New Plays

The Saint. Stark Young (of The New York Times) is a critic of the Theatre whose penetrating observation has long been a tonic to our stage. Much to the distress of his admirers, he has attempted to embody the rules and measure of his wisdom in the heart and beauty of a play. Mr. Young has built up the fabric of a well-made drama; he has strengthened it with a fancy thread of beauty; and he has wholly failed to fill it with the air of sound reality.

His hero deserts the priesthood for the stage. It is the shabby stage of Tip Thompson's variety show on the Texas border. In its centre is Marietta, girl of his seminary village. She deserts his studious quietness for the more flagrant physical attractions of Dedaux, the Knife Thrower. "The Saint" has lost his girl and lost his God.

Leo Carrillo impersonated

"The

Saint" with stretches of good acting and lapses that were not so good. The best performance was contributed by the old woman who trained pigeons-Maria Ouspenskaya, late of the Moscow Art group.

The New York Times-"A play of lofty aim... Moments of beauty ... it came to life only in flashes." Percy Hammond-"Neither art entertainment."

nor

The Crime in the Whistler Room gallantly attempted to be introspective and exceedingly modern and succeeded in being dull. It is the opening production of the season by the group of young and thoroughly intelligent persons of whom Kenneth MacGowan, Robert Edmund Jones and Eugene O'Neill are the leaders. Unhappily, they selected as a starter a complex and over-worded play.

The crime is a spiritual slaughter of a highly charged barbarian who is being educated in the current unworldliness of a wealthy home. She seeks solace from the daily burden of propriety with a drink-dishevelled author. Then she dreams.

She dreams in a modernistic manner, reminiscent of the weird episodes in The Adding Machine. She dreams in terms of revolt against her cloister of convention. She dreams that she has fought her way free. She wakes up.

None of the acting is very good and none of it very bad. Most of it is accounted for by Mary Blair, E. J. Ballantine and Edgar Stehli.

The play will prompt in low-brows the gnawing of baffled discontent. They will want to know what it is all about. The so-called intellegenzia will find in it

flashes of finesse and faithful beauty. The rest is rain and thunder of a very cloudy evening.

Alexander Woollcott-"A dauntless production . . . which will probably remain at best in the limbo reserved for distinguished aspirations."

The Grab Bag. ed wynn, Ed wynn, eD wynn, ed Wynn, ed wYnn, ed

ED WYNN

Everybody laughed

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Alan Dale-"Stout men, stout women, thin men, thin women, ushers, hangerson-everybody laughed."

Bide Dudley-"He could tell that old joke about the chicken crossing the road and take six encores and three bows on it. That's how funny Ed Wynn is."

Percy Hammond-"The most efficient executive in current tomfoolery."

The Fake. Frederick Lonsdale is known locally for neat and witty social comedy (Spring Cleaning; Aren't We All?); A. H. Woods for bedrooms; and Godfrey Tearle because he is brother to Conway, famed cinema actor. Together these three have rolled up a murder in a plain wrapper and presented it to the public. When the wrappings were ripped off the opening night, the public gratitude was only so-so.

A pretty and accomplished young lady (Frieda Inescort), who is continually referred to as "that superlative

creature, is married to a drink and dope addict. Her strong, silent friend (Tearle) takes the addict down to the seashore and kills him with a herom and whisky cocktail. Returning, he vilifies the lady's father who has made the match and watched it smoulder because of his own ambitions toward the pearage. The girl falls, as planned, into the arms of a more agreeable matrimonial prospect.

The narrative argues that the murder is admissible because the strong, silent one had no selfish motive. The fake is the father. As played by the suavely English Mr. Tearle and by Orlando Daly, these parts protrude above the pleasant capabilities of a British cast. Percy Hammond-"If you believe in noble assassinations, you will be espo cially attracted."

The Red Falcon. Jekyll and Hyde in the luxurious suitings of 16th Century Sicily are here revived for your attention. In the heart of a young priest burns the conflicting fires of piety and pillage. The latter he has inherited from a bandit father who has seduced a certain Mother Superior; the former, from that same Mother's upbringing.

