It was not a commercial manager of the Syndicate type who first urged the efficient management of the Theatre; it was an idealistic critic and a great poet. Many years ago that ripe scholar and accomplished man-of-letters Matthew Arnold exclaimed, in one of his Essays, “The Theatre is irresistible—organize the Theatre!” Arnold, as a youth, had been entranced by the acting of Mlle. Rachel, and as a man had naturally been charmed by the acting and greatly influenced by the propulsive reformatory and constructive theatrical administration of that great actor and theatrical manager Henry Irving. It is from such sources of thought and of intellectual energy as Arnold and Irving, in England, and as Wallack, Booth, and Daly, in America,[1] that the impulse properly to organize the Theatre has proceeded; not from the mere money-grubbing schemes of monopolistic cliques or speculators in public amusement. Members of such cliques,—of which the Theatrical Syndicate is one,—are, at times, frank enough to admit that (as they are fond of expressing it) they are not engaged in theatrical business “for their health,” and undoubtedly they are within their rights when they seek, by fair means, to make their business profitable. So much is understood and conceded: who would deny it? Monopolies, however, frequently pose as public benefactors, and such, as already shown, is the pose assumed by the Theatrical Syndicate. Many persons have, in one way or another, been deceived by it, or brought to approve it. In 1898, beginning to be conscious, in my critical and editorial work on “The New York Tribune,” of an oppugnant influence emanant, apparently, from that source, I determined to have a clear understanding with the late Donald G. Nicholson, then the editor of that paper, and I formally asked him whether “The Tribune” favored or opposed the Syndicate. In reply I received from him the assurance that “of course ‘The Tribune’ opposed it,” and also I received a printed list of newspapers which, Mr. Nicholson informed me, had explicitly declared their opposition to the Syndicate as being an unjust organization, hurtful to the Theatre and adverse to the public interest. That list contained the names of most of the leading journals of our country. But—“There are no birds in last year’s nest.” Most of the opposers of the Syndicate seem, like the Witches in “Macbeth,” to have “made themselves air, into which they vanished.” Active opposition to that incubus in the press is, at present, conspicuous chiefly by its absence.

The pretensions of the Syndicate are one thing: its proceedings are quite another. Equitable conduct has not been the spring of its prosperity. Not by fair means has it become rich and powerful. Aside from having somewhat facilitated the making possible of economically practical routes over the country for travelling companies and the transaction of business between resident theatrical managers and representatives of travelling companies, it has done, literally, nothing for the good of the Theatre; but it has done everything for the good of itself. It is not to be supposed, for example, that because the making of economical routes is feasible through the booking agency of the Syndicate, once such routes have been booked they are inviolate. “Dates” are cancelled and “routes” are changed, when such change is requisite to the advantage of the Syndicate, with total disregard of any other consideration. “Where,” exclaimed Gladstone, “can you lay a finger on the map of Europe and say, ‘Here Austria did good’?” Where can you lay a finger on the map of progress in the Theatre in America and truthfully say, “Here the Syndicate did good”?