4S6

Thecritics
of Secretary Daniels, bein$
driven from one position after another, arc
now making a standagainsthim
on thc
ground thathehas
personallyblasted
a1
hope of establishing that centralized, respon
sible military control which is the greatesi
need of the navy. Ex-Secretary Meyer ha:
again joined in the hue and cry by demand
ing a naval budget of a large lump sum fro=
Congress, to be expended by theSecretarJ
and his naval advisers alone,^ as they see fit;
and also a national council of defence, which
shall all by itself formulate the defence pol,
icies of the nation. The Navy Departmenl
clique, which is so upset over the failure oi
Secretary Daniels toappoint Rear-Admira!
Fiske to the new position of Chief of Naval
Operations, is also
the changes on
this question; while the New York
declares that if Secretary Daniels had onls
consented, the navy would now have to all
intents and purposes a General Staff. Bui
theunpatrioticNorth
Carolinian has self.
ishly, it is alleged, begrudged surrendering
thatinexpert
civilian- controlthrough hie
own office.
Well, if Mr. Daniels had done any less, 11
strikes us thathe would have been faithless to a fundamental policy of this Govern,
ment. It is preciselyciviliancontrol
oveI
things military and naval. The founders of
the Republic wrote that policy into the Con.
stitution because they had had some person.
a1 experiences with British military control
which made them particularly insistent that
civilian officials should be i n charge. To
turn over the framing of our army and navy
policies to-day to the proposed national council, comprising, as we understand it. a majority of military and naval men, would be
as dangerous a step towards militarism as
could well be imagined. Buttressed by the
absurdtheorythatmilitaryandnaval
experts should decide how much money we
should expend for army andnavy, when they
are in
wise charged with the responsibility either
raising the money therefor,
for ascertainingwhat
is the.real
public
sentimentas to armaments-andwar
poli
des, we might then have a situation precise
lyanalogous
to that of Germany to-day
There, the German General Staff dictates tc
the Reichstag what it wants; and,more
over, formulatesthe publicopinion ofthc
nation
matters military. A s the war has
clearly shown, the German General Staff of.
ficers are the masters of the nation, and
its servants.

The

a-tio n

Exactly the same thing is what

be
hind the proposal to substitute with us com
plete military control for civilian. The Gen
era1 Board of the Navy has raged becausc
some of the Secretariesof the Navy and Con
gress regularlyhave refused to follow i t s
recommendations as to the size of the navy
They have preferred t o puttheir inexperl
opinion above the expert.
OUT judgment
theyhave been both wise andpatriotic i n
so doing. The expert in any field is subJeci
to bias; and the military and naval experts
particularly take counsel of their fears of at.
tack from one source
another. F r o m
them emanate many alarums of war, while
their narrow training, totally different from
that of the civilian legislator
the civilians
charged with the carrying on of foreign and
national policies, often makes them danger.
ous national advisers. We know what a cry
would go UP if it should be proposed to turn
over the conduct of our national affairs to a
general staff of physicians and surgeons, on
the ground that the dangers from
immigrants, from the spreadof insanity, and
the annual waste of human life due to pre.
ventable disease, made necessary theplac
ing in their hands
of
national policies
andtheunrestrictedexpenditure
of some
$250.000,000 a year.
As for ex-Secretary Meyerss proposal that
to be @xxpendedanCongress vote a lump
nually
the Navy Department, this is s o
absurd as hardly to merit serious treatment.
Congress would neverconsent
to it, and
neither would the American people, partlcularly not at this hour
when the European
militaryexpertsare
so completely discredited in their prophecies as to the insurance
value of large armaments, and as to the actual happenings in the progress of hostilities. Could experts be more thoroughly discomfited than the war-lords of the German
General Staff? Pro-Germans in plenty do not
hesitate to say to us that it has completely
overreached itself, that its Belgian policy
was a crime, and that its chief folly has been
due to a total inability to understand what
was involved in national policies and nationalsentiment abroad. Never were militarJ
men so fortunately situated: everything war
in their favor ina nation which obeyed theil
slightest wish, and never have men
writ
ten themselves down a s hopeless blunder,
ers.
We do not believe for a moment that with
this warning example before them the citizens of this country will be tempted to t u r n
over its military and naval
affairs to uni.
formed diagnosticians.

