Los Angeles herald., 1910-09-19
SALVATION NELL
UNORTHODOX REVIEW
By VIM. c. Owen

More than nineteen centuries Of
Christianity and the convict the only
honest one among them. When / told
the lady sitting next me at the Bur-
bank that l should thus begin my
criticism of Salvation Nell she gazed
at me with open-eyed amaZ aincnt. But
she herself had bored me horribly by
her comments on the unmannerly be-
havior of the ex-convict Jim and the
! fervid applause with which she greet
ed every saying and doing of the Sal
walton Army. Meditating on which 1t
became clear to me that Salvation
Nell" is a great problem play, which
raises tremendous issues and oifferen-
tiates sharply the real and the ideal.
1 confess my neighbor vo!;ed, most
clamorously, the views of the major
ity. With the mass of the audience
the religious appeal swept all before
it, yet it seemed to me that l had
reason on my side. For in the. very
first scene, in the dive Kept by Nc
Govern-doubtless a highly respected
member of his church-amtd the drum
ken reveling of social outcast5. is
heard the voice of Lieutenanc Maggie
O'Sullivan announcing meeting to
celebrate the coming of Christ, OVER
NINETEEN HUNDRED YEARS
AGO"
Perhaps it is admirable that hope
springs eternal in the human breast;
that launched on given course man
shuts his eyes to failure. Yet here.
in this twentieth century, we have
McGovern's with its hoodlum crowd;
salvation Nell' cleaning ouc spit
toons and sleeping in the basement;
the man who really loves her forcing
money from her to set up the drinks.
Nevertheless, he really loves her.
Fighting for her and getting ten years
as the result; down and out after his
release, a hunted animal, he never
let's go of the fact that she is still his
girl. And this, brought out so finely
by Byron Beasley, through a thousand
gestures and business" that must
have been most carefully thought out,
| is my reason for regarding Jim Platt
as the one thoroughly honest charac-
| ter in the play. He has sounded the
lowest depths; has been face to face
with the sternest realities of life; has
been bounded by detectives and lived,
as he says, six months ia hell--all in
a Christian society more than nine
teen hundred years after the crucl-
f1xion of it's vaunted Savior.
HIS CONTEMPT APPROVED
Why should he not have an un-
utterable contempt for words Why
should he not tell the Salvation as
sic 10 cut OuI lllclL SlNASL " ~
should he not distrust the woman who
breaches to his girl at tie very mo-
ment she is mopping up the lilth of
the saloon, whittier she had crepr for
refuge from the horrors OF the sweat
shop and cheap restaurants? Life is
life, and noble sentiments pay no bills.
MANS extremity is Gods opportu-
nifty" is the motto adop-cd by Mr.
Sheldon for his play, and the curtain
fo1 with -platf Gr1t eating Nell
to show him the better way" But
was that the motive Mr. Sheldon re-
ally had at heart? McGoVerp's is
filled with down -and-outers, seeking
refuge from the bitter cold. On them,
as on the slum dwellers In the hnai
act, the preaching and praying by the
army, which emerges from the police
court and is evidently hand in glove
with the authorities, has no effect. The
patrolmen who arrest Jim Platt and
| gleefully announce that house of
prostitution is to be pulled are plain
| ly impervious to religious pleadlnSs;
| the inspector takes his drink and Nc
Govern curses over the probable loss
of his license; the pitifully soIdid
drama moves on remorselessly, re-
gardless of the hymns. We know as
well as we know anything that to-
morrow, and for interminable tomor-
rows, nothing will be changed Yet
change, results, are the verJ things
| we want.
In reality Mr.. Sheldons treatment OF
his subject seems to me profoundly
cynical McGovern's ragged, famshed
patrons are men who have to make
their living somehow by the hardest
kind of work. while Maggie O'Sullivan,
who only talks and passes the tambou-
rine, is a most prosperous, comfortable
looking lassie. When we find her as
"Salvtaion Nell" together it is in a
fiat many times more comfortable than
those inhabited by the ordinary work
er, and it is obvious that Neii's world
| ly circumstances have improved vastly
with her conversion. At the same
| time 1t is suggested inferentially that
she would have Jared even better with
the Madam" for the woman whose
offer she rejects turns up again in
the second and third acts, Gorgeouslv
arrayed, in the pink of health and
good spirits. proprietor Of a lucrative
business. The wicked one is shown
fourishing like green bay tree, and
I cannot forbear the reflection that
while worldlings occasionally come to
grief, Salvation Army followers, rs a
class, are in a chronic state of want.
Again; the coarse and crude Jim
Platt has not only a virile grasp OF