Music: Million-Dollar Offer

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Everyone knows now that great Richard Wagner was a selfish, mercenary person who used everyone, lived on the bounty of Otto Wesendonck while philandering with his wife, borrowed money right & left always with the air of conferring a favor. Wagner made Germany pay heavily for the honor of fatherlanding himself and his operas. No other composer has ever lived to see a theatre existing solely for the production of his own works. But not until last week did it become known that Wagner had offered himself to the U. S. for a million dollars.

Wagner stated his terms in a letter to his American dentist, Dr. Newell S. Jenkins, who practiced for a time in Dresden: "It seems to me as if, in my hopes regarding Germany and her future, my patience would very soon be exhausted, and that I might then repent not having long ago confided the seeds of the ideas embodied in my art creations to a more fruitful and promising soil. An association would have to be formed which would offer me, upon conditions of my permanent settlement there and as an indemnity once for all for my exertions, a sum of one million dollars, of which one-half would be placed at my disposal upon taking up my residence in some State of the Union with favorable climate, the other half being invested as capital in a government bank at 5%." Dr. Jenkins was to sound out U. S. opinion but his noncommittal reply proved him wise on subjects other than bridgework. The correspondence was published last week. Dentist Jenkins' son, Leonard A. Jenkins of New Haven, let Writer Julian Seaman have it for the New York Times.