LIB R A R Y
BOS TON
UNIVERS I TY
ADMINISTRATION
CUwNo.
Book Ito. .&
Ace. No. 3- JL
Date ULz
AP
The Story Of News
COPYRIGHT, 1940, BT OLIVER CRAWLING
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BT J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
To
FRANK B. NOYES
A NOTE BY THE AUTHOR
The idea of putting this story into words goes back a dozen years.
It was then that the author began to learn that honest news reporting
didn't just happen — that even though the "freedom of the press"
ideal had been incorporated in the Bill of Rights more than a hundred
years before, systematic news gathering had to earn its place as a self-
respecting public service through slow but dramatic evolution.
The actual writing and refining of AP — The Story of News re-
quired two years, but other years of research and study preceded that
final effort. Even two years may seem a long time to devote to such a
work, yet the fact is that the author alone could not have produced the
story as it now appears in that length of time. Indeed, the chances are
he never could have produced it without the assistance of William A.
Kinney, now of the Washington staff of The Associated Press, whose
brilliant research abilities and keen perception as to detail contributed
so much.
Many sources were drawn upon in tracing the story to its end.
Bits turned up in odd places: from yellowed, time-worn records; from
various books and publications of one sort or another, many of them
long since out of print ; from hundreds of newspaper files going back
as far as 1800, and from all AP organizational reports and news files
over a period of many years. No attempt is made here to list all such
references and authorities, which fill a score of closely typed pages,
but it can be said that more than three thousand books and publications
were examined and that the search of AP records alone entailed the
reading of more than twenty million words.
And while it is not practical to list all the individuals who con-
tributed in one way or another to the story, the author wishes to express
thanks for their interest and help. To all of them, and the total runs
to hundreds, he expresses the especial hope that in the following pages
they will find some reward for their wholehearted co-operation in help-
ing to make possible this story of news.
O.G.
New York, N. Y.
June 25, 1940.
vii
CONTENTS
A NOTE BY THE AUTHOR vii
PRELUDE 3
i!
I MILESTONES 19
II HESITANT YEARS 26
III WE WILL GO ON J2
IV BUGLES BLOW 36
V THE LONG CAMPAIGN 44
VI THUNDER IN THE WEST 60
VII THEY CALLED IT PEACE 69
VIII BLACK YEARS 78
IX STRING CORRESPONDENT 84
X THE LAST TRUCE 88
XI EXPANSION AND DISASTER 99
XII FOR THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR ICX)
XIII CHAOS AND CRUSADE Il6
XIV THE FIGHT IS OVER 126
XV REMEMBER THE MAINE! 136
XVI THE NEW CENTURY 148
1900
I PEACE AND PROPAGANDA l6l
II WAR IN THE EAST t 175
III LEAD WASHINGTON 187
iv FLASH! 194
V SURVEY AND CRITICISM 199
ix
CONTENTS
VI THE AIRPLANE MAKES NEWS 2O5
VII A NEW PERSONALITY 214
VIII STANDARD OIL 220
IX HEADLINE YEARS 228
X COVERING THE FIRST ARMAGEDDON 237
xi "HE KEPT us OUT OF WAR" 249
XII THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 2j6
XIII FALSE ARMISTICE 277
xiv "BACK TO NORMALCY" 284
XV THE ORDER CHANGES 294
1925
I SPEED AND PROSPERITY 313
II PICTURES ARE NEWS 328
III LINDBERGH APPEARS 336
iv "MORE MARGIN, MORE MARGIN" 343
V INTO THE DEPRESSION 354
VI KIDNAP 364
VII ANOTHER ROOSEVELT 374
VIII THE FIGHT OVER PICTURES 383
ix DATE LINE: FLEMINGTON 398
x "URGENT" — FROM ETHIOPIA 407
XI MATTERS OF MOMENT 417
XII BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT 423
xiii "THE PUBLIC MUST BE FULLY INFORMED" 441
xiv "PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 458
XV "BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS" 489
INDEX ......... t. . 495
PRELUDE
PRELUDE
A CHILL November rain blew in from Boston harbor. It swept
across Long Wharf, up State Street and past the seven floors of the
Exchange Coffee House, in 1 8 1 1 the tallest building in the country.
Below, on the drenched cobblestones, merchants and citizens hur-
ried by twilight to the recently established Reading Room on the sec-
ond floor. They asked questions of one another and of travelers who
had just arrived by schooner and stagecoach. They studied the dog-
eared European newspapers. But they found no fresh news.
Down the seaboard, past New York and the southern shore line,
lights flickered in farmhouses and in fishing shacks, and in the busy
towns of this New World of five million people. Out on the Atlantic
there were other and more ominous lights. They dipped and rolled
with the dark hulls of British men-of-war. American commerce was
being blockaded and Yankee seamen were seized for the service of the
crown on the grounds that they were British subjects. Every incoming
merchantman brought tales of warlike acts, and at the end of the day
people gathered to wonder and to speculate.
In England George III brooded over the loss of his American
colonies, and on the continent Napoleon traced new campaigns on his
crinkling maps.
In Washington a young, ill-knit Congress was convened in the
half-finished Capitol demanding war to avenge repeated indignities
at the hands of Great Britain and France. Precise President Madison
rocked in the newly invented swivel chair and pondered. Henry Clay
and his "War Hawk" followers had served their ultimatum — Madison
must see to it that war was declared or he would not be renominated.
Official Washington could feel the state of affairs, but even there
citizens could only speculate on what the next day held. These were
crucial times. Events moved in some puzzling world pattern, yet the
people had no news.
3
AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
There was no news because there were no real newspapers. True,
newspapers and newsletters, of a sort, had existed for years. But the
news they printed was old and almost always inaccurate. They took
what little information came to them and made no effort to gather it
for themselves. They found much else to print — flowery verses, erudite
essays, political bombast, or solemn dissertations on religion.
Front pages, most of them, were given over to advertisements
urging the purchase of slaves and livestock, of secondhand furniture,
and of curious medicines. The size of the pages was often large and
the number of pages few. These large pages were called blanket"
sheets because, when opened, they were almost as large as a blanket.
The reason for their size was partly a holdover from pre-Revolutionary
days when papers were taxed on the number of pages they contained,
and partly because the crude printing presses were operated by hand
and it was easier and quicker to run off a few large sheets than many
small ones. A strong pressman, without interruption, could produce as
many as two hundred copies an hour. The large journals did not hesi-
tate to make capital of their size. One of them proclaimed itself: "The
Largest Paper In All Creation." But in the matter of circulation not
even the most prosperous papers had more than a few hundred.
The problem of hand presses and large pages was not the only one
confronting printers. There was no telegraph, typewriter, or telephone.
Copy was written out by pen, or set directly in type by hand. The only
method of communication was by schooner or stagecoach. Public in-
telligence, more likely than not, traveled by word of mouth. The
tavern or the coffeehouse, rather than the newspaper, was the best
pkce to find out what was going on and Boston was the trading center
of the New World.
This was the condition of newspapers, with few exceptions, until
that November night in 1811 when the rain whistled in from the har-
bor and Boston citizens hurried along to the Exchange Coffee House
Reading Room in quest of whatever intelligence they might find.
The popular Reading Room had been established a year before
by Samuel Gilbert, one of the proprietors of the Exchange Coffee
House, in an attempt to attract merchants and shipmasters to the trad-
PRELUDE 5
ing center on the second floor. After the practice of European establish-
ments of a similar kind, Gilbert stocked it with whatever old journals
he could obtain. But he also was an innovator. He kept on hand two
large books, in one of which he recorded marine intelligence and in
the other incidental information.
The idea of recording news was immediately popular. Patrons
thought so well of it that they donated a rowboat which Gilbert had
used on occasions to meet incoming craft and learn details of their
cargoes and voyages.
Things went along satisfactorily enough until Gilbert found the
Reading Room was taking too much of his time. He decided he needed
a helper. The merchants and patrons learned of his selection with
pleasure. Boston's foremost newspaper, the semiweekly Columbia Cen-
tinel, printed an obscure announcement on November 20:
EXCHANGE COFFEE HOUSE BOOKS. These news-books &c
commenced and so satisfactorily conducted by Mr. Gilbert are now trans-
ferred to the care of Mr. Samuel Topliff, Junr., a young gentleman of
respectability, industry and information; and who will, we doubt not, con-
tinue the Marine and General News Books with great satisfaction to the
patrons and friends of the Reading Room.
%
The son of a sea captain, this young Samuel Topliff, Jr., was born
in a wooden house in Orange Street in 1789. His childhood was
prosaic. He did the things other boys of his time did — sang in the
choir at Hollis Street Church, marched in a memorial procession for
George Washington in 1800, and went to school. He dreamed of a
life at sea, but then in 1811 his father was murdered by a mutinous
crew. When this news finally reached Boston Topliff knew that his
earlier plans must be abandoned. He must support his mother and
brothers and so he lost little time in undertaking his unusual assignment.
Topliff soon observed that the stories of travelers and seafarers
became magnified with each retelling. He decided that the best way
to make sure the information was reasonably accurate was to obtain it
promptly and record it in the News Books before constant repetition
destroyed its value.
He was completing his News Book entries for the day when the
Reading Room door was thrown open by a runner who panted out
that an unidentified boat was trying to negotiate the harbor. The
runner, as was customary, had been stationed on the observation roof
near the big dome of the coffeehouse. It was his duty to study the
harbor by glass and report all arrivals and departures. Because of
6 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
the descending darkness, he had been unable to distinguish the colors
of the incoming craft, but unquestionably something unusual must be
afoot, otherwise it was doubtful if any craft would attempt the harbor
in such a squall.
This information caused an uproar among the readers in the
room. For all they knew, the British might be planning an attack or
the ship might be bringing word of more warlike acts against Yankee
shipping and commerce.
Topliff listened to the hum of curious voices and made up his
mind. The harbor was dark and treacherous, but he had handled a
rowboat in bad weather before. While the Reading Room crowd con-
tinued its excited speculation, he left the coffeehouse and headed for
Long Wharf, where the Reading Room rowboat was moored. He
unshipped the oars and pulled out.
He was gone what seemed an interminable time. The cold raii>
continued to blow. Dim lights flickered in the storm and slipped deeper
into the night. Then the blur of the small boat reappeared, zigzagging
its way to Long Wharf with the bedraggled young man still at the
oars.
Soon he was back at his desk in the Reading Room and while those
nearest crowded around to read over his shoulder, he entered in the
News Book the story of what he had learned.
The arriving boat was the brig Latona. She had had a stormy
68-day voyage from Archangel. Her master was Captain Blanchard,
and he brought disturbing tidings. A few days before, in longitude 65,
the Latona was running before moderate winds when she was over-
hauled by an English sloop-of-war which immediately broke out a
signal for the brig to heave to. The sloop ran out her starboard guns
to emphasize the order and when she came alongside a longboat of
British marines boarded the Latona.
A cocky, talkative second officer ordered Blanchard to muster his
crew while the brig was searched for "deserters from His Majesty's
Navy." The officer spoke in belligerent tones. He told Blanchard that
six British line-of-battle ships and twenty frigates already had arrived
off Halifax, and that twenty more were expected. England was bringing
her naval forces in North America up to wartime strength.
"To be prepared," the officer had explained condescendingly, "in
case of a rupture with America. . . ."
Before Topliff had finished writing there were shouts and commo-
tion. These Boston citizens could understand the inevitable. Britain
PRELUDE 7
was ready to risk another war with her former colonies, New England's
rich commerce at sea faced destruction, and eventually America might
even lose the independence it had won thirty years before.
The patrons of the Reading Room knew that Topliff had risked
danger in order to bring back news at a time when everyone was eager
for news. They toasted him for his courage and he knew that he had
made a good beginning. But it is doubtful if any one of them realized
the full significance of his act.
Topliff in his rowboat had started systematic news gathering.
The young man continued to meet incoming craft in the harbor.
He also employed correspondents to send him regular newsletters from
abroad. He kept his information as accurate as he could make it, and
before long he was persuading a few newspapers to subscribe to regular
reports which he wrote out in longhand and delivered by messenger
or stagecoach. Newspapers themselves also slowly began to gather and
print news.
The War of 1812 came and the rowboat method was adopted
by others. A rowboater for the Charleston (S. C.) Courier obtained
word of the war's end seven weeks after the treaty was signed at
Ghent, Belgium, the Christmas Eve of 1814. That seemed an amaz-
ing feat, receiving word in such a comparatively short time, yet there
was irony in it. In the last battle of the war Andrew Jackson won an
overwhelming victory over the British at New Orleans, but it was a
battle that would never have been fought had there been an adequate
news system $ peace had been declared two weeks previously.
By 1828 Boston had yielded to New York in news gathering as
well as commerce. The vigorous, rough-and-tumble young metropolis
sprawled along the lower tip of Manhattan and laughed at its growing
pains. Plagues of yellow fever ravaged the populace, pigs roamed the
thoroughfares, and brothels flourished along the water front. The
shore line was a forest of spars, masts, and riggings, wagons rattled
through Wall Street, and the graves of Potter's Field covered the
meadow that is now Washington Square.
Rowboats were still being used, but owing to the jealousy and in-
trigue of rival publishers the harbor was a perilous place to venture,
even in broad daylight.
The hurrying population of 180,000 had halfheartedly supported
8 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
nine daily newspapers until a year before, when a tenth — unwelcome
to the others — made its appearance. Among the nine were the Com-
mercial Advertiser, the Post, the Standard^ and the Morning Courier,
the last published by violent, overbearing Colonel James Watson Webb.
The tenth was the Journal of Commerce. It was owned by merchant-
philanthropist Arthur Tappan and was managed by 37-year-old David
Hale.
The nine papers originally had fought among themselves to be
the first with the news. Constant threats that additional newspapers
might enter the growing field, however, finally had drawn them to-
gether in a harbor combine served by the toughest collection of row-
boaters who ever pulled an oar, more concerned with crushing outside
opposition than with collecting and speeding the highly important
intelligence from abroad.
