The Anvil Revue

While the luncheon tables have provided color within the City Club, the annual Anvil Revue has projected that Club's image to the public. John Kenneth Galbraith, the noted economist, has remarked that the American equivalent of the Kremlin's walls is the stuffed shirt, which must be deflated if the United States is to progress. For forty-nine years a lively, witty, adopted citizen of Cleveland, Carl D. Friebolin, has been this city's principal contributor to the art of deflating stuffed shirts with his production of the City Club's Anvil Revue.

The Revue had its origins at the first annual meeting of the City Club when several of the members prominent in politics were "good naturedly roasted" by several speakers, as well as by bogus telegrams which were read aloud. A telegram from Baker to his secretary at City Hall read "Please instruct all ward and precinct workers to vote for me in a nonpartisan way." The telegram was a not-so-oblique criticism of the nonpartisan feature of the proposed city charter. The next year the first "Stunt Nite" got under way with a satire on the city's Democratic administration, entitled "Liberty Lubricates Life." The skit was originally written by Joe Hostetler and Fred Bagley, but when Friebolin, who played Mayor Baker, said the lines were "lousy" and he could write better ones, Bagley told him to go ahead. With the exception of the year 1928 Friebolin has been the principal author of the annual Anvil Revue ever since. During his presidency in 1918 he extended the idea of the skits by initiating the traditional requirement that prospective directors demonstrate their talents to the members on "Candidates Field Day."

For the next three years, 1914-16, "Stunt Nites" were included in the program at the annual election of City Club officers. The lines of one of their songs, "Reformers for the Pee-pul," reveal that members of the City Club did not hesitate to include themselves in their satire of the local scene

The City Club has in its ranks
Some people of wide renown,
The members fight to have the right
To educate the town,
They fill the air with phrases rare
They orate everywhere-
All for the sake of the Pee-pul.

Reform, Reform, the myriad cries arise:
Reform, Reform, the accents pierce the skies;
Every predigested plan, proposed by any man,
Is all for the sake of the Pee-pul.

The first complete musical comedy, Fitness and Fury or the Folibilities of the City Manager Plan, was presented in 1917. The play depicted Cleveland on the day after the adoption of the city manager plan. When the directors of the Civic League met to select the manager, Cleveland's leading political bosses, Maurice Maschke and W. Burr Gongwer, explained to the "good citizens" that if they were chosen to hold the position jointly, they would continue running the city as they had in the past. Ironically Friebolin's satire foreshadowed the very weaknesses that were revealed when Cleveland did adopt a city manager plan five years later.

Subsequent Anvil Revues have not only reflected political life in Cleveland over the years but have also revealed the encroachments of national and international events. If the historian cannot do justice to the satire it is because Will Rogers was right when he said "no [topical] joke can get over after it's six hours old." But each year's Revue has served its purpose in placing in perspective the public endeavors of fellow citizens. It was William McDermott who pointed out that "Friebolin is Cleveland's Aristophanes-who reveals the inner core of bunk that makes city government a little better for a while."

Many others have contributed without restraint to the City Club's annual two hours of civic improvement. From 1921 until 1958 Joe Newman wrote lyrics and puns at the drop of a hat. For nearly forty years Walter Belding has been responsible for all the musical arrangements. Professor Barclay S. Leathem, who has been the show's director for many years, has had the able assistance of Eleanor Frampton as choreographer and Nathan A. Schwartz as stage manager. While John A. Duncan, whose cover designs for the programs capture the essence of each show, has left Cleveland for warmer climes, he continues to send his designs each year. All those involved in the Anvil Revues have helped to demonstrate, in a paraphrase of the City Club's first production, that laughter lubricates liberty.

Reprinted from, Freedom's Forum: The City Club 1912-1962, by Thomas F. Campbell