THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, SEPTEMBER 24, 1922
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BY WILLIS STEELE.
GETTING an interview isn't always a
pleasant or an easy task. Practice
may make it so, but it hasn't for
me, and my interviewing experiences go
back to Benjamin Harrison, Sir Henry
Irving, Cardinal Satolli and others of
hallowed memory. There is ever the
possibility of the said somebody refusing
to say it, or, having said it, to wish it
unsaid.
My first big interview was with the
apostolic delegate to Washington, Car
dinal Satolli. He was a little man, frail
of body, and these measurements by the
eye were accentuated by the simple
straight indoor ecclesiastical robe which
he wore. Black, of course, and without
Quality to relieve the sallow skin. The
aly sharp contrast afforded by his at
tire wasn't intentional; one could see the
line of the white woolen or cotton under
garment rising now and then above the
top of his cassock.
He spoke a fluent French and never
hesitated for a moment in replying to
any question. Indeed, be made oppor
tunities and introduced topics that his
Suest, fairly ignorant of intransigeant
questions, would not have thought of,
and the Interviewer, in consequence,
proved a complete revelation, so far as
he wished to reveal it, of the motive of
the Vatican in seeking a closer connection
with the United States government.'
In fact, Satolli belonged in the cate
gory of the interviewed who see the thing
as a very satisfactory way of publishing
something they wish to "get over." To
call this kind of work difficult or requir
ing a special ability seems to define it
badly, for the interviewer in such cases
Is merely a messenger or a link between
the speaker and the printer.
It is quite a different matter when
one Interviews an unwilling subject, who
either declines to answer questions or
evades them more or less enthusiastic
ally. Then it becomes a duel of. wits, and
the man who has come for a story is
obliged to sharpen his.
Here is a little list of persons -who
didn't like and never meant to be inter
viewed, and who were, nevertheless:
Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleve
land, former presidents of the United
States; Bret Harte, famous author, and
Richard Mansfield, who was too tempera
mental to push his own publicity, actor
though he was. And to this brief list
should be added the great Italian actress,
Eleanora Duse. She figures in the pres
ent catalogue, but sticking close to the
truth compels me to say that she does so
unwittingly.
It happened on the stage when Mme.
Duse was playing in "Francesca da Rim
ini" and in the scene where the actress
visits the walls of an Italian city in the
middle ages, when an enemy without
was assaulting it with culverin and cata
pult. All sorts of noises were resound
ing in every direction as she moved about
Inspecting everything with the air of an
Ingenue suitable to Francesca and sud
denly there is made- a breach in the
walls. Francesca's guide hurries her off
etage as if to find her a place of safety.
As she passed me I realized that now
or never I would get a word with this
wonderful woman. I clutched' the op
portunity with an exclamation picked up
from a bootblack. It served to pique
her curiosity. The actress stopped and
aid: V
"Italiano?"
"Si, si, signora, poca Italiano" (a little
Italian).
The actress smiled.
"Do you like to play la this piece?"
f -s?S4s-
She raised her. eyebrows and indicated
that at least this act was too noisy.
"And do you like America?"
A shrug and a smile and Mme. Duse
passed on to her dressing room.
That constituted the interview the
whole of it. Not worth recording, ex
cept for the fact that the interview still
remains after all these years the only one
ever obtained in America from Mme.
Duse.
Bret Harte in London.
. Bret Harte held himself nearly as re
mote from the interviewer, especially
alter he had become acclimated in Eng
land. He was a popular idol there and
dined out constantly, also frequently en
tertaining in return. Through a friend,
who was alternately host and guest, a
meeting was arranged between the in
terviewer and the author of "The Luck
of Roaring Camp."
It took place in Mr. Harte's chambers
in London and passed in the room he
called his library. Except that a big
desk, very neatly kept, stood in front of
a window, the place resembled rather a ,
drawing room. Bret Harte did not rise
. from his seat at this desk, but recognized
my presence with a very faint nod. He
said:
"I understand you have lately arrived
from the continent. That is very inter
esting, but after all i3 said England is '
even more interesting. There is more
wealth here and it is solidly invested. I
dined last night with an aristocratic fam
ily and all the service was of gold. I
suppose you have never dined off gold
plates?"