It was against the cutthroat activities of this combine that David
Hale and the new Journal of Commerce had to struggle.
Hale, a New Englander, was religious and would not gather news
on Sunday. He had worked on an uncle's paper in Boston about the
time Topliff was starting. He had taught school. He had started an
importing business. He had tried auctioneering. He had invested in a
powder mill only to have it blow up. During one brief period of pros-
perity he had lent a few hundred dollars to a friend, Gerard Hallock,
who shortly after became the editor of the weekly New York Observer.
That loan to Hallock was a fortunate one, for it was Hallock who
recommended Hale to owner Tappan as a likely manager of the Jour-
nal of Commerce.
Hale was accustomed to failure and after several months with
the unpopular Journal of Commerce he faced it again. He could not
get past the harbor combine to gather news from Europe. His boatmen
regularly came back from the waterfront with their heads laid open
by belaying pins. As soon as they set foot on a ship's ladder they were
knocked back into their rowboats. If the paper could not obtain
news it could not survive. Owner Tappan was tired of his venture and
wanted to sell out.
Early one morning in October, 1828, a small sloop sailed down the
East River. It slipped past the spot where Brooklyn Bridge now stands
and headed toward the entrance of the lower harbor and Sandy Hook.
It was Hale's boat and on her side was painted the legend: JOURNAL
OF COMMERCE, 1828.
The Journal of Commerce manager had fitted up the craft in a
PRELUDE 9
desperate effort to beat the harbor combine. He had tried to keep his
intentions a secret, but word leaked out. The other papers accepted
the challenge by rigging out a fast sloop they called the Thomas H.
Smith. The Journal of Commerce then announced its plan in a notice
which said:
An opportunity now wfll be offered for an honorable competition. The
public will be benefited by such extra exertions to procure marine news, and
we trust the only contention between the two boat establishments wfll be
which can outdo the other in vigilance, perseverance and success. . . .
The two boats raced the eighteen miles to Sandy Hook and when
the Journal of Commerce hove to in the rolling swells the combine
craft was far behind. News gatherers never had ventured that far be-
fore, but Hale saw that it was an excellent spot. Arriving merchantmen
started to trim their sails there and his sailboat could obtain whatever
budgets of intelligence they brought and scuttle back to port.
The success of the Journal of Commerce jolted rival editors out of
their lethargy and set the whole town talking. The bankers and mer-
chants who foregathered at Holt's Hotel on Water Street discussed the
commercial advantages that might come from this unprecedented enter-
prise in news. But there was more to it than the excitement it created
in New York. Hale and his Journal of Commerce had introduced
the vital stimulant of competition into the sluggish world of news
gathering.
The Journal of Commerce went down the harbor many times.
Larger, more seaworthy boats soon were cruising for news as far as
a hundred miles off Sandy Hook.
The harbor combine, fighting back with all its resources, began
to make use of a new marine telegraph which was constructed between
the harbor entrance and the Battery at the lower end of Manhattan.
This was a semaphore device of flagstaff stations. A man at Sandy Hook
identified the incoming boats and signaled word to the next station,
where it was picked up and resignaled to stations along the route all the
way to the city.
But the difficulty with this system was that it could relay little
more than the bare identity of the approaching ship. The news those
ships carried was the thing, and Hale meant to have it first. There-
after his boat put in at the outer tip of Staten Island, which sprawled
IO AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
between New York and Sandy Hook, and a waiting horseman took
the news and galloped to the Manhattan ferry.
The contest still waged unabated with every man for himself
after the old harbor combine finally disintegrated under the pressure of
Hale's efforts. The Journal of Commerce, however, was prepared to
cope with this multiplication of opponents. Hale and his friend Gerard
Hallock purchased the paper.
The era of evening newspapers had not arrived, but Hale and
Hallock gave New York its first "extra" by running off important
news on their old hand presses for distribution during the afternoon
hours. They broke precedent by putting their biggest news on page
one, and they introduced credit lines proclaiming "25 DAYS LATER
FROM EUROPE" to stress the speed with which they were obtaining
the latest foreign reports.
The nation was growing. Domestic news was becoming more im-
portant. The Journal of Commerce met this situation by inaugurating
a pony express.
Andrew Jackson's attack on the Bank of the United States was
the exciting topic of 1830 when the two publishers announced they
would run a special express from Washington to New York in order
to obtain the presidential message to the opening of Congress. James
Watson Webb, who had not hesitated to attack the methods of his
rivals, hastily organized an express for his Courier, bewailing the fact
that it cost him $300. The remaining papers pooled their interests in
a third. New Yorkers marveled to read that Jackson's message reached
the city in less than two days in spite of badly mired roads.
Yet the pony express remained only an occasional service until
Hale and Hallock once more jogged the pace of progress. In 1833 they
started a regular express from Washington with twenty-four horses
racing day and night over a distance of 227 miles. It was a notable feat,
for the paper's black ponies covered the distance in twenty hours, regu-
larly beating the government's own express by one to two days.
While these exploits were increasing the importance of the owners
of the Journal of Commerce, another newspaper personality moved
boldly on the scene. He was a squinting Scotsman and his name was
James Gordon Bennett. He did not hesitate to tread on the touchy toes
PRELUDE i i
of all the New York publishers, and before he was through he became
the first to gather and print all kinds of news — fit or otherwise.
Bennett had emigrated to America as a youth in 1819 and found
a shilling in the streets of Boston, which fed him for a day. After
working in Boston and New York he became Washington correspondent
for Webb's Courier. Years later people spoke of him as the first Wash-
ington columnist, but at the time he was more concerned with the prob-
lem of eating. He roamed the Capitol corridors gobbling information.
Sometimes there was small importance in the facts he gathered — that
the wife of a certain Cabinet officer was addicted to port laced with
brandy, that Andrew Jackson was a good trencherman, or that people
were calling the Executive Mansion the White House since it had been
painted to cover the scars left by the War of 1812. Often enough,
however, the information he obtained was important, and when it was
he made the most of it.
Vigorous, inquisitive almost to the point of being obnoxious, Ben-
nett appeared just the man choleric Webb was seeking as editor when he
consolidated his Courier with the Enquirer in a determination to outdo
Hale and Hallock. The Scotsman went to New York as a $i2-a-week
editor of the Courier and Enquirer. From the beginning the two per-
sonalities clashed. Webb's shifty policies grated on the Scotsman and the
two parted in 1832.
Bennett tried other newspaper enterprises, but none of them suc-
ceeded. By 1835 his writing of cheap newspaper fiction had netted $500.
He attempted to persuade a young printer to join him in the publica-
tion of a penny paper. The printer was Horace Greeley and he curtly
declined. Bennett trudged down to the printing plant of Anderson and
Smith at 34 Ann Street. His $500 talked and the partners agreed to
print his paper as long as he could pay cash in advance.
The morning of May 6, 1835, saw the birth of the Herald. It was
a one-penny paper — a fact calculated to appeal to the masses who could
not afford the six-penny price of the established journals. The penny
press had made its first positive appearance in New York two years
earlier with the birth of the Sun and Bennett was shrewd enough to
observe that such a popular-priced publication had a definite appeal.
The city now had a population of 270,000, yet the combined circulation
of all New York dailies was only 42,000. There was room for another
paper.
Bennett resolved to become a real news gatherer. He actually did
become the first reporter in the modern sense of the word. He promised
12 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
to report the shady transactions in Wall Street, where the six-penny
papers got their biggest support. He promised to print political news
only for what it was worth. He said he would mirror the world in all
its freaks and vagaries, that he would record facts on every public and
proper subject. They were promises he kept for the remainder of his
life.
This vigorous start of the Herald served notice on Hale and
Hallock that they must look to their news-gathering laurels. To meet
so boisterous a menace, the six-penny papers put forth redoubled efforts.
Still faster newsboats were built, more pony expresses were run. It
was a formidable competition because Webb's Courier and Enquirer^
with a circulation of 3,300 and an advertising revenue of $65 daily,
was accounted the most powerful paper in the country.
But Bennett was not to be annihilated. His news touch was like
magic. He was thrashed in the streets, denounced from pulpits, and
still the Herald's circulation climbed until it reached 20,000 by 1836.
No matter what the six-penny papers did, Bennett outdid them. His
newsboats were faster, his expresses quicker, his genius sharper. He
used the few rattletrap railroads, canal barges, runners, any and all
conceivable methods of getting news.
Brazen cock of the journalistic walk, the ill-looking Scotsman
crowed long and loud over his triumphs. He mixed fact, fiction and
fancy with an indiscriminate hand and served up the spicy melange
under the name of news.
And that was the salient weakness of the cause he did so much to
help. He might get the news anywhere — in Wall Street and on the
Exchange, in the police station and at church, at the theater and in
court, at home and abroad — but when he gave it to the public in his
rowdy, shocking way the news became a subordinate vehicle to express
the incorrigible flamboyance of the man who presented it.
7
Back in Boston the urgency of ,a swifter method of delivery had
impressed Daniel Craig, an ambitious printer's apprentice from New
Hampshire. He had planned to start a penny paper in Boston, but
instead he made himself one of the great news gatherers of his time.
"Carrier pigeons have been used for years in Europe to transmit
messages," the heavy-set, square-jawed young man reflected. "They
are fastj they can fly forty to seventy-five miles an hour. Why can't
they be used to transmit news?"
PRELUDE 13
He ordered a consignment of pigeons from Europe, and once the
birds had been trained, he inaugurated his pigeon post. It was not long
before newspapers were subscribing to the service. Craig met ships
miles out at sea off Boston, summarized the news from abroad, and
sent copies winging shoreward.
The pigeon service spread from Boston to New York and Balti-
more. Moses Beach of the New York Sun was the first to appreciate
the advantages that Craig could offer a metropolitan newspaper. In
Maryland the New Englander found an enthusiastic supporter in
Arunah S. Abell, who had just launched the Baltimore Sun.
James Gordon Bennett, unwilling to mark time while any opposi-
tion editor enjoyed a faster delivery of news, bought himself dozens
of pigeons and before long he was shipping his birds to Craig, who
loaded them with news and sent them winging back. At one stage
Bennett was offering Craig $500 an hour for each hour that a pigeon
could deliver news to the Herald ahead of its rivals. The Herald
publisher also augmented his pony express routes with pigeon posts
from Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and the state capitol at
Albany.
8
Only the highly successful journals could afford the heavy expense
necessary to maintain the trinity of pigeons, ponies, and boats. The
problem was a scientific one and Samuel Finley Breese Morse, a painter
of international reputation with several minor inventions to his credit,
had the solution. By 1847 his revolutionary new communications sys-
tem, the electro-magnetic telegraph, was clattering away in a dozen
or more cities.
There were real newspapers now — real enough for the times. The
hand press had been replaced by faster but still crude mechanical
presses.
Although the future of the telegraph was a foregone conclusion, it
was expensive and its facilities still were too inadequate to handle all
press dispatches with any degree of speed, even for papers in the few
cities it connected. Until it could expand on a nation-wide scale — and
the first pony express had not even reached the Pacific Coast — news-
papers found it necessary to operate longer express routes, bigger news-
boat systems, and more elaborate pigeon posts.
The War with Mexico did not simplify matters. Bennett, still
the most daring news gatherer, was running a special pony express all
14 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
the way from the border. With the collaboration of the Baltimore Sun,
the Philadelphia Public Ledger and the New Orleans Picayune, his
efforts to obtain news of the Mexican struggle were leaving other
publishers far behind.
David Hale watched the Herald's expensive activities and realized
the time had come to end the blind, cutthroat competition in which the
New York papers had so long indulged. He didn't like Bennett any
better than did the others among the so-called "Wall Street Press."
Nevertheless, he had to admit that Bennett's contribution to news-gather-
ing enterprise had been considerable. He saw that the progress of
systematic news gathering had made newspapers indispensable in the
lives of the people as the world grew slowly larger, extending difficult
news frontiers. He was convinced that no one paper could continue
indefinitely to meet the multiplying problems of individual news col-
lection.
Others among the aloof New York press might continue to belittle
Bennett in print and thrash him in the streets, as old James Watson
Webb had done on more occasions than one. They might continue a
"moral war" in which they had labeled him with such epithets as
"obscene vagabond," "leperous slanderer," "rogue," "polluted wretch,"
and the like. But Hale did not propose to continue to do so. He felt
that there was disaster ahead if the New York papers continued their
headstrong course, and that there was no point in waiting longer to
propose to Bennett what he had in mind.
He put on his tall hat, left the Journal of Commerce office and
presently was at the corner of Nassau and Fulton, where the Herald
building stood.
A few minutes later there was a knock on the door of Bennett's
office.
"Come in," called the publisher.
He looked up from his desk, squinted his type-tired eyes, and
finally recognized Hale. He got to his feet and stood waiting. Hale
lost no time getting to the point.
"Mr. Bennett," he said, "I have called to talk about news with
you. Do you have any objection?"
The publisher nodded his visitor to a chair.
"I am always pleased to talk on that subject," he said.
At last one of the publishers of the holier-than-thou Wall Street
press had come to the offices of the despised penny paper.
Hale proposed that he and Bennett pool resources to cover the
PRELUDE 15
Mexican War and the other big news of the day and Bennett, the
Scotsman, accepted. That was the first positive step toward co-operative
news gathering after years of fumbling, groping, and bitter competi-
tion. The next step came a year later.
184
I. MILESTONES
TEN men, representing the six most important New York newspapers,
sat around a table in the office of the Sun one day early in May, 1848.
They had been in session for more than an hour and all that time they
had been in stubborn argument. Some of them were belligerent, some
were conciliatory, some were unconcerned, and some were worried.
They were the autocrats of the city's newspaper world and one room
never before had been big enough to hold them.
Bennett was there with his assistant, Frederic Hudson, for the
Herald. Webb attended with his managing editor, Henry Raymond,
of the Courier and Enquirer. Gerard Hallock and Hale represented
the Journal of Commerce. Greeley of the Tribune, Moses Beach, pub-
lisher of the Suny and Eustace and James Brooks of the Express com-
pleted the ten.
