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Theatrical
.WHITNEY THEATRE.
Coming Attractions.
Oct. 13-14--Edison Talking Pictures.
Oct. 15-Within the Law.
Oct. 16-17-18-The District Leader.
Nov. 17-The Firefly.
MAJESTIC THEATRE.
Kinemacolor Pictures.
Matinee Daily--3:00.
Every Evening-7:00 to 10:00.
Complete change of program daily.
EVERYBODY
WRITES PLAYS
The Author of "Within the Law"
Claims that the American Dramatist
is Pampered by the American Man-
ager.
Bayard Veiller, the author of the
smashing melodramatic success,
"Within the Law," which will be seen
at the Whitney theatre on Wednesday,
October 15, declares that the report of
a statistician that some 15,000 men and
women in the United States are try-
ing to write plays, is probably true.
"Not more than eight of them are suc-
ceeding, though," says Mr. Veiller.
That's why it isn't safe for a man who
has once had a success to walk down
Broadway with a package under his
arm. Some manager is sure to flutter
froman office building, and throw him
down, and try -to take it away from
him. The managers are getting des-
perate."
George Tyler of the Liebler Com-
pany holds that the American manager
refuses to foster the American drama-:
tist. "Foster us?" said Mr. Veiller.
"We're fostered breathless. Every
time we look up, some manager is try-
ing to pamper us. The man who can
write plays can have all the success
he wants. I've known of manager
paying for rot, just because it had a
germ of an idea. I had been given
$1,000 advance royalties before I had
even written a scenario. Three weeks
after "Within the Law" came across,
I had been offered $45,000 in advance
money. And there's no pull needed to
sell a play. George Tyler himself
bought. on a Thursday a play I had
sent to the brokers on a Wednesday.
And neither Tyler nor the brokers
knew who had written it." Veiller
says the youngsters have had all the
success this year. The elder play-
wrights have written the failures.
"Whoever heard of Jimmy Montgom-
ery before he put over 'Ready Money?'-
I had written one play before 'Within
the Law.' That was the 'Primrose
Path,' and it was awful. Who knew of
Alice Bradley before she wrote 'The
Governor's Lady,' or of Eleanor Gates
before 'The Poor Little Rich Girl?'
Fred Hutton's first success was 'Years
of Discretion,' Harvey O'Higgins was
a short story writer until he and Har-
riet Ford wrote 'The Argyle Case,' and
John Emerson and Robert Baker were
unknown until 'The Conspiracy' land-
ed. These are the dramatic successes
of the year."
Veiller doesn't like the English ac-
tor, who, so the author insists, "makes
tea in his dressing room and splits
nickles,
A scene from the great New York success, "Within the Law..
THE DISTRICT LEADER
Leah Mower, Soubrette with "The
District Leader," Discusses Stage
Smiles.
"It's not the men but the women who
like to be smiled at the best," pro-
nounces Leah Mower, soubrette with
"The District Leader," which comes to
the Whitney theatre for three nights
beginning Thursday, October 16.
There's an old by-word concerning the
optical flattery to which stern men
must succumb when attending a musi-
cal comedy, When a stage manager
at rehearsals commands "Smile, girls"
it is assumed that the dental drill is
out of consideration for the tired busi-
ness man, who dotes on rows of pleas-
ant feminine faces, all directed to-
wards the box he occupies.
Smiling, of course, is the required
cast of countenance in musical pro-
ductions, but don't imagine that all
the effort of the facial muscles is just
so that the male auditors may go away
pleased. Women are the ones who
care most for pleasant smiles from the
members of their .sex who are cavort-
ing in tinsel on the stage. Our smiles
put them in the best of humor. I
can't exactly tell why it's so but it's
a fact. A leading woman should never
be 'uplpish,' but should beam down on
the main floor and up at the balcony
with her Sunday smile as much as
possible. Occasionally she should give
a hint that she recognizes one of her
women friends in the audience. This
makes things 'homey,' and creates a
feeling of fellowship between the wo-
man of the stage and the women in
the plush seats, which is easily dis-
cernable at the matinee, at which wo-
men and girls predominate."
WITHIN THE LAW
Theodore Roosevelt Endorses Bayard
Veller's Sensational Play.
