The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1943-08-23
MIR. Petrillo's New Role

Mr.. James Caesar Petrillo, the rough,
tough and two-fisted president of the
American Federation of Musicians, has
recently developed deep concern at the
dearth OF symphonic music in our smaller
cities. So he has launched a campaign
whereby the country's leading orchestras
and their conductors would give total of
$40 free concerts in these unsteady arid
communities. The union would foot the
bill to the tune of 100000. Somehow,
this deep concern just doesn't fit into Mr..
Petrillo's background. For one thing, the
bass of the country's musicians admit
tedly Is no musician himself. AS boy he
had few lessons on the cornet-or may
be it was the drums-but today he
couldn't play 'Three Blind Mice" in the
key of C. Nor do his activities as union
boss explain why Mr.. Petrillo wants to
shell out half million of his unions
dollars so that Main Street may Stake it's
thirst for Beethoven and Brahms.
1t isn't that Mr.. Petrillo is sensitive to
the finer nuances of performance. He is
the man who once professed to see no diff
ference between JaScha Heifetz and just
any violinist in a six-piece dance band.
His conclusion was memorable: "They're
both fiddlers, amt they?" So why has
he cast himself as musical Lady Bounti-
full? The A. F. of M. boss says the sugges-
ton came to him from President ROOSe-
welt last December. The White House says
the President told Mr. Petrillo that he
thought the idea was good But the White
House does not admit the plan originated
there, or that it has any formal presiden-
tial blessing. So Mr.. Petrillo stands alone
with high-minded plan launched for
reasons not clearly apparent. But one
thing is clear: the results of this pro-
posed mass tour promise to be negative.
In the first place, residents of small cities
aren't symphony starved There are the
obvious sources of the radio and phono-
graph. And almost all the orchestras
concerned in Mr.. Petrillo's plan make
annual tours of their own in normal
times. Most of them have drastically cur
tailed their travels until the war is over
for patriotic reasons. But the union pro-
poses to crowd our crowded transporter
ton systems further by transporting hun
dreds of men and instruments thousands
of miles,
AS members of Mr. Petrillo's own union
have pointed out, this tour would not help
musicians who need help. 1t would simply
give extra money to players who get some
of the fanciest wages in the profession.
They get these fancy wages - which they
deserve-from organizations that are con-
sistent money-losers, and that need all
the help they can get. Mr.. Petrillo has
practically erased record royalties from
our symphony orchestras' incomes
through his ban on recordings for COM
mercial purposes - ban that also cost
his own union members extra rehearsal
and recording fees Now he proposes a
tour which would, in effect, cut those
incomes further. For if the tour could
be made, it might as we'll be made under
the orchestra's management, to the bene-
fit of the orchestras and their musicians
who, incidentally, have been offered Sc
less than scale for the Petrillo tour. Mr.
Petrillo seems to have cast himself in the
wrong role. He looks more natural and
comfortable as the man who can't tell
one fiddler from another.