Needless to say, the bandit urge predominates; and he leads in revolt a band of peasants against his crafty uncle, who has killed his father. Finally, a Trappist monastery-and the rest is silence.

To infuse blood into the purple veins of this invention McKay Morris was engaged. One of the better U. S. actors, he dealt in satisfying manner with the contradictory romance of his Red Falcon.

Percy Hammond-"A pretentious narrative, verging at times on the ridiculous."

Quinn Martin-"If you ask me quick I should say this is not a very good drama."

The Farmer's Wife. Eden Phillpotts takes you casually by the hand and bids you meet Samuel Sweetland of Devonshire. He bids you meet Mr. Sweetland in that interesting period of later life when he is seeking a wife. He introduces you in passing to the several single ladies of Mr. Sweetland's acquaintance who he believes will promote his placid happiness. For reasons that seem neither good nor sufficient, these ladies one by one give Mr. Sweetland what is vulgarly described as "the air." In the end, Mr. Sweetland's comely housekeeper gives him her promise true.

Mr. and Mrs. Cobarn are chiefly concerned as Mr. and the prospective Mrs. Sweetland. They play with an unerring touch for quiet comedy. Summoned

WHAT PRICE GLORY?-The great U. S. War play. Marine and mud and cognac.

CONSCIENCE-A searching performance by Lillian Foster as the girl who buried her morals when her husband went to prison.

WHITE CARGO-Grim disintegration of a man who sentences himself to loneliness among natives of Africa.

THE MIRACLE-Religion put up in wholesale lots by the master chemist of stage spectacle, Max Reinhardt.

RAIN-Jeanne Eagels proving that the ways of God to woman cannot always be justified.

COBRA-A Sounding melodrama, recalling Eve and the snake, which is not made for those demanding subtlety.

"Loudest and Funniest" The Comedians Are Com

ing

The musical comedy and revue season in Manhattan is fast becoming a laughing matter. No matter where you go, you run into a lot of crazy comedians. Long ago, it used to be the girls that sold the singing shows; later, it became the music, even the singing itself now and then; for the past few years, it has been the dancing. Currently, Broadway is flawed with wise cracks, opening everywhere to emit their little jets of joy. With the few inevitable exceptions, every great comdian we have will be winter-quartered in Manhattan.

At the risk of receiving infernal machines by mail, this department nominates Al Jolson as the big jet of joy, in fact as the geyser of gaiety. After an endless wandering in Bombo, he is preparing to go into action in Big Boy at approximately 9 p. m. every evening of the winter except Sunday.

Ed Wynn and Eddie Cantor emit almost as much cubic laughter per evening. Wynn exploded last week in The Grab Bag. Cantor will function most of the year in Kid Boots.

Lest your correspondent fail to mention the Marx Brothers in the same breath and thereby commit critical suicide, be it noted that they continue in I'll Say She Is. Joe Cook and James Barton, further favorites of the erudite commentators, are with us in the Vanities and The Passing Show. W. C. Fields, last year's most ribald recruit for the comedian championship, returns later in a show of his own writing, The Old Army Game. Most everyone knows that Will Rogers is in the Follies.

Raymond Hitchcock, after a period of metropolitan inactivity, is in eruption with the Ritz Revue. Associate'd with him is the elongated Charlotte Greenwood, than whom there is no more foolish female unless it be Fanny Brice, who is among the natural phenomena of the forthcoming Music Box Revue. In the same Box are Robert Benchley and the ridiculous Clark and McCullough. In Dutch is the Gallagher and Shean trade-mark. Leon Errol will fall on his face as Louis in Louis, the Fourteenth.

Fred Stone, commanding exponent of clean fun, is just leaving. Jack Hazzard entangled himself with a failure called Bye, Bye, Barbara, but will probably be back. Other vacant niches are labeled Sam Bernard, Lew Fields, Frank Tinney. Yet their absence cannot discourage the general jet of joy. It seems that louder and funnier theatricals are inevitable. In fact, loudest and funniest.