The meeting was the outcome of Hale's efforts over a period of
months to bring the competing publishers together. He and Bennett
had been pleased with the success of the co-operative effort which grew
out of their meeting the year before, and Hale gradually had come
to see a possible union of the foremost New York newspapers,* each
contributing its share to a general fund which could be used in a con-
certed effort to provide readers with wider coverage of all important
world events. Now at the critical moment of his campaign he was tired
and ill. He knew how difficult it would be to persuade the news titans
to forget their antagonisms in the interests of the common good. But
he faced the meeting and talked of news, its problems, and his pro-
posal.
There was plenty of news to talk about. In Europe there were
revolutions in progress and others brewing. At home the Mexican
War was over, but the drums of another presidential campaign were
beating for the war's two heroes, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott.
The antislavery movement was growing daily 5 out in the wilderness
of Utah the Mormons were establishing themselves on the shores of
19
2O AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Salt Lake, and from Chicago, a rough, frontier city of 24,000, the rail-
road was pushing slowly into the green prairies of the West.
But, aside from Hale and Bennett, the overlords of the New York
press were suspicious and reluctant. Hale outlined his plan and saw
marked signs of resentment. The rival publishers had not been pleased
at the strides of the Herald and Journal of Commerce through their
co-operative efforts. There were gruff questions and vigorous dissent.
James Watson Webb heard the plan through impatiently and
reared to his feet. He had never forgiven Hale for breaking the har-
bor news monopoly with his sailboat years before, and he never would
forgive Bennett for violating established newspaper practice by pub-
lishing a penjjy paper which gave the reader more than he was paying
for. His Courier and Enquirer, he said, never would join any organi-
zation which contained Bennett and his Herald. He accused Hale and
Bennett of concocting a scheme which had been so costly that they were
now trying to bamboozle others into paying the bill. Puffing and angry,
he turned to Henry Raymond for approval only to find Raymond's
attention fixed on Hale, who had picked up the interrupted discussion.
Hale turned patiently to another phase of the problem. The situa-
tion on telegraph news was highly complicated. Each paper arranged
for this news independently and paid the full rate to the company j
there was only one wire available to serve all the New York papers j
it had its terminus across the Hudson River on the New Jersey shore j
the papers had to take fifteen-minute turns on the facilities, and all but
the first in line were out of luck. News was read aloud from the crude
Morse ticker to a representative of the receiving paper and there
was deliberate eavesdropping and pilfering. The telegraph companies
were in a precarious position because of their own competitive struggles
and consequently they charged every penny the traffic would bear.
Although telegraph news already was expensive, Hale warned it
might well become even more costly. It was common knowledge that
the telegraph companies were selling news from their various offices
to anyone with the price in spite of the fact that it had been gathered
by representatives of the papers themselves. Hale also had been re-
liably informed that certain wire enterprises were secretly toying with
the idea of setting up regular subsidiary organizations to gather and
transmit news for sale. The dangers were obvious; with no govern-
mental supervision, the telegraph companies could make it virtually im-
possible for any news but their own to move on limited wire facilities}
papers would be forced to surrender the vital function of news gather-
MILESTONES 21
ing, and news itself would be reduced to a purely commercial and un-
reliable commodity dished up for a price by outsiders on a take-it-or-
leave-it basis.
As Hale concluded, Webb was drawn aside from the group by his
able assistant. Raymond, who founded the New York Times three years
afterward, was convinced of the wisdom of the proposal Hale had just
made. A few minutes later the old stalwart of the Courier and En-
quirer returned to the table and one glance told Hale and the others
that the battle was over.
So in the Sun office in May, 1 848, the first real co-operative news-
gathering organization was formed. Its concept was limited and largely
selfish. There was no immediate thought of benefiting any but these
six papers and there was no disposition to look upon the collection of
news as a great public service. The organization was by no means all
that it might have been, but it was a beginning.
They called it The Associated Press.
The first step taken by the new organization was to perfect operat-
ing procedure. Hallock was named president and the office of "general
agent" was created. The man to fill this job would be responsible for
actively collecting and distributing the news, so important a position
that time was necessary to fill it. Therefore a committee was imme-
diately named to supervise the first news-gathering efforts. Frederic
Hudson, Bennett's editorial right-hand man, and Raymond, the bril-
liant managing editor of Webb's Courier and Enquirer, were the two
men selected.
The committee quickly began functioning. First it arranged for the
charter of the steamer Euena Vista at Halifax to intercept all European
boats, obtain what news they brought and rush it on to Boston, the
northernmost terminus of the telegraph. Then it began negotiations
with the wire company to secure precedence for the transmission of this
news to New York at attractive rates. Raymond outlined what was
needed in a letter on May 13, 1848, to F. O. J. Smith, a tight-fisted
promoter then in charge of the Boston-New York telegraph line. He
wrote:
The Journal of Commerce, Express, Courier and Enquirer, Herald,
Sun, and Tribune, of this city have agreed to procure foreign news by tele-
graph from Boston in common and have appointed a committee to make
arrangements with you for its transmission.
22 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Acting on behalf of that committee of the Association, I beg to propose
that you give us, from the moment our dispatch shall be received at the tele-
graph office in Boston, the use of all the wires that may be in working order
for the uninterrupted transmission of all the news we may wish to receive.
Upon its receipt here, we will make copies for each paper entitled to it
and shall desire authority to prevent any part of the news leaving the office
until we choose to send it out.
The arrangement is also intended to apply to steamer's news that may
reach Boston for us by express from Halifax.
Upon what terms will you secure for us, for one year from the present
date, the use of the telegraph as specified above? An immediate reply will
greatly oblige Your obedient servant.
Smith realized the increased business such an arrangement would
bring and two days later he outlined a plan, quoting tolls. Raymond
confirmed the contract on May 18. His communication to Smith said:
I have received your letter of the I5th and have submitted it to Mr.
Hudson, of the Herald, who with myself form the committee to act in behalf
of The Associated Press. The object in making the arrangement proposed is
to prevent the competition and the frequent changes of which you complain.
We intend to forward the news so received, at once, to Philadelphia and
Baltimore, so that the press of those cities will also be interested in the
arrangement.
We understand your offer to be this: that our news shall come through
without interruption; that for the first 3,000 words we pay a gross sum,
$100, without reference to the parties using it; and that for the excess, we
pay the regular rates, one full price and as many half prices as there are
copies used, less one.
We therefore accept the offer and assent to the conditions you have
named.
As the spring days moved on into another summer, it became ob-
vious that Raymond had had definite plans in mind when he mentioned
to Smith the possibility of forwarding news to other papers. The Phil-
adelphia Public Ledger and the Baltimore Sun began receiving dis-
patches. They were not members of The Associated Press — the New
York organization restricted that privilege — but they were its first paying
clients, and as the association grew the profitable practice of selling news
to outside papers was greatly expanded.
Once the channel was clear for foreign intelligence, the committee
turned its attention to news at home. Already there were independent
"telegraph reporters" scattered through the country who wrote and
transmitted copy to any newspaper that would buy. The system under
which they operated was unsatisfactory, but some of the men were
MILESTONES 23 *
good. There was serious need now for a man who was familiar not
only with these free-lance sources, but also with the general operation
of the telegraph. The association found the man for its general agent
in Dr. Alexander Jones, a graduate in medicine whose early interest in
communications had lured him into journalism. He had been a news
gatherer on both sides of the Atlantic and he had devised the first
cipher code to effect savings in telegraph tolls.
Jones opened a simple office at the top of a long, dim flight of
seventy-eight stairs at the northwest corner of Broadway and Liberty
Street. This served as the headquarters of The Associated Press for
more than two decades. The annual rental was less than $500 and the
weekly administrative expense less than $50. The general agent's sal-
ary was $20 a week and the entire cost of operations the first year was
between $10,000 and $20,000. Payment for foreign news was the larg-
est single item.
At first the entire New York staff consisted of Jones and one
assistant, but later there was a second. Trained, capable men were few
and those available needed months of instruction. Besides his work in
New York, Jones was kept busy engaging correspondents, or "agents"
as they were called, to obtain and telegraph news to New York. The
major duties of the general agent were to receive and distribute the
intelligence received from these men, to pay telegraph tolls and other
expenses necessary to conduct the business, and to see to collections from
the six member newspapers and the hinterland clients. Sufficient copies
of each incoming dispatch were made on manifold tissue paper to cover
the list of subscribers.
These were the first days of the sticky postage stamp — an innova-
tion which seemed a curiosity — and the mails carried such obscure family
tidings as the wedding of young Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant and word
that fifteen-year-old James A. Garfield had found a job as a mule
driver.
The great rush was on to California and fantastic tales of for-
tunes in gold trickled overland to the East. But the exciting announce-
ment of this discovery did not reach readers along the Atlantic until late
in 1848 because pieces of ore, sent to the New York Herald by its
Pacific Coast correspondent, lay for months before anyone thought
to have them assayed.
But gold was only one story. The Associated Press covered its first
presidential campaign; a Woman's Rights Convention at Rochester de-
manded suffrage; President Polk offered to buy Cuba for $100,000,000;
24 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Garibaldi's red shirts battled the French j the King of Prussia became
the hereditary emperor of the Germans j the latest census showed
Parkersburg, West Virginia, the center of the nation's 25,000,000 pop-
ulation.
The 1848 presidential election was the first major assignment
undertaken. It had a spectacular, if premature beginning. Public in-
terest centered on the Whig National Convention at Philadelphia where
four men were in the running for the party's nomination: General
Zachary Taylor, Henry Clay, General Winfield Scott, and Judge Mc-
Lean.
The New York terminus of the telegraph line still was in Jersey
City — the problem of bridging wide rivers baffled the wire companies —
and General Agent Jones intended to get the convention news across
the Hudson as fast as possible. Flag signals, he decided, would do it.
He went to Jersey City himself to make sure there would be no slip-up-
At a pier near the Cortlandt Street Ferry on the New York side he
stationed a boy from the Courier and Enquirer. The youngster had
careful instructions. A white flag said Taylor; a red, Clay. Two white
flags on the same staff meant Scott, and two reds, McLean.
Forty minutes after Jones crossed the river, the boy saw a white
flag being waved vigorously from the New Jersey side. He raced off to
notify the New York papers that General Taylor had been nominated.
The news fled north along the telegraph to New England, arousing
great excitement, and in Portland a salute of a hundred guns was fired.
Meanwhile, Jones was waiting patiently in Jersey City. The signal the
boy had seen was the white flag of a broker's representative in New
Jersey wigwagging the latest Philadelphia stock quotations to a lookout
on the Merchants' Exchange building in New York. Fortunately, Gen-
eral Taylor was nominated the next day.
Coverage of the election was an epochal thing. It cost more than
$1,000 — an awesome amount for 1848 — to report General Taylor's
election. For the first time telegraph offices remained open all night,
Dr. Jones went seventy-two hours without sleep before the story was
cleaned up.
Everything considered, the organization was off to a good start,
but the man who began it did not live to see The Associated Press
through its first crucial years. Hardly a month after the meeting in the
Sun office, David Hale had a stroke. He regained strength for a time,
but in January, 1849, death &me to the pioneer of co-operative news
gathering.
MILESTONES 25
There were many difficulties those first years. Now that the asso-
ciation had been launched with a general agent to handle its affairs,
the publishers wanted to believe their news troubles were over. Almost
every successful newspaper was aligned with one political party or
another, and without partisan support they would have had trouble
making ends meet. But the political picture was changing and the
real beginning of an independent press imminent. The old party of
Whigs, long so powerful, was on the decline.
Jones did his best with his modest organization. He was handi-
capped by a lack of experienced help, the slow expansion of the tele-
graph, and the shortage of finances. The publishers saw the association
as a money-saving creation and the $50 weekly allowed for office ex-
pense was not enough. Jones was kept busy day and night, Sundays
and holidays. Years later he complained:
Our services were severe, and help with the proper tact and necessary
prior instruction could not be had. Often on stormy nights in winter, when
our errand boys were ill or absent in Jersey City [which still was the New
York terminus of the telegraph] have we gone around at twelve and one
o'clock and delivered messages with a snow or sleet storm beating in our
face; and having, at many of the offices, to climb three or four pairs of stairs
to find the composing room. For months at a time, we seldom retired before
one o'clock and then had to be on duty through the next day.
He gave The Associated Press all his energy and ability, but with-
out Hale's support and encouragement the strain soon began to tell. In
May, 1851, he submitted his resignation.
II. HESITANT YEARS
DANIEL CRAIG, the hard-bitten Yankee who had started the first
pigeon post, stood on the steps of the telegraph office in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, one day in 1851. He could hear the industrious stutter of a
Morse key and he could see in front of him the blue of the tumbling
Atlantic. At any minute now his outgeneraled rivals would come racing
up uneven Hollis Street to find they had been beaten once more.
He was a hard man to beat, this Craig. For the first several months
of existence, The Associated Press had exerted every resource to outdo
him, but had failed. The sensible thing, then, was to use him, so two
years earlier he had become the association's first regular correspondent
on foreign soil. He operated out of Halifax because that had become the
first port of call of the new Cunard steamers, which were slowly re-
placing the sail. By boarding the craft there he could obtain any in-
coming news and rush it on to Boston and New York, first by pigeon
post and pony express, and then by telegraph as the lines expanded
north.
Fifteen years of news gathering had taught Craig to ignore the
angry outbursts of his worsted opponents. But those rivals and their
confederates were not above cutting telegraph wires, and Craig found
it wise to be watchful until his budget of intelligence had cleared. He
turned for a reassuring look at the lines which stretched from the
office. Just then a clerk stepped up to him with a message. Craig read
it. The Executive Committee of The Associated Press wanted him
to come to New York immediately.
In the two years since Raymond and Hudson had prevailed upon
him to act as foreign news agent, Craig had done well. He established
the first Associated Press office on foreign soil at Halifax early in
1849. He arranged for the first Associated Press pony express that
June to rush the exclusive news of an attempt to assassinate Queen
Victoria in London. He sent The Associated Press's first all-wire mes-
sage of European news from Halifax in November. He successfully
advocated the first Associated Press controlled wire from New York
26
HESITANT YEARS 27
to Boston to St. John to Halifax. And he brought The Associated
Press its first large bloc of outside clients when he induced the papers
in Boston to subscribe to the Halifax-European pony express before the,
telegraph reached Nova Scotia.
