1915-04-11-New York Sun-Many Volunteer Boosters Working for Polygamy

Many Volunteer Boosters Working for Polygamy

New York Sun, 11 April 1915, p. 7

The fad for press agenting "Polygamy" began in Washington when the wife of the Postmaster-General, Mrs. Albert Sydney Burleson, went with her husband and her daughters on the "first night" of the play, and called up the authors of the play next morning at the Shoreham to tell them what a great drama it was. Not only that, but Mrs. Burleson, who has written one or two plays herself, talked about "Polygamy" everywhere, reenforced by her friend Mrs. Gregory, the pretty wife of the new Attorney-General, and finally gave a tea for Miss Harriet Ford and Harvey O'Higgins, the authors, at which all the Cabinet folk were present.

From an unexpected quarter rose Miss Janet Richards, who conducts current events classes in Washington society so that all the hostesses and debutantes and all the wives of Congressmen from everywhere can talk what's going on in the world with the statesmen and diplomats; and Miss Richards urged society to go and see the play, and then repeated her enthusiastic message to the New York society contingent in her morning classes at Sherry's.

Mrs. Haryot Holt Dey, president of the New York Woman's Press Club, alert to the social tip from Washington, asked Mr. O'Higgins, one of the authors, to talk to the 600 writer women in the club the day before the play opened in New York. Mr. O'Higgins, who had never made a speech in his life before, talked to the 600 press women and thereby created 600 press agents more for "Polygamy."

"Polygamy" had scarcely opened in New York when little Jean Webster, the author of "Daddy Long-Legs," scheduled to talk at the Pen and Brush Club, launched forth in a panegyric of "Polygamy" and didn't say a word about her own play, and she has been talking "Polygamy" ever since.

Then Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont saw the play and declared it a great feminist drama that every woman should see, sent her friends to see it and started the suffrage ball rolling along Fifth avenue.

Mrs. Edward R. Hewitt, the president, and a committee of the Drama Society went to the first night of "Polygamy" and came away enthusiastic, within three days issuing a bulletin to the members and a check to the box office for 800 seats to record the committee's judgment of the play.

"No other drama this season, surely, has had the distinction of having a public meeting held in its behalf," comments a writer in the Green Book, referring to the special meeting of the Drama Society, at which Mrs. Hewitt presided, which was called to publicly record the society's support of "Polygamy." Mr. O'Higgins made the second speech of his career at this Drama Society meeting. A fresh crop of influential press agents was the result.

The suffrage ball had scarcely begun rolling when Mrs. Annie Riley Hale of Tennessee, anti-suffragist, arose in a suffrage meeting at the Cort Theatre and advised the suffragists to see "Polygamy" for the object lesson it offered of "Votes for Women" in the Mormon States! When the suffragists had a party the antis came, too, and sat in the next box by preference. Matters reached a climax when the "Club-women's Night Forum," held every Tuesday evening, appealed to the suffragists as a suitable occasion for suffrage talks. The same thought (to the confusion of the theatre management) had occurred to the antis! In this crisis it was proposed to seat the suffragists on one side of the theatre, the antis on the other, to limit the speeches to eight minutes, and hope for the best! Amity and eloquence marked the occasion, and the suffragists and the antis went away to talk "Polygamy."

One of the most distinguished press agents that "Polygamy" has had is Mrs. Shepard, who was Miss Helen Gould, and who had a box the first week of the play's run and sent a host of her friends to see it. Mrs. Frank Sprague's enthusiasm took fire from the "first night" and Mrs. William Hirshaw, wife of the Metropolitan Opera Company barytone, is another "Polygamy" champion. Lillian Russell (Mrs. Alexander Moore) came to the