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About The morning Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1899-1930 | View Entire Issue (June 7, 1908)
SIXTEEN PAGES 'OVERS THE MORNING FIELD ONTHE LOWER COLUMBIA n PUBLISHES FULL AfSOCIATID PRESS REPORT 33rd YEAR. NO. 128 ASTORIA, OREGON, SUDAY, JUNE 7, 1908 PRICE FIVE CENTS SECOND SECTION THE GRAND OPERA Few Operatic Compositions Written by Americans LOWER PRICES FOR OPERAS Hew York and Boiton Opera Com panics Will Emphaaixa Native Tal ent Opera Will Become in Im. personal Institution. BOSTON, June 6. The dawning of a new era in American operatic music it at hand. The coming years, it ' safe to My, will wee a remarkable improvement in the quality and num ber of production by our musicians and composers. Ileretafore the field has been a difficult one to enter, since the success of an opera hat depended largely upon its having been produced successfully abroad. Not only com posers but aspirants for career as opera singers have thought it neces sary to have a foreign training and introduction before endeavoring to achieve success in America, But now conies the establishment of permanent grand opera of an Americanized character, furthered by an agreement made between the two great opera companies of Boston and New York to do all in their power to raise the standard of opera to the hliest possible point and still to ep it on a reasonable basis in order at the general public may have the encfit of the best works in existence and to be produced at a price within the reach of all our pocketbooks. The new opera house in Boston will shortly be started and, through the generosity of Ebcn D. Jordan and the ! hearty co-operation ot many promin ent business men of Boston and the viennty, the success of its future is assured. This will afford to music lovers throughout the country unlimited oc casions in which to enjoy both the good old operas that have heretofore flattened their purses and made more than two or three performances a season out of the question and such new ones by American composers as shall seem to the managements to be worthy of production. Henry Rus sell, the present manager of the San Carlo Opera Company, who will di- iwt tlir nprforniiinecs of the Boston C)cra Company, is very enthusiastic on the subject of opera for the bene fit of the public at large, and not of tthc well-to-do alone. Mr. Dippcl of the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York fully agrees with his views and it is expected they will do every thing possible to help the cause of good music in this country. Mr. Russell says: "A great step forward has been taken in the operatic history of America. Mr. Dippel and his co workers have demonstrated that they will not use opera as a means of com mercial gain or personal notoriety. Their policy is to open their doors to every influence which can develop and widen the operatic - field in America. "Our executive committee not only share in this policy, but they actually came together with this end in view. One excellent outcome of our com- tiination will be to impress on the i minds of the American public that operatic enterprise is not dependent on the notoriety of one man, who seeks to thrust his own personality into more prominence than the enter prise he represents. Opera will now. because the same serious impersonal insitution here that it is in Italy, France and Germany, where the nam ing of an opera company after any one man is unheard of," This national errand ooera. as it may be called, bids fair to make our system of training as good in every particular as that to be found abroad, and undoubtedly better in many es sential reBpects. The Boston opera house is to be located near the centre of musical activities in this country, Jin close proximity to the home of the fBoston Symphony Orchestra and the New England Conservatory of Music, from wh'ch it will draw for many of the minor roles. The Conservatory is completing arrangements for a school of grand opera to be conduct ed in connection with its present in stitution, and the members will be given every opportunity for a trying out on the stages of the Boston and New York houses. Ralph L. Fland ers, at present manager of the Con servatory, who has also been chosen to serve as general manager of the new opera company, has expressed himself as follows: "When the plans are carried out and a permanent opera is established under the conditions outlined in the plan of organisation of the company, it will be one of tthe greatest steps, if not the greatest, for the artistic advancement of music yet taken in America. "With the building of an opera house and the establishing of a per manent season of grand opera, and a school of grand opera in connection with the opera house, young Ameri cans will have an equal, if not better opportunity for the beginning of operatic careers than they now get by going abroad. "It is part of the plan to encour age native talent, both creative and executive, and through the co-operation 'of the opera organization with the opera school those who pssess sufficient talent will have an oppor tunity to make a