W. R.

Rackham

ART

"He introduces his art to America via Cashmere Bouquet Soap," reads the headline in an advertising pamphlet issued by Colgate & Co. Arthur Rackham, distinguished British artist, has painted an advertising series in the interest of national cleanliness and fragrance.

No longer will it be necessary for admirers of this eminent painter's queer, gnarled and gnomish trees and ladies in old-fashioned caps and flounces, to seek his work in the Luxembourg Museum in Paris, the Tate Gallery (London), the Municipal Collections of Vienna and Barcelona. They may be found wherever soap is likely to be sold or advertised.

The incident is curiously paralleled by the episode of the use of Bubbles, a painting by Sir John Everett Millais, famed Englishman, for advertising purposes by the Pears' Soap Co. Millais, however, did not connive at the commercial use of his art. On the contrary, it was done without his knowledge; and his wrath knew no bounds when he discovered it.

According to Colgate & Co., Mr. Rackham was induced to become a commercial artist by a persuasive young woman who was able to point out to him the splendid facilities offered by the soap interests for the introduction of his work to the U. S.

The precedent is probably a wholesome one. U. S. commercial art has been a little behind that of the leading continental countries.

Blind

One day last week a blind violinist played in the street in front of the Fort Pitt Hotel, Pittsburgh. Blind musicians have doubtless played there before they are not infrequent. A music lover, goaded to desperation, will from time to time resort to bribery to make them stop. Thus they eke out their precarious livelihood. In this case, strange things happened. Men, hurrying past, paused, listened, stayed. A crowd gathered. An occasional ear was strained to catch the excellences of an unexpected technique. For two hours the crowd stood, respectfully attentive to the program of classical favorites-Schumann's Traumerei, the prison scene from Trovatore, the Intermezzo from Cavalleria. Then the violin was silent again. A buzz of surprised admiration from the gathered audience; a collection on the spot netted more than $50 for the sightless wanderer with the magic gift.

Sixteen years ago, a new star was heralded on the horizon of music. A young Dutch violinist, Peter van der Meer, late of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, gave a violin recital in Carnegie Hall. His interpretation of Paganini's Concerto in D Major met with especial acclaim. But soon Van der Meer was forgotten. In 1915, he became blind, after a long illness. He spent six years in the Bellevue Hospital, Manhattan. Recently he was pronounced cured-but his sight had left him forever.

Peter Van der Meer, who enthralled a street crowd in Pittsburgh, has gone on his way southward, the magic violin under his arm. Where he is going he knows not. He has no money other than the gifts of casual hearers.

On Tour

Geraldine Farrar has a new way of doing Carmen. She has eliminated most of the scenery and the choruses. The interest is centred entirely on the two principal characters, all superfluities being carefully eliminated. Her version was first used when she began her tour, Sept. 26, at Portsmouth, N. H., and was pronounced a success.

Prior to Oct. 15, she had visited: Pittsfield, Mass.; Schenectady, Syracuse, Batavia and Rochester, N. Y.; Toronto and Hamilton, Can.; Detroit, Jackson and Lansing, Mich., for onenight performances. Future bookings include: Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland (Ore.), Seattle, St. Paul, Madison, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville.

paid to sing and sang. Mme. Walska also sang."

"But can Mme. Walska sing?"

"She is a beautiful and gracious woman."

"But can she sing?"

"Some day," he said, "if she has the proper trainers, she should have a nice, small voice."

"And how was she received at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées? Was there any truth in the report that the audience threw things?"

"No. Nothing was thrown. The audience tittered and chuckled. It seemed amazed."

Aida

The Metropolitan Opera Company (New York City) will open its season on Nov. 3 with Aida. This opera, an old standby for opening nights, has been chosen as a good medium for the introduction of Tullio Serafin, the new Italian conductor. It had previously been expected that Fedora, a favorite with Maria Jeritza, would be the first offering.

