Evening star., 1940-04-28

newspaper reporter forty years ago. interviewed
~ theatrical manager whose production Of an obJec
tionable play had been closed by the police in New
York He said Il give the public what wants. When he
died. some time later his estate would have been bank
rupt but for the profit he'd made out of of his stars
who had appeared in succession OF the most charming
comedies in modern dramatic literature.
The public in this country alone, is one hundred and
thirty millions of you and Some of wants dirt and
of it doesn't Some of wants what IS cheap and
tawdry and of it wants what is fine and noble 1t
that the who panders to its lowest taste
be he author or artist editor merchant publisher
radio sponsor. producer of plays or moves the
ground that he gives the public what it wants. trying
to use an excuse that would serve equally well for the ped
der of drugs obscentes The merchant author or
editor who says, Mine is not an atrlistc enterprise
have except financial profit and no respon-
sibty after my goods leave the counter. not only
bad citizen but extremely bad merchant or author or
editor. So bad that there are very few of him lett
If forty years of writing and ectung have taught me
anything that the widest and most certain response
comes of appeal the best in nature Anyone who
has ever spoken audience knows the quick and uni
versal accord that follows the to straight thinking
and right living Why not? Every audience assembled or
otherwise composed mainly of and women who are
doing their utmost to think straight and live right OF
decent men and who working hard and trying
to improve their minds and bodies, and the rent or
the mortgage and send Junior through college. remem
Der one old time manager whose advertising used to read
What the public wants: No upft, nothing to think
about Just OOo entertainment he should have met the
little schoohouse full of farmers and their wives and chill
dren encountered last week in Michigan Many of them
had driven fifty miles learn something about our dem
ocracy third of them used note pads and after the talk
an old fellow in high boots and flannel shirt gave me an
astonishing list of books he had read the subject
wENTY years ago wrote play, The Fool. that
could scarcely get produced because the said
wasn't what the public wanted people weren't interested
in religion and social questions However, when finally
the piece was staged people interested that seven
companies toured in it simultaneously In his annual book
of Broadways best plays Burns Mantle records sixteen
that have had than five hundred performances each
in New York. only three of them could have raised an
eyebrow on Aunt Julia. At the moment in our so-caed
sophisticated age the biggest dramatic hits on Broadway
are two simple, human stories of devoted families dong
their best for one another and the community.
The movies are the classic example of mass appeal last
wear they played to weekly audience of eighty-fve
million and what have been their outstanding ulumphs
the occasional andcrme hits or the truly great
productions that remain in the pubcs mind tor years.
What becomes of the for keyhoe and backstar
writing when one realizes that the national magazines
with overwhelmingly large crcations are almost exciu-
sivev those whose editors plainly feel that they have