Of History and Lightning:
Showcasing the Silent Era's Most Notorious Film

There’s no question that Thomas Dixon was one of the early 20^th century’s most popular writers, status he achieved despite controversial views and a heavy-handed literary style. Dixon’s Reconstruction trilogy – which included the novels The Leopard’s Spots, The Clansman and The Traitor – were all bestsellers, striking a chord with a good many Americans, particularly in the South. It’s what Thomas Dixon was aiming to do. These books were written to present his version – the true version – of Southern history, something that had been warped, in his opinion, in the works of other writers.

The Leopard Spots, published in 1902, was a commercial hit, but The Clansman, Dixon’s 1905 follow-up, was even bigger – so much so that the author immediately looked to dramatize the story. It was the perfect time to do so. Many popular novels from the era were being adapted for the stage, then picked up by the New York theatrical syndicates for national tours. General Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur, Edward Milton Royale’s The Squaw Man, and works from writers like Rex Beach and Owen Wister became huge money-makers for the Eastern theatrical managers. The syndicates had the process down to a science: if the New York run of a play was successful, they’d organize multiple companies, split out by geographic area, and take the production out on the circuits. Even for a middling stage play, a good publicity campaign was usually enough to guarantee at least one profitable season on the road, though some shows were able to tour for several.

Thomas Dixon adapted his novel for the stage and found a partner in theatrical producer George Brennan. The pair formed the Southern Amusement Company and began making plans to get the show into production, but chose an unusual strategy in doing so. Because The Clansman was unabashedly pro-Southern, with racial depictions that might not go over well in the Northeast, they weren’t willing to sink the project on its maiden voyage. So, instead, they chose to bypass the traditional starting point of New York City and open the play in Norfolk, Virginia, on September 5, 1905, before taking it on a tour of the Deep South. It was a brilliant move, allowing them to hone The Clansman with fewer distractions from critics, though Dixon himself toured with the show and gave a speech between acts as a way to mitigate potential trouble. The play still met with mixed and sometimes hostile reviews, even in the South, but for the most part audiences came to see it, if only to judge the show for themselves.

Like Dixon’s novels, the Southern tour was a popular (though not necessarily critical) success, and it eventually led to a brief New York engagement before the Southern Amusement Company organized troupes for a national tour. Reaction on the road held to form – with its controversial depictions of race and American history, The Clansman was a love it or hate it proposition, dividing opinions but also, at the same time, packing theatres with the curious. That was certainly the case when The Clansman made its Seattle debut, three years after opening in Norfolk, when it arrived at the Moore Theatre for a weeklong engagement beginning October 4, 1908.^[1]

The play claimed to employ 75 actors in what was billed as a faithful reproduction of the New York show, “including the famous Ku Klux Klan Cave Scene and Troop of Cavalry Horses,” and boasted that it had already played to four million people across the United States. “The Clansman, Thomas Dixon’s famous play which will make its first appearance in Seattle at the Moore theater a week from tonight, has enjoyed capacity audiences and splendid dramatic notices on its journey Coastward. The champion of the white race, as the play is sometimes called, broke all records for business last week in Butte and Spokane,” noted the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.^[2]

On October 4^th, opening day at the Moore, two of Seattle’s dailies, the Daily Times and the Post-Intelligencer, carried extensive promotions for the play, greeting the show’s controversial aspects head on. “Persons who attend the Moore theater this week will decide whether The Clansman is a menace to American civilization or a grand play with the avowed mission of the ‘champion of the white race’…” noted the Post-Intelligencer. “It is as a menace to the peace and good order of society that the bitterest opponents of [Thomas] Dixon view the much-hated Clansman. Certainly hundreds of Washington state folk will venture within the Moore theater this week who do not ordinarily attend theaters. They have heard of the fiery Southerner, with his red hot message, and they will not let the opportunity slip.”^[3]

Critical reaction to the play in Seattle was mixed, particularly on the subject of Thomas Dixon’s racial views. “Sensationalism is [The Clansman’s] keynote,” observed the Post-Intelligencer, “and from the moment of its promotion to the fulfillment of its fulsom[e] promises The Clansman is either an argument on the superiority of the white race successfully proved, or it is an ingenious a piece of melodramatic balderdash as was ever concocted.”^[4] Because it dealt with conditions from long ago, and because the West didn’t harbor the same racial antagonism as the South, the paper felt Dixon’s play was an unwarranted attack on African Americans. This was also the opinion of the Seattle Star. While they lauded the show for its staging and interpretation, they also felt that audiences in the Northwest simply couldn’t relate to the play’s Southern point of view. “Heralded as a dramatic sensation,” they began, “The Clansman comes to the Moore theatre under the guise of an inspired message to the nation on the race problem. The sensational is there without limit, but the inspired nature of its argument for the superiority of the white race is not accepted by a large number of persons, who, not knowing the south, do not appreciate the southerner’s attitude toward the negro, and cannot entirely grasp the apparent effort to refute the argument of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”^[5]

By far the most interesting reaction to The Clansman came from the Daily Times. Their actual review was nondescript and barely touched on the play’s subject matter, though there was no hiding “the fact that [this] is a dollar show playing in a two dollar house…”^[6] The Sunday after the play left town, however, the paper unloaded on The Clansman.

          The Clansman should not have been permitted to play Seattle. It should never have been permitted to play on any stage in America.
          The readers of the Dramatic Department of The Times will naturally ask, why did not The Times say that the play was objectionable [in their review]? Simply because that is the very thing The Clansman management wanted The Times to do.
The play as produced here, and we imagine, as it was produced everywhere in the country, considered solely as a piece of dramatic construction, is worthless. The company playing in it was remarkable solely for its mediocrity.
We have then but one thing left to consider – the subject matter. About this the less said the better. The play is founded upon and revolves around [an interracial rape]. The worst crime the world has ever known. That a young person could witness The Clansman and not be harmed thereby is incredible…
The Clansman organization deliberately attempts to excite the negroes of the communities in which it is to appear. If it can create enough of a disturbance to make the colored people talk of injunctions or race demonstrations, it has accomplished its purpose…
The net result – injunctions never quite striking fire, or when they do, flashing vainly against good lawyers – is big business everywhere. The better element of every community stays consistently away. The big audiences are made up almost exclusively of people who do not attend legitimate attractions or who at the best turn out for only the most lurid melodramas and most boisterous burlesques.
Had The Times printed the truth about The Clansman last Monday it would have contributed directly towards filling the play’s unclean coffers. Every possible effort was made by The Clansman management to persuade The Times either to say that the play might cause ill feeling among the colored people of the city, or that it was about a theme which should not be tolerated upon the stage, or when it came to the dramatic criticism to lay bare to the public just what the play was about. These efforts failed…
The truth one time in a thousand may have to be delayed, as was the case of The Clansman. When such a course is necessary it will happen, as this time, that the readers of the department will be puzzled by The Times’ lack of frankness. But in the end the truth will be told – as now.^[7]

Regardless of whether one agreed with the Daily Times’ approach, The Clansman played to large crowds in the Northwest and across the country before it was retired and released for stock theatre productions. It returned to Seattle a second time in July 1910, when the Sandusky & Lawrence Stock Company offered The Clansman for a week at the Lois Theatre. But the Daily Times still hadn’t changed their tune, chiding the troupers for making an “unwise selection” with that week’s production. “[A]s for the play itself,” wrote Edgar H. Thomas, “the dramatic department of The Times does not propose to gratify the company management by expressing an opinion of [The Clansman] and thus give publicity to something that is beneath contempt.”^[8]

