Imaginary Interviews: Aug. 27, 1923

(During the Past Week the Daily Press Gave Extensive Publicity to the Following Men and Women. Let Each Explain to You Why His Name Appeared in the Headlines.)

Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury: “In Paris I told a friend that on my first French visit 44 years ago, the late Henry C. Frick of Pittsburgh and I, having occasion to go to a dance in Paris, but lacking evening clothes, rented some from a Latin Quarter store and had the most enjoyable time I have ever experienced in Paris.”

Henry Ford: “Funk and Wagnalls published a biography of me by Allen L. Benson, once Socialist candidate for President. The author credits me with stating to him in Sept., 1922, that there would be another World War; that the U. S. should ‘ get into it at the beginning and clean them all up’; that the sudden cessation of my anti-Jew campaign was due to my sensing ‘too much anti-semitic feeling.’ Mr. Benson also says that apropos of nothing I pointed to one of my men and said: There is the kind of man I would appoint Secretary of the Navy’.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: “Back in London after delivering 40 spiritualist lectures, I declared Melbourne, Australia, and San Francisco to be the world’s most materialistic cities. Of an alleged message from Oscar Wilde, which described the Arctic as ‘ an ocean of foaming jasper,’ said I: ‘I think nothing could be more reminiscent of Wilde’s style’.”

Fanny Brice, actress: “At Atlantic City I underwent an operation to make my nose conform with my style of beauty. The New York Times remarked editorially that I had had the organ ‘condemned and torn down and was about to erect a high-class modern structure on the site’.”

Lady Louise Mountbatten: “The Swedish Crown Prince, whom I jilted a fortnight ago for love of an artist, was credited with the remark: ‘I, too, love another. My heart is in my wife’s grave’.”

Calvin Coolidge: ” It is said that Mrs. Coolidge, questioned as to how she gets along with a man who talks so little, replied: ‘You know I was a teacher in a deaf-mute college (Clarke’s School for the Deaf, Northampton, Mass.) before we were married, and had become thoroughly accustomed to long periods of restful silence.’ ”

Josephus Daniels, ex-Secretary of the Navy: “Somewhere in Nebraska, while on a speaking tour, I lost a shirt, size 16. A despatch from Gering, Neb., stated it is, or was, an ordinary shirt, but ‘prized highly’ by me. Another said Mrs. Daniels made the shirt. Another said it was the shirt I wore most while bossing the Navy’.”

Premier Smuts of the U. S. A.—: “In an address at Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, said I: ‘If America sees Europe resolutely making an effort to save herself she will rush in and save the world!'” Mrs. Harding: “I was notified that a movement has been started by the Roosevelt Newsboys’ Association of Boston to have every newsboy in the country contribute one cent to a collection of pennies to be melted into a miniature of Laddie Boy.

William Wrigley, Jr., of Chicago, in his youth a newsboy, was asked to act as treasurer of this fund; Calvin Coolidge, Jr., as honorary treas-Ex-Chancellor Wirth of Germany: “A report from Riga, Latvia, stated that I passed through there on my wray to Moscow.”

William K. Vanderbilt: “On my yacht Ara, converted British minelayer, aboard which I last year scoured the Caribbean in quest of marine specimens, I sailed for Labrador to search for rare aquatic life for the Marine Museum at Northport, L. I. As everyone knows, the late Prince of Monaco also went in for this sort of thing.”

Jane Addams, social worker: “Three hundred Chicago statesmen, stenographers, railroad presidents, clergymen, educators, firemen, policemen answered a questionnaire sent out by the Association of Commerce there to elect the Seven Wonders of Chicago and the city’s leading personalities. I won on personality. The Wonders were, in order: the boulevard and park system, the stock yards, Field Museum, University of Chicago, municipal pier, Lake Michigan, Marshall Field’s store.”

Lord Rothermere, brother of the late Lord Northcliffe: “In the Sunday Pictorial appeared an alarmist article by me accusing the Government of making, through its reparations note, great strides towards another World War, this time with England and France opposed. I charged that Great Britain today ‘is hardly more able to take effective action than the principality of Monaco;’ that London would be ‘the most vulnerable target in the world’ for French airmen.”

Pope Pius XI: “Needing rest after Italy’s heat wave, I suspended all ordinary official audiences for the summer.”

*Union of South Africa.