The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 6, 1902, Page 22

22 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 6, 1902. £ i + | CALIFORNIA WOMAN'S VOICE WINS FOR ITS CONSCIENTIOUS POSSESSOR THE APPROVAL OF NEW YORK'S CRITICS Ey Blanche Partington. -f:- — 36 ; | | [ | BeatricE F I were not fearful of imposing an | ateful task upon a very charming | - I should advise any girl desir- us of studying singing in New York, or of startling the metropolis with her | voice, to talk the matter over with Mrs. | Beatrice Fine, who is now here holidaying | &fter & three or four years' sojourn in| that city. It needs mo word of mine to recall Mrs. Fine to the musically interest- ed here, her delightful voice being more | frequently called into requisition a few | years ego than any other soprano’s of the same period. But she deserted us for New York—they mostly do—and from | whet I gather the desertion will be per-| menent. I rether fancled, when this fact was {mpressed upon me, to find that Mrs. Fine had suffered & metropolitan change of some sort, exactly what I didn't know. But she is just the same dimpled, plquant, attractive little person as ever, the same indefatigable student, the same thoroughly consclentious artist, and it will surprise no one famillar with her work to learn that musical New York is beginning to recognize and value her for | these qualities. It has not been gll plain sailing. When | the California girl, at the outset of her | New York career, sang for her first church position, she was the fifty-eighth | on the list, and with the news in her| pocket that her husband had just lost in California—well—very much more money thgn he could afford to lose. Her success meant excellent opportuni- ties for study, and all the impetus given | by much hearing of good music, as well as | he acquirement in time of a metropolitan utation; her failure the loss of all these | So Mrs. Fine set her determined | toriously ahead of the fifty-eight other itors. She is now with the First rian Church, has frequently sung Carl Duft, P. A. Schnecker and other icians of much significance, and with bs like the Apollo and Sorosis and at | s such as the Brooklyn Institute. | it means something, by the way, to be | soprano in a New York church, and is one | of the favored of the quieter ways of | fame. Shannah Cummings, the next best | to a Californian, an Oregon singer; has | $1%00 2 year for her services in a promi- | nent Brooklyn church. For her and for | Orchard, who gets only $1600 an- y the New York Collegia Church, Mrs. Fine has frequently subs tuted—not on quite the same exaltéd terms, she frankly explains. That, how- ever, may come later, as the singer has everything in her favor and is studying | if possible with even more than her for- | mer energy. It is amusing to hear the quaint wis- dom with which Mrs Fine discusses the | metropolitan situation. New York wants | the foreign name and none of its own kind, to speak generally. Nothing goes | Pt g the opera season but opera and recitzls by the operatic stars. The | women’s clubs there, as here, batten upon free talent, though it is financially useful to be heard there. New York is not at &1l waiting for the Californian, who must take his slim chance with the rest of the emigrant genlus. But Gotham, though bard to Wwoo, stays won when once her heart is found. The chief gift in her grant, though, is the reputation that un- locks all provincial coffers to an artist Who is in possession. So valusble is this that hordes of the unknown are not only willing to sing for nothing, but to pay large sums for the privilege. Of the teachers Mrs. Fine has interest. ing comment. One, with apt humor, she describes as an excellent business man, who ie incomparable in teaching the whole art of making profitable use of the voice, Bmma Thursby, recently here, she ranks with the best. Last winter she herself was studying French diction with Mme, Newhaus, and repertoire with Isidore Luckstone. In speaking of Luckstone, whom one remembers here as the accom- penist of Frau Materna and Ondricek, Mrs. Fine becomes really enthusiastic, with eminent reason apparently. The idol of the last local opera season, Bembrich, Schumann-Heink, and more great people than I can count on ten fingers, elso study repertolre with Mr. Luockstone. Bembrich, whose song re- citals are such that it is sald one has never heard her who has heard her only in opera, studies all of her songs with Mr. Luckstone, taking lessons four times or more in the week. That, also, is a peculiar phase of the New York musicgl character. No artist of whatever stand- Ing will refrain from studying with any one from whom he thinks he can learn eomething. And Mre. Fine has put herself unre- servedly under Luckstone’s direction. She sings now only that which she has studied with him, He knows everything, she says, pertaining to song literature. One day she took to him a rare Tschalkowsky tong, fancying that she had at last foupg ?mr:j'r.