Neither stage engagement of The Clansman was greeted warmly in Seattle, but that wouldn’t be the case a few years later, when Thomas Dixon’s stage play became the basis for D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation.^[9] The subject matter was still controversial, and the picture met with fierce criticism and protests in cities across the United States. But Griffith’s screen treatment was groundbreaking in its ability to depict the scope of the Civil War in a way the stage version could only suggest, while also capturing the tender, intimate moments between characters. Moviegoers at the time were not accustomed to a motion picture with that kind of depth – a film that was both overwhelming and intimate at the same time. In fact, when Thomas Dixon took Birth to the White House to give a private screening for his old college friend, Woodrow Wilson, the President was so astounded that he allegedly remarked that the film was “like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.”^[10] Coming as it did in 1915, the 50^th anniversary of the Civil War’s end, the picture was being released at a time when the country was filled with nostalgia for its veterans, North and South. In white America, at the very least, moviegoers were ready for this.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] Program, Moore Theatre, 4 October 1908; J. Willis Sayre Collection (University of Washington Special Collections Division). During this engagement, George M. Brennan was touring with the company as its stage director.
[2] “The Clansman Coming,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 27 September 1908, Magazine Section II, Page 7.
[3] “The Clansman,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 October 1908, Magazine Section II, Page 7.
[4] “Clansman and Honeymooners,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5 October 1908, Page 7.
[5] “The Clansman,” Seattle Star, 5 October 1908, Page 3.
[6] See “The Clansman,” Seattle Daily Times, 5 October 1908, Page 9.
[7] C.B.B., “Play is Unclean,” Seattle Daily Times, 11 October 1908, Section III, Page 10. “The worst crime the world has ever known” refers to the rape of a young white woman at the hands of black soldier – a scene that was even more explicit in Dixon’s play than the corresponding scene in D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation.
[8] Edgar H. Thomas, “Wm. Collier to Play Summer Stock in Denver; Ten Nights in a Barroom at the Seattle,” Seattle Daily Times, 25 July 1910, Page 6.
[9] In 1912 the Kinemacolor Company of America, pioneering an early type of color film, produced a motion picture version of The Clansman that was never released. It’s not entirely clear why, but the Kinemacolor process was beset with a number of photographic issues that limited use of the technology.
[10] Woodrow Wilson, quoted in Melvyn Stokes, D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation: A History of “The Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time,” (New York: Oxford University Press – 2007). Page 111.

There were perks to owning a large urban theatre in the silent era, one of which was the ability to take VIP studio tours. The practice had grown along with the business itself. Prominent exhibitors from around the country would tour film lots in New York and California, a so-called working vacation where they could observe the moviemaking process first-hand. That’s exactly what Dr. Howard Clemmer, brother of James, was doing in the spring of 1915 when he and a party of guests went south to Los Angeles. Howard Clemmer was a dentist by trade, having graduated from Lake Forest University, near Chicago, in 1896. He wasn’t drawn into the film trade until 1911, when he stepped in to manage his father’s Spokane holdings (including the Clem and Casino Theatres) following the elder Clemmer’s death. Dr. Clemmer eventually sold the Clem (which was later renamed the Class A) and built a larger venue, Spokane’s Clemmer Theatre, which opened shortly before his 1915 California trip.

In Los Angeles, Dr. Clemmer and his party visited the Lasky Studios, where they arrived to a thunderous greeting from actor Theodore Roberts, which “‘seemed like meeting an old friend to see the old film favorite come stalking across the lawn.’” Roberts took Clemmer and his guests on a tour of the lot, showing off his dressing room and introducing them to screen personalities like Blanche Sweet and Myrtle Stedman. These weren’t the group’s only celebrity encounters. Later, while out and about, the Clemmer party separately ran into Mabel Normand and Ruth Roland, and made a special trip to see Charlie Chaplin shoot one of his comedies on location. “‘He is by far the funnier in the flesh on the street than he appears on the screen,’” Clemmer told Moving Picture World. “‘…[H]undreds of spectators were roped off [nearby], enjoying his antics immensely.’”^[1]

As was typical with these kind of jaunts, Howard Clemmer’s visit was a lot more pleasure than it was business. But he did make a point of seeing the most talked-about movie release of the day, which had yet to go into wide release: D.W. Griffith’s film adaptation of The Clansman, which had been renamed The Birth of a Nation. It was the talk of the industry, and Clemmer brought his entire traveling party to Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles to see the film, where it had already been playing for several weeks. Everyone was stunned. “‘We saw the complete picture in Los Angeles,’” he remarked later, “‘and it fairly made us hang on the brass rail in front of us for the three hours it was running.’”^[2]

With The Birth of a Nation still in limited release, Clemmer returned to the Northwest determined not to let opportunity slip away. The film was being distributed on a state rights basis, and though he personally wasn’t in a position to land those rights, his brother James was. The two huddled, with Howard convincing his brother not just to make a play for the Washington rights, but to open his pocketbook for the opportunity. Howard Clemmer didn’t just think the Griffith film was a blockbuster – this was a game-changing motion picture that would bring people into the theatre who didn’t normally attend the movies. It was controversial, but it was also monumental, completely unlike any film the brothers had shown before. James Clemmer, and by extension Howard, had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get in on the motion picture that would surely take the business to new heights.

Sold on his brother’s exuberance, James Clemmer entered into negotiations for The Birth of a Nation right around the time Northwest movie fans were beginning to hear about D.W. Griffith’s big release. In Seattle, the first mention of the picture came in the January 18, 1915, edition of the Daily Times; the paper’s dramatic critic and photoplay writer was J. Willis Sayre, a seasoned journalist who had a hard time believing the hype. “Either somebody is lying or The Clansman is a most remarkable motion picture,” Sayre remarked. “Its press agent claims that it cost $300,000, and that more than 100,000 feet of film were taken to be cut down to the 12,000 feet in the finished production…[C]hances are these figures are wildly exaggerated, but even so, there can be little doubt that Director D.W. Griffith has turned out a pretentious Reliance film of which much will be heard during the next few months.”^[3]

That was an understatement. But similar news continued to roll in as the picture began its initial engagements in select Eastern cities. “It has come at last, a motion picture for which $2 a seat is charged,” an astonished Sayre wrote in February. “That will be the tariff…when the David Griffith feature, The Clansman, goes on at the [Liberty Theatre] in New York…If The Clansman gets away with these high prices the whole business will be revolutionized.”^[4] Even more shocking than the ticket cost was the public’s sustained interest in the film – in the few places where it was screening, not only were audiences paying exorbitant prices, but they were doing so repeatedly. Even after five weeks at Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles (far longer than most pictures could dream of playing in a single location), the film remained a consistent draw. “No better notice than this can be given for the Griffith masterpiece,” went a mention in one of Sayre’s March columns. “(I)t is said that the various feature makers are curiously watching the outcome…”^[5]

There was a growing public awareness and interest in The Birth of a Nation, and continued notices in Seattle’s daily newspapers helped build anticipation for the big announcement, which James Clemmer eventually made on June 11^th:

          Seattle will see The Birth of a Nation, the sixth city in the world to be granted this favor, thanks to the efforts of James Q. Clemmer. It will be shown here beginning Sunday, June 27.
          This wonderful D.W. Griffith masterpiece in twelve parts was obtained by Mr. Clemmer for exhibition after much negotiating, the final arrangements being consummated yesterday through J.E. McCormick, agent for this territory…
Although it is not disclosed just what price was paid by Mr. Clemmer for the privilege of showing this great production at his theatre, it is understood that the rental is in neighborhood of $20,000. It is known, however, that it required a deposit of several thousand dollars wired to New York in order to close the deal.
The fight to get this greatest of all motion pictures has been relentlessly waged during the past several weeks by big and little theatrical men and speculators almost without number. Offers running into the thousands of dollars were made only to be met with refusal because the owners were not ready to release the picture in the Northwest territory. But it was a case of “money talks” and a flattering offer by Mr. Clemmer turned the trick.
To the casual observer or erstwhile motion picture theatre patron, the expenditure of a small fortune to obtain merely the rental rights for a few days to a picture, no doubt seems a careless waste of money. But to the theatregoer and the real twice-a-week photoplay devotee the procuring of this marvelous production is not only an exhibit of rare business ability on the part of Mr. Clemmer, but also a stroke of good fortune for Seattle folks in general.^[6]

The deal James Clemmer negotiated wasn’t for the full state rights – those had already gone to J.E. McCormick. The only way he could get the picture was to make a side agreement with McCormick that let Clemmer exhibit the film in key Northwest cities like Seattle, Spokane and Portland. This allowed him to show The Birth of a Nation in each of these locations weeks before McCormick got his own roadshow productions up and running for the remainder of the territory. The full terms of Clemmer’s arrangement weren’t disclosed, but they not only included the sizable up-front payment but likely also included a percentage of the box office take in each city.

It’s not known how much money James Clemmer eventually made from scooping the competition, but there was no questioning the publicity value of being the first to show The Birth of a Nation. “Securing this picture puts Mr. Clemmer at the front in moving picture presentation in the North Pacific country,” remarked Charles Eugene Banks in the Post-Intelligencer. “It required a small fortune to close the deal. More than $100 was paid in telegrams to New York by Mr. Clemmer during the last few days of closing the contract.”^[7] Interest from Seattle moviegoers was so high that the Clemmer Theatre even began pre-selling tickets on June 22^nd, five days before The Birth of a Nation was scheduled to open.

Right up to the movie’s Seattle debut, the publicity given The Birth of a Nation by local newspapers was all positive. None of them connected The Clansman, the detestable stage play, with The Birth of a Nation, the movie industry’s newest sensation. The film’s racial elements went largely unmentioned, even on the pages of the Daily Times, where the play had been roundly criticized during both its prior engagements. Charles Eugene Banks of the Post-Intelligencer was the only one to address the elephant in the room. “The showing in the picture of negro depravity has roused a storm of protest from colored people, who have interpreted this picturing of members of their race [negatively],” he wrote. “They have protested loudly against the picture. Many leading thinkers among the white population have joined them.”^[8] But while Banks was at least willing to acknowledge the issue, he was only giving it two meager sentences in a much longer column that was laced with superlatives for James Clemmer and D.W. Griffith, blunting his intellectual honesty.

Aside from Charles Eugene Banks, the only hint of controversy came from an article that ran in the Star nine days before Birth opened at the Clemmer Theatre. This outlier piece, titled “Negroes Try to Stop Big Feature Film,” was a syndicated article that had been lightly edited by a staff writer, and offered a glimpse of the ill-fated protest efforts in other cities where the film had already played.

          Among the colored brethren in Boston and Chicago joy reigneth not.
          For weeks they have fought tooth and nail against The Birth of a Nation, the sensational race feature, which is coming to the Clemmer.
In Chicago the courts have issued an injunction enjoining the city from interfering with the production, and in Boston the movie censors themselves finally have consented to lift the ban.
At Boston peaceable mass meetings were followed by protests to the mayor and governor, and these in turn by riots and arrests in the theatre. The whole movement culminated in the passage of a new law creating a censorship board.
The negroes were confident the censors would prohibit exhibition of the film. Instead, the board gave the movie men permission to run it.^[9]

This article is curious in that it certainly wasn’t part of the Clemmer’s extensive promotional campaign, which began in earnest with the original announcement. And while it specifically noted that The Birth of a Nation was a controversial film, it also suggested (perhaps inadvertently) that resistance was futile. After all, if protests in Chicago and Boston couldn’t prevent the film from screening, was there really anything that could be done?

That last point is interesting because to read Seattle’s dailies, there simply wasn’t any agitation against The Birth of a Nation during its entire Seattle run. Outwardly, local moviegoers seemed to embrace the film and weren’t particularly troubled with how African Americans were portrayed onscreen. That, however, may have been only on the surface. Historian Quintard Taylor notes that the Seattle chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), formed two years earlier, contacted the national organization following James Clemmer’s announcement for advice on how to deal with the engagement.^[10] The NAACP was heavily involved in protests elsewhere, but their response to the Seattle chapter was a bit tepid, and may have been influenced by the size of the local African American community (in 1915, only about 1% of the city’s population). In this case, they suggested that Seattle conduct a letter-writing campaign in which prominent white citizens were recruited to participate. But that either didn’t materialize or the argument fell on deaf ears, because the local chapter eventually reported back that there was no way to stop the Clemmer screenings. So in the case of Seattle, at least, resistance apparently was futile.

There’s another factor as to why local reaction to The Birth of a Nation garnered little attention during its Seattle run. Shortly before the film arrived in June, the city’s correspondent to Moving Picture World, Louis Goldsmith, left the post to go into the picture business for himself. Seattle’s daily newspapers didn’t report on any controversy, so the next best source would have been from the local trade paper correspondent, who almost certainly would have provided details on such a high-profile engagement. With Moving Picture World, at the time, devoting more column space to local news stories than other trade papers, Goldsmith’s reports could have provided a window into how The Birth of a Nation was actually being received. But the timing of his departure was unfortunate – reports out of Seattle went on hiatus for several weeks until Goldsmith’s replacement was found.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] S. Clark Patchin, “Clemmer Visits Studios,” Moving Picture World, 10 July 1915, Page 352.
[2] Ibid.
[3] J. Willis Sayre, “The Clansman Ready,” Seattle Daily Times, 18 January 1915, Page 10.
[4] J. Willis Sayre, “Pictures at $2,” Seattle Daily Times, 4 February 1915, Page 12.
[5] “Concerning Prices,” Seattle Daily Times, 21 March 1916, Page 17.
[6] “Clemmer Gets Noted Picture,” Seattle Daily Times, 13 June 1915, Page 22.
[7] Charles Eugene Banks, “James Q. Clemmer Wins Fight for Clansman,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 June 1915, Page 9.
[8] Ibid.
[9] “Negroes Try to Stop Big Feature Film,” Seattle Star, 18 June 1915, Page 7.
[10] See Quintard Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press – 1994), Page 89. In a 2002 article, journalist Cecelia Goodnow reported that the Seattle chapter of the NAACP organized a small march against The Birth of a Nation during its original visit, but didn’t provide her source for that information. If they did, it wasn’t widely reported. See Cecelia Goodnow, “Seattle’s Racial Tolerance Belied Employment Prejudices,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 February 2002 (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/57859_blackhistory12.shtml), accessed 28 March 2007.

