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Show BEAVER PRESS National Topics Interpreted by William Bruckart 'grJ Crtxirm? 'tfo Ice By ELMO SCOTT WATSON ' they were getting ready to 1 UST when ring down the curtain for the last time on a classic of the stage, out from the wings came those Immortals, "Uncle Tom" and "Little Eva" and "Topsy" and "Simon Legree" to take another bow. Which Is by way of saying that early this year The Players, with such stars as Otis Skinner, Cecelia Loftns, Kate Mayhew, Joanna Koos, Fay Balnter, Edward McNamara and Lois Shore, revived "Uncle Tom's Oahln, or Life In one of the leading New Among the Lowly York theaters. It meant that this historic drama may be starting on a new lease of life to add to the laurels which It has already won. Chief among those laurels are these: It Is a play which has had the longest continuous run In all stage history; in It have appeared at one time or another a greater number of stage luminaries than in any other play In American theatrical history; It has been performed before more people and has made more money than any play ever written In modern times and despite the latter fact no one has ever received any royalties from It nor did Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author, ever receive a penny of profit from the dramatization of her book ; it Is the most representative American folk drama and It bears in the parlance of the American stage the most distinctive name the "Tom show"; It has In It the elements of tragedy, comedy, melodrama, farce, yes, even vaudeville, but It defies classification under any of these heads, for It Is Itself alone, the "Tom show." "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had a continuous run of 78 years, besides which record the lasting quali"Abie's Irish Rose" pale ties of the into Insignificance. From 1852 to 1928 there wasn't a season when at some time day or night or in some place In these United States that the whip of "Simon Legree" wasn't whistling across the back of "Uncle Tom" or "Eliza" wasn't fleeing across the Ice, pursued by a baying pack of "fierce bloodhounds." Then the depression came on to give the final blow to those administered by other factors In the decline of this classic. In 19,10 a Boston newspaper reported : "There is not now on the rond In any section of the United States or Canada a single company playing that grand old drama 'Uncle Tom's Cabin. . , . For the same reason that the minstrel show owners of the country took their shows from the road, Tom managers found it necessary to shut up shop. The talking pictures and the radio have combined to kill both the minstrel and the Tom shows. There Is not a single booking agency in New York City which could furnish t stand company unless a route for any it was willing to sacrifice Saturday, the best night of the week, for the showing of Wild West or talking pictures." The same statement was probably true In 19.11 but In 19.12 it was discovered that In a small town in the West a home talent company was producing the play as a part of Its repertory of stock plays. And now this year comes the revival In New York to prove that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Is deathless even If there were not ureat stage names In the cast to lend It prestige. flth the apparent return of srnne measure of prosperity to this country, it Is not Improbable that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" may be off on another continuous run of 76 years I When "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was first printed In book form it sold 10,000 copies the first week and 300,000 in the first year. Half a million copies had been distributed In the United States alone In Its first five years and It has been translated Into more than a score of foreign languages and dialects. The entire sale of the book In the years since It was written have exceeded 12,000,t00, about 7.000,000 of which never paid any royalties to the author, being sold In foreign countries before the establishment of International copyright law. The copyright, under the then existing statute, expired a few years previous to Mrs, Stowe's death in the late eighties, and the last few years of her life, when she was mKt In need of money, site was deprived of this source of income. far-fame- d . one-nigh- Washington. Things have happened J and the view I have expressed cannot be illustrated better tha"n the position here In Washington at such a rate recently that most which the senate took with respect to Treat Separately of us have been the Versailles treaty after the World war. The same thought seems still With Nations who"y obliJioua to be dominant, for the proposal that to the existence the United States adhere to the World and the subsequent death of the worldcourt has been pending in the senate wide economic conference in London, and the aftermath of those sessions. so long that it is approaching deterioration. The Roosevelt theory, as True, there never could have been anything come of the conference for the thus far unfolded, fails to give the Imsimple reason selfishness ruled that pression of Isolation for the United States such as always was favored by meeting as it rules every other meetformer Senator James A. Reed of Mising of representatives of different peosouri, and the late Senator Henry ples. But it appears