By JOSEPH W. LaBINE
Three months ago a spangled
crop of circus performers hit
the sawdust trail amidst prom-
ises of the biggest season since
1929. Today, many of them are
hoping to get home without sell-
ing the tent.
The circus
rough waters;
has flopped altogether.
At Scranton, Pa., a few weeks
ago, the “Big One,” Ringling
Brothers, Barnum and Bailey,
folded its tent in a sea of mud
and headed back to winter
quarters at Sarasota, Fla
Strikes, poor attendance
rainy weather
This thing wouldn't
happened in the days of old
P. T. Barnum or John Ring-
ling, peers of the circus
world. But it happened this
year, for the first time in 54
seasons; it happened in a
profession whose followers
traditionally carry their
ner through mud, starvat
EIR} payless We
about old bromide,
"
season has hit
“The in must go on
Maybe the performers
ing their part, but that
Maybe the audience is to blanve,
the circus
more than
same elepl
tricks and the same clown s turn
the same somersaults, year
year.
Time Passes, Customs Change.
These past ye ave been
fraught with change in the enter-
tainment field. ‘“The Perils of Paul-
ine” lent gave way
to talking | wtauqua ex-
pired as a p
people no long
of culture;
and made
mopolitan.
Through it
uncha
sive manager
ana
new
aren't
for
th
n
the
sam
half a
ants doing
century wi
the
after
20 ars hi
on the si screen
ch:
yictures;
all came
anged. Whenever
Suggest
ted there was
someone to object, beca
kind of entert
one Kina i ainmen
ent. It's
‘hnique
use the cir
ives on pure
always been a ballyho
loud-mouthed bag of trick
everyone knows to be phoney
enj for that very reason.
never been bigger than the man in
the checkered suit and derby hat
who yells “Right this way!” out of
one corner of his 1¢ other
corner being preocc cupi ed by a cigar
stub.
So maybe the audience to
blame for the Ringling recession.
Maybe father's getting tired of sit-
tng on a hard bench year after
year, eating undigestible peanuts
and watching the elephants. Per-
haps America is now revolting
against the old-time circus just as
it revolted against chautauqua.
They Call It “Collegiate.”
But you can’t make the old time
sawdust-trail followers believe that.
If the “Big One” pever hits the
road again, veteran circus men will
always insist that it died
John Ringling North tried to mod-
sentin
oys
niouth ’
Re
I
this year and there-
/ ‘destroyed its ch
That's a fruit
cause John Ringling
son of ‘Old John’ Ringling,
he was only trying to regain
of the old Ringling touch by
ranging new costuming and hanging
for the circus this year.
» show
arm.
argument be-
North, grand-
insisted
a bit
ar-
less
Under the Smaller Tops.
North is a Yale man and there
were mutterings last spring that the
circus going collegiate. Per-
haps it was collegiate to import a
giant gorilla, “Gargantua the
and set him up for exhibi-
tion in an air-conditioned cage, en-
closed in steel and shatter-
proof glass Perhaps other minor
innovations were collegiate. But it
will be hard for John Ringling
wagging
reason why his
was
bars
exact
Maybe it was the entertainment;
¥
THE HARD WAY-It's bad
enough to merely stand on a tight-
wire but Hal Silvers,
top aerialist, chooses
through a stick held by his two
hands. It's a good constitutional,
says Hal.
maybe it was the public; maybe it
was the management.
reces-
felt so
the Ringling
made
the les
Fortunately
sion has not itself
acutely ser circuses
Probably it's because these smaller
units play largely to non-metropoli-
tan ‘audiences who h 't felt bad
business conditions so acutely. Cer-
tainly there's no drouth so far
numbers are ¢ Feria] the current
boasts six railroad shows
and 16 to
Add to that
and hundreds of
units, and you
the 1938 circus
among
aven
as
20 truck more
than 150 carnivals
fair and celebration
have a picture of
field.
Tim McCoy motion pic
fame is reviving the days of the
Ranch and Buffalo Ba. Cly de Beat-
ty and his cats frolic
Brothe srs circus, which |
show on the road under the nam
of Robbins Brothers. Then comes
Al G. Barnes-Sells-Floto circus and
the Hagenbeck-Wallace Most
of these are railroad si ith
20- to 30-car trains.
shows.
of
15 8 Se ond
show
OWS W
the cir-
you
bef
his ye:
cus I ete
should
's experience in
ly goes to pre
never count chickens
Last April the }
3 said it was
year
on ve
ore
they
winter quarte
be a bigger
mebody
the cl
son
advance
the preser
an
hatch.
act
best in years
Fro Geor
Yi £, one oi
bookers of i
carnivals and celebrations, came re-
ports that the demand for new and
unusual acts far exceeded sup-
ply
“We co
we
acts for circuses
4
vie
yuld bool
demant celebrations,
Fourth of
what it w
ii was last
for
sucl 1wse around the
July, is three times
year."
Circus in Retrospect.
Old P. T. Barnum, were he alive
today, might say the industry has
become so big and complex that it's
collapsing. The man who started
out many years ago with a com-
bined museum - menagerie - circus
might scoff at huge institution
his successors now tote around so
painfully on special trains.
the
Certainly it's a far cry back to the
ight of April 22, 1793, when George
ington watched John Bill Rick-
back of his galloping horse, regain
saddle. That was one of the simple
joys of a simple people, yet circus
showmanship today is substantially
the same, merely. augmented.
It can be recalled that even in
the earlier days the circus was a
humbug proposition. P. T. Barnum,
an old man when he reached the
prime of circus life, chortled with
inward glee at being +called the
“greatest humbug of his time.” He
was a genius at getting his name in
It's interesting to speculate what
will become of the dainty French
equestrienne and the almond-eyed
maid from Tokyo, the Hindu mys-
tic and the rosy-cheeked English
athlete, all of them members of the
Ringling circus, all of them tempo-
rarily out of a job now that the
“Big One" has closed shop for the
For old followers of the open road
this will be a catastrophe. It will
a phe-
nomenon many of them have never
before seen.
This summer you're apt to find
some top-rank circus talent filling
out the season with smaller shows,
anxious to make a living however
they can.
And next fall they'll find the road
that leads back to winter quarters
and home, or wherever they spend
the cold months. Many of them will
shake their heads and mutter:
“Never again—I'm through.”
But next spring they'll be around
again and somebody will remem
ber the bromide:
“The show must go on!”
© Western Newspaper Union.
HALL, PA.
and Most
6 FE
ALL the foods known
Oa
of life.
st
1st
bodies for infants; strong
children; helps to ma
the onset of old age
It contains a greater assort-
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It is the
balanced
any other single food.
of
Considering the services it
foundation every
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fancy to old age
est food we have.
Milk
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The Biggest Food Bargain
Ne occasionally a
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ulous! The «
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ndispensable necessity.
I contend that no homemaker
8%
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a veritable elixir
health, efficiency and
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a
A Food for Children and Adults
Humankind needs milk as the
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ay
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e of
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Showing which Foods are
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