The Billboard 1913-03-22: Vol 25 Iss 12 (1913-03-22)

~ MARCH 22, 1913. The Great American Public By Clyde Phillips The American public is a force to be reckoned with whether one be a politician, the purveyor of a staple commodity, or a caterer to the amuse ment appetites of the masses. It is at once the most intelligent and the most playful public in the world. Also it is the most prosperous of publics. For these reasons it is the most profitable for the exploitation of the amusement man. Our class distinctions, here in America, are only nominal, at mor*. That is why Americanborn citizens do not make good servants. The spirit of democracy has pervaded the populace, permeated to the depths of society, wiped out and eradicated old-world traditions concerning master and man. The adult American of the male sex never forpee that our form of government is based on the srinciple that all men are born free and equal; ‘that his vote counts for just as much as any other man’s. If he be a waiter his acceptance of your > gratuity is liable to be accompanied by a familiar pe observation regarding the state of weather or the result of the latest sporting event. In America the tip as an institution is limited in result. to the purpose for which it was created by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors beyond the Atlantic—to insure promptness—and not always effectually at that; not by any means. Over there it continues to be a token of superiority on the part of the giver and an acknowledgment of servility by the recipient. Here, in cases where it does not insure efficient service, it may be considered one of the many species of graft for which America is noted—graft that is pretty generally distributed instead of going exclusively to royal families, royal favorites, royal poor relations, and the limited few who make its collection possible {n many countries beyond the seas. It is tradition that impels a modern people {o recognize the authority of a king—to support royalty and nobility—no more than it is that "Causes them to take their own inferiority for granted; to bend in humble genuflection to those whom they acknowledge as masters. In America we have no such traditions. If ‘the immigrant has not heard before he starts for “this land of the free that every man is considered —by himself at least—as good as his neighbor. he learns it as soon as he arrives; and his old humility is cast off like a serpent’s skin. Uncle Sam's domains have served as the crucible for many and divers inherited habits of mind. While the result may not be the most desirable from the standpoint of the employing classes, as such, and the traveler, of aristocratic sociological doctrine, it is nevertheless of unmeasured benefit to that species of filanthropist who undertakes to provide the masses with amusement. Where, but in America, would the proprietors of our eighty-car, three-ring and two-platform, ten-thousand-seating-capacity circuses find profitable patronage year after year? It is not merely because the country is so large that they do, tho this, of course, is no small factor in their success. The size of the country regulates the number of -big shows, not their dimensions. The reason is found in the prosperity of the people as a whole. The class in this country that corresponds to the peasantry of old-world countries, are landed proprietors—industrious, independent, sowing wide acres and reaping abundant harvests. Their stock is well kept and usually more than sufficient to their needs; their barns amply filled; their ‘ribs stockt with smoked and salt meats: their dairy and poultry products beyond their own requirements as a source of income. Their fare is fenerally pure, wholesome and abundant. They are healthy, happy, free from care, not overburdened with tax. Asa rule they have money in the bank. : The comparativ solitude of their lives turns them eagefly to those forms of amusement within their reagh. Their picnics, celebrations, reunions, other local events of a strictly amateur nature, ate interspersed with amusements of a aa + > o>, professional character. The circuses that come to the nearest town are generally visited. The district and county fairs receive their patronage. These are luxuries of which the American farmer seldom stints himself on purely economic grounds. He sees all there is to see, and he pays for it willingly. The Masses In Europe Are Poor. Compare this state of affairs with the conditions abroad. Even in Europe the farmer is little better than aserf. He is the victim of caste as inexorable as the laws of the Medes and the Persians. Ground down by excessiv taxation, hampered by the many relics of the feudal age that hedge him about, he plods along as stolidly, as hopelessly, as did his ancesters who were the siaves of some conquering tribe. He is the victim or atavism. Submission thru the generations of his forebears affects him in the nature of heredity. Only nominally is he free. In reality he is a slave descended from slaves. The ground he cultivates is owned by someone whose progenitors acquired it by coronial grant for some deed of arms in a day when militarism ruled the world. He works it on shares. The share he gets for his labor is pitiably small. A gentleman, who was traveling by motor thru the south of France, tells of having noticed an old woman sitting by the roadside, a long, funnelshaped basket filled with vegetable truck leaning against a fence near by. He regarded her as an object of commiseration. She seemed to be past the allotted three score and ten; her form was bent from toil; her face was seamed, care-worn and weather-beaten. It seemed to the traveler that she must be unspeakably tired. As he was was about to inquire her destination and offer her a lift thereto, if consistent, she rose, inserted her arms thru