Cronkite interviews Gertrude Stein

Editor’s Note: When Cronkite worked as a reporter at The Daily Texan, he had the opportunity to interview author Gertrude Stein before she spoke at Hogg Auditorium in 1935.

Original Run Date: March 22, 1935

A cow may be a cow a cow, but no writer that had interviewed Miss Gertrude Stein, that had chatted with her for any length of time over two minutes, would ever again write such an inane review of the works of one of the most publicized of modern writers.
She is genuine — the real thing in person. Her thinking is certainly straightforward; her speech is the same.
She enters wholeheartedly into any conversation. She is extremely modern. She enjoys to talk, and her enthusiasm is no private thing. It spreads to anyone with whom she comes in contact.
We imposed upon her at a late hour last night. She was cheerful and eager to answer our questions, to throw a little light on the person they call Stein. She did just that; perhaps a little more.
Dressed in a mannish blouse, a tweed skirt, a peculiar but attractive vest affair, and comfortable looking shoes, Miss Stein appeared much more of the woman than do the pictures that currently circulate. She strokes her close cropped hair with a continuous back to front movement. Even this nervous gesture is easily accepted by her present company.
The conversation last night ranged from the Walter Winchell comment that the most beautiful girls in America are in Dallas, to the possibilities of another war.
“A writer isn’t anything but contemporary. The trouble is that the people are living Twentieth Century and thinking Nineteenth Century,” Miss Stein said in answering a query concerning the attitude of Americans toward her works.
“Why the fact was evident up at Hockaday (where she stayed in Dallas). The girls of from fourteen to seventeen understood perfectly, but their teachers did not,” she continued.
“You must represent in your work what I call the time sense of your period.”
Miss Stein attributed the depression to the psychology of the people. “The depression is more moral than actual,” she observed. “No longer the people think they are depressed, the depression is over.”
Miss Alice B. Toklas, Miss Stein’s traveling companion whose title is not “secretary,” according to the author, was present. This lady who walked in on Miss Stein twenty-five years ago and has been with her ever since has absorbed much of the charm possessed by the most famous of the pair.
This is Miss Stein’s first trip to Texas and she seems to like it very well. Her comment was that “this is a beautiful big State of yours,” she liked Dallas, too, but was disappointed that they insisted on showing her oil wells.
“What are your observations on the war rumors in Europe?” she was asked.
“Before I left, those who know in France didn’t believe that there would be a war,” she answered. “But then war is just like anything else. When people get tired of peace they will have war and when they get tired of war they will have peace. Don’t you, when you have been good for a long time, want to be bad?”
To her question there was no verbal answer.
“There are a great many adults who are now writing as I do. When ‘Three Lives’ was first published people said it was not understandable, but now I don’t think there is anyone who couldn’t read and understand every word of it,” Miss Stein remarked in returning to the subject of her own works.
The author explained her reason for staying so long in France, and so long away from this country, by the simple statement that she lacks the initiative to do much moving around.
Miss Stein is to appear at the Hogg Memorial Auditorium for a lecture tonight at 8:15 o’clock, Miss Toklas will be with her.