The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 30, 1902, Page 24

24 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1902. MERRY BARNABEE TELLS STORY OF HOW FORTUNE FOUND HIM IN BOSTON BY GUISARD. i (a7 DS A ) S 5 FAMOUS COMEDIAN OF BOSTON- IANS, STILL YOUNG, ALTHOUGH NEARLY SEVENTY. st, last and intermediate strikes one in connec- t with He: Clay Barnabee, | master comedian of the Boston- ans and dean of comic opera, is lightful, ridiculous, extreme youth! oks engagingly out of a droll eye—a throcugh much laughter; hopeful, boyish kinks the kind abee mouth nd lilts through every note of e. It drives the Barnabee sneak an incredulous pate, and grave old ¥ to thankfulness for eeth. It revives belief ancient tales of eternal pinpe the ontemporary his their remai in Ponce de Leon ing youth; for it is youth dyed-in-the-wool, immune uerable. I felt it at long range on Mg night at the Columbia Theater, at short range in the hotel par- lor where Mr. Barnabee bashfully con- eented to be held up a day or two later, and as soon ght decently be I ap- | proached the anda demanded hi After ranging me comfortably 2 couch in a quiet e room he began by dep- as an interviewer. at this kind of thing”— It looks so confoundedly t know what to say at I get interested and find that I have said all sorts en erward too—er—but you remember Mr. Barnabee's eyes and 1 on it,” I gladly averred. ng him down—"‘won’t you tell & -of the Bostonians to begin r coming- about?” I knew he could as well speak of “Hamlet” without the Dane as of the Bostonians without Barnabee. “It nas been told before,” he demurred. ot to me.” 1, this was about the way of It It came about really through an accident. The Boston Theater—a very large place— was standing empty at the time and some one suggested that Whitney, Phillips and I should get up a performance of ‘Pina- fore' there. ‘Pinafore’ had mot been done in America then and. quite as much to our own as other people’s astonishment we found ourselves giving the thing. It succeeded immediately—the luck of the novice, and ran for eleven weeks, We have been golng on ever since, and that is, to be precise, since the 14th of April, 2879, I saw my chance. Mr, “Then you must be % Barnabee? Pardon my thmetic No, I'm only 63—last week,” the come- “Sometimes I think so myself,” he agreed. “But figure it out for yourself. I began to sing when I was 21, and did all sorts of things, from ‘The Creation’ 1o ‘Alonzo the Brave'—a fine old comic classic—for twenty-five years before be- coming a Boston Ideal (we had the van- ity to call ourselves the Boston Ideals before we more modestly became the Bos- tonians.) That was in *79, and it is now 1%02. 1 have therefore been singing for forty-eight years.” “But it really is not fair to the others,” 1 urged. “You seem quite the youngest person on the stage in ‘Robin Hood,” you know, Mr. Barnabee. How do you man- age 1t?” Barnabee pulled his long limbs together and looked &t me as if he had heard the question before. And I wondered more, getting & square look at his devious, huv- morous wrinkles, thinning white thatch and shrewd, imquisitive, sensitive nose, how he did contrive to give so vividly 1hé sense of inalienable youth. “I suppose I do know what you mean,” he smiled. “It is perhaps because I like young things, young people, children, new piays. I think this work of ours has a tendency to keep one young. I am con- tinually in contact with young people and spend most of my time with them. Then we still have our little suppers after the play, go our little drives, go to hear other singers, read the new books, see the new Plays and do exactly the same things we 10w, spinning yarns about | Like the famous | g used to years ago, Mrs. Barnabee and 1. | I suppose we don’t just know how to grow old. In fact, between ourselves, I don’t like old people! Of course, if a man | comes to me saying he heard me sing | somewhere forty years ago my heart goes out to him. But I like the young things | best.” “Birds of a feather,” I filled in. But that is the comedian’s secret. “What has been the greatest success of your operatic | career?” I then inquired. *“ ‘Robin Hood’ unmistakably, with ‘The Serenade’ a good second,” he replied. ‘We became the Bostonians just about the time we discovered ‘Robin Hood,’ thirteen ears ago. “It is said, is it not, that ‘Robin Hood’ | made the Bostonians?” “Possibly we made De Koven,” Barna- bee suggested. “We once sent out anoth- er company with the opera—"" | *“But no Barnabee—" “But no Barnabee, nor Macdonald, nor | Frothingham, nor the rest of those who had made the opera their own, and in | a short season we lost $100,000 on it. The new people filled it with gags, local al- lusions, and that kind of thing, and au- iences would not stand for it.” | *“You do not gag?”’ “Oh, as to that, many of the best lines in ‘Robin Hood' grew up with the opera. It takes more than the composer and librettist to make an opeéra succeed.” | “And one cannot predict success even | with book, music, and singers, all of the best?” “I do not think there is a manager in the world sufficiently astute to prophesy the! public fortunes of a plece,” Mr. | Barnabee emphatically replied, out of the depths of long experience, “Take this ‘Florodora’ for example—I have seen it three times, by the way, without getting at its reason for success. But it had a long run in London—it was very well done—and an obscure Californian mama- ger saw it there and brought it to New York, put it on at the Casino, and the critics, without a single exception, con- demned it the next morning. Klaw and Erlanger, among the keenest of mana- gers, advised Fisher to give it four weeks in New York and then send it on the | road with its Gotham label. There was perhaps $5000 a week in the house—not enough to pay expenses, and then peo- ple began to take notice of the sextet. You know the rest. At the end of a couple_of months ‘Florodora’ was play- ing to $15,000 a week, and kept it up for a solid year. Further, it has naw three companies on the road.” “And those others that do net suc- | ceed?” “Yes, we have had things that we were sure, by every known law of popularity, should go. ‘Prince Ananias’ was one, a beautiful opera. But the mysterious edict went forth, and ‘Prince Ananias’ failed wholly. One cannot but wonder why.” Then Mr. Barnabee had a little to say of that trifle of twenty-five years that preceded the Bostonians. One of his strong likings was for the English Perry’s comic song, “The Watkins Tea Party,” “Bluebeard,” *Alonzo the Brave” and ““Tompkins’ Silver Wedding”—*‘written by a minister”—with the delightfulest little shocked air. Like Grossmith, the Eng- lish entertainer, he used to give whole en- tertainments, songs and readings, and he said confidentially, “There are a number of my old friends in the East.who say they hope to see me in my own white tie and black coat again before I die, They’re very good to me. I used to like singing at the big festivals, too. Only the ‘Worcester festival is now left. But they were valuable educational occasions.” Then he told me of his first-night ner- vousness; how he feared some time to for- THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL. JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor. SUNDAY .... Address Communications to W. S. LEAKE, Manager _NOVEMBER 30, 1002 Publoation s OMOs:: 11’0 e s dos sonrssinn son aieh @ sevissseseesens....Market and Third Streets, S. F. THE SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN. O one need quarrel with the advance of socialism by direct means. If a certain order of minds prefer the institution of artificial conditions among men, in the belief that” where nature has decreed inequality art can produce equality, and to advance their views by a peaceful propaganda, it is entirely unphilosophical to denounce them. So we never have denounced socialism, but have defended it against the charge that it is allied to anarchy. At the same time we oppose socialism, from the conviction that it will ledd to the degeneration of man, by taking from him the personal motive and individual desires which so far have been the final cause of all progress. As we have explained, the Socialists here are proceeding by indirection. They are concezfl- ing their purpose i advocating municipal ownership of public utilities. It will be noted that in none of the addresses made by them upon that subject do they declare that such ownership is the dream of socialism; but it is. To conceal that fact is to gain allies who are kept in ignorance of the main issue. While the Socialist talks of municipal profits from operating public utilities, he is think- ing and meaning something far away from profit and loss. It is that something which we antagonize by objecting, to the first step toward it. It is a complete reversal of the idea of government and the destruction of all value which exists in human desire. It is the enforced equality which shortens all men tp the level of the lowest man and the rebuilding of human society on the model of its diseases and flilures, instead of on that of its suc- cesses and its health. Hence the successful man is denounced as an enemy of the race and the contented man is stigmatized asa slave! In the reformation of the social state they are to be cast out—indeed, they are regarded as the cause of the reformation which is set in motion to abolish them. They are supposed to be the product of government which produces inequality. Because Faurence Gronlund could not make the fortune of Vanderbilt and Morrison I. Swift was unable to achieve that of Carnegie, they conceived a cause for their failure and consequent inequality, en- tirely external