Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-04-22
BY George Kennedy

BY George Kennedy
Sol Bloom has returned to San Fran
CISCO The chairman of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee is one of the
delegates who will work on the founda-
ton of a new world order at the United
Nations Conference which opens We'd
nesday.
Mr.. Bloom said before departing that
he wanted to 60 to the downtown corner
where he used to sell the Chronicle and
the Examiner and just holler for Is
minutes. He wanted to walk down to
Brennan street, by the railroad tracks,
where he used to gather coal. That's
where the Bloom family lived when they
arrived from Illinois. And he wanted to
go to 1915 Sacramento street where he
worked in brush factory at IL. All the
old buildings of his day went in 'the
fire" of 1906. But he wanted to go over
the ground anyway.
Among the many amazing things
about Mr. Bloom is the length of his
retirement from the stage-67 years.
At eight, he appeared as child actor
with David Warf1eld in Under the Gas
Lights in San Francisco in 1878 when
the gas lights themselves we're new and
connoted the gay life of what was later
to be termed the Great White Way.
David Belasco was call boy.
Early Newspaper Days
II remember working at Senator
George Hearsts Examiner" Mr.. Bloom
said. "He was William Randolph
Hearst's father. I worked in the folding
room. In that day newspapers came
fiat off the press and had to be folded
by hand. One day in 1881 we had an
extra with a big headline-'Garfield
Assassinated'
II said to my brother. who worked
with me, Tell the boys to get Is cents
for this paper
'Assassinated,' asked my brother,
what does that mean?'
"I don't know said, but tell them
to holler it good and loud"
When it comes to meeting the dele
gates of other countries, it will be Sol
Bloom who will know the greatest num-
with them again on the basis of a man
who has entertained them in his own
home.
Front Office Man
The delegates will meet man who re-
sembles George Arliss despite broadness
Of face and shoulders-a stocky figure,
we'll groomed with light brown hair
combed almost straight back from bare
temples, man well-turned out by his
Fifth avenue tailor, man whose native
dignity is complemented by a broad
black ribbon attached to his pince -nez
glasses.
Error has f1ourished in the Bloom
legend because his association with the
theater, which was continuous from
the day Mike De Young, publisher of
the Chronicle and builder of the Alcazar,
the citys new show house, put 19-year-
old Sol Bloom in the ticket Office. He
has been thought of as a Snowman.
Mr.. Bloom was always in the front
Office or business end of the theater.
Front Office men are businessmen. They
are patient with the f1amboyant geniuses
who can produce attractions or perform
in them. But they admire the success
full merchants and manufacturers Of the
city. The financial men of the theater
long to be accepted as businessmen en-
gagged in a respectable as well as
profitable enterprise.
His Conservatism
That may explain Mr.. Blooms per-
sonal conservatism which is late-nine-
teenth century. He does not approve of
cigarette smoking. He wears long under
wear far into the spring. And in the
dictum of the Victorian gentleman he
holds that ladies always are present
he is obviously uncomfortable at male
pow-wows when off-color stories are
told
Some writer's have tried to make him
out one of Congress occasional clowns.
They have endeavored to distort his
public character into that of a Gold
wynian progenitor of Malopropism One
wrote that Mr. Bloom had suggested a
letter writing contest for illiterates' for
the George Washington bicentennial
That is ridiculous. Like many self
taught men, Mr.. Bloom knows the die
tionary far better than most collegians
Rather than offending the Kings Eng
lish he follows well-trod paths OF
rhetoric. He is master at selecting used
metaphors. His speeches are a studied