollie Sellers; with these ads, the Union Record looked more like a traditional newspaper than the propaganda rag depicted in The World Aflame.^[15]

Despite these advance notices, however, it would be months before The New Disciple played to Northwest audiences. In the midst of formal post-production work, in the fall of 1920, Federation Film began screening the film privately for union officials around the country. These screenings featured a rough cut of the film and were probably designed to secure the necessary funds needed to complete the picture. Until they found that money, they were stuck.

By Eric L. Flom – June 2025

Notes:
[1] “Picture Film Plant Planned by Laborites,” Seattle Union Record, 12 November 1919, Page 2.
[2] Steven J. Ross, “The Revolt of the Audience: Reconsidering Audiences and Reception During the Silent Era,” in Melvyn Stokes and Richard Maltby (editors), American Made Movies: From the Turn of the Century to the Early Sound Era (London: British Film Institute – 1999), Page 98.
[3] “Labor-Owned Film Company Gets Support,” Seattle Union Record, 26, November 1919, Page 9.
[4] Steven J. Ross, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press – 1998), Page 152.
[5] “Aims of Labor Will be Shown in Photoplays,” Seattle Union Record, 19 December 1919, Page 3.
[6] Federation Film advertisement, Seattle Union Record, 10 January 1920, Page 5.
[7] “Central Labor Council Hears Movie Scenario,” Seattle Union Record, 15 January 1920, Page 3.
[8] “Boilermakers May Give Big Sum to Movies,” Seattle Union Record, 26 January 1920, Page 2.
[9] “The Central Labor Council Holds Interesting Session,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 16 January 1920, Page 1.
[10] “Shareholders Appoint Film Trustee Board,” Seattle Union Record, 7 April 1920, Page 6.
[11] “Movie Films Declared Used as Poison Gas,” Seattle Union Record, 24 May 1920, Page 3.
[12] “Federation Films: Its Origin, Its Purpose,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 20 August 1920, Page 2.
[13] “The Reasons We Need Federation Films,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 27 August 1920, Page 2.
[14] See “Big Interest is Shown in Labor Picture,” Seattle Union Record, 17 November 1920, Page 1; and “The Central Labor Council,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 10 December 1920, Page 1.
[15] See “This Pretty Girl Stars in The New Disciple,” Seattle Union Record, 23 November 1920, Page 1; “Well Known Actor Plays in Great Worker Film,” Seattle Union Record, 24 November 1920, Page 9; and “Production Manager Praises Labor Picture,” Seattle Union Record, 20 December 1920, Page 7. Several of these ads would be reprinted in the Union Record six months later, when The New Disciple finally opened in Seattle at the Class A Theatre.

Seattle wouldn’t see The New Disciple until May 1921, when it was booked into the Class A Theatre, a venue operated by the Seattle Union Theatre Company (a separate, labor-backed effort at theatre management), which was being touted as the city’s home for working class films. “Help us spread the truth about labor,” implored ads in the Union Record, noting that all box office receipts (after expenses) would be used to show the picture in other parts of the country. Tickets at the Class A were 20 cents for afternoon screenings, raised to 25 cents per seat after 5 p.m.

The initial Union Record ad for this engagement carried several hearty endorsements, including one from Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, plus others from William Johnson, president of the Machinists union, leaders from the Farmer-Labor Party and North Dakota Governor Lynn Frazier.^[1] The Union Record worked overtime to sell the picture to its readership; in contrast, Seattle’s traditional dailies treated The New Disciple like just another program film, rarely mentioning its local ties. So it was up to the Union Record to herald the production’s arrival, and Maxine Elliott, in her review, spared no hyperbole. “The New Disciple, now running at the Class A theatre, does for modern industrial conditions what Upton Sinclair’s Brass Check did for journalism – it strips the mask away and shows it in all its naked cruelty, barbarity and humanity,” she announced. And that was just Elliott’s windup. Not only did the picture expose, in her opinion, the soul-crushing sins of capitalism, but it would inspire the working class to throw off the shackles of dehumanizing toil. “The New Disciple is the concrete expression of the hopes and longings of the laboring masses today,” she continued, “just as the teachings of Christ with their promise of something better than the inequities and beastliness of Paganism were to the troubled and bewildered slaves of ancient days…It clearly demonstrates that the fire that enabled the American working class in 1776 to throw off an obsolete political system is still alive and pulsating, and finds its expression in militant organized labor.”^[2]