An unfortunate thing about The Birth of a Nation’s Seattle engagement was the fact that independent accounts from the Clemmer Theatre are in short supply. As it debuted, papers like the Daily Times or the Star tended to speak of the film only in superlatives. Then, as it settled into an extended run of several weeks, most additional commentary came from the copious notices issued by the Clemmer publicity staff, which were hardly impartial.

By far the most engaged writer on the film was Charles Eugene Banks of the Post-Intelligencer, who gave Birth lots of column inches throughout its five-week run. Much of this was straight publicity, as with Seattle’s other dailies, but on occasion he went a bit further. On the day the picture opened, for example, Banks’ “review” ran atop a full-page advertisement, flanked by handsome portraits of D.W. Griffith and James Clemmer. (This same format was also used for the opening in Spokane.) Interestingly, though he could have expounded on the film and its impact, Banks said relatively little about The Birth of a Nation. He spent most of his review detailing the plot, albeit in a dreamlike fashion in which the reader is asked to imagine themselves in the heavens, gazing down upon several hundred years of Southern history, all of which culminates with the Civil War and Reconstruction. “If Thomas Carlyle’s French Revolution is a historical poem [then] so is Griffith’s Birth of a Nation,” he wrote at the end of this piece. “The same effect is produced in either case – years of societal cataclysm thundered to your senses in tremendously moving periods, all minor events forgotten in the supreme vision of a master mind.”^[1] Here Banks seems to have been working too hard to meet the moment, reaching for the type of prose that would convey the film’s majesty.

He did a little better the following day, in his regular photoplay column. Banks went back to the theatre to see The Birth of a Nation a second time, coming away with a fresh perspective. “I saw the picture Friday morning at a private run of the film and was astounded, even after all I’ve read about it. But seeing it in a packed theater, decorated with the national colors, and with life-like pictures of Grant, Lee and Lincoln looking down on you, the big pipe organ with [Oliver] Wallace playing in company with a fine symphony orchestra, the big guns booming and the rifles cracking in the battle scenes, the old songs of the North and South [playing] softly through the quieter scenes – well, it was different. It was, in fact, tremendous. One can write what he pleases about this production and then not approach the wonder of it.”^[2] The picture and the presentation were so overwhelming that Banks felt it nearly impossible view the film objectively. “So much in it is vital, true wonderful and poetic,” he asserted, “how can one stop to look for flaws?”

The account Charles Eugene Banks provided in this second article provides some interesting details on the show James Clemmer put together. He went all-in decorating the theatre space – flags and red, white and blue bunting were everywhere, and the venue was littered with flower arrangements. The staff dressed in antebellum costumes, and Clemmer himself donned a white flannel suit, assuming the role of a Southern plantation owner. Large portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee hung above the screen, and (according to a subsequent article) the Union and Confederate flags adorned the curtain. Though Oliver Wallace usually carried the musical load for pictures at the Clemmer, here he arranged the program and lead a full orchestra that was brought in to support him. And James Clemmer seems to have employed sound effects for the battle scenes, including guns and bugle calls, among others.

The exhibitor also set the mood with a pair of stage settings before the film began – not necessarily a prologue, but atmospheric flourishes. Both were painted scenes augmented by stage lighting. The first depicted an old cabin in the moonlight, but the second was more elaborate, showing a Southern plantation by a river, a distant sunset bathing the cotton fields in a warm glow as a steamboat rounded a bend in the distance. Both these scenes were accompanied by music from the house orchestra, but the river scene included the low hum of slave songs.^[3]

Charles Eugene Banks also used this second viewing to open up on the racial depictions in The Birth of a Nation, though on terms favorable to the filmmaker. While some of the depictions were unpleasant, he admitted, it was his belief that D.W. Griffith could have shown far worse – in fact, the director should be commended for what he didn’t put onscreen. “There are those who think it slanders the negro race. For myself, I cannot see that it does more than show the effect of a sudden power bestowed on a people who had for generations been degraded by slavery. They were children without self-restraint.”^[4]

As the Clemmer engagement moved into its second week and beyond, Charles Eugene Banks continued to plug the film routinely in his column, often providing updates on the venue’s attendance. In mid-July the engagement got a considerable boost when a Shriner convention arrived in Seattle, allowing visitors from around the country to see The Birth of a Nation well before most of their home cities had the opportunity.

Two pieces in his photoplay column stand out. The first ran on July 14, 1915, and had all the earmarks of a promotional gimmick. In this case, Charles Eugene Banks reported that the day prior, an old, grey-haired gentleman from Texas had gone to the Clemmer in full cowboy regalia, right down to his 10-gallon hat, and took a seat in the balcony. Then, in the midst of the performance, this man – a Confederate veteran, Banks claimed – got so wrapped up in the action that suddenly leapt to his feet, grabbed his hat and let out an old-fashioned rebel yell, startling the Clemmer audience. Then, embarrassed by his outburst, the Texan collected himself and quickly bolted from the theatre without bothering to finish the show.^[5]

It’s possible this incident occurred, but if it did, the man was likely a plant by the Clemmer promotional staff. Humorously, Banks’ physical description of the Texan fits, to the letter, the cartoon character of Yosemite Sam, introduced in the 1940s, right down to the man’s “drooping mustache.” And the whole incident begs a few questions: why was a Texan, in cowboy garb, in Seattle? If he was a Shriner, that wasn’t indicated. And how do we know he was a Texan – or a former Confederate soldier, for that matter? If this man beat a such hasty retreat from the theatre, how did anyone get his personal details? In all likelihood this was a story provided to Banks or a stunt devised by employees at the Clemmer Theatre, late in the film’s run, as a way to keep attention focused on the engagement.

The second article is in the same vein. On July 21^st, in the last week of the Seattle engagement, Charles Eugene Banks devoted his entire photoplay column to Bremerton resident Annie S. Milligan, who had come over specifically to see The Birth of a Nation.^[6] But Milligan was no ordinary film patron, because she claimed to have been at Ford’s Theatre on the night President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and wanted to see how well the movie captured the moment. She was only 16 at the time, she claimed, but was seated near the center of the theatre and had a good view of events as they unfolded. She claimed The Birth of a Nation did an excellent job of accurately depicting the event, and that actor Joseph Henabery, playing Lincoln, gave a spot-on impersonation of the President. Only the character of John Wilkes Booth (played by Raoul Walsh) was off. “‘I knew Booth quite well,’” Milligan claimed. “‘He was a handsome young man with regular features, a Roman nose and long black hair that waved gracefully around his neck. I think this Booth is too stout.’”^[7]

If the Texas Confederate story was a stretch to believe, then the “woman who saw Lincoln shot,” as Banks titled his article, seemed over the top. After all, it was no secret that the number of people claiming to have been in Ford’s Theatre that evening far exceeded the venue’s seating capacity. That was the thought of at least one letter writer to the Post-Intelligencer, who read Banks’ article and asked the question many were probably thinking: “What I want to know is, why did she wait all these years before she sprung her story?”^[8]

The letter writer may have had a point, but the interesting thing about Annie S. Milligan is that parts of her story check out. According to census records, Annie Milligan (née, Brown) was born in 1849, and grew up in the greater Washington, D.C. area. She told Charles Eugene Banks that she was about 12 years old when the Civil War began, which was right in line with her birth year. And the details she told Banks in 1915 were identical to the ones she was telling in 1928, when Milligan’s story appeared in a syndicated newspaper article, including the claim that she had been acquainted with John Wilkes Booth.^[9] (The 1928 article also claimed that she knew Mary Surratt, who allowed the plotters to meet in her Washington, D.C. boarding house.)