At the time Craig's assignment began, the telegraph lines extended
only as far north as Portland, Maine, and getting the news to the wires
was a headlong race. Once Craig's budget reached shore, an express
rider was off with it at a breakneck gallop on the first lap of the 144-
mile trip across the Nova Scotian peninsula from Halifax to Digby
on the Bay of Fundy. Every eight miles a fresh mount waited. It took
the express eight hours to cover the distance — a mile every three and a
half minutes. The riders aroused terrific excitement as they pounded
across the country, and villagers lined the roadsides to cheer them when
they passed. Several miles outside of Digby a cannon was fired to notify
the boat captain at Digby that the express had been sighted. The cap-
tain got up steam and sent a yawl ashore to meet the rider. Then the
fast Digby boat dashed down the Maine coast to Portland and the
telegraph.
Several months later the telegraph wires reached St. John, New
Brunswick, and Craig sent his Digby packet to that port. The ship
made the trip in three hours, enabling Craig to get his news to Boston
on an average of thirty-five hours ahead of the ten-knot Cunarders on
the Halifax-Boston run. Late in 1849 the telegraph bridged the gap
between St. John and Halifax and direct wire communication was estab-
lished with New York.
The hostility of the telegraph people interfered greatly with
Craig's use of pigeons overland, even before the Halifax line was com-
pleted. They considered the birds unfair competition, and went to
great lengths to harass anyone using them. At sea, however, it was
different and the pigeons flew the most important news ashore. In calm
weather Craig could board the incoming Cunarders, obtain his package
of European papers, then return to his own boat and prepare the dis-
patches as he made for shore. When the seas were stormy, the steamers
threw the packages overboard in water-tight half-gallon cans for Craig
to pick up. During the daytime, the cans carried a small flag on a stick,
and at night a flare to guide the news gatherer.
Innumerable hard knocks in the unending struggle to be first
with foreign news had toughened Craig. One of his fiercest battles had
been with a telegraph promoter who had schemed to create and con-
trol a foreign news monopoly. Somehow the promoter always seemed to
28 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
have first call on the wire out of Halifax whenever Craig reached the
office with news from the latest incoming boat. Craig's material accord-
ingly was sidetracked. But Craig was equal to the emergency. As soon
as a steamer was sighted off Halifax, he had an undercover employe
send a cryptic message to another agent at Amherst, the next telegraph
office along the line. The agent at Amherst understood what was then
expected of him. He immediately passed a copy of the Bible over to
the Amherst telegraph operator with word that he was to start sending
"Associated Press Steamer News."
With a sigh the operator began sending: "Associated Press, New
York, N. Y.: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form and void." While this sending was
being made, Craig was meeting the steamer at Halifax and dispatching
his news by pony express to Amherst. It took five hours for the express
to reach Amherst and, during that whole time, the Amherst operator
continued his sending of Scripture to The Associated Press in New
York. Sometimes he got through Genesis and well into Exodus before
the express arrived and the local Amherst agent took back his Bible
and substituted the newly arrived news.
Craig's job was to obtain the news and send it in the most ex-
peditious way possible, and that was what he did.
"The advance receipt of European news by steamer at Halifax
was so important," he said bluntly, "that no consideration of money or
effort would have excused me for a single failure."
As his train rattled southward over the rough roadbed which set
its smoky oil lamps swaying, Craig may have wondered why he was
being called to New York. Before his interview with Hudson and Ray-
mond was ended, however, the first foreign correspondent of The Asso-
ciated Press had become its second general agent.
Craig had barely cleared a desk and established himself in the
Broadway headquarters when another force entered the growing field
of news. Raymond, who had resigned as editor of Webb's Courier ,
founded the New York Times, and he was so well liked that The
Associated Press immediately welcomed his paper into membership.
The Times proved a beneficial influence. A definite division was
slowly splitting the ranks of the membership. The Herald, the Tribune^
and the Sun believed that the activities of the association should be in-
HESITANT YEARS 29
creased. The Express, the Courier and Enquirer > and the Journal of
Commerce were satisfied with things as they were. Raymond's Times,
with its policy of initiative, broke the deadlock.
Another important factor appeared. In the earlier days of the
Morse, the swelling volume of news had been a nightmare for editors
who found their antiquated printing equipment incapable of handling
it. Machinery had failed to keep pace with the abruptly increased speed
and volume of news. Just as the trouble was becoming acute, Robert
M. Hoe discovered that the secret of rapid printing was to take the
type from the flat bed on which it had reposed so many centuries and
put it on a cylinder. His first rotary press appeared two years before
The Associated Press was founded, but only now was the improved
equipment replacing outmoded machinery in the plants of the larger
papers.
The revolving cylinder brought an era of faster editions, larger
papers, and a greater use of news.
Activities of news pirates and bids of short-lived opposition agencies
failed to check The Associated Press and the number of subscriber
papers increased as urban centers enlarged. Payments from these "out-
side" sources supplied funds for expansion and at the same time made
it possible for the seven New York members to receive a steadily larger
report at a fraction of the expense that would have been necessary had
the news organization been restricted to New York alone.
Gradually the subscriber papers began to gravitate into loosely
defined geographical groups. Two major reasons prompted the rise of
these groups. Their news was distributed to them on a regional basis,
and a regional grouping facilitated their dealings with New York. In
time these local associations were referring to themselves by such names
as the Philadelphia Associated Press, New York State Associated Press,
Southern Associated Press, Western Associated Press, and the like.
Sometimes the word "Associated" was omitted and the papers were
spoken of merely as the Baltimore Press, or the Southern Press.
To distinguish the pareijt organization from these loosely formed
groups, the newspaper world began to speak of it as the New York
Associated Press. It remained the only association which endeavored
to obtain all important domestic and foreign news and the others
looked to it for coverage on everything outside their various geograph-
ical divisions.
The telegraph slowly expanded, but Craig never completely aban-
doned a belief that his organization should take over communications
30 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
facilities as subsidiary. He saw the telegraph as a logical "tail to The
Associated Press kite." He feared the attempts of the telegraph com-
panies to gather and sell news. Under the pretext of necessity — and he
had a free hand most of the time — he went as far as he dared in efforts
to convert the association's members to his point of view. Once, to
assure delivery of his news without interference, he took a half interest
in a line for a small amount and disposed of it in a few years at a
profit of $100,000. He subsequently helped build other lines and con-
trolled them temporarily in his capacity as general agent.
Dealing with the staff, he had considerably more success in en-
forcing his views. He was a stickler for correctness and insisted his men
be likewise. He knew that it was a general practice for a reporter in
one city to telegraph a few lines on the main facts of an event, leaving
it to an imaginative editor on the receiving end to "blow up" the story
into several hundred words with whatever "details" came to mind.
Craig issued orders that if a story was important enough to warrant
details the details were worth the wire costs. The rule shocked an ex-
perienced "telegraph reporter," who protested that editors did not
know the difference between real and imaginary news. But the re-
porter did not raise the point a second time. He did things Craig's
way.
Another reform was the end to the practice of sending news re-
ports in bewildering codes or highly skeletonized jumbles. Codes and
ciphers had been the first reaction to the high cost of telegraphy. With
words costing so much each, an attempt was made to compress phrases
and even parts of sentences into one polysyllabic combination. This
produced such amazing "words" as caserovingedsable, hoveesness,
rehoeingedableness, and retackmentativeness. Craig put a stop to that.
He ordered all the association's dispatches sent in full, and woe betide
telegraph men who took liberties with them. The change was a nine-day
wonder in the newspaper world.
In 1856 Craig pointed out to the seven New York member papers
that it was dangerous for the association tq continue operations without
more definitely defined rules of procedure. A meeting was held on
October 21 and out of it came a formal reorganization which set the
association on a more businesslike basis, promulgated a code of regula-
tions and redefined methods. The reorganization emphasized the essen-
HESITANT YEARS 31
tially selfish purpose of the association. It was a union of seven morning
papers — there were still few afternoon editions — and the news collected
was designed solely to meet their needs, without any consideration for
the wants of subscriber papers. The subscribers, in effect, were journal-
istic vassals who dutifully paid tribute for such news as their New York
overlords saw fit to provide.
One of the outstanding results of the reorganization was an order
to the general agent to establish the first two formal Associated Press
bureaus in the United States — at Washington and Albany. The associa-
tion already had correspondents in most major centers and now it was
logical to establish them in offices and to provide, in some cases, for
assistants.
The Washington bureau, or "agency" as it was called, was put in
charge of Lawrence Augustus Gobright, a veteran who had been re-
porting the capital's news for The Associated Press since 1848. He had
been a familiar newspaper figure since the dim, half-forgotten days of
Clay, Webster, and Calhoun. His service had been so long that they
called him "Father" Gobright, though he was not yet forty.
With authority better defined, Craig did not hesitate to crack down
vigorously. Even James Gordon Bennett had no immunity and twice
when he was disciplined by the general agent he threatened to with-
draw the Herald from membership. There was little attempt to dis-
guise the fact that the object of the association was to create and per-
petuate a news monopoly, and Craig bluntly stated: "We succeeded and
compelled the editors to abandon their arrangements and come into
ours."
However much he might be occupied with the details of adminis-
tration, the general agent never forgot that his prime concern was news
— lifeblood of the association. He had been compelled to devote most of
his time to the development of domestic news, but he retained a keen
interest in the European budget. When he left Halifax he had com-
missioned William Hunter, a resourceful, pugnacious man like himself,
to represent The Associated Press. Craig could find no fault with the
way the foreign news was sent to New York once it reached Canadian
soil. But all of Hunter's efforts and all the swiftness of the telegraph
could not change the fact that European news was weeks late. The
telegraph had conquered the land but not the seas. Any news report
was a mixture of fresh domestic intelligence and stale date lines from
abroad.
III. "WE WILL GO ON"
IT WAS the evening of August 17, 1858. President Buchanan, in shirt
sleeves, examined a remarkable message before him and drummed his
fingers on the arm of his chair. He was sixty-eight and on this occa-
sion he looked it because of the sultry heat of summer. Members of
the Cabinet lounged about the White House study. The secretary of
the treasury, Howell Cobb, relaxed on a sofa, shook his head in dis-
belief for the dozenth time. It was a hoax, he declared, and in these
days of growing agitation there was sufficient deceit in the land without
swallowing another fraud.
The brief, unexplained message purported to be a greeting com-
posed abroad only that day by Queen Victoria and already delivered in
Washington to the President of the United States!
Everyone, however, did not agree that the message was a hoax.
The messenger said he had come from Agent Gobright of The Asso-
ciated Press. Moreover, there had been word from Cyrus Field a fort-
night before that he had brought the North American end of his
Atlantic cable ashore at Trinity Bay, linking Newfoundland and Va-
lentia, Ireland. Buchanan read the message again:
THE QUEEN DESIRES TO CONGRATULATE THE
PRESIDENT UPON THE SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OP
THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL WORK, IN WHICH THE
QUEEN HAS TAKEN THE GREATEST INTEREST.
That was what the message said and Secretary of the Interior
Thompson, most active of the indolent group, had been dispatched to
the Associated Press office to find out the truth of the matter. The
Cabinet idled on until he returned with Gobright, who soon cleared up
the puzzle.
The greeting had, in truth, come by Field's new cable under the
ocean from Valentia to Trinity Bay, and thence by land telegraph from
Newfoundland. It had been received from Field along with other mes-
sages to The Associated Press. Although it was unknown at the time,
the one-sentence message did not contain all that the queen had said.
The following addition came through the next day:
32
"WE WILL Go ON" 33
. . . THE QUEEN IS CONVINCED THAT THE
PRESIDENT WILL JOIN WITH HER IN FERVENTLY
HOPING THAT THE ELECTRIC CABLE, WHICH NOW AL-
READY CONNECTS GREAT BRITAIN WITH THE UNITED
STATES, WILL PROVE AN ADDITIONAL LINK BETWEEN
THE TWO NATIONS, WHOSE FRIENDSHIP IS FOUNDED
UPON THEIR COMMON INTERESTS AND RECIPROCAL
ESTEEM. THE QUEEN HAS MUCH PLEASURE IN THUS
DIRECTLY COMMUNICATING WITH THE PRESIDENT, AND
IN RENEWING TO HIM HER BEST WISHES FOR THE
PROSPERITY OF THE UNITED STATES.
The President and his perspiring Cabinet finally were persuaded
as to the authenticity of the Queen's brief greeting and the chief
executive drafted a reply which he asked Gobright to send.
"I'll make a copy," the agent told the President, *"and keep the
original."
Secretary Cobb, still at ease on the sofa, felt that the original should
be deposited in the public archives. But Gobright wanted it for him-
self and the President made the decision.
"It's yours, sir," he said.
The correspondent glanced at the first official message ever to be
cabled from this country and hurried along to follow Buchanan's re-
quest. The message, which Gobright later donated to a historical col-
lection, read:
THE PRESIDENT CORDIALLY RECIPROCATES THE
CONGRATULATIONS OF HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN ON THE
SUCCESS OF THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL ENTERPRISE
ACCOMPLISHED BY THE SKILL, SCIENCE AND INDOM-
ITABLE ENERGY OF THE TWO COUNTRIES. IT IS A
TRIUMPH MORE GLORIOUS BECAUSE FAR MORE USEFUL
TO MANKIND THAN WAS EVER WON BY A CONQUEROR ON
THE FIELD OF BATTLE. MAY THE ATLANTIC TELE-
GRAPH UNDER THE BLESSING OF HEAVEN PROVE TO BE
A BOND OF PERPETUAL PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP BE-
TWEEN THE KINDRED NATIONS AND AN INSTRUMENT
DESTINED BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE TO PURSUE ITS
RELIGION, CIVILIZATION, LIBERTY AND LAW THROUGH-
OUT THE WORLD. IN THIS VIEW WILL NOT ALL THE
NATIONS OF CHRISTENDOM SPONTANEOUSLY UNITE IN
THE DECLARATION THAT IT SHALL BE FOREVER NEUTRAL
AND THAT ITS COMMUNICATIONS SHALL BE HELD
SACRED IN PASSING TO THE PLACE OF THEIR DESTI-
NATION EVEN IN THE MIDST OF HOSTILITIES?
