Cylinder Lists: Columbia Brown Wax, Columbia XP, Columbia 20th Century, and Indestructible (2000)

THE THEATRE MAGAZINE ADVERTISER 97 The Telephone Unites the Nation GRANVILLE BARKER (Continued from page 63) the piav writing bee attacked him and thereafter he acted only to get money to support himself while writing. At last one of his pieces won production, it was named “The Weather Hen." Mr. Barker remembers it if nobody else does. He had learned something about producing be- fore this success and after he joined the Stage Society, of which Bernard Shaw was a director, he went about London seeking a theatre where Shaw's plays might be done. At length he found a manager willing to barter a couple of weeks rent for Barker's services in putting on "Twelfth Night,’’ and in this house "Candida" was born. Mr. Barker, then 22 (he was born in 1877), playing the excitable and neuresthenic young nobleman. Just before coming over Mr. Barker put on in London a condensed version of Thomas Hardy's. “The Dynasts.” He reports it as hav- ing a genuine success. In his own play, "The Madras House," a character appears who inter- ests the author so much he is curious to see if he will interest the American cousin. This char- acter is an American, a man whom the author met on his first visit to New York six years ago. Even at that time there was talk of Mr. Barker managing the New Theatre. The proposition did not attract him at that time, but the States did and so did the particular specimen of Amer- ica who figures after more than half a decade in the forthcoming play. Willis Stull. GREAT BEAR SPRING WATER 50c. tl>* cui of lii ilui stopporad bottlo* IRVING BERLIN (Continued from page 67) having thrown all my bath towels into the piano to deaden its resonance. I wrote the next verse the following morning, and sang the song that afternoon. “Do I believe in inspiration? In having things hit you from nowhere? Big things you've never dreamed of? Occasionally—yes. I have never given Irving Berlin any credit for Alexander. It was simon-pure inspiration. I had long ad- mired certain of its progressions, but the melody came to me right out of the air. I wrote the whole thing in eighteen minutes, surrounded on all sides by roaring pianos and roaring vaude- ville actors." "Rag-time is the one distinctive American con- tribution to the musical materials of the world. And as far as my meagre studies have shown me, no country’s composers ever grew great if they failed to represent their time, their nation, and their people's artistic means. “I have a home uptown now." continued Mr. Berlin, "and my hobby is my library. I never had a chance for much schooling, so I couldn't read the good books I wished to because I had to look up too many of the big words. I’m taking time now to look those words up. I'm trying to get at least a bowing acquaintance with the world's best literature, and some knowledge of history, and all of the famous dead people. I’m a little bit commercial in so doing. I want to know things, and I want to enlarge my vocabulary, with a definite purpose of bigger, better writing. "You see, there's a real American Opera com- ing along, and I want to write it. In syncopa- tion, you understand- I’m going to prove that you can syncopate for people’s hearts as well as for their toes. It’s going to be a simple Amer- ican story—men and women, love and adventure, and a good red-blooded fight. Whoever writes the book, I shall write my own lyrics, as I always do. And I don't want the critics to find my grammar crooked, my vocabulary of the twenty- word kind, and my sentences stilted and funny. When I begin to write seriously, I want no silly lyrics. “One thing I’ve done successfully few people know about—because they’ve never given the matter any consideration. I have vocalired the triplet, a favorite device for the instrumentalist, but avoided by the vocal writer. You’ll find the triplet worded in almost everyone of my songs. "The reason our American composers have done nothing highly significant is because they won't write American music. They're as ashamed of it as if it were a country relative. So they write imitation European music which doesn't mean anything. Ignorant as I am, from their standpoints, I’m doing something they all refuse to do: I’m writing American music!” Julian Johnson. AT this time, our country looms i\. large on the world horizon as an example of the popular faith in the underlying principles of the republic. We are truly one people in all that the forefathers, in their most exalted moments, meant by that phrase. In making us a homogeneous peo- ple, the railroad, the telegraph and the telephone have been important factors. They have facilitated commu- nication and intervisiting, bringing us closer together, giving us a better understanding and promoting more intimate relations. The telephone has played its part as the situation has required. That it should have been planned for its present usefulness is as wonderful as that the vision of the forefathers should have beheld the nation as it is today. At first, the telephone was the voice of the community. As the population increased and its interests grew more varied, the larger task of the telephone was to connect the communities and keep all the people in touch, regard- less of local conditions or distance. The need that the service should be universal was just as great as that there should be a common language. This need defined the duty of the Bell System. Inspired by this need and repeat- edly aided by new inventions and improvements, the Bell System has become the welder of the nation. It has made the continent a community. American Telephone and Telegraph Company And Associated Companies One Policy One System Universal Service