W

Guilt

HEN the Great War was

ended in 1918, Germany was full of foreigners. There were American foreigners, French foreigners, English foreigners, and many others. The prison camps were full of them. Now they were released, and allowed to go home.

Among these survivors of devastation was a bewildered Russian soldier. Home was a long way off, farther perhaps than heaven or oblivion. Here was Germany, a strange land, but not so strange as that blackened horror rumor told him was Russia. Where should he go, and by what means? Germany was no longer an enemy country. These people were liberal in their thinking, and managed their revolutions with not so much trouble. The Russian prisoner settled down in Germany. This now was his home.

It was not long before he had found more than a home. There was an affair

of the heart that troubled him mightily for a while, and then was over and done with; a mistake for two people, better recognized and admitted, with no hard feelings on either side. There had been no marriage; in the end neither wanted marriage. There was a child, a little boy; but no complications need arise. from that. According to the new German laws, the Russian father paid alimony for his illegitimate son; the mother looked after the boy, which made the arrangement complete.

When a man's life moves clearly and in the open, there are few to trouble him. But once he is touched by mystery and suspicion, even his poverty springs to accuse him. The Russian was poor. It was difficult for him to pay his alimony, but the law demanded it, and somehow the new citizen managed his part.

But from the day that his four-yearold son was found murdered there was no hope for this man. He was accused; even his difficulties accused him, his foreign birth accused him, his very origin accused him in his strange and broken speech. There was no doubt about it! This man had murdered his boy in order to avoid supporting him. And it would be interesting to know the mind to which this righteous and horrid suspicion first occurred. It spread rapidly to other minds. It gathered heat like a destroy

By IBBY HALL

ing flame among the worthy and indig

nant families who had their own children

to think of, those good parents who reared their young in peace and virtue. The man ought to be beheaded! With such a motive, most certainly he was guilty; moreover, he was a foreigner. What further proof was wanted?

Although the Russian spoke a halting and inadequate German, the court allowed him no interpreter; and although

the German League for Human Rights fought desperately in his behalf, on circumstantial evidence the Russian soldier was convicted and beheaded.

His life, after all, was of little value, except to himself. He has been dead now for two years, and there is no power anywhere or higher court that can return to him his life. He would no doubt have been only a little more bewildered had he been told at the time of his exe

cution that he would no longer be obscure, that he was to be a martyr, and rise to prominence in the annals of German law.

For it is held in Berlin that this man's

death will mean the abolishment of capital punishment for Germany, since only the other day the two murderers of the Russian prisoner's little boy confessed their guilt.

The names of these two men, their motives and their lives, are unmentioned and forgotten in despatches to the news. The only name to reach another continent is "Jakubowski . . . beheaded in 1926. . . entirely innocent of a grave judicial error."

D

A Record

victim

OWN in Kentucky they learn to shoot straight and to the point. There is no creature so small or so insignificant whose honor is not worth defending by one of these armed knights of the Blue Grass.

There is a State hatchery in Kentucky where trout are granted a taste of Elysia. In those clear and glittering waters, so full of innocent pleasure, it is only natural that the blest inhabitants should forget their God-given instincts for alarm. Have they not the Government behind them?

One trout has developed in these waters of bliss through the stages of egg, minnow, small fry, and parent trout. He has grown to considerable weight, but, due to his increasing sense of security and the homage given him by smaller fish, his brain has grown less remarkable every day.

Spring is well advanced in Kentucky by now. And only the other day the pompous trout was taking his airing in the bright sunshine of the South. His family and friends respected his taste for solitude; they remained modestly at a distance while the great one ascended to the air of May. Before their very eyes he made a daring leap. They waited breathlessly for his reappearance.

Meanwhile the king trout was adjusting himself to shock. Instincts, bred of generations, were slowly coming alive. Something in the depths of his sluggish mind told him that he was in the grip of the Unknown Monster which his guarded youth had flouted. Great claws

pierced the scales of his body, enormous wings pounded and whirled above his head, the rarity of the atmosphere was becoming unbreathable.

Below, his glazed eyes could scarcely make out the cool, diminishing glitter of home. This was destruction. He gasped, and saw that Kentucky was lost to him for

ever.

Suddenly, through the bright spring morning came the thunder of doom. Judgment day had arrived. With that dreadful report in his brain, the dying trout felt a new and sickening sensation. He began to fall. The claws were nowhere. The wings above him were gone. Kentucky whirled and somersaulted and stretched out its arms to receive him, and the poor fish, with a splash and shudder, found himself once more in the cool retreat of home.