This had been a casual incident in the White House, but there was
nothing matter-of-fact in the exuberant reception the nation gave the
34 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
news that Field had succeeded after two costly failures. Papers clarioned
the triumph by which Europe and America were linked by one slender
wire snaking across the bottom of the Atlantic. In New York Bennett's
Herald shouted its loudest, and city after city joined in the plans for a
nation-wide celebration on September i. Field was toasted, given medals
and lionized. Cannon boomed, bells rang, and whistles shrieked. There
were parades, dinners, and fireworks. Poets wrote flowery odes and red-
faced orators declaimed on the new union of the two continents. Gen-
eral Agent Craig was personally very happy. He felt that the cable
would immediately solve the problem of slow receipt of foreign news.
In the midst of this great rejoicing the first European cable news in
the history of the world spanned the Atlantic. It was addressed to The
Associated Press. The essence of condensation, it read:
EMPEROR OF PRANCE RETURNED TO PARIS SATUR-
DAY. KING OP PRUSSIA TOO ILL TO VISIT QUEEN
VICTORIA. HER MAJESTY RETURNS TO ENGLAND 31ST
AUGUST. SETTLEMENT OF CHINESE QUESTION: CHINESE
EMPIRE OPENS TO TRADE; CHRISTIAN RELIGION AL-
LOWED. MUTINY BEING QUELLED, ALL INDIA BECOM-
ING TRANQUIL.
The next day, August 28, the station on the North American main-
land was answering with a budget of American news which included
yellow fever statistics from the South and brief details of the plans for
formal celebration of the successful cable.
But cable signals were growing fainter and the operators were find-
ing it difficult to understand them. The message was long in transit.
There were uneasy periods during which the two stations could not hear
each other and then, just as the September celebration was at its height,
the last faint signals came over the lines.
The cable was dead.
The disappointment was tremendous. Those who had most loudly
acclaimed Cyrus Field and his assistants damned the cable as a gigantic
hoax. They claimed that no messages ever had been received or trans-
mitted. There even was talk that the cable was a subterfuge for a stock-
selling swindle. But the line was dead and The Associated Press was
forced to lay aside its hurriedly formulated plans for use of the new
link in international communications. The old reliable newsboats con-
tinued their assignments off Halifax and Cape Race.
Field met dejectedly with the directors of his company soon after
the blow had fallen. Large sums of money had been lost and the
"WE WILL Go ON" 35
failure would make it difficult to find public backing for another at-
tempt. Peter Cooper, the noted inventor, threw a consoling arm over
Field's shoulder. As a director of the cable company, he had invested
heavily in the venture.
"Do not give up hope," he said, "we will go on."
But black thunderheads were filling the horizon. The storm was
inevitable and when its fury broke the nation and its news gatherers had
little attention for Field or his persevering efforts. The storm had been
brewing a long while. Its first cloud had appeared over Jamestown,
Virginia, one August day two hundred and forty-nine years before.
John Rolfe, husband of the Indian princess Pocahontas, had recorded
the fact:
About the last of August, came in a Dutch man of Warre that sold us
twenty negars.
IV. BUGLES BLOW
WHAT would Lincoln do?
General Agent Craig stood at the news pulse of the anxious na-
tion in the large, dingy, carpetless headquarters of The Associated Press
in New York. He weighed the question. The mass of dispatches in his
hand was far from reassuring that gloomy November day of 1860.
They told of southern students quitting classes at Harvard to return
home, of the Richmond Enquirer screaming "An Act of War" at Lin-
coln's election as President, and of General Scott's warning on the
dangers of secession. National tension was mounting hourly and Craig
debated his problem.
Some persons felt that the whole tide of sectional differences arose
because a humanitarian North wished to free the slaves of a feudal
South, but hardheaded Craig could see there was more to it than that.
There were fundamental differences in the two sections and long years
of ignorance had not helped to bring about an understanding. The dif-
ferences between the two suspicious, badly informed sections were too
many to be overcome. A truthful, alert press would have helped, but
much of the press had been anything but that. The warped, fanatical
opinions and the twisted reports in news columns, North and South,
were almost as much to blame as any other single factor. In this atmos-
phere of sectional recrimination, Craig knew it was too late to do any-
thing about the shortcomings of the past. The day had not yet arrived
when newspapers drew a distinct line between the news columns and the
editorial page, but he intended to use his influence to prevent distortion
of Associated Press reports.
Craig could not recall when a president-elect had assumed such
sudden importance in the destinies of the country. Overnight the home
of the furrow-faced lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, had become the
focal point for a troubled people's attention. In 1852 and again in
1856 the general agent had found that successful candidates produced
news only occasionally in the preinaugural months and consequently
required only casual attention. But with Lincoln it was different. Craig
36
BUGLES BLOW 37
decided the time had come when the association must keep a corre-
spondent constantly with the President-elect.
The unprecedented assignment went to a 25-year-old Mid-wes-
terner, Henry Villard, who was excited by his novel and important mis-
sion. He received a warm welcome at Springfield. Lincoln held many
conferences those fateful weeks and Villard reported them all. It be-
came known that the President-elect would accept almost any com-
promise with the disaffected southern states except one sanctioning ex-
tension of slavery to the territories not yet ready for admission to the
Union. That stirred up a furor 5 then the announcement of some mem-
bers of his Cabinet brought another blast of condemnation.
Villard reported the facts, but no facts during those preinaugural
days could stay the relentless march of events. On December 20, 1860,
South Carolina adopted the first ordinance of secession and the Charles-
ton Mercury shouted: "The Union Is Dissolved." Before 1861 was a
week old other states followed and the office at Broadway and Liberty
was flooded with dispatches which told of the seizure of federal arsenals
and forts, of regiments being raised, of bellicose speeches.
Lincoln stood on the train platform at Springfield and looked down
into the faces of the group of friends gathered to bid him good-bye as
he left for Washington. He was somber with worry and the demon-
stration touched him. In a few brief sentences he said farewell. The
speech caught Villard unprepared and as soon as the train pulled out
the Associated Press man came to him and explained his predicament.
Lincoln reached out, took the correspondent's pad and pencil, and
while the train jolted eastward he carefully set down the words he had
spoken. At the first telegraph station Villard filed the dispatch, which
concluded with the eloquent words of Lincoln's parting:
MY FRIENDS, NO ONE NOT IN MY POSITION CAN
APPRECIATE THE SADNESS I PEEL AT THIS PARTING.
TO THIS PEOPLE I OWE ALL THAT I AM. HERE I
HAVE LIVED MORE THAN" A QUARTER OP A CENTURY;
HERE MY CHILDREN WERE BORN AND ONE OP THEM LIES
BURIED. I KNOW NOT HOW SOON I SHALL SEE YOU
AGAIN. A DUTY DEVOLVES ON ME WHICH IS, PER-
HAPS, GREATER THAN THAT WHICH HAS DEVOLVED
UPON ANY OTHER MAN SINCE THE DAYS OP WASHING-
TON. HE NEVER WOULD HAVE SUCCEEDED EXCEPT POR
THE AID OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE, UPON WHICH HE AT
ALL TIMES RELIED. I PEEL THAT I CANNOT SUC-
CEED WITHOUT THE SAME DIVINE AID WHICH SUS-
TAINED HIM, AND IN THE SAME ALMIGHTY BEING I
PLACE MY RELIANCE POR SUPPORT; AND I HOPE YOU,
38 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
MY FRIENDS, WILL ALL PRAY THAT I MAY RECEIVE
THAT DIVINE ASSISTANCE, WITHOUT WHICH I CANNOT
SUCCEED, BUT WITH WHICH SUCCESS IS CERTAIN.
AGAIN I BID YOU ALL AN AFFECTIONATE FAREWELL.
It was easy for many newspapers to overlook that little speech in
the thickening sheaf of dispatches that passed over Craig's desk that raw
February. Jefferson Davis was inaugurated the first President of the
Confederate States of America. In Charleston harbor guns under the
brave new palmetto flag pointed menacingly across the water toward
Fort Sumter. "The Southern Excitement" or "The Southern Troubles"
became standing headlines in the North, and the secession spirit spread
even to New York where the council was asked to declare Manhattan
a free city, independent of the wrangling states.
On a melancholy March day the telegraph clicked and the story
went chattering into scores of newspaper offices that the one-time rail
splitter had taken his oath of office. Then came the text of the inaugural
address with its somber admonition: "In your hands, my dissatisfied
fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil
war." Word for word the document went to Associated Press members
and clients. Lincoln had furnished his own printed copy with its nu-
merous corrections and extensive interlineations so that it might be
telegraphed in full.
March swept on into April and there was nothing to report except
that the tense nation hovered on the brink. The animosities did not
appear to have touched all the people everywhere, and in the Asso-
ciated Press office at Louisville, headquarters for the South, a repre-
sentative of the client papers below Mason and Dixon's line still worked
amicably enough with old Tyler, the Yankee agent there. The duty
of the southern representative was to select from the incoming tele-
graph report of the New York Associated Press a daily budget of news
for his own subscribers.
Then, at Washington, Gobright obtained the first authentic story
of the administration's complete policy toward the seceded states — and
two days later the four long, red years began.
They began, not in Washington, but miles southward. It was four-
thirty in the morning of April 12, 1861. The agent at Charleston
watched a signal rocket arch out over the harbor toward the Union
garrison of Fort Sumter and a second later saw the first Confederate
shell go screaming across the water. He sent his dispatch. Thirty-four
BUGLES BLOW 39
hours later he reported the fort's surrender and in New York Bennett
wrote an editorial in a single line: "Civil War has begun."
Resourceful as Craig might be, he had no precedent on which to
model the activities of the association. The technique for reporting mili-
tary action had to be learned by trial and error. Even by the loose
standards of the day the number of experienced reporters in the service
was few, for most of the agents who manned Craig's scattered outposts
had been chosen primarily because of their ability to use the telegraph.
Battles were not fought conveniently in the backyard of telegraph offices
and wire facilities were rambling and insufficient.
Thus far, however, the agents were acquitting themselves well.
Through the worried weeks since the 1860 election, while the crisis
mounted and prejudices ran wild, their dispatches, even as read now,
show factual directness and great restraint. These were the days of
flowery, declamatory journalism, and frequently the correspondents for
individual papers wrote with undisguised bias. In the news columns,
side by side with such excitable accounts, the association's dispatches
seemed strangely calm, direct, and terse. As the long bloody miles to
Appomattox unrolled, many a successful skirmish was hailed by writers
representing one journal or another as "a glorious, overwhelming vic-
tory," and many a sorry rout excused as "a strategic withdrawal before
a vastly superior enemy." But somehow Craig's agents managed to cling
close to a factual sanity and keep their dispatches reasonably free of
gaudy, artificial heroics.
Gobright summed up the creed effectively:
My business is to communicate facts; my instructions do not allow
me to make any comment upon the facts which I communicate. My dis-
patches are sent to papers of all manner of politics, and the editors say they
are able to make their own comments upon the facts which are sent them.
I therefore confine myself to what I consider legitimate news. I do not act
as a politician belonging to any school, but try to be truthful and impartial.
My dispatches are merely dry matters of fact and detail. Some special cor-
respondents may write to suit the temper of their organs. Although I try
to write without regard to men or politics, I do not always escape censure.
On April 15, 1861, Lincoln called for 75,000 militia "to suppress
obstructions to Federal laws in the seceded states," and in Boston the
bells rang all day. Jefferson Davis retorted with an appeal for 42,000
men to serve in the ranks of the Confederacy, and the South dreamed
of a short, glorious fight to victory. In New York a mob marched on the
Journal of Commerce demanding that Gerard Hallock, its pacifist
40 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
editor and president of The Associated Press, display the union em-
blem. He quickly did so. Earlier the crowd had marched down to Ful-
ton Street, where Bennett was not quite so well prepared. While they
stormed the Herald's door and shouted threats, the agitated office staff
sought frantically for a flag and the nervous publisher paced the floor.
The frenzied search failed to produce a banner and an office boy was
sent out the back door to the nearest Broadway department store. The
crowd's temper had reached the boiling point by the time the youngster
returned. The hastily purchased Stars and Stripes was broken out from
a flagpole and then Bennett himself appeared smiling at the window.
War fever spread, and North or South it was: Follow the Flag or
Wear Petticoats.
Then two awkward, amateur armies met near Bull Run in the
blazing heat of July 21. The sloppy blue lines rolled forward in a
fumbling attack which nevertheless seemed assured of victory and an
officer in gray was shouting: "Look! There stands Jackson like a stone
wall!" To Washington by courier and telegram went the exultant
prediction of triumph and a raw agent with the Union Army, after
seeing the Confederate forces so badly hammered, set off for the capital
at a mad gallop with the details of the unfinished battle. It was his first
experience under fire and he was so unstrung when he reached Wash-
ington that he was unable to write his account. Gobright took charge,
pieced the story together, and dispatched the first eyewitness account
to New York. He started writing at nine o'clock that night and it
was after eleven before he finished.
The distraught correspondent would have preferred some whisky
for his nerves, but Gobright ordered the telegraph line kept open and
dragged his tired companion off to seek later arrivals from the field
who might have additional news. It was just then that the first panic-
stricken fugitives began to straggle into the city and from them Go-
bright learned the incredible news that the tide of battle had turned,
transforming an apparent Union victory into decisive Union defeat. The
details were sketchy but enough to send Gobright racing for the tele-
graph office to dispatch a description of the reversal of federal fortunes;
Gobright counted himself lucky in having held his night wire open
long enough to obtain and send such important information, but the
next day he discovered that not a single paper had printed his mo-
mentous story of the Union defeat. Instead, they had printed only the
earlier material brought in by the field correspondent.
