Pride at Denver

Four hundred musicians filed quietly out of Denver's Coliseum one day last week. They carried no instruments, for they had not been practicing their art. They had been discussing their business. Without the accompaniment of music they had just completed an annual convention of the American Federation of Musicians. Their faces were not gay for, though they had convened long and intensely, little had been accomplished toward bringing about musical employment for their 35,000 jobless fellow members (TIME, May 27).

Leading them through the trying days had been Joseph N. Weber, their president, captain, champion, advisor. But even "Joe" Weber had been unable to offer any sure-fire suggestion for a way to combat the "menace" of machine-made music in the cinema houses of the land. Even "Joe" Weber seemed to see nothing but musical doom, and the one resolution which was issued for publication after the secret meetings contained nothing more cheerful than pride, nothing more tangible than a prediction.

In this resolution, the 400 of music pointed with scorn at the talking cinema. Small is the loss of their livelihood, said the 400, compared to the incalculable loss which the public must suffer from "canned music." Gone will be all chance for U. S. youth-culture; gone will be all appreciation for artistic renditions. Mechanical, soulless music will pervert and deaden the public musical sense. The resolution continued:

"If music is to be a feature of theatrical production the patronizing public has a right to insist that the human interpreter shall be present to exercise his traditional and time honored function. . . . The pro posed mechanization is a backward step in the amusement, entertainment and educational world. It means the destruction of the inspirational glamor which has long surrounded the theatre orchestra."

Evidently the 400 had some hope that this line of reasoning would enlist Public Opinion against the "talkies" and restore, by subtle insistence, the jobs of 35,000 workless men. For one other thing which the convention did before adjourning was to raise the salary of President "Joe" Weber, best business brain of their once-potent union, from $15,000 per annum to $20,000.