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SHOWMAN
ther we went, the heavier the losses were. Our lecture at the Hippodrome in New York cost $1750 and brought in $600.
The thing that disgusted me was the way Henson's own people refused to support him. If the negroes had given him a tenth of the play they've given Joe Louis —whom he somewhat resembled, as a matter of fact— he'd have been treated fairly enough. As it was, I had to compromise his contract, pay him off and let him drop into undeserved oblivion. He lives in Brooklyn now, holding down some obscure Federal job, which is about all he ever got out of being a negro who had outdone all white men but one in the three-hundredyear race for the Pole.
When I think back to this period, however, it's the Iroquois Fire in Chicago that I can never forget. I missed being in it by a couple of minutes. On the fatal afternoon— December 30, 1903— I had Wilton Lackaye in "The Pit" playing the Garrick Theater, just a block down the street from the Iroquois, doing tremendous business— after all, "The Pit," made out of Frank Norris' novel about the grain market, was laid in Chicago. The Iroquois had the other big show in town— Eddie Foy in "Bluebeard, Jr.," one of the Americanized English Christmas pantomimes, which were very popular back then. As soon as I had my show started in a packed matinee, I went down the street in one of those bitter cold midwinter days Chicago is so given to, to see how "Bluebeard, Jr.," was making out.
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