Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1878 — A TALK WITH HAYES. [ARTICLE]

A TALK WITH HAYES.

The Only Time His Excellency Was Ever Interviewed. [From the Chicago Times.) * * * Very few tarried long enough to exchange more than the common courtesies, and, in a few minutes, the representative of the Times was alone with the President. An expression of great relief settled upon his Excellency’s countenance, and he immediately surrendered himself. “ You wish to interview me, I suppose ?” he remarked. “If you will allow yourself to be interviewed,” replied the reporter. “ Well,” he continued, smiling pleasantly, and speaking in a frank and somewhat confidential tone, “I have never allowed myself to be interviewed but once, and then I didn’t know it until after it was over. That was at Gettysburg, when George Alfred Townsend stole a march on me and actually got a fair interview without my suspecting what he was after.” “ Did he report it correctly?” “I must say that he did, iu the main. He made me pass some censure on Congress, however, that I have no recollection of having done. In fact, I don’t believe that I could have made the remark he attributed to me, because I am always very careful. But in all other respects the report was a fair one, and I have never denied it, although I am aware that various parties have attempted to do it for me. None of those denials ever came from me.” The reporter suggested that Townsend’s reputation in the West for veracity was not such as to make a denial of anything he might say necessary. “So I have heard,” continued Mr. Hayes, “ but in this instance he seems to have made an exception. He told the truth. ”

“Did be slip up on you unawares ?” “ No; I was holding an informal reception, very similar to the one you have just sees here, and was busily engaged in conversation with a gentleman on my right, about as I am with you now, stopping every few moments to shake hands with some new arrival. Presently Mr. Townsend came up and shook hands with me, and I continued the conversation with the friend on my right. He joined in the conversation, and we talked quite freely for some little time. ” “ Did you not know who and what he was?”

“ Certainly I did ; I had known him for some time. But, strange as it may seem, during our conversation it never occurred to me that he was a newspaper man. If it had, I should not have said as much as I did ; but still I said nothing that I have ever had occasion to regret, although I undoubtedly said many things which I should not have deemed it advisable to say had I known that the conversation was to appear in , print. I have never been interviewed in Washington. And yet every few days I see in the papers what purports to be an interview with me. You oan always rely upon it that these reports are manufactured. I always treat newspaper men kindly, but invariably decline to express my opinions on political questions in their presence. And Ido this, not because I have anything to conceal—for I do not believe in having secrets, except in exceptional cases—but for the reason that it is not generally politic.”