Show World (July 1910)

10 THE SHOW WORLD July 23, 1910 . BACK TO NATURE UNCLE AL. G. FIELD TURNS lii ARDENT APOSTLE OF FARMING Columbus, Ohio, July 20. — When I wrote “Straight Talk” I pleaded with the boys and girls of the profes¬ sion to do their best; to exert their utmost power—phy¬ sical, mental, moral —and to make that power active. I re¬ member pointing to A1 G. Field as an example of a showman who had reched the goal of independence from humble beginning. I still hold that the show people who become owners must be honest, temperate in all things, and never deviate from the proposition: “My word is my bond,” if success is to be theirs. The “wine, woman and song” plane of life ruins and wrecks. A1 G. Field said to me the other day: “John G. Wanamaker originated a Rule of Four that I have steadfastly followed, and it is this: ‘I will do my full DUTY every day, with all my STRENGTH, with all my MIND, with all my HEART, with saloons. Soon it’s the infirmary, Blackwell’s Island — an unknown grave. “Human nature is pretty much the same all over. I have made it a prac¬ tice in my life never to turn a man away hungry. My folks have made it a rule never to turn a beggar from the door hungry. I have been importuned three times today by able-bodied men for a dime or a nickel. I have re¬ fused them for the first time in my life. Hereafter, knowing there is work in abundance, no able-bodied beggar “The Jewish Aid Society of Elev¬ enth street and Second avenue, New York City, will not give charity to able-bodied men or women, but is seeking positions for these people on farms. The aid society is not an agen¬ cy. It does not charge any commis¬ sion. It is maintained by a number of wealthy Jews. It furnishes able- bodied men and women for farm work alone. It is the object to encourage people to become farmers. “The people are willing and obe¬ dient. They understand but litfle English, but the majority understand and speak German. A number of farmers have applications in this so¬ many good farmers are going to waste behind the footlights. Without any spirit of bitterness, one cannot but wish that Mr. Field’s eloquence might move some of them to taste the joys of a continued suburban existence. However, in perfect fairness to the country, one should note that only those actors who, like Mr. Field, are a success on the stage, reap the best rewards on the farm.” , Time works changes and Age is one of Time’s trusted lieutenants in con¬ ducting us over the narrow vale be¬ tween the cradle and the grave. The rumble of red wagons, the music of bands, the noise of clowns, the roar of lions, and the trumpeting of ele¬ phants, added to the constant jabber of spectators and the hundred and one other above-a-whisper disturbances, develops the circus man or woman into a loud talker. I noticed this in Mr. Field, when he first hit the road with minstrelsy. He has passed twenty-four years at the head of his memorable company and the required high notes of voice have disappeared. Sitting on the lawn in front of his farm home, going over the expecta¬ tions of the coming season—the twenty-fifth year—the Silver Jubilee great battleships of the nation passing in review and will show the evolution of our navy from the humble craft / of Washington’s time to the gigantic V broadside of this, our “Teddy’s” day. - The act in question will be labeled J “Ships and Sailors,” and as a climax ' will vividly illustrate “Perry’s Victory : on Lake Erie.” Another act for the olio is to be engaged. Just what it is is not known now. It will come from . Europe. The Al. G. Field Greater Min¬ strels will open the season of “one- fourth a hundred years” at Marion, August 15. Then will follow Fre¬ mont. Wooster and Cleveland. The latter will be played August 18, 19 and 20. I get it—but not for sure—that the George Evans Honey Boy min¬ strels (Cohan & Harris firm) will be in Cleveland at the same time. If so you can wager that Uncle Al with hist' “Perry’s Victory on Lake Erie” and other features will get the bigger 7 money. The banners announcing the . coming here of the Field show are up on fence, church steeple and about 7 everything that moves, placing the 7 above facts in proper form on my 7 ! mind. I was seated to a spread at the 7 Maple Villa Farm. Say, Uncle Al. . lives. He’s got me going on this farm : UNCLE AL. G. FIELD ACTIVELY DIRECTING HAY MAKING AT HIS BEAUTIFUL MAPLE VILLA FARM. all my WILL.’ ” No wonder Uncle Al rose from circus clown to his present enviable position. Those about here remember when, in his back yard (it was his only by paying rent), with hammer, saw and nails he made the properties for his minstrel show. To¬ day he owns his own city home, is director in banks, gets big rent money on business blocks, is talked of for Mayor of Columbus, and is the proud possessor of the celebrated Maple Villa farm near Worthington, about 14 miles north of here. So you see Uncle Al is farmer in summer and minstrel in winter. He is at the head of a movement to bring a number of laborers from New York City to this section to work as farmers. Said he: “In the immediate neighborhood of my farm there is work for a hundred men and scarcely one procurable, not¬ withstanding that wages offered are even better than for the same labor in the