Volume 1 — JUSTICE AND THEATRICAL ACHIEVEMENT.

David Belasco has served the Public and the Theatre, ably and brilliantly, in several fields and for many years, but his achievements as at once theatre manager, stage manager, playwriter, instructor, and “producer,” splendid and admirable as incontestably they have been and are, have been equalled by other American managers, of earlier date. In writing Biography it is prudent to remember that “there were heroes before Agamemnon.” Much was accomplished on the American Stage long before the advent of either David Belasco or any other theatrical administrator of recent times, and when we review the history of the drama in America for more than a hundred years, and consider the managers by whom it has been fostered, conserved, and directed, we should recall and honor the names,—among others,—of William Dunlap, the elder Warren, William Wood, Francis Courtney Wemyss, James H. Caldwell, Noah Ludlow, Edmund Simpson, Charles Gilfert, the elder Hackett, the elder Wallack, William Evans Burton, and Thomas Barry,—each of whom, in his day, deserved theatrical eminence and gained it, and all of whom seem now to be forgotten. Lester Wallack, who long preceded Belasco, and who also was theatre manager, stage manager, playwriter, and actor,—and as actor with no superior and scarce an equal in his peculiar realm,—gained laurels which will long endure. John T. Ford, Boucicault, Barrett, McCullough, Edwin Booth, and John S. Clarke,—all were accomplished and highly successful and distinguished in every branch of theatrical management; and, although Belasco has written his name imperishably on the honorable scroll of dramatic renown, he has not eclipsed those eminent predecessors.