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"Manhattan critics were high in their praise of The Captive. Said they: a play should be judged by its treatment. Oedipus Rex, unassailably great drama, is built upon a theme of incest, is not condemned as immoral and is often presented by college drama clubs. The Captive is written and produced in a thoroughly objective, artistic manner.
"My jury voted as follows: guilty, 6; not guilty, 5; noncommittal, 1. Nine votes are necessary to conviction. If convicted, The Captive would have been banned entirely. There was no question of expurgating particular passages. The members of my jury saw the play at different performances, singly. The reasons for their decisions varied. Said Juror Roy M. Hart, 32 Court Street, Brooklyn, lawyer: 'The play while not injurious to a mature person of balanced mind, may be injurious to the young.'
"Many a Manhattanite experienced alarm last week lest the Citizens Play Jury, to whose decisions the Actors Equity Association voluntarily defers, be accused of too great leniency to The Captive (a leniency arising from their Park Avenue culture) and find themselves ousted to be replaced by hard-boiled politically appointed jurors who would be shocked at nothing but the sure, fine and frank treatment of sex by such master dramatists as Ibsen, Brieux, Shaw."
George Bernard Shaw: "This past week I accepted the honor of the Nobel award for literature (TIME, Nov. 22) but at first refused the money, suggesting that the latter be used to encourage Anglo-Swedish intercourse in literature and art.* Then my telephone rang. I dislike telephones quite as much as Sir James Barrie (TIME, Nov. 15), and incidentally Kipling,† so my secretary answered. Her talk so roused my curiosity that I finally took the receiver myself. A newsgatherer said the Nobel Award Committee had cabled that under the rules the money could not be used as I had suggested; that my action was interpreted as equivalent to rejection of the whole award. 'Well, well,' I chuckled. 'It appears as if I had started something.' Asked if I agreed with Sinclair Lewis who refused a certain U. S. Pulitzer prize, because he felt the committee incompetent, I said: 'I don't agree with any thing.' I added that I had never heard of the Pulitzer Prize before Mr. Lewis advertised it. 'Look here,' I remarked enthusiastically, 'let's have it out in the press ... as to whether awards are really good for literature. I certainly will be interested in the outcome. Suppose any U. S. millionaire, or a millionaire anywhere else, gets the idea of making awards, and the idea spreads—where may it end?' Later I heard that Nobel had made no provision for anyone refusing his money, but that the Swedish Academy had no objection to my spending it for Anglo-Swedish letters if I would do the spending. It was then reported I had 'accepted' the money."