Jesus and the Founding Fathers indeed. And the Union Record wasn’t through commenting on The New Disciple, running a pair of mini reviews in the following day’s edition, with predictable results. All three reviews came from women – Maxine Elliott the day one, then Dora Hayward of Co-Operative Food Products and Anna Blair of the Junior Blue Cross the next. “I was delighted with The New Disciple and felt very proud of [J. Arthur Nelson],” Hayward remarked. “Especially I was pleased to find that the idea I am trying daily to teach regarding co-operation was brought out…so splendidly it would be impossible to miss the lesson.” Particularly heart-wrenching for Haywood was the depiction of workers whose toil and ingenuity are exploited to line the pockets of the wealthy. Anna Blair had a similar reaction, but to an entirely different section of the film. “The pathos of the picture is shown in the beginning in the portrayal of the supreme sacrifice of our boys on the battle fields [sic] of France to satisfy the greed of ‘18,000 American millionaires, our so-called pay-triots.’” Films like The New Disciple, she argued, brought clear economic arguments to the masses that would help them compete. “If we could only be able to fight the capitalist with his own weapon – a clear understanding of economics – the combat would not always be a one-sided affair.”^[5]

Yet another woman, Fannie Hamilton Perry of the Trade Union League, offered her own take on The New Disciple later in the run. To her, one of picture’s key features was the fact that the film’s leading man recognizes the futility of mobs and chooses instead to educate himself in order to improve working conditions.^[4] This was, in Perry’s mind, a better solution than endless cycles of labor unrest, something that historian Stephen J. Ross pointed out in his 1998 book Working-Class Hollywood. “[The New Disciple] proceeds to show audiences what strikes and lockouts look like from the workers’ point of view. Conservative depictions of strikers as violent mobs were countered by scenes of thoughtful men who calmly deliberate on the likely consequences of their actions. Instead of an amoebalike mass of indistinguishable faces blindly following a single leader, we see employees seated in an auditorium, raising their hands and patiently waiting their turn to discuss their common course of action. During the meetings and subsequent strike not a single threatening gesture is ever made against their employer.”^[5]

It’s not hard to see what the Seattle Union Record was doing with these “citizen reviews” of The New Disciple. They were running positive notices from a cross section of Seattle trade unions (and from women, no less), an effort to demonstrate the film’s broad appeal. The Union Record didn’t usually have an entertainment columnist and often wrote about such matters only when they were critical. But with these “every-woman” views of the film, the Union Record was rallying the troops behind The New Disciple and turning it into a form of working-class uplift.

Following this initial run in Seattle, Federation Film took the picture out on the road. But these weren’t the type of road show productions seen with more traditional, studio-made features. In fact, the trade press largely ignored The New Disciple because it was a low-budget production made outside the studio system.^[6] Contrary to early reports, the film hadn’t inked any distribution deals and couldn’t be shown widely like a regular studio release. Distribution via state rights made sense, and to that end Federation set themselves up to market the film accordingly. They eventually sold the territorial rights in at least five states, mostly in the western U.S., as well as in parts of Canada.^[7] But, as the promotional strategies for The World Aflame demonstrated, films tackling controversial subject matter had to be marketed carefully. Pathé had an advantage in that the company already had an established distribution network, and their star, Frank Keenan, carried some marquee value. The New Disciple had neither of those – it was a modest independent feature with no-name actors. Federation’s strategy, then, was to go out and negotiate with individual exhibitors to show the film, resulting in limited engagements of only a night or two, when they could place it at all, and not the extended runs a typical studio release would get. On top of this, the company’s timing was horrible. The New Disciple was being released during an industry recession that left both studios and exhibitors struggling to navigate business conditions. This left exhibitors, in particular, hesitant to book a potentially controversial, overtly pro-labor independent release that might not pan out. While there may have been managers sympathetic to the film’s message, with the business in retrenchment few were willing to roll the dice.

