Interview

"I think I understand more clearly than you imagine what you mean. Not long ago I visited an exhibition of modern pictures at Pittsburgh. Almost every European nation was represented. As I looked at those pictures I felt I could see through them into the minds of the nations which had created them.

"I could see the torment out of which they had been born. If the nation's psychology was still diseased so was its art. The traces of neurosis were unmistakable. If, on the other hand, the nation was on the road to recovery, if its people were rediscovering the happiness which they had lost, the story was told in the picture, too."

Who said this? One guess might be Behaviorist John Broadus Watson, or some other man who likes the sound of the words "Neurosis" and "If."

Who would be the last person in the world to say this? One guess might be President Calvin Coolidge, or some other man who is given to few words and less speculation, and who professes an earnest belief in Divine Providence.

And yet, the above quotation was last week printed as coming word for word from the mouth of President Calvin Coolidge. Credit for this scoop goes to the London Sketch and to a smart, egotistical young man named Beverley Nichols, who led British readers to believe that President Coolidge had spoken those very words. Perhaps Mr. Nichols, careless in the matter of quotation marks, felt that what the President actually said about art required an Oxonian polish. In any case, this unparalleled abuse of an interviewer's privilege did not prevent Doubleday Doran & Co. from inviting Mr. Nichols to edit their American Sketch (society chit-chat). New here, Mr. Nichols has doubtless been informed that it is not customary in the U. S. to exploit the President.