«a | the Brooklyns. | Albert L. Mills, First United States Cav- | 2lry, is the superintendent of the United | The Call any information relative to the ) L - FORMER OAKLAND GIRL WHO IS WINNING FAME IN é 5 - something out of his repertofre. But Mr, Luckstone merely looked at the title, asked Mrs. Fine in what key she sang it, and played it like everything else he plays, by heart. Then he knows all the cadenzas that fad and fancy have deco- rated the song with. Out of these he will choose the one best suited to his pupil’s voice, and there you are. We shall have opportunity to hear what he has done so0 far for Mrs. Fine before she returns to New York, as she will probably be heard in recital about September. ANSWERS TO QUERIES. JAY HUGHES—G. H. B, City. Jay Hughes, the ball tosser, is playing with ] ADDRESS—A | The address of Mrs. Jane Lathrop Stanford, widow of the late Leland Stanford, is Palo Alto. WEST POINT ACADEMY—C. Walker, Siskiyou County, Cal. MRS. STANFORD'S Reader, Vallecito, Cal. L | Colonel States Military Academy at West Point. PING PONG—H.,, City. In playing ping pong, if a player in serving the ball strikes the net it does not give the oppo- nent fifteen points. A player is to serve until such gets the ball over the net. BEACH RESORT-E. C., Cltvy. This department “has not been able to find in | beach resort that is to be started at Bal- lona other than what appears in the arti- cle alluded to in the communication. PORTUGUESE SHIPS-M. J. G, East Oakland, Cal. The length of the Portu- guese armored ship Vasco da Gama is 200 feet; that of the cruising ship Dom Car- los I is 360 feet. In the Free Public Li- brary of Oakland you will find one or more historjes of Portugal. ROCKEFELLER'S WEALTH—A Sub- scriber, City. No one can tell how much John D. Rockefeller is worth, It fis doubtful if he himself knows. What pur- ports to be the wealth of prominent men is merely guess and any one may guess whatever he pleases, and one guess will be probably as near right as the other. A CHANGE OF NAME—W. and J., City: If you have been living in this State for 2 long time and have been known by a Christlan name which was not the one glven you by your parents and you wish to resume the one that was given you you will have to engage the services of en attorney to bring the matter before the Superior Court to give you authority to change your name. DEBATE-M. D. C, City. A debating club is governed by the rules that it adopts, and it may prescribe such rules as it desires in the matter of opening and closing a debate. Whether the - first speaker on the affirmative side should re- but would be subject to the rules; but this department does not know that the first speaker on the affirmative side is compelled to rebut. There may not he JOHN D SPRECKELS, Proprietor. THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL. Address Communications to W. <. LEAKE, Manager | Publication Office. . .. anything on the negative side that would call for rebuttal. e Prunes stuffed with apricuts. Townsend's.* —_———— Townsend's California Glace fruit ang candles, 5c a pound, in artistic fire-etched bcxes. A nice t for Has o35 Market st.. Palace Fotel punding o> ———— Special «information supplied daily to business houses and public men by the Press Clipping Bureau (Allen’s), 230 Cali- fornia street. Telephone Main 1042, . SUNDAY THE LESSON AT SAN JOSE. “VERY voter in California should give attention and heed to the politicai events now occurring in San Jose. The incidents are local, but the principles. underlyifig them are of universal application, and the issues flowing out of them may affect the State at large. It is a plain and straight conflict between the people and a gang—between honesty and fraud. For a long time Santa Clara was regarded by the banded bosses as a county that could be depended upon to vote the boss ticket at cvery election. San Jose, the county seat, was also deemed a sure thing. In all the estimates made of the comparative strength of the bosses and’ of the opposition that county and that city were set down among the supporters of the bosses. Therefore when a citizens’ movement was undertaken last winter to defeat the bosses in the city election in the spring, it was scoffed at by the bosses and derided as a political freak. As the time for the election approached, however, the strength of the reform movement deveioped rapidly. The time came when the bosses ceased to deride and began to insult and