"Never," murmured I, abashed. '
"It is an interesting experience," said
Mr. Harte. "To me it was a novel one,
but my host and his family treated it as
an every-day detail. Gold plates!" .
The glitter of those gorgeous plates
dimmed every other topic by contrast,
but while taking note of Mr. Harte's
very sporty attire (his vest, or waistcoat,
as he would have preferred to call it, of
dark plush, had gold flowers embroidered
on it) I did succeed in diverting his mind
by asking him to relate the reason for
his break with Mark Twain. Mr. Harte
smiled languidly.
"It is a well-known fact," said he,
"that men who like to play jokes on oth
ers do not relish one where they are
themselves the victim. Mark Twain was
no exception.
"I originated the idea of presenting
Mark Twain with a fine meerschaum pipe
on an occasion when he was going back;
east. All the newspaper men and hang-' .
ers-on to literature, of whom I was one
in San Francisco, were in- the secret, and
Twain was touched and delighted when
we met him, and after I had made a seri
ous presentation speech gave "him the
pipe as a token of our regard and es
teem. "It was an ornate pipe extravagantly
carved. It lay on a bed of blue velvet
and promised to an inveterate j)ipe
smoker like Mark many hours of enjoy
ment. Evidently he thought so. The
rest of us didn't, for we knew that the
pipe was carved of soap.
"When our national humorist made
the discovery he was mad clean through.
He threw the gift on the floor and
stamped on it. And he never forgave
those who were concerned in the hoax.
Perhaps he is more vindictive toward me
because I did not deny that the soap pipe
invention was mine."
Harrison and Howells.
My Interview with President Harrison
turned out to be a failure, although it
was undertaken at my own suggestion,
at a time when matters were quiet, and
Showing Some Wiles, of
the Intersriewer, and
the Variety of Angles From Which
Different Celebrities Must Be
Approached, If He Would
Not Fail of Success.
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because I had had the honor of meeting
him and his family in Indianapolis and
had danced once or. twice with his daugh
ter, Mrs. McKee. These circumstances
may have helped to open the 'door of the
White House for me, but they did not
melt the presidential Ice when I got In
side. '
How different was the wholesome and
homely chat I once had with the veteran
author, William D. Howells, the memory
of it coming up right here because, as
It seemed' to me, there were physical re
semblances between him and Mr. Har
rison. The novelist was living at tha
Gainesborough studios on West Fifty
ninth street, and I fix the time by the
book which he autographed and gave me.
It was "A Boy's Town" and had just been
published.
Mr. Howells talked about anything
that came into his head American let
ters, Italy when he lived there as consul,
Italy revisited, Central park, which he
overlooked from his great studio window,
and the inconsistencies of the menu as
it wag written nightly in the restaurant
on the first floor of the building. It was
all spoken in a sweet, slow speech, very
agreeable to listen to, but the impres
sion it has left is that he never commit
ted himself to a very definite statement;
all was conditional; he saw both sides or
all around everything.
F. Marion Crawford, as another novel'
writer, but a very different spirit, enters
by a natural transition. Although I met
him several times in the charming pied-a-terre
he had made for himself out of a
loft in Fifth avenue, the interview itself
had occurred 20 years before in his villa
in Sorrento, Italy. That villa he had
taken as the setting for one of his early
novels, "To Leonard." He was not sat
isfied until he had taken me over it to
show the rooms where poignant, pas
sionate things had happened, and finally
to the cave under the rocks that sprang
up rudy and perpendicular from the
sounding sea where he kept his sail boat.
In this grim and somber cave, noisy with
the rush and splash of water, Crawford
reacted the thrilling scene which is the
crisis of the story.
In the fall of the same year after I
. had come home, I met Richard Mans
field,' who was then preparing to put all
his undoubted talents to the test by
playing "Richard III." his first Shake
spearean production. His Baron Chev
. riel and Prince Karl already had made
for him a great name,, but there were per-,
sons who believed that his power in these
modern parts would not help him to a
higher theatrical dignity. I don't believe
Mansfield shared these doubts, but when
I saw him for the first time in private
life it was at the Croisic, an apartment
house that has disappeared. he was
manifestly nervous, apprehensive and ill
at ease. Feeling like this, he was not
apt to make a good subject for an inter
view. And be did not.