The North was hailing this incomplete report as the first "glorious
BUGLES BLOW 41
victory" for the Union and the exuberant populace was celebrating with
clanging bells and wild hurrahs. Gobright learned what had happened.
As soon as Winfield Scott, general in chief of the northern forces, had
heard of the disastrous turn in the battle's t;de he dispatched a rider to
the telegraph office with orders to prevent the transmission of any
word of the defeat. Gobright's story never had left the wire company's
office. It was the first instance of official censorship, but it was an unmis-
takable warning of what was to come.
The war was on in grim earnest and the federal government,
lacking an adequate telegraph service of its own, commandeered the
facilities of The Associated Press to handle military communications.
This imposed a heavy handicap on the association. Henceforth military
messages took precedence and the flow of news was increasingly re-
stricted as the volume of these messages grew. Craig saw one advantage
to be gained. His agents would be brought into close daily contact with
the army and since many of them were telegraphers, they frequently
would be privy to the contents of the messages they handled. Craig
felt confident that in this way his men in the various cities would be
able to keep well informed of facts throughout a war which already
was spawning endless rumors and alarms.
But the campaigns were not fought in the cities, and Craig
methodically set out to organize his corps of war correspondents to
accompany the Union armies into the field. He began recruiting new
men and dispatching them to the ill-defined fronts which were slowly
taking shape — to Missouri, to Kentucky, to the strategic points along the
Ohio, to West Virginia where the cocky star of McClellan had started
its rise, and into Virginia where the Bonnie Blue Flag whipped defiantly
over the Confederate outposts. His preparations went ahead independ-
ent of the pretentious individual efforts of the New York publishers.
For the first time in many years the hurried plans of the jour-
nalistic powers were minus the loud and bullying influence of one
famous old personality. James Watson Webb no longer was on the
scene. He had disposed of his paper and it was consolidated with the
newly founded World, which acquired the Courier's Associated Press
membership. The indefatigable Bennett was mapping a coverage cam-
paign which cost him $525,000 and put sixty Herald correspondents in
the field. Greeley's Tribune, Raymond's Times, and the others likewise
42 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
were assembling their forces. The private news armies they marshaled
were large, but Craig's forces were even more numerous. One of the
Herald's staff, surveying the war zones, wrote: "The special corre-
spondents of the several New York papers are nearly if not quite as
numerous as the agents of The Associated Press."
They were a picturesque lot, these correspondents, some smooth-
shaven youths, some with long Quakerlike beards, some mustached in
the approved style of the day. Kossuth hats and fancy vests were uni-
versal favorites and all wore stiff collars. Campaign kits were not
elaborate — revolver, field glasses, notebook, blanket, haversack —
although a good mount was indispensable. For the risks and arduous
living demanded, the monetary return was not great. Salaries ranged
from $10 to $25 a week for the men in the field, out of which they had
to pay their own expenses, to a maximum of $35 for key men in such
centers as Washington and Louisville. General Agent Craig received
$3,OOO annually.
From the flatlands of Virginia to the muddy Mississippi unsea-
soned armies maneuvered and feinted for advantage. But before an-
other major battle followed the rout of Bull Run there was trouble on
the home front which ended the career of Gerard Hallock, president of
The Associated Press since its foundation.
Under Hallock's personal direction, the Journal of Commerce had
been outspoken in its opposition to the Lincoln administration and the
prosecution of "the present unholy war" with the South. He himself
wrote most of the editorials which so offended fiery Union supporters.
With the war fever at fanatical heat, a federal grand jury stepped in
with a presentment denouncing the Journal of Commerce as disloyal
and recommending that the paper be prosecuted along with several
others. Later it was said that the foreman of the jury had reason to
nurse a grudge against Hallock because of the editor's refusal to accept
a bribe for publishing a "puff." A patriotic boycott was unloosed against
the Journal of Commerce. Its circulation suffered, but Hallock stuck to
his course, unmindful of threats against his life. Then came the second
blow. The postmaster general barred the paper from the mails. Hal-
lock fought the order as in violation of the Bill of Rights, but it was
not revoked and the Journal of Commerce faced the certain loss of its
profitable out-of-town circulation. Its evening edition was suspended and
the morning edition was distributed only to those who did not receive
their paper through the mail.
It was obvious that the Journal of Commerce could not continue to
BUGLES BLOW 43
publish under such a handicap and so on August 31, 1861— the day the
publication completed its thirty-fourth year— the editor stepped down
to save the life of his paper. He disposed of his interest to David M.
Stone, head of the Journal's commercial news department, and to
William Cowper Prime, author and traveler, who immediately suc-
ceeded him as president of The Associated Press. Beyond Hallock's
embarrassment at the stigma of "disloyalty" to the Union, his retire-
ment had no consequences. The beliefs expressed in his columns rep-
resented his own personal feelings and were not reflected by the press
association.
But Hallock never lost his absorbing interest either in the Journal
of Commerce or in The Associated Press. For the next several years,
even after he retired with his family to Connecticut, he watched news
gathering pursue its uneven course. He wrote letters to the editor and
from time to time he offered advice to his former colleagues.
He sat one winter afternoon beside the smoldering fire in the
living room of his home overlooking the Connecticut River. A blanket
rested across his legs and he was intent on the current edition of his
favorite paper. Presently he called the members of his family to join
him. He talked with them of the past and of the future and then
asked if he might be alone.
When they returned ten minutes later the first president of The
Associated Press was dead.
V, THE LONG CAMPAIGN
NORTH, south, east and west men marched and countermarched
through 1 86 1. Generally overlooked in those hectic days was the part
the special correspondents of many northern newspapers were playing
by disclosing Union strategy to the Confederacy. Not content with
attempts to get news first, they tried to anticipate it and unwittingly
served the Confederate cause. For a long time their stories kept the
South remarkably well informed on federal plans. Southern spies in
the North watched the newspapers closely, forwarding any important
information they contained, sometimes even maps of projects, cam-
paigns, or fortifications. In the South this problem did not develop so
acutely. An official agency supplied the papers there with war news
and the authorities were better able to control the information published.
It was not only this aiding of the enemy that was turning Union
generals against the war correspondents as a group. Too many reporters
were writing fantastic, erroneous stories. They embroidered "atrocity"
reports. They set themselves up as experts in -military strategy and
they railed at any officer whose ideas on a campaign differed from their
own. And woe to the general who did not acknowledge their dignity.
The Department of the Cumberland, the military designation for
the area with Union headquarters at Louisville, had more than its
share of these so-called correspondents in the autumn of 1861. William
Tecumseh Sherman, the general commanding, made no attempt to
conceal his contempt for them. The only two men he trusted were
quiet old Tyler, the Associated Press agent, and Henry Villard, who
had joined the Herald since his preinaugural press association work with
Lincoln. Because the government had commandeered the association's
telegraph facilities, the Associated Press agency in Louisville virtually
became a part-time headquarters for Sherman. He was there night
after night, tall, sharp-eyed, brusquely abstracted. When he talked at
all, it was to Tyler or Villard.
Sherman was worried. He saw that the war would be a long and
bloody one and he was afraid the Confederates would seize the strategic
44
THE LONG CAMPAIGN 45
vantage points in Kentucky and along the Ohio before he had sufficient
men to hold them. The special correspondents continued to ridicule
him. One of them wrote that Sherman had the manners of a Pawnee
Indian and when the general upbraided him the correspondent apolo-
gized in print — not to Sherman, but to the Indipns!
Then many reporters for the private press seized upon his moodi-
ness and whispers began to circulate that the general was suffering
from mental depressions, spells, and aberrations. The whispers grew
until they reached Washington. Sherman was relieved of his command
and sent to an inconsequential "safe" post in Missouri. Then on Decem-
ber n, 1 86 1, the most abusive of all libels was splashed across certain
front pages. "General William T. Sherman Insane!" was the headline
in the Cincinnati Commercial, over a story which began:
The painful intelligence reaches us in such form that we are not at
liberty to disclose it, that General William T. Sherman, late commander
of the Department of the Cumberland, is insane. It appears that he was at
the time while commanding in Kentucky stark mad.
. After months under a cloud, Sherman fought his way back as
one of the greatest military figures of the war, but he never forgave
that "slanderous insanity story." Two years later, at Vicksburg, three
special correspondents were erroneously reported lost. The general
received the news with caustic sarcasm. "That's good," he exclaimed.
"We'll have dispatches now from hell before breakfast."
Although Associated Press men themselves had nothing to do with
the libel, the entire press without distinction suffered the consequences
for the remainder of the war. It multiplied the difficulties of obtaining
official news and it made army officers openly hostile. Associated Press
agents and other correspondents who tried to be accurate labored under
as much disrepute as their careless, vindictive colleagues.
The first war Christmas passed and the New Year came — 1862.
In New York the association's headquarters had grown to five rooms
and the office staff was enlarged to meet the demands which had come
with the conflict. The general agent had two assistants and a corps
of six copyists, or manifolders, who transcribed dispatches by hand on
the flimsy, carbon-smeared tissue sheets which were distributed by four
messengers to members and clients in the city.
Before the costly spring campaigns got under way the truculent
new secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, clamped down on news
gathering. "All newspapers publishing military news, however obtained,
46 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
not authorized by official authority, will be excluded thereafter from
receiving information by telegraph and from transmitting their publi-
cations by railroad." That was his order, aimed primarily at the papers
which had been disclosing military secrets to the enemy. It aroused so
much editorial opposition that he modified the regulations the next
day to permit the publication of "past facts, leaving out details of
military forces, and all statements from which the number, position
and strength of the military forces of the United States can be inferred."
Editors continued to storm, but Stanton was not to be trifled with.
Already he had thrown one special correspondent into prison and,
moreover, he was the wartime czar of both the telegraph and the
railroad.
From Craig's agents in Virginia came accounts of defeat after
defeat — the fierce Peninsular campaign, another rout at Bull Run, the
awful slaughter at Antietam, and Burnside's butchery of an army before
the heights of Fredericksburg. Only from the West came tidings to
relieve the Union's gloom. A new leader, Ulysses S. Grant, was
shouldering his way in a slam-bang fashion through the back door of
the South. And that superannuated sea dog, Admiral Farragut, captured
New Orleans. The London Times put mourning borders around the
news when it reached Europe many days later.
Special writers signed their accounts with fancy pseudonyms, but
there were no "by-lines" for the Associated Press agents on the many
fronts. Occasionally a copyist might absently include the name of the
agent at the end of a dispatch — McGregor with the Army of the
Potomac, Weir with the Army of Tennessee, Tyler in Kentucky — but
those were exceptions. For every exception there were hundreds of
accounts which submerged the identities of the men on the battle
lines with the impersonal description: "From the Associated Press
Agent."
The dispatches which came to the general agent ordinarily were
brief. The curtailment of wire facilities limited his correspondents to
terse bulletins on important engagements. These were followed a day
or more later by more extended eyewitness accounts. In the East the
agents often found it quickest to jump a train immediately after a
battle and write their stories en route to New York or some intermediate
city where telegraphic transmission could be arranged. Sometimes they
used messengers, sometimes they galloped the long miles themselves,
and sometimes they relied on the mails. It was even more difficult for
the men in the West where train service was erratic and infrequent.
THE LONG CAMPAIGN 47
They had to trust to the mails or the good graces of a military courier
to carry the dispatches which supplemented the meager intelligence
the army allowed on the telegraph. But, East or West, the anonymous
agents somehow contrived to get their news through with a promptness
that was creditable.
Like the troops in the winding blue columns they accompanied,
Associated Press agents were mystified that year by the peculiar-looking
two-horse wagon which followed the army. The soldiers called it the
"What-is-it-wagon" — a name that stuck — and jested about the short-
bearded man who rode after it in a battered buggy. He was Matthew
B. Brady, the "What-is-it-wagon" was his traveling darkroom, and
together they were the quiet heralds of the beginnings of news photog-
raphy. In those days a camera still was an oddity and pictures had to
be developed within five minutes after exposure or else they would
spoil. Brady used the primitive equipment expertly to produce a pictorial
history of the war. The newspapers were not equipped for engraving
and reproduction, so Brady's photographs did not appear to illustrate
dispatches from the field of battle.
The year dragged on to its end, and when the general agent
totaled his expenditures for 1862 the amount reached the unheard
peak of $123,408. The assessments against the seven papers had risen
to $214 a week, and the afternoon papers in the city — three in number —
were paying $119 each. Out-of-town subscribers were charged from $7
a week upward for the little they received. Craig accompanied his
financial accounting with a report setting forth that he had been able
to save $20,000 by various news arrangements. "Indeed," he told the
members, "holding practically a monopoly of the telegraphic news of
the country, you are saving the expenditure of many thousands of dollars
which would be required in case you had determined opposition." He
also reminded them that more than half the association's entire expense
was met by subscribers who had no say about the report they received.
. News-gathering difficulties in New York were taking an unfore-
seen turn. There had been a steady drain of city reporters to the
various fronts and the seven member papers soon found themselves
hard put to arrange for adequate coverage of local news. Because of
this shortage of man power, the newspapers filled some positions with
women, but the problem still remained acute. The situation finally
prompted an organizer named Thomas Stout to establish a private
48 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
service which years later was considered a forerunner of the present
New York City News Association, which gathers the news of the
metropolis. He called it Stout's Agency and recruited a staff of ten
men to cover local assignments ordered by short-handed city editors
or the general agent.
The war went on and it was 1863. The price of newsprint soared.
Small change had virtually disappeared and people paid streetcar fares
with postage stamps. There was talk about an unknown "scribbler"
named Walt Whitman who had burst upon thp literary horizon, and
there were advertisements for artificial limbs. Out in the West the
dogged Grant was stubbornly hammering away at Vicksburg, and in
Virginia the genius of Robert E. Lee seemed never surer.
