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

MARCH 22, 1913. The Billboard s ' THE AMERICAN PUBLIC. ; mnaiees is in no sense an agricultural counP % ; ry. 1@ spaces between cities are occupie (Continued from page 41.) peet beds and bogs and large aan ee po Fy lower classes are not taught by their po wrelling been kept intact by their successiv ’ » that they may t me president as : ‘ners rom the time of the conquest. Usuall) t! re in America, The tradition that sons | '“'8e —of them consist of game pre ar follow in the footsteps of their fathers | 5¢Tveshe owners do not need to cultivate is «st as strong as the caste rules of the them for profit as other benefices accompanied Hi . They seldom advance above the strata them vriginally that rendered this perpetually ty into which they are born. unnecessary. What use, anyhow, when there are colonies to furnish everything necessary ? ik CONTRAST AMERICA OFFERS The island is an agency for its colonies pure | pall is net the only leveler of the classes | and simple; but in this instance the agency D rica The multi-millionaire and the | wields the power of administration. Think of -laried empoye rub elbows at the theater, | a nation of thirty-two million people controlling tl us, and, outside of the very largest | colonies and dependencies with half a hundred eit t the moving pieture exhibition. It is | times as many souls! India alone numbers two h eristic of the United States, too, that | hundred and ninety-two thousand. tl man may have sprung from humble With the conditions that obtain there is littl st le his impecunious belghbor in the au-| chance for the summer showman in England é s the blue blood of a long lineage | There are a few amusement parks that thrive flow in his veins. There is some exaggera in the large cities, but not on the scale of vur th the adage that it is only three genera| own metropolitan institutions of the same na t u the shirt sleeves to shirt sieeves 1D | ture. The people do not have the money t tt try, but the epigram is splendidly spend; and at best they are not the fun-loving of conditions. It expresses especially | race Americans are. They take their pleasure in . t truth: opportunity is never lackiug | other and older ways. Professional amuse ' in who has brains, ability and appii| ments have never gained the foothold on John Ihe smell of the market place or of Bull’s island that they have in the United > th vy shop does not lay one Hable to the | States Britains do not take readily to inno, y of his more fortunate fellows here | vations. TRADITION, p , as vert A flat purse is no badge of dis All this is not to say that English society CR SE a t It may be the result of an unlucky | does not have its advantage over ours for cerA | é oF of misfortune of some other kind. | tain fortunate individuals. The man of cul j it ‘ LAY be a congenial spirit It i8] ture does not have to come into contact with Pp N Grit ; ge iken for granted that he is, unless. | the money grabbing vulgarian as | 1 i AIN ; . . \ abbing g as he does in the pated ag th ge gees a we United States The intellectual bag no dif nederately e equally mem-| fculty in finding kindred spirits in the ost °@(O)Sebers of the great American public. restricted circles. But + Ae has Pin on to compare with the great American public for No Gum \ SEMENT CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND | I the price of theater stalls, for listinctly out of porpoertion to the that when one finally reaches fter distributing backsheesh right fund ‘ f salaries the attendant who opens his cab door loak room attendant, to the usher who eells 2 program—he is reasonably sure that the somely gowned ladies and magnificently g? «1 gentlemen around bim are as innocent ? ¢ their future well-being as they te festiy been free from such pedestrian al the past None of their ancestors ever held a plow or followed the mules on a_ toe pat fueir hands are not more white and soft thar ive been those of their forebc ars ; foi Gr oeretaes There are nv convolutions in their yralus oceasioned by mental exercises indulged the promotion of their business interests; f y » had a progenitor who was in trad be j r spoken of except in whispers behind closed doors, The common herd vecuples the pit This might be the pit of everlasting perdition so upper classes are concerned and they weuld consign them there just as cheerfuliy Still, these haughty occupants of the stalls might stop to consider that they need these *tracised neighbors. crowded together on arm less benehbes, to furnish the wherewithal to maintain thelr army and keep afloat a navy twice the size and strength of that supported by any other power. The thoughtful might rememb that these occupants of the pit are the more fortunate representatives of the producing lass—the class thet bears the burden of the hundreds of royal pensioners at Hampton Court (for, of course, it would not be seemly for the poor relations of the king to have to earn a modest living by their own effort; ob, no; they must be maintained in royal style and idleness) And then, if it were not that the Masses are made to stand the taxes indirectly by a Wage and salary scale ludicrously low thra which the Queen's Horse Guards and other picturesque and useless adjuncts to the royal army are maintained as an asylum for the na tion's gentle youth of social ambitions and a proclivity for parade in gorgeous uniforms, the upper ‘ classes might have to do it themselves or thes garnishments of the army would have tev he abandoned, either alternativ being too dread ful to think of. So it has been decided. no fonbt to allow the masses to live that these luxuries of the hereditary rich may exist and tradition justified The compromise is not with at its disagreeable features to the latter at that The man who takes his wife or his lads friend and sits in the pit of the English thea ter, occupies a relativ position of usefulness t: bis own society that the man does who occupies