Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-01

w YOU'D you believe that nearly
! n half the successful plays
| wv produced in New York are
| stolen from poor and per-
manently unknown authors?
| That Eugene O'Neil and Sidney How
ard and David Belasco and other pre-
I Sumably honest men and good citizens,
who have spent years learning their
trade and earning distinction in It,,
| almost never produce anything worth
| while that wasn't really written
some theretofore-and thereafter-ob-
scure barber or Stagehand?
That at least two Pulitzer prizes have
lifted their material from the archives
| of Miss George Lewys and the MessrS
| Grubb. Schayer and North?
OF course you wouldn't!
Neither would any one else-but it
| costs about 100000 per annum to con-
vince the courts, and, usually, from
| 3 to 20 years of the defendants
time and productiveness. During all
this period, of course, he is a marked
man. Managers and motion picture
magnates are fearful of dealing with
him. even If there were occasion-which
generally there isn't, because an author
harassed in this fashion, realizing that
his reputation and his life'S savings
hang in the balance, is far more likely
to spend his days collecting evidence
and preparing his defense than in
thinking out imaginary troubles for
purely fictitious heroes and heroines.
Thriving Infant Industry.
The plagiarism suit business is
among the most thriving of our infant
industries. In recent years it has in
volved as many as 40 per cent of the
plays whose success has carried them
through 200 performances or more and
there is scarcely writer of standing
in America who hasn't been hailed to
court to prove his innocence. 1.-The
plagiarism racket" Howard Barnes call
ed it in recent magazine article, and
a racket it often is. involving all the
machinery of legalized chicanery.
1t is the sort OF mulcting long levied
on doctors, dentists and motorists. but
the stakes are higher and the evidence
is far less painful to the alleged VIC
tim. Small wonder that q good many
eaSy-money seekers who used to wait
on the pavement for an automobile to
hit them are learning that 1t is simpler
and potentially more lucrative to dash
off 20 or 80 pages of what the uninitiat-
ed might call "a play" and wait for
John Galsworthy or George Bernard
Shaw to steal it." If they don't and
know they can prove they didn't, there
is always the chance of settlement cut
of court.
Only unwillingness to be branded a
plagiarist prevents this generally hoped
for adjustment, because fighting these
cases is the best example of "headS I
lose, tails you win" ever devised by man.
The operation is always, or almost, sue
cessful, but If the defending patient
doesn't die he is fairly certain to be
crippled physically, mentally and finan-
cially, for the next 10 years.
Case Decided by Court.
On March 10 the Court of Appeals at
Albany unanimously decided what every
body else should have known since jan
uary, 1912-that Richard Watson Tully
wrote 1.-The Bird of Paradise" In doing
so it voided a previous verdict OF $751;
900 against Mr.. Tully and his manager,
Oliver Morosco, and left them the some
what meager remains of their earnings
from what had been, for Mr.. Tully, the
labor of 10 years The plays at issue,
according to Justice Lehman, "are en-