The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-08-09
By Abel Green
 Edifnr ssVariafun

Editor
 Exactly 20 years ago, almost to the day, this Variety mugg did his first guest col. for wv, then on the not lamented N. Y. Graphic Harking back a double-decade (doesn't that date us, bub?) to 1925, we ind ourselves in hectic yet somehow mellower era despite all those vagaries which were begot of that ignoble experiment. The yen to hark back today is trend undoubtedly born of the war, def1n- itely reaction from all the grim realities which have beset this not too civilized world since Pearl Har- b0r. We call it escapology. This escapist urge has interpreted itself into legits like Life With Father" and sundry cinematurgy such as Meet Me in St. Louis" and the past and future Gershwin, Conan, Nora Bayes. Tony Pastor, Slime Sil- verman (WB's forthcoming MT. Broadway'0, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Marilynn Miller, Texas Gtiinan, Will Rogers and kindred pix biogs.
 From the Variety" files of ex- actly 20 years ago we see ASCAP page-oned for reporting a record royalty dividend of $86,000 for the second quarter of '25. Today the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers splits up an annual royalty melon of over $6,000.000, indicating the smashing progress made by the scientific-a art entertainment media (talkies, radio, etc9 The new synchronization and commercial radio rights took the EOngsmith out of Tin Pan Alley and into Radio City and Hollywood glory.
 Twenty years ago Paul White mans $7,500 week at Keith's NY. Hippodrome the week of Aug. 31, 1925, was a record high, capitaliz- if1g on the prestige of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue" etc. Pops" is still going strong, currently at the Broadway Capitol at $50,000 guar antee for four weeks.
 Twenty years ago Jack Lait, then a Variety" mugg and today editor os the N. Y. Mirror, covered the Scopes trial in Dayton-remember the Darwin theory of evolution? - and that expert newspaperman led off his Variety feature story as follows:
 BallyhoOed by the broadest and blaringest hullaballOO in Ameri- can history, Dayton, Tenn, the seat of the great seriO-cOm evo- iution monkey business, is today a teenzing, seething bedlam of sh0uters, pitchmen, thimblerig- Eerg. sidewalk evangelists, side shows, conceSsionaires, tent rep troupes-and the main attraction tn the courthouse is the big free lace entitled Tennessee vs. Scopes" (Gad, how that guy can vrite.)
 The Hays office mixed "They Knew What They Wanted" and The Green Hat for pix as unde- s1rable. Meantime, an independ- e4Gly made film, Motherhood. a4rocating birth control and show ing actual births, shocked show biz, which was then trying to self-regu- late itself.
 King Alphonse of Spain made Page on having become attached to the American jazz band type of music, being particularly fond of Harl Smiths Band from New York who has toured important cities of Spain and Portugal, coming over from France and Belgium"
 aVariety'' scare-headed Charles ton-Death Dance" The Pickwich Club. a noted hoofery in the Bos- ton Tenderloin, suffered nearly 50 casualties that Saturday night. Was claimed that the vibrations from the Charleston rhythm caused the Hub hoofery to collapse, and the resulting holocaust took startling death toll. AS result, City Censor John Casey of Mayor Curley's office kayoed the Charleston in Boston. Tn later years, Boston was also to kayo certain books and manifest other prejudices.
 Chi and Panama Go. ZJ were spotlighted as the easiest divorce spots in the Western Hemisphere.
 Scotch was selling at $75 case and Mccoy champagne got $80 to the smuggling shipline stewards from bootleggers who retailed it at $l00 a case.
 GiIda Gray was shimmying her self to record crosses in Publix Theater personals into a Famous players-Lasky film contract.e
 s.variety," editorialIy took G. A. Atkinson, London critic, apart for his diatribe at American movies and Hollywood in general. Atkinson had called US 'dollar-worshippers, non- moral, banal, frivolous, drunk. un- Du~es~N A.n