all over the world are turning out their best. And because the
mission of vaudeville is fine, the writing of anything that is not
fine is contemptible. The author who tries to turn his talents
to base uses--putting an untrue emphasis on life's false values,
picturing situations that are not wholesome, using words that are
not clean--deserves the fate of failure that awaits him. As E.
F. Albee, who for years has been a controlling force in vaudeville,
wrote: [1] "We have no trouble in keeping vaudeville clean and
wholesome, unless it is with some act that is just entering, for
the majority of the performers are jealous of the respectable name
that vaudeville has to-day, and cry out themselves against
besmirchment by others."

[1] "The Future of the Show Business," by E. F. Albee, in The
Billboard for December 19, 1914.

Reality and truth are for what the vaudeville writer strives. The
clean, the fine, the wholesome is his goal. He finds in the many
theatres all over the land a countless audience eager to hear what
he has to say. And millions are invested to help him say it well.

CHAPTER II

SHOULD YOU TRY TO WRITE FOR VAUDEVILLE?


"I became a writer," George Bernard Shaw once said, "because I
wanted to get a living without working for it--I have since realized
my mistake." Anyone who thinks that by writing for vaudeville he
can get a living without working for it is doomed to a sad and