19141 BOOK REVIEWS 181

system. The franchise of the plaintiff corporation contained a provision that during the term of the grant the city would not “contract with any other per- son or persons, corporation or corpora- tions, for a supply of water.”

The court held that such a grant should be strictly construed in favor of

the public. That nothing not unequivo- cally granted can be held to paas by im- plication, and that the city wm not only not bound by negotiations for a pur- c h d e which were not completed, bu t that i t had the right, notwithstanding the terms of the franchise, to establish its own system during the term thereof.

BOOK REVIEWS

TEE CIVIC THEATRE I N RELATION TO THE REDEMPTION OF LEISURE. By Percy Mackaye. New York: Mitchell Kennedy.

“The Civic Theatre idea,” writes Mr. Percy Mackaye, “implies the conscious awakening of a people to self-govcrn- ment in the activities of its leisure.” Many socialists, and notably William Morris, demand that the day’s work be made a joy t o the laborer. Mr. Mackaye points out that under the most perfect government this would be impossible as long as the day’s work consisted, let us say, in manipulating a machine for add- ing columns of figures or in fixing the tips upon shoe laces. Yet even under our present industrial system a certain part of each day can be given to recreation and artistic self-expression. Leisure a t least, if not labor, can be made a joy.

Yet leisure, like labor, is today com- mercialized. From the Sunday supple- ment to the best seller, from Coney Is- land to Broadway, the pleasures of the people are purveyed and determined by private enterprise, whose main and often sole interest in those pleasures lies in the gain that is to be extracted from them. This purely is a condition as intolerable as it is needless. At least, after reading these glowing pages one has the cour- age of Mr. Mackaye’s conviction to say so I

In exchange for the popular dance hall, the recruiting ground of the white slaver, our work-aday populace is to have dances Iike the folk dances of old-world Europe, yet enlarged in variety and vol- ume as is fitting in the ampler scope of

modern life. For Coney Island it is to have pageants, like the mystery plays of the mediaeval guilds perhaps, the in- spiring motive of which is the artistic expression of civic and national feeling. For Broadway i t is t o have a popular theatre, in which a trained producing staff shall collaborate with a more dis- criminating audience in the creation of a truly national drama. And in all these enterprises the spirit of self government is to go hand in hand with the spirit of self expression. I n its leisure at least the modern populace shall be its own master.

If the idea sounds Utopian merely, the fault lies in this necessarily bald statement of it. A Utopian is a person who sees the solid present only in the light of an imaginary f u t u r e a sunset light of cloud-troubled glory, perhaps, yet a very bad substitute for the cold north light of a working laboratory. There is glory in Mr. Mackaye’s vision, for he is one of the few genuine poets of today, a temperament of air and of fire. But none the less there is solid earth beneath his feet.

The simple.fact is that the future, with the light of which his face is shin- ing, is here with us today, a t least in its mighty origins. Folk dancing is al- ready popular in our schools and play- grounds. Every year the number of local pageants increases, and their ar- tistic excellence. Beginning with the Theatre of Arts andLetters, in 1893, there has been a scarcely interrupted succession of efforts to organize the production of the worthier type of drama; and, though

NATIONAL MUNICIPAL REVIEW

many have failed, each failure has given us a clearer understanding of the prob- lem and a renewed energy in the attack upon it. When the New Theatre ex- tinguished its torch, and wrote down the last item of its three millions dollar loss, the prophets of despair permitted them- selves to smile. But a great lesson had been laid to heart. The primary step in the movement for a more ar!istic drama is not to build a theatre but to organize the artistic public. Today every city of note in the land has an or- ganization the work of which is to give system and strength to the demand for a more artistic drama. So widespread and multifarious ie this movement toward the adornment of our leiaure that many of those who have been identified with it in one or another of its forms will be sur- prised in reading Mr. Mackaye’s volume to find how widespread it haa already become, how deep-seated and intense.

If the civic theatre is to be permanent and powerful, Mr. Mackaye urges, it will have t o be liberally endowed; but it i one thing to urge endowment and quite another to secure it. An equally grave difliculty is inherent in the idea of a self governing producing staff. In all co- operative efforts, commercial as well as artistic, it is hard to achieve harmony with vigor; but nowhere is it as hard as in the theatre. When it is a question of the reading of a speech, of the bearing of a character, of the tempo of a scene, who shall prevail, the author, the actor or the stage manager? No one of them, surely, but the artistic director of the whole. Yet how can a director find him- self, develop his executive staff and his company, build up the policy and the clientele of the theatre-the work of a decade or of a lifetime-if his tenure of office depends upon those whom he di- rects? And what purse shall be opened- private, civic, or national-for the per- manent endowment of an organization founded only on that liveliest of quick- sands, a collection of artistic tempera- ments?

Jf Mr. Mackaye had been familiar a t

first hand with the problems of the late New Theatre, he would, I think, be more lenient than he is with its founders. Mistakes they made, no doubt; yet they gave three years of earnest, enthusiastic effort to the cause, and three millions of dollars. And in spite of the many errors, artistic and practical, which brought the downfall of the institution, i t repre- sents today the highwater mark of all our efforts toward artistic and uncom- mercial drama. Mr. Mackaye is right, however, in saying that it would have been far wiser to use the money in hand a an endowment and build up thein- stitution moderately and gradually on the income of say one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year. Only a permanent endowment can triumph in the end over the erup- tions of the artistic temperament I

The volume aa a whole is rich in infor- mation; and, especially, i t is valuable as a stimulus to those who are concerned with the progress of civic enlightenment. A great artistic spirit is at work among us-a spirit which bids fair to teach us that the joy of life awaits ua in the hum- blest doorstep, that the use of leisure is “not to kill time but to fill time.”

JOHN CORBIN. New York Ci ty .

* COMMERCIALIZED PROSTITUTION IN NEW

YORK CITY. By George J. Kneeland. Supplementary Chapter by Katha- rine Bement Davis and Introduction by JohnD. Rockefeller, Jr. New York: Century Company, 1913. The first publication of the bureau of

social hygiene of New York is singularly satisfactory in that it is a presentation of facts carefully vouched for and well classified. This story of commercial- ized prostitution in New York City ie gleaned from actual observations by skilful investigators, both men and wom- en, who mingled unsuspected with the owners, managers, and employees of vice resorts. The volume also contains an analysis of the patients in the Bed-