The manager of the strictly commercial theatre cannot follow the picture-dealer's example; he must risk serious loss every time that he produces a non-commercial piece. In one respect Mr Klaw is in agreement with some of the English antagonists of the trust system; like them, he is almost indignant at the idea that the theatre should attempt to educate or dictate to the public. As a corollary, he and they must be opposed to the idea that the dramatist or player should have an educational value. Do they think that the public needs no education in theatrical art? Are they content that the great half-washed should remain in their present condition, which exhibits painfully a great lack of education? Presumably.
Mr Klaw deals with the dramatic critic. Here, of course, our withers are wrung and we write with a bias. He is indignant because the Syndicate is accused of an attempt to "stifle and muzzle" dramatic criticism. He thinks that it is "to his best interests to have it [dramatic criticism] absolutely impartial, absolutely just, and always on the most dignified plane." Then he explains that it is because certain American dramatic critics have fallen from this high standard, or never reached it, that they have been driven from the Syndicate's paradises. Who is to decide whether the critic in a particular case is "absolutely impartial, absolutely just, and on the most dignified plane"? Mr Klaw and his colleagues, of course.
There is a certain fable in which a wolf set itself up to judge the conduct of the relatives of an appetising lamb, and executed a vicarious injustice. From time to time London dramatic critics of the highest standard and most respected character have been excluded by particular managers for a while from their houses, because the managers thought they had not been "absolutely impartial, absolutely just, and on the most dignified plane." Time and their friends have convinced the managers that they had blundered, and peace was made.
Suppose, however, that those individual managers, who really are people taking a far more dignified view of their calling than that of putting it on the level of the dry-goods store, had been part of a syndicate of Klaws, would those critics have been readmitted? Would the fact have been recognized that the unfavourable notices were really honest dignified criticisms, even if disputable upon the point of justice? Of course not. If the newspapers had combined against the theatres, the Syndicate managers would have climbed down. Would they have combined? I think not. Here, indeed, is the peril.