orchrst a seats in America (going and coming as like as not. In his own machine, which he can afford because he drives it himself) and takes supper at some popular and high-pr'ced caravanserie after the show. and which balcony The class in Eng corresponds to that occupying our and gallery at the play. never goes to the theater at all; it can’t afford to. It is baving all the excitement {it needs trying to keep the wolf from the dovr. As in France, the moving picture theaters f Pngland exact an admission price correspond ‘ng to that of our first-class vaudevil theaters. The exhibitions are long and the patronage is omparativiy small When it is taken into ae leretion that the stenegrafer who earns 7 fifteen or twenty dollars a week in the Bited States would receive perhaps the equiva lent of four. six or seven and one-half dollars in Eng ‘od. and that all salaries are graduated to this stondard it is easily understood why the Movies do not appeal to the masses there as they do here. A reduction in the price of ad nh would not relleve the situation If hose who could afford to pay a five-cent admis Shor ere attracted to the exhibitions those who now patronize them would remain aw ay, and the " cers wonld lose out Such ts the state of ~~ 'y in England. No class wil! mix with even " ohe next below it. Tradition again ) re are more moving picture theaters in us. Obie. than there are in London, with a 's pine million Inhabitants The halls * they eall them over there, and the ‘tion, tho merely a matter of acceni ls ' malaprepes) in the outlving districts of , £ cities do not put on the kind of enter be mt that would cause one who has any of discrimination to care to return the shuwman’s purposes. AGAIN AN AMERICAN CONTRAST. There are cities of a hundred and fifty thou sand or even less in America that support from three to six first-class attractions (each for one night) a week These same cities contain vau devil houses in which the best acts are played, amusement parks with up-to-date devices anid the best equipment. motion picture theaters in verious business and neighborhood sectiuns and ii which the newest and best films are regularly shown The visiting circuses are largely at tended. The amusement adjunct of the fair prospers, This is possible because all the people—the public—have money The percentage of them who own automobiles is astoundingly large Unskilled laborers pay taxes on the houses in which they live and rear large families. Few indeed are those who ferego amusement for want of means to indulge their desire for it. A GLANCE AT THE REST OF EUROPE. Take Germany; the masses are accustomed t practice the strictest economy. The domain is congested. Life is a stfuggle for the lower classes in Germany fur about the it is for the corresponding society excessiv taxation, the maintenance nobility and an _ hereditary what is true of Germany and like measure of same reasons in France of rvyalty, aristocracy. And France is true in Austria-Hungary and Italy. There are swarms of beggars in the streets of Italy, excusing their mendicancy by thé ostensible peddling of flowers, trinkets and what not. Not even in London. where one is never permitted to open his own cab dvor because there is always an idle piece of human floatsam near who rushes to do it, expecting (and usually receiving «ven from the nativs who ust cabs) a tip for the services. Not even here is there anything like the poverty and distress with which one meets in Italy. The estates of the nobility tho are the largest and most beau tiful in the world. preserved intact from feudal times ‘“‘No pickings for me here,’’ says the American showman, looking for new worlds t conquer, and passes on. And as he goes he reflects upon the irony of things “Klaw & Erlanger have always said thet they would be willing to divide the gal lery receipts with the managers in whose theaters their attractions were bookt for their share of the profits,’’ be says to himself. “They'd have starved to death long ago on that plan if conditions had been the same in America as they are in Europe, and they had put it into effect B. E. Wallace declares that he would be will ing to turn his show over to anyone to ruD who would agree to give him all the refresh ment privilege money taken in. If the Roman Coliseum were restored and he should pack it to capacity twice a day during the usual cir cus season he would sell enuf pink lemonade and ice cream cones and popcorn to buy ferd for rhinoceros."’ Russia is even worse from the showman's point of view. The common people are more Opprest there than anywhere else in Europe. Po litical graft in a democracy—privilege and mon opoly and all the rest—loses much of its fear someness when set beside the bugaboo of a bureaucracy. THE ORIENT NOT FERTILE FOR China is just waking up. It eral generations before this race of industrial laggards can place manufacturing on the splendid plane that has long been occupied by their agriculture. At present the people are prac tically all engaged in land cultivation and the commerce of its products. Consequently it is AMERICANS will be sev the most thickly settled country in the world. When the population has left the farm for the factory here and cities take the place of gardens their condition shall have been improved. At present there is nothing in the masses for the showman. Japan, overburdened with a wardebt for which its people are taxed for all they can stand—the recent riots in Tokyo brought the truth of this even more plainly into light overcrowded as to population; with every inch of her islands under cultivation that can be made to bear: Japan then, offers no alluring field for the prospector whose vein of gold must be drawn from the masses Hle hos passed India over knowing that it ruled by caste (Continued on page 176.) DEATH AND DESTRUCTION The Fall of Mexico City ») the negatives of three expert camera men eam of all Mexican war slides. 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