from this vantage point that our government is now Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, accord ready to embark on a' new course, one ing to the views I hear in Washington which It could hardly have tackled discussions, but it Is not far from that had the London conference never been position. held. So at least the London confer The administration is going ahead ence resulted In clarifying the general to bring about reduction of the wheat situation from our own standpoint You have seen the signs of moves acreage next year whether we call by our government in the last month Cutting in guarded announcements to the efof Wheat Acreage " a Pollcy or not and fect that Department of State's experts were surveying the possibilities of it Is going to see that only so much is trade treaties with many nations. produced as will be neded for use In treaties and this country. It may seem that the They are called affect, of course, only the two nations wheat reduction program Is rather far entering into the compact. While the afield from the London conference, but London conference was going on, It let us remember that Secretary Walwould not have been a gesture of hope lace made the announcement that the for success in that gathering had the program would be employed on the United States at the same time moved very day the London conference adjourned. All of the Department of openly to arrange individual treaties with nations participating in those disAgriculture machinery was set in mocussions. That very thing was being tion that day, and it may be added that like the trade treaty situation, done, nevertheless, and now the effort Is no longer concealed. The all of the necessary facts and figures United States is seeking to c!o in the for use in the domestic allotment plan, treaties with individual nations some were already compiled and on the secof the things It sought, and failed, to retary's desk. It seems Just possible, do at London. therefore, that not too much had been expected from the conversations in Secretary Hull is back from London. London regarding world wheat probHe has had a night of confidential conversation with President Roosevelt He lems. Secretary Wallace estimated that Is ready to go ahead, Indeed, he is bushels would be needed 456,000,000 to the President charged by proceed, out of next year's crop the 1934 acrewith the new plan of action. Consein addition to the carryover from quently. In the next few months we are age this and previous years to supply to much hear about agreements likely between the United States and various domestic needs. Accordingly, he has other nations by which trade barrrers sent Instructions to farm agents or will be removed to some extent and agricultural extension agents in the counties to get better understandings will have been various to work on contracts with the farmobtained about commercial relations. ers. The agreements are like those There are so many barriers to the which the cotton farmers were asked flow commerce free of these days, aside and did, sign. It is a voluntary to, from the low level of purchasing power If the farmer signs the proposition. one from the that resulting depression, to contract some of bis norwithhold can see possibilities of great results. mal acreage from plrfnting next year, Yet as observers here view the situhe will benefit by the receipt of cold ation Secretary Hull has a hard job. cash to the extent of 28 cents a Nations are selfish, or their people are. bushel out of the sum which the govwant to their protect They naturally ernment collects as a processing tax. markets and they obviously are unI am told that Secretary Wallace willing to give up anything unless they is about ready to announce how much else. Is to So be there gain something the acreage will have to be reduced trading; there will have to be trading, in the 2,233 counties in 42 states where and the United States will have to wheat is more than a side crop such give in somewhere with every naas on that "strip across the ditch." tion in the treaty negotiations. The maximum that will be cut is 20 For instance. If a new trade treaty cent of a farmer's average acreage per were to be negotiated with France, over the past five years', but my inforit appears that France certainly would mation indicates the reduction will be have to agree to remove limitations on considerably less than the maximum. certain kinds of imports from the United States. They are called If all of the farmers agree to requotas. They prescribe that only so duce their acreage, the cash paid out of" Amer thousand many pounds, say, this fall and next ican wheat can ' be imported Into Farmers to Get spring will total France, In turn, no doubt, France an I138.000.000. will demand that the United States es$136,000,000 addition to the tablish a lower tariff duty on some purchasing power of the wheat councommodities which that nation heretoties that cannot be ignored. Under fore has shipped here In large quanti the contract which the farmers will' be ties. asked to sign, they will receive an Initial payment on their allotment of But to get back to the London con 20 cents a bushel as early this fall as ference: I recall having written In county wheat control assothese columns at ciations can beproduction and the Inorganized outset of those dividual allotments Plans Another the completed. The