The friends and relations gasped with astonishment. This was the beginning of a legend. There, swimming away, slow and solitary, was a hero. The altitude and endurance records for trout were both his. For a while at least they did not dare approach him.

One of the attendants of the hatchery looked with satisfaction from his gun to a dead fish-hawk lying at his feet. He looked again at the ripples left by the departing trout, and felt modestly pleased with his aim.

T

HE American Orchestral Society, under the musical direction of Chalmers Clifton, gave for its final concert of the season at Mecca Hall a very interesting, not to say ambitious program.

Beginning with the Rimsky-Korsakoff "The Russian Easter," played with a fine show of enthusiasm, Mr. Clifton next gave us the "Impressions from an Artist's Life," by Ernest Schelling, with the composer himself at the piano.

This set of variations for orchestra and piano is one of the most satisfactory things Mr. Schelling has given us in the way of composition, though his "Victory Ball," that brilliant macabre thing, is perhaps more interesting as a technical tour de force.

We had the privilege of hearing the latter piece done by the Colonne Orchestra in Paris when it was received with hisses as well as applause. The hisses, however, had nothing to do with the musical end of the composition, but with the anti-war sentiments expressed in the poem it was founded on, La Belle France at that moment being all ready to go to war with somebody about somethingthe occupation of the Ruhr business most probably.

The post-graduate educational organization, as it calls itself, showed the results of the hard work and excellent training it has received at the hands of Mr. Clifton and his associates, for the Schelling work is by no means a simple affair, as any musician who has listened to it well knows.

The program concluded with a fine performance of the Strauss tone-poem "Don Juan," which brought to an end. the sixth and last concert of the season.

This orchestra, which is primarily a training organization, holds a really unique position in the musical world of New York. It gives to music students who have mastered orchestral instruments the opportunity to acquire the routine and repertoire necessary to qualify them as professional symphony players. Experienced professionals are employed as teachers who both aid and instruct the less experienced members in the different sections of the orchestra. Students may become members of the Society by paying one dollar a year dues. The organization also plans to help, whenever possible, young American com

By EUGENE BONNER

posers by reading a certain number of their compositions at its rehearsals. The composer is thus enabled to make corrections or changes in his work before its public performance, an opportunity very rarely possible in the case of per

Chalmers Clifton, conductor of the

American Orchestral Society

formances by the more professional orchestras.

These performances, many of them with distinguished artists as soloists, are free to the public, tickets being given. away on application to the offices of the Society in Steinway Hall.

Τ

wo concerts of "Contemporary Music" were sponsored by those two young modernists, Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions, at the Edyth Totten Theatre on April 22 and May 6, respectively.

Mr. Copland is speedily coming to be recognized as one of the leading spirits in the doings of the so-called ultra-modern group in this city, not only by his compositions and lectures, but by promoting the works of other composers of the present-day school as well.

The first concert brought forward a Sonata for Violin and Piano by Theodore Chanler which showed good musi

cianship and not a little ingenuity, Three Pieces for Flute, Clarinet, and Bassoon by Walter Piston, a Sonata for Piano, and Three Sonatinas by Carlos Chavez, and Five Phrases from "The Song of Solomon" by Virgil Thomson.

The "Three Pieces" by Walter Piston were delightful, whimsical things, beautifully done. The numbers by Mr. Chavez seemed to be utterly without form or direction, besides being far from pleasing to listen to; perhaps a second hearing might reveal hidden beauties, but it is highly doubtful.

In the "Five Phrases from 'The Song of Solomon'" Virgil Thomson gave us something quite fresh and unhackneyed, which one can be thankful for these days. An atmosphere of the Orient was adroitly captured for the few moments these "phrases" lasted.

HE program of the second concert of this series brought forth works of Robert Delaney, Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, Ruth Crawford, Adolph Weiss, D. Rudhyar, and W. Quincy Porter.

We unfortunately missed the Sonatas of Mr. Delaney and Mr. Sessions, arriving, however, in time to hear Mr. Copland's Two Pieces for String Quartet, both of which were interesting and showed his usual sound musicianship and good taste.

As for the group of piano pieces which followed, we can, unfortunately, find nothing good to say about them without perjuring at least one immortal soul. They seemed quite meaningless, very difficult to play, and sounded like a cat that had got loose on the piano keysa much-perturbed cat.