Mansfield could be suave and ultra
polite, as I discovered in subsequent
meetings, but the clever thing, and the
sharp thing, always lay near the surface
of his utterance. He said it, too, often
when it was Impolitic. When he first
met the company which had been en
gaged to support him in "Cyrano de Ber-.
gerac" I stood on the stage not far from
the Roxane of the company, Miss Mar
garet Anglin, who sat on a box waiting
for rehearsal to begin, Mansfield, who
had not spoken to her, not, indeed, to
anybody, walked back and forth, staring
at Miss Anglin harder every time he
passed ber. Finally he stopped and said:
"Roxane, as Rostand pictured her, wa
a beautiful woman!"
"Yes," quickly replied Miss Anglin,
"and as Rostand pictures Cyrano he was
the soul of courtesy."
But Mansfield was a sick man then,
although neither he nor his doctors knew
the nature of his fatal malady, and much
of his harsh speech and of his often
very bad manners must be attributed to
this and forgiven. Yet it Is safe to say
that nobody who ever came under the
lash of his tongue will ever forget this
famous actor.
If I call my brief contacts with Mr.
Mansfield uncomfortable, I need a
stronger word when I come to speak of
Sir Henry Irving. He had arrived at the
title when he came over here for the last
time and opened in a piece by Sardou,
"Dante," written to the Englishman's
order. I was writing dramatic criticism
on a newspaper that is still going strong,
and, like all earnest and inexperienced
critics, I worked very hard over my little
pieces. "Dante," you may -be sure, was
a big job for me to review, and I studied
the encyclopedias until I could talk about
the Divina Comedia as if I had written
it. I did write a column, filled with
much unnecessary Information, and had
It in type before the opening.
Sir Henry looked the part to perfec
tion, but there was no making anything
of the play by any degree' of genius, be
cause it was a melodramatic farrago. I
went to my office at midnight and killed
my beautiful article, then wrote a line
or two saying the play was "rotten."
That brought about my Interview with
Sir Henry without .my solicitation.
Miss Laura Burt, a talented American,
who carried the most melodramatic role
in the piece, happened to be present when
Irving read aloud in a tone of cold dis
gust this ribald critique, and, glancing
at the paper, she said
"I know the man who writes drama
for that sheet."
In this way Sir Henry became pos
sessed of my name, and he wrote me a
note inviting me to go to see him. I
went, of course, and I am not yet sorry
I did, for the great actor talked to me in
his halting speech for half an hour. The
silliness of pretendlnng to knowledge
that one hasn't got was one of his themes
and another was the crime of treating
with indignity a tremendous literary
name. I might have retorted that Sar
dou had shown me the way In both Cases.
but I didn't, and while it was rather a
bad half hour it closed friendly enough.
Too Much of Cleveland.
Reporters of New York city papers, at
the time Grover Cleveland, on completing
his term as president, came to New York
to live, will remember how almost im
possible it was to Interview him. They
will remember also that the city editors
of these papers were in the habit of giv
ing out assignments on every conceivable
subject with the remark:
"See what Grover Cleveland has to say
about this."
Just as simple as that. And It was the
ex-president's habit to stare rudely at his
questioner whenever a questioner got at
him, which was rarely and refuse o say
a word. This sphynx-like silence pro
tected him; nobody dared quote when not
a single word had been vouchsafed.
The Grover Cleveland "interview" of
those days became a joke and foisted Its
name on any interview which proved un
fruitful. Therefore I was never more
surprised when, a political situation hav
ing arisen, my city editor gave me in
structions to go to Mr. Cleveland, at his
home in Princeton, for his views about
it. I went, of course, but thought of the
trip as a simple day's outing.
To my surprise Mr. Cleveland received
me affably in the quaint, delightful colo
nial house in Princeton, which he had
bought as a home for his family. For but
a few minutes the ex-president left his
caller to stare at the portrait of Mrs.
Cleveland which was the chief ornament
of the parlor, a real parlor, and then he
walked in and asked the purpose of the
visit.
Mr. Cleveland listened in silence and
then said.
"I will answer these questions. Mean
while would it interest you to walk about
in my somewhat narrow grounds?"
Whether it would or not, I found my
self wandering about in them and trying
to kill time. It did not seem that I would
have more than half an hour of this
murderous business.