sessions that Pres-- I second Road payment, constituting the red e n t Roosevelt mainder of the sum due, will be paid was in a highly advantageous position the farmers next spring when they when he promoted the meeting of some will be asked to submit proof that they 64 nations. Whether he expected the have reduced the acreage as agreed la widely advertised conference was fry their contract. ing to fail, as a great many persons The secretary's allotment program believed, by entering was broken down Into allotments for into It, sending a large American dele each county to which It is applied. gation to participate and doing the County control associations will be other things that gave the appearance supplied with the total estimated to be of sincerity, he maneuvered at the produced in their respective counties, build same to time another road and the Department of very Agriculture exwhich this country can follow. When the hope that farmers would pressed the London conference was called, the not grow impatient if they were unbig Issue was whether our government able to learn the figures for the home should act In unison with other world areas Immediately. The Job will be powers on an International basis or done as fast as It Is humanly possible whether we were to become an In to do It. tensely nationalistic country. There In fixing the size of the wheat crop Mr. Roosevelt on the one next year, the government calculators fore, while hand was pushing American plans and took Into consideration every known proposals Into the conference for an factor. But they had to make a guess International understanding, he was on one thing, the weather. They ason the other hand driving legislation sumed that the weather was going to like the farm adjustment act, highly be "normal" next year and that there nationalistic In character, through would be a normal That Is, crop. congress. they figured the weather conditions While every ounce of energy Is be would be such as to produce a crop ing used to stabilize American crop equivalent to the average of the last production within the limits of our five years. I have been unable to own needs and while every effort is learn what the allotment plan contembeing utilized to create a manufactur plates In event there should be a wide within spread drought or how the acreage ing structure our own limits, the President now Is would be treated If there happened to seeking to fortify those acts and he a bumper crop. strengthen our position by treaties with Individual nations on trade relaThe government divided up the tions. In other words, he Is complet bushels which it figured should Ing the picture of nationalism. he grown next year on the basis of Whether his program Is to develop the percentagf each of the 42 slates successfully Is quite ((not her matter had grown of the total crop In the He has rejoined what I liellevc Is the last five years. The total of bushels majority of the American public in the to be produced next year appears to view that the United State cannot be about 55 per cent of the average ever act Jointly with most of the world amount of the crop In the last five Conditions and traditions powers. years. heretofore have made It wheat-growin- HneteTatrt and Zz'tfe The first dramatization of the book was made by George L. Aiken while the story was running serially in the National Era. On September 2, 1852, Aiken's play had its premiere in the Museum at Troy, N. Y., and from that time dates the Immense popularity of "Uncle Tom's Cab-In- ." As a matter of fact this was not tha first stage production of the show, but it was the first successful one. A certain Charles W. Taylor had also dramatized the book and In August, 1S52, a month before the Troy production, he presented a play running only an hour, as one Item on the evening bill at Purdy's National theater in New York City. But fatal error ! he left both Topsy and Little Eva out of his story so his play was a failure, being withdrawn after a run of only 11 nights. The Troy production was largely a family affair. The manager of the Troy museum, George C Howard, played both "Uncle Tom" and "St. Clare." His wife played both "Topsy" and "Chloe." Mrs. Howard's brother, Charles Fox, played both "Phineas Fletcher" and "Gumption Cute" and Mrs. Fox played "Ophelia." George L. Aiken, the dramatist and a cousin of Howard, doubled as "Shelby" and "George Harris" and his brother, Frank Aiken, played "Marks." And finally the part of Little Eva was played by Cordelia Howard, the daughter of the Howards who thus had the distinction often claimed by others of being "th first Little Eva." She played that role for eight years, then at the age of twelve she left the stage never to return. In the year which marks definitely the decline of the Tom shows, she was still living at the age of nearly eighty, a recluse who refused to see anyone or to talk of her career as "the first Little Eva." The Howards' production of the play, with Just seven people carrying the eleven roles, was an instantaneous success. It not only carried the country by storm but It crossed the Atlantic. In 1853 a curious English version of It, filled with "Waal, I calculate" and similar supposed Yankee-Ismwas produced at the Theater Royal In Manchester, England. Arthur Rnhl, writing In the New York Herald Tribune, about the current revival reviews Its early history as follows: "I .a Case de l'Oncle Tom.' 