The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 18, 1924, Page 7

The Play That Displeased the Brass-Buttoned Bullies By NATHANIEL E BUCHWALD. Arthur Hopkins, the producer of “What Price Glory?” ran into a piece of luck, and much obliged to the ad- mirals and generals who tried to sup- press the play. In all fairness, Rear Admiral Pluncket, who so vehement- ly denounced the play as a piece of pacifist propaganda, full of nasty cuss words, is entitled to a rake-off on the box office receipts. No amount of paid press-agenting could have ac- complished half as much. But the professional wits in the New York dailies are giving the ad- miral the razz and poking fun at the Whole affair. Which is vicrously stu- pid, for the attempt to censor this war play is not merely a whim of a single militaristic patriot, but a characteristic expression of the bully- ing temper of the imperialist gang that lords over us. Still worse are the editorial hypocrites who are con- gratulating themselves upon having won a victory over military censor- ship of public morals. They know damned well that they have won noth- ing of the kind and that the stage, the screen and the printed fiction will continue to truckle under the stand- ards imposed by our lords of war and imperialism. For the time being, the particular gang of brass-buttoned bullies who tried to gag the play, appears to be licked. “What Price Glory?” minus some of its best swear-words, will stay on, much to the delight of the producer and the edification of our “American liberties.’ But the very fuss raised about this play shows that it is a rather novel thing for a play- wright to dare tell the truth about war and the men who make it. Verily, the exception proves the rule, and the rule is for our staged, screened and written fiction to conform to the un- written code of lies about the glamor of soldiery and the glories of war. So long as an author conforms to this un- written law, he is free to lie in his own way about the army, the navy and the romance of the battlefields. But no sooner he attempts to por- tray the hellish truth of the murdér profession than a hue and cry is rais- ed against him. The fact that-so few pieces of, war fiction have aroused the ire of the militarists simply shows that there has been little attempt at artistic truth and honesty about the war. Militaristic censorship of peace time art and literature, is not a men- ace—it is an insidious fact, a stink- ing element that pollutes our spirit- ual life at its source, a corruptive devil that guides the pen of every purveyor of popular fiction. Militar- ism is the watch-dog of capitalism, and part of its duty is to foster allur- ing lies about the sordid business, to instill in the mob a sense of glamour and glory about the insignia and the symbols of war, of killing for profits and markets. Whether directly or by implied. terrorism, the brass-button lords see to it that capitalist art re- mains capitalist. Yet the attack of the militarists up- _ spiciest bits of slang, obscenity and thrills of he-man talk and gladness of recognition. No artist is, however, safe from the vulgar appraisal of his admirers, and surely Lawrence Stallings and Max- well Anderson, the authors of “What Price Glory?” cannot be held account- able for the reactions of the audience. But they should be held accountable for the dramatic truth and purport of the play, and of this little can be said in their favor. There is a kind of chaotic elemental protest stirring in the play against the horror of war, and a shameful, humiliating, degrad- ing life of the men™who are herded together against their will to fight somebody without knowing why. When Captain Flagg, one of the prin- cipal characters, is about to engage in a fight with Sergeant Quirt over the possession of a coy prostitute he says that it is the first time since war began that he has 4 real reason for fight- ing. That Captain Flagg embodies all of the protest, disillusionment and cynicism a professional soldier must feel about the army, its leaders and its spirit. But the protest is with him a chaotic, emotional reaction, finding expression in torrents of filthy oaths, rather than a conscious philosophy of pacifism. Neither Captain Flagg nor anyone else in the play, voices paci- fist ideas. But the hideous truth about the marines, the army and the war in- duces in the audience a mood of re sentment against war, and a feeling of disgust with the soldier proression. In this sense Rear Admiral Pluncket is perhaps right when he says that after reviewing this play, no mother would allow her son to join the army: The play, however, lacks in drama- tic coherence and purpose. The emo- tional side of the drama_ revolves about the rivalry between Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt over the French prostitute. Both men are brut- alized by a long career of soldiering to the point of slothful, will-less lust. They hate each other cnthusiastitally enough, but they also have admiration for_each other, since both are capable soldiers and daring adventurers. They have some old scores to settle, and the presence of the girl serves to re- kindle all of their former feud spirit. There follows a rather implausible series of-intrigues between the two men, each of whom in turn gets the better of the other. But in the end war gets the better of both of them. They are in a position to dodge the order to go to the front, but the hyp- notic curse of war is upon them. The army has paralyzed their