“Next to inventing a plot and story, our greatest difficulty was to find a title. Our play was to have a universal appeal. One of our characters was a liberal _Jew_. Because of the broadness of the theme, we selected the name of ’Men and Women.’ It was an accepted rule at this time to have two sets of lovers, but we broke all traditions by introducing three sets of heroes and heroines in ’Men and Women,’ for we attempted to depict the frailties and weaknesses of many men and women. The Third Act represented a directors’ meeting on the night before the closing of the bank, with a number of Federal government officials present. In order to be accurate it was necessary to get information from some one who had been through this scene in real life. I went to a bank cashier whom I knew, and explained our dilemma. ’I’ll give you all the details of such a night,’ he agreed, ’but you must be very careful. You understand that I must compromise no one, or my own position will be in jeopardy.’ Then he gave me much information, describing the feelings of the financiers who walked under the shadow of arrest. When I left him I had all the facts necessary to create a rousing climax. I felt like a reporter who has gone after the news of an event and come away with a photograph of each moment of a tragedy.” THE PLAY OF “MEN AND WOMEN.” This play would have been called by Boucicault a “comedy-drama”: he was fond of classifying plays and he invented that designation (as well as various others) meaning thereby to denote a “sensation drama,” illustrated with comedy. The pervasive defect of the play, like that which mars some other plays written by Belasco, in association with De Mille, is an excess of extraneous details. Nevertheless it tells an interesting story, well devised to absorb attention, and it possesses vital dramatic movement. The comedy element in it is trivial. The story, though somewhat confused, is stronger than that in any other of the several plays written by Belasco and De Mille.