The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-05-16

NY Ionly did Anne discover that the best
way TO find out a thing was to go and
S SS ne fellow who knew SO swiftly that
, tie euidn t have time to plead ignorance.
~, she perfected her great discovery of
elie interview by learning how to sift the
WIZ at from the chaff, and to tell from
Ief Victims manner how much was true
sIa how much false. She was a journal
4 ts : g enius in this. It has been said of
.ile energet Anne that when she ap-
~ cached a subject for interview she ex-
q cted sum of money. If the subject did
cot fall for the call she roasted" him to
rhe best of her caustio ability. If he did,
sH Q slovered him with fulsome praise,
tFtat made him ridiculous, so that the poor
yellow was 'twixt devil and deep sea. A
careful inspection of paul Pry" and its
successor, THE Huntress." fails to dis
/ close any proof of this. While both pa
pers are full of interviews wherein the
patient is skillfully hayed, and his hide
hung up for public inspection, wherever
Anne had good word to say for anybody
she said 1t we'll, and inthe most choice
! and delicate manner
Even Henry Clay Said Bad Words.
The charge that she was a blackmailer
has never been proved; but that such a
charge should have been made is to be
expected of those times; times when men
were so commonly Incorporate in their
speech that even the great Henry Clay
President Jackson and his cabinet were
dominated bya woman, who.-well, even
a disreputable newspaper could not print
what the great Kentuckian said on the
floor of the august Senate, but it meant
that she was no better than she should
have been. OF course he referred to Peg
gy Eaten. Such a speech in the Senate
today would cause national upheav
worsei than the San Francisco earthquake.
1t is mo surprise, therefore, that all man.
ner of charges should have been made
against the energetic Anne, bent on seek
ing news in style new to the folk of that
day.
Though Anne Royal was well over 60
when she started into newspaper, yet,
before she ended her career she had in
tep71iewed more than 400 men, and those
the most prominent in the country. When
slAe made up her mind to interview
nAan there was no use for him to try
to get away Like Milton's Satan, she
went at it with head and hands and
Il beth and feet and claws" It would have
tNen wiser had the subject, like Crockett's
ckpon, come down out the tree at once in
Stead Of spending worried days in trying
to evade her. She always got him.
A characteristic instance of her meth
DDS Is shown in her interview with Presi-
dent John Quincy Adams. Adams had
,tertain Ideas on the state bank question,
THEN agitating the whole country, and
m Washington then as now to bedeyil
the Waite House until he was made to
open his mouth For months Anne be-
seged the portals of the mansion; in
strlsctons were not to admit her said
the courteous but firm attendant Then
Anne watched the movements of John Q.
The First Presidential Interview.
Now at that time the Potomas river,
sorhai half-mile back of the White House,
w9s the official bathtub of the shief ex-
ectttive. Thither each summer morning
tho slippered president, attired In just
enough clothing to ward off gossip and the
police, repaired for a swim. In the thick
Willows along the bank he DOTTED his
rapnent. and, concealing it in the shrube-
ny plunged into the water, finding there
the delights that come to the swimmer
when weather and water combine for
his lpaensure.
One morning, while he disported HIM
self some numbered yards from the bank
he heard hale from the shore. Look
ing fhok he saw at the point where he
took his header into the stream a prim
and ;sged female sitting on his clothesl
Upon her, head a bonnet sat aWfy, upon
her nee, rested acquire of paper, by her
side is at IAN ink bottle. while in her hand
was 4 he. trusty goose quill ready for bus
mess. Adamantine resolution sat upon
her tqFM Adams recognized Anne Royal
and mead his doom.
"Conhs here!" came the decisive order
Adam.s swan in until, chin deep, his
feet Hested on the bottom; he was a
modest, man mad dared go no further in
land. What do you want?" asked the
bewild pred president, coughing up the
water that his surprise had swallowed.
I'm Anne Royal" snapped the old
lady. fFve been trying to get an inter-
view oFt of you on the state bank ques-
ton for months I've hammered at the
.7.,rt
In, so | watched your movements and
this mornlng l stalked you from the man
sion dow n here. I'm sitting on your
clothes and you don't get them until 1
get the tpte rviewl VIII you give it to
me or dot you want to stay in there the
rest of your life?'
Let me- get out and dress" gurgled
the chief e1.ecutive, "and I'll promise to
give you abe interview. Please go be-
hind thost9 bushes while 1 make my
toilet
30 you don't" replied Annas You're
thev Preside mt OF the United States and
there are good many millions of peo-
pie who W ant Do know ana ought to
know your c rpinio,n on this bank question.
I'm going dF gee it. If you try to get
out and get; yos clothes I'll scream
and I just law three fishermen around
the bend You tdon't get out ahead of
that intervevr"
And there, on ithat placid June morn
ing, John Qui nc y Adams, standing up to
his chin In wa ttn7 and clothed in the first
Adams raiment Submitted to the first in
terview ever 81 gen by President of the
United States. while his interviewer an
aged lady neari ne TO- sat on his clothes
and wrung from him what none of the
great papers of lew York or philadelphia
had been able to sset-the administration
views on the : s2te bank question. 1t
is a picture wort h. of national perpetual
ton, that scene on the<potemae For
pure democracy, there Is nothing in the
history of the NJ sion that can compare
to it.
And it was Annos Royal who first gave
to the press not oily the idea of the in
terview, but the Ii berality that is becom-
ing more and more a feature of the prom
inent journals of oday. While she was
a great adnlirer of / President Jackson and
wrote editorials tina smoked between
the cracks in the Sc. stA noes in defense Of
his position on the alited tSates bank
matter, she did not lie sitate to severely
critieise him on his action in regard to
the public lands, VIII CHI she thought I'M
fair to the people with free and fiery
pen she sailed ina - the autocratic
President, digging irta Y'the records OF the
land office to sustain her pfsition and
making even the .sturt iy "Old Hickory
vince under her lashes.
Convicted as q Scold.
Her three pet abornin ations were anti
Masons, Presbyterians and old maids.
When other things were5 iquiet she turned
her guns on these. So violently did she
attack the church which was next to her
printing office in East ca k)itol street that