In His Steps

Churchmen who distrust Broadway and deplore the crassness of the U. S. theatre have never found anything to complain about in Playwright Channing Pollock. Especially to their taste is his famed play The Fool, which deals earnestly with a modern clergyman who tried to act like Christ. When Playwright Pollock first got The Fool produced in 1922, critics were not impressed. For three weeks it looked like a failure. Then it found its public, ran for a year on Broadway. Five road companies played it throughout the U. S. for three years. The Fool was translated and performed in every civilized nation including Japan. It has netted some $1,000,000. Last week Playwright Pollock was hunting backing for a return of The Fool to Broadway, not with commercial producers alone but with the aid of the New York clergy. According to plans a theatre would be hired and a professional cast assembled. Tickets would be sold mostly by the churches, which would get 35% of the gross. The Greater New York Federation of Churches and the Brooklyn Church & Mission Federation would take 15%, the rest going for cost of production.

What The Fool is to the stage, to an even greater degree a novel called In His Steps has been to literature. Written in 1896 by Rev. Charles Monroe Sheldon, Congregational minister of Topeka, Kans., In His Steps tells of a preacher who not only tried to live as Christ would have lived in modern times but succeeded in starting a great movement among laymen who pledged themselves to do likewise. Translated in 21 languages, published under 47 different foreign imprints, In His Steps has sold more than 25,000,000 copies, sometimes trailing only the Bible as a bestseller.

In 1900 Author Sheldon emulated his book by editing Senator Arthur Capper's Topeka Daily Capital for a week as he believed Jesus would have done. So much in demand were copies that mats were rushed to Chicago, New York and London. Now 66, tall and genial, Author Sheldon has retired from the pulpit, is a doughty warrior for Prohibition, and a contributing editor to the Christian Herald (of which he was editor-in-chief from 1920 to 1925). He has written some 33 books, but his fame still rests upon In His Steps. It might be supposed that his wealth rests there too. But last week in the Christian Century Author Sheldon revealed that he received precisely $275 for In His Steps from the church weekly which first published it. Then he discovered that his copyright was defective, the weekly having filed only one copy with the copyright department instead of two as by law required. U. S. publishers soon found this out. In 36 years Author Sheldon has received only what publishers voluntarily gave him--some $3,000. Some of the translators and publishers sent their thanks. Author Sheldon amuses himself collecting the various editions of In His Steps. He lacks a Russian one which was banned by the Soviets, would be pleased if someone would tell him where he could get one. Author Sheldon says he does not complain about the ethics of publishers: "After all I had the fun of writing the book and no one can take that away from me."

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