The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-01-04
THE STAGE IS UP AGAINST IT.

New York City stage people are seeing hard
times. An article in the New York Times re-
Gently declared that in no other season within
the memory Of the writer had the Broadway
panorama been so circumscribed. The man.
ayers admit that they are hard pressed to
make expenses and more than one of them has
appealed to the player to. bear a part of the
burden by consenting to a profit sharing basis
in lieu Of salary. The Times writer finds the
cause for the condition in bad methods of ticket
pricing and selling and it seems probable that
here is one immediate source of public with
drawal from patronage Of the theater. Thea
ter managers claim to be astute businessmen
following business methods but it is not evident
from the public viewpoint that they do always
follow the ethics of good business. For in
stance, good business bases price on cost;
Itheater managers do not do this in many IN
stances. When cost becomes excessive, good
business takes steps to lessen it without i'm
pairing working efficiency. Stage producers
do not do this. Good business has come to see,
the worth of truthful advertising. Much stage
management has not yet seen this value.
But back of the whole present trouble lies, it
seems reasonable to believe, a mistake made by
the producers for many years. They have ex-
plotted the wrong factors in their business.
First they have exploited performers rather
than performances; second, they have ex-
plotted an appeal to public curiosity, often of
a morbid sort. Cases in point are such offer
iings as 'Today'' and Fair and Warmer
both Of which have been seen in Keokuk. From
the first exploiting has come the star system;
from the second, the long roll of problem
plays, of stage sex discussions, of farces where
the fun has not been clean. The star system
has made the service of widely advertised play
Iers SO expensive that the stage cannot support
itself. The unwholesome stuff which bright
lines, funny situations and capable perform
ers have coated to the taste of the public, has
now sickened awide section of that public. The
managers are between two fires; they have in
creased the cost of the sort Of entertainment
they exploited and they have alienated a lot Of
people on whom they must depend to pay this
cost.
Representative Hull, of the Iowa second dis
trict, is the author of an amendment to the
postoffce appropriation bill that will mean
much to the messengers who transport the mail
from the postoffices in our cities and towns to
the railroad stations. Mr.. Hull discovered that
in letting contracts for that work it is the GUS
tom of the present administration of the de-
partment to advertise for bids. After the bids
are received an agent of the department goes
out and offers the job to some man who has not
bid if he will agree to do the work at a lower
price than the lowest bidder. In that way the
cost of the work is beaten down to the lowest
possible point. Such methods would not be
countenanced for a moment by reputable bust
ness concerns, and at the instance of Mr.. Hull
language has been incorporated in the appro-
p%rlations bill that makes it obligatory on the
part OF the department to give the work to the
Lowest qualified bidder at the time the con
tract was first called for"
General Pershing wants a regiment of brick
layers. Builders of victory7