Now that the New York legislature has decided to submit the question of woman suffrage to popular vote, we are being bored and sometimes horrified by the revelations of a battle which most of us get into the habit of thinking was fought and won long ago. That is the trouble with many radicals. The investigation of new causes comes to mean with them merely a process of personal salvation. A belief attained is taken as a matter of course, as if there were nothing more to be done about it. Even to mention it seems in bad taste—there are so many more important things, so many more ecstatic attitudes. And then the world rumbles along to it like some prehistoric monster, and we are caught unaware in the midst of quarreling which seems to us beside the point. Have we not discarded fighting machinery? Have we not thrown our siege guns on the scrap heap? How rude of the unintelligent to disturb us! We are like the pacificists who thought that war could be abolished by the mere act of willing. We forget that mankind never wills all at once. We forget that it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice our energy in the battle for a distressingly old cause. Or else we never see the necessity, and damn the naive volunteers with a supercilious smile of superior enlightenment while we cuddle ourselves in the cotton wool of private emotions. We offer them a new word as a reagent for all their difficulties.
Who, for instance, could have imagined that The New York Times, mental yokel though it is, could come out with a two-column editorial article against suffrage on the ground that women are not fitted to vote because they do not share men’s economic burdens? It must have been six months ago at least that The Times published a census report on its back page showing that 30.6 per cent of all the females in New York over ten years of age are engaged in gainful occupations. You would think census statistics would be just the thing to attract the eye of that editorial writer. But here the editorial is, like an unbelievable fossil come to life. If it represented merely a Tory minority we could afford to laugh and wait for its partisans to die. It represents, however, the astute judgment of The Times as to what several hundred thousand people in New York city really think. The big newspaper cannot afford to try leading public opinion. It must agree with as many people of buying capacity as possible. And here we are again, face to face with a blind, stupid majority.
One begins to speculate on what possibility there is for a democracy except running about in circles. Everything is apparently arranged so that the majority can enforce its immediate will, and its immediate will is always several generations behind the wisdom of its best citizens. An enthroned tyrant can be dynamited, but a hydra-headed tyrant in the election booth must be educated. What a wearisome, unromantic task that is! Many a man who would exultingly give his life in the adventure of assassination retires to his study before the labor of training a mob. He has neither the strength of imagination nor the strength of heart necessary to fight his way inch by inch. Here is a real sacrifice to be made for the future. Here is a chance for modern heroes with stuff in them. Here is an opportunity to substitute soul-testing labor for amateur theatricals. To leaven stupidity, to work with raw and shouting enthusiasts, to be humble enough to accept each partial victory, each compromise, and still to fight for the next one—this is the challenge of faith which proves to us there is still iron in mankind. There is satisfaction in the thought that victories have not become easier. Many a Launcelot would go insane in the trenches.
Everyone is looking for the supremacy of his own pet reform or reaction as a result of the war, and it is banal to indulge in prophecies. Yet it seems to me there will be a great gain in our understanding if we approach the monster with humility. It has, to be sure, shown us the brutality lurking in modern civilization. We can easily use it as a text for denouncing politics, commercialism, militarism, and all the other abstractions which represent to us the sum of present human failings. Yet why not go a little farther, and blame as well an intellectualism which slides about on the surface of things, a species of reform and enthusiasm which does not bite into the substance of humanity? Do not our philosophies now appear as futile as the pedantic dreaming of mediaeval schoolmen and alchemists? Does not our separation of the ideal from the material now seem as vicious as Christian asceticism? What business have we to toy with perfectionist theories when to do so we must ignore what is to-day and what will be to-morrow in the blood and brain of nearly all human beings? We must make human breeding the test of effort. We must admit that the will is powerless without the hands. We must create our social tools to accomplish our social ends. We must forget the false distinctions between emotion and intellect, and use both for their common purpose. Let us not repudiate machinery because it has not yet been consciously directed to an end that is worth gaining. Modern civilization has spent its force developing in opposite directions—toward the brute and toward the god—and now we are amazed at the contradiction. Our task is to make a synthesis and arrive at man. It will be a task to engage the highest qualities of the poet and the scientist—this job of putting man’s will in control of his overgrown body. And it will be more fascinating than any other work man has ever set himself.
The Drama
“Alice in Wonderland”
(Fine Arts Theatre)
Judging from this initial production of Alice in Wonderland the new management of the Fine Arts Theatre is going to justify the name of the theatre and yet compete with the loop theatres in attracting the attention of the general public. The Players Producing Company has been wise in securing the services of an exceptionally good professional company under the direction of Mr. W. H. Gilmore, and they have made an unusually happy start with Miss Gerstenberg’s dramatization of Lewis Carroll’s classic, supplemented by the scenery of Mr. Wm. P. Henderson and the musical setting of Mr. Eric de Lamarter.
At first thought it seems incredible that the subtle comedy of Alice in Wonderland could lend itself to the wider stage values; but the dialogue loses nothing—it gains, rather, by the transposition. Some doubt has been expressed as to whether Alice is really a children’s classic or an adult classic. On the stage that doubt is resolved—it is both. The children appreciate seeing all the quaint creatures and people that Alice meets in her adventures, and the grown-ups enjoy the humor of the dialogue and the extraordinary real unreality of Carroll’s imagination. As a matter of fact the psychology of Lewis Carroll is amazing! He lived long before Mme. Montessori; yet in his own whimsical fashion he has recorded how absurdly unreal and fantastic the unrelated elements of education must seem to the child mind! The grown-up who does not appreciate the humor of Alice in Wonderland must be a very dull person. Both the fun and the dream quality of the original have been carefully emphasized in the production. Mr. Henderson’s scenery is successful in more senses than one. First of all it is beautiful and entirely in the spirit of the play, and, secondly, it does not sacrifice the actors as so much of the new stage craft has a tendency to do. Although extremely rich and varied in color, the setting waits for the final complement of the actors in costume before the design is complete. As Mr. Henderson is a painter, rather than a “man of the theatre”—that vague term invented by Craig—he knows how to obtain effects on the stage by color, and does not depend upon the manipulation of direct lighting—often as imitative and theatrical as the old style scenery—to create illusion. He obtains the effect of depth or distance on the stage by the tonal quality of his painted drop, rather than by an increased cubic depth which is apt to reduce an actor to the thin and non-existent quality of a paper silhouette. It is well to indicate these principles, for they are all important in connection with drama that depends upon speech, and in his use of these principles Mr. Henderson is probably the most radical of all the advanced scenic artists.
Altogether Chicago has reason to be proud of this production. It reveals the fact that Chicago is not without independent artistic initiative, and a full conviction of this fact should lead to interesting developments. Unfortunately in this review it is impossible to speak of the acting in detail, but this is hardly necessary as the critics have given it the stamp of their approval. For the professional finish of the performance credit is due to Mr. W. H. Gilmore. Little Miss Alice Tobin made an ideal Alice. In fact not one part is mis-cast, and all the actors give the impression that they are having the time of their life—which contributes much to the spirit of the entertainment. Mr. De Lamarter’s music has a charming fantastic quality and great delicacy of imagination. And above all the delightful freshness of the play is due to Miss Gerstenberg’s good faith in sticking to the text of the original and not attempting to pump into it any extraneous matter which might have deteriorated into musical comedy or farce. As it is the play is a fantasy, and, when successful, as in this case, no form is more capable of giving lasting enjoyment.