The American dramatist of to-day, without those great and specially
prominent American characters who stood, as it were, ready to go on
the stage, has come to make a closer study of American society than
his predecessors did. They are keen also in seizing strikingly marked
new types in American life as they developed before the public from
decade to decade.

A notable instance is the exploitation by Charles Klein of the
present-day captain of industry in "The Lion and the Mouse." The
leading character in the play is differentiated on the stage, as in
life, from the Wall Street giant of about 1890, as illustrated in
one of my own plays, "The Henrietta." Mr. Klein's character of the
financial magnate has developed in this country since my active days
of playwriting, and the younger dramatist was lying in wait, ready for
him, and ready to seize his peculiarities for stage purposes.

Another thing is the fact that our dramatists are doing what our
literary men have done, namely, availing themselves of the striking
local peculiarities in various parts of the country. A marked
illustration of this now before the public is Edward Milton Royle's
"Squawman," recently at Wallack's Theatre. The dramatist has caught
his picture just in the nick of time, just before the facts of life
in the Indian Territory are passing away. He has preserved the picture
for us as George W. Cable, the novelist, preserved pictures of Creole
life of old New Orleans, made at the last possible moment.

I could go on mentioning many other plays illustrating phases of life
and society in America, and there could be no better or more positive
proof that a school of American dramatists already exists. This school
will undoubtedly continue to improve in the technical quality of