The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-12-04
Squaring
The Circle
With
McCREADY HUSTON
McCREADY HUSTON

A ENCOURAGEMENT that the po-
L ~ lice tonight will view Tobacco
Road" as censors is bad enough for
the reputation of indianapolis For
the cultural center of the Middle
West to be the scene of any such
benighted conduct is incredible.
Tobacco Road" deals realistically
with a serious social problem. 1t is
based on a novel by writer who
never has been accused of pander-
ing. The play itself was done by
man of equally high reputation.
If our moral authorities wish to
check profanity and obscenity on the
stage they should pay visit to the
burlesque theaters.
We hope the incident will pass
without further action. To adver-
tise the city as the place where a
famous play, in its third year in New
York, was suppressed, is bad bust
ness.
Nor should the actors depart from
the manuscript. Our police are not
in a position to rewrite the work of
Mr.. Caldwell and Mr.. Kirkland.
OUR police should Fad an article
~ in The New York Times by Err
skine Caldwell. He was writing from
his home in Maine about the play.
Tobacco Road" After explaining
how it came to be, through his writ
ing the novel and Jack Kirkland the
play, he came pretty close to giving
the key to its success.
Mr.. Caldwell says, and rightly,
that more states than Georgia have
their Tobacco Roads. He does not
say, but 1 do, that the slums of
South Philadelphia-the notorious
bandbox slums-produce probably
more degenerates than the whole
state of Georgia. And as the Sums
approach too near Rittenhouse
Square the fine old families simply
move out to the Main Line.
The Hill district of Pittsburgh;
the Scabrous tenements of East Side
New York; the South Side of Chi
cago-they all prick the consciences
of any sensitive person. Is Indian
apolis without fault?
r QUOTE from Mr.. Caldwell:
why does Tobacco Road Gre
ate a storm of controversy? Is the
play dramatically unsound? Or
does it touch a sore spot in the
mass of the American people?
Il believe the answer to these
three questions is that the play does
touch a sore spot. The fact is that
Tobacco Road is a thoroughfare
running an undetermined length
through every state in the Union.
Sometimes it is an alley; sometimes
it is a paved highway; now it is
dirt road through Arkansas, now it
is boulevard in Massachusetts,. The
reason it is a sore spot is, perhaps,
that many of us try to cover up
weakness in our civilization by
sweeping the dirt under the rug in
stead of carrying it out"
There is a vast amount of sweep
ing under rugs in America. The bat
tie to end it, to force people to face
facts and do something to correct
them, is the next war. Perhaps the
travail of the last five years, with
its national and state crusade to
protect the urderprivileged, has
been the beginning. If so, the de-
preston, as Clarence Manion said
in a speech here recently, has been
blessing
PROTECTING people from reality
by the police power makes me
think of protecting children in
their reading. I had a mother who
was a realist if there ever was one.
I left home at the age of Is to try
to make my own living.
I left with hec consent and en-
enlargement, for things were not
promising in the little town where l
was born. I recall that she accom-
panied me to Pittsburgh, got me a
furnished room, gave me SO and a
copy of THE jungle"
Now that was nice, cheerful read
ing for a boy of Is on his own for
the first time. But mother must
have known what she u,,e do;,,,