Desire Under the Elms (1924), a drama by Eugene O'Neill. [Greenwich Village Theatre, 208 perf.] Ephraim Cabot ( Walter Huston), unsparing and miserly, works the New England farm he inherited from his second wife with the help of his three sons. The youngest, Eben ( Charles Ellis), blames his father for his mother's death, insisting he killed her with overwork. Eben's older half‐brothers, Simeon ( Allen Nagle) and Peter ( Perry Ivins), long for a better life in California. When the seventy‐five‐year‐old Ephraim appears with his third wife, an ambitious young widow, Abbie Putnam ( Mary Morris), the older boys sell their shares to Eben and head for the gold fields. Abbie seduces Eben, and when their child is born, Ephraim, believing the child his, makes the baby his heir. Eben denounces Abbie, but she has come to love him. To prove her love, she kills the baby. Eben calls the police, but recognizing that he, in turn, has come to love Abbie, claims he assisted in the killing. Ephraim prepares to tend the farm alone as the young couple are taken away. Stark Young saw the work's similarity to Beyond the Horizon but judged it “better written throughout; it has as much tragic gloom and irony, but a more mature conception and a more imaginative austerity.” When the play was moved uptown it was not particularly successful until the police attempted to close it. The notoriety helped the play achieve an acceptable run. An ANTA revival in 1952 met with a modest run but a Circle in the Square production in 1963, featuring George C. Scott, Colleen Dewhurst, and Rip Torn, was very successful.

BALDWIN, SIMEON EBEN

Simeon Eben Baldwin was born February 5,1840. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from Yale in 1861, received a master of arts degree in 1864, and then pursued legal studies at Yale and Harvard. Four honorary doctor of laws degrees were bestowed upon him: by Harvard in 1891; Columbia, in 1911; Wesleyan, in 1912; and Yale, in 1916.

Baldwin was admitted to the bar in 1863. In 1869 he returned to Yale to teach at the Yale Law School until 1919, when he became professor emeritus.

In 1893, Baldwin entered the judiciary, presiding as associate justice of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut until 1907 and as chief justice until 1910. From 1910 to 1914, Baldwin was governor of Connecticut.

Baldwin contributed to the formulation of many areas of Connecticut law. He was instrumental in amending the general statutes of Connecticut as well as the system of taxation.

Baldwin wrote numerous publications, including A Digest of All the Reported Cases of Connecticut (1871–72); Modern Political Institutions (1898); American Railroad Law (1904); The American Judiciary (1905); The Relations of Education to Citizenship (1912); and The Young Man and the Law (1919).

"Education, if it be real, is one of the great gifts of life."
—Simeon Baldwin

He died January 30, 1927, in New Haven, Connecticut.

Desire under the Elms, play by O'Neill, produced and published in 1924.

Ephraim Cabot, in his elm‐shaded New England farmhouse in 1850, is a decadent Puritan, harsh and miserly. He acquired the farm from his dead second wife, mother of his son Eben, who works it with his elder half‐brothers, Simeon and Peter. Eben, who resembles his gentle mother, hates Ephraim for having mistreated her, and the other sons are kept from joining the gold rush to California only by their avaricious interest in inheriting the farm. When Ephraim, despite his 75 years, takes a third wife, Simeon and Peter sell their shares to Eben and leave for California. Ephraim's third wife is Abbie Putnam, a young widow, greedy and sensual, whose only purpose is to gain her husband's wealth, and she seduces Eben in order to have a child who will inherit it. Ephraim exults over the birth of his supposed son, and when he reveals that the new child will inherit the property, Eben repudiates Abbie's love, which is by now genuine. She kills the child and in a rage confesses her crimes. Eben informs the police, but, overcome by love for Abbie, admits a part in the murder, and is arrested with her.

Simeon Eben Baldwin 1840–1927, American jurist and politician, b. New Haven, Conn., grad. Yale, 1861. He taught at Yale from 1869 to 1919, serving as a professor of law after 1872. His teaching and financial aid helped to increase the prestige and quality of the law school. He was appointed (1893) associate justice of the supreme court of Connecticut and in 1907 became chief justice. In the year of his compulsory retirement from judicial office (1910) he was elected governor of Connecticut and was reelected in 1912.

Bibliography: See biography by F. H. Jackson (1955).