to threaten. The local San Jose boss became alarmed and called for help. It was sent to him from this city and doubt- less from other parts of the State also. Every effort of the bosses, however, was in vain. At the election the triumph of honest politics was well nigh absolute, as with one exception every man on the reform ticket was elected by a good majority. Shortly after the election rumors began to circulate that the bosses would not surrender office at the command of the popular vote, but would make a fight to retain control through legal technicalities. Those rumors it now seems evident were well founded. Events that took place in San Jose last week show a determination on the part of the bosses to do politics in that city from this time on for revenge and spoliation regardlass of consequences. 7~ For the sake of revenge, the boss-controlled School Board dismissed from the public schools eighteen well-tried teachers without publicly assigning any cause for the dismissal. In private, however, some of the board are reported to have declared that the action was taken as a means of “getting even” with men who opposed them in the city election. The declaration that the public schools of the city are held as a part of the spoils of politics is thus plainly and clearly stated, and notice is given that the bosses when powerless to strike or injure a man who opposes them will gratify their malice by striking at a woman who is related to him. Thus eighteen teach- ers, most of then women, have been dismissed from their positions, deprived of their livelihood, and forced in many cases to break up their homes and look elsewhere for employment, solely to gratify the malice of a boss irritated by reason of his defeat by the people. Furthermore the gang apparently purposes to hold the offices and to put the taxpayers to the cost of long litigation to oust them. The resignation of a number of the boss-controlled members of the city government and the appointment of more resolute men to their places im- plies a determination to make the fight desperately and unscrupulously, to hold to power by every trick and device legal chicanery can devise. San Jose therefore finds herself face to face with a combination that is hardly better than a gang of bandits in the field of-politics, and is confronted with the prospect of serious trouble before justice triumphs. The San Jose boss tinder whose orders these offenses have been and are being committed is no longer a local.boss, nor is he fighting for local stakes only. He is now a leader in the Gage machine. It is he who was chosen to take the lead in removing Dr. Osborne from the Home for Feeble-minded Children. It is he who was appojnted Harbor Commissioner to help manage poli- tics in this city. Itis he who is likely to be intrusted with the direction of the Gage campaign should the Governor by any means obtain a renomination; and finally it is he who is trying to | bring about a renomination. It is therefore worth while for every voter to study the tactics of J. D. Mackenzie in San Jose. It is an object lesson for all California. : MONG the commencement, orations that have been spoken for the edification of the graduates of our colleges and universities this year none is more noteworthy than that of Thomas B. Reed at Bowdoin. It is not long since the orater was known as “Tom Reed,” and was more noted for his intense partisanship and his acuteness as a stump-speaker than for philosophic thought or academic calmness of discussion. The times have changed and the retired ctatesman has changed with them. There was no hint of partisanship in his speech at Bowdoin, nor any suggestion of political problems of the time. His theme was the relation of the individual to the multitude, and it was worked out apparently from the ciandpoint of one who has no part in the strifes of the time, and who looks at everything as a spectator merely. We cannot understand history or the progress of races, said Mr. Reed, by studying indi- viduals; we must study men in masses. “All assemblages of men are different from men them- selves. Neither intelligence nor culture can pfevent a mob from acting as a mob. The wise man and the knave lose their identity and merge themselves into a new being. In every day life we krow our limited power and do not attempt what we cannot do, but as a part of 2 mob we feel that we have the power of all, let ourselves loose and override our acquired limitations.” Mobs do not always do wrong, nor is the mob spirit always bad. Sometimes a mob rises to loftier heights of self-sacrifice than any individual in it would be capable of. Itis the fusing of many natures into oné, with all its momentous consequences, that makes up