[Vol. 100,No. 2601

Wherever it
theBirth of the Nationfilm
arouses widespreadindignation.
In Boston the excitement has been at white
heat, because of a series of hearings before
Mayor, Governor, and a committee of the
Legislature. A judgehas been found with
authority and courage enough to cut out the
most objectionable scene. The press has been
full of arguments for and against the
film
andthe proposed legislation. Many cleragmen have preached about the play; and exPresidentEliot,speakingin
a Cambridge
church, was one of those who protested
against its falsification of history. Never
before have the colored people of Boston
been so united and determined,
appeared
to better advantage, and their white friends
have rallied in great force to their aid.
Walsh. ex-Congressman MeCall, and Eieut.Gov. Cushing have spoken out emphatically
againstpermittingtheplay
to continue,
though the Mayor sided with the producers
-as the Mayor of New York has failed to
recognize inhisutterancesthegravity
of
the situation,
to rise to the emergency,
being contentwiththepromise
of certain
slight excisions. which appear to be of little
value. The playcontinues to do its
devilish work of misrepresentationand of
arousing race hatred.
That Mayor Mitchel has had little legal
authority to deal with the play is admitted,
though there are differences of opinion as to
Justwhat powerswere available. Butthis
Blleged lack of authority is to be remedfed
b y anordinance now before the Board of
Aldermen
empower the Commissioner of
Licenses to revoke, suspend,
annulany
moving-picture license for cause after a
Mal.* The ordinance further reads:
shall be taken before the Commissione r of Licenses
notice of not less than
two (2) days to the proprietor, manager,
in charge of said alace. to show cause
w h y such license should not
revoked, annulled,
suspended. The Commissioner of
Licenses shall hear the proofs and allegations
In each case, and determine the same, and
my glace the license for which shall have
beenrevoked,
annulled,
suspended shall
not thereafter be licensed again to the same
licensee within one year, under the provisions .
of said sections. On any examination before
a Commissioner of Licenses, pursuant to a
notice to show cause as aforesaid, the accused
party may be a witness In his own behalf.

This plainly constitutesthe Commissioner

of Licenses a censor of all moving-picture
plays, precisely as the Mayor of every town
in Massachusetts, except Boston, now has
similar powers. Thatthe plan has its defects is
a Commissioner of Li-

May 6, 19151
censes with bad judgmentmight
considerable amount of harm.

The Nation
it said, to shut our eyes to the facts of th<
world to regard the precaution unreasonablc
or the legislation to effect it a mere wan,
t o n interference with personal liberty. Thc
Court plainly had in mind the difficulty oi
controlling by
sentiment aIone a se
ries of films scattered over the whole country
Yet
excellent a newspaper as the
ton
feels that the proposed cen.
sorshipmay be a most dangerous infringe.
ment of our freedom of speech and of ex,
pression,
a par with the efforts to sup
pressGarrisonandPhillips
in anti-slaver]
days. The Boston
and
ap
pear to believe that if one bill proposed
should become a lawany citizens who in
dulged in a flght over a play could stop it
and that any play with a lesson
teach 01
one which undertook to dwell
the weak
nesses of a group of
citizens might eas
ily be driven off the stage. The plan of ar
official censor for whom the Mayor is
sponsible, withsuch a trial as Is provided
in the pending Aldermanic ordinance inNe%
York, seems for the moment the best way
out.

