Professional Interviewer's Experience

Tells of the People He Has Seen and Describes Some of His Methods of Obtaining the Facts He Seeks.

MILLIONAIRES ARE NOT EASY TO REACH

On the Contrary, the Actress Is Ready at Any Time to Talk, and One Woman Novelist Saw the Interviewer in a Ball Dress.

There are six or seven young hackwriters in New York who make a specialty of interviewing well known people for publication. Their victims include everybody from shopgirls to money kings, anybody famous or notorious whose name is on the public tongue.

“One of my first victims,” said one of these free lances, “was Mark Twain. I buttonholed him one evening in an uptown church, where he had just given one of his ‘farewell’ public readings. ‘An interview? Bosh!’ he exclaimed. ‘Interviewers always make a dignified man ridiculous, and a silly man sublime.’ A French woman of my acquaintance, famous on two continents as a novelist, a charming widow renowned for her wit and beauty, recently arrived in New York for a brief visit. She was interviewed by a literary free lance who was commended to her as one who would write a dignified interview. Now let me give you an idea of how that writer of dignified interviews addressed the charming Parisienne: ‘Madam, you are a celebrated novelist and you are a woman; therefore, you are good stuff. My questions, of course, cover all your private life. Do you ride a wheel? Do you wear high boots or ties? If ties, do you cross Broadway more often than if you wore high boots? How did you come to be a French woman? Why do American husbands like the wives of Frenchmen? How did you come to marry an American? Have you ever had a son? If so, was he a Franco-American or an American-Franco? What are your hours of work while writing your novels? Give a full and complete history of your domestic troubles — if any. Tell the public all about your private matters. How much did you pay for your yacht? Why did you not wear mourning when your husband died? Relate in detail all the scandals of which you have been the woman in the case. Who gave you your jewels? Have you a past? If not, how is it that society receives you? Do you sleep in your complexion, or do you take it off with your — other things? Is the report true that you are ruining an English nobleman? Why do you always live in a convent in Paris? Is board cheaper in a convent than in a hotel? How many gowns have you in your wardrobe? Give a minute description of all your wearing apparel. What, exactly, is your bank account? How many words per day do you turn out while writing your books? In your after dinner coffee do you take two lumps or just simply one lump? Is your back hair the truth? Is your beauty genuine? If so, which brand of cream of lima beans do you use? Remind the interviewer of any private matter which he has omitted to mention.’”

It Exhausted His Breath.

“Here Mark Twain paused for breath. ‘I know,’ he continued, ‘that I’ve written some poor stuff in my day; but the worst article I ever wrote was better than any published interview with me. I’d like just once to interview myself to show the possibilities of an interview.’

“‘Now,’ resumed the free lance, ‘talk about the possibilities of the interviewer. Suppose that you are a stranger to a man like Russell Sage and that he is your chosen victim. With him, it is a matter of the possibilities of persistence and impudence. When it was announced that the elevated and the surface roads were to wed, I hastened to Sage’s office to interview him. Now, ever since the bomb-throwing episode, Sage has kept two giants stationed outside his office door to ward off strangers. Well, those giant out-pickets and myself engaged in a long, sharp skirmish in which I was routed. After dinner, however, I again charged the enemy, the point of attack this time being the magnate’s Fifth avenue residence. Mrs. Sage herself opened the door. Seeing the tall, gaunt form of Mr. Sage in the rear of the hall I ignored Mrs. Sage’s protests and stepped in.

“‘Well, well, well, what is it?’ asked the man of millions, coming forward and rubbing the palms of his hands together. I stated the object of my call and he smiled and said: ‘You must excuse me.’ Then, putting on his hat, he added: ‘I do not know you. I wish you would go away. I am going out.’

“‘Very good, Mr. Sage,’ I said, ‘I’ll go — with you.’

“He smiled again and buttoned his faded overcoat. It was a stormy night, but no carriage awaited us. ‘Won’t you share my umbrella?’ I said, impudently. But he accepted and we walked toward Forty-second street. He was going around the corner to the Presbyterian church — to prayer meeting,’ he said, pleasantly.

“On the way I asked him a question about the wedding of Manhattan and Metropolitan. ‘I know nothing about it,’ he replied.

“At the church door I repeated my question in different words. To which he replied: ‘Good evening, we part here.’

“‘Now, as prayer meeting is a public meeting, I went in, walked to where Mr. Sage was sitting, and sat down beside him. When he bowed his head, I bowed too. The meeting over, I followed out into the street and the rain, and again asked him to share my umbrella. He laughed and said he perceived that the only way to get rid of me was to give me what I wanted — which he did.

Won Sage’s Regard.

“I wrote the story and sent it to his house for his approval. The next day I sent a messenger to get the manuscript. Mrs. Sage sent down word that her husband had taken the ‘piece’ to his office, that morning, to look it over. The messenger hurried down to the office, where Mr. Sage sent out word that he had not even heard of the manuscript. The next day the interview was printed. It contained much that Mr. Sage did not say and little that he did say, but he was so pleased with what I had made him say — in print — that he has ever since seemed glad to grant me an interview.

“Russell Sage, you see, recognized the fact that the publishing of interviews over the signature of men who have made a specialty of interviewing, is a guarantee to public men that their rights will be respected. While a premium is thus put upon individuality, nimble wit, epigrammatic brightness and originality, the pains and penalties of public exposure and loss of reputation are wholesomely in evidence before the writer who has the temerity to pervert his office.