social, political and national life. Statesmen cannot appeal to individual intelligence; they must appeal to the spirit of the mob, for “men act in crowds even when they are separated physicaily.” Our seventy-five millions of people are governed by parties, by men who meet in conventions and have for the time full control. Platforms must be adapte to the spirit of such assemblages. The same spirit rules in society and in business as in politics. We are governed in all impostant things not by in- dividual intelligence but by the sense of the community, the sentiment of the masses, the spirit of the crowd. One of the results is that there can be no progress except the progress of the multitude. Individual wisdom does not count. Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Caesar, could not save their age nor themselves from debasing superstitions or from degrading practices. As the multitude must move before there can be any progress, it follows that progress is slow. It is amazing to note how men have opposed the innovations that were for their benefit, the truths that would help to make them free. It was at that point of his argument Mr. Reed made use of the only one of those epigrammatic utterances for which he was once famous. “When we declaim,” he said, “that the eternal years of God belong to truth, and see in ecstatic vision the triumph of the futuré, we seldom have it in-our thoughts that the reason why truth is given the eternal years of God is that she needs every one of them.” : So truth does not triumph by being known to individual wise men. It must penetrate the minds of the masses. The best the individual can do is to help on the education of the multitude; or, as Mr. Reed puts it, “Whatever contribution any man makes to humanity and justice will not be Jost, but will be gathered up among the treasures of the Almighty.” e G O T D SR T AR PHILIPPINE PRICES. T last we have pacification and civil government in the Philippines, and an epidemic of cholera. There will now be time to study social and economic conditions in the islands and to determine some things for the future. At present conditions are not favorable to development. For reasons that no one seems to understand Americanization of the, country has more than doubled the cost of living. Complaint is made at home of the meat prices, which are charged to the beef trust; but that rapa- cious body will blush for its own modesty when its prices are compared with those in our islands. * There beef is 60 cents a pound; mutton, 45; pork, 60; veal, 60; halibut, 60; blue cod, 55; salmon, 6o; pigeons, $2 apiece; beef tongues, $2 50; geese, $3 50 apiece; wild ducks, $1 73, and tame ducks $2 25 apiece. The meats are all Australian frozen. Butter is $1 per pound and milk $4 50 per gallon. : 5 Some surprise was caused by Governor Taft’s testimony that it takes all of his salary of $20,000 to live in Manila. If all expenses are ona par with those of the table, he does well to live in any style at all on that salary. The letters of volunteer soldiers, who are familia/r with wages and cost of living in this country, say that an annual wage of $600 in the United States is better than more than twice that sum in the Philippines. i For some reason unaccounted for, the wages of labor are not up to the scale of prices for what we regard as the riecessaries of life. 3 ] i ; S? ffequently.has the degree of LL.D. been conferred on n;i.llionaires by Eastern universi- ties that it is now being spoken of by the press of that section as “the millionaire degree.” -_ + , - PROPRIETIES OF ENVIRONMENT | 3 AND RICHNESS OF ACCESSORIES ‘ GO TO REFINE THE MILLER PLAYS l By Guisard. } — it of JENNIE o T may appear imperfectly matertal to the man in front whether Henry Mil- ler opens Mumm or Pabst in the bed- room scene of “The Gay Lord Quex.” Or it may seem indifferently import- ant whether the scissors that cut the wires of the sald Pabst or Mumm be of gold or of bourgeols steel. Perhaps, also, the Fullgarney’s robe de nuit—a triumph of rustic lingerie—may be regarded as an over-refinement of realism on Margaret Anglin's part by a largely unconsclous audience. Yet, it is just those things, just that kind of thing, carrted to its last re- finement, that makes the difference be- tween the Miller production and the kind of production onme is so haplessly accus- tomed to. Obviously the fact that Mr. Miller act- aully does use a pair of gold (silver-gilt) scissors to cut the wires of his Mumm, cannot go very far as actual visual illu- sion; neither the gold toilet service on the duchess’ dressing-table, nor to the man in the gallery the plebelan hang and bedizenment of Miss Fullgarney’s night- gown. Yet in the subtler matter of at- mosphere the virtue of these things is in- timately though unconsciously felt by every member of the audience, through their direct effect upon the work of the actor. And this sensitiveness to | ings does mnot stop at the stage, but ex- tends to the dressing-rooms and to that mysterious habitat known as “behind the scenes.” 