Volume 1 — A SHEAF OF OLD LETTERS: IN THE MATTER OF THE THEATRICAL SYNDICATE.

All of the following letters by Belasco were written during the first year of “The Music Master,” and they well characterize the purposes of the Theatrical Syndicate and well indicate Belasco’s lively opposition to that oppressive monopoly. The second of them is addressed to his cousin, the son of the famous English actor David James, and it refers to a proposal made by the younger actor so named that he should be brought to America, to act in some of his father’s parts, under the management of Belasco.

(David Belasco to Blanche Bates.)

“Belasco Theatre, New York, “September 28, 1904.

“My dear ‘St. Louis Pet’:—

“Thanks for your message. It was sweet of you and your dear mother to think of me. Warfield and his little play hit them hard, and we have struck another terrific blow in the solar plexus of the Syndicate.

“Mrs. Carter’s new play [“Adrea”] is written and I am already at work on yours [“The Girl of the Golden West”]. I am crazy to see you and go over the story before I get at the dialogue. As soon as Mrs. Carter’s play is produced I shall join ‘The Darling of the Gods’ for a few weeks, as we must have a lot of talks together. I am going to do something bully for you,—a part that you will love. Won’t you be happy when you are again playing in New York at the home theatre!

“Keep well. Love to your mother,—and remember I am

“Always your friend, “David Belasco.”

(David Belasco to David James, Jr., in London.)

“Belasco Theatre, “New York, October 14, 1904.

“My dear David James:—

“Yours of October the 1st received. Yes, I did answer your former letter. No doubt it followed you about and was finally lost. Things theatrical are in a very bad way over here just now, and I am still in the midst of a big combat with what is known as the Theatrical Syndicate—a combination of men who have got together to disgrace the Stage and commercialize it, root and branch. It is rule or ruin with them, and unless they can force a heavy tribute from a man he is blacklisted forthwith. I am fortunate enough to be on their blacklist, and consequently am obliged, for the present, to move with cautious steps and to make no more productions than I can safely place. But it is to be hoped that a season or two will see the lifting of this dark cloud. When that time comes, I shall be only too happy to introduce you in this country. I know your work and I feel sure that you would make yourself heard over here had you the opportunity. Will you not drop me a line now and then? I am always pleased to hear from you.

“Faithfully yours, “David Belasco.”

(David Belasco to Peter Robertson, San Francisco.)

“Belasco Theatre, New York, “April 25, 1904.

“Dear Peter:—

“[E. D.] Price and Fred [Belasco] have been ‘kicking’ about the vile cigars in San Francisco, so I am sending you a few weeds that ought to be better than the Barbary Coast perfectos. Sorry I can’t deliver them in person, but I cannot get away this year; so when you are smoking them think of your old Four-o’clock-in-the-morning-pie-chum. Heavens, my dear Peter, I often think of those dear old days! They were struggling days for us, to be sure, but sometimes I feel that, at least as far as I am concerned, they were the happiest ones of life. Ambition is a hard, hard master, and from the moment when I left ’Frisco it has been constant work-work-work with me, morning-noon-and-night—winter and summer! I don’t think I have had half-a-dozen hours to myself in all that time, and to make my lot easier, away off here in the East, I am surrounded by that inartistic, low-lived Theatrical Syndicate, which for some reason or other,—certainly not justly for anything I have done,—has waged a relentless war against me. And since I cannot with honor play in Syndicate houses I am sending my stars and productions anywhere that I can find a roof to cover them. So far they have not crushed me, as they said they would, for the public and the press throughout the country have stood by me, and as long as I continue to deserve their sympathies and friendship I shall be victorious. In this combine against me, my dear Peter, are Al. Hayman and the Frohmans, to whom you know I have given the best years of my life, helping to make fame and fortune for them. Of course, with Charles Frohman it is jealousy: Daniel Frohman resents not being able to get my plays for nothing: with the Syndicate it is because they feared I was getting a little too strong for them. But you knew me as a boy—in fact, we were boys together—and no one in the world knows better than you how I can struggle with privation and adversity. I shall never surrender to this crowd: never—not even if I am obliged to return to ’Frisco and do chores about a theatre as you saw me do in the long, long ago.

“Well, I have written more than I intended to, telling you my troubles, but I shall make it a rule to send you a line now and then and let you know all the good and cheerful news of the East. I would give a finger to be able to drop in on you at this moment for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie in the little old restaurant, if it is still in existence, and to have an old-time heart-to-heart talk. But I hope it won’t be very long before I can do this. Hurrah! God bless you!

“Faithfully, “David Belasco.”

(Peter Robertson to David Belasco, in New York.)

“Bohemian Club, San Francisco, Calif., “May 9, 1904.

“My dear Dave:—

“I shall smoke the cigars to your continued success. I was glad to hear from you; but I don’t sympathize in the least with your suffering from hard work. I did sympathize much more with you in the days when you worked,—often quite as hard and got no salary!—‘faking’ plays for Maguire, at the Baldwin. You would never be happy, anyway, if you hadn’t your head full of schemes, and were not constantly producing. Your work has achieved a great success, and work that has success behind it and success before it is life at its best. There is nothing so hard as work that has failure to pull it backward and the prospect of failure to push it back.

“I, too, think of the old days of coffee and cake; they were pleasant, after all; if I had lived much beyond them since they would still be pleasant to recall. However, my life goes on in its even tenor, and I make myself as comfortable as possible, though I do feel something like an old, worn-out hack—so many years I have gone the same old round. Still, I have not quite given up hope of better fortune.

“Go on and make your name and fortune greater than ever, and don’t work yourself up over any Syndicates. They need you more than you do them.—My regards to Mrs. Belasco and the family, and Fred and Price.

“Always yours, “Peter.”

Belasco, I surmise, must have smiled a little grimly at this airy admonition “not to work himself up” about the active antagonism of the Syndicate: the cheery advice to the weaker party in a conflict, “Go in and win,” is doubtless excellent, but often, unhappily, it is somewhat more difficult to follow than it is to give. Viewed from the secluded tranquillity of the old Bohemian Club—that genial harbor of congenial spirits—a struggle with the Syndicate may have seemed like a fight with a phantom. For Belasco it was, and for many years remained, a hard reality, and had it not been for his wary vigilance and indomitable resolution he would certainly have been defeated, overwhelmed, and ruined.—Poor Robertson never realized his “hope of better fortune”: for several years after 1904 he continued to be the dramatic critic of “The San Francisco Chronicle”: then, the whole duty of the managing editor (as defined by my old friend, the journalist William Seaver—“first, to wring your brains dry; second, to throw you away”) having been performed, he was dismissed from his employment and, after two or three years of anxious, dispirited, lonely waiting, he died—and, save by a few old friends, he is thought of no more.