The Quintet for Piano and Strings by Mr. Porter, which concluded this concert, was well conceived, well written, and showed he knew what he was trying to say.

Being quite in sympathy with the modernists, we regretfully have to admit that fully nine-tenths of the stuff put forward nowadays purporting to be the "new music" is just so much bilge. Which is a great pity, as the road of the serious, well-trained composer is hard enough these days without having his chances of success prejudiced by the meandering piffle of half-baked students who have yet to master their musical grammar!

T

HERE

was a

time, in

the days of Savoy and Brennen, when it was possible to see the incandescent letters which proclaimed "The Greenwich Village Follies," and enter the theatre with pleasant anticipations which were usually fulfilled.

Alas, no

more! Knowing how far and wide a predatory show like the "Follies" will range in this country, we thought it our duty, the other evening, to go into the Winter Garden, where the 1928 edition of this revue is holding forth, with (we quote) a world-famed cast of stars and sixteen Chester Hale Girls, Ralph Reader's Greenwich Village Girls, and Arnold Johnson's orchestra.

It was not long before a certain gloom settled upon us. The signs of the good old Winter Garden productions were so evident that we turned hastily to the program to see if the old producers of the "Follies" had sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. Well, we don't know about that. But the present edition is staged by Mr. Huffman, and was written by Mr. Atterridge, and is being played in a Shubert theatre.

This is not to say that it isn't any good at all. It has some excellent things in it. First, in our estimation, is George Rockwell and his intimate talks with the

cago-this gave the audience the pleasantest moment during the evening.

Beyond this, the "Follies" is merely another Shubert show, with all the good old living statues, expensive settings, extreme vulgarity, and precious little artistic imagination.

In fact, we fear this will end it, so far as a real "Follies" is concerned. From now on it's going to be a high-class burlesque show.

L

EW FIELDS, in our estimation, does much better. In his new show, "Present Arms," he finds it hard to get away from the old-style chorus work with its gymnastic exercises, but the whole production has an air of humor, and romance, and "go" which adds very much to the intrinsic ability of the play itself to amuse. In fact, we should say that "Present Arms," although it could be considerably better in many ways, is our third choice for a summer musical comedy, providing that "Show Boat"

in their combination of romantic and dramatic setting, and humorous dialogue by absurd characters. Do we need to say that the plot concerns a Marine who has to pretend to be a Captain in order to keep up his love affair with a daughter of a noble English planter, and that he is unmasked at a ball and so ruined with the lady that it takes a shipwreck to drag him back into her good graces? Yes, that's it. There isn't anything startling about it. But we had one very pleasant moment when the angry lady and the Marine in the storm carried on their conversation entirely through the third party on the raft, who was a very hard-boiled gentleman who had no idea of what it was all about. If only Lew Fields himself were in the show, it would be a knock-out. As it is, while it's good, there isn't anybody with a personality striking enough to raise the performance above the level of a very entertaining musical comedy.

the show as it goes along. Memories of Ed Wynn came to us at times, but, mostly, Dr. Rockwell is completely original and exceedingly funny. And the sketches are not bad, although most of them are made entirely for New Yorkers, the majority of them being take-offs on current Broadway plays such as "The Silent House" and "The Trial of Mary Dugan." Just one of them has what we would call universal appeal. This is an evening with the radio. Done on a dark stage, with merely a radio set in the spot-light, and coming from the darkened stage that unearthly, discordant mixture which can be secured from the air-everything from a bedtime story to wavering, uncertain grand opera in Chi

the dog days.

You may have some moments of despair during the first scenes when you realize that it's going to be a story about the Marines and Hawaii, and that it has a deserted island in it. But there aren't any grass clothes, and the Marines don't talk about the war, and the poor old moon gets a rest, and no island beauty seduces the hero away from his Fifth Avenue lady love. The obvious thing is pretty well avoided and there are some pleasant surprises. And, in particular, two or three of the melodies will haunt you for some time.

They would be better, of course, if some one could sing them. Because, as it is, you worry a good deal about the

upon us, as is evidenced by Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer," with its all star cast, Sardou's "Diplomacy," with another all star cast, and the coming production by "The Players" of Farquhar's "The Beaux' Stratagem," another old favorite. The actors in such productions as these could make anything worth seeing, as a brief glance at the names shows. And the visitor to New York who only has one evening to spend, and is not particularly sure of what show he wants to see, would probably derive a more enduring satisfaction from any one of them than from most of the current offerings of our modern writers.