debut, and, best of all, in their own country." Thus, many opportunities will be presented to young singers who, lack ing the necessary means for study abroad, might otherwise be obliged to content themselves with teaching or with comparatively, limited local fame. Foreign study has always had, disagreeable elements for American students. The cost of living and ex pense of training is high, and the prevailing idea that most American music students have millionaire fathers back of them is conducive many times to impositions and an noyances. There is not the atmos phere of homelike comfort and con venience in the crowded quarters of Berlin, Lcipzic, Milan, Paris and the other musical centers of Europe, which is to be found in the dormitor ies and private residences offering pleasant homes and desirable as sociations to the students of our American institutions. Of much im portance is the fact that the youthful singer or player is not thrown in contact here with the Bahcmian cle ment that inevitably accompanies life in the foreign student quarters, and which has as harmful an effect upon general health as upon morals. The food which the foreign student has to put up with, unless she is unusually well provided for financially, and the general custom in tthe European cities of drinking light, cheap wines with the meals, does much to impair the constitution, if not the voice itself. All these facts are tending more and more each year to induce the young people of our country to obtain their education at home. Of good musicians we have many, and some of them have written note worthy operas, although heretofore there has been little inducement to an American musician to try his hand at writing for the operatic stage. Among the operas thus far produced perhaps the best known are "The Pipe of Desire," written by Frederick S. Converse, performed for the first time in Jordan Hall of the New Eng land Conservatory of Music in 1905; "Leonora" by W. H. Fry; "Rip van Winkle" by George F. Bristow, and "The Scarlet Letter" by Walter Dam rosch. Other noted writers, some of whom would undoubtedly have pro duced grand operas if there were more inducement to do so, have been Edward MacDowell, whose sad af fliction and untimely death in the very prime of his musical productivity have caused widespread sorrow; George W. Chadwick, head of the New England Conservatory of Music and director of the Conservatory orchestra author of "Sinfonietta" which has been a brilliant feature of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's concerts recently, and of many other varied compositions; Horatio Parker of Yale University; Arthur Foote; Edgar Stillman Kelley; Mrs H. H. A. (Continued on page 10) THE YANKEES' PUSH Nearly Three Centuries of Trade in West Indies DEVELOPMENT OF CARRIERS New England States Commanded Traffic at First But Gradually Re linquished it to New York and New Orleans. SALEM, June 6.-In 1638, less than two decades after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock and less than one after the settlement of Bos ton, Yankee enterprise began to seek intercourse, for purposes of profit, in the West Indies. The voyage of the little ship "Desire" which went to New Providence and Tortuga and re turned to Salem laden with cotton, tobacco, salt and negroes, was the be ginning of a long list of trade vent ures to and in the tropical islands undertakings continued today in such projects as Henry M. Flagler's sea- going railroad, annexing Cuba by way WIS m vrViU&k'ynTrtY'fj.zwii s. r?. OLD TRADING WAYS AND THE NEW. Yankee Enterprise Once Sent Little Craft to the West Indies Now Steamships and Trolley Cars Have Transformed Porto Rico and Other Islands. ... of Key West, the immense business in raising and marketing tropical fruits which the United States Comp any, a characteristic constructive in dustry built up in Jamaica and else where by Cape Cod Yahkees, and the various electrical properties lately in stalled, such as the trolley systems of Porto Rico, the electric light and power company of Key West and the telephone plants which are beginning to save the time of slow-moving Spanish Americans. Romance and profit-seeking reality have been constantly interwoven in these 270 years of trade relation be twen New England and the West Indies. The story has never been fully told. Numerous facts, for in stance, never heretofore published, regarding the earlier featuers of these activities of pioneering New England have just been brought out in a mon ograph which the Essex Institute of Salem is about to publish on the "Derbys of Salem" by Robert E. Pea body. This investigator, a young man in pursuance of a Harvard degree has had access to an immensely valu able collection of old papers and let ters, and reproduces some of them. In all the New England adventur ing in West and East Indies no fam- ily had a more important part than that played by the Salem Derbys whose fortunes began to be establish- ed when in 1739 young Richard Derby went out as mester of the "Skoner Ranger" to the French West India , Island of St, Martins where he sold his cargo for 2178 4s. od. This ! representative of the spirit of old time