Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/303

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1916 .

man who suddenly finds himself misunderstood and misrepre sented . Many circumstances arise where a man may wish to set himself right with his fellows “ and in a large number of them he will find the interview more serviceable than any other form of newspaper publication.” 25

The interview is often sought and given " for domestic con sumption only ." If a person is socially or politically ambitious, the interview may be a ladder by which the ambition is realized , and on the other hand, local pride is gratified when citizens dis tinguished at home are made to seem equally distinguished abroad . A prominent weekly has a fine bit of satire on this form

of interview : “ We confess to a particular fondness for this sturdy self-made gentleman from the West whom a single trip across the Atlantic renders an authority on the profoundest questions of contempo

rary interest. Weread : Mr. W . B . Sands of Milwaukee, who arrived yesterday on the Ruritania , after a two months' stay abroad, in the course of which he was introduced to the Grand Duke

Michael at a luncheon at Monte Carlo, declares that never was the condition of the Russian Empire as satisfactory as

it is at present. The Russian peasants all love the Czar and the Czar is constantly working for the welfare of the peas ants. Mr. Sands declared that there is no basis for the

rumors of a secret treaty of alliance between Russia and Japan .

“ Weread : It is the firm opinion of Henderson W . Sloggs of Omaha, who arrived yesterday on the Cetacean, that Italy 's mea sures in Tripoli are regarded with extreme dissatisfaction at Berlin and Vienna . At the same time, Mr. Sloggs insists that Italy was justified in acting as she did . Tripoli is a

land of infinite promise and in the course of timecan produce enough wheat to feed half the world . Mr. Sloggs' sojourn

abroad was confined to Paris, London , and the Lakes of Killarney.” 26

25 F . Banfield, “ Interviewing in Practice,” National Review , November, 26 " The Fallible Interviewer,” The Nation , December 28, 1911, 93:

1895, 26 : 367-378. 6