The Times they aren't a changing

Save the Smithsonian

According to today's Times, the Smithsonian Institution is embarking on its first private fundraising drive:

Smithsonian Is Planning a Big Fund-Raising Push

By ROBIN POGREBIN

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — The Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents voted Monday to undertake a major capital campaign to help raise the $2.5 billion needed to improve and repair its buildings. It is the first large-scale private fund-raising effort in the organization’s history.

Because the Smithsonian gets 70 percent of its $1 billion operating budget from the federal government, raising money from private sources will be a significant departure for the institution.

However, a similar story appeared 80 years prior:

March 6, 1927

SUPPORT ASKED FOR SMITHSONIAN

Famous Washington Institution Needs Funds to Carry Out International Science Labors -- Founded Nearly a Century Ago

An appeal for public support for the Smithsonian Institution was made the other day at a meeting in Washington attended by President Coolidge, Vice President Dawes, Chief Justice Taft and members of the Cabinet. As Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution, Chief Justice Taft stressed the fact that, contrary to popular belief, his famous scientific museum is a private institution, under guardianship of the United States Government, but is not an official bureau. Funds are needed to carry on its work.

The drowsy megaphone

Cats scratched out 18 years on Broadway, but the longest running show on the Great White Way may actually be the labor-management follies.

Much like a play which is more or less the same from night to night, over the decades the issues theatrical unions and management have locked bullhorns over are now so familiar that much of the audience is able to sing along.

Take the current stagehand strike, which this week has left countless tourists searching for other ways to spend $400 for a night's entertainment.

According to Campbell Robertson's front page story Sunday on the strike,

The dispute has largely been over the rules in the contract that govern how many stagehands must be called for work, how long they work, and what kind of tasks they can perform.

Compare that to the same union's demand 81 years earlier,

in the new demands the union requires that nine men be employed for a production with one set of scenery, such as "Craig's Wife," where three men are now used.

Although the 1926 strike was averted, the similarities are (pun intended) striking:

STAGEHAND STRIKE LOOMS OVER WAGES

August 19th, 1926

A strike of the stagehands in New York's legitimate theatres loomed as a possibility yesterday when it became known that the Theatrical Protective Union, Local No. 1, had made demands for wage increases for stage carpenters, electricians, property men and flymen which according to the theatre owners and managers, would mean an additional yearly expense of $20,000 to $25,000 for each house.

The increeases asked by the stagehands average about 40 per cent in all departments, although in some instances they run much higher. Under the proposed scale stage carpenters who are now paid $65 a week would receive $85 for a six-day week, with similar increases all along the line.