The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-12
For the Good of
 the Community

R IRMINGHAM seems at last headed D to an auditorium. It is about to realize primitive instinct. The human family loves to herd.
 There is nothing modern in the desire for an auditorium. It is but another name for the Greek stadium, the Roman circus, the coliseum, the ampitheatre.
 The stadium and the circus were places where the masses were enabled to get to- gether on great occasions. There they witnessed the chariot races and later saw lions rend the limbs of Christian martyrs. There gladiators fought and there they spontaneously gathered when aroused and anxious for shoulder-to-shoulder touch with their fellow
 The Roman coliseum seated 50,000 persons and 10000 more could stand within the enclosure. The circus held 150,000. The ampitheatres and stadiums were built to accommodate tens of thou sands.
 The modern man leads life of such complication that he tends to forget the primitive in him until deprivation of some great primitive want arouses the funda- mental instincts.
 When a great event takes place in a community all persons wish to participate in some form or the other Be it world renowned orator, wonderful singer, a remarkable actor, celebrated orchestra, even those who care not for oratory, for acting, or for music want to see and hear him or her whom their thousands of friends and fellow citizens admire.
 It is the herding instinct An actor can- not do as we'll with scattered audience in front of him as with house filled. An audience with gaps of seats between CO., teries and individuals does not enjoy performance as does one that fills theatre. s-gaaasAu
 One does not realize it, but great por- ton of the innate charm about the circus is the crowd. The crowd is all the more entertaining to each element composing it because the elements are of endless va rlety.
 The few who have been enabled to at- tend grand opera in Birmingham have left with an unsatisfied feeling because they knew that the human family was but poorly represented there. Actors and 7, crowd has been cosmopolite and, there fore, demonstrative> feels the absence of that exuberance in America.
 American cities built fine churches for the sects to worship in, temples for the se- cret societies to hold their rituals in and huge city halls and court houses for the transaction of public business.
 Many went little further and created parks. and playgrounds. Then, in response to the na- tiohal sport, came the spacious baseball stadums.
 Out in the west, where the primitive in America appears to have found most free vent the audi torium made it's bow. The east inhaled the fresh breath of this initiative and discovered in it the ozone that it's jaded system craved.
 The soldiers won on Flanders field Almost by common consent city on city decided that the most suitable memorial to those who fell fighting for humanity would be auditoriums where humanity could meet in mass assembly and enjoy in com mon the pleasures and the uplift that absence of spacious meeting places had prevented.
 So the highly civilized man, after he has builded every other sort of structure, has still found the need of the most primitive; place