Still, there was enough interest in The New Disciple that Federation Film could make a play for commercial distribution. In December 1921, seven months after the film debuted at the Class A, the company announced that distribution rights had been sold to the Federation Producers’ Service for a “substantial figure,” and that the film would soon be making its Broadway debut.^[8] The deal was said to include more than just The New Disciple, as the New York firm also agreed to distribute the company’s subsequent pictures over the next five years.

This was a significant development and provided some good news going into the big New York premiere for the film, which opened at Shubert’s Lyric Theatre during Christmas week, 1921. Readers of the Seattle Union Record were regaled with stories of how Eastern critics greeted The New Disciple – if this homegrown production could make it in the Big Apple, surely it could do so anywhere. But these were cherry-picked quotations, the overall reaction being mixed. The New York Journal, for example, called The New Disciple a worthwhile production offering an intelligent view of the labor situation. The New York American praised the film’s production values and the way it depicted a thought-provoking, modern story, while the New York Herald and Evening Mail praised the movie’s sincerity.^[9] The New York Tribune thought it nice to see a story told from the working man’s point of view, since the capitalist viewpoint was prevalent across most other media. On the other hand, their reviewer noted, “[w]e do not know enough about capital and labor to choose a side or to know whether the case presented on the screen was overdrawn. But this we do know, it is an interesting picture and is well presented and well-acted.”^[10]

Following the New York run for The New Disciple, Federation Producers’ Service was able to place the film in a number of urban locations. These include bookings in Philadelphia, Montreal, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and San Diego, among other places.^[11] They also arranged to publish The New Disciple as a novel (subtitled “A Story of Big Business and a High Ideal”), with authorship attributed to J. Arthur Nelson.^[12] Overly long and stilted, the novel quotes liberally from Woodrow Wilson’s 1913 book The New Freedom, a collection of his progressive speeches that J. Arthur Nelson used when creating the film scenario. This association was also played up in press mentions for the film.

Yet although Federation Producers’ came out of the gate with some clear distribution wins, this wasn’t anywhere near the type of widescale distribution that The World Aflame or other studio releases enjoyed. On top of an industry in recession, it was getting tougher for independent features to get a foothold because methods of production and distribution were consolidating under the major film studios, leaving fewer and fewer opportunities for pictures like The New Disciple. So despite some early wins, actual screenings of the film were few and far between, denting box office returns. One of their saviors was the fact that Federation Film could always count on interest from labor groups – a decidedly niche market, but one of the few consistently available. While the goal was always to get the picture into traditional movie theatres, The New Disciple was made available for screenings to labor organizations throughout the country, often in conjunction with state or national gatherings. This was the case, for example, when a statewide labor meeting was held in Bremerton in July 1922. Among other entertainments, delegates were treated to free screenings of The New Disciple at the Blue Bird Theatre on two successive nights – all they needed to do was present their convention badge to gain entry. Similarly, a statewide AFL convention in Asbury Park, New Jersey, held in September, booked The New Disciple as an entertainment for attendees.^[13] At the same time, unions in Everett were negotiating for their own screening of the film – apparently, by the fall of 1922, The New Disciple still had not yet been shown there.^[14]

