The San Francisco call., 1908-05-17

get what was coming to him. Other
early song and dance men were Fox
and Ward. which is the oldest team in
the country, not excepting Mcintyre
and Heath, and they, like the two lat
ter, are still partners. Mcintyre and
Heath got together in 1868; but Fox
and Ward formed their partnership in
1853, and they can still be seen in Phil
adelphia with Dumont's minstrel show
Primrose and West came along later
and introduced the double clog; then
there were Garfield and Booker; the
former afterward making a name for
himself in Charlie Hoyt's Tin Soldier
Eddie Foy and Thompson formed
still another duo and both of them
were known in those days as California
boys, because they had been popular
variety stars in San Francisco and
Sacramento. And so the shows grew
and branched out until Jack Haverly
startled folks with his Mastodon
Minstrel Show and his big sign. 10
count en- And people did count EN-.
too. That was in the early SOS, and If
one OF his minstrel men was sick and
didn't appear in the parade, making
the number only 80, there was a kick
coming and the show was bum
THE HISTORY OF 1T
This is where History comes in. All
that time the negro had been in the
public mind Before the war he was
the source of endless discussion when
the subject of .the entrance OF a new
state was before congress; Henry Ward
Beecher carried his fame to London
during the war by his lectures on the
question of slavery. Everywhere the
negro was being pitied overtime and
slave songs were all the GO Today the
negro is merely a character, same as
the Hebrew or the Irish or the Yankee
or the German is caricatured. We laugh
at his fiashy clothes and his MANY
funny ways, and that is what the
minstrel shows of the present have to
deal with.
ITO stephen C. Foster can be at
tributed most of the success of early
minstrels and he certainly made melo-
dies that can never die. They are not of
much use to modern minstrels because
the occasion and circumstances which
brought them forth exist no longer.
We don't pity the niger any more. So
song writers have gone after other
topics and have exhausted almost every
subject possible. They have written
about all the states and about the
trees, from the other apple tree to the
sweet magnolia; and they have even
left it to US comedians to work the
chestnut tree. The way the stars and
the moon have been battered up is a
fright. And now I'm trailing along
with my knocking song. When the
Hammer on the Anvil Rings,
THE NEW MINsTRELsY
but there's lots of things that are
left to make fun of In everybody The
nigger is caught by three things-good
clothes, white wife and the English
language. He achieves one about as in
frequently as the other.
But in the SOS and eos minstrel
men began to forget this fact. Their
shows did not draw because the old
sympathy for the slave was out of date
and was wasted energy. Nothing had
been injected into minstrelsy to take its
place. Some shows tried white face
minstrels, and others dressed them up
like characters out of Shakespeare;
they paid big money for vaudeville
acts, and still their shows did not draw.
Others had half variety and half min
strels, and that didn't go. 1 made up
my mind what the trouble was and re-
vived the all-black show with new
trimmings. | had my acts written; as
legitimate actors have plays construct
ed expressly for the show and with a
good view of the Niger we'll to the
front at all times This season, for
example, I do a black face president
and call the sketch A Dull Day at the
White House. 1t becomes negro turn