Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1914-09-17
PASSED BY THE CENSOR

WHAT constitutes successful play"
w asked David Belasco in reply to ques-
tion. And then the little wizard Of the
American stage-the greatest producer IN
captivity-deivered an hours discourse on
subject in which he is concededly past
master.
"The success of a play is due to it's love
story, it's stage pictures and its underlying
theme. Take rs per cent. stage pictures,
plot and a good love theme and success Is
assured" said Beasco. and then he added:
Anybody can write some sort Of a play
but It takes a genius to sell one"
GONE ten years ago last summer there
~ came word across the wires that the
General Slocum had burned in the East River
and that 1000 human beings, the vast ma
jority women and children, had lost their
lives. On the staff Of a Philadelphia paper
was a young reporter who had given indica-
tions of ability in the line OF descriptive
writing, and he was rushed to New York to
linn pen picture of the horror as he saw 1t.
At o'clock that night he returned, went
to the office of the managing editor and sat
down and-cried. Completely unnerved, he
could not write line and so an Unconditional
copy reader wrote the pen picture. Since
then, the former cub reporter has blossomed
out until now the world of readers knows
him as Reginald Wright Kaufman, whose
income from the moving picture rights OF
THE House of Bondage" runs into hundreds
a week.
ONLY those familiar with newspaper work
" can conceive what n night like that OF
the Slocum disaster or the Titanic tragedy
means. Real newspapermen do not get eN-
cited, no matter what the provocation.
nj NlNN-
tographers-a brief wire to a correspondent
an order on the cashier for necessary funds
and, apparently, the thing is done. But the
collecting of a great news story-one, two
or three pages-s not accomplished in an
hour or a day. The foundation has been laid
months and years before in the upbulding
of an organization. The managing editor,
the news editor, the city editor know their
men-they need simply start the machine
going
Take the Titanic disaster as an example
For fully As hours the newspapers had known
intuitively that something was wrong with
the ship-that news had been suppressed.
But what?
Then came the bare outline of tragedy
hints of awful things as yet untold-whispers
of appalling loss of life. The machinery was
put to work-the wires clicked-the type
writer's buzzed-the story was printed and
the world shuddered!
And yet simple as this seems, there were
stretches of As hours when newspapermen
stuck to their desks-when wearied eyes and
strained nerves were on the point Of capitu-
latIon. Still, it was all in the days work.
and as such, done!
TRANCIS B. REEVES, of the Girard Ma
l. tional Bank visited Russia in days gone
by and, as a matter of course made flying
trip to the estate of Leo Tolstoy-altruist,
materialist, dreamer-the bette noir of the
Russian reactionaries, The free American
and the free Russian struck up a friendship
and discussed themes nearest their respective
hearts. Then came the day of parting. Toll
stoy asked the banker to defer his departure.
Tn America" explained Mr. Reeves, time
is money"
What low value you put on your time
retorted Tolstoy.
TIVEN as our own Liberty Bell is cracked,
T. so has a similar mshap overtaken the
famous Roeandt bell in Ghent next to its
prototype in the Kremlin, Moscow, the most
noted of European bells. Roelandt is the
Oldest bell in Belgium having been cast in
1914, and forms one Of A chimes On its
face it bears the following inscription in
Flemish
My name is Roelandt; when I toll, there
is a fire; when l peal, there is a victory in
Flanders"
When the Due d'Alva proposed to Charles
Y that he should destroy the city, the sover-
eign took him atop the belfry and, pointing
to Roelandt asked:
"Combien faudrait-il de peaux d'Espagne
pour faire un Cant de cette grandeur"
CHow many Spanish skins are needed to
make a glove OF this sze?)
The phrase was play on words, Gand be-
ing the French for Ghent and being pro-
nounced as his giant Cglove)
A PHILADELPHIAN, travelling through
| ~ the South, came upon one of the largest
manufactures of smoking tobacco in the
world Impelled by curiosity he visited the
| place At the railroad siding stood freight
car. Curiosity again caused investigation,
The freight car was loaded to the brim
with-alfalfa!
And not so long ago freight car hlled
/ with peanut shells, was wrecked in West
Virginia The bill of adng showed that it
was consigned to Western breakfast food
( foundry.
/ A MAORI was arraigned in police court
I "A in the Antipodes the other day-about