A district attorney fights a political machine which, through bribery, has defeated a new building code. He convicts the bribed alderman but cannot obtain from him any information as to the “men higher up.” At last he discovers that his own son-in-law was the go-between in the matter of the bribe. The intense loyalty of wife to husband is shown by his daughter who says to her father: “Your life and principles are nothing now—promise me you’ll keep Hal out of jail,” and by the wife of the guilty alderman who declares “it is not a question of right and wrong—it’s what I think of Nick.”
The play brings out the loyalty to one’s circle of intimates, shown in the refusal of the convicted alderman to divulge incriminating information; and the loyalty to a political coterie whose watchword is “You might as well be dead as a squealer,” and concerning whom the district attorney says: “It is the unwritten law of your system to perjure yourself to save a friend.” He further remarks to the boss, “You won’t help those not in your crowd—and your crowd is too small, even though you can call a hundred thousand people in New York by their first names.”
One element in the play is the definite human appraisal of just what graft and disloyalty to public welfare involve. It flashes out when the boss after telling how he had given a few dollars to a “down and outer” is silenced by the district attorney’s daughter who points out that he owns the gambling place in which the derelict lost his money. It is again emphasized when the district attorney says to those who appeal for leniency toward the men responsible for the defeat of the building code, “All right let’s be human,” and then refers to the 149 factory girls who lost their lives in a factory fire which the building code would have prevented. “People vote,” he says at another time, “with the man who laughs, but the laugh is too expensive.”
How the district attorney shows his own human qualities in the end by saving his son-in-law from prison, but in a way to render important service to the 9,000,000 people of the state, is the climax of the piece.
The play is intended to show how the absorption of the average man in his own affairs and in the interests of his small group of friends is responsible for popular indifference which often makes the conscientious public servant lonely and disheartened. The district attorney, as candidate for governor, has returned from a campaign trip. “There are one million men out for the graft and nine million who don’t care,” he says. His daughter replies: “That does not seem like you, father.” “Well,” he adds, “you ought to have seen them all along the line of my trip; big meetings, cheering, too, plenty of enthusiasm. But the minute I left each town I felt it all suddenly die right out. Every man jack of them back to his business, his job and his friends—the things he really cares about—and I felt as though I had carried on the cheers of each town. Each town throwing it all at my head and shouting ‘Go on, be a hero, save the country—only for God’s sake leave us alone, we have not time, we are busy.’”
BRIEUX’S “DAMAGED
GOODS” PRESENTED
“I didn’t know” bids fair to become an obsolete phrase in connection with the nature of the social evil, if the ripples started by the production of Brieux’s Damaged Goods in New York this spring extend as far as its sponsors intend. The Committee of the Sociological Fund of the Medical Review of Reviews believe that syphilis should no longer be regarded as a mysterious disease, whose ravages are to be shunned but its causes ignored.
Bernard Shaw’s preface to the Brieux play, with its warning against the usual treatment of the subject as taboo and its appeal for publicity and legal assistance in coping with the evil, was read by a clergyman well known for his human contact with every-day social conditions. The drama itself was simply staged and given a sympathetic reading by a strong cast. Almost every bearing of the menace on family and social life is brought out in a way well calculated to meet prejudice due to indifference, ignorance or tradition, and to create a conviction that here is a scourge to be conquered by publicity.
Those who saw the play had come with various mental attitudes. Some were even vaguely questioning whether they had come to see a play or hear a sermon. Not a few of the theatrical critics have dubbed it the latter, but to many parents this very quality made it seem peculiarly profitable for young men who are breaking loose from home life. By some it was even felt that the educational value of the piece would justify its being given a special performance at some holiday season, and that prevention through knowledge would thus be promoted.