Young Miss Brown attended the play Our American Cousin with her own cousin, who was married to an employee of the theatre. The fatal shot and Booth’s leap from the box to the stage were unexpected, she recalled, and initially she thought it was part of the show itself. For a brief second people were taken aback, not quite sure of what was happening. “‘There was a deadly silence that spoke louder than the loudest shrieks,’” Milligan recalled of the moment. “‘This was broken by a gasp that seemed to come simultaneously from every throat. Then cool heads averted a panic, the names of everyone in the theatre were taken, and everyone filed silently out of the house as though stunned.’”^[10] (In both her 1915 and 1928 accounts, she distinctly remembered that everyone at Ford’s Theatre that evening was required to give their personal information before leaving the scene. But according to the National Park Service website for Ford’s Theatre, no list of attendees, if taken, is known to exist.^[11])

None of that, of course, proves that Bremerton’s Annie Milligan was at Ford’s Theatre on that fateful evening – it merely suggests that it was possible. But that was of little consequence to James Clemmer, who learned of her story and, on July 20^th, paid for Milligan and several guests to come over from Bainbridge Island and see The Birth of a Nation in person. Without a hint of irony, the manager warmly greeted the Milligan party in the lobby upon their arrival, then had them ushered straight up to a private box at the Clemmer, up above the audience, so they could enjoy the show in private.

Interestingly, just days after Annie Milligan dropped into the Clemmer Theatre to take in the show, another visitor of note arrived to see the film. This was Reverend W.J. Hindley, the former mayor of Spokane who had since left the Northwest to head the Central Congregational Church in Winnipeg. There, Hindley’s previous experience as Spokane’s official film censor was tapped by the Provincial Motion Picture Censorship Board of Manitoba, a five-person group charged with previewing each and every film that came into the province. Recognizing that The Birth of a Nation was controversial, the Board dispatched Hindley to the Clemmer for a preview, with instructions to report back on its appropriateness for audiences in Manitoba. Hindley saw the film twice – once in Seattle, on July 24^th, then again after the picture debuted in Spokane.

A man of faith, Reverend Hindley claimed to know a thing or two about what was good for public consumption, and he had little criticism of The Birth of a Nation. Traveling from Seattle back to Spokane by train, after having seen the film for the first time, Hindley told The Spokesman-Review that he would wholeheartedly recommend it to Manitoba censors, provided a few scenes were eliminated. “‘I have seen no greater picture that I can recall,’” Hindley said. “‘…I can see no real objection to the so-called saloon scene which the [National Board of Censors] has ordered eliminated. I will suggest that some of the close-up views of the degenerate negro [a rape scene that also raised concerns in the stage version] be eliminated and a number of the [titles] should be done away with. I understand many have been expurgated, but there are still some that could better be deleted. There is no feeling in Canada against the negro and I can conceive of no racial hatred springing up as the result of exhibition.’”^[12] Hindley was also confident that the picture had such dramatic merit that it would be embraced by Canadians despite showing a tragic chapter of history. His only complaint was that Birth was, perhaps, a little one-sided. “‘It is unfortunate, however, that the sunny and prophetic side of the negro’s nature is not emphasized a little more to give better balance,’” Hindley later told Moving Picture World. “‘It is decidedly Dixonesque in treatment.’”^[13]

Reverend Hindley tended to see The Birth of a Nation through the lens of his task, which was to determine its fitness for screenings in Manitoba. A more personal account came from Hindley’s brother Wilbur, who also came to Seattle to preview the film. Wilbur W. Hindley was a reporter for The Spokesman-Review and amongst a viewing party that included his brother and Samuel Glasgow, the Spokane official entrusted with censorship duties at the time. Like Reverend Hindley, Glasgow was coming to Seattle to judge The Birth of a Nation in advance of screenings in Spokane.

Wilbur Hindley had already heard a lot about the picture, and though he didn’t mention it specifically, he also seems to have been familiar with Thomas Dixon’s literary output. He went into the Seattle Clemmer with a critical eye, certain the picture wouldn’t live up to expectations. But instead he found himself swept up by the story, the visuals, the music and the sheer spectacle of it all. “I sat through the picture for three hours absolutely spellbound,” he admitted. “I emerged with beads of perspiration standing out all over my face.” This was exactly what Dr. Howard Clemmer experienced when seeing the film for the first time, months earlier, in Los Angeles.

What surprised Wilbur Hindley about The Birth of a Nation was his emotional response to the picture, and he wasn’t alone. “The audience in Seattle that afternoon was doubtless a typical one,” he recounted. “Yet the picture toyed with [our] emotions as a cat does with a mouse. We applauded, first genteelly, then warmly, then vigorously, then vociferously, and some rose to their feet and cheered outright. Everybody wept more or less as the pathos of the shattered southland struck home, and there were not a few spots where the teeth involuntarily gritted, the fists clenched and an audible hiss escaped the lips.”^[14] And yet, as much as Wilbur Hindley was genuinely moved by what he was seeing, he was well aware that parts of the film were more propaganda than history, in particular the heroics of the Ku Klux Klan at the end of the film. “One can never get away from the Dixonesque treatment of the subject, and the marshalling of incidents to prove his premises is ostensibly most effective, even if the historical accuracy of the incidents and motives be questioned.”

Wilbur Hindley represented a large swath of America in this reaction to The Birth of a Nation. On the one hand he acknowledged (and was even critical of) its racial depictions, as well as the use of history as propaganda. But he was also overwhelmed with the film’s narrative scope and its powerful, thoroughly unexpected emotional impact. This wasn’t something he was used to experiencing with a screen drama, and it had a profound effect on how he responded to the film. The combination was simply overwhelming, mitigating his concerns with the film’s racial and historical depictions. And consider, too, that Hindley was a journalist by trade and probably far more discriminating than most moviegoers in 1915 – the average viewer was carried away, and to them that’s all the mattered. Whether history and race were depicted accurately in The Birth of a Nation was debatable; how the film moved people was unquestionable.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] Charles Eugene Banks, “Griffith’s Birth of a Nation,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 27 June 1915, Page 17.
[2] Charles Eugene Banks, “Applause and Tears at The Birth of a Nation,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 28 June 1915, Page 5.
[3] Charles Eugene Banks, “The Birth of a Nation,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 29 June 1915, Page 10.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Charles Eugene Banks, “The Old Rebel Yell at The Birth of a Nation,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 July 1915, Page 12.
[6] See Charles Eugene Banks, “Woman Who Saw Lincoln Shot,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 21 July 1915, Page 8.
[7] Mrs. Caleb Milligan to Charles Eugene Banks, “Woman Who Saw Lincoln Shot,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 21 July 1915, Page 8.
[8] Letter from Mrs. T.S.C of Shoal Bay, British Columbia, in “J.W.G….,” Seattle Post Intelligencer, 31 July 1915, Page 3.
[9] See “Eye Witness Tells of Scene When Assassin Shot Lincoln,” clipping from February 1928 in “The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Recollections and Accounts of Eyewitnesses” folder, Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection (https://archive.org/details/assassinationo00linc/page/n17/mode/2up?q=milligan), accessed 2 March 2021.
[10] Annie S. Milligan, as quoted in “Eye Witness Tells of Scene When Assassin Shot Lincoln,” clipping from February 1928 in “The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Recollections and Accounts of Eyewitnesses” folder, Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection (https://archive.org/details/assassinationo00linc/page/n17/mode/2up?q=milligan), accessed 2 March 2021.
[11] See “Frequently Asked Questions: The Assassination,” Ford’s Theatre page, National Park Service website (https://www.nps.gov/foth/learn/historyculture/faq-the-assassination.htm#:~:text=Seated%20alongside%20the%20president%2C%20on,were%20also%20in%20the%20box.), accessed 2 March 2021.
[12] Wilbur W. Hindley, “Former Local Censor is Scout for Provincial Film Viewers,” The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), 1 August 1915, Part 4, Page 1.
[13] S. Clark Patchin, “Griffith Film in Spokane,” Moving Picture World, 21 August 1915, Page 1344.
[14] Wilbur W. Hindley, “A Personal Impression of Griffith’s Masterpiece The Birth of a Nation,” The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), 1 August 1915, Part 4, Page 3.

