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O’NEIL DEFENDS HIS PLAY OF THE NEGRO Dramatist Asserts He Does Not Advocate Union of Biack and White Races in “AH God's Qhillun Got Wings.'' (By Louis Kantor.) ? Once more is Eugene O'Neill the cen tre of a dramatic storm. This time it is about a play not yet produced—“All God's Chillun Got Wings’’—whicn deals with the marriage of a white wo man to a Negro. This is not the first time O’Neill has stirred up a tempest. His “Emperor Jones” and hjs “Hairy Ape”1 brought about long and heated debate. What sort of person is this play wright who, like Shaw, has this .extra ordinary faculty for provoking contro versy? What is his conception of the theatre? The answers to these ques tions I sought recently from him at his bomet, in Ridgefield, Conn. OINeill is popularly regarded as America’s poet laureate of gloom, and the belief is held that he is a sick man (in the romantic Robert Louis Steven son tradition;) a hermit, an advocate of revolution, a misanthrope, a pessi- j mist—a man, in fine, probably unable, to smile. | Well, it’s all nonsense. He’s not sick nor a conscious advocate of anything. He’s just interested in the progress o? “humanity toward humanity.” (The distinction is in the sizes of the ‘h.’) Spiritually, of course, he’s a hermit, as is any man of spirit; but he loves life with a Dionysian madness. Any one who has seen him drive his frail white and red kyak (a canoe especial ly built for him after the Eskimo origi nal) out to sea;, singing exultingly. while coast guards trembled for his safety; literally climbing over tall green waves; darting, lithe and slender hipped, down a golden stretch of strand fronting his home in Provincetown. Mass. (| [The House Where the Wind Blows” four-year-old Shane O’Neill calls it,) knows that Eugene O'Neill loves life and is constantly affirming it. He likes and is interested in people, and people like him; his friends—boot leggers, bums, literary persons, socie ty folk, prize fighters, even actors— love. ‘.Gene.” But he just isn’t social being. He prefers quiet, needs it for his work. He works intensively, eight . . -~r^ -*JSPI £ 4 or ten hours a day, for months at a stretch—and when he is free of the pen cil and typewriter no hobo could criti fcize him for breaking the rules of lazi ness. O’Neill doesn’t pretend to be a business man. but he likes to earn money and feels that his work is as im portant to the community as turning out Fords. He likes to dancee, and doesn’t so badly. He smiles at least once a day, and I have even seen him eat candy. The key to O’Neill is found in his belief that the theatre should be useu for the presentation of the struggle for existence—man’s elationsi conquest, sorrows, defeats, joys, doubts—and that his job as dramatist is to express his vision of that struggled without compromise to any prejudice, using all the means at his disposal in the theatre This conception is made clear in his dicussion of the new play. Hardly had it been announced for presenta tion at the Provincetown Playhouse— an experimental theatre when the storm broke. These were the objections set down against it: that in it O’Neill advocates, or at least encourages, inter marriage; that in casting Paul Robe son. a Negro actor, for the part of Jim Harris so that Ella, his white wife, has to kiss his hand, O’Neill has not consid ered the deep-rooted prejudice the pub lic has against suob a situation; that he is encouraging Negroes to aspire above their station in life. “I don’t admit},” OTNeill said, Vthat there is a genuine prejudice against my play. Judging by the criticism it is easy to see that the attacks are almost entirely based on ignorance of ‘God’s Chillun.’ I admit that there is preju dice against the intermarriage ol whites and blacks, but what has that to do with my play? I don’t advocate intermarriage in it. I am never the advocate of anything in any play—ex cept. Humanity toward Humanity.” It was pointed out to Mr. O’Neill that the objections to “God’s Chillun. ’’ :gnorant or not. indicated it was felt that some things might not be done in the theatre; that the dramatist had at least to consider, if not accept, the community’s social code, that if the community didn’t like the notion of a Mack man and a white woman married on the stage the dramatist should not present such a play. PLAYWRIGHT'S VIEW OF DISCUSSION i . i His reply was that he didn’t think like whole discussion would have arisen had he chosen a white actor for the part of Jim Harris; in any event, the dramatist was governed by his vision, and not the community’s social code; and what the objectors seemed to for get was that the play wasn’t being off ered for public consumption, but to a special public, subscribers of the Prov incetown Theatre, not one of whom had objected either to the play or to the casting of a Negro. “The prejudice,” he thought, "is pri marily economic and social. It is the fresh result of the same resentment which a Paris audience would have against a play in which a German and a Frenchwoman were married; or the resentment in many parts of the world against intermarriage of Jfews and Gen tiles. Then consider the resentment against intermarriage in our own Far West between Chinese or Japanese ana , whites; or in India the anger aroused , by the marriage of a Britisher to a Hindu.” “But, don’t you think there is a dit ferenoe? Isn’t the white race superior to the black?” “Spirituality].” he replied—..spiritual ly speaking, there is no superiority be tween races, any race. We’re just a lit tle ahead mentally as a race, though not as individuals. j “But,” Mr. O’Neill continued, “I’ve J no desire to play the exhorter in any j j racial no-man’s land. I am a dramatist! j To me every human being is a special , casev with his or her own special set of values. True, often those values are , just a variant of values shared in com mon by a great group of people. But it is the manner in which those values i •-;1 have acted on