to themselves; and found that cause in the scheme of government, as they supposed. Looked at logically, it would have been just as sensible for Mr. Gronlund to attack the Govern- ment because he could not write poetry like Longfellow, and Mr. Swift to lay upon it his inability to play the violin like Ole Bulil. The first step to a reversal of the character and purpose of government is public ownership. After that who can say what shall stay the last step? The last step is what we desire to temper- ately present to those who are not Socialists, but propose to help them take the first step. We will let a Socialist tell what the last step is, for then his fellow-devotees of the doctrine can find no fault with the definition. A lecturer in the University of Chicago, the institution so s lavishly ‘endowed by Mr. Rockefeller, a Socialist, said: “The spectacle of trust magnates receiv- ing millions annually and the poor tramp begging for broken food at the back door will be seen no more. Instead of paying taxes to the Government, the people will receive sustenance from the Government. Each man will receive the same.” That is the definition, supplementary to and ex~ planatory of the motto of socialism, “Property is robbery.” The professor did not choose to explain the source of the sustenance which a maternal gov- ernment is to give equally to every man. But he does give a reason for this proposition, that it is to be because a trust magnate is drawing down millions while a tramp is asking a hand-out at the back door. But there are many millions of people in this country who are neither trust magnates nor tramps. They have earned what they own. That gives it value. They desired it and went stoutly at work to acquire it. Their aggregate ownership is far in excess of all that the trust mag- nates own. Property being robbery, these millions of owners must be the robbers, and the pro- fessor proposes as the pregramme of socialism that the Government shall take what they own and divide it as sustenance to every man alike! That is the final step of socialism. Public ownership of public utilities is the first step. Only those who believe that the last step is good and wise should help take the first step. ¢ : THE DIFFERENTIAIL CASE' HE issue between the Pacific Coast jobbers and those of the Middle West concerning freight rates westward on less than carload lots is decided in favor of the Pacific Coast trade. The Middle West jobbers demanded first, in effect, that they be permitted to partici- pate in the competitive coast to coast rates of freight. Rail rates from all Atlantic Coast points to Pacific Coast points are affected by water transportation between the same points. This competition enables the Pacific Coast jobber to import at competitive rates and make the Pacific Coast points distributing centgrs to the interior trade. The Middle West demanded the same rates and a differential between car and broken car lots, which would permit her jobbers to lay down re- tail invoices of goods to our interior trade at an advantage over Pacific Coast distributing points. If they could secure this our jobbing trade would entirely disappear and we would lose all' the ad- vantage we have in water competition to Atlantic Coast points. The jobbers of Chicago and St. Louis could deliver small lots, down to a keg of nails or a clotheswringer, to interior California points;-or could, if they chose to use house-to-house canvassers, almost obsolete dur retail as well as our jobbing trade: It was a bold move in Chicago and St. Louis ¢o demand that they share in a rate fixed by deep-water competition, when they lie over a thousand miles westward of the origin of that compe- tition. But if was a move characteristic of their aggressive enterprise. Their jobbing trade serves a population in contact. inhabiting fifteen States or more and composed of fifteen millions of peo- ple or more. If they had secured the competitive.rate and its carload schedule could have been practically applied to broken-carload lots, their surplus could havebeen dumped upon our retail trade and every wholesale house on the coast could have been closed. Not only the jobbing and whole- sale trade would have been ruined, but our manufactures would have suffered heavily, since the same principles apply to the raw material, especially the metals used in that industry. Al}of the ad- vantage we enjoy in our abundant fuel oil would have been neutralized, as would that we have in our electric power supplied by our hydraulic systems. : < It is to their credit that our overland roads heartily joined with the Pacific Coast Jobbers’ Association in fighting the demands of Chicago and St. Louis and in defending coast interests be- fore the Interstate Commerce Commission. It may be that the fight is not yet over, as St. Louis and Chicago may either ask