June came and the whole anxious North was asking: "Where is
Lee?" No one seemed to know. Gobright scurried about Washington,
trying one official source after another. Then among the straggling
crowds on Pennsylvania Avenue he met a friend who was with the
army as a staff officer. After a hard ride from western Maryland the
official had just arrived with a message for the secretary of war. Lee
had invaded the Free State and was moving north on Pennsylvania at
the head of an army of 80,000 men! The officer had few particulars,
but what he had sent Gobright hurrying off to the room high up in the
National Hotel where Stanton's censors operated. Gobright wrote his
alarming dispatch that Lee was invading the North — it was not more
than twenty lines — and pressed it upon the censor.
"It can't go," said the War Department official.
"But why?" asked Gobright.
"Because it gives information to the enemy."
Gobright was exasperated.
"Colonel," he asked, "do you suppose the enemy does not know
what he himself is doing? And besides, is it not important that the
people of Pennsylvania and New York should know of their danger?"
In the face of this logic, the censor finally agreed to pass the
dispatch if Gobright qualified it with the cautious prefix: "It is said."
So the dispatch sped to New York with the first staggering news that
Lee and his gray legions were sweeping north.
Just one week from the day Gobright sent the news, the North
was wildly rejoicing at the first meager tidings of the victory at Gettys-
burg. Church bells tolled and then a telegraph key tapped out a terse
Associated Press message from the West: "Grant has captured Vicks-
THE LONG CAMPAIGN 49
burg." No single day in three years had brought such news, and the
day happened to be the Fourth of July.
Battles were obvious things, and it took no great reportorial
discernment to recognize an advance or a retreat, a victory or a rout.
But too often news judgment was wanting a^d correspondents and
editors alike stood unseeing in the presence of important history. It had
been that way in January, 1861, when Confederate batteries drove off
the relief ship bringing supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumterj
editors did not realize that those were the opening shots of civil war.
It had been that way in March, 1862, when the Monitor, that "cheese
box on a raft," fought the Merrimac in Hampton Roads 5 editors did
not see that the long history of wooden navies was over. And it was
that way, too, in November, 1863, when Lincoln delivered his Gettys-
burg address.
It was almost an afterthought that Lincoln had been asked to
attend the dedication of a national cemetery on the battlefield. The
President was given to understand that his part would be quite second-
ary. "It is desired," he was told, "that after the oration you, as chief
executive of the nation, finally set apart these grounds to their sacred
use by a few appropriate remarks."
So Lincoln sat on the platform and listened to the Honorable
Edward Everett's elegant periods. Pencils of journalists raced. For
more than an hour the famous orator spoke and when he reached his
peroration there was a storm of applause. So intent were many on
congratulating Everett that they missed the solemn opening words of
the President. "Four score and seven years ago," he was saying, "our
fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation . . ."
The next day newspapers published long, laudatory columns on
Everett's address, and most accounts ended with the brief sentence:
"The President also spoke." Here and there an editor gave some
obscure position to the text of what the President had said because
The Associated Press had delivered it to his newspaper. Indeed, years
afterward a story persisted that an unsung agent for The Associated
Press was the only one to telegraph Lincoln's words just as he delivered
them.
After three years of civil war it was 1864 and Lee was still master
of the snowy Virginia flatlands. Across the Potomac political veterans of
three years1 hard campaigning at the Willard bar gulped their neat
5O AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
whiskies on cold January nights and conceded Lincoln little chance of
re-election. Perennially hopeful, Cyrus Field haunted London, seeking
funds and waiting for the war to end so he might make still another
attempt to lay an Atlantic cable. And young Henry Villard, one-time
Associated Press agent with Lincoln, was back in Washington after his
siege as a war correspondent.
The general agent in New York presently heard of Villard's
return and of what he was doing. The ambitious Midwesterner had
conceived the idea for a news service to rival The Associated Press in
Washington news. It was not long before he had five papers subscribing
to his report and The Associated Press was in arms at the temerity of
this upstart. Competition might be the life of trade, but at this stage
neither Craig nor the seven members he served liked the idea. Villard
was an interloper and they attacked him.
While Villard and Craig fought, the secretary of war was still
cudgeling his brains for a foolproof method of combating the misin-
formation which appeared with increasing frequency in some publica-
tions. Censorship had not proved enough and there was no use in
suppressing papers when Lincoln permitted them to resume. Stanton
hit upon a solution. He would write a "war diary." Perhaps Lincoln
himself had something to do with the inauguration of the official
communiques, for he believed the people should have the news and
on more than one occasion he made sure that important intelligence
was given to The Associated Press.
Stanton acted on his idea immediately. Each night he wrote a
dispatch summarizing the day's military events. The "war diary"
dispatches were addressed ostensibly to General John A. Dix, the chief
military authority in New York, but actually were prepared for The
Associated Press. Dated variously between eight o'clock in the evening
and two in the morning, the bulletins set forth with brevity and
restraint the daily progress of each command.
The entire Union perhaps never was so anxious for news as during
the first week of May, 1864, after Grant disappeared into the tangled
underbrush of the Wilderness to start his campaign against Lee and
Richmond. All communications were cut and for two days there was no
word. Then Henry J. Wing of the New York Tribune, after a
dangerous all-day journey, reached Washington with the first account
of the opening of a bloody battle. Lincoln was so overjoyed at the
information and at a private message Wing gave him from General
Grant ("Tell him for me that whatever happens, there will be no
THE LONG CAMPAIGN 51
turning back") that he impulsively kissed the youthful correspondent.
Then apologetically the President told Wing he had robbed the Tribune
of the beat. "He told me," the correspondent related, "that to relieve
the anxiety of the whole country regarding Grant's first contest with
Lee, he had arranged with my managing editor to give a summary to
The Associated Press to appear in all the papers."
The fierce campaign in the Wilderness remained the biggest news
one night two weeks later when a nervous messenger made the rounds
of the newspaper offices in New York. He carried several copies of
the same story. All bore the heading, "To The Associated Press," and
told under a Washington date line that President Lincoln had issued
a surprise call for 400,000 more troops and had appointed a national
day of fasting and prayer for victory.
ThelDoy stopped at the Times, at the World, at the Sun, at the
Herald, and then at the Express. When he reached the Tribune build-
ing the door he tried was locked and he scuttled away. In a few minutes
he was at the office of the Daily News, which only recently had begun
to buy the news report. The boy passed the pages across the counter
and was starting for the door when the editor hailed him. Why wasn't
this dispatch in the usual Associated Press envelope? The messenger
stuttered, then blurted out that the supply of envelopes had run out
and the dispatch was too important to be delayed.
A presidential proclamation was important news. Although dead-
lines were near, grumbling editors began to rip out front pages to make
room for it. But deadline or no deadline, the editor at the Daily News
was dubious. The Times office was the nearest, so he sent a copy boy
there to see if that paper had the same dispatch. The Times had the
proclamation, but the inquiry aroused suspicion and an editor went
hurrying to the Tribune. The mysterious messenger had tried the wrong
door and consequently the Tribune men knew nothing about the story.
There was a hurried dash to the Associated Press offices and there the
dispatch was immediately branded a forgery.
The presses already were printing at the Herald, the Express, the
Journal of Commerce, and the World, but the Herald discovered the
truth in time to destroy its edition. The Express, too, learned in time,
but word reached the Journal of Commerce and the World too late.
The papers already were on the street, in the mails, and on steamers
for delivery abroad. Rewards were posted for the perpetrator of the
hoax and the general agent hurriedly sent off telegrams warning all
subscribers not to pick up the counterfeit.
52 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
But the damage had been done and War Secretary Stanton's orders
crackled over the telegraph to General Dix in New York. Blue-coated
troops went tramping into the World and Journal of Commerce offices
and publication was suspended. Manton Marble, editor of the World,
and William C. Prime, Journal of Commerce editor and president of
The Associated Press, were clapped into the military prison at Fort
Lafayette.
For four days the bogus proclamation was a major mystery. Then
the culprit was discovered. He was Joseph Howard, publisher of the
struggling New York Daily Star. Acting at the behest of Wall Street
promoters, his aim was to create a disturbance in the stock market and
he had deliberately withheld delivery of his false intelligence until the
early morning hours when it was unlikely that the copy would be
carefully examined before use.
The Journal of Commerce and the World were not the only papers
to suffer. In New Orleans, then in Union hands, the Picayune picked
up the proclamation from a mail edition and fared even worse. General
Banks suppressed the paper from May 23 until July 9, while Prime
and Marble were exonerated at Lincoln's order and their publications
resumed in a week. But there was a certain curious irony about the
whole affair. Before two months were over Lincoln not only called
for additional troops, but also set aside a national day of prayer for
victory.
As soon as Howard had been thrown into prison, The Associated
Press took steps to protect members and subscribers against a recurrence
of such fraud. A special iron stamp was made and henceforth all
dispatches bore its imprint.
The civil conflict was almost over now and the news reports added,
day by day, the final details. Sherman reached the sea in December,
1864. Then bugles sang in the April dawn and Richmond fell. A week
later — April 9, 1865 — it was Palm Sunday and at half past one in the
afternoon Grant and Lee met in the home of Wilmer McLean on
a dusty road near Appomattox. At four o'clock they shook hands.
McGregor, the Associated Press agent with the Army of the Potomac,
watched them as they came out. Lee had surrendered.
Only a few newspapermen were awake, keeping the watch, when
the news reached Washington. Telegraph keys began to click, and at
dawn a tremendous thunder broke all the windows in Lafayette Square.
Five hundred cannon were roaring out a salute. Even Stanton was
affable.
THE LONG CAMPAIGN 53
The city was in a gala mood and when John Francis Coyle,
editor of the National Intelligencer, encountered John Wilkes Booth
shortly before noon on Good Friday he did not think it strange that
the handsome actor should invite him to share a bottle of wine. Over
their glasses Booth expressed anything but satisfaction with the outcome
of the Union efforts and fumed against the i resident, the government,
and the North.
"What would happen," he said, "if Lincoln were removed?"
The editor answered that and many other questions on the same
subject. But Booth obviously had been drinking and Coyle did not
bother to wonder what prompted such sudden technical interest.
They talked on into the afternoon until the actor tossed off his
last glass of wine and then made his departure. He seemed in great
spirits.
4
"Father" Gobright puffed on the big cigar that had been given
him by a tipsy captain at the Willard bar and leaned back in his chair to
scan the out-of-town editions. The Washington agent had written his
last dispatch for the night and already it was on its way to the New
York office. It stated that General Ulysses Grant had changed his mind
and, instead of attending the play, Our American Cousin, at Ford's
Theatre, as advertised, had departed with Mrs. Grant for New Jersey.
In the few days since Appomattox the ill-kempt city had taken on
a crude and garish atmosphere of rejoicing. The dreary years of conflict
and uncertainty had given way to a surging relief and even Lincoln
was joining in the celebration. Along with other dignitaries, he and
Mrs. Lincoln were at Ford's Theatre. Although General Grant had
been able to persuade Mrs. Grant to go north instead, the President
had not been successful with his suggestion to Mrs. Lincoln that an
old newspaper friend, Noah Brooks, accompany her in his place.
Gobright sat in his office until the hands of the clock dragged to
nine-thirty and on toward the hour. Just as he was turning another
page, the office door burst open and a friend rushed in shouting. The
story came in snatches. The man had raced from Ford's Theatre by
hack. He was upset, but Gobright began to ask questions.
A few seconds later the agent was hurrying off the dispatch:
WASHINGTON, APRIL 14, 1865
TO THE ASSOCIATED PRESS:
THE PRESIDENT WAS SHOT IN A THEATRE
TONIGHT AND PERHAPS MORTALLY WOUNDED.
54 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Minutes after the assassin leaped from Lincoln's box Gobright
was standing beside the chair in which the President had been shot.
The military was in command and a cordon of bayonets and blue
uniforms circled the theater. All doorways and passages were barred.
A crowd materialized in the streets outside, but the assassin was gone.
Gobright had just entered the presidential box when William
Kent, a theater employee, stooped beneath one of the seats, picked up
a pistol, and placed the stubby firearm in the agent's hand. The audience
was still horrified below. A young naval officer demanded that the gun
be surrendered, but Gobright would give it to no one but the police.
He quickly got the picture of the attack as it had occurred. He
examined the torn flag in which the assassin's spur caught as he jumped
from the box to the stage to scream, "Sic semper tyranms!" Then he
followed the path of escape out a back door. Gobright was leaving the
theater to get back to the telegraph office when he heard that Secretary
of State Seward also had been attacked as he lay sick at home. In his
commandeered hack Gobright hurried to the Seward residence. There
he obtained all the information available and was off to the boarding-
house to which the President had been carried. Then he returned to
his office to send additional details.
Months afterward when there was time for reminiscing the agent
recalled:
Returning to the office, I commenced writing a full account of that
night's dread occurrences. While thus engaged, several gentlemen who had
been at the theater came in, and, by questioning them, I obtained additional
particulars. Among my visitors was Speaker Colfax, and as he was going to
see Mr. Lincoln, I asked him to give me a paragraph on that interesting
branch of the subject. At a subsequent hour, he did so. Meanwhile I carefully
wrote my despatch, though with trembling and nervous fingers, and, under
all the exciting circumstances, I was afterward surprised that I had succeeded
in approximating so closely to all the facts in those dark transactions.
Long before Gobright began to prepare his full story of the
attacks, his first dispatch had galvanized the New York office. Copyists
on duty wrote furiously. Sleepy messengers were rushed out to deliver
the news to the offices of member papers in other parts of the city,
and there was driving haste to prepare the information for telegraphing
to client papers. All this took time, yet the speed was considered
exceptional.
Greeley's Tribune was ready to go to press as the messenger
dashed in with the wrinkled sheet of copy. It was the first bulletin
THE LONG CAMPAIGN 55
from Washington and page one was hurriedly dismantled. Typesetters
went to work, headline writers scribbled, and the story was thrown
together in the extreme left column — then the preferred front-page
space. So sensational was the news that the Tribune crammed into its
columns, in the order of arrival, every scrro of information that it
received. Shortly after the first Associated Press dispatch, the Tribimefs
own correspondent in Washington was heard from, first in a message
to "stop" the press association bulletin and later in dispatches that were
not always accurate, particularly in the premature report of the Presi-
dent's death. And so details of the story appeared as received, the
erroneous bulletins intermingled with the accounts from Gobright.