FRANCIS R. BELLAMY.

I

Chester Conklin

in

"The Big Noise "

T'S a curious sort of garment they have wrapped around that simple

son of nature, Chester Conklin, for his current screen appearance, but it sets off his inevitable downtrodden figure to perfection. While it frequently allows vulgarity to sully its hem, the texture of it is pretty generally bright with satire and shimmering with wit. (And, thank Heaven, that metaphor's over with!)

In "The Big Noise" they have cast Chester Conklin as John Sloval, a subway guard, who takes his family on a spree to Coney Island and loses so much sleep that he's decidedly unfitted for

The Movies

By A. M. SHERWOOD, Jr.

chief difference between the two films seemed to us to lie in the contrast between the vile treatment David got

of the spoken drama, the Messrs. William A. Brady, Jr., and Dwight Deere Wiman; it enjoyed a run of some six frosty evenings, despite the fact that young Mr. Brady made a personal appearance, leading a horse. The Byrne novel itself may have appealed to some people, but we haven't happened to run across them. That the movie version is as good as it is demonstrates to the satisfaction of this reviewer that the screen can improve on stories-can improve on stage plays, and grand operas, too.

That it doesn't do so more often is regrettable, but-stick around! The infant Cinema is growing a brain.

"The Raider 'Emden'" MOVING-PICTURE concern in Munich

by his calling that the crowd pushes him (accidentally) under a train, causing injuries of a purely superficial sort.

This incident is seized upon by a daily newspaper as ammunition for the campaign of its mayoralty candidate, who opposes the traction company. John Sloval becomes the uncomprehending tool of reporters and ballyhoo men, and the dubious old firm of Press, Politics & Co. is held up to expert ridicule throughout the rest of the picture. The youthful and well-tailored candidate for mayor carries John around on his stumping tours and points to John's spurious bandages as mute evidence of the greed and brutality of John's employers. The great daily keeps its pho

by Chad Buford. "Tol'able David" throbbed with pathos and "Kentucky Courage" doesn't; but it's a well-executed, entertaining picture and provides Mr. Barthelmess with better material than any of his recent vehicles excepting "The Patent Leather Kid."

Mr. Barthelmess, it should be added, needs to watch his weight if he's going to do adolescent rôles much longer, and so does Miss Mollie O'Day. We hope they'll accept this observation in the right spirit-and cut down on potatoes.

Α

Hangman's House"

N actor we greatly admire is Earle Foxe.

sent a companion piece to the Britishmade "Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands;" but, strangely enough, it does not approach that admirable film in any degree. We say "strangely enough" because one thinks of the Germans as being able to produce any kind of film and do it well, and it's a matter of record that the British cinema industry is still pecking at the eggshell. Nevertheless, this record of the sensational sea-rover Emden is grossly mishandled, whereas the less promising British subject was uncommonly well done.

The director of the German picture introduces an awful lot of propaganda into this "fair and impartial record" (something the British picture sedulously avoided) and he also drags in a

John's home life, and the general effect

is interesting and amusing.

As for the several examples of bad taste in the picture, they're perhaps appropriate to the setting; but honestlyit's hard to see how the censors' minds work, sometimes!

nefariously through the screen version of Donn Byrne's totally unreadable Irish novel and does a lot toward making it a very commendable picture.

Victor McLaglen and June Collyer, Hobart Bosworth, and several wellselected minor characters also help considerably, and the photography is consistently picturesque. There is a realistic steeplechase in which several horses run straight at the camera and jump over it; the villain burns to death in a spectacular fire; and some mist effects (invented by Dr. Murnau) are tellingly employed in a number of scenes.

"Hangman's House" was tried out on the stage by those dauntless musketeers

his wife. The scenes are jumpy and confused and give for the most part the impression of being about ten years behind the times.

Indeed, the thought kept assailing us, as we tried to watch this picture, that it might conceivably have been made in 1915 as a propaganda film, and then (what with one thing and another) never released until now. Following, as it does, the release of the British picture, this hypothesis seems unlikely, but by no means impossible.

Anyway, the film proves that the Germans can make just as bad pictures as we can-and that's a statement that is a statement.

The Outlook

TH

used to be—and the small dealers know it. They, together with other distributers, have done their work so well in the last fifteen years that their services are in greatly reduced demand. The country's staff of salesmen was increased tremendously to meet an emergency. The emergency no longer exists, and some of the salesmen sooner or later must go into other work.

