The past year has been an appalling one for the mushroom producing manager. I mean those insolent young men nearing the thirties, who by accident or some unknown reason secure control of musical comedies written by some obscure author and after interesting friends to the extent of investing capital enough to enable them to produce the aforesaid comedies, they launch their productions and sometimes get them over.

They look about for the best available talent, establish salaries that make it prohibitive for legitimate producers to sustain, and calmly go on their way. If they fail they can assign the production to the storehouse and leave their artists in any town or city where they come a cropper. If they succeed with their first venture they at once organize two or three road companies and go through the country circusing their first accidental success. They establish themselves in expensive offices; engage a staff and go at once into the producing game seriously, seeking the best authors and composers and outbidding managers of standing, and endeavor to secure prevailing European successes, or produce original plays of their own. Naturally, their lack of training and experience is a handicap and their first success is seldom followed by another. Two or three successive failures soon put them on the shelf and they seek the Bankruptcy Court to avoid their creditors. Artists are left stranded with an inflated idea of their respective values and generally indulge in a well merited vacation.

They have no sense of honor and their idea of speculation is to invest a shoe string with an idea of securing a tannery.

One of these producers was standing in the lobby of a New York theatre, last season, on the eve of one of his $30,000.00 productions, when he was approached by one of the leading actors of the past winter, to whom he owed several thousand dollars back salary. The actor offered to compromise for a thousand. The manager looked at him and replied: "My boy, where could I get the thousand?" These are the methods that are destroying the theatrical game.

Irresponsible managers have only to enter the office of these syndicates, assure the gentleman in charge that they have a production ready costing many thousands of dollars, and the booking agent at once arranges a tour, throwing aside standard attractions who have not invested quite as much money as the new producer, and the older attraction must take what is given him or leave it alone. If he objects, he is told that the Mushroom Manager has invested from $20,000 to $50,000 in his enterprise and his capital must be protected and the terms made accordingly. In other words, the booking agents gamble with them and allow them a percentage of the gross receipts according to the amount of his investment. I consider this all wrong and one of the reasons of the unsuccessful theatres of the present day.

Men who have judgment and talent should be protected. If they draw the money, what matter to the booking agent what amount of money has been invested?

Three or four of these Mushroom Managers have gone into bankruptcy this season and they can be found every evening at present, tangoing on the various roof gardens, where they belong.

There is no denying the fact that as a nation we prate about patriotism that does not exist. Every foreign artist who visits our shores finds us ready to bow down and pay homage, be it the Mistress of a dethroned king, a bare-legged Countess or an anemic tragedian. I have no desire to be personal; but the adulation, attention and grovelling at the feet of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson is to me, as an American actor, simply disgusting; not that Sir John is not a good actor, or even a great actor, but I have memories of a departed actor named Edwin Booth, who lost a million dollars in an honest endeavor to perpetuate his art by erecting a playhouse which bore his name. Now, this foreigner who has done absolutely nothing to advance the art of acting, advertises his farewell to a public who are as fickle as they are undiscriminating and packs the theatres, giving his last performance in New York to receipts that dear Edwin Booth never dreamed of playing to; conspicuous citizens pay him tribute, and go forth proclaiming his performance of Hamlet superior to that of Booth. How we Americans forget and fawn. One of our best known and oldest comedians at present appearing before the public, had the extreme bad taste after witnessing the performance of Robertson's Hamlet, to enter the Players Club, which Edwin Booth presented to the profession, and pronounce Robertson's Hamlet superior to Booth's. As a boy I had the pleasure of witnessing Booth play Hamlet; I saw a prince to his finger tips looking the character of a philosopher of thirty, and playing it to perfection. Now an anemic old gentleman past sixty, with a supporting company of which Corse Payton would be ashamed, is packing the playhouses of America, bidding farewell to a public that has long since forgotten Edwin Booth and his supporting company, which included such actors as Edwin Adams, John McCullough, Milnes Levick and divers others of equal talents. One never heard of E. L. Davenport's farewell nor Edwin Forrest's, another actor who left a home for actors incapacitated for work; they are in the grave, forgotten. Actors are walking Broadway seeking employment, others are travelling seeking to earn a livelihood, while an anemic old gentleman is calmly gathering in the American dollars to build his English palace.

How unfortunate to grow up with one's Country! Far better to burst suddenly upon it—unknown—but heralded!

One failure in America will blot out the memory of a score of successes. Here art is sold by the yard.

To realize the unimportance of art, read the average critical review of it.

Acting is now a matter of geography.

America is the English actor's Mecca; England is our cemetery.

Chapter LXXXIV