Evening star., 1936-05-24
By John Jay DAILY.


He is Sam w. Gumpertz, vice president
and general manager of the Ringing
Bros. and Barnum g. Bailey Combined
Circus-the Greatest Show on Earth.
Every day, six days week, seven
months out of the year, Sam Gum
pertz pulls up a camp chair and sta
tions himself near the front door Of
the circus and watches the people go
into the big top.
Every night Sam Gumpertz does the
same thing-watches the crowds. He
sees on an average of 10000 people
file past him every day-a grand total
of $3.50, 900 persons in the course Of
circus year.
Now Sam Gumpertz has been at this
business of watching the crowds for
so years-half a century-flve decades.
In the course of that time he has come
to know something of mob psychology.
mob formations and what it Is the
people want.
Born in washington several years
after the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln, Mr.. Gumpertz started going
places ION his own" at the ripe cid
age of IA. He has been at it ever since,
with six trips around the world to his
credit.
Now a man who has seen so many
persons as Mr.. Gumpertz and Is still
not tired looking at them comes very
near being a freak-though he has
never played in the side shows. On
the other hand, he has given to the
side shows and the big top some of the
strangest galaxies of humanity the
world has ever seen-for this is Mr..
Gumpertz's speciality, to go to far
away places and bring back unusual
specimens of humanity, like the Bon
toe headhunters, the wild men from
Borneo, the Somalilanders and the
giraffe-neck women.
WHEN a man sees 5,760,000 people
in the course of year. and 288,-
100000 in so years. his eye naturally
detects the abnormal. His brain regis
ters what will appeal to the curiosity
of the normal-and he manages to
bring the two together under the big
top.
This, in the language of the enter
tainment world, they call Snowman
ship.
Sam Gumpertz is great Snowman.
While he sits there, day after day,
at the entrance to the circus, he
wonders what these great throngs
want to see, most of all, why they
come to see it, and when, if ever, they
will tire of the experience. They
never do-principally because the
master mind of the circus business is
always thinking up something new.
He is the living apostle OF old P. T.
Barnum who had an uncanny sense OF
what the public wanted.
You would never guess that Mr..
Gumpertz has been through the mill
to the extent of so years in the show
business. He celebrated his 50th year
in the game while the circus played
Washington the past week.
In q reminiscent mood, Mr.. Gum
pertz crossed his legs, tilted back his
camp stool-one like the movie di-
rectors use-and told how the Gum
pertz family left Washington years
ago to go out West and grow up with
the country.
Sam Gumpertz was years old then.
The tribe left Washington with the
good wishes of lot of old timers, and
landed in Sweetwater, Tex. At the
going-away party, the late George
Harvey, who was Sam Gumpertz's
godfather, staged a farewell banquet.
IN THE great open spaces, little
Sammy Gumpertz became cow
boy-and that is what led him into
the circus His mother died when he
was IA and Sammy set out to become
a show rider At that time Buffalo
Bill was setting up his first show, and
for two years this long, lean, lanky
boy showed the other kids all over the
country how to ride 'em cowboy style.
Because he was a circus performer,
the general manager of the Greatest
Show on Earth has a soft spot in his
heart for all other circus performers;
but his interest does not end there
for he went through almost every other
experience of the game. He was a
photographer for two years-one of
those fellows who makes the big signs
in store windows; ticket seller for
the same period of time, and then an
advance agent-ahead of the shows.
Eight years trouping the country,
visiting all the newspaper offices, glori-
flying the great American institution
known as the circus, gave Sam Gum
pertZ an all around education And it
also taught him how to make the
American public circus-conScious. He
believes that the way to do that Is
by employing plenty of newspaper
space and he gets it. He buys some
of it, and they give him the rest.
Press agents, with me, get the right
Of way" Mr.. Gumpertz says-"and the
newspaper boys and girls. They are
my pets. I'd rather have one good
newspaper story about the circus than
anything that could happen"
Which led, naturally, into talk of
great publicity stunts-for the circus
feeds on publicity as the elephants on
hay.
In SO years show business, Mr.. Sam
Gumpertz delivers himself of the
opinion that the greatest publicity
stunt Of all time happened right here
in Washington three years ago. That
was the placing of midget in the
lap of Mr.. John Pierpont Morgan of
the bouse of Morgan.
Publicity stunts come and 60, and
mostly they fade out in week or
so-six weeks at the highest-but this
Morgan-midget stunt promises to live
on forever. Why? Well, because it
united the smallest bit of femininity
and the biggest financial name in the
world"
MR.. GUMPERTZ chuckled: Frank
AA Braden, one of the greatest press
agents in captivity, must get full
credit for placing the midget in Nor
gan's lap; for he conceived the idea
opd apoipeerad the rnaIn-hIft as q |