The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-05
WE SPEND $5,OOO,OOO A YEAR FOR MUSIC The High Priced Opera Singers Reap Most of the Profits NEGRO AND IMMIGRATION Nation Saved From the Blacks By Alien Influx, Says New York
 Paper-Dcath of Campaign
 Button Pioneer.
BY sEWELL HAGGARD.

sum, so 1t will be seen that there is | little profit for any one except the sing | CTS.
 I Only the figures for the two New York l opera houses are at hand, so it is im-
 possible to make anything but very
 rough estimate of what the rest of the country spent for it's music It seems
 safe to say, however, that Outside of | New York sS,OOo,oOo was spent, making s5- 1 000,O00 in all
 l Where does all this money go? Most
 of 1t is taken abroad by the singers.
 The salaries of opera singers are usually
 of a size to compete with those of bank 1 presidents, and yet they are rarely as l large as they are represented to be. The I two highest paid singers on the operatic
 stage today are Luisa Tetrazzni and
 Enrico Caruso. The Metropolitan opera l house guarantees Caruso 80 performances
 season at S2,500 a performance and in i the future he Is likely to get more. Tetrazzini receives s900O every time she
 sings. Both singers earn what they get l if the houses they draw are to be taken into consideration. Caruso always packs the Metropolitan; so with Tetraz- zini at the Manhattan.
 1 An operatic contract is an interesting
 thing in itself. The singer insists that l it be written in his native language, | so that he knows exactly what he is l signing, and it always provides that a certain sum be deposited to his credit in l some foreign bank, so that he may draw against it if certain conditions are not l fulfilled. This deposit, as a rule, amounts l to what the singer would receive for l three performances under his contract. 1 By an arrangement peculiar to operatic l contracts it is a guarantee not for the | Are hut ho a three nprfOrmanCeS l to be given under the contract. This l is to prevent the manager from break l ing his agreement, the penalty being the | forfeiture of his deposit to the singer. | For large operatic company like either of those in New York the guarantees de- posted months before the singers make their appearance amount to nearly $loo,-
 900.
 The impresarios also pay the pas
 sage of the singers to and from Europe. I For the two New York opera houses this means an expenditure of $15,O0O season. li There died in this city the other day a man whose gift of political second | sight made him fortune. He was never l an officeholder, neither was he political l boss he was @ seller of campaign but l tons.
 Prior to the national republican con- | vention of 1896 Meyer R. Bimberg made |
 nominated for President and Hobart for | Vice President. He staked the price Of
 100000 buttons on that prophecy and won Ever afterward he was known as
 "Bim, the Button Man" In writing about ..Bim" and the influence of the cam paign button the Evening Post says:
 eff it is always a clever stroke of busi-
 ness to anticipate the demands of loyal
 party 1t is sometimes more than that. In the earlier days of Philadelphia's revolt 1 against the ring, three years ago, the
 street vendors devised for themselves but
 tons bearing the device of moose intend- ed for recreant councilmen. The leaders
 of the city party movement not liking to
 see such a sinister turn given their cause.
 sent rush order for a new set of but | tons, bearing the inscription, For the
 Honor of the City" Cynics may doubt
 today the wisdom of the substitution. l Councilmen who were lynched would at least have stayed lynched, while the honor | of Philadelphia somehow managed to 1 ebb away unaccountably. Yet, be that as
 it may. the button was invoked success 1 fully to change the direction and spirit or l a popular upheaval.
 ''When the small objects with no high l public functions, like brooches and l buckles and beads, are described and l their history recorded in de luxe volumes, | it is pity that the campaign button has 1 as yet no historian and but few col
 Iectors. The longer its literature is de- l ferred however, the more material it will
 be able to use. It is long time, for in- 1 stance, since any one turned his coat to indicate change of politics How
 many years will it be before we adopt the
 word 'turn-button?'
 l Senator Hepburn of Idaho has written | a letter to the New York World, advocat- 1 ing the enforcement of section of the
 fourteenth amendment by reducing the | representation in Congress and the elec- toral college He says:
 q think representation in Congress | should be based upon the number of votes l cast in state. In the first place. 1t l is entirely within the spirit of the law at | the time the basis of representation was | fixed No one ever contemplated that any | portion of the citizens of the United States l would be disfranchised, and the law of the
 land gives every citizen of lawful age l the right to vote, subject to such slight l exceptions as are not within the consider
 ation of the Keller bill.
 | There are only g democrats now in | both houses of Congress north of Mason | and Dixon's line. and outside of this l city, and a few more defeats will leave | the party without force as national po- l litical organization. There are many who l believe tndL reQuCeu TePItScItdtiou VIII | be the inevitable result of such situa- | tion.
 In resisting the demand, caused by
 anarchistic outbreaks, for further re-
 striction of immigrants the World raises
 an interesting question. It says:
 Prom the beginning of the republic
 26OO0.0OO immigrants have come hither; | 25,0OO,00O since 1S42. Even before the dis 1 covery of gold, from 1S45 to 1S4s, immigra-
 tion was as rapid in proportion as 1t has | ever been since; and in 1S51-54 67 immi-
 grants came for every 1000 of the popula- l tion, while in 1904-07 In a rush that may 1 never again be eoualled, only 51 came for l every 1000.
 sThere were in the country in 1900 10.- | OOO, 900 foreign-born and 26,00O.000 of for 1 eign percentage. No reckoning was pos l sible of those of foreign grand-parentage. | But their number must be great. The increase of native whites of native par l entage, 1S90-1900 was only 13.9 per cent, l while whites of foreign percentage in- | creased S6.2 per cent.-almost twice as l fast.
 sIf we can imagine immigration to have