Twenty years ago the underwriting and selling of bonds was concentrated in the hands of a few large bankers, with a small list of very wealthy clientsindividuals, insurance companies, and savings banks. Of a $10,000,000 issue, one capitalist would take $400,000 worth, a life insurance company $300,000, and so on. The number of customers who bought as little as $10,000 worth of a single issue was negligible.

The passage of the income tax brought a drastic change. Wealthy individuals could no longer afford to buy ordinary industrial, railroad, and utility issues. They would have been forced to pay out too large a proportion of their income in taxes. Hurriedly they took refuge in tax-exempt securities. For underwriters of other issues this created a sudden emergency.

The sudden contraction of demand was not accompanied by any decrease in the supply of bonds. The number of companies which wanted to borrow was as large as ever. A new demand had to be created, a new class of customers cultivated. The search for the new customers required the enlistment of an army of salesmen. To pay their expenses it was necessary to charge fat commissions for the flotation of loans. Between 1914 and 1924 there was usually a spread of from five to eight points between what the bankers paid for a bond issue and the price at which they sold it to the public. This meant that of $10,000,000 received from the public the bankers would turn over from $9,200,000 to $9,500,000 to the borrower. The remaining $800,000 or $500,000 paid selling expenses.

During the ten years following the passage of the Income Tax Law an underwriting profit of from five to eight points was usually none too large. Most of the eligible customers were not in the

habit of buying bonds, and it cost a great deal of money, in the form of advertising and salesmen's salaries, to convince them of the wisdom of so doing. Selling a $10,000 block often took much more effort than had been necessary before 1914 to sell one of $500,000. The industries, railroads, and public utilities needed the loans for expansion, and they had to pay commissions at the prevailing rate.

The selling of bonds had become a retail instead of a wholesale business. The retail distributers—the smaller dealers whose offices are scattered all through the country-increased rapidly. But there was enough business to go around, and nearly all prospered. In drumming up trade they enjoyed, during the war, the whole-hearted assistance of the Government through the Liberty Loan drives. In these drives the ablest professional salesmen and famous amateurs, such as Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, hammered home to the American people, not only the duty to buy Liberty Bonds, but also the virtues of savings and bond investments. The educational work on which the bond dealers had been spending millions a year was being done more effectively and gratis by the Government and its agents. The ranks of the customers swelled.

Even so, the volume of loans during and immediately after the war increased just as rapidly, perhaps more rapidly, than the customers. The supply of bonds was still larger than the demand that was being tapped, and underwriters were willing to pay large sums for the disposition of their issues. The spreads between the prices paid by the bankers and the public remained at from five to eight points.

Four or five years ago, however, demand was expanding faster than supply. In the decade previous would-be borrowers had been seeking bankers. The bond market was a buyers' market. As the pressure relaxed it was the bankers who searched for potential borrowers, sending agents all over Europe and South America as well as the United States. Men and women who had grown accustomed and women who had grown accustomed

to the purchase of bonds were waiting to snap up anything attractive offered them; it was a sellers' market.

The inevitable result was a shrinkage of the bankers' commissions. Competition forced them down. The spreads dropped to as little as one to three points. The funds available for distribution expenses were, of course, proportionately smaller.

The need for salesmen diminished. It was no longer so necessary to search out new customers and educate them. Most of the potential buyers had been educated already. When they had enough money to buy bonds, they went to their banks and got them without waiting, as they would have done before 1914, for solicitation by a dealer's representative.

This change meant smaller profits for every one in the bond business, but it pinched particularly the small houses which had blossomed to enjoy the big distribution profits available fifteen years ago. They found, not only that their commissions were smaller, but that the number of bonds which they could obtain from the issuing houses was declining.

Today the bank officers in charge of distribution are receiving a constant flow of complaints from the dealers.

"Why did we only get fifty of suchand-such an issue? We asked for 200, and we would have sold twice that many."

The reason for the slashing of the allotments is the fact that demand is running ahead of supply. Only rarely do the dealers receive as many bonds as they want.

Most of the authorities on the subject believe that demand will continue to outstrip supply indefinitely. There will be, moreover, a steady increase in the number of intelligent buyers who neither want nor need advice from a salesman when they have funds to invest.

In any case, underwriters will still hold an important position, but what will happen to the small dealers? Obviously, many of them will have to go out of business or merge with others. With funds in such large supply as they are at present, borrowers would be foolish to pay for the flotation of loans commissions large enough to keep in business all the firms now distributing bonds.