Actors' Fidelity League
The PMA therefore responded by re-issuing the existing contract with a significant change: the arbitration clause would now apply only to the hiring producer and the individual actor.
Equity asked William Howard Taft and Charles Evans Hughes to act as arbitrators between itself and the PMA over the contract issue.
A new organization within the AFL, the Associated Actors and Artists of America, made up of officers from both Equity and the White Rats, would hold the charter.
[13] This move into trade unionism strengthened Equity's position in a work stoppage, since the other crafts in the AFL, such as stage hands and musicians, would support them.
[14] As the PMA still refused to negotiate, Equity moved ahead with a limited strike, initially targeting a revival of Chu Chin Chow, then in rehearsals at the Century Theatre on July 29, 1919.
[16] At a mass meeting on August 1, 1919, the membership of Equity voted to authorize their leadership to make agreements with the stagehands and musicians' unions for joint action against the PMA.
The Daily News reported that "some of the loveliest girls of the theatre" flooded into Wall Street on August 12 to promote the strike: "Young brokers were unable to get their minds back to business after the visit and the market sagged.
A newspaper reported that he and Henry Miller, Equity's first vice-president,[27] who had also resigned were trying to start a counter group called the Actors' Co-operative Association.
[34] Louis Mann went a step farther than E. H. Sothern, abandoning neutrality and proposing to settle the strike by starting a new actors' organization.
[35] Newspapers and Equity immediately tied this new organization to George M. Cohan's earlier offer to resign from the PMA and support such a group with $100,000.
The Sun reported: "Its constitution provides for the inviolability of the individual contract, contains no provision for a strike, and sets up a permanent board for arbitration.... composed of two actors, two managers, and an umpire selected by these four.
[43] It was dropped through a motion carried by voice acclaim, with a majority of directors in an open vote now being required to reject or expel a member.
[3] This was a much smaller middle group of performers, not as moneyed as the PMA, but successful enough to lead their own touring companies,[3] and in the case of Henry Miller to own a Broadway theater.
[54] To allay concerns of contract enforcibility, Fidelity officers floated a new provision requiring a bond subscribed to by both signing parties to ensure compliance.
[55] After Cohan and PMA delegate Arthur Hopkins met with Samuel Gompers in Washington, D.C., the latter made clear the AFL's continued support for Equity's position.
However, Cohan expanded on this clause to another mass Fidelity meeting by saying there wasn't anything to prohibit an actor from choosing an association as one of their representatives.
[59][60] Faced with an ever expanding number of cities affected by the strike, the PMA tried to come to terms with Equity, the last remaining hurdles being the closed shop[61] and the agreement renewal date.
[4] The PMA had already concluded an agreement with Fidelity on the contract terms for its members; the issue of a closed shop was deferred, at the insistence of the stagehands.
[63] Fidelity signed a long-term lease for a building at 122 West 43rd Street[fn 8] in Manhattan during January 1920, which they had originally rented in August for their offices.
[69] At Fidelity's annual meeting on May 25, 1920, George M. Cohan decided not to run for president, leaving Henry Miller a clear field for election.
[80] Performed at the Henry Miller Theatre, these consisted of dramatic excerpts and one-act plays, as well as some music, singing, and dance.
[85] Fidelity launched an open shop stock company called United Players at the Palace Theatre in White Plains, New York during May 1922.
Fidelity moved its offices and club rooms to the third floor of a building occupying 11-17 East Forty-fifth Street during November 1922.
Anxious to avoid a strike, in May 1923 the PMA pre-emptively offered concessions to Equity in return for any new agreement preserving the open shop.
[88] Equity rejected this approach in a statement: "The managers will, of course, only have to give a similar benefit for their Fidelity association to nullify the advantage".
[95] Incensed by the 80-20 compromise, Henry Miller issued a diatribe against it on May 8, for which he appended names of prominent Fidelity members without having secured their permission first.
[97] Fidelity's treasurer, Ruth Chatterton, had its attorney file a petition for an injunction with the New York Supreme Court, asking it to set aside the proposed ten-year 80-20 agreement.
[98] This was the last significant action taken by the Fidelity League, which by the terms of the 80-20 agreement would now have to close its rolls in order for its current members to keep working.
[citation needed] The Supreme Court's rejection of Fidelity's challenge to the new 10-year agreement dealt the final blow to its status as a union.
George M. Cohan was re-elected as president; Mrs. Fiske and Louis Mann were chosen as first and second vice-presidents, and Howard Kyle as secretary-treasurer.