a rehearing or appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. But if the contest continue we have no fear of the outcome, as the courts have learned to trust the con- clusions of the Interstate Commerce Commission. > The story that Frick endowed a university in Pittsburg solely out of jealousy of Carnegie’s Institute of Technology recalls the old report in this State that Stanford University was founded out of spite because. Stanford failed to obtain a place as Regentjof the State University. It is hard- ly likely, however, that either story is true. It is a safe rule to assume that the man who’ does a good deed is animated by a good motive rather than a mean one. Paris is not going to follow our lead in the way of building, for in the revision of the build- ing laws of the city it has been provided that the height from the sidewalk to the eaves of any structure shall not exceed sixty-six feet, and on narrow streets not even that height is permitted. The American who wishes to live high in Paris will not be able to do it by taking to a garret. One of the interesting features of the recent elections is the disclosure that the West is be- coming “solid” in a political sense. The Solid South elected thirteen R and one Republican Governor; “Solid New England” sent five Democrats one Democratic Governor, and the Great West was just about as solid as e epublican Congressmen to Congress and elected ither of them. get his lines, and how safe the company felt about illness of the principals as they 2ll had an “alternate”—‘"we don't call them understudies.”. Then, again deplor- ing his deficiencies as a speechmaker, and with sparkling gossipy anecdote of those whom he considers that way gifted, Mr. Barnabee went to the matutinal tea and toast that was waiting for him. But as he shook hands he said ingenuousl: “Deal gently with the erring one!’ Christmas Leather Goods Now on sale. Wrist, coronation, chate- laine and silver fish scale bags, in wal- rus, matt seal, alligator, lizard, wild steer and hippo n leathers. -Also musi rolls, music folios, pocketbooks, card, t:ls gar and letter cases, billbooks and trav- eling rolls. All lettered in gold free of Charge. rm, Vail & Co., 74 Market s It is announced that in the next Congress there will be no Populists and no Silver men but nevertheless therewill be agood many men in each House who would be for Populism or for sil- ver in a jiffy were‘ there any votes to befgained by it. ' The curious law which so frequently protects the fra are broken has been illustrated again by the discovery that several bottles of wine and some wine ‘tered stone. gile when the strong things of earth \ in clearing away the ruins of the Campanile glasses were found unbroken amid the heap of shat- ’ i A Chicago Judge has decided that if a man persist in paying attentions to a young woman who does not like them, the father of the woman has a right to take the man and chuck him into a water trough; so we see the water cure theory is sprendinifrqm the military. toscivil life NEW LEADER OF ITALIAN BAND IS NOT HERALDED AS A DANCING DERVISH . BY BLANCHE i I PARTINGTON. e NOTHER lost {llusion, alas, and alack-a-day! A cruel and hu- morous observer sardonically- de- nounces Creatore, the impetuous, the impulsive, the pantomimic child of nature who coaxed, thumped, hauled and battered music out of the Royal Italian Band last year, as a poseur. This cynical person relates a tale of his intrusion upon Creatore’s daily practice before his mirror of those wild dives, heroic sweeps and pianissimo caresses wherewith he was wont to adorn his Wagner and Verdl. He further com- ments upon the delicious seriousness of the performance and the admirable in- nocence of the American audience that ingenuously accepts such gallery play in good faith, Of course, no man is a hero to his looking-glass,but, oh, I cannot, cannot think—being -of the fool public above men- tioned—that Creatore’s seeming impromp- tus of the batonneur’s art were evolved before a mirror—perish the thought!| Rather, I .think Signor Creatore, being | caricatured, reported, laughed into a con- | sciousness—of his unusual -antics - while conducting, was gravely attempting in| the secrecies of his boudoir to count his 1, 2 3; 1, 2, 3, 4, like other men. Which | he immediately forgot to do as soon as the Berserker enthusiasm of leading his men to triumph snapped in his blood. To-night we shall have opportunity to hear the new leader, who depends neither upon His hair—which the same it is short —nor upon an eccentricity of gesture for his effects. The Mechanics’ Pavilion will ring to-night with the “Lucia” sextet, an excepticnally fine arrangement of the “Mignon” overture, and a transcription of the Boito ‘‘Mefistofele” among other numbers of interest. Band lovers will be interested to know the compasition of this