Since Chicago became a Jewish city [This means since Chicago became a city with a considerable Jewish population] it has, thus far, been fortunate in having a Jewish theater every season. Once it happened that a company was engaged in the middle of a season and immediately following a brief interlude, another company took its place, enabling us Jews to enjoy without interruption the music of "Shalameth," "Bar-Kochbah" (a hero in a war waged against the Romans), "Akedath Yitzhok" (Sacrifice of Isaac), to sympathize with "Mirele Efroth," to welcome collectively many plays which New York had earmarked as "poor" and "unsuccessful," and, to the contrary, to discard such plays as had in New York evoked crocodile tears and childish admiration from the residents of tall tenement houses, people who are honest workers, but who do not always possess aesthetic judgment about some thing good, something real.

The same holds true of actors and actresses. The Chicago Jewish theatergoers have quite independently proclaimed their own stars and rewarded them with tremendous ovations as well as good salaries.

It is a fact that all the great Jewish actors of New York, who have attained a national reputation, have made their debuts in Chicago. It was the Chicago Jews who gave them "diplomas," classifying them as comedians, tragedians, soubrettes, character actors, etc. All those who attained recognition in Chicago were later recognized in New York as well as over the entire country. It will suffice to mention the most prominent of them: Adler, Thomashefsky, Madame Liptzen and Schneur, who made their first appearances in Chicago. This proves that Chicago has a keen perception of fine art, and the more it is cultivated, the keener it becomes.

After many years of experiment, Jewish theater managers and actors have arrived at the conclusion that the Jewish public of Chicago is steadily turning away from lewd plays, licentious plays, and other such plays which have, much to our regret, occupied seats of honor in the Jewish theaters of New York, becoming 3the yardstick with which the talent of a playwright is measured.

The drama is said to be the most noble expression of life, the mirror of life, the school in which all phenomena, all events and all aspects of life are dramatized before our eyes. This is a very good definition of the drama; therefore may it always remain so.

But when we examine the Jewish repertoire which has been produced in the past couple of years, we find that ninety-nine per cent of it consists of "meretricious and obscene plays." If a Gentile were to attend the Jewish theater for curiosity's sake, he might think that this was the chief problem of present-day Jewish life; that in every Jewish home there are bastards and that prostitution prevails; that there are no other romantic incidents in Jewish life worthy of being dramatized.

Not only can such plays evoke unchaste and evil thoughts among alien theatergoers who seldom drift into Jewish theaters, but many Jewish theatergoers who are not 4too well acquainted with the manifold nature of Jewish life may be similarly influenced.

Such plays have been a pestilence, a terrible epidemic in the Jewish district during the past few years. They have corrupted the aesthetics and debased the spirit of the public. The dirtier the joke and the more nauseating the plot, the more people would be attracted, and the greater was proclaimed the ingenuity of the playwrights.

What should the New York press have done about this situation? Everyone to whom Jewish family life is sacred and dear will say that the press should have been the first to denounce these plays as being lewd. It should have urged the public to keep away from such exceptionally abominable things which are a disgrace to the Jewish name and to all those who attend the theater. It should also have humiliated the Jewish theater in the eyes of the public, and should have pilloried all Jewish managers and players who dared to produce such plays.

The New York press, however, did not do this. On the contrary, it kept reiterating the wise sayings of these actors and rehashing the worthless "tripe" of playwrights; the press cloaked the obscenities with literary allusions, and lavished high praise upon the worthless plays.

Such plays, however, if they succeeded in being smuggled into the Chicago-Jewish theaters, were short-lived. After their first or second showing, the manager put a stop to them lest there be no one attending his theater. This happened more than once. It indicates that the Chicago-Jewish public knows the difference between good and bad, and particularly, that it is not influenced by Hester Street and East Broadway in New York.

Mr. Joseph Kessler had this experience last season in his Empire Theater where one meretricious New York play after another was removed from the stage because the public actually made no effort to see them. The better plays, as well as several classics, drew full houses, to the surprise of the managers and actors.

Mr. Kessler, an intelligent and artistic actor and Mr. Polay, an experienced manager in the local Jewish Theater, should not, however, have been surprised and should not have considered such things unusual phenomena, but rather something quite natural.

Most of the Jews in Chicago are Americanized and cannot digest the coarse foods which are served to the "greenhorns" in New York. Jews in Chicago live better and are less congested. They are not cramped into narrow tenement houses as are the New York workers to whom the home is a Hell, a torment, so that they are eager to escape from their homes, even if it should mean spending a night at a burlesque show. When a Chicago Jew goes to the Jewish theater, he goes with a view to enjoying himself in a refined manner.

As a newspaper for the people, the Jewish Courier is always doing a great deal to refine and improve the taste of the Jewish public in Chicago and to inspire 7the players to become more ambitious so that they will appear in such plays as will be an honor to their reputation.

With reference to this theater season which opens Friday, September 1, Mr. Kessler should apply all his energies to make the Empire Theater a success and not a failure, and he will succeed if he stages sober plays which appeal to the taste of the Chicago Jews.

And speaking about sober plays, we wish to call your attention to the following sad situation; large sums of money are spent by the theater management on advertising trash, whereas on good plays, no money is spent. The philosophy of the management is as follows: If an article is good it is self-advertising and we need not go to any expense to advertise it. But we must boost a poor article which is not self-advertising.

This, however, is an erroneous notion. The inferior commodity should not enter business at all because if it is sold to a customer at a profitable rate, then 8such customers cease to repurchase such articles for they are convinced that they have been defrauded. This is also the reason why a good play, which succeeds a poor one, draws a small crowd because first, it is little advertised, and second, the public which was repelled by the previous poor play loses its confidence in the management and actors.

May this serve Mr. Joseph Kessler, who has become popular among the Jews of Chicago, as a preface or prologue to the activities of the local theater season, for which the necessary preparations are being made, because this is the secret of the success of the theater in Chicago.

The personnel of the Empire consists of the Following: Male: Joseph Kessler, Bernard Auerbach, Isadore Meltzer, Morris Goldberg, David Schoenholtz, Bennie Adler, Jacob Kalich, L. Bakschetsky, Joseph Weinstock, Avling and Philip Augenblik, Female: Madame Minnie Axelrod, Madame Esther Zabel, Miss Ida Pine and Madame Augenblik.

Let us hope that every member of the cast will faithfully and loyally perform his duty--to the satisfaction of the management and to the satisfaction of the public which always rewards with honor and money those who are worthy.