trading, like most of those who set sail in those days from the North Atlantic ports, went in violation of the navigation act of 1695. But in fractions of the law only added spice to the adventure. The hardy New Englanders gladely accepted the chance of being overhauled cither by an English man of war or by Captain Kidd, Blackboard or another of the bloodthirsty pirates. Neither did they mind the necessity of being ready to appear in any harbor flying the flag of almost any nation as when this same Captain Derby at a later date recommended to one of his ship masters that he go among the French by "making your Vessel a Dutch bot torn." Graft, too, evidently was ramp ant and must have been connived at in spite of Puritancial notions, for the Salem trader added "Also Secure I permit so as for you to trade there the next Voyage which you may Un doubtedly do by your Factor & a lit tie greasing some others." These Derby papers, in brief, throw a strong light upon the pioneering character which has made New Eng land people leaders in so many great industrial movements, developing the maritime interests and retaining them while they were distinctly profitable, steam railroads until diminishing divi dends counselled reinvestment, and to-day the big electrical propositions such as are involved in the telephone, the trolley car and electric lighting 4 MWltir and power facilities in every part of the world. The New Englanders got into the trade because they found it lucrative. What the profits must have been can be canjectured from the fact that the insurance on a single vayage was often from 10 to 15 per cent, of the value of the cargo and sometimes ran as high as 23 per cent. The risks were large, but those who persistently followed the traffic laid the founda tions of great fortunes. Elias Has- ket Derby, son of Captain Richard" Derby, died in 1799 leaving a fortune of more than one million dollars, one of the largest amassed in North America up to that time. Not all of it, however, was gained in strict trade. There came a time dur ing the Revolution when it proved more profitable to fit out privateers and "letters of marque" to prey on British traders than to pursue the ord inary course of shipping down to Bar badoes or Jamaica carrying fish, lum ber, cereals and rum.- Even before the war straight commerce had be come too perilous to be satisfactory to the merchants as was shown by a letter of Richard Derby's under date of May 9, 1775, in which he said: lhere hath not been as yet any stopping of ye trade, so I would have you get a ioa(j 0f molasses as good ai1d cf,eap and as quick as you can anc proceed home. If ye have not soat an(j yi markets are bad where -s-------s------ (Continued on page 10) TUNNEL FOR SHIPS New York's Novel Plan Ocean Liners for DOOM OF THE BUCKET-SHOP Women Organizing to Fight Against Receiving Suffrage 'Protest Against Uncle Sam's Custom Inspection- Champion Medicine Taker Dead. NEW YORW, June 6.-While New York already has, either built or pro jected, about all the ordinary variet ies of tunnels, a decidedly novel pro ject in this line has just been plan ned and is being pushed vigorously. This is a scheme for a ship tunnel to be carried under the Palisades of the Hudson to connect the river with the city of Passaic on the river of the name name in New Jersey. Passaic, al though twelve miles from Manhattan at present, would thus become a sea port and the plans for the proposed tunnel call for an underground water way that would accommodate all but the largest ocean steamships. The proposal is put forward primarily to afford better shipping facilities for manufacturing plants which are being driven out of the present city limits by the growing cost of real estate and the fact that sites with direct water or rail connection are no longer to be had here. It is a striking indi cation of the growth of New York's commerce that although the harbor frontage is more than four hundred miles in extent the pinch of conges tion in dock facilities is beginning to be seriously felt. Vast plans for the enlargement of the available water area, such as the deepening of Ja maica Bay and the construction of the New Jersey ship tunnel must be car ried out, say the experts, or else New York must lose her present com mercial and manufacturing suprem acy. The possibility of adding to the other experiences of an ocean voyage a trip in a brilliantly lighted submar ine tunnel at the New York end of the journey is one that may be reali zed within the next years. While the right over race-track gambling in this state has attracted attention all over the country another anti-gambling measure favored by Governor Hughes and regarded by many persons as of even greater im portance, although the struggle for its enactment has been less spectacu lar, has just been placed on the stat ute books. This is the law against bucketshops which the Governor signed a few days ago and which will make it impossible for this swindle, operating under the guise of legiti mate trade, to continue in this state. All over the country in fact a relent less fight is being waged against the bucketshops. Vigorous action by