While the Seattle engagement for The Birth of a Nation came and went without controversy (or, at least, reported controversy), that wouldn’t be the case when the picture moved over to Spokane, where it was booked into the Clemmer Theatre beginning August 2, 1915. There it ran for three weeks, with ticket prices of 25, 50 and 75 cents for matinees; each of those amounts raised by a quarter for evening performances.^[1]

While the Hindley brothers may have approved of the film, its reputation was beginning to spread, due in part to its gradual roll-out to theatres around the country. Opposition to Birth surfaced almost as soon as the Spokane engagement was announced, culminating in a special City Council session that was held on July 19^th, two weeks before the picture was to debut. There, about 100 members of the African American community appeared alongside Rev. D.A. Graham, a black minister from the Bethel A.M.E. Church, along with members of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization of Union veterans created after the Civil War. Graham opposed The Birth of a Nation as a whole, but specifically pointed to a pair of unnamed scenes that he felt were particularly offensive to African Americans; both, in his opinion, should be deleted if the film was to be shown.^[2] “‘I base my protest upon four points,’” said Graham, who was quoted in Motion Picture News. “‘…First, it is false history; second, it is being shown to create race prejudice; third, it shows the negro as an irredeemable degenerate; [and] fourth, some of its themes are…grossly immoral.’”^[3]

Graham and his supporters, which included the Spokane Ministerial Alliance, recruited a powerful ally to their cause in Judge Adolph Munter. Munter was white, and spoke to the gathering as a private citizen, decrying the film as an unnecessary attempt to stir racial prejudice. “‘I went through the Ku-Klux-Klan period in Alabama,’” Munter later told Moving Picture World, “‘and the acts of these night riders were not based on the outrages [against] white women by colored men, but upon and unreasoning prejudice toward the colored race. From personal knowledge the so-called historical facts portrayed are untrue.’” Judge Munter was joined by other white speakers as well. E.J. Robertson was one, arguing that children would walk away from The Birth of a Nation with gross misconceptions about black Americans, influencing thoughts and behaviors that “would require years to wipe out.”^[4]

The Birth of a Nation also had its defenders at the hearing. Dr. Howard Clemmer was one, rising to speak not only on behalf of the picture but, more importantly, his right to show it. With both sides dug in, and not wanting to make a controversial decision on the spot, the Spokane City Council announced their intention to “study the matter further.” Ultimately, they chose to send Samuel Glasgow, Spokane’s Commissioner of Public Affairs, and a small party (including the Hindley brothers) to the Clemmer Theatre in Seattle to view the film and make a recommendation. In truth, though, the decision had already been made. Commissioner Glasgow was on record in his belief that the film should be allowed in Spokane, if only because his policy was to rubber-stamp any picture that had been passed by the National Board of Censorship. Still, he agreed to view the film in its entirety and suggest deletions, if necessary, before the Spokane engagement began.^[5] Thus the Glasgow party traveled to Seattle in late July to view The Birth of a Nation, returning on the 31^st, three days before it was set to open in Spokane. Glasgow’s thoughts were hardly a surprise. “‘My observations and investigations in Seattle have proved to me that the local colored people are unduly exercised over the coming of the picture, and have an unwarranted fear of the results it may have,’” he said. “‘One of the most objectionable scenes under the sub-title of “The Claws of the Beast,” a close facial view of a negro who is pursuing a white girl, has been eliminated.’”^[6]

There was no record of opposition to The Birth of a Nation in Seattle, but how vigorous were these protests in Spokane? It’s hard to tell, since the moving picture trade papers, which offered more detail than the city’s dailies, differed in their treatment. A reader of Moving Picture World might conclude that local opposition was both organized and vocal, if small, whereas readers of Motion Picture News were told that the protests were “a belated echo of those made in other cities in which the Griffith spectacle has been booked.”^[7]

Regardless of potential backlash, Dr. Howard Clemmer barreled ahead with promotional efforts for The Birth of a Nation, and not always in the most sensitive of ways. The picture opened at the Spokane Clemmer on August 2^nd, and Clemmer didn’t deviate from the playbook used by his brother – unsurprising, since James Clemmer’s promotional man, J.W. Bertelson, coordinated all the Northwest engagements. Ushers were costumed, special programs were printed, and Oliver Wallace was brought over from Seattle. The enhanced musical program was the same one Wallace created for the Seattle engagement, using in upwards of 40 patriotic and wartime songs, and appears to have also included portions of the formal score that composer Victor Herbert created for the picture.^[8]

The outside of the Clemmer Theatre, of course, was decorated top to bottom, and much of Spokane was papered with film posters which, coupled with an aggressive newspaper campaign, made it impossible to miss that The Birth of a Nation had arrived. But to drive that point home, the Clemmer forces organized a promotion that put 10 young men on horseback, each draped in flowing white robes and Klan-style hoods, who rode through downtown Spokane with banners advertising the theatre’s latest attraction. This stunt, also used during the Portland engagement, was described as “a common sight on [Spokane] streets.”^[9] (If this method was also used to sell the picture in Seattle, which seems likely, it went unreported.)

An interesting aspect of The Birth of a Nation’s initial week in Spokane was the fact that Dr. Howard Clemmer screened the picture as a special attraction. Between screenings of Birth the Spokane Clemmer continued showing its regular Paramount service, most likely because they had to, contractually. One feels sorry for these productions, which went virtually unnoticed, including The Running Fight, which was replaced mid-week by the Cecil B. DeMille’s Kindling.^[10] Neither got much traction against D.W. Griffith’s juggernaut. “Limousines and automobiles lined the curb on both sides of the theater,” noted The Spokesman-Review, “and the night performance took on the appearance of a gala social event.”^[11] The audience on opening day was jammed with excited moviegoers, including a large contingent from the Fraternal Order of Eagles, who just happened to be having a convention in Spokane at that time. Like the Shriner gathering in Seattle, these conventioneers were eager to see the film, given that it might not play their own city for months – or ever, depending on where they lived.

