The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-12-10


 Interviewing is largely a matter of adaptability and personality, while a trained memory takes the place of the stage notebook There is no city in this country where a man who is strickly frst-class at this work has a finer field for operations than in Washington, and in the correspond ents corps here many of it's shining lights owe their success and their lucrative positions to that natural, or in some instances acquired, faculty of getting from public men the right ex- pressions at the right time for their papers.
 '"The hardest class of men to inter- view are business men or men in the large corporation offices, such as rail road offices; the latter are particul- arly vexatious to the interviewer, as they all seem afraid to speak, and the officer who usually does the talking for the company generally hands out prepared statement of one kind or another. Business men are often sus- picious, are reluctant to talk at times, and when they do go into a subject are inclined to be discoursive
 Professional men make more satis- factory subjects, especially lawyers, but the easiest approached and the best of all from the interviewer s standpoint are politicians and men in office, such as Senators, Representa- lives and the officials in authority in the executive departments,
 The expressions of this latter class have at all times more or less news value, depending upon the man and office or position which he holds. As- sociation in public life has thrown them in contact with newspaper men from the outset of their careers and they appreciate that the intervieWers s questions are not prompted by curios- ity, as the average business man and corporation official would seem to think. As a rule they will talk free ly and especially in Washington they Irely upon the newspaper hans sense of propriety and understanding of the situation as to what to say and not tc say, and it is seldom, if ever, that this confidence is abused, and it never is Intentionally.
 They are familiar with their sub- ject, and so is the interviewer, and when it comes to a question of infor- nation they know just where to put their hands upon it. This is especial ] ly true with Government officials, and the result is that as a rule the re- porter quickly obtains the necessary material for his story, writes 1t and l gets it out very often in less time than ! it takes for him to explain what he wanted from some manager of a busi- ness house or a man possessing cer- tain technical information which the story called for. Work in the Gov ernment offices is so systenauzed that if the chief is not in the possession of the exact information desired the pressing of an electric button sum mons the sub-chief or clerk who has what is wanted at his fingers tips
 Tt is astonishing what an active man and a good interviewer can ac- complish in a few hours spent daily mingling with public men at the Cap | ital exchanging a word here and am other, there, but 1t is all the time busi- ness with the newspaper man; other men who have not this peculiar adap- tability and are less active with their feet and their minds do not fare so we'll when the day is ended. Still { others make a speciality of spending their evenings around the hotel min gling with public men and guests of prominence whose views are of value to the local press or to their own home papers, as the case may be, and seldom go to the Capitol.
 "Of this latter class of the Capitols interviewers, who are thrown con stantly in contact with strangers from all parts of the globe who are men of prominence in their respective com munties and from whom @ story ranging from the home political situ- ation to an elephant hunt ill far India may be obtained, there are some spe- cialists in this line of newspaper work who do little else. This class of in- reviewing requires not only a natural aptitude. easy and pleasant address, but a good general ground work of information upon great variety of subjects and a good knowledge of To- calities and worldly happenings. Un- der these circumstances when the stranger is approached ne is at once placed at his ease and the desired story" perhaps sometimes a short but good one for the paper is obtained.
 Tn these latter instances the expert interviewer must quickly make the others acquaintance, and as quickly break 1t for the time being without appearing to do so, as there may be a half dozen other men whom he desired that evening to see. Here is where the specialists tact comes in, and 1t is here that some men have made them selves successful in this line of jour nalistic work where others fail at it. An interviewer who makes 8 special ity of this class of matter will get a satisfactory talk from railroad president from Canada an NJ. P. from England, big fruit shipper from the Pacific Coast, a Government official from Alaska, a prominent banker from the metropolis, the Mayor of a Western city and others all of whom may be utter strangers to him, in a single evening and without apparent 1 effort, with one or two talks as well with incoming statesmen, whom n, may personally know. But if any onC thinks this is an easy task 10 do, ii should be tried to be undeceived; the tax upon the memory is great, though