While Federation Producers’ was working to get The New Disciple into theatres, back in Seattle Federation Film was getting ready to announce their latest project. This was a weekly newsreel service, the Labor News Weekly, which would be marketed to theatres and union halls across the country, focused exclusively on subjects of interest to workers. A sample reel, pulled together to demonstrate the service, showed footage of some mining and railroad strikes, garment and textile worker unrest in the Northeast, some “treason trials” in West Virginia, and scenes of tent cities in both West Virginia and Washington state. The plan, as outlined, was an ambitious one – and probably too ambitious for a company with only one film release and limited distribution channels. Nonetheless, Federation claimed to have over 200 newsreel cameramen providing footage, with stringers across the United States and Canada. That boast was tall on its face, but the company doubled down by further claiming they had a special “flying squadron” that could deploy for rapidly-unfolding events.^[15] So instead of working on a follow-up to The New Disciple, which one would have expected under their distribution deal with Federation Producers’, the company instead plowed resources into developing a newsreel service that doesn’t seem to have gotten off the ground in any meaningful way. The test reel, in fact, appears to have been the only picture to come out of the effort.

By that time, however, the writing was on the wall for Federation Film. The New Disciple played one last time in Seattle, in December 1922, when it was booked into the Olympic Theatre on Madison, paired incongruously with the musical stage comedy My Sweetheart from Sweden. The double bill ran for an entire week beginning December 18^th.^[16] By this time the picture was on its last commercial legs. The Seattle Union Record continued giving the film special treatment, but it was merely regurgitating prior material. The reaction of New York critics was featured prominently in ads and articles, without mentioning that those notices were over a year old. J. Arthur Nelson was also interviewed about the film, but this was a canned piece that was equally dated.^[17]

It was too little, too late. Thematically, The New Disciple was out of step for the time in which it was produced – it’s highly unlikely a major studio in the 1920s would have attempted it. Hollywood was becoming more corporatized, something that helped change the tone of major film releases. With the close of the Progressive Era, pro-labor, overtly political or controversial subject matter was no longer in vogue. By the early 1920s film subjects were generally lighter, more optimistic and less serious – stories and subjects that were aimed at the broadest possible audience. With production and distribution consolidating under monied interests, greater emphasis was put on film projects that ensured a good return on the dollar.^[18] It’s not that there wasn’t space for a film like The New Disciple, it just came with a higher level of uncertainty. “Audiences may have wanted more of these [pro-labor] films,” Steven J. Ross has argued, “but industry producers were reluctant to make them and exhibitors were reluctant to show them. The certain opposition of reactive pressure groups proved more powerful than the unpredictable tastes of paying audiences.”^[19]

Federation Films continued as an entity into 1925, wringing what profit there was to be wrung out of The New Disciple through various one- or two-day screenings around the country. They don’t appear to have embarked on a second feature film, their failed effort to create a labor newsreel service sapping whatever funds the company had left in the coffers.^[20] Federation eventually folded, with J. Arthur Nelson going back to Los Angeles and starting a labor magazine. But, after he was gone, allegations surfaced that he had been playing fast and loose with Federation’s money, with a few of the backing unions contending that The New Disciple should have been more successful financially.^[21] But there’s no proof that Nelson was doing any such thing, and the claims may have been nothing more than disappointment in a project that didn’t turn out as hoped. Still, there were definite questions about J. Arthur Nelson’s character. His labor magazine folded in short order, after which he went back into the movies, this time as a dog trainer. But in 1928 he was charged with kidnapping his then-girlfriend, tying her to a bed and “branding” her with an obscene word.^[22] Again, however, Nelson was never convicted, though the negative publicity killed his career in the movie business.

At the end of the day, neither The World Aflame nor The New Disciple connected with film audiences in the way their creators hoped. Each took inspiration, in part, from the Seattle General Strike, but twisted their narratives to achieve different means. The World Aflame had the bigger budget, the bigger star, and the bigger distribution network, but struggled at the box office with a narrative that was equal parts lofty and ludicrous. The New Disciple, on the other hand, could barely reach any audience, and was often relegated to small one- or two-night engagements for moviegoers who already embraced the message it was trying to deliver.

