The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1915-10-15
TRUCK DRIVERS
OWNER OF VOICE
Ike CARuso'S
~ GOTHAM kn'ckEasockEa.

BY GOTHAM kNJCNeH0CCkEH.
NEW PORK. Oct. IA beautiful
voice may be born anywhere.
Several days ago horny truck
driver, . short. heavy chested, young
man with dark complexion. sat on 4
bench in lower Riverside. park. He
was temporarily out Of a. job, and
perhaps his dreams went back to the
morning, sixteen years before, when he
bid his old home in Roumania good
by.
Signing. he got up from his bench
and walked across West Seventy
second street. He heard beautiful
girls voice singing an. opera tune
q Roumaniap love song. The singing
again he passed the house. summoning
courage.
The maid employed in the Aborn
school for opera classes opened the
door to find rough looking man on
the steps. He hesitated, seemed on
the point of leaving. and finally
blurted: e+'.
Il, too, can sing. l wan. to sing
for them up there"
Thinking this some strange new
kind OF beggar, the maid closed the
door. But soon the bell rang again
and, the truck drivers plea was over
heard by Mrs. Alice Parker, q vocal
instructor.
Let him try she said.
A few minutes later passerby In
the street stopped to listen to wonder
sul notes OF songs in an unknown
tongue pouring from the Aborn rooms.
The truck driver sang "Naptatrito
Plassinge," and other Roumanian fav-
critics and then without the piano he
roared forth When the Sands of the
Desert Grow Cold" -........ +.
At the end, when everybody had ap-
plauded, Mrs. Parker asked her Wis
itor to come the next day and sing
for Mr.. Milton Aborn.
Two hours before the appointment
furniture van stopped before the
door 1t was the truck driver. He
had got another Job and was not over
looking the bread and butter for his
wife and himself while pursuing the
muse. -. .. J.
Mr.. Aborn heard him and wondered
Then he began to figure. The result
was that Morris Hornfield. his name
shortened to Horn, went out OF the
studio with a five year contract under
his coat. He starts as a pupil OF Mr..
Aborn at $12 week and when his
voice hag been trained they will share
equally in his earnings.
So. Morris, the poor truck driver.
has a prospect of $1,000 week
few years hence. Music folk who had
heard him say his voice Is to be clas-
sed with Caruso's. While his six-inch
chest expansion means extreme po-
wer, he is capable of the greatest
tenderness when his song requires 1t.
T&elStory of his life, which Horn
related to Mr.. Aborn, sounds like fic-
tion. He is 80 years old. His father
and mother. who kept an inn In Cal
atz, Roumania, were murdered by rob
bers when he was baby and relatives
brought him up. ~-
When twelve years old he walked
to a port and sailed to New York. A
society sent him to Hartford, Conn,
where he was apprenticed to shoe
maker who beat him. He ran away,
sold peaches and vegetables on the
streets Of New York, ran errands, got
a JOB as motorman, was a street
cleaner and even professional boxer
at Ike Fedensky's club. -.
Everywhere l sang" said Morris.
Il could not live without singing. My.
wife, Yetta, would sometimes shoe me
out of the flat, she got SO tired of 1t.
NO never have been inside an
opera house. But 1 have heard Ca
russo sing on q. phonograph and l
have tried to initiate him."
Mr. Aborn says no vaudeville man.
ages will get his find" away from
him. He thinks that some day Morris
Horn will make the rafters Of the
Metropolitan opera house tremble.