But this risk

1s inevitable with any cen
sorship. and
bill has as yet been suggest
ed t o the Massachusetts Legislature-whict
is bent
passing some measure before i;
adjourns-that
is freefrom defects of
kind
another, save theproposal to put Bos
ton on an equal footing with the other citie!
of Massachusetts. The truth is that this nev
means for public amusement and educatio1
has brought with it grave perils which wt
are only just beginning to realize, for side
by side with its educational possibilities arc
the dangers of unrestricted propaganda.
the Rev. Dr. Crothers has pointedout, W I
have lulled ourselves into a sense of secur
ity by repeating to ourselves that the pas1
at least is secure. But along comes thi:
play, which is not only designed to makq
large sums for its promoters, but is admit
tedly a deliberate propaganda t o degrade anc
injure ten millions of citizens, besides mis
representing some of the noblest figures iI
past, Stevens, Sumner. and Lincoln, anc
perverting history, i f only
the onesided
ness of its portrayal. Now, let us suppose
as
Crothers has also suggested. that 0th
ers inspired by this shameful example t u n
to religiouspropaganda, andrepresent thc
Wallacks is happy in Its ending. 11
7 .~
horrible murdering of Catholics a t Drogheds makes
honorable exit, In circumstance:
by Cromwell, or the massacre of Protestants not unworthy of itsancient
renown, un.
St. Bartholomews night-what then?
threatened by the prospect of slow and miser
Undoubtedly, the tortures of the Inquisi able decay. In thelast few weeks of ite
tion would make effective capital against the existence it once more became the abode
Pope a t Rome; and if moving pictures hac of a capable stcick company, engaged,
existed in 1898, we might have seen a st11 der intelligent Girection, in therepresenta
more vindictive anti-Spanish crusade b y tion of old-and new comedy. Thus the tra
films of battle,
devastation,
reconcen, ditions inherent in the name were respectei
trado camps. Pictures of Russian pogromE at the final curtain, after a neglect of manS
would make plenty of money, yet
bit years. Thereal Wallacks, of c o u r s e w i t h
ter national and racial antipathies. Obvious all that the titb implied-vanished long ago,
with the death of Lester Wallackand the
ly, the feeling that would result from a r e
disappearance of the famous organization of
ljgious film-propaganda might lead to most
serious breaches of the peace. If a mild, gen which he vas the head. It may be worth
tle, humorous philosopher like Dr. Crothers while to recall what that institution was
therearemany
hazynotions on
admitsthatthe
offending film in Boston and-for
the
subject-what
it
stood
stirredhishearttomutinyand
rage, the
Only the oldest playgoers, andnot very
potentialities for evil in less-balanced minds
of them, can remember it at its best.
many
need no stressing. What makes the matter
The
founder
of it, J. W. Wallack the elder,
worse is that it is not a question of dealing
who
first
came
to this country
1818, nearwith a single theatrical production, for the
ly
a
hundred
years
ago,
when
he
won infilm can be duplicated so thatthe
objecstantpopularityas
Macbeth,Romeo, Hamtionable performance may be going
forty
more cities at the same moment. It let, and Richard 111, had acted with W.
is not surprising, in view of this power for Elliston andEdmund Kean and witnessed
Mrs. Sidevil, that the United States Supreme Court the performances of Kemble
February 23. last in three unanimous deHethus profited by the example of
professors
of the old
cisions upheld the laws of Ohio and Kansas the most eminent
creating official censors. We would have, :lassie and more modern schools, and there

4s7
can be no doubt that he himself was an actor
of greatnaturalabilityas
well asanapt
pupil. During 1837-39 he was manager of
the old NationalTheatre,
at Church and
Leonard Streets,in New York city, which
thus, in fact, was the first Wallacks. Thirteen years later he assumed charge of the
Brougham Lyceum in Broome Street,near
Broadway, which he conducted until 1861.
when he removed to the new Wallacks
Thirteenth Street, to which his son Lester
succeeded when he died in 1864. There
Lester remained until he migrated, in 1882,
to the Wallacks which is now to be torn
down. Hedied in 3888. Wallacks administration, therefore,
endured
thirty-six
consecutive years, and, as a whole,
is one
of the most memorable in theatrical annals.
attempt to review it in detail within
the prescribed limits of this article would
be ridiculous, but it is possible to note some
of thesalientcharacteristicsto
which it
owed its prolonged prosperity and eminence.
It is commonly cited a s a notable ci,tadeI
of the higher comedy, in prose or verse, and
this, in its best estate, it undoubtedly was,
with
although it shared this distinction
othertheatresin
Boston and Philadelphia.
But it was alsosomething
more. It was
a veritable Temple of the Drama. in which
every form of theatrical composition, except the severest tragedy, found capable interpretation. J. W. Wallack, when he undertook the -responsibilities of management,
naturally useilthe best stock companies on
both sides of theAtlanticashis
models,
and surrounded himself with the best available acting material, not with
a haphazard
collection of utility performers. In the list
of his first company may be found the names
of Charles Walcot, Lester Wallack, William
R. Blake, John Brougham, and Laura Keene,
each one an accomplished artist. Thus supported, he ,was able to win not only critical
but popularapproval in such old standard
pieces as The Wonder, The Belles StrataThe Love Chase,
de
Bazan, and The
Chest-of whichthe
nodern generation of playgoers scarcely
mow the names-while a great varietyof
;emporaneous pieces, sentimental,farcical,
31 melodramatic, were included in his reperEmphatically
an
actor
of the d d
:egitimate school, he depended largely upon
?lays coming under the somewhat elastic
:ategory known aslegitimatedrama,
emracing everythingbetween Shakespeare and
sheridan Knowles, but was never afraid to
ram his programmes with later inventions.

