Naturally, the advance of the pictures had something to do with our defeat, but neither then nor now can the decline of the theater be fairly laid to the fact that the public prefers the motion picture to the drama. All of the ills of the theater in my time are due directly to the folly, the ignorance and the greed of the theatrical manager. I have many life-long friends among these men; among them are men of fine principle and honest intentions, but the composite manager has always been the stumbling block in the way of our progress. We tried to fight the advancing wave of motion pictures with dirty, ill-lighted theaters, bad-mannered attendants and arrogant box-office men, and we lost, as we deserved to lose. There is a popular idea that the theatrical manager failed at his job because he allowed his artistic soul to overwhelm his natural business instincts. In my humble opinion he failed because he usually had no artistic soul at all and no business instincts. I know of about five managers of the last decade who were what I would call business men, and I am prepared to offer a silver cup for the names of any others. The arrogance of the old-time manager, to whom actors and authors were slaves and chattels, has gone, and although I was one of those who fought for their passing I have not as yet become reconciled to their substitutes. The best men of to-day are still the men who were the best of the old order and if some of their old power is gone I can’t help feeling that with it went much of the old glamour and romance of the theater. This writing rubber stamp stories by formula was the main cause of the collapse of the Stair and Havlyn Circuit and is the only real reason for to-day’s depression in the New York theater. There is always an audience for a good play, but unfortunately there isn’t always a good play for an audience. Just as every good play produced stimulates theatergoing, so does every bad play produced discourage it, and when the bad plays outnumber the good by too great a proportion the public naturally becomes very cautious. We figure of late in the theater that only one play out of seven produced is even moderately successful, which when you come to think of it isn’t so much the public’s lack of interest as it is the playwright’s lack of skill. When a man has spent time and money to see six terrible plays one after the other it isn’t surprising that his eagerness is somewhat cooled. If it were possible to bring into New York this season fifteen fine plays we should hear no more talk about hard times in the theater. Unfortunately it isn’t possible. Under the present conditions the demand for good plays has little effect upon the supply partly because good plays are hard to write and even more because we are not in agreement as to what constitutes a good play.