'Onkle Tom's Huette. 'Iji Cabana del TIo Tomas' the thing swept like a prairie fire Into every language In the western world. It ran down Into Africa Itself, was devoured by the Armenians and other Near Easterners, and little Slavs, In a Russia which still had Its serfs, wept over 'llata Djnda Toma' or something that sounded 'more or less like that. Letters from everybody of consequencefrom Maeaulay, Pickens, Charles Kings-ley- , statesmen and political leaders, the great George Sand. German pundits, even the mocking Heine was stirred." And Otis Skinner, who plays "Uncle Tom" In the revival, a role which he first played In 1873 In a stock company at the Philadelphia Museum, writing In the New York Times recently, contributes this bit of history: "In August. 1878, Jarrett A Palmer, an enterprising firm of New York managers, made a small fortune by taking the play overseas to England, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Holland. In the company were Marie Bates, who Is still remembered as playing long and prominently with Pavld Warfield In The Auctioneer,' and Harry Hawk, who was on the stage of Ford's theater in Washington at the moment that Lincoln was shot in the box above him by John Wilkes Booth. "Another In that company was Harold a gorgeous specimen of the old time heavy man. Harold was of the stage stagy; he seemed to think In the terms of melodrama and blank verse. White the troupe was exhibiting In Germany his delight was to parade through the streets of Berlin and other cities Pressed iu the four-year-ol- d s, Fos-bur- teL boots, spurs, planter's hat and coat of Legree, followed by two of the negro singers from the cast, at whom he occasionally cracked his black-snak- e whip to the profound amazement of the passers-by- . "Noted actors have at times appeared in the play: Joseph Jefferson, William Warren, George L. For of 'Humpty Dumpty' memory, John Gilbert and William Lemoyne, who became favorites on the New York stage, Lotta and Mary McVIcker, afterward the wife of Edwin Booth, each of whom played both Eva and Topsy on different occasions in short, the leading members of every dramatic company of record in the United States from 1852 until William A. Brady's revival of 'Uncle Tom' In 1901 with Theodore Roberts and Wilton Lackaye. Among those who have played in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' one finds such other notable names as Lawrenee Barrett, John McCullough, Louis James, John T. Raymond, David Belasco, Edwin Adams, Annie Russell, Mary Plckford, Maude Adams, Fay Temple-toMrs. Fiske, Henrietta Crosman, Charles Thorne, John S. Clarke and Effie Shannon. "The part of Topsy was sometimes acted by men: records show that John Drew's uncle, Frank Drew, and Fred Stone appeared in It Even Little Eva was once played by William Seymour." The "Simon Legrees" have been legion, but there was perhaps never a more unusual one than John L. Sullivan ! J. W. Goodrich, who had managed a wagon circus through Connecticut and New York state for several years, one fall organized an "Uncle Tom's Cabin" company to play theaters throughout the East. He secured as his big feature John L. Sullivan, who played Simon Legree and used up in the course of a few weeks half a dozen "Toms," who, no matter how much they padded under the red flannel shirt, could not stand the rough usage received from the famous pugilist In the whipping scene. Ern G. Estey of Lynn was playing "Tom" In the show and he probably lasted longer In the role than any other actor. He wore .under his red shirt a vest that was lined an Inch thick with cotton. This oftentimes was inadequate to afford sufficient protection from the lashings he received some evenings when John L. had been entertaining friends in his dressing room and desired to give them a good account of himself as nn actor later on. John L. remained with the Goodrich show as long as it n, , wa3 on the rond. f Mention has been made of the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe never made a penny of profit from the dramatization of her book. For there was no copyright law in the 1850' s and there was no way for the novelist to collect from the playwright who made use of the material In the book. More than that, Mrs. Stowe knew very little about the theater It wasn't "proier," you see, for (he daughter of a New England clergyman to have anything to do with such a wicked institution as the stage. She was greatly surprised when the play proved to be such a success but she does not seem to have resented either the dramatization nor the success. Once she mnde a dramatization of the book herself but It wasn't "good theater" so It was never staged. The only profit she ever received from the dramatization of her book was in the form of a free box in a theater In Hartford, Conn., where she was living In her old age. A road show playing "Uncle Tom" came to town and she went to see the piny for the first time with her friend, Charles Dudley Warner, the essayist and. novelist. And Warner, sitting beside her In her free box, had to explain the plot of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to Harriet r.oechpr Stowe, for she could not understand It as the actors and actresses were presenting her Immortal story I ( br Western Newspaper Union.) g whole-heartedl- y Impossible . 1931. Western New.nimiT t'nlon. |