“Some people will see an inte ... any time, while others will go out ... first class will talk and talk without a single question from the interviewer. Among the people in this class are Hetty Green, Colonel Cody, Chauncey Depew, George Francis Train, Queen Lavinia Dempsey, Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage, Mrs. Frank Leslie, Nikola Tesla, all young actresses, and Laura Jean Libbey.

“You see she, Laura Jean has amassed a fortune writing books of the Love-That-Grew-Old sort. She entertained me a few months ago with the most remarkable hospitality. Having arranged for an interview with her on a certain evening, I found my hostess arrayed in a ball dress, awaiting me in the drawing room of her palace in Brooklyn. Two footmen had announced my presence and I soon learned that the entire house was illuminated in my honor. Up and down through the light flooded rooms, from basement to attic, she conducted me. In her own room, the dressing table was banked with silver toilet articles, like a display in a shop window. In the dining room a maid was sent for and all the silver table ware was brought forth from the recesses of the sideboard, their tissue paper wrappers removed and the entire collection massed on the table for my eyes to behold. Then, after wine had been served, my hostess, with childlike pride, gave me a detailed description of her string of horses and the name of each. Returning to the dining room, I suggested that she might have jewels, too, and straightway a maid was dispatched for madame’s jewel case. In the interval I was made acquainted with her family history for generations back. Then the jewel case was put into her hands and I was shown each particular jewel, bought, as she said, with the proceeds of this or that book. Thus was I dazzled with the wealth obtained from the sale of stories for shopgirls. True, not a word was said about her literary labors; but nevertheless I have always been curious to know exactly why I could not find an editor who would print that interview.

Those Who Dodge.

“In the second class, those who go out of their way to hide from the interviewer, are money kings, society queens, William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins, Helen Gould, Richard Mansfield and Beatrice Harraden. With these the interviewer must use strategy. At the time that ‘Ships that Pass in the Night’ was the book of the day, Beatrice Harraden paid a flying visit to America. Arrived in New York, she hastened to the home of friends in Yonkers. Interviewers followed her, in swarms, but the author was so averse to publicity that she refused to be interviewed. I lay in wait for her all day, thinking perhaps she would give me a word or two, before stepping into a carriage, or something of the sort. But she remained indoors, guarded as closely as any novitiate in a convent. Toward evening I learned that she would go to the local photographer in Yonkers the following day, to sit for her picture. Now, that photographer was a friend of mine, and constituting myself a board of strategy, I went home with my head full of plans for the morrow. The rest of the story is best told in Miss Harraden’s own words.

“‘The morning after my visit to the photographers,’ she says, ‘imagine my surprise at seeing a three column interview with me in one of the big dailies. It was a very discreet interview, nothing in it to offend. It was signed by a young man who had waited about so patiently the day of my arrival in Yonkers, but whom I declined to see. How did this stranger get my ideas and my own words, too? I remembered, then, that while I was sitting for my picture, the photographer’s assistant had asked an unusual number of questions, and that I had talked with him rather freely. Recalling the conversation, I recognized its production in the three column interview. I recalled, also, that as the young man conversed with me, now and then suggesting a different pose for my head, he glanced frequently toward an inner room where another young man sat writing, apparently posting account books. Could that photographer’s assistant be the newspaper man whom I had declined to see two days before? The next mail brought me a letter, in which the strategist confessed all. The photographer’s assistant, he declared, was really he, the interviewer, and the man in the adjoining room, who seemed to be the bookkeeper, was really a stenographer; and while the one plied me with questions, interviewed me, in fact, the other took down my every word.’

Easy When Known.

“Thus,” continued the free lance, “a person who does not want to be interviewed can be interviewed. You see some people look upon the interviewer, suspiciously, as their enemy, while others are surprisingly frank, revealing to the interviewer, voluntarily, secrets which, if printed, would ruin more than the reputation. A number of busy men and women are willing to be interviewed if you come at certain hours. Artists, for instance, will see the interviewer after studio hours, when the light has gone. Wall Street men will meet us after 3 o’clock. Authors can best spare the after dinner hour. Business men will talk in the early morning, while opening their mail.

“The easiest people to interview are actresses. They have often said to me: ‘Oh, print any old thing. I’ll stand by what you say.’ The only American actress who has built a wall between herself and the interviewer is Ada Rehan, whose epitaph may be written: ‘She never was interviewed.’

“Indeed, you can interview almost anybody nowadays, if you know how. You can get even the crowned heads of Europe to answer your questions — if you prepay the cable charges both ways.

“The victims that come hardest are millionaires. Men of money dislike talking for publication about themselves and what is theirs; first, because they are busy; next, they have more notoriety, involuntarily, than they care for; and last, the interviewer often furnishes dangerous information to the public. The subjects about which millionaires will discourse most freely are their particular fields of work and their hobbies. The Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers are simply impregnable. You can storm their fortifications with telegrams, letters and cards of introduction, you can train the heaviest artillery in the shape of the greatest magazines and newspapers, upon their redoubts, but you can’t make a breach big enough for you to crawl through. You can interview their secretaries, their sisters, and even their ...