PREFATORY NOTE



more gained her first distinction as a " star",
are to be found in the popular songs, "Shoo fly!
Don't bother me", and "I'm  Captain Jinks of
the Horse Marines."
  " The Climbers" marks a definite departure
on the part of the playwright, both in technique
and in approach. When Professor Brander
Matthews was asked to open the Fitch Memorial
Lectureship on the Drama, established at Amherst
College by the dramatist's mother - during one
of the discourses, he said in substance: The
historical is not the highest form of drama. An
author knows best the contemporary life imme-
diately about him, and can deal with it easily.
But for historical setting, he must reach the
ideals through research and reading, and often
his estimates are not accurate, and often they
are devoid of spontaneity. The drama, based on
contemporary life, in time takes on an historical
value. In this way, Clyde Fitch's "The Climbers"
will be a definite document to the social historians
of the next century. It has the same grasp of
existing conditions that is manifested in Howells's
"The Rise of Silas Lapham " and in Mark Twain's
"Life on the Mississippi."
  In other words, Mr. Fitch's most distinctive
and his most mature vein began to assert itself
in this play - his vein of the commonplace raised



viii