Like earlier accounts of seeing The Birth of a Nation, the reporter for The Spokesman-Review assigned to report on the opening was unprepared for the experience. He wasn’t alone; a quick glance around the theatre at key moments proved this was the case for many in the audience. In the scene when the Confederate soldiers march through the fictional city of Piedmont, South Carolina, on their way to the front, Oliver Wallace had the orchestra break into the familiar strains of “Dixie,” sending the Clemmer audience into a frenzy of shouts and applause. This effect was repeated later, when Sherman’s march was shown onscreen and the music segued into “Marching Through Georgia.” Perhaps the most moving response on opening day in Spokane, however, wasn’t tied to a musical cue. According to The Spokesman-Review, during the scene where Abraham Lincoln signs the first call for volunteers, the audience rose from their seats and stood silently as Joseph Henabery, playing Lincoln, signs the order and, overcome with emotion, wipes away tears before bowing his head in prayer.^[12]

The Spokesman-Review’s unnamed writer also acknowledged the film’s racial elements in his review, though in a perplexing way. Wilbur Hindley addressed the subject directly and, rightly or wrongly, attributed the depictions to Thomas Dixon’s bending of the historical record, somewhat absolving director D.W. Griffith of any responsibility. This reporter, however, was simply content to point out what he had seen. As opposed to the first part of the review, which focused on the visual and emotional power of The Birth of a Nation, his description of the film’s racial content was somewhat detached and clinical. Clearly no fan of Dixon’s worldview, it’s as if the writer felt compelled to address the obvious in an attempt to move on. “Dixon makes all his Clansmen glorified martyrs,” the review explained, “and practically all of his black people are fiendish beasts, without a redeeming feature. His radical views have been given full sway in the latter part of the picture, and [D.W.] Griffith has overlooked no detestable bit of stage business to secure the effect intended.” In this respect, The Spokesman-Review‘s writer fell in line with how many addressed the film during its initial run through the United States. The Birth of a Nation was a tremendous, impactful motion picture, a must-see, with racial depictions that were questionable, and perhaps a little troubling.

The Spokesman-Review’s reporter may have tried to sidestep the film’s the controversial elements, but the paper’s editors weren’t afraid to tackle the issue head on. Five days into the run at the Clemmer, on August 7^th, they ran an editorial that railed against The Birth of a Nation’s “ultra Southern” version of American history. Thomas Dixon’s writings and D.W. Griffith’s picture were attempts to deceive audiences into believing a biased version of the truth that lacked, in their view, “historical perspective and balance.” Even if the Ku Klux Klan had been organized to restore order during the Reconstruction Era, there was no hiding that it became a terror group that carried out personal vendettas, and in no way resembled the heroic Southerners depicted in the novel, play or film. The Spokesman-Review editors drew a parallel, in fact, with vigilante groups in the old West, several of which operated in Washington state. Too often these were just shields that allowed men to engage in organized violence.

          One need but attend a performance of this picture drama to realize that objections raised against it have substantial foundation in fact. The spotlight is held on the worst side of the black man, in the darkest period of his tribulations, and a lawless secret organization, which became so vicious and murderous as to forfeit the respect and support of many of the better people of the south, is glorified…
          [Efforts] to point [to] a moral for the Birth of a Nation are obviously labored. The production is before the public because a keen observer detected the unusual possibilities of the novel. Spectacularly considered it is a triumph. As an expression of the improved technique of the moving picture art it challenges our admiration. But historically it is a distortion and morally it teaches some false lessons.^[13]

So there was definitely opposition to The Birth of a Nation in Spokane, and not just from African American groups and their sympathizers. None of that stopped the film from being shown but, interestingly, it also didn’t stop them from abandoning the fight. On August 15^th, almost two weeks after the movie opened, a meeting was held at the Bethel A.M.E. Church under the auspices of the Colored Men’s Business League and the Colored Men’s Civic League. There, attendees drafted a formal criticism of Samuel Glasgow’s decision to approve Birth and announced their intention to oppose the re-election of any public official who had a hand in allowing the film to play Spokane. In addition, the group stated they’d only back candidates who supported a proposed ordinance banning films espousing race hatred. According to a spokesman, the group’s strategy was to register every black voter in Spokane, enlist the support of labor unions and Socialists, and seek passage of the proposed ordinance. With three of five City Commissioners up for reelection in November, they had an opportunity to tip the balance of power within city government.^[14] It was an ambitious goal, and they bagged at least one trophy: Samuel A. Glasgow was defeated in his re-election bid, with “the negro vote” credited for sinking him at the polls.^[15] Little changed, however. The proposal banning race films was never enacted, and the city’s next censor stated that his policy would be the same as Glasgow’s – films passed by the National Board of Censorship were automatically greenlighted in Spokane.

At the end of the day, Tacoma was the only large Washington city to take action against The Birth of a Nation. There, activists (led attorney Albert E. Joab) tried to get out in front of planned screenings by introducing a city ordinance prohibiting films that “[tend] to excite race prejudice.” There was some history behind this proposal. Earlier in 1915 manager John Siefert of Tacoma’s Liberty Theatre booked a feature called The Nigger, which cast William Farnum as a governor who’s blackmailed when a political rival discovers he’s of mixed race. The film was based on a popular book and stage play, so the movie version was a known property. Siefert booked The Nigger into the Liberty and was immediately met with protests from the local black community, who took their concerns to the Social Service Board. The Board could have blocked the film altogether, but instead asked Siefert to change the name of the film to The New Governor during the Tacoma engagement, a solution that had been used in a handful of other cities. But Siefert refused – the original title, thanks to the novel and stage play, had commercial value. He’d be leaving money on the table if he agreed to change it.^[16]

That argument resonated with the Social Service Board, because The Nigger played the Liberty, under its original title, for the duration of its run. So in light of this prior incident, Joab and his supporters wanted to get a jump on The Birth of a Nation by proposing an ordinance in advance of the film’s arrival. The problem with their measure, however, was that the language was so clearly targeted at a single film, rather than a genre of films, that City Commissioner Owen Woods was inclined to dismiss the effort out of hand. Referencing a previous measure that met with wide ridicule (it forbade one person from buying another a drink), Woods sarcastically quipped “‘[w]e ought to pass this ordinance, just to sustain Tacoma’s reputation as a freak town.’”^[17] He wasn’t alone in this objection; the Tacoma Times editorialized that a measure to halt the showing of race films might be desirable, but the proposal in question wasn’t the way to do it. “We don’t know whether The Birth of a Nation ought to be prohibited for [race hatred] or for any other reason. We do know that it is being shown freely in Chicago, where movie censorship is quite rigid. If, when [the film] reaches here, it is found to be unfit for public exhibition, the authorities surely can find sufficient grounds for suppressing it without resorting to any such ordinance as is now advanced.”^[18]