the individual and; his reactions to them which makes of him a special case. NOT A SYMBOLICAL CHARACTER! “The persons who havee attacked my play have given the impreesion that I make Jim Harris a symbolical repre sentative of his race and Ella of the white race—that by uniting them I urge intermarriage. Now Jim and Ella are special cases and represent no one but themselves. “Of course, the struggle between them is primarily the result of the dtt ference in their racial heritage. It is their characters, the gap between them and their struggle to bridge it which interests me as a dramatist, nothing else. I didn’t create the gap, this cleav age—it exists. And members of both races do struggle t bridge it with love. Whether they should or not isn’t my play.” Mr. O’Neill went on to speak of how bored he had become with praise for things he had not done or said and of being attacked for things he did not believe. "Why?;" be demanded, “was I made an apostle of revolution by the I. W. W and proper timber for the R^epublican Party by conservatives as a mocker of the I. W. W. when my .Hairy Ape’ was produced? O’NEILL’S TEST FOR, A PLAY ,‘What bearing had sucjj comment on my function as a dramatist-? The only point involved in that play was did I or didn’t I realize the stoker ‘Yank’-^ make this inarticulate human being and his world articulate; did I convey make visual, his struggle to affirm him self, to ‘belong,’ to make his T mean something?” And that, he insisted, was the only test for “God’s Chillun;” for any nay, in fact. The artist, h<e said, expresses his vision. Criticism tries to judge whether it is inspired or uninspired. Breakfast finished, Mr. O’Neill pro t | ANNOUNCEMENT Beginning Saturday, June 7,1924 the under signed BanKs will Observe the Following BanKing Hours: Daily 9:00 A. M. to 2:00 P. M. Saturdays, 9:00 A. M. to 4:00 P M. St Luke Bank and Trust Go. Gommercial Bank and Trust Go. Second Street Savings Bank > " posed a walk on his estate, acres of I fields, woods, streams, a small lake,( one rooster (private property of Shane | O’Neill,) two dogs, an Irish terrier named Mat Burke after the swagger ing hero of “Anna Christie,” and Finn a huge wolfhound. “I chose Robeson,” he said, “beoause I thought he Icould play Jim Harris bet ter than any one else. And what’s been said, about having a white actor for the part is beside the point. I don’t believe it follows that a white actor could play the part of Jim any better (ContJnued on Page 8) “HERE SHE COMES” A Captivating Artistic Demonstration By the Members of the PHYSICAL EDUCATION CLASSES, featuring Lucille Lewis and Y. W. C, A. Fifty (50) Fairy Beauties, including Joy, Beauty and Love, who with the Na tions of the Earth conquer Age, Grouch, Sickness and bring tribute to Health, Youth and Life. Arm strong Auditorium, Monday, May 2 6, 1924 at 7:45 P. M. Admission 25 and 15 cents. Pythian Bath House; and Sanitarium I < Knights of Pythias of N. j A., S. A.,R, A., A. and A. ] (Operating Under Supervi- J sion of U. S. Government) < 415Vfc Malvern Avenue \ Hot Springs Nat. Park, Ark. < Hot Radio-Active Water Furnished by the Government For All Baths. Sanitarium has 10 Rooms, Diet and Operating Rooms Hotel has 56 Rooms; Telephone, Hot and Cold Running Water in Every Room. Rates $1 to $3 per day BATH RATES: 21 Baths . . . $13.00-10 Baths .... $6.50 21 Baths to Pythians and Calantheans, $8.50 We stake forty-fire years' reputation for honesty, integrity and honorable action against ten months1 asper sions of our enemies and those who desire to profit by the failure of the greatest financial institution of the colored people. Our primary object and desire is to reimburse any of onr people who have invested in any enterprise fos tered by us We solemnly swear now, as we swore upon the witness stand, that not one dollar of our forty-five years1 accum da±3 has been the result of dishonorable actions or sharp practices. We insist that the money alleged to be miss ing cannot he traced to us either directly or indirectly and that of all the people involved we are the greatest sufferer, even as our honesty has been our greatest asset. The money belonging to us and to the organizations with which we are affiliated was taken by others or was ac credited to ether accounts, so that when checks were drawn upon the account there was no money to meet them. There was no other course for us to pursue; other than to assume complete responsibility Our ledger sheets at the Bank had been stolen, removed m order to cover up these peculations and to make us tke victim. We had not transferred err property It was all L our own name and while the liabilitv chargeable to us from this source was approximately ($64,000) Sixty-four Thousand Dollars, we surrendered assets (real estate) which conservatively handled, will bring over ($100,000) Ok Hundred Thousand Dollars, which is ($36,000) Thirty ~ m Thousand Dollars more than the alleged liability. * We have never had charge of a record in the Mechanics Savings Bank in twenty years' service. We could not have made a false entry upon the books of that concern. We had no reason so to do when we had surrendered pro perty with a gross rental of ($11,000) Eleven Thousand Dollars. v We have defended colored people, secured their release from jails, penitentiaries and stopped executions upon thi gallows. We are now called upon to defend ourselves. Certain it is, that the people whom we have defended will stand by us. As for the better class of Southerners, their testimony in our behalf is an outstanding feature of this crucial period of our existence. We are trusting in God. In the language of Shakespeare, we are saying to our traducers and slanderers- ! There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats For I am armed so strong in honesty that they pass me by Like flic idle wind, that I respect not. ' A full, free and square vwhcation is demanded by us and we believe we shall obtain it 7"" Richmond, Va., May 9, 1923. JOHN MITCHELL, JR.