The trial of the Goldknopf action against Belasco, based on the pretence that “The Woman” was plagiarized from “Tainted Philanthropy; or, The Spirit of the Time,” was begun, July 31, 1912, with a hearing before Commissioner Gilchrist, at [Illustration: DAVID BELASCO From a photograph by Arnold Genthe. Author’s Collection. ] the Federal building, New York, and it proceeded, the Hon. George C. Holt, Justice, presiding, in the United States Circuit Court, on August 5. It was established by sworn testimony that Goldknopf’s “play” was submitted by him to the Belasco Play Bureau in May, 1910, and that under date of July 10 Mr. Henry Stillman, the play reader of that bureau, wrote to Goldknopf a letter in which he said: “Mr. Belasco has gone away for the summer. I sent your play to him, two or three days after reading it myself. He returned it to me to-day. While he was interested in reading it, it is not quite adapted to his present requirements. Will you please call for the manuscript?” Mr. William C. De Mille testified that after the production of “The Warrens of Virginia,” in January, 1908, he had suggested to Belasco that if they could “throw up a good heart story against the general background of political ‘graft’ it would make a good play”; that Belasco had been favorably impressed by the suggestion, and that a contract had been entered into between them, in that year, for the writing of such a play,--several drafts of which, bearing different titles (“The Princess of the Wire,” “The Machine,” “1035, Plaza,” etc.), were made before the final one was put into rehearsal. It also was established that Mr. De Mille had read his play to friends,--among them Professor John Erskine, of Columbia University,--in 1908.