The daily gazette., 1877-11-15
Tns .ConkIing interview.
IT'S WRITER INTERvIEwED--wHA
GATH HAS TO SAY UPON THE.
MATTER .sie T sn -u ffr |40

IT'S WRITER INTERVIEwED-wHA
GATH HAS TO SAY UPON THE
MATTER. poi eil W ffr I4E
Yesterday morning Mr. George Alfred
Townsend wa- in Philadelphia, going
South. As it was rumored that it was
he who had interviewed Senator Conk-
man hunted him up, at Guys Hotel, and
put the question: ''Did your interview
Senator Conkhng for the press during
the last week?'
o"Are you here to interview me?" Il
"If can"
"Then write down your questions and
L will write out the ans wers. ! don't
want you to be responsible for me-"
The first question written was. "Was
that interview such as Mr.. Conkling had
the right to repudiate?" 4,.. An LII.
eyes, because he did not authorize its
publication. He did not revise 1t. 1 do
not think he expected 1t. Newspapers
inimical to him at once charged that he
lnstigated the print"
'"He said once of certain thing. This
Is not to be repeated did not repeat
that, and If he had explicitly told mesnot
to interview him 1 should not have print
ed anything. hesitated all day about
putting any of it on record"
t"Why did you finally make 1t pub
Hc?"e a. 1-l,I ...i'. '.l- IiI.', 90.
"Because I had heard good deal of it
st two or three former talks with him
and of a portion of previous CONVERSE
tions had published some bits of Inter
views. went to his hotel that morning
partly to see if he took exception to those
published extracts. Everybody knows
that my profession Is to sketch public
men and convey Information and L CAN
not undertake to be the custodian OF so
many confidences. The newspapers pre-
fer interviews to sketches, and as these
interyei ws appear copiously from me and
are always written out with charity and
Judgment, ! tried the experiment on
| Conkling l prefaced the interview by
sayirg that it was written from memory,
probably imperfect, and not author
ized." + ~
"Do you still affirm it?" .l a.Iff-
| "Weli, L answered the Heralds tele-
gram last night by saying "Conkling
has not yet specified any errors and | do
not remember any wouldn't have
! any quarrel, because I like him, and II
had been the Senator would have made
the same disclaimer, perhaps in less kind
/ ly terms. The fact Is, the press, as. an es-
! tate, is responsible for intervie wing.
Here to-day's World makes faces at the
Herald, when the World had nearly ad-
ded an article to Andrew Johnson's i'm
peachment by interviewing him through
III, B. Stillson. lhe writers hate inter-
| views. have interviewed almost every
( prominent man in the United States, and
I always print them with repugnanco.
1 This is the second time out of hundreds
when have miscalculated the man. Yet
L NAV say that in that conversation last
Friday, Conkling himself quoted news
paper interview with HoratiO Seymour
as authority. The estate makes the law.
1'm not reformer."
"Piease narrate the mode you inter-
view in."
"I have strong memory, disciplined
to remember nothing but what l mean
to be interested in. That which L retain
always comes up sometime. wrote ou
, six columns of talk with Mr.. Tweed ant
never took note, and he made no ex
cepuons. After leaving a maa Jo
down names aud figures as they occur tC
me in the order of their Importance, anC
that memorandum guides the order OF
! the interview. Consequently all such In
| terviews proceed in new arrangement
from the skip-about style of theltalk and
proceed more upon system. so you SEE
Mr.. Conkling had right to say that ht
did not speak for an interview. Hl'
STYLE is at once discursive and pointed
Gothic talk. He would make a magnifi
cent interviewer. No person dislke'
informally more, however, and ne go
| after the Tribune reporters who became
possessed of treaty while under consid
= Grafton in the Senate. dictated tina
) Conkling interview and one OF thu
4 photographers lacked the acuteness tt
get the phrases OF their nneness.
Y "Some parts of the talk seem, to hav'
: been fetched up and added to a very re
r cent talk"
"1 hat is true, and another good rea
son for Mr.. Conkling's disapprobatlon on
L had three conversations with him II
. Washington last spring, two at the no
0 chester Convention and two since tn
Y convention. At the present time tn
. public interest concentrates on his rela
+ lions with the administration of Hayes
n 10 that l turned the spirit and recollec
= tion of all this talk. Personally l hav
= not been in Utica since 1868 and know
}. nothing about its domestic concerns. A
! part of the time while [ was last lis ten
d ing to Conkling Two gentlemen were pre-
4 sent"
K "He says he did not say some of those
/. things at ALL"
"Well, that is an issue of memor.
rather than veracitv. l might hav
: mixed some things. You see when a maj
talks without expecting to see 1t in prln
e he takes a little latitude. The reporte
}, also is a little imperfect, and that Is az
a dltional latitude. But the deviation j
q not enough 10 UdkO Luo Sulp OuU VI ho
a course She bore down on Hayes an
J 1.-THE Cabinet under full canvass with tn
wards manned. 1t was too big an engage
nent not to require an historian"
l. care you sorry you published it?"
s. "h ~; on personal accounts. But
IS want the newspaper man that is wItbor
4, sin to throw the first stone"
q One conviction follows swift upon th
q . heels of another in South Carolina.
10 does not take long to pull down rotte
= building when its foundations have bee
undermined. The juries in these CO
ruption cases seem to have entered ver
heartily into the reform spirit of the da
le and to appreciate the necessity of NAL
Le ing examples of the offenders that sha
o be remembered in South Carolina for a
RS time. There is little room for pity fl
ut either of the men who have been col
I'd victed during the past week, but if eith'
e. has any claim to mercy it is not the ca
st pet bagger who came to grief yesterda
r. CarpenJer is one of those who wei