For the most part capital, as represented by the major Hollywood studios, would abandon controversial subject matter in the 1920s – a reflection of changing times and changing audience tastes. Labor, on the other hand, would remain vitally active in the movie business, particularly in the Northwest, though in ways that weren’t necessarily reflected onscreen. The New Disciple depicted a thoughtful and reasoned workforce who used education as a form of worker uplift. In the Northwest, however, there were some in the 1920s labor movement who chose instead to abandon that kind of talk and engage directly, and sometimes violently, with the forces opposing them. That would come to a head later in the decade, when certain elements of organized labor decided it was time to fight fire with fire.

By Eric L. Flom – June 2025

Notes:
[1] See Class A Theatre advertisement, Seattle Union Record, 6 May 1921, Page 2.
[2] Maxine Elliott, “New Disciple Shows Worker Class Idealism,” Seattle Union Record, 9 May 1921, Page 2.
[3] Dora Hayward and Anna Blair, “New Disciple Has Solution,” Seattle Union Record, 10 May 1921, Page 2.
[4] Fannie Hamilton Perry, “Label League Member Sees New Disciple,” Seattle Union Record, 11 May 1921, Page 1.
[5] Steven J. Ross, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press – 1998), Page 158.
[6] Kevin Brownlow, Behind the Mask of Innocence: Sex, Violence, Prejudice, Crime – Films of Social Conscience in the Silent Era (London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd. – 1990), Pages 492-493.
[7] Ross, Working-Class Hollywood, Page 166.
[8] “New Disciple Rights Bought by Eastern Firm,” Seattle Union Record, 1 December 1921, Page 7.
[9] “Gotham Critics Praise Play by Labor Film Co.,” Seattle Union Record, 23 December 1921, Page 6.
[10] “At the Lyric…,” New York Tribune, 20 December 1921, Page 6.
[11] Ross, Working-Class Hollywood, Page 167.
[12] See John Arthur Nelson, The New Disciple (New York: F.P. Service, Inc. – 1921); see also “Gotham Critics Praise Play by Labor Film Co.,” Seattle Union Record, 23 December 1921, Page 6; and “Labor Owned Company Produces Wonderful Picture,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 6 January 1921, Page 4.
[13] See “Important Meetings,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 23 June 1922, Page 2; “Workers of State Meeting in Navy Yard City This Week,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 14 July 1922, Page 1; and “State Labor Session Soon,” Perth Amboy News (Perth Amboy, NJ), 25 August 1922, Page 2.
[14] See “Central Labor Council Notes,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 1 September 1922, Page 1; and “The New Disciple,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 1 September 1922, Page 2.
[15] See “The New Disciple,” The Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 1 September 1922, Page 2; and “News Films to Tell Story of Labor’s Doings,” Seattle Union Record, 21 September 1922, Page 2.
[16] See Olympic Theatre advertisement, Seattle Star, 16 December 1922, Page 12; Olympic Theatre advertisement, Seattle Union Record, 16 December 1922, Page 3; and Olympic Theatre advertisement, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 17 December 1922, Page 9E.
[17] See “What’s the Matter with the Movies?,” Seattle Union Record, 11 December 1922, Page 2; “Read what the New York Evening World said…,” Seattle Union Record, 14 December 1922, Page 4; Edwin B. Rivers, “New Disciple is Lauded by Gotham Call,” Seattle Union Record, 14 December 1922, Page 6; and Olympic Theatre advertisement, Seattle Union Record, 16 December 1922, Page 3.
[18] See Melvyn Stokes and Richard Maltby, American Made Movies: From the Turn of the Century to the Early Sound Era (London: British Film Institute – 1999), Page 8.
[19] Steven J. Ross, “The Revolt of the Audience: Reconsidering Audiences and Reception During the Silent Era,” in Melvyn Stokes and Richard Maltby (editors), American Made Movies: From the Turn of the Century to the Early Sound Era (London: British Film Institute – 1999), Page 106.
[20] Ross, Working-Class Hollywood, Pages 216-217.
[21] Ibid., Page 217.
[22] Ibid., Page 237.