city, and board in addition. It is a serious problem and one of the potent factors in the high price of living. There are hundreds of men at the present time idle in Columbus or working only at intervals who could work steadily on the farms within a few miles of the city, and the condi¬ tion is applicable to other sections than this. On that great thorough¬ fare, Broadway, are competent stage people who could go into the prov¬ inces and make more than a living yet the fascination of city life holds them until they lose all control over themselves. Working occasionally, they eat lobster and steak; loafing oftener, they live on cheese and crumbs from the lunch counters in ciety for able-bodied farm hands. As thousands of these people have been compelled to leave their country it is to be hoped the problem of labor on the farm will be partially solved, at least.” Colonel Ed. Wilson, who has toured the world, who is known to many show people, who was much admired by the late P. T. Barnum, Adam Forepaugh and Uncle John Robinson; and who with his pen has touched to paper a motley of good things that serve as “food for thought” to those connected with stage and sawdust, gives his latest in an editorial in the Ohio State Journal. “Mr. Al. G. Field, who during the winter months is busily engaged in spreading happiness and. jollity all over the countryside, is in the sum¬ mer occupied with a highly different, but equally useful pursuit. He is head¬ ing a back to the soil movement, with the object of persuading the unem¬ ployed of New York and other cities to come out to the Ohio farm lands and make themselves useful and pros¬ perous. Himself 'a successful prac¬ tical farmer, and well acquainted with conditions all over the country, Mr. Field is in a position to know what he is talking about; and, if he succeeds in luring a few laborers from the city to the country, he will have rendered a public service both ways. “One might suggest that a still greater public service would be done, if Mr. Field would begin his search for farm laborers among the _ humbler ranks of his own profession. No doubt everybody who attends the the¬ ater has often been grieved to see how Anniversary—he told me the story in the softest tones of voice, a degree above the zephyr breezes from the trees and hedges. Doc Quigley will manage the company. Harry C. Fitz¬ gerald, last year with 101 Ranch Wild West as Arlington’s representative back with the show, will do the ad¬ vance. Joe Reider will handle the cash and pay the bills. The end men comprise, in addition to Mr. Field and Quigley, “Gov.” Bowen, to whom I gave the title, “The Kentucky Whirl¬ wind”; John Healey, Sam Harris and Johnny Dove. The scenic embellish¬ ments and innovations will eclipse those of past years. The first part is styled “Minstrelsy in All Agqg.” The scenery of this and the olio is the art of the Armbruster studio and the cos¬ tumes come from the Karl Kampmann factory. There are four scenes to the dazzling jubilee offering and the fea¬ ture of these is a biblical spectacle en¬ titled, “David, the Minstrel, with His Harp of a Thousand Strings at the Court of Saul.” The olio will include foreign stars in stunts new and topi¬ cal. The act entitled “At the Bottom of the Sea” will introduce appropriate scenery and effects with expert deep sea divers, contortionists and the like costumed as inhabitants of the briny deep. A popular act called “Can’t I Cheer?” is to be a side-splitting chanticler burlesque. You will see before you the barnyard of old with the dancers and comedians made up as crowing roosters and cackling hens. Here Doc Quigley and his bunch will display what’s bran new in the terp- sichorean pastime. A patriotic act will present a naval display of all the question. Let’s begin saving, all of us, and hike to the country home. My 7 visit to Al G. Field on his farm gave me a view of life I never had before in Life on a farm, where you are in di- ; i rect communion with nature, makes j a fellow a better man. The singing birds, the growing corn, the golden j wheat, the pure air of farm life is in- j spiring and inspiration comes from only one place—high Heaven. DeWolf Buried at Marion. Jimmie DeWolf, the circus press agent, was buried at Marion, Ohio. A short time before his death to a Friar who visited him he said: ‘I have been a good Friar; I have lived a Friar and I want to die a Friar. And he did. Receiving the Friars’ in¬ vitation to their recent jubilee dinner he—too weak to write—had his good mother pen tjjem these words: “Please present my congratulations , '" r Abbot and say this: I wish I could he there to join with the boys in doing him honor.” At this jubilee dinner Willard Coxey, the brilliant ex-circus story writer, eloquently remembered Jimmie DeWolf and sent him this l: wire: “On the occasion ®f the club s t jubilee dinner all Friar.s send cordial ■. greetings. We have not forgotten you and your presence is missed W all.” He passed into the beyond witn this message of love clasped to his heart. When the Two Bills’ show was here Charley Thompson paid our dead the farewell visit. , Of visit Mr. Thompson writes “Jim had hopes and arranged to visit me this winter and his words as I was leaving The side, were: ‘Tell Mrs. Thompson his last 5’ his bed- i 1