Chicago's Plight

Musical Chicagoans were scurrying around last week trying to raise the $500,000 necessary to insure another season of opera when suddenly a sterner blow struck them. Opera in Chicago has often been in a precarious way financially. But last week it was the Symphony which sent out an unexpected distress call, announced that it would suspend concerts next year unless a sufficient guarantee could be raised in advance.

Chicago was thunderstruck. Its symphony orchestra, third oldest in the U. S.,* has always appeared to be built on solid rock. Fathered by 50 Chicago businessmen, it was a thriving two-year-old at the time of the World's Fair (1893). Conductor Theodore Thomas of the drooping mustache was having it play Wagner excerpts new even to Europe. In the panic of 1894 its deficit was only $20,000. Ten years later it built a home of its own, supposed to insure its permanent endowment. Violinist Frederick August Stock, a German of sound musicianship whose very bearing imparted an air of stability, succeeded Thomas as conductor. There were frequent deficits but fat years always managed to care for lean.

A deficit of $42,000 last year plus $82,000 this year will entirely wipe out the Orchestra's surplus of $120,000. But the Musicians' Union, according to President Charles Humphrey Hamill of the Orchestral Association, is as much to blame as Depression. It demands $268,822 for 97 players (in 1891, the payroll for 80 players was $90,000). Understanding musicians used to run Chicago's music union but now shrewd swart James C. Petrillo is in command. Said he last week: ''There is no question of a reduction of the wage scale. ... If the public will not pay for good music, it is Chicago's loss."

President Hamill announced that the Orchestral Association would not sponsor a drive for funds but to observers it seemed unlikely that wealthy Chicagoans would stand by and watch their greatest musical institution pass out of existence or that the musicians' union would want to see any more of its members made jobless.

* New York's Philharmonic (1842) and Boston's Symphony (1881).

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