Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-10-18
MUSIC AND DRAMA.
WORTH CONSIDERING.

One Thousand English Actors Employed in America - Tho Enormous Amounts
 They Carry or with Them, and the Con-
 seQuent Deprivation of American Play
 
 Within the next three weeks there will be, says the New York Drau.atic News, em- ployed upon the stage of this country fully one thousand English actors. Their aver age period of service will be thirty weeks and their average salary will be thirty-flve dollars week, or ten hundred and fifty dollars for the season. The money to be thus paid English performers in America during the theatrical season will be one million and fifty thousand dollars. There is not an English actor who will not carry back to England with him at least one-half his gross earnings. The most of them will save three-quarters of what they receive. But we will place liberal estimate upon the sum and call it cne-half. Upon this basis English actors will each take out of America for expenditure abroad at the end of the current theatrical year five hundred and twenty-five American dollars. Read this statement carefully. Consider it we'll and thoroughly. Then recollect that more than one-quarter of the American actors in this country, the most of them thoroughly skilled and competent perform CTS, are out of employment.
 Is there nothing wrong about this condi- tion-or, rather, about the system which permits this condition to exists
 It is 8 part of the boasted privilege of American citizenship to receive the protec- uon of our Government against the compe- tition of foreign countries. That protec- tion not only covers our products and maa- ufactures, but is extended also to our la bor.
 The actor is the only American worker who IS not absolutely protected from the competition of foreign pauper labor.
 If the importation of foreign actors under contract were as rigidly prohibited as is the importation of workers in any other field of honorable industry, one thousand American actors, whose places are taken by imported performers from abroad, would now be employed. Their services would be in demand, and they would find them selves enabled to earn fair and suitable sal aries.
 But the English actors are here, and ship-loads more of them are on the ocean bound for our too-hospitable shores. The foreign actor is the Chinaman of the stage. He comes here to receive far better wages than he could ever hope to gain at home; he does not intend to become citi- zen; he spends just as little money as he possibly can, and he carries home with him to foreign country every penny of Ameri- can money he can hoard and scrape to- | gether.
 It was through the exhibition of just these characteristics on the part of the Chinanan | that the whole army of American labor | arose, and, with a mighty effort, compelled | the Government to absolutely shut off the ! tide of Chinese immigration.
 l It is time for the American actor to rise
 in similar determination and persistsntly l demand protection against the ruinous com petition of English actors.
 l The proceedings which were undertaken
 some months ago, and concerning whicl
 little or nothing has been heard during {; considerable period, must rot be allowed to l die out. They must, on the contrary, be | pushed for all they are worth.
 It is proverbial that American actors art l never serious in their undertakings. They
 start out upon any given plan with wild en
 thusiasm, make great deal of glad ant
 violent noise at the beginning, and finally
 permit themselves to become disheartened disorganized and listless. They have little
 earnestness and no tenacity, even whei
 their best interests are at stake. In fact
 SO observers say, actors will cease to worl
 for the general good just as soon as thcE
 cease for the moment to think their indi
 vidual benefit is threatened.
 Such criticisms as this have undoubtedly ly
 been justified in many past instances, bu
 we hope to see marked and gratifying
 change, beginning with the advancement
 of this movement. We want the dramatic
 profession to awaken to the truth of th
 great and living principles that in uniol
 there is strength.