EDWIN A. PERLS

COUNSELOR AT LAW

120 WEST 32ND STREET
NEW YORK

March 7th, 1923.

Mr. Harry Weinberger,
32 Union Square,
New York City.

My dear Weinberger:

I do not recall that you were sufficiently acquainted
with my intelligence or agressiveness, from the old days in
the De Witt Clinton High School, to be able to say author-
itively that you think that it will be "some job for me to
answer" the mimeographed letter addressed to Mr. Joseph Glad-
stone, sent to me in reply to my letter to Mr. Schildkraut.
However, if you feel that way about the old days I hope that
during the twenty years which have elapsed, that I have
acquired sufficient of both to make an intelligent reply.

You probably noticed that in my first letter, I
purposely avoided an academic discussion of the play from any
angle. I simply considered it useless filth, from a public
standpoint. No religious problem there at all, Jew or Gentile,
all alike. Filth is filth to any religion or in any language.

I presume that you have exhausted the entire gamut
of your arguments in your letter and that you will not advance
any new theories, which may later occur to you, so I am going
to confine myself to those advanced by you in justification of
your artistic filth.

"When thousands of people have already said that this
is the finest example of the aspirations of the Jewish race"
what is one of the finest examples of the aspirations of the
Jewish race? Sending your wife and daughter to a brothel con-
trolled by yourself? If your idealistic father, "does honor and
worship holiness and goodness" why doesn't he remain consistent
in his conduct toward the offspring who has disobeyed him. But
no; your play wallows in filth and consequently must have a
filthy ending.

You speak of entertainment and make comparison between
the Ziegfield Follies, Hairy Ape, Different etc., and the God of
Vengeance. Entertainment is what entertains the average person,
not those morbidly curious, nor perverted persons, nor per-
verted minds. The Spaniards love their bull fights, the head
hunters of Africa, their feasts of human flesh, the dope fiend
his orgy and so on ad infinitum, to all of them these are
ENTERTAINMENT, but not to the average, normal mind. You say the