unique organization. Its fifty-five in- struments are distributed as follows, and it is explained that the six trumpets take the place of the B flat cornets used in English and American bands, and that the bass trombone in use was manufac- tured to the order of Verdi, who only thus couid secure a certain desired ef- fect. The reeds—Two oboes, two flutes, one E flat clarionet, eleven B flat clarionets, two E flat alto clarionets, two bassoons, four saxophones. The brass—Six trum- ‘pets, four French horns, three altos, six trombones, one bass trombone, two bom- bardines, two B flat tubas, two E flat tubas, two double B flat tubas. The per- cussion—One tympani, two snare drums, one grosse cassa. The concerts are to take place every evening, with matinees on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. Five weeks the season is to last, and it will doubtless be prosperous. s e In the curriculum of the average" uni- versity it.is but too often true that the claim and value of the fine art of music is magnificently ignored. There is a half- hearted concession to the claims of sculp- ture and painting, but music, lovely maid, knocks in vain at the barred gates. It is well for her and for the music-hungry youths and maidens of Berkeley that there is a cultivated interest and wise generosity like that of Mrs. Hearst to supply, in part, the deficiency. On every other Sunday during the music season there are concerts given in the pleasant Hearst Hall, to which Mrs. Hearst in- vites the students of the university, her- self the Maecenas. The programmes con- tain all kinds of good music, from string Quartets to songs, and the large hall is always crowded with the young guests. Mrs. Hearst herself is always there, lend- ing a gracious and friendly charm to the affair. The first concert of this year was given last Sunday, under the direction of Rob- ert J. Tolmie. Many of the participants were Mr. Tolmie’s pypils, and I had my first opportunity to admire the beautiful tone _and. thoroughly artistic technique thet the Leschetizsky method, “method™ plus Mr. Tolmie, results in. The handling of the pianistic part of the programme was perhaps better than the programme. There are pienty of good tMings written 1l two pianos without condescending to arrangements of orchestral work, and it is even more distinctly the superfiuous thing to perform - a paraphrase—almost | inevitably a parody—¢f a Beethoven piano composition, upon which Miss Enid Wii- lams and Miss Edith Gere Kelley wasted o . SOLO TRUMPETER WHO IS WITH ELLERY'S ROYAL ITALIAN BAND. +* much charming tone and fine technique. Saint-Saens paints the lily in his varia- tions on the beautiful little monuetto from the Op. 31 No. 3 Sonata and doesn't do it particularly cleverly. -His own “Phaeton’”” was quite plausibly arranged and very well played by Mrs. Staiger and Miss von Manderscheid. Miss Elsa von Manderscheid was the sole pianist, and gave the F major sonata of Beethoven technically very competently. The sing- ers- of the afternoon were Miss Cornelia Little and Mrs._Cecil Mark. There are to b® given soon some charm- ing cld-world programmes, with songs of Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso and other rare and choice morsels. Oscar Weil's epicurean intelligence is behind them. R Robert Clarence Newell, the accom- plished accompanist, who left here to ac- company Mademoiselle Antonia Dolores (who was Trebelli until she desired to win a separate fame from her distin- guished mother’s) on her Australian tour, sends the following telegram from Mel- bourne. It will please many people, for Trebelli sang herself deeply into the local musical heart. Here it is: “Dolores won- derful success in Sydney and Melbourne. Thirty thousand people attended eight cencerts just after the Melba season. R markable enthusiasm.” Prunes stuffed with apricots Townsend'a.* ——————— Guillett’s Christmas extra mince ples, lce cream and cake, 905 Larkin st.; tel. East 198.¢ s Pahaes e sl Townsend’s California glace fruit and candies, 50c a pound, in artistic fire-etched boxes. A nice present for Eastern friends. 629 Market st., Palace Hotel bullding. * e Special mformation supplied Qaily to business houses and public men by the Press Clipping_Bureau (Allen’s), 230 Cali~ fornia street. Telephone Main 1012 . [ S —— Sydney, Australia, reports that the bu- bonic plague is not communicable be- tween individuals. Rats, mosquitoes and vermin alone convey it. Makes Skins Lighter, Clearer, Purer B R ANTIDOTES BLEMISHES The clear, firm complexion of youth is “coaxed back™ by Anita Cream. Applied at nizht and removed in tae morning. thus imparting the full benefits of its medicinal nature. Re- moves Tan. Freckles, Muddiness, Pimples, Moth 'and Liver SD\)': Goc Directions with each jar. druggists or of us, prepaid. ANITA CREAM & TOILET COMPANY Los Angeles, Cal.