El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-10-25
THEATER WAR IS
ON IN NORTHWEST
Klaw e Erlanger Declare
They Will Have Theaters
of Their Own Every
where.

DenN6r, COIO., OcI- Z0.-hldW q EFT
LANCER, called the theatrical trust are
not going to be defeated by John Cort
and his combination of theatrical man.
ayers, including Frank Rich. of Ell Paso,
and all the house lessees of Arizona, and
New Mexico. Mark Klaw is now in the
west following in the wake of his
agent, VINO went through several weeks
ago, and he declares frankly that he is
going to make COrt ''eat crow before
the firm of K. & E. quits the fight.
Klaw says it is a fight to a finish and,
to prevent future action of the kind led
this year by Cort, Klaw says he will
build or lease his own theaterS ana
manage them through men directly in
his own employ. FL Paso is to have
one of these Klaw e Erlanger houses
that is a certainty-and it is said that
arrangements are now under way IL
erect it. KIaw himself has already ar
ranged for theaters, he says, in all the
big western and northwestern towns as
well as in many southern cities HIS
makes no mild hammered statements IN
his talks about Cort and the independ-
ent theater owners, but talks right
out.
Asked about his difference with John
Cort, Mr.. KIaw said: THAT Is funny
To us it has always been a sort of comic
opera aIIdlT. JONI OOIl, ny IHC
producing managers of this country, has
been regarded as a theatrical parenthe'
sis-they can make sense with or With
out him-and his Strutting up and down
Broadway just now is one of the fun
NEST and saddeSt things that has come
TO my notice in many years L always
picture Cort as one of those aztec
headed children that you see on Next
can tombs, one of those triangular pates
tour r-I
jaw If it were not so, Mr.. Cort would
readily understand the laws of fulcrum
and leverage a little better and would
realize that he could not accomplish
what even Archimedes would not have
attempteC-that is-to have the tail
Wag the dog That is what he evidently
tried when he banded a lot Of one-nlGht
stands together, like the nine little tall
ors of Dooley street, and walked into
New -ork to tell Chas. Frohman, Henry
B Harris, Klaw & Erlanger, David Be
lasco, Frederic Thompson and others
that they must come to his terms and
conditions. The trouble with Cort has
been that when Maude Adams, Billie
Burke John Drew, Rose Stahl and 40
or so other attractions that we gave
him yearly, played in his theaters and
drew lot of money, he vainly imag-
ined that the public came to see him,
to gather these one-night towns he put
himself in the foolish position of the
hair-brained railroad man who got a
corner on freight cars and then kept
them on siding in the desert. The EEL
low never dreamed that it required
freight to make those cars go and en-
gines to pull them. Cort has lot OF
freight cars now and Is waiting for
someone to come along and give him
=, ic1f n them NOVA
I'm his own town of Seattle, said Mr..
KlaW, where 1 happened to be two
weeks ago, his own theater was dark
during the week of Washington fair.
That IS an evidence of COrt booking.
suppose 1 should be somewhat more
charitable, because Cort is one of our
own foundlings, and it is little rough
on the Northwest for US to leave him
on its doorsteps now. 1t may be news
to you, but it is a fact that by Corts
secession we have been deprived Of the
munificent sum of $3.50 week; the
revenue which we used to get from the
Northwest from Oort. He in turn booked
all our attractions in the smaller towns
of that section and charged the local
management percent of the gross re-
ceipts and no one-night stand can al
ford to pay that"
KIaw & ErIanger in Northwest.
Are you playing any attractions in
the Northwest now?" 1 asked Mr.. Klaw.
Not one. The list of attractions.
said the theatrical manager, holding
up sheets of them, ARE those that shall
not be played in the northwest this
year We propose to let Mr.. Cort make
good his promises to his patrons in that |
part of the world without them. He
has told them with a blare of trumpets
what he is going to bring, but 1 am
sure that they will remember these by
their absence longer than those which
put in an appearance there, and, be-
lieve me, it is not because we could not
have gone into the northwest, for some
of Cort's closest allies offered me thea
tiers there during my recent trip
through his section, but we prefer to
keep them out this year and play them
in our own theaters next season..
Asked what he meant by his own
theaters in the northwest, Mr.. Klaw
said:
In the past six weeks 1 have Sc
cured, under lease Or contracts to build, |
theaters in Butte, Spokane. Seattle. !
Portland, Victoria and Vancouver. We |
shall also probably have theater IN |
Tacoma before 1 reach New York |
These are the cities we want in the |
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