The critics were wrong – Tacoma eventually passed the ordinance, “largely to appease the colored element of this city,” according to one local paper. But it was a victory in name only. The measure underwent changes shortly after passage, and it failed to stop its target film.^[19] The Birth of a Nation opened in Tacoma a short while later, despite the ordinance and despite opposition from certain quarters.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] “Spokane Brevities,” Moving Picture World, 31 July 1915, Page 856.
[2] S. Clark Patchin, “Griffith Film Discussion in Spokane,” Moving Picture World, 7 August 1915, Pages 1034-1035.
[3] “Spokane is Hit by Agitation Stirred Up by Colored People over Birth of a Nation,” Motion Picture News, 7 August 1915, Page 56.
[4] Patchin, “Griffith Film Discussion…”
[5] See Patchin, “Griffith Film Discussion…;” and “Spokane is Hit by Agitation Stirred Up by Colored People over Birth of a Nation,” Motion Picture News, 7 August 1915, Page 56.
[6] S. Clark Patchin, “Griffith Film in Spokane,” Moving Picture World, 21 August 1915, Page 1344. So if The Birth of a Nation easily won Samuel Glasgow’s endorsement, what kind of films got his condemnation? Just weeks after greenlighting Birth, Glasgow stepped in to halt the showing of films related to the death of Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman in Atlanta who was convicted (wrongly, many felt) of raping and killing a young girl in 1913. In 1915, shortly after Frank’s death sentence was commuted by Georgia Governor John Slaton, a group of armed men stormed the jail in Atlanta, kidnapping Frank and spiriting him away to be lynched. Calling the situation “gruesome,” Samuel Glasgow remarked “‘I can’t imagine how any person would have any desire to see [these pictures].’” (S. Clark Patchin, “No Frank Films in Spokane,“ Moving Picture World, 11 September 1915, Page 1860.)
[7] “Spokane is Hit by Agitation Stirred Up by Colored People over Birth of a Nation,” Motion Picture News, 7 August 1915, Page 56.
[8] See “Clemmer,” The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), 8 August 1915, Part 4, Page 1.
[9] Abraham Nelson, “Griffith Film Closes Portland Run,” Moving Picture World, 9 October 1915, Page 306. Toward the end of the film’s run in Spokane, this group of young men on horseback was attacked during one of their promotional runs, although it was unclear whether the incident was due to their garb or whether it was just a random event. See Holly George, “Municipal Film Censorship in Spokane, Washington, 1910-1916,” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Volume 103, Number 4 (Fall 2012), Page 185.
[10] See “Birth of a Nation Today,” The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), 2 August 1915, Page 5.
[11] “Great War Movie Fills Clemmer,” The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), 3 August 1915, Page 8.
[12] Ibid.
[13] “Birth of a Nation Teaches Some False Lessons,” The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), 7 August 1915, Page 4.
[14] See S. Clark Patchin, “Complain of Griffith Film,” Moving Picture World, 4 September 1915, Page 1683; and “Colored Organization in Spokane, Alarmed over Nation, Will Wage War Against Officials,” Motion Picture News, 4 September 1915, Page 59.
[15] See “New Spokane Censor to Follow National Board Rulings,” Motion Picture News, 11 December 1915, Page 74.
[16] See Blaine Johnson and Brian Kamens, Showtime in Tacoma (Tacoma: Tacoma Historical Society Press – 2017), Page 54. According to Holly George, The Nigger was also the subject of protest when it played Spokane. See George, Page 183.
[17] “Wanted to Pass Special Ordinance to Bar Nation from Tacoma; Council Defeats Plan,” Motion Picture News, 28 August 1915, Page 62.
[18] “Pigeonhole It!,” Tacoma Times, 10 August 1915, Page 4.
[19] See “No Good Anyway He Says,” Tacoma Times, 11 August 1915, Page 1; and “Tacoma Ordinance Bars ‘Race Hatred’ Films,” Motion Picture News, 11 September 1915, Page 69.

Though much has been made about the controversy surrounding The Birth of a Nation, the fact remains it was a massive audience draw. Movie exhibitors across the country made good money showing the film, and it wasn’t just the big, urban theatres who benefited from its blockbuster status. Unlike most pictures released at the time, Birth was such a monster hit that it was frequently revived during the silent era, and was even re-released in 1930 with an added soundtrack. Obviously, the film played to its largest audiences before World War I, but that didn’t stop exhibitors from booking it on occasion, regardless of their size or location. In most communities, The Birth of a Nation was a pricey rental but also a guaranteed money maker.

Take the case of R.K. Dunham, who owned Burlington’s Grand Theatre in Skagit County. Dunham was a rural exhibitor who had no chance of booking The Birth of a Nation during its original run. Dunham’s main house was in nearby Mount Vernon, but even that city (population 3,300, or about 2½ times larger than Burlington) was too small to make a first-run engagement pay – the rental fee would have been prohibitively expensive.^[1] But he also didn’t forget about the picture, and knew, with time, that the price would eventually come to him. It took more than 18 months, after the film had played through most of Washington several times, before Dunham finally got his chance. It still wasn’t cheap; when he contacted the firm of Sherman and Elliott, who coordinated bookings throughout Washington state, Dunham could only afford to get The Birth of a Nation into the Grand for a single day – January 6, 1917. Nonetheless, an opportunity was an opportunity, so he set about making the most of this (very) brief engagement.^[2]

An avid reader of the motion picture trade papers, Dunham was convinced that bigger features resulted in bigger paydays, provided there was a strong advertising campaign to put the show over. Dunham took no chances, even with The Birth of a Nation, beginning his promotional effort more than two weeks in advance, which included multiple newspaper ads in Burlington and neighboring towns such as Mount Vernon and Sedro-Woolley. He also partnered with several Burlington merchants to create special window displays advertising the picture. These were lengths that Dunham didn’t go to with his regular offerings – he was a small-town exhibitor in an area were a single newspaper ad and a few posters were all he needed to sell the average film. But this time he wanted to emulate the methods used by larger exhibitors in bigger cities, whose promotional campaigns were often featured in the trade papers Dunham liked to peruse.

True to his belief, Dunham’s extra work paid off. “[B]y the night of January 6 everybody in the surrounding countryside knew about the wonderful picture to be shown at the Grand,” noted A.R.M. Sutton of Motography, who profiled the success of Dunham’s efforts. “Nearly everybody must have gone, too, for the receipts for those two shows, the matinee and evening performances, where $568.00, a great deal more than the average daily receipts [during the film’s] seven-day run in the neighboring city of Bellingham, which boasts 14,000 inhabitants.”^[3]

For the exhibitor, this was the power of The Birth of a Nation: a proven audience draw that, with proper exploitation, could be a moneymaker even years after its original release. R.K. Dunham usually averaged about $25 a day at the Grand box office, but a one-day, two-show screening of The Birth of a Nation brought in almost 23 times that amount. That success wasn’t lost on him; Dunham immediately went into negotiations with Sherman and Elliott so he could show The Birth of a Nation at his Rex Theatre in Mount Vernon, searching for his next big payday.

* * * * * * * * * *

Postscript

In 1989, as part of the National Film Preservation Act, the Library of Congress named 25 films to what was being called the National Film Registry. This list, to grow on an annual basis, was created to recognize the most important American films in cinema history. Five silents made the original list – The Crowd, The General, Sunrise, Nanook of the North, and Intolerance. Conspicuously absent: The Birth of a Nation, easily the most popular and most consequential film of the silent era. Seven more silent films would be added to the Registry in 1990 and 1991, but not Birth, which didn’t make the list until 1992. That wasn’t an oversight, but a reflection of its complicated history – a picture that was hugely influential, hugely profitable and hugely problematic. It’s a difficult film to view objectively, to acknowledge Griffith’s directorial skill and the power of its images to influence and sway emotions, while also properly acknowledging its abhorrent racial depictions, which were controversial even for its time. Both yesterday and today, there are competing views of the film. This much is true, however: until Gone with the Wind was released in 1939, no American film was as bigger or more important than The Birth of a Nation. It’s become, and will always remain, a cinematic pariah, but it was also the single biggest motion picture of the silent era, and influenced thousands of films and filmmakers ever since. Even moreso than Thomas Dixon’s book and stage play, it’s a creative work that will forever be revered and reviled.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] See “New Theaters Going Up,” Moving Picture World, 4 November 1916, Page 740; and “Theatre for Burlington,” The Concrete Herald, 11 November 1916, Page 1.
[2] A.R.M. Sutton, “From $25 a Week to $568 for One Day,” Motography, 2 June 1917, Pages 1141-1142.
[3] Ibid., Page 1142.