will, and they proceed to the front, hating war and despising themselves for their lack of will. The fabric of the play is genuine enough. The atmosphere is portray- ed with a competence that proceeds from thoro familiarity and fine ar- tistic choice of significant detail. But the garment that is made of this gen- uine eloth is a rather uncouth affair, showing neither elegance of workman- ship nor qualities of usefulness. If not for the ‘pacifist notoriety it achieved “What Price Glory?” would be no more than a fairly good play, realistically staged and superbly acted. Ibanez Starts a Bourgeois Revolution By HARRISON GEORGE “My people are in captivity! I can no longer remain silent! I am going to speak. It will make a noise in the world. Alphonso XIII must go. Only a republic can save Spain. The Spain of honest men will rise to overthrow the tyrants. There must be an end to this new_era of inquisition. We must strike at its head. Those great- est in position are the guiltiest!” So speaks Vincente Blasco Ibanez on the front pages of the capitalist newspapers throughout the world. And this mountebank literateur, whose “Four Horsemen of the Apoca- lypse,” the most spiritualized express- ion of allied war propaganda against Germany, was inspired by confident- ial and unquestionably remunerative conversations with Clemenceau and Poincare, has the audacity to add— “Remember, I am to get nothing for it. My writings about Spain I am going to give to the press of the world.” True, Ibanez may get nothing from the newspapers. Publicity men sel- dom do. But what about someone else? What about the Spanish bour- geoisie, who .have with ever increas- ing avidity watched the progress of cap- italist economy across the Pyrennes and bewailed. the feudal restrictions still burdening Spanish business with the remnants of medievalism?: Or, how about the French foreign office, which watches with anxious gaze the peril- ous adventure of Prima de Rivera in Morroco? Does France feel that she must “take.a hand”, as she has for some time threatened, to guarantee her own colonies from native revol- ution? Time will tell. But one thing is certain, the capital- ist newspapers do not herald upon their pages any revoluton that is not a capitalist revolution, If Ibanez,.the prostitute novelist, is setting out to overthrow Alphonso the Syphilitic,— both money in it, because the bourge- oisie are behind it. This dilletante revolutionist who makes war with his pen, now takes as example the “flam- ing D’Annunzio” who took Fiume for the Italian bourgeosie in the same name of “liberation.” Ibanez was “silent too long.” But even now when he speaks it will not be for the Spanish proletariat, whose leaders by the scores have reddened the streets of Barcelona with their life blood, struck down by hired as- sassins of the buorgeoisie. Ibanez has ‘been silent. He has uttered no protest while the “new inquisition” was crushing the organizations of the Spanish workers. He said no word of indignation when the Fascfst-mo- narchist bands descended upon the unions with iron hands, and even now he raises no voice for the Com- munists who fill the dungeons of Spain where died the victims of Tor- quemada. Thanez ghas “been silent too long” to now be trusted when he speaks, as he does and as he will, in the name of with his pen—it is because there “liberty”, in the name of “revolution.” Spanish workers. remember Ibanez, how he got his fame by playing the demagogue, by appearing dramaticly before crowds of open-mouthed work- ers in the hastily-donnéd jacket of a worker, how he even broke into prison with agitation for a republic, but when all these things had won him admiration and renown, Ibanez spurn- ed the workers’ interests and only used his knowledge of their miseries as literary material. The Spanish LaFollette has declar- ed war on the Spanish king in be- half of the untrammelled, dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and not in the in- terests of the workers. The workers will be asked to fight for “liberty” only to find that it means the liberty of capitalism to exploit them. It is not that Ibanez has been silent too long, but that too long capitalism has permitted the dead hand of clerical feudalism to suppress, not liberty, but business on the Iberian penisula. GRAFTER FORBES WILL NOT BE TRIED UNTIL VOTES ARE COUNTED The trial of Colonel Charles R. Forbes, former head of the United States veterans’ bureau and John W. Thompson, St. Louis contractor, on charges of defrauding the government in connection with the hospital contracts, this afternoon was set for November 24. The date was fixed after the court had first postponed definitely fixing it until tomorrow. SUTUEOVVEOUEETOEUOUSEOTEUEGEL EEUU TEEN John Reed Memorial Under the auspices of the John Reed Branch, Y. W. Ls Douglas Park Auditorium VENETIAN HALL, at Kedzie and Ogden Avenue _ Saturday, October 18 8 P. M. profit. sible service and advertising. Speakers: J. Louis Engdahl, A. Bittelman, Max Shachtman Musical entertainment by the Freiheit Singing Society ADMISSION 25¢ Move with Progress and support labor's significant and successful undertaking, the Labor Bank. Chicago’s only labor bank. has saved $40,000.00 to cus- tomers in commissions on Real Estate Loans. It has saved hundreds of thousands to customers in other reduced commissions because it places service before it will serve you or your organization with every pos- TRANSFER YOUR ACCOUNT TO THE 371 West Jackson Boulevard Resources, $2,700,000.00