Two of my friends had joined me and when I was no longer contented to meet Josephine Sykes merely as a member of the Emerson Club, and therefore persuaded her to start a little club of our own, she joined the class.
Shortly after the death of Maurice Grau in 1902, my wife and I, calling on Mrs. Josephine Bonné, found the Conrieds there, and Conried told us that he was looking for fourteen men whom he could get to join him in subscribing the $150,000 required to secure the lease and management of the Metropolitan Opera House, and as I was one that Mrs. Bonné had suggested, he, with great earnestness, backed up by his fine dramatic talent, pleaded his cause. He told us of his histrionic training in the Burg Theatre at Vienna, and how his youthful ardour for the stage was permanently influenced by the high artistic ideals prevailing there.
“When I came to America,” he said, “I hoped the prosperous Germans and Jews would endow a similar institution here, and so I started the Irving Place Theatre. What has happened? Instead of receiving the support I expected, I have had to resort to all kinds of devices. I have become a play broker, secured the American rights to current European productions, demonstrating their possibilities to the American managers, and selling them when I could, so that the Irving Place Theatre has really become only a laboratory or testing room. It has never paid for itself, and I have had to supplement my brokerage profits by securing Herr Ballin’s help in founding the Ocean Comfort Company which rents steamer chairs to transatlantic travellers! Have I put my small profits in my own pocket? No, I have poured them back into the Irving Place Theatre, still hoping to attract the support which would give me a chance to demonstrate my ideals. Here is a short-cut, here is a chance for me to realize all these ideals without having to risk my own or my friends’ money. At last my opportunity has come, and I ask you to help me secure this lease.”
I doubt if he ever played any rôle more earnestly or with greater sincerity. Nobody could have resisted him, and I gracefully surrendered and asked him:
“What progress have you made? What men have you secured?”
He answered: “Jacob H. Schiff, Ernest Thalman, Daniel Guggenheim, Randolph Guggenheimer, and Henry R. Ickelheimer.” All of these men were of the highest class, thoroughly cultured, and lovers of music, but knowing as I did the management of the Metropolitan Opera House, I jokingly said to Conried:
“If you could only secure a Mr. Hochheimer and a Mr. Niersteiner you would have a complete wine list, but you could never secure the opera house through it.”
He saw the point at once, and asked what I would suggest. I answered him:
“I have conceived a plan while sitting here, but to carry it out I must have an absolutely free hand as to who are to be your associates. I shall see Messrs. A. D. Juilliard and George G. Haven, who have the final say in the matter, on Tuesday, and can tell you that evening whether I can accomplish anything or not.”
Conried assented. I at once proceeded to carry out my plan to interest the younger social leaders and communicated with Mr. James Hazen Hyde. He was most favourably impressed, and suggested that he and I obligate ourselves for $75,000 each, secure the lease, and then select our associates. We did so, obtained the lease, and then invited the following to make up the Board of Directors of the Conried Metropolitan Opera Company: Alfred G. Vanderbilt, Henry Rogers Winthrop, H. P. Whitney, Robert Goelet, R. H. McCurdy, Jacob H. Schiff, Clarence H. Mackay, George J. Gould, Otto H. Kahn, J. Henry Smith, Eliot Gregory, Bainbridge Colby, and William H. McIntyre. Heinrich Conried was elected president and Hyde and myself vice-presidents. Success was assured from the first. Conried took hold of the management with energy and wonderful resourcefulness that promptly won him the admiration of the directors of both companies.