Count Ilya Tolstoy Prophesies World Destruction Under Juggernaut of Mad Struggle for Luxury-Decries Movies

"When America falls from the fiftysixth story of the Woolworth Building, there will be a bad crash," declared Count Ilya Tolstoy, son of the famous Russian philosopher, now lecturing in this country.

"Progress is something that always goes on, while civilization advances only in waves, and when it reaches a certain point, it collapses of its own weight. This has happened before in history, time and again, and it is this that will happen to us, only too soon. If we keep up this mad struggle for cheap luxury and entertainment, which leaves us no time to think or to improve ourselves mentally.

"In my opinion, one of the most important causes for this impending collapse of our civilization is the demoralizing effect of the American motion picture upon the minds of the people of the world. Directors seem to want not only to please the public, but to educate them to the cheap things. We have reached a fine state of affairs indeed, when a bunch of ignorant movie directors try to improve upon the works of the world's greatest writers and as a result drag their masterpieces down to the level of cheap comedy. Look what they did when they put my father's famous books. "Anna Karenina" and "The Cossacks", on the screen! My part in the production of these pictures was to fight for as little mutilation of the original as possible. I won about 50 per cent of that fight.

"Amid the vast confusion of trash of every form, from cosmetics to detective story magazines, that is flooding Europe and America, the overthrow of our civilization seems imminent. We can avoid it only by following the teachings of the greatest men that have ever lived, among them, Plato. Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, the great Hindu teachers, and last and best exponent of all ideas. Jesus Christ."