The San Francisco call., 1896-04-12
WHY SOME MEN WILL NOT Be INTERVIEWED
BY w. Q. MORROW.

terview under such circumstances is
merely a confession of vanity without
| wisdom in the one case and lack Of
adroitness in the other.
It is impossible for such persons to un-
derstand that the newspaper above all
things else is the one perfect expression OF
all the complex qualities of our civiliza-
ton. If interviews seemingly of cruelty
inquisitive nature, without worthy mo-
tive for their seeking, were not eagerly
read and thus demanded even by those
who denounce the practice of "prying into
private matters" they would never be pub
lished. The demand of the age is that
each person shall know what his neighbor
is doing. He who would run counter to
this spirit places himself at grievous dis
advantage, because the world is hard and
| jeering and will not place a charitable con-
struction on any endeavor to conceal what
| it desires to know. The position of re-
fusal is so out of Joint with the rule which
moves the race as to make the one who
occupies it signally conspicuous by reason
OF his nonconformity.. He is more than
conspicuous-he is grotesque.
This suggests the shrewdness with which
some distinguished persons have appar-
emily sought to make themselves oddly
conspicuous by avoiding interviewers. 1t
would be cruel, and perhaps unjust, to ex-
plain the persistent silence of Edwin
Booth and Ellen Terry on that ground.
Booth was sensitive, moody, morbid, alb
normal man, between whom and the roar
ing world that beloved praises at his
feet was raised wall that no human feet
could scale. Unhappiness was written on
| every line Of his scanned face and sat deep
and i'm perishable in his wonderful eyes.
Following the assassination of President
Lincoln by Wilkes Booth, Edwin travelled
for many dark day in abject wretched-
ness and complete isolation. Even that
| sorrow aside, the man was so strange, SO
shy, so unamenable to rules governing the
conduct OF ordinary men, tnat sufficient
reason is found for his exclusiveness. He
who can be easily interviewed is wrestling
In mighty struggle with the world. That
was impossible to Booth.
Even In Miss Terry's case a generous
reason might possibly be found. She
entered upon greatness in the height of
! the time when actresses exercised the
! special function now so generously en-
| ployed by prize-fghters-that of talking
volubly through the press. Perhaps Miss
Terry, instead OF employing absolute re-
serve as a unique method of securing
| valuable advertising by reason of assum-
ing startlingly distinctive attitude, laid
her course as protest against the vulgar
lty OF her sister artists. 1t would be very
much pleasanter, however, to contemplate
her In the role of a woman sufficiently
gifted to understand the art of admins
terlng kinder rebuke. With wise exer-
else OF the graciousness and sweetness that
distinguished Modjeska, the most widely
loved woman on the stage, Miss Terry, like
her, might have set an example to all
women of what a woman might do when
approached by an interviewer.
perhaps affar oil NJ Uoodarb;It =, =, -
so timid and sordid as his friends would
have US believe. The published portraits
OF him reveal fine upward curl of the lip
that distinguishes the true American aris-
tocrat from the proletarian fellow-count try
men and from the aristocrats of Europe
ferhaps he has the genuine courage, in
spite OF the rueful explanation made by
his friends, to announce by his silence that
the time has come for a proclamation of
class distinction in the United States. 1t
is clear that to be accessible to the press is
destructive of exclusiVeness, which is the
essence of class
As a matter of fact, class distinction is
as pregnant and overshadowing in the
United States as anywhere else in the
world That must be so on basis of diff
ferences in taste and occupation alone,
without reference to differences on the
score OF wealth. Even a rich American
cannot be an aristocrat unless he observes
- A~A FsS o0e Va i ulCS governing COQQuCC ana
accepted as proper in aristocrats. 1t is
just as much to be expected that wealthy
persons OF refinement should flock to-
gether and constitute class by reason of
q community of interests and opportuni-
Ties as that artists and writer's should form
themselves into clubs and artisans into
trades unions. The question of the great
power which wealthy persons might exer-
else under this natural operation of COM
munlty interests does not concern this dis
cusslon. The fact that classes must exist
and that considerable proportion of rich
people must be expected to constitute a
class by themselves is sufficient here.
That being assumed, and it being mat.
ter OF common knowlege and evident
necessity that wealth is conspicuous and
directing force, in social as we'll as finan-
cial matters, what would be more natural
than that an able and courageous pioneer
Mr.. Vanderbilt. for instance-should step
forth and say with his silence what his
father said with his tongue? The daily
newspaper is the busy engine of democ-
racy, the typical proletariat, the great lev
eler of the age. It records the adventures
OF Swipes, the pickpocket, with the same
minuteness and fidelity that it gives to an
account of Mr. Vanderbilt's most gorgeous
''social function" Can we expect it to be
altogether pleasant to a man "worth"
$1OO, 600, 900 to see his interview published
is not e1clusiveness, messieurs and mes
danes. The line must be drawn some
where. Mr.. Vanderbilt. if this is the ex-
planation of his position, is pioneer only
in the sense of his advanced position. 4
beautiful and accomplished woman who
writes for one ofour newspapers published
an incident some time ago which goes to
show that the spirit which may be urging
Mr.. Vanderbilt to lofty soaring has been
already working insidiously on lower
levels. This woman, whom any man
would be honored to know, consented to
be introduced at fashionable country ho-
tel to young man eminent in fashionable
circles, but when he was approached by
the well-meaning intermediary he declined
the introduction, remarking that he did
not care to know newspaper people! If a
newspaper is the body and essence of a
proletarian spirit why should not those
who produce it be of class corresponding
and therefore inferior, or at least apart?
Perhaps, If Mr.. Vanderbilt has not been
misrepresented by his friends in their
efforts to prevent his being misrepre-
sented by the newspapers, he is aware that
a powerful though silent sympathy is
working with him all over this republican