488

[Vol.

brilliantly, in theparticular line of parts

personwhich may happen to fit their
ality.
Herein is t o be found themost obvious
moral ofvthe old Wallacks. It is pleasant to
think of the old playhouse at its meridian,
when it enjoyed t h e p a t r o n a g e i na measure
of whicli
single theatre existing today
can boast-of
the great body of intelligent
90
playgoers, for the simple reasonthat,
matter what thenature
quality of the
AtthattimeLesterWallack
was a faplay, they could be reasonably sure of a feast
vorite of Fortune. A man of fascinating perof
acting.
sonality, he was a skilful and authoritative,
was he a great
but not a great, actor.
manager, although he was shrewd enough t o
Drofit by some of the lessons he had learnBRITI5X
ed. Luxurious in his tastes, he
lacked the THE BOGEY
COMMEBCIAL
histrionic zeal and power of his father, and
AND
hewas
more of an opportunist. But he
BY
I?.
never permitted the all-round excellence of
L O N D O N , ApriL 16.
bis company todegenerateuntil,
in his
It must be admitted that when a nonlater days, thechanging conditions of t h e Briton unrolls the map of the worId and sees
theatre made it virtually impossible t o find how much of it is colored red. there may be
some reason f o r a gasp
two. W h e n he goes
It was inThirteenthStreet
ablerecruits.
on to consider that GreatBritain
exerthat he won his chief triumphs. Among hie cises something very like dominion over t h e
players there, John Gilbert, John Brougham, much larger part of the map that is colored blue, and holds that the real fronher of
Charles Coghlan. J.
Stoddart,
Harry
her Empire is the three-mile limit of neutral
Beckett,Charles
Walcot,
J. Montague, water, he may certainly be excused
thinkCharles Fisher, Fred Robinson, W. Davidge, ing thathere is sometlung to staggerthe
portion of. humanity. If his hisMrs. Hoey, Madeleine Henriques, Rose non-Briksh
torical memory is active, he may recall the
Eytinge, Madame Ponisi, Ada m a s ,
bombardment of Copenhagen and the seizure
Germon, and Rose Coghlan, recur a t once of the Danish fleet in 1.807 and the impressment of American seamen in 1812, and may
t o mind. And therewereothers
scarcely wonder whether a victorious
might
less distinguished. Outstanding in the mem- not be dlsposedto similar action
the fuQ4a r e performances of The Rivals, The
A aspassionate consideration of the naval
School
Scandal, MuchAdo,
history of thelast century would,however,
Like It, Wild Oats, The Road to Ruin, surely do much to dispel his alarm. It is .true
less ruled the
She Stoops to Conquer, Money, Di- that Britannia has more
waves
Derlod, but surely it has
plomacy, A Scrap of Paper, London As- been in her capacity of trustee f o r the world
and with the virtual. or even the deliberate,
~urance,Caste, School, Home,
and TheCaptain
of the Watch. Rose- acquiescence of the other Great Powers. The
British. fleet has acted merely as the police
dale and TheVeteran ought t o be
of the ocean, andit
would be
-cult
to
aggressiveness against it.
tioned, perhaps, as Lester Wallack special- prove any
One of the implied conditionsof Englands naties. It is a notable record, butnot
all val sway has been her recognitlon of the
Wallacks playswere upon this level. The equal rightsand liberties of the vessels of
Silver King, indeed, was one of the best of all other natlons; and it cannot be truthfully
alleged that she hasbeen guilty of
lmpormudern melodramas, and The Shaughraun tant or deliberate breach of this understandexceedingly clever b i t of theatricalism, ing. Moreover, thegreat size of the British
but
such
pieces as Moths, Forbidden navy has been the natural and lnevitable result~of her colonial expansmn and the scatFruit,
Awful Dad, the cheap sensa- tered na.ture of her Empire. and has needed
allegation of desire
world-domlnlon as
tions of G. R.
and other kindred prod&tre. Defence, not Defiance, 1s a
ductions, werelamentable
blots upon the a
motto of real validity in thls matter. Admiral
dignity of the house, although they helped Mahan has told us how a strong navy can
fill the treasury. Reference to them, and be based on nothing except sea-power in the
matter of peaceful commerce; and surely, in
to their success, is made only to prove the
all conscience, Great Britaln has had enough
general capacity and adaptability of the
of the latter to make the former an obvious
I should like
a
of special significance in these and unmenacing necessity.
to add here, a t the risk of entering
more
days, when actors,
lack of adequate controverslaL ground, that the growth of the
training, can only shine, and that not
British Empire has,
the view of many of
Butwhateverhe
did was well done. The
@lay might be good, bad,
indifferent, but
t h e names of the actors employed give assurance that the
performance was a t least
thoroughly capable. Under his guidance
Wallacks became theprincipaltheatre
of
t h e city, if not of the country, and the policy
he established was followed by his 60n. Lester, during his brilIiant reign in the Thirteenth Street Theatre.