But I reckoned without the ex-president.
Nion came, then 1 o'clock, at
which hour a servant sought me out and
invited me to have luncheon. This was
served In a small dining room in solitary
state. After it I wandered along the
formal paths of the garden again, up and
down and back and forth, over and over
again.
At length, when the sun dial had quit
registering for the day, the heavy and
stately figure of Mr. Cleveland was seen
moving slowly down the path. He car
ried a bulky manuscript in his hand. This
he gave to his "interviewer" with the re
mark: "Here, I believe, are the answers to
your questions."
They were in truth full and complete
answers, so many and so full as to consti
tute in the newspaper office an embar- -rassment
of riches.
CrokeT Spoils a "Beat."
But of all tho singular experiences In
the line of interviewing which I am able
to recall that with Richard Croker, "boss"
of Tammany Hall, given at a time when
the society went down to defeat, ranks
as the oddest.
Croker, as is very well known, was like
Napoleon I in one respect (one only).
He wasn't talkative when things were
going his way, but he became a veritable
chatterbox when they weren't. On the
occasion in question he was seen at the
Democratic clubhouse on Fifth avenue 4
'
All he was asked to do was to make a
about 6 o'clock on the eve of the election,
forecast. He made one, the only one ha
had indulged In for this campaign, and it
was a very full and rambling forecast.
When he finished he said that be would
like me to write out what he had said
and send the article upstairs to him. I
did this and sent up the finished story
about 7 o'clock. Then I sat down to wait
for Mr. Croker's vise.
I waited till 8 o'clock. Not a sign
from the upper floors of the clubhouse.
I waited half an hour longer, seeing din
ner and every other plan going by tot
board.
At 9 o'clock I summoned a page and
sent him upstairs to see if Mr. Croker
had finished with the article. The boy
went and never reappeared.
The clock struck 10.
"Is Mr. Croker still In the houss?" I
asked the clerk at the desk. Oh, yes.
Mr. Croker was upstairs and couldn't
be disturbed.
At 11:30 the article was given back
and I carried it to the editor la a mood of
silent rage. However, It was a "beat," an
exclusive expression from the Tammany
chief, and that must serve as consolation
for lost time.
And next day every paper in the city
came out with exactly the tame article.
The Tammany chief had mimeographed
the interview and served everybody alike
"Si Perkins" Has
Gone for Good
Continued Prnm Pur ?)
recognized as sterling, aud when they
announce a course of action along certain
lines they ere pretty apt to be followed.
The spread of this gospel Is wide, and
the change that is taking place In meth
ods as a result Is unlimited. The reason
is that the farmer accepts the station
facts and tries them out without protest
and arguing. He has found that this
pays, that practical men have them in
charge. The agricultural experiment sta
tion has saved the farmer of this and
other states uncountable thousands of
dollars. This can be proved.
It would not be quite the right thing
to close this article without paying some
little tribute to the woman on the farm.
She also is going to school and she also
is adopting the professional attitude. The
woman on the farm possibly has a much
more important place than the woman in
the city, for hers is the great opportunity
to suggest and even take a hand in the
work of her men. She Is not so often un
informed in family business matters. She
knows something of what her men folks
have to do and what problems thry have
to meet, and the new rural woman l
often able to assist materially lv hrr
trained advice, for hhe, too, focj t
school. Not all of the women t i.- tb
economics courses embracing only ;innr.
hold sciences alone. They al?o enroll I::
general courses, such arf poultry rai: n:
and floriculture and make succe ...oi
their work.
.Wife Will Now Stay Home.
Adv. in Bridgeport, S. D.. Here Id.
I wish to express my appreciation "in
gratitude to the numerous and kindly
disposed ladies who were with me at the
time during the late absence of my wife.
You were a wonderful help to a man in
his hours of loneliness. I am expecting
that my wife will be away again in the
future. Be assured that I entertain happy
recollections of your visit. I also liked
the lunch. S. E. Doughty.
Phonograph Owner Broke Anyway.
Kansas City Star.
You can form an opinion of a man's
finances by his stock of phonograph rec
ords. If the records are all three or four
years old, he's broke and Isn't buying any
new ones. If they're brand new and up
to the minute, he's broke from keeping
with the new ones,