The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-08

this charming, interesting, wonderful man. I say lat last,' advisedly, for last year the Fates. Destiny-the train being late-or whatever you may term it-in- tervened, and the much sought Inter view with Mir. Hodge did not materialize.
 Somebody has called you the Rube actor" I said, by way of a beginning, as MT. Hodge stretched himself out in chair in his favorite Daniel vorhees Pike pose, and asked me if 1 minded his pipe.
 T expressed my thanks for the unex- pected compliment" said he, in that Down East" drawl, his tired looking eyes softly closing, just precisely as he looks in The Man From Home"
 "The Rubes,' 'Hayseeds.' Farmers or what you will call them the Wise Men and Gentlemen from the Country'- have made the United States" he con- tinued. in that beautiful. deep thYoaty voice that just caresses with every word that he utters, and makes you want to hear him say the same thing over and oyer again. Abraham Lincoln was what ,they call rube.' If 1t hadn't been for his mind, his personality and his mag netism to the casual observer his ap- pearance his dress would have proclaimed him a Rube,' The first money I ever made, by the way, I put in an oil paint ing of Lincoln. and it hangs in my New York home now. It was done by Murphy and Robert Lincoln says it is the best painting of his father he has ever seen. Mir Taft--if people didn't know him when lie walks up Rroadway-would be con- sidered a. 'Rube' So would Champ Clark so would Uncle Joe Cannon-all of whom are warm personal friends of mine.
 Uncle Joe Cannon, whenever I play in any city where he Is, comes back in my dressing room and sits by the hour talk ing to me. Swearing at me, l should say, for that's his long suit-swearing. Jehosaphatl He's got swear words down so pat that it sounds like Riley's Poems. Governor Foss of Massachusetts, my next door neighbor at my summer home in Cohasset Is another"
 He paused moment, and with that wonderful fascinating habit he has of closing his eyes for several consecutive moments, he sat-thinking, and then he said:
 "olver Goldsmith was a 'Rube,' and partly because of that fact there are few writers for whom you feel such personal kindness. An artless benevo- lence fairly beams through his pages. In The Deserted Village the genius who comes out of County Longford, Ireland is one of the most notable of such char acters."
 And besides people, so many cities are associated with the Rube' idea, too suggested
 Absolutely said MT. Hodge. Take Kokomo, Kalamazoo, fpslanti, Topeka and Oklahoma-all these come in for gibes from the joke writer's"
 'Is it true that you were first discov- cred for 'rube' parts by Mir. James A. Herne." I asked, when you were stand ing out in front of boarding house in New York?'
 There's just a semblance of truth in that said MT. Hodge ."The real truth Is this: I had been managing my own company, trying to manage and act at the same time for several years. I landed in New York dead broke. lived at dear old Mrs. Lillian Fox s-the exact loca- tion being 104 West Thirtieth street. One morning friend of mine who was just as hard up as I was left me. saying:
 ,t Come up old man, tomorrow, and I'll treat you to drink of water /
 'T replied:
 All right. I'll hitch up the hosses and driv up the rudi
 Another friend was sitting by and heard me. She was a warm personal friends of MT. James A. Herne, and she had always told me that if I'd go to him he'd engage me to do rube parts. She turned to me, saying:
 You've GOT to go to MT. Herne to- morrow"
 "So, to make long story short I went but not to MT, Herne-but MT Liebler. I saw MT. Liebler-fat MT. Liebler-not