The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-10-05

problem of raw race raised to sud
den power. There is the conflict, the
sacrifice, the boiling of hot blood the
ultimate mastery of civilization over
savagery! AT the end. faced with the
personal application of his own SO
) phistry, Stoneman finds his error in tho
instructive race repulsions of his blood
The sermon is the supremacy Of the
white man. 1t is preached in tragic
sentences and there follows the Bap-
tism of blood Through it all runs
the pitiful comedy of a weak race
losing its head the pathos which
clings to the half-baked savage. intel
ligent above his kind, ambitious be-
yond his hope, desperate in his disap-
pointment. incidentally to the sermon,
the scenes are such as could have
only been imagined by a Devil, and
yet are but the pictures of facts.
Stevens lived and Stoneman, in his
dramatic conversion does him more
than justice. In the tangled mesheS
of the giant mistakes of reconstruc-
ton, there emerge in the play the
settlements of vexed problems as his
tory produced them. The invisible
kingdom strikes, everybody sees the
error, light comes to all save the ne
gro lieutenant of South Carolina. He
alone, is left, desolate spectacle and
offering to false theory--a brute am
fbitious to have, with the faint in his
blood which education has made to
/ him as gall, sitting in the wreck of
experiment with nature, forgotten and
alone! And it is all true to a dot!
savors of the pit. Such is the Clans
man. What will 1t mean in its Ma
tional application Does the record
of uncomfortable days of indomitable
manhood need justification? Or Will
the ashes that have slept kindle at
the breath blown upon past times?
| Is it better to forget or to remember?
| AS a problem the Clansman Is open
to discussion: as the work of man
endowed with the dramatic instinct
so that there is no escaping its i'm
pressions. there can be but one YER
dict.
! Said of the play, one of the States
brightest women yesterday:
A Woman's View.
For the most part, the plays of to-
! day belong to three claSses-the light
society drama, in which gowns by
Paquin" hold almost as important a
| part as the "all-star cast" the problem
| r.lay, with its inevitable Woman-With-
a-past; or the spectacular type with
| slender chain of plot on which to
| hang elaborate magnificence Of scenic
affect.
1.-THE Clansman belongs to none of
! these claSsificationS, and is quite as
| tar removed from the old-time melo-
drama. 1t defies the established rules
| of climax and anti-climax; it whirls
one from tears to laughter with
unique abruptness; it challenges, hurts
questions. and demands answers. 1t
hi nY~iR 9
naked, but clean.
1.-The lines are simple and natural,
often monosyllabic The lovemaking
seems homely beside the epigrammatic
tfencing of Clyde Fitch play, or
Bernhardt's declarations in her latest
role: Your hair is like live birds
within my hands"
THE ClanSman is well staged, IL
adds to the play, but 1T does not make
it, 1t is we'll acted, and is especially
faithful in the delineation of the ne
gro, where one feared there might
be exaggeration. Nelse and the Sher-
if are delicious, while Lynch touches
the high-water mark.
but when all this is recognized, the
plays the thingi Dominant, virile,
with a passionate courage of convlc-
ton, the South should see 1t, 'lest
we forget" The North must see it
to understand more clearly the bur
dens they laid upon us in reconstruc-
ton days, and the Southern white
mans burden az it is today.
"All honor to the courage and the
genius of the playwright"
But perhaps the best comment is
the play itself.
The Story of the Play.
Ctnpo,,oa, hoe oono South
lima for his health; in reality as the
President Of the Black League. With
him is his daughter Elsie, and they
are stopping at the home of DR.. Cam
eron, formerly a man of wealth and
influence, now reduced to taking
boarders Elsie, having nursed Ben
Cameron during the war, has fallen
in love with him. Stoneman approves
the match and wishes to make young
Cameron leader of the League in
South Carolina. Instead he joins the
Khan to stop the outrages by negroes,
being perpetrated as the result of the
election under the reconstruction acts.
Ntoneman advocates the marriage of
blacks and whites, applies to the Presi-
dent for an order for martial law in
the State. So the tale proceeds
through a succession of stirring scenes
interspersed with negro humor, pro-
ceeds with all the detail of humilia-
ton of the whites at the hands of
their former slaves. to the auction of
the Cameron home for taxes and its
purchase at the last moment by Elsie
over the bid of Silas Lynch, the negro
Lieutenant Governor, slowly to the
first great tragedy of the action
This comes on the day of the
thirteenth birthday of Flora. the
daughter of Dr. Cameron. She is
happy with her gifts, playing in the
garden with the faithful old servants
and with the daughter of Stoneman.
Time and again there fits across the
rear Of the stage the form OF Gus,
the negro captain of the Black Guard
watching with eyes of lust.
Ben comes out of the house and the
figure of Gus sinks away into the
shadow. Ominously, Flora soon goes
away by the path he had followed.
Time passes with the love scene OF
Ben and Elsie, which is interrupted
by the frantic search for the child by
Eve, her old nanny. Eve runs to