Los Angeles herald., 1909-11-28
BY GEORGE p. BAKER.

Professor. Harvard University.
~ ONE twenty years ago a witty
y Englishman OF letters greatly de-
~ lighted the young Americans In
his group of hearers by his audacious
and brilliant defense. for the better
part OF an evening, Of the thesis that
the great drama of the immediate
1utuTe must appear in Russia and the
United states. lie entered on the
thesis In sheer willfuness in order To
beWilGer and tantaliZe his circle of
too-admiring English friends, but in
his words there was at moments a
half-serious ring which puzzled and
excited the listening Americans. This
man, knowing the United states well.
evidently felt some basis of truth in
the thesis he banteringly embroidered
with his fertile fancy
1T has taken twenty years for that
half-playful prophecy to begin to come
true-but coming true IL is. Even d
haif-dozen years ago we still imported
most of our dramatic best as well
as Worst-from abroad. Yet within
three years an English critic of the
drama said 10 me-
"The greatest change l note since
my last visit, some five years ago, is
the great demand among you for plays
American life. Not even our English
plays seem to he in the old demand.
The gradual growth of truer idea of
what the drama is and may be in ma
tonal life, of its possible educational,
social and artistic significance, com
hined with the extraordinarily rapid
growth of the theater-going habit, is
responsible for this immediate and
hearty response Of our public to an
Offering of plays on American life by
American writer's. In matters of art
the public is too heterogeneous, too
unsure of the real value of its growing
desires, perhaps too little conscious OF
these dawning desires to- express such
longings, or latent impulses, till some
leader or innoVator unites and stim-
ulates the public as he first gives voice
to what has been only a dumb desire
or a latent wish"
The late Bronson Howard comment
ing not long since on what seemed to
him an undue percentage of failures
among recent plays, said in tore
comm m.ngled of irritation and failure to
understand: The dramatists are ignor-
ing the public. They are writing to
please themselves"
Could anything be more distorted than
that point of view? OF course, dramat-
lists cannot wholly neglect their public
1nueeU luey must keep them constantly
in mind-their susceptibilities, preju-
dices, ideals and affections; but the
trouble with our drama for years has
been that we modelled 1t on standards
supposed to guarantee the public what
it has liked and therefore always will
like. That very belief is a contradlc-
tion.
The public is very stable; it never
can lead in matters of art and educa-
tion, but must be led. Only by know
ing what he wishes to do to please
himself and then so writing that he
brings his audiences to accept-and de-
lightedly-what interests him, can the
dramatist write plays of permanent
significance.
He who writes wholly to please him
self deserves to fail. He who writes
wholly to please his audience may sue
ceed, but only for the moment: the
changing public will forget him as it's
mood of the moment shifts. The man
who best is our drama combines the
power to satisfy his artistic and
the power in so doing to please his
audience is its chief-Shakespeare
Again and again he wrote, not what
his public would expect or naturally
demand, but what his sense of truth to
life. his artistic conscience made neces-
sary for his own peace of mind. Re-
gardful, however, of his often-studed
audience, he so nodded the presenta-
tion of what he wished to their per-
manent interests and sympathies as to
win hearty approval for what had not
been done before.
Herein lies the significance of this
newer movement in American drama,
not simply among university graduates,
hut in general. These writer's are not
mere playwrights. not merely amused
or cynical observers of life, nor do they
pin their faith to any sets of hard and
fast technical principles as sure to pro-