The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-01-12
4cLANsMaN. HITS NEW YORK
Liberty Theatre Filled With q Crowd
That Whooped for the South-Plas
a Lurid MeIodrama of the Ku KIu1
La With a Mulatto ViIIian-The
Author Speaks.

ITO NItooD6u tOT Li1e COuIa1-Gldf
a Lurid Melodrama of the Ku KIux
Khan With a Mulatto ViIIian-The
Author Speaks.
The Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., hit New
York with 1.-The Clansman" last night,
played it at the Liberty Theatre 20 a
house full of professional southerners
n got away with the goods. That
wild and somewhat splotchy melodra-
ma, with which he has been turning
'em away in the south didn't get a
fair chance. It's friends wouldn't let
it. Every time the hero struck a mig
ger, or every time the sweet gyuri told
the nlulatto villain that she refused to
mingle the best blood in the nation
with his, they roared so QUO and so
long that the actors got tired Of wait
sng n acted right along. 1t was just
as well. The crowd didn't get onto it.
The following is a synopsis of the
play, 20 far as The Sun reporter could
follow it:
After some preliminary sparring, the
one white hearted negro in the piece
strikes his chest and says:
"I's jes a old fashioned, faithful
black niger, that loves his massa."
cloud a%pplause.)
Ten dull minutes. in which not a
single black brother is slapped, and
the hero calls the northern heroine his
southern rose and ducks to clinch. But
she says:
stop! Your father was but yester-
day a Shareholder"
YES" he answers, "and your grand
father sold them to us only the day
before" (Torrents of cheers.)
Then come some hints about a black
league and the formation Of the Ku
Klux Khan. Through this, runs one
Austin ~Stoneman, played by Holbrook
BIinn, a northern agent stirring up the
negroes. Mr.. Blinn does a great job
IN this part. The hero wants to mar
ry Stoneman's daughter.
Anyhow, pretty soon the mulatto
villain, who is just about to be elect
ed lieutenant governor, is going to en-
ter the house of a white person, but
the hero meets him at the door and
backs him off the stoop with the glance
of his eye. prolonged cheering and
cries of Lynch him!")
But he tries again and the faithful
old negro servitOr soaks him. (Wild
roars.)
That doesn't work, and the faithful
servitor says, "You amt a gentleman
You're a nigger!' (NO word in the
language to describe the noise.)
Next Stoneman asks the hero tC
bridge the bloody chasm and lift the
negroes to their rights.
"What?" says the hero, and in the
end permit our mothers and sisters tc
meet the niggers as social equals? New
,er, swelpmegawd!" (Some limitation
on language.)
And then at the close of the act the
hero tore down a government pfocla.
nation and, in his hotblooded southern
way, fired it in the face of the mar
whom he wanted for father-in-law ald
said "I1l see o in hell first!" The
curtain fell on that scene and there
were five curtain calls.
The second act began rather duly
1t warmed up toward the last, however
when General Forrest, flower of south
ern chivalry. entered, shook hand
with the ladies without removing his
gauntlets. SAID 'Hist,' unfOlded The
Ka klnX Khan and said things which
would scar the soul of a former human
chattel. Presently the lieutenant gov.
ernor entered. No Grand street theatre
villain ever got more rOundly hissef
He tried to speak to the heroine, and
the hero said:
"You speak to Miss Stoneman again
in that manner at the peril of your
life" more whoops. The profes.
siOnal southerners were weary, but
coming strong.) The act went to its
finish at the rate of an insult a min.
ute. Once the lieutenant governor and
a white man shook hands. and the
house shook with Kisses.
There was a whole lot more good
live stuff, besides some m~elodranias
The inevitable crime for which they
lynch negroes in the Carolinas was re-
ported in the third act. In the iasi
scene of that act the Ku Klux Khan,
in its scores. cave was mesmerizine
the guilty criminal into a confession
He was to ~ lynched, dragged through
the camp of the negro militia and
dumped in the door of the lieutenant
governor. We learn in the next act
that it was done. Also. Mr.. Stoneman
is converted from his pernicious north
ern theories when the lieutenant gov
ernor wants to marry his daughter,
"The family of Stoneman has had a
clean escutcheon for 1000 years,
says he. 81 have no desire that it
shall end in a brace of brown mulattC
brats!" (And, gee! they yelled.)
There's lots doing in this act. The
villain lays his hands on the blond
heroine-ce-arse huh. she'll yet be
mine!-and throws her into the inner
DON and puts a guard over her tc
shoot her if she bowls. and makes the
governor proclaim martial Jaw. ana
tries the hero and sentences him tic
be shot and the assistant heroine uIs
for the Ku Klnx Khan. and the proper
ty man works the hoofbeats outside
and the Khan bursts in and throttles
the villain, and the hero and heroine
clinch and the orchestra plays Dixie"
(Torrents of cheering.)
Mr.: Dixon made a speech. When the
curtain calls began in the last act he
took q crouching start in the wings