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(By JOHN CRAIG in Chicago Daily News) Mercedes, the ole-time trouper, dragged a large black box into the center of the floor of his office at 200 N. Michigan avenue and said, “This has seen two wars. It's a folding organ”. He opened it and struck a few bars. Mentioned that he’s not much of a musician, though. His wife plays it, and has an almost end less repertoire. “She can do a piece by Tschaikowsky and then swing into ‘Down Went McGinty’ without a moment's hesitation”. Mrs. Mercedes was at the moment up front banging away on a type writer. On the stage she is Mme Stantone and he is, of course, “America’s most astounding scienti fic entertainer”. They have just completed a USO tour of the Army camps and when we found them had come into the office of the Wisconsin Tourist Information bureau, of which Mercedes — his first name is Jos eph — is the executive director. They opened the bureau 12 years ago, on their retirement from the footlights. The war brought them out again. Last year they visited 300 military posts and would have done as well this winter except that the schedule was proving a little too strenuous for Mrs. Mercedes’ health. In the other war they gave similar entertainment to the troops. In the act, Mme. Stantone, blind folded, sits at the organ and Merce des mingles with the audience, in viting the customers to whisper in his ear the names of musical num bers they would like to hear. Each requester rises, cries out, “Please play my piece” and Statone swings into it. She’s practically always right, too. Well, on the strength of this ac complishment they've had a grand time through the year, travelling all around and giving, as their scrap books attest, command performanc es before kings and queens and in the White House. They also put on the act one day for the late Alexan der Woolcotte, who wrote an article about it, admitting he was baffled. So then Mercedes told us their secret. “When we were young, Ile lene and I attended the same music school here”, he said. “I was learn ing the violin and she the piano. We often played together. One day she was seated at the piano, resting her head on her right hand and letting the right lie idly on the keys, while I was trying to make up my mind as to our next selection. Unconsciously she began picking out a tune and I recognized it as one that had just flitted through my head. The same thing happened again and again. I had heard of telepathy and so, with this beginning, we tried to develop along that line. In 1909 we got it down fairly well. Succeeded about one time out of five.Gradually we improved, until we could do it prac tically every time. He said it’s a one way communi cation system. He can broadcast to her, but not she to him. “Although she probably could with enough practice”, he conceded. The whole thing, as asserts, is only a natural manifestation. Might happen to any congenial couple, he maintains “But there’s no such thing as mind reading”, he went on. “I’ve been called a mind reader for 35 years, and I've never yet read anyone’s mind, including my wife's”. In his long career he’s had some unusual coincidences, though. For instance, he wrote an article for a magazine, exposing the old spirit writing slate trick. In that one, two slates are tied together and when after some mumbo jumbo, they are opened, a message is found chalked on one. Demonstrating the thing to the editors, who wanted to see it done before they printed the article, he chose, from among several that occurred to him, the message, “Sici ly Has Fallen”. A couple of hours later the papers were on the streets with that identical headline. Gained him quite a reputation.
Newspaper Details
Rhinelander New North
Rhinelander, Wisconsin, US
Thu, Apr 13, 1944
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Kerry B.
USA 10 Jul 2026
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