“Well, ladies and gentlemen, they did not prevent my opening in Washington. And as long as this is a free country and I am able to fight for independence in theatrical management, I will open my companies in Washington, or in any other city that I elect to visit. It is very late: I won’t detain you but a moment, just to thank you in words that can’t convey my thanks for your approval, your sympathy and support. Mrs. Carter, Mr. Long, all my company, my staff--my loyal, splendid staff, carpenters and mechanics who have worked here, ladies and gentlemen, for as much as forty-eight hours at a stretch to make this opening possible--they all are grateful to you, and I thank you, and thank them, again and again. It would be strange indeed if we were not willing to fight for the chance to play before you when you are all so kind to us and when the man who fought the Battle of Manila Bay and the man who fought the Battle of Santiago are willing to sit in a sort of green shower-bath to watch us!” Belasco gave seven performances of “Adrea” during his week in Washington, the gross receipts from which were more than $15,000. And when that engagement was over and the accounts had all been made up and paid he had suffered a loss of a little more than $25,000.--On the first night in New York he made a significant speech in which he said: “...Nobody could ask--nobody could wish--for any more splendid loyalty, support, and encouragement than I have received from you, from the people of New York, from the people of every place in America where I have presented my companies, and I am grateful, very, very deeply and lastingly grateful, ladies and gentlemen. But conditions in the American Theatre are bad, ladies and gentlemen,--very bad indeed--and they ought to be remedied. The institution we all love should not be left at the mercy of high-handed, brow-beating, un-American hucksters. We are not afraid of anyone, ladies and gentlemen: we--all of us; my associates, my business staff, my splendid, loyal mechanical staffs, my actors--have had a long, a hard and bitter struggle and have suffered very serious annoyances and loss. I have just paid more than $25,000 for the privilege of presenting this tragedy for one week in the City of Washington. We do not ask or expect that life should be made easy for us; we can fight, just as you can, for our rights. But I say, ladies and gentlemen, that it is a crying outrage and a burning shame that men and women who simply want to go about their own business in their own way should be forced, in this day and country, to undergo what we (all of us here behind the curtain and in the offices of my theatre) have to undergo from week to week. And, ladies and gentlemen, it is you, the public all over