My Most Thrilling Moment

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 828, 23 November 1929, Page 18

My Most Thrilling Moment

tir*at men have their {Treat moments—tll'nm.it!' rpiAdes* in'their careers 0 "Veen others it is that "tide in the affairs of ■nen whr h, taken at the flood, lead on I,j fortune/' Som* of the most dis - Unfinished world celebrities here set doun snipyssion* roarer,ting their own great’ * N't "thrillers." FRANK B. KELLOGG American Statesman: In the course of my life I have been «<interned in SI treaties and 14 debt settlements, but the one which, besides being itself the most important so far as I personally was concerned, had the most far-reaching effects was, of course, the Pact of Paris, or it is sometimes called, the Kellogg Pact. It was in August. 1928. that the negotiations took place which finally culminated in this international pact tor the outlawing of war. To complete that agreement between the nations had for long been my chief ambition, and it was with no small feeling of having achieved something for the good of the world and of having made some contribution to peace that I signed the treaty on August 27. 1928. That, 1 should say, was perhaps the most thrilling moment in my life. M. ARISTIDE BRIAND Ex-Prime Minister of France: I have had experiences which might be called dramatic but if I should be asked w hich was the most so, I could not say. In February. 1916, the Germans were on the outskirts of Verdun. At any cost we had to save the citadel, on both moral and strategic grounds. On the other hand, we could not hamper the operations at Salonica by stopping, even temporarily, the transport of troops. ! was told on very high authority that if I took one single man from the French front I should have to answer for it before the High Court of Justice. I decided to defend Verdun whatever it might cost, without interrupting even for one minute the flow of troops to the East. I took the risk and did what l thought was the right thing. I do not know what would have happened had I been w rong. DR. ALBERT CALMETTE Of the Pasteur Institute, Paris'. I have always had a strong con- • <-iousness of possible tragedy when trying ou human beings the effects of serums already tested on animals. Fn the summer of 1922. the results obtained w ith my anti-tubercu!ons serum on monkeys and animals of the bovine species led me to see whether young « hihlren could not be protected against the disease. With the kind permission of Dr. Devraigne. I was enabled to make my experiments in the maternity wards of the Hospital de la Charlie. Paris. Out of ITS children who remained under our observation. only nine died, or 5 per cent. A second series of inoculations was made on babies of the Sixth Arrondissement of Paris. While we were

awaiting the results —always a matter of a very long time —it may be said that we experienced many tragic moments of suspense. In 1800 I left tor Saigon, at the age of 27, to start a Pasteur Institute in that city. f had followed the course of lectures delivered in Paris By Pasteur to make young medical men acquainted with his methods and had to begin anti-rabies vaccination in Indochina. I was quite alone and had no one to advise me. It was an extremely trying time. Later on I made experiments with snake poisons and obtained a serum which ultimately had to be tested on a human being. I can only describe as tragic the time during which the result of this experiment w as awaited. M. GASTON DOUMERGUE President of the French Republic: I cannot remember ever having experienced what might be called a tragic moment. My life has always gone on quite smoothly. My career was made up of a series of connected events, the first fit’ which happened by mere chance. While i was an official in Algeria, 1 asked for leave of absence to settle some personal affairs. Having met with a refusal. I adopted the well-known plan of threatening to seek election to Parliament. When t next visited my own part of France my friends and neighbours took me at my word and I had to give way. I was elected. This was my introduction to political life. Since then, everything has gone smoothly with me. I have always cultivated simplicity and straightforwardness, and I have received all the honours my country can give without having asked for any of them. TOM MIX Film star: l should say that the closest shave 1 have ever had was when 1 was acting ir a film with Dorothy Sebastian, whose life, in the course of the story, I had to save in a fire. For this purpose some disused outhouses had been bought and two storeys added to them by the stage carpenter. They were soaked with forty gallons of petrol and lighted. My part was to gallop up on horseback. dash through smoke and fire and carry off the heroine. Dorothy Sebastian fainted dead away. In picking her up. I got entangled in one of the burning strips of old film which had been piled up to add to the flames. They twined round my wrist, burning me almost to the bone. The producer was -delighted with my expression. “Hold that,” he shouted. “That’s fine! Tom, it's a knock-out.” As a matter of fact. 1 was luckier than I might be excused for thinking at the time. Within 30 seconds of mv carrying out the heroine the two top storeys collapsed and crashed blazing to the ground. ROSA PONSELLE Famous Prima Donna: I think the most thrilling moment of my life was the occasion of my first

lull.- captain Malcolm. Campbell, motor \ spied hum. Lower right: Rosa Ponsellr, j grc. ad-opera star echo teas once vaude-[ v 11, p, rforrn, -. Low( r left: Tom Mir. : who. doubtless, needs no introduction. ; appearupce on the stage of the Metro- : politan Opera House, New 7 ork. , Only six months before I had been j appearing in vaudeville, and the i change from a music hall to one of the most famous opera houses and j most critical and cultured audiences ; in the world was no small one. j For hours before the performance I j was tortured by the terrible thought ; that I had lost my voice. I cannot j well express the agony of my feelings. | Caruso, who had, of course, seen many young singers make their debut, was very considerate and regarded me with sympathy, which I was too agitated to appreciate. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” the great singer kept on saying. “There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of.” Yes, it was a wonderful thrill, that j first appearance at the Metropolitan j Opera House. No other thrill could | ever be quite like it. CAPTAIN MALCOLM CAMPBELL English Auto Racer: It stands to reason that a racing motorist must experience many thrilling. moments in his career. But it is part of the game as much as carrying a hod of bricks is to a bricklayer, or delivering a speech to a member of Parliament. It is only to be expected in the circumstances, when you have escaped instant death by the luckiest and most impossible of accidents a reasonable or unreasonable number of times, that you should become a bit of a fatalist. “If this is the end, it’s the end,” you ’ say to yourself, “and if not, well, it j isn’t,” and thereby comfort your soul j with incontrovertible logic. All racing motorists have been up \ against a near thing more than once; j they have carried their lives in their hands for long-drawn-out moments and have sat down afterward to a dinner which for a few agonising seconds they never hoped to enjoy. But few can have had such an experience as I encountered at Brooklands in 1912, and, having encountered it, lived to tell the story afterward. I was driving a 59.fi horsepower Darraeq, and as I came round the bend the offside front tyre burst. I Down we went on to the rim; the j car swerved to the right. Still on j full throttle, I endeavoured to get the j car down the finishing straightaway and win the race. Unfortunately for me the car made another swerve and hit the cement ledge on the side of the straightaway. The car leaped into the air, the offside front wheel immediately collapsing, the rear offside wheel also following suit. One of the rims cut through the iron railings, missing an attendant by inches only. 1 don’t know how I kept that car straight on its two wheels, but I did somehow and pulled up right in front of the grandstand. The huge car swung round with its own imjietus and finished within a few feet of the thick crowd of spectators. Their luck and my own was in, for I managed to bring the car to a stop when just a little move speed would have been fatal to myself and to them.