ARIZONA'S COLLEGE IN THE PINES

Playwright IN ARIZONA BY JEAN PROVENCE

Fifty years ago in Chicago on June 12, 1899, the curtain of Hamlin's Grand Opera House went up on the brilliant production of Augustus Thomas' most famous play ARIZONA. Today the play remains one of the most popular dramas ever written about the Southwest. A Golden Anniversary production of the play was presented on May 13 at Phoenix College under the direction of Cecil A. Kersten, head of the drama department, and staged by John Paul.

Yet if Augustus Thomas had not felt he had written himself out, ARIZONA might never have been written. After the great success of ALABAMA and IN MIZZOURI, NEW BLOOD, a play with social significance, was a failure in New York. Dispirited, Thomas confided to Luther Lincoln, a literary agent, he was completely dry of ideas for plays. Lincoln laughed at Thomas and told him every author felt the same way at some time during his career. What Thomas needed was a change of scenery, a vacation, and a source of new ideas.

Living near the author in New Rochelle, New York, was Frederic Remington, the peerless painter of Western scenes. Among Thomas' close friends were Captain Jack Summerhayes and his wife, Martha Summerhayes, who later wrote VANISHED ARIZONA. Remington had lived in Tucson, and the Summerhayes had been stationed at army forts in Arizona for years. Their tales of the wonderful desert and sunshine convinced Thomas he would find inspiration in Arizona.

Augustus Thomas was a playwright who took inspiration from the daily newspaper and the world about him and was well prepared to grasp the feeling of ranch and army life in Arizona. Born in St. Louis in 1857, he was educated in the public schools and had a background similar to that of Mark Twain. He worked on the St. Louis Post Despatch, the Kansas City Times, and the New York World. His play, ALONE, was written when he was fifteen years old and was produced by amateurs. It wasnot until 1889 that he had a play produced in New York.

Frederic Remington supervised the organizing of Thomas' kit for the journey to Arizona as he would have arranged his own. In addition Remington introduced Thomas to Major General Nelson A. Miles who had ended the Apache wars in Arizona by shipping Geronimo and his Apaches to Florida. General Miles was then Commanding General and gave the playwright a letter to the officers commanding western posts.

Captain Jack Summerhayes knew the officers of the West and when he read General Miles' letter he shook his head and counselled Thomas, "That department letter will command anything those men can give you, but they'll feel happier if their contributions seem voluntary and come only under the head of General Miles' permission."

In the middle of March, 1897, Augustus Thomas reached Willcox, Arizona Territory, on the Southern Pacific. He was headed for Fort Grant, twenty miles north of the cattle shipping center on the San Pedro River, near the present town of Winkelman.

Getting off the train Thomas inquired how he could reach Fort Grant, and he was informed an ambulance with four mules was there to carry over to Fort Grant a captain who was expected on the train arriving at five in the morning. Remembering what Captain Summerhayes had said Thomas kept his letter from General Miles in his pocket, and consulted the driver of the ambulance who promised to tell the captain Thomas wished to accompany him to Fort Grant.

Early the next morning Thomas took a place near the ambulance ready to be invited to accompany the captain. His wait was in vain. The driver struck the mules and the ambulance rattled away without the playwright.

The disappointment was compensated by the yarns and instruction of the driver of a two-horse depot wagon that took Thomas to Fort Grant a few hours later. At the post the driver directed him to the officers club where Thomas found several officers playing cards.

Talented cast of Phoenix College staged “Arizona” this spring. Production proved dramatic worth of the drama.

“I would like to see Colonel Sumner, the commanding officer,” Thomas stated.

The officers hardly looked up, but one pointed to the senior officer who continued to focus his attention on his cards.

This time Augustus Thomas did not hesitate to show his letter from General Miles. Drawing erect and acting in the best tradition of the theatre, Thomas handed the letter to Colonel Edwin V. Sumner. “A letter from Washington.” Stepping back Thomas waited. The Colonel opened the letter, glanced at it quickly, and struck the table a blow, “Gentlemen.” The officers instantly dropped their cards and stood at attention. Thomas was welcomed by the officers and he began a pleasant and inspiring stay at Fort Grant.