police authorities has put many of them out of business. The post of fice department is depriving them of the privileges of the mails as fast as evidence of the nature of their busi ness can be obtained and the Chicago Board of Trade has been carrying on a vigorous campaign against them in the middle west which was perhaps their most profitable field. The legiti mate exchanges have an added rea son, for fighting the bucketshops for the latter have made it a habit to steal the quotations of the former by wire tapping or other illegal means and much of the prejudice against all dealing in stocks and grain has come from tthe confusion on the part of the public between the operations of the legitimate exchanges and those of the bucketshop. The method of the latter is simplicity itself. It charges a commission, usually. double that of the legitimate broker, and except in rare cases executes none of its customers' orders. It is a gambling enterprise out and out with the heavy commission always working for the bucketshop. In the palmy days of a few years ago men became millionaires in a few months by operating these sure-thing games and investigation shows that most of the defaulters and bankers whose downfall has been attributed to "spec ulation" were victims of these swind lers. It is estimated here that the wiping out of bucketshops through out the country will mean the saving of millions of dollars besides remov in gone of the greatest sources of prejudice against legitimate opera-tions. The suffragettes, some of them im ported from England, who have been providing more or less entertain ments for New Yorkers recently with their meetings, outdoor rallies and parades, all part of the rebellion against man's alleged oppression of woman, are no longer to go unchal lenged. A great many American wo men apparently have no sympathy with the demand for votes and the outcry against their present state. At any rate an organization has been formed here which includes a large number of prominent women and which is planning a vigorous opposi tion to the suffragette movement The leaders of the latter declare that the new campaign is being secretly aided and encouraged by the men and point out that most of those engaged in it are handicapped by the possession of husbands. The anti-suffragists In sist that they represent the real senti ments of the great majority of women who do not want the ballot and in tend to let the fact be known. They are planning a series of lectures and meetings to begin in the fall at which they hope to show that this is the case. Now that he has found a champion to defend him from the at tacks of the suffragettes, mere man is left free to devote his attention to business, politics, golf fcnd; similar minor affairs. ' , Now that the tide of European travel is approaching its flood the usual number of complaints from travelers as to the needless ill treat ment they suffer from the inquisi torial methods of American customs inspectors are beginning to be heard. Stories of enforced payment of duties on articles of value purchased in the United States which the owners have neglected to register before leaving the country are common and are matched by other stories of damage to costly fabrics by rough handling and to the owners' feelings by the piers. The greatest source of com plaint is not against the manner in which it is conducted and the attitude of the inspectors who treat every per son as a probable smuggler until he or she can prove the contrary. In no other country in the world it is point ed out, not even in Russia, are per sons against whom there is no ground for suspicion treated as they are by Uncle Sam's representatives. How much better they perform this dis agreeable task abroad is told in a striking way by Dr. Henry C. Row land in his description of a trip across Europe by motor boat in the cur rent Appleton's. On arriving at Paris the writer and his companions were approached by two extremely polite customs representatives who asked if the travelers carried any con traband. On being assured that the only articles were a few cigarettes for personal use the inspectors polite ly raised their hats and departed. In New York the procedure would have been first to make the travelers swear to a statement of their possessions and then to search their trunks, or possibly to go through their pockets and make them strip, just to show that the sworn declaration was not believed. A record-of a sort-in reporting election returns was made last week when William R. Hearst, on board an ocean liner, received by wireless re ports of the recount of votes in his long drawn out fight to prove that he was elected Mayor of New York in 1905. Two years and a half in report ing voting results puts the Metropolis a long way behind the most back ward of back country districts in this respect. At the rate at which the re count is progressing it is estimated that something like two years will be required for its completion in case all the ballot boxes are opened. This will carry it well beyond the expira tion of the present mayoralty term so that Mr. Hearst is likely to receive establishes his claim.