3 I well remember that courtly player, B. S. Willard, speaking of this matter. “How can I,” he said, “at once jump into the character of the Cardinal—the magnificent de Medici, product of one of history's most splendid periocds—after dressing in a room with a cracked wash basin, a shrieking wall paper and the damp and dingy odor of an East End basement! It cannot be done any more than you critics could be expected to write good eriticisms in a sawmill. It is after all a matter of the suitable surroundings.” There is, of course, quite the other side of the question from Mr. Willard’s and Mr. Miller's. I have seen as good bit of comedy as ever fell to my lot to see on the Chinese stage, with a sign post marked—(we are out of Chinese type) pos- ing as a dense forest, a yellow actor straddled over a thin stick with a wisp of horsehalr attached to represent a warrior and his fiery steed, ana a droop-shoul- dered, almond-eyed youth as a Chinese Juliet. Add to this the confusing facts of a white audience seated upon the stage, a yellow audience of small boys squirming and wriggling about them, supple Gany- medes frankly bearing nectar to the unemployed thespians behind, and a spas- modically active orchestra in full view at their back. It is a far cry from these al- most Shakespearean conditions to even the crude scenic illusion of—say “The Denver Express,” with its hilarious can- vas “fiyer” bucking its wild way into Denver at the rate of two miles an hour. It is a whole continent further to “The Gay Lord Quex.” Yet the illusion seemed to be as perfectly maintained for the au- dience in one case as in the other, and for myselt I forgot in time the absence of scenic art in the good acting. But, Mr. Miller’s opposite plan works marvelously, and it would almost seem as If the stage manager's scenfc wisdom consisted in leaving practically everything to the imagination—or nothing. It would indeed be an over-industrious imagination that could find much beyond the ethical | and esthetic suggestion of “The Gay Lord | Quex” to busy itself about—Mr. Miller | and his people having done all the im- | agining necessary. Take the before-men- tioned boudoir scene again for example. The clou of the act is where Miss Fuli- garney finds herself locked In by Lord Quex, in company with that very courte- ous, but very disreputable person. There Ka two doors, which she tries in turn, eir grim rattle announcing her situation to the bewildered manicurist. The doors of wood, with real locks, and a real rat- tle, and it is a very real thrill that goes through the audience when they are locked upon Mr. Pinero’s heroine. With the usual canvas door the scene would have been simply ridiculous; as it 1s, it is one of the most effective detalls of stage realism that have ever spared worked imaginations. Throughout the whole production the same fine cars is exercised, but, after all, it is only what Mr. Miller has led us to expect from his former efforts, and again, only what we “EvsTAace CLEVER ACTRESS WHO MADE [ A HIT IN “THE GAY LORD QUEX." their name, the second and third parts thereof to be called, “Parisina™ and “Sigismund" Malatesta. The Dramatio Mirror announces that Duse is to appear in both of these on her return to Italy from her American tour. The gifted Italian may, there is a very slight likeil- hood, find her way to the Pacific Coast, to give a few of the 100 performances that she is under contract for with the Liebler people. elgse Apropos of the very good version of the Boker “Francesca da Rimini” now being given by Frederick Warde and his conm- freres at the California Theater, it should be sald that the play’s effect is consid- tve “Gloria in Excelsis,” the fine church sceme. If is sung by a be-cowled quartet that includes solo in Mr. Veaco's sweet temor, success should encourage to care managements on music bent. i a . Among the plays copyrighted at capital last month was one by Lloyd Os- borne of this city, with the ambiguous title, “The Plague of Women.” Has Mr. Osborne unearthed the besetting bete noire of the sex, or only discoversd again the imperious flounce of the etarnal pet- ticoat? other § Maxine Eiliott next season. RIS, Miss Mabel Smitten, a San a dramatic label, has for two seasons by J. the part of Kate Carnegle in “The nie Brier Bush.” ANTIDOTES BLEMISHES The clear, firm complexion of youth Ceonned 7 "“"": by Al:fll Cream. Los Angeles, Cal