After a hot bath Thomas changed into clean clothes and went to Colonel Sumner's home where he met the Colonel's wife and had an agreeable dinner. After the meal Thomas was shown the fort and was much impressed by a large tent set up on the parade ground. Inside was a telegraph instrument ticking off round by round the Jim Corbett-Bob Fitzsimmons fight in Carson City, Nev.

With an imagination bent on the theatre, Augustus Thomas looked around the compact little community of Fort Grant, and it was impossible for him not to begin to play chess with the characters and reputations of the people he saw. There were few women at the fort, and nearly all of them were married with not a breath of scandal or gossip to be heard. Colonel Sumner and his wife, who was almost his own age, were happily married. Any hint of discord was far from the truth, but Thomas decided to use the Colonel as the central character in a play. How could he develop dramatic conflict?

With no compunction Thomas mentally mated theColonel with a much younger wife who was regretful of the disparity in their years. The discontent of the young wife was to be evident to the younger officers and one would take advantage of her unhappiness. The play ARIZONA was born.

At the dinner table Thomas listened to Colonel Sumner tell of the adventures of the cattlemen, the soldiers, and the Indians in the district. Mrs. Sumner laughed about the Mexican messenger who carried news through the valley. His knowledge of English was limited and Tony could not distinguish profanity, which he used without hesitation. Tony was incorporated into the play.

The Colonel spoke frequently of Henry C. Hooker and the Sierra Bonita Ranch in Sulphur Springs Valley, one of the most extensive and modern ranches in Arizona at the time. Hooker had driven a herd of Longhorn cattle into the Territory soon after the Civil War and gradually developed the ranch.

After a few days at Fort Grant, Thomas made the journey up Aravaipa Canyon to the Hooker Ranch. At the Sierra Bonita he found Hooker's charming daughter-inlaw, Mrs. Forrestine Hooker, the wife of E. R. Hooker and the author of THE LONG DIM TRAIL. She was an exceptionally accomplished young woman, and as she played the piano in the evening Thomas made a place for her in the play. Mrs. Hooker became Bonita, the heroine of ARIZONA, and was named in honor of the ranch.

The Sierra Bonita became the setting for three acts of the play. The ranch house was an adobe hacienda built in a quadrangle about a hundred feet square with outside walls of eighteen feet to discourage attacks by the Apaches. Three sides of the interior were faced with windows and doors opening into a court. The fourth side of the quadrangle was a series of sheds for animals and a low wall with a large gate.

Henry C. Hooker, himself, interested Thomas. He was a quiet little man who substituted intelligence for recklessness bravery and had stood his own against Indian depredations and cattle rustlers. The rancher's simple speech and keen observations on frontier life fascinated Thomas. But the playwright was not satisfied. The slight quiet little man did not seem to look the part of an Arizona ranchman, and Thomas took the liberty of replacing Hooker in his mind with a more robust frontiersman. Henry C. Hooker became the Henry Canby of ARIZONA and the most colorful character in the play.

Thomas listened attentively and as soon as he was out of Hooker's presence he would write down the rancher's words. Many of Hooker's own speeches were put in the mouth of Henry Canby and became famous. One speech particularly became an audition piece for actors of the day.

In commenting on a man being a man in Arizona Canby says, "We take a man on here and ask no questions. We know when he throws his saddle on his horse whether he understands his business or not. He may be a minister backslidin', or a banker savin' his lung, or a train robber on his vacation-we don't care. A good many of our most useful men have made their mistakes. All we care about now is, will they stand the gaff? Will they set sixty hours in the saddle holdin' a herd that's tryin' to stampede all the time?"

Colonel Sumner suggested that Thomas visit San Carlos, and Thomas made the journey hoping to witness an Indian uprising to serve as the background for the play. The trip took two days and was over such rugged country the ambulance had to be abandoned at the end of the first day and the trip continued on horseback.

