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Show !THE KAISER AND THE TOMATO TV "I EXT to his daughter the two things Btf' August Koerner loved best in the h " world were the Kaiser and tomatoes B He loved the Kaiser so much that he H1 I never became a naturalized American, m u although he lived for years in a small l city on the New England coast, had B built up the biggest grocery business M in the town and was blessed with a V fat bank account of American dollars. M' He loved tomatoes so much that he M ate them every day of his life. Who fl the war came, August Koerner was on M the side of Germany; he kept on fl revering the Kaiser and eating to- M matoos. "When it began to look as m though America would got into the B scrap, August Koerner persisted in H thinking that President Wilson would M keep us out, for in his opinion it was H "not America's war." His appetite H ' for tomatoes remained good. When m wo finally declared war on Germany, H August Koerner remained German, m heart and soul. He did not subscribe w for Liberty Bonds, but he bought to- H matoes. An honest, good-hearted man, H I who loved his children and a fat to- H mato, August Koerner respected the H patriotism of his American neighbors, H but he could not forget that American H I' soldiers were going overseas to fight H the forces in which his son Karl was fl enrolled, for Karl was somewhere in H the fight on the German side. Au- H gUBt Koerner's two daughters, born in H' America, were products of the melting H" pot. Both married patriotic young H Americans. The husband of one came r back from France blinded from shell H shock. August Koerner's grocery H ' business, naturally, had gone to smash H J by this time, and there was talk of a H coat of tar and feathers for him. H But he had lots of money to buy to- H matoes, and his faith in the Kaiser Hjf was strong. Only a few old friends Hg who knew his good heart while they Hi loathed his allegiance to the Kaiser, H remained faithful to him. They al- H ways had tomatoes when he came to Hf dinner. And then August Koerner's Hf son came home. He had commanded H a German submarine, had sunk fishing Hl boats and passenger steamers, had HJ shelled lifeboats and carried out the Hf whole program of sea frightfulness. H His submarine had been wrecked on H the New England coast and he arrived H at his father's house, sick of the work H he had done and damning the Kaiser's H soul to hell. Just before Karl entered, H ! August Koerner had gone to the side- H,, board for a tomato. Doubtless one ob- Iject of his affection suggested the other. August Koerner postponed his tomato feast for a minute. He pulled H down the blinds, took a picture of the H Kaiser out of the safe, set it up on HL the mantel and was about to give it H: the salute of a devoted German when Hj Karl entered his father's dining room. H; Karl told his father what he had been H doing for the Kaiser. It was a terrible H story of butchery. August Koerner Ht was disillusioned. He was enraged. H He picked up. a tomato and landed it Hl squarely in the middle of the Kaiser's H picture. The soft missile mussed the H Kaiser's face. The juice squirted into 1 his eyes and mustache, and the pulp H flattened on his imperial German nose. Hitting his beloved Kaiser with his beloved be-loved tomato, August Koerner 'becomes 'be-comes a good American. This, roughly, rough-ly, is Crane Wilbur's "Common Cause," a war-timo melodrama of which the Kaiser is the villain and a tomato is the hero. There are some very patriotic speeches in this play, and the audience, likes them immensely; immense-ly; but the "big moment" is when the tomato spoils the Kaiser's picture. Henry Simmer, our old friend of the Alcazar, plays August Koerner, making mak-ing him a very human old fellow. In the last tomato scene his aim is so true that you'd think he had been throwing tomatoes at the Kaiser all his life. Edward F. O'Day, in Town Talk. |