Bayard Veiller, author of "Within
the Law," the great melodramatic hit
which ran for an entire year at the
Eltinge theatre, New York City, re-
cently received the- following enthu-
siastice endorsement of his play from
Colonel Theodore Rosevelt:
My dear M!r. Veiller:
When I was Police Commissioner
you were a police reporter, and there
are not a few of the incidents in your
play which suggest to me the original.
happenings that both you and I know.
As a good citizen I wish to thank you
for your play. Those who criticise it
as exalting anti-social practices with-
in the law by members of the under-
world seem to me utterly to fail to
understand the lesson you are teach-
ing. This lesson is not that these anti-
social practices within the law by the
underworld are right, but that the
anti-social practices within the law
by the upperworld are altogether
wrong. You are putting the practices
of the two sets of wrongdoers exactly
where they belong, that is, on the
same moral level. There is no more
important lesson to teach our respect-
able people today, the people of wealth
and of social and intellectual promi-
nence, than this lesson which your
play teaches. I am not a sentimenta-
list. You knew me when I was Police
Commissioner and you know me now.
I am thoroughly awake to the need
of punishing criminals no less than of
reforming them, for I am concerned
even more with, the welfare of society
as a whole than with the welfare of
the individual wrongdoer. Moreover,
I abhor wrongdoing in the underworld
as in the upperworld-precisely as I
condemn any anti-social practices in
a labor union-precisely as much as
similar practices in a corporation. But
I wish to insist that the obverse of the
matter is also true. We cannot clean
the underworld if we connive at or
approve in the upperworld practices
as fundamentally wrong as those
which we punish when committed by
the people whom the law actually does
condemn. We must never lose our
insistence upon individual responsibil-
ity and the need of individual high
character; and yet we must remember
ever more anZ more vividly that each
must be in a very real sense his broth-
er's keeper and his sister's keeper.
There is always something fundament-
ally-wrong if wages go down and divi-
dends go up; and the man who pays
shop-girls a wage on which they can-
not live in decency and honestly is
committing a wrong against society
for which no activity along charitable
or similar lines in any way atones.
Sincerely yours,
(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.
EDISON'S TALKING
MOTION PICTURES
One of the Most Extraordinary Inven-
tions of the Age will be Shown at
the Whitney This Week.
In the wonderful talking motion
pictures which come to the Whitney
theatre, Monday and Tuesday, Thomas
A. Edison has given to the world one
of the most extraordinary inventions
of the age. In comparison, the com-
mion or garden variety of the familiar
moving picture appears ancient and
inadequate. Besides being soothing to
the eye, the Edison process of talking
motion pictures almost causes the
figures to step from the sheet, and
shake hands with the audience.
Anyone who would have predicted a
few years ago that it would be possible
to exhibit talking motion pictures in
the leading theatres of New York City,
and secure crowded houses' at $1.50
scale of prices, would have been look-
ed upon as a dreamer. Yet this. pre-
diction has come true at last to the
amazement of the theatrical world.
The Edison talking pictures were pre-
sented at the fashionable Palace
theatre in New York, and created such
a sensation that the newspapers and
men of science were lavish in their
praises. At the Whitney this week an
extensive program will be shown, in-
cluding a complete minstrel perform-
ance, first part and olio, several com-
edy playlets, a nursery rhyme, and a
fairy playlet. Only one performance
will be given at the matinees and one
at night during the engagement.
KINEMACOLOR SCIENCE.
A couple of decades ago the claim
that moving pictures could reproduce
nature with more fidelity than the hu-
man eye, would have been voted here-
sy; but with the growth of our know-
ledge of optical phenomena there has
disappeared from our midst the man
who fondly believed the human eye in-
fallible. We know it today for what
it is, a wonderful instrument, but gul-
lible to an amazing degree. And after
all we would not wish that it should
be otherwise. Half our pleasures in
life are derived from deceiving our-
selves-personally, or by proxy-and
were our eyes not susceptible to
boundless deception we should be
robbed of such acquisitions as the
beautiful autochrome picture, the half-
tone photographs of our daily papers,
the kinematograph and,-Kinemacolor
the amazing invention which is shown
daily at the Majestic theatre.
One of the few plays to run all sum-
mer in both New York aird London
was the phenomenal success "Within
the Law," which comes to the Whitney
This is the crook with the maxim sile ncer in "Within the Law" which cor
to the Whitney, Wednesday, October 15.
"The Merchant of Venice," Edison's talking pictures,