EDUCATION

Heads

At Washington, the Jesuit community of Georgetown University sat down to its 'dinner. With it sat the Rev. Charles Williams Lyons, S.J., onetime President of Gonzaga College (Washington, D. C.), of St. Joseph's College (Philadelphia), of Boston College, and latterly head of the Boston College Philosophy Department. Dinner over, the Rev. John B. Creeden, S.J., Georgetown's President, introduced Father Lyons to the Georgetown faculty with the simple explanation that Father Lyons would succeed him at once as their President. In accordance with the Jesuit custom of simplicity, no further ceremony marked the induction. In the morning, Father Creeden took the first train for Boston. There he assumed the philosophical duties relinquished by Father

Lyons.

Father Creeden was "one of the most popular Presidents" in Georgetown's history. Reason for his departure was seen in the fact that he had served six years the longest time allowed a man to hold one office according to the Jesuit rules; and in the fact that Father Lyons is "renowned as a developer of colleges and was the leading influence in the recent Boston College drive." Funds are already in the gathering for "Greater Georgetown." Father Lyons had been called to supervise.

Born and educated in Boston, successful as a young man in the wool business, Father Lyons was ordained in 1904. His administration of Boston College during the War days "won him the admiration of all New England." He served on the Massachusetts State Military Commission (1915), was last year chosen to deliver the historic Fourth of July address in Faneuil Hall. "Cradle of American Liberty."*

At Austin, Tex., a slender, active man of 41 completed his first month's work as the new President of the University of Texas. Before accepting office, this man had asked his friends to refrain from seeking the appointment for him, had said: "I never aspired to the presidency of the University of Texas because I believed the position to be the most important post . . . probably the most responsible public office in Texas." Notwithstanding, the office commandeered the man.

Dr. W. M. W. Splawn is the name -Splawn of Wise County. He has grown up with Texas; knew the prairies when cowboys trailed flaming kerosene-soaked lariats over it for miles to burn off dead grass and shrubbery that their cattle might eat in the

*First made July 4, 1783.

spring. He saw the farms come, land go up, towns spring into being. He attended Decatur College, Decatur, Ill., refused an appointment to West Point and entered Baylor University, at Waco, Tex.

After Baylor came Yale; then a law practice* in Fort Worth. Then the University of Chicago, where he became a Doctor of Philosophy. Then teaching at Baylor and at the University of Texas. Last July, he was nominated by the Democrats to succeed himself as Railroad Commissioner of Texas, to which position he was appointed by Governor Neff in 1923.

Now, in the "most responsible public office," Dr. Splawn can work more effectively than ever for his dream. This is his dream: "Some day the vast stretch of country along the Carribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico may develop a civilization surpassing that of the countries along the Mediterranean when they were at their peak of splendor and grandeur. Texas and Texans should lead in the development of this greater civilization; and the most potent influence should be that which comes from the University of Texas."

And whom did Dr. Splawn succeed? Dr. Robert Ernest Vinson, President Texas University these seven years. And what of Dr. Vinson? Well

At Cleveland, Western Reserve University had a busy day. It dedicated a new School of Medicine, Dr. Harvey W. Cushing, Professor of Surgery at Harvard, delivering the speech. And it inaugurated the seventh President the University has had since its foundation in 1826. Dr. Livingston Farrand, President of Cornell University, spoke at a dinner celebrative of both the dedication and the inauguration.

But this seventh President-he was none other than Dr. Robert Ernest Vinson, erst of Texas. President Emeritus Charles F. Thwing saluted him; and Dr. Vinson replied:

We already have more facts than we have assimilated. Our knowledge has already outrun our moral and spiritual development. Our chief duty now is to bring the ethical and spiritual character of the Nation up to the point where its intellectual development will be in safe hands. . . .

a

a

A Southerner (South Carolina), scholar (Hebrew, Philosophy), clergyman, Dr. Vinson was warmly welcomed in Mr. Thwing's salutation. Dr. Splawn, down in Texas, may well have noted these phrases about his former chief: "In Austin, he fought with political beasts from almost the beginning to the close of his illustrious career. He overcame them by wisdom, persistence, high idealism and personal charm. The qualities which won in the

Southern give great promise of a like winning in the Northern field."