Foreign Correspondence

100,No.

2601

the most moderate and impartial students

of
no means a tale of
conscious aggression, or deliberate intention
of conquest. The most eminent of all our
colonies-the
territory that formed the nucleus of khe greatcountry
now known as
the Udted States-so far from belng the reof a deltberate national pohcy of aggrandizement, was largely founded in consequence of disagreements at home, and the
withdrawal of discontented citizens from their
motherland. In other words, it was the result
not of a national^ policy but of disagreement
with a national pohcy.
These conslderations, however, have now
little but an academic interest. I t is abvious
that, after the close of this war, even if we
assume the succem of the Allles; there
likely to be no field Zn which the change will
be greater than in that of ocean sway. The
apparent passing of the Dreadnought and the
coming of the submarine (to mention no other cause) seem t o make this inevitable. It is
hardly likely that Britannias command of
the ocean will ever be qulte
far-reaching
o r undisputed as it has been in the past, unless
very unforeseen developments take
place. ISO far as present conditions indicate,
the policing of the aeas svlll probably have
to pass from the trustee to the board of directors. Delegation will have to glve way t o
coiiperation. All the great naval Powers will
have to unite in the task: and not
the least
prominent r61e will fall to the lot of the United
States, convinced of the necessity of free trade
and free shipping. And no doubt the
laws of the sea will be laid
very largely on the lines which the United
has
always advocated In such matters as the
tection of cargoes by the neutral
The idea that commercial jealousy of Germany was
effective agent in producfng the
war may be dismissed as Quite-untenable. No
doubt, such, jealousy efisted; it
not in ordinary human nature t o
ones self rlvalled
3r outstripped by a competitor
without a
Trudge. And it was, moreover, much easier
to indulge emotions of jealousy and annoytnce than to take actlve and toilsome measures of counteraction. But no one, outside
3f a few Bntish Bernhardis (usually with for3 i g n names), a section of the yellow press, and
me
two not very important reviews, ever
seriously considere& that commercial
competitioncouldheeffectively
met by anything
except superiority in
ownline. No
ble or even normal person, so far as I know,
ever hinted that any commercial advantage
we might hope
throughwar
wouldbe
than dust In the balance as compared
with what
should lose. The predominant
economicconviction here was that the riclrer Germany became, the better customer she
wouldbe
us; and the steadily rising flgof our tradewith heT showhow much
advantage to us lay in her increased
chasing power. Count H e r m a n Keyserling
has recently pointed out that the old formulas (still generally accepted on the
nent of Europe) of British mercantilism
disregard of other nakons rights have
and
are
long ceased to be adequate
merely misleading. Among the many proofs of
this is the absolutely open
we show t o
foreign traders both at home
in
colonies. British South
owes a good
deal of its prosperity to the. German merchants who by deliberate preference have
taken refuge there from the armedsentries
and omnipresent uniforms of the neighboring
British history, beenby