the straps that served as handles of the basket, and, bending forward to keep it from dragging on the ground, trudged away. As his car passed her the motorist saw that she was knitting as she walked. It is not unlikely that this woman was on her way to market in the nearest town. It is probable, furthermore, that while she disposed of her small store of vegetables, the several men and two or three women of the household toiled ceaselessly in the little garden scarcely larger than the average small American farmer’s barn lot, upon a small share of the products of which they were solely dependent. That would be the usual condition, not only in France, but in all the countries of Europe. It is the masses upon whom the purveyor of amusement pabulum must depend for his patronage in any country. Where the masses are prosperous amusements will thrive, Dut where there is painful attentuosity of means and enforct frugality among those who literally toil for their daily bread, they will not. The American workman earns bigger wages and lives on a better scale than in any other country, even considering that the cost of living in America is greater. The mechanics are highclass, intelligent, efficient. Even unskilled workmen have the advantage of wholesome food, ample recreation and comfortable abodes. All classes find their diversion in attendance at places of amusement, patronizing liberally. Amusement Conditions In France. In contrast to this, the workmen of older countries find life a struggle. How few of them will you find in the theaters in Paris. In France, where the agricultural fair, as we know it in America, had its inception, only the classes seek the benefits of the association and diversion at such events. The admission price to amusement parks is three francs on the average—quite beyond the reach of those not in easy circumstances, for wages are low in that Gallic country. It is not extraordinary to see a delivery wagon which might be drawn by two horses in any American city, propelled by a bloused biped of the genus homo. Arrived at an address where a delivery is to be made he laboriously disengages himself from the leathern harness in which he has been hitched, extracts the article desired from the contents of the wagon and carries it to the farthest back of the back doors he ean find. Then he returns, gets into his harness and drags his truck along. It may be that his consumption of horseflesh as a regular diet conduces to his equine submission to his lot, for beef is a luxury beyond the reach of the average workman in France However, a spectacle like that just described impels one, who is visiting the country for the first time, to ask whether they eat their horses and do the work themselves that would otherwise be done by the useful animal. The nativ complacently replies that the horses are not killed for food until they have ceased to be useful as beasts of burden! I know of an office boy in Paris whose lunch regularly consists of a piece of broiled horseflesh, a slice of bread and a pint of claret! The Claret costs about one cent. Is it to be expected that a people so opprest would patronize amusements? At least no American showman would think of emigrating permanently to our sister republic to engage in the pursuit of his profession until the common people of that country have laid aside their wooden shoes and all that they signify. The splendor of the boulevards is strangely contrasted in the squalor of the side streets. The moving picture exhibitions, like the parks, exact admission prices that are prohibitiv to the working classes in France. In America their very name is interchangeable with ‘‘n&ckle show.” Over there picture show managers ‘receive the equivalent of twenty-five, thirty-five and fifty cents admission. The exhibitions run for several hours. There is no thought of catering to the masses. It is doubtful if they could be attracted in appreciable numbers if the almigsion prices were divided by ten, in which case the present patrons would remain away ans the moving Ppicture business would soon end in fiasco. There is no mixing of classes in France. The distinctions are as markt as they were in the fays of the empire. The consequence is that the working classes of the lower order repair to those *abarets in the Montmartre from which our own new entertainment took the name only in addjtion to the idea. That is to say, there is no similarity in the character of the performances. e A cabaret in that section of Paris called Montmartre. is but one degree from the A*pache rendezvous. The mixed audience sits sipping wine while a singer entertains them with gongs that please the more as they are the more suggestiv. As there are some who prefer vulgarity to suggestivness, and the management aims @irectly to please all, there are usually a few vufgar pieces in the program. ’ The price of this entertainment is‘one drink for each person, no less. Few take more. Wine is usually drank, but tho wine is cheap in Paris generally, it is unbelievingly cheap in the Montmartre. The singer also passes among the aurdience disposing of copies of his songs. his seems to be for the benefit of American viftors only. however. No, there is no professional —oy for the American showman in France. The people are taxt as heavily as they can bear that a large standing army may be supported and Pe administrativ government maintained on a plane of magnificence emulating the imperial splendor of the Tuilleries, Versailles or Saint Cloud The Frenchman who is dependent for his living upon his own efforts from year to vear, will ery “Viva Republic,” with all the ardor of his emotional nature; but all the same he harbors a respect that is akin to awe for the fgllen aristocracy of his land. The young none of the (Continued on page 1980.) 1 — Sd | eal ames . ~~