The trails on the hogback mountains were so narrow everything had to be trusted to the surefooted army horses. On the steeper trails Thomas was forced to dismount and follow along behind his horse clinging to his tail as a tow. Across the ridges the wind came howling at forty miles an hour and made traveling exceedingly difficult where a fall meant instant death in the canyon below.

It was rough going for Thomas and in his autobiography, THE PRINT OF MY REMEMRBANCE, in describing the experience he wrote, "There were long stretches through the little brooks between these mountains where the chaparral dragged at your bootlegs and the higher switches slapped you on the head so that you kept it tucked into the shoulders, with the campaign hat pulled down to fend them from drawing blood. From the perspiration gathered in one of these levels we went again to other heights so cold that last week in March that we turned up the collars of our leather jackets lined with sheepskin; yet we rode through the bright air so clear that the sun burned our cheeks more swiftly than August in the Mississippi Valley."

At noon they stopped to rest the horses and have lunch. Thomas was astonished to see an Indian put a coffee pot on three little stones no larger than hen eggs, slip under it a bunch of grass no larger than a shaving brush, feed it with a few splinters, and boil two quarts of coffee quicker than he had seen coffee made on a stove.

When he reached San Carlos the playwright was completely exhausted. Fortunately he was taken in charge by a kindly fat old doctor who prescribed a hot bath. Gratefully Thomas included the doctor in his play. The next morning when Thomas started for the mess he tookeach step carefully, hanging on to everything within reach. Half paralized he was suffering from a bad case of horse rheumatism.

A week at San Carlos was educational and Thomas spent most of his time studying the Apaches at first hand. They were to supply the background for the play and the action was to be climaxed by an Indian uprising. Inspired, with his head full of ideas and interesting characters and a notebook black with notes, Thomas returned to his home in New Rochelle in April and began the actual writing of the play, ARIZONA.

As he had planned, Colonel Sumner became Colonel Bonham; Henry C. Hooker, Henry Canby; Mrs. Forrestine Hooker, Bonita; Tony, himself; and the Sierra Bonita the Aravaipa Ranch. The plot evolves around the young wife of Colonel Bonham who allows herself to be talked into running away with Captain Hodgman. Discovered by Lieutenant Denton their elopement is blocked, but Denton is discovered in Mrs. Bonham's room. Unable to explain why he is there, Denton accepts a charge of robbery and resigns his commission in the army.

The last acts when Tony shoots Hodgman and Lieutenant Denton is charged with the shooting as an act of revenge was originally set against an Indian uprising, but true to his sense of dramatic values in current events, Thomas changed the ending. Early on the morning of February 16, 1898, a friend called Thomas to tell him that the Maine had been sunk and war with Spain was imminent. Returning to his manuscript the playwright scratched out all reference to the Indian uprising and made the background of ARIZONA the raising of a troop of cowboy soldiers for the Spanish-American War.

The accuracy of Thomas' imagination was confirmed a few days later when Colonel Leonard Wood was authorized to raise a troop of cavalry. He and Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt went West and organized the First Volunteer Cavalry, better known as the Rough Riders.

The war held up the staging of ARIZONA for a year, but in the summer of 1899 Kirke LaShelle assembled a cast in Chicago which included some of the great names of the theatre. Theodore Roberts played Canby. The villainous Captain Hodgman was played by Arthur Byron. Vincent Serrano was cast as the Mexican, Tony. Down at the bottom of the cast of characters was Lieutenant Young acted by Lionel Barrymore.

The play was an instant success in Chicago. The background of the Rough Riders made the play timely, the plot gave it suspense, and the fresh characters clothed ARIZONA with reality. The play opened at the Herald Square Theatre in New York on September 10, 1900, and two years later at the Adelphi Theatre in London. For years the play was featured on the road and in stock as one of the most popular plays of the American stage. Artcraft made the play into a silent movie and recently Columbia Pictures filmed a version with John Wayne in the lead.

After fifty years ARIZONA is still good entertainment and has been diminished little in its theatrical luster. It is hard to say if it is Thomas' best play, but if you will look in The College Standard Dictionary you will read THOMAS, AUGUSTUS, (1857-1934) an American journalist and playwright; ARIZONA.