Amalgamate?

The new President of Western Reserve was not without work on his desk. The day after his inauguration, the Cleveland Foundation, an organization founded in 1914 for "civic, educational and philanthropic work," reported on a survey it had lately completed. This report dwelt on Cleveland's higher educational needs, recommended the formation in Cleveland of one large new university through an amalgamation of Western Reserve University and the Case School of Applied Sciences.

Western Reserve-in whose history and upbuilding such men as John Hay, U. S. Secretary of State under Roosevelt Rutherford B. Haves, 19th U. S. President: Myron T. Herrick, U. S. Ambassador to France; Newton D. Baker, onetime U. S. Secretary of War; and Samuel Mather, Cleveland coal and iron man have figured-has specialized principally in the liberal arts. The Case School is chiefly scientific. Where the two overlap, waste motion is now seen. The proposed amalgamation would leave each institution separate autonomy under unified control, would, by extension of their activities, try "to lead higher education out of the sequestered academic grooves into the common life of all the people of the community." A business school, with a "downtown" extension was one proposed departure.

In Michigan

The State of Michigan is regarded as having highly developed laws on education. Statutes have not only provided an admirable public school system, but have also elevated the standards of instruction in private and parochial schools by providing state supervision. Seeking to control non-public schools still further, Michigan politicians have, of late, proposed an amendment to the State Constitution whereby children "under the ninth grade and under 16" would be compelled to attend the public schools. Should this amendment become law. private and parochial schools in Michigan would be deprived of a good two-thirds of their patronage.

Naturally, such bodies as the Michigan Association of Private and Church Schools and the Diocesan School Committee have been objecting strenuously. Last week, Frank Cody, Superintendent of Detroit public schools and President of the State Board of Education, addressed a letter to the obiectors: "I see no need for the proposed school amendment. . . . The existing school laws are adequate. . . . I do not believe in the spirit of the proposed amendment. It is un-American in character. . .

Anonymous

There lives in Detroit a person, presumably wealthy, who admirably combines an appreciation of the arts with practical generosity. Three years ago this person, name unknown, endowed Michigan University with a fellowship in Creative Arts. Whereupon, Robert Frost, Vermont poet, lived at Ann Arbor for two years, writing, teaching. This last year, Robert Bridges, British laureate, has lived at Ann Arbor, writing, teaching.

Last week, many people recalled these facts when Mr. Marion L. Burton, Michigan's President, announced that the anonymous person in Detroit was continuing the fellowship; that Robert Frost, having grown fond of Michigan during his two-year visit, had accepted a permanent membership in Michigan's Literary Faculty, beginning next year, when he will leave his present position on the staff of Amherst College.

For Adults

At Katonah, N. Y., Labor went to college. “About 50" was the enrolment, this year, of Brookwood, "the only resident trade union college" in the U. S. Many applicants had to be turned away for lack of facilities. One third of those admitted were women. A dozen industries and international unions were represented; anthracite and bituminous coal miners from Illinois and Pennsylvania had increased in number since last year; foreign workers were present from England, Denmark, Belgium, Japan; were expected from Mexico after the fall meeting of the Mexican Federation of Labor.

What little endowment Brookwood enjoys is Labor money. The college was opened in 1920, as an experiment in adult education, under the supervision of two committees-one composed of the heads of state labor groups (chiefly in the garment-workers' union), which raised the money necessary and determined upon a curriculum appropriate to the labor movement; the other, chiefly advisory, composed the college professors from Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and Amherst, which planned the actual instruction methods.

