"Founders"

The Golden Gate is well on the way to the possession of a Diamond Horseshoe. The San Francisco Opera Association is rapidly raising $125,000 by calling upon generous westerners to become "Founders," at the price of $50 per head. Already 1,807 of the necessary 2,500 fees have been collected, and there is general jubilation. Maestro Gaetano Merola has been appointed producing director of the Association, and has already announced his program for 1924-25.

Bradford Mills, business manager of the whole project, at a backers' luncheon, held in the palatial Hotel St. Francis, made the following interesting statement, after a congratulatory telegram from Otto H. Kahn had been read:

"This is the first time in the history of Grand Opera in America that a project such as you have started here has been attempted. You are starting right, for you are paying your way as you go. The history of opera companies that are managed under some scheme of subsidy or guarantee is a recital of failures. The Teapot Dome scandal of grand operadom was the Chicago Civic Opera Company in the days when Harold McCormick's millions were back of it. The extravagance was dreadful."