The course covers two eight-month terms. The curriculum includes History of Civilization, Economics, Statistics, English Literature, Grammar (for the needy), Debating, Labor Problems, Journalism.

RELIGION

The Salvation Army

Simultaneously with the arrival of its English General upon this Continent, there was published last week

Paul Thompson

GENERAL BRAMWELL

He reported new advances

the findings of an investigation into the Salvation Army. Reading this report and reviewing the life of his immediate family, General W. Bramwell Booth might have noted the following:

Origin. General Booth's father, William, left the Methodist ministry in 1865 in order to succor the lost sheep of London's East End. Thirteen years later, William and his wife Catherine whipped their missions into a military organization. Their Army grew phenomenally as it advanced from post to post. The conquest of the U. S. dated from 1880.

Scope. Under the general direction of its London headquarters, the Army is fighting in 61 countries. Its personnel numbers nearly 85,000 officers and men, not including 28,150 brass bandsmen. The Army's morale is fed by 80 periodicals in 35 languages; and its annual victories over Sin range from 225,000 to 275,000. Its financial resources are not correspondingly great. The Eastern territorial division

*Ever since Catherine's day, women have had equal rights with men, although they draw $1 per week less pay. Thus, a male colonel -the highest rank-draws $29.50; a felmale colonel $28.50. But since both husband and wife may rise to colonelcies, the family in come may conceivably total $58.

+Converts are usually persuaded to join some recognized Protestant church. Besides the Army's fight against drink, its greatest success has probably been with unfortunate women. It reports annual reform of 7,399

women.

of the American Army, for example, lists 18 millions of assets against seven of liabilities; its headquarters building in the wholesale district of Manhattan represents 15 of the 18 millions of assets.

Trouble. The Army has advanced with remarkably little internal friction. It has not, however, been easy to conduct the American campaign from the London headquarters. In 1896, Bramwell Booth's brother, Ballington, and his sister-in-law, Maud Ballington Booth, held sway on this Continent. They seceded, forming the Volunteers of America. Most of the Army officers, however, remained loyal to the London Commander-inChief, who promptly appointed his sister Evangeline to the difficult American command. Now Evangeline is a very great woman. She began her career by peddling copies of the War Cry and has done all the unpleasant jobs associated with slumming. She has even impersonated beggars and other wretches that she might the better understand them. She has been stoned and thrown into jail. She rides, swims, sings, pianofortes. She does not dance, card-play, theatre or movie-go.

an

Evangeline became an American citizen and, during the War, American heroine. The London dominance of brother Bramwell began sometime after to pinch. Rumors that General Bramwell would oust Commander Evangeline have been almost annual. The latest item of debate is an interpretation of a London rule which, some say, would prohibit Army officers from joining such "secret" societies as the Elks or Masons. Interviewed on the S. S. Homeric, General Booth declared there was no such rule. The trouble, it appears, lies deeper.

General Booth proceeded to Canada to conduct conferences at Toronto and Winnipeg. There he was congratulated on the completion of 50 years service, the marks of which he bears with dignity-snow-white hair and snow-white sideburns. He reported new advances of his Army into Brazil, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, East Africa, and expressed himself eminently pleased with Commander Evangeline's conduct of the campaign in the U.S.

Mexico, particularly in regard to electing a missionary bishop for that country. Bishop George H. Kinsolving of Texas rose to present a report on the situation, then two resolutions, then an argument. He reported that the new Mexican constitution prohibits foreigners from propagating religion and holding property in connection therewith. He asked that it be resolved that no bishop be elected until October, 1925, and that further investigations be made. He argued:

"While the bootlegging of whisky into the United States from Mexico is an easy undertaking, the bootlegging of religion into Mexico is a harder task. And when it comes to ecclesiastical bootlegging, I draw the line. Under the present Mexican Govenment, no foreign school teacher or clergyman can go in there to teach or preach. I do not think our church ought to go into that Republic as an outlaw."

The rebuttal to this argument was easy. It was made by Bishop Hiram R. Hulse of Cuba. Since when had