Next morning the Tribune's left column read:
HIGHLY IMPORTANT!
The President Shot!
Secretary Seward Attacked
First Dispatch
Washington, April 14, 1865
To The Associated Press:
The President was shot in a theatre tonight and perhaps mortally
wounded.
Second Dispatch
To Editors: Our Washington agent orders the dispatch about the
President sent "stopped." Nothing is said about the truth or falsity of the
report.
Third Dispatch
Special to the New York Tribune:
The President was just shot at Ford's Theatre. The ball entered his
neck. It is not known whether the wound is mortal. Intense excitement.
Fourth Dispatch
Special to the New York Tribune :
The President expired at a quarter to twelve.
Fifth Dispatch
Washington, April 15, 12:30 A.M.
To The Associated Press:
The President was shot in a theatre tonight and perhaps mortally
wounded.
56 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The President is not expected to live through the night. He was shot
at a theatre.
Secretary Seward was also assassinated.
No arteries were cut.
Particulars soon.
Then came Gobright's long story under the heading "Particulars."
Through the night, as additional reports were available, the details
moved from Gobright's office to the office of the general agent and
thence to subscribers. Secretary of War Stanton also sent an official
announcement to Major General Dix in New York. It reached General
Agent Craig in the early morning.
Gobright's longest telegram, the "Particulars," was unusually
detailed and stood for many years as a model of the reportorial style
of the day. It read:
Washington, April 14.
President Lincoln and wife, with other friends, this evening visited
Ford's Theatre, for the purpose of witnessing the performance of the "Amer-
ican Cousin."
It was announced in the papers that General Grant would be present.
But that gentleman took the late train of cars for New Jersey.
The theatre was densely crowded, and everybody seemed delighted
with the scene before them. During the third act, and while there was a
temporary pause for the actors to enter, a sharp report of a pistol was heard,
which merely attracted attention, but suggesting nothing serious, until a man
rushed to the front of the President's box, waving a long dagger in his right
hand, and exclaiming, "Sic semper tyrannis" and immediately leaped from
the box, which was in the second tier, to the stage beneath, and ran across
to the opposite side, making his escape, amid the bewilderment of the audi-
ence, from the rear of the theatre, and mounting a horse, fled.
The screams of Mrs. Lincoln first disclosed the fact to the audience
that the President had been shot; when all present rose to their feet, rushed
toward the stage, many exclaiming, "Hang him! Hang him!"
The excitement was of the wildest possible description, and of course
there was an abrupt termination of the theatrical performance.
There was a rush toward the President's box, when cries were heard,
"Stand back and give him air!" "Has any one stimulants?" On a hasty
examination, it was found that the President had been shot through the head,
above and back of the temporal bone, and that some of the brain was oozing
out. He was removed to a private house opposite to the theatre, and the
Surgeon-General of the Army, and other surgeons, were sent for to attend
to his condition.
On an examination of the private box, blood was discovered on the
back of the cushioned chair in which the President had been sitting; also on
THE LONG CAMPAIGN 57
the partition, and on the floor. A common single-barrelled pocket-pistol was
found on the carpet.
A military guard was placed in front of the private residence to which
the President had been conveyed. An immense crowd was in front of it, all
deeply anxious to learn the condition of the President. It had been previously
announced that the wound was mortal, but all hoped otherwise. The shock
to the community was terrible.
At midnight the Cabinet went thither. Messrs. Sumner Colfax, and
Farnsworth; Judge Curtis, Governor Oglesby, General Meigs, Colonel Hay,
and a few personal friends, with Surgeon-General Barnes and his immediate
assistants were around his bedside. The President was in a state of syncope,
: totally insensible, and breathing slowly. The blood oozed from the wound
at the back of his head.
The surgeons exhausted every possible effort of medical skill, but all
hope was gone!
The parting of his family with the dying President is too sad for de-
scription. The President and Mrs. Lincoln did not start for the theatre until
fifteen minutes after eight o'clock. Speaker Colfax was at the White House
at the time, and the President stated to him that he was going, although
Mrs. Lincoln had not been well, because the papers had announced that
General Grant and they were to be present, and, as General Grant had
gone north, he did not wish the audience to be disappointed.
He went to the theatre with apparent reluctance, and urged Mr. Colfax
to accompany him; but that gentleman had made other engagements, and
with Mr. Ashmun, of Massachusetts, bade him good-bye.
When the excitement at the theatre was at its wildest height, reports
were circulated that Secretary Seward had also been assassinated.
Reported Assassination of Mr. Seward
On reaching this gentleman's residence, a crowd and military guard
were found at the door, and on entering, it was ascertained that the reports
were true.
Everybody there was so excited, that scarcely an intelligible word could
be gathered; but the facts are substantially as follows:
About ten o'clock, a man rang the bell, and the call having been an-
swered by a colored servant, he said he had come from Doctor Verdi, Secre-
tary Seward's family physician, with a prescription, at the same time holding
in his hand a small piece of folded paper, and saying in answer to a refusal,
that he must see the Secretary, as he was instructed with particular direc-
tions concerning the medicine. He still insisted on going up, although re-
peatedly informed that no one could enter the chamber. The man pushed
the servant aside, and walked heavily toward the Secretary's room, and was
then met by Mr. Frederick W. Seward, of whom he demanded to see the
Secretary, making the same representation which he did to the servant. What
further passed in the way of colloquy is not known, but the man struck him
on the head with a billy, severely injuring the skull, and felling him to the
58 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
floor almost senseless. The assassin then rushed into the chamber and attacked
Major Seward, Paymaster United States Army, and Mr. Hansell, a mes-
senger of the State Department, and two male nurses, disabling them all. He
then rushed upon the Secretary, who was lying in bed in the same room,
and inflicted three stabs in the neck, but severing, it is thought and hoped,
no arteries, though he bled profusely. The assassin then rushed downstairs,
mounted his horse at the door, and rode off before an alarm could be
sounded, and in the same manner as the assassin of the President.
It is believed that the injuries of the Secretary are not fatal, nor those
of either of the others, although both the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary
are very seriously injured.
Secretaries Stanton and Welles, and other prominent officers of the gov-
ernment, called at Secretary Seward's house, to inquire into his condition,
and there, for the first time, heard of the assassination of the President. They
then proceeded to the house where he was lying, exhibiting, of course, intense
anxiety and solicitude. An immense crowd was gathered in front of the
President's house, and a strong guard was also stationed there, many persons
supposing that he would be brought to his home.
The entire city to-night presents a scene of wild excitement accom-
panied by violent expressions of indignation and the profoundest sorrow.
Many shed tears. The military authorities have dispatched mounted patrols
in every direction, in order, if possible, to arrest the assassins. The whole
metropolitan police are likewise vigilant for the same purpose.
The attacks, both at the theatre and at Secretary Seward's house, took
place at about the same hour, ten o'clock, thus showing a preconcerted plan
to assassinate those gentlemen. Some evidences of the guilt of the party who
attacked the President are in possession of the police. Vice-President Johnson
is in this city, and his headquarters are guarded by troops.
The story written, Gobright took up his vigil outside the house
in which the dying President lay. More than once he had swapped
stories with the chief executive and during the long early morning hours
many pictures of the man came to mind. There was the Lincoln who
could enjoy a joke even when it was on himself — the Lincoln who
could fill with emotion at the sight of suffering — the Lincoln whose
ready wit could be devastating in driving home an argument. Gobright
had been a veteran in Washington even before Lincoln appeared on
the scene as an Illinois congressman and at one time or another he
had had occasion to write about every one of those Lincolns he now
remembered.
Nevertheless, he did not write the final lines of the assassination.
With other correspondents, he was excluded from the house. War
Secretary Stanton took everything into his own hands.
Day dawned and it was raining. More hours of waiting. Another
THE LONG CAMPAIGN 59
of the secretary's military couriers emerged from the shuttered house,
swung into a saddle, and clattered off. No one knew at the time, but
he was riding to the telegraph office and he carried one of the last
of Stanton's hastily scribbled "war diary" messages. The message was
for the New York Associated Press and it read:
ABRAHAM LINCOLN DIED THIS MORNING AT
TWENTY-TWO MINUTES AFTER SEVEN O'CLOCK.
VI. THUNDER IN THE WEST
THE long siege between the Union and the Confederacy had obscured
events which ultimately exerted a decisive influence on the course of
news gathering. During the war years hinterland publishers first began
to chafe at the journalistic servitude in which they were held by the
New York Associated Press. The most important stirrings of discontent
were in the West.
As a geographical designation, "West" was a vague expression.
Because the nation had been born along the Atlantic seaboard, anything
beyond the Alleghenies was the West, and even before Chicago existed
there were such thriving centers as Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Louisville,
Cincinnati, Detroit, and St. Louis. Just as in other areas, the journals
of the West had risen with the growth of populations and the increase
of literacy. Like all the other "outside" papers, they paid their money
as clients to the New York Associated Press and took whatever was
doled out to them.
The inequity of this condition became greater as the West grew
stronger. By the second year of the Civil War the publishers of
western papers had started to prepare for journalism's own internal
conflict. The call to arms — necessarily a discreet one — was sounded by
Joseph Medill, the erect, sharp-featured publisher of the Chicago
Tribime.
The lot of MedilPs Tribune was neither better nor worse than
that of its major western contemporaries. In spite of the feverish public
interest in Civil War news, the service supplied by the New York
Associated Press was far from adequate. Dispatches came by telegraph
only four hours nightly — between six and ten o'clock — and Medill
knew they represented only a minor portion of the daily file collected
primarily for the New York papers. The arbitrary price exacted for
that sketchy budget was out of all proportion.
A lawyer before he became a publisher, Medill realized the futility
of protest. He was at the mercy of a firmly entrenched news oligarchy
and it would be absurd to attack it singlehanded. As matters stood, he
60
THUNDER IN THE WEST 61
was helpless. He must have news, however inadequate, and if he
refused to meet New York's demands, he would be cut off in the midst
of the biggest news period of the nation's history. General Agent Craig,
spokesman for the owners in the East, tolerated no opposition.
Together with other papers beyond the Alleghenies, the Chicago
Tribune belonged to the loosely grouped affiliation of journals known
as the Western Associated Press. This was primarily a regional associa-
tion which had not thought of mutual protection and advancement.
Medill took the initiative late in the war year of 1862. A letter
went out from the Chicago Tribune to fellow publishers. It was time,
it hinted, for Westerners to unite in a real alliance, but they must do
it warily so as not to arouse the suspicions of New York or to provoke
reprisals. Medill suggested a meeting. To all appearances it would be
a casual, regional gathering to discuss limited, routine problems.
That meeting was held in Indianapolis late the same year. Medill
and his colleagues took special care to let New York hear of it and
they welcomed the representative sent by Craig. A model of circum-
spection, the meeting appointed an Executive Committee with Medill
as chairman, to represent the group in all negotiations with the East.
So discreet were requests that the New York representative was able
to report that it had been a very friendly meeting in which entirely
"satisfactory agreements" were reached for continuation of the existing
relationship.
New York dismissed the meeting with little thought, but it marked
the formal start of a real Western Associated Press.
The first tentative steps of organization begun, a meeting in 1863
at Dayton produced more tangible results. The Western Associated
Press felt strong enough to experiment and voted to send a committee
to New York to seek a larger and better prepared report. Medill
described what was accomplished:
We succeeded in being allowed to put a news agent in the office of the
New York Associated Press with authority to make up and send a three hun-
dred word extra dispatch to afternoon papers and a one thousand word
message to be put on the wire after ten P.M. for the morning papers. It was
called the midnight dispatch and was published in an extra edition. We
secured it at low tolls. The extra day dispatch was comparatively expensive
as the wires were occupied at that time on commercial business.
Medill continued his interest and when the 1864 meeting convened
in Cincinnati he urged that the Western Associated Press be put on a
legal basis. After some discussion, the decision was made to seek a
(>2 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
charter of incorporation. H. N. Walker of the Detroit Free Press was
chosen to apply to the Michigan legislature for a special act making the
charter possible.
Once the uncertainties of the Civil War had been banished, the
West entered upon a truly epic period of expansion. Pioneers and their
covered wagons were rumbling westward from the Mississippi, onward
to the Rockies and the Sierras. Chicago was the hub from which the
spokes of expansion radiated west. It was the capital of a broad new
empire in which there were now 103 daily journals. On the plains
sledge rang on spike as sweating labor gangs pushed forward the road
of steel and ties.
Side by side with the advancing rails marched the telegraph, but
in many places it struck out boldly for itself across prairie and mountain.
The lines strung on into the purple distance and suspicious Indians
inspected the strange strands. They listened to the hum of the wires
and in time they learned how the magic of the telegraph could summon
the "Long Swords" of the palefaces. This "talking wire" was evil
medicine, and war parties went whooping forth to cut the wires, fell
the poles and massacre the men in the isolated stations where the
talking wire spoke. And in the Southwest, cowboys were finding the
telegraph a source of sport. The insulators on the poles proved irre-
sistible targets and blazing six-shooters kept linesmen busy repairing
damaged lines. But the poles and wires kept moving onward.
The West was on the march. Yet when the publishers filed into
Masonic Temple at Louisville on November 22, 1865, to perfect their
recently chartered organization, there was a strange lack of belligerency
and outspoken criticism on the subject of New York. The growing dis-
content in the Western Associated Press was well underground — a calm
before the storm that broke within a year.
The meeting adopted resolutions designed to leave General Agent
Craig under the impression that everyone was well content. In the light
of later events, two of them stood out as shrewdly conceived. One was
a friendly gesture to the publishers of the prostrate South, expressing
disappointment that they had been unable to meet with the Westerners
and suggesting that either they attend future sessions or "that they
organize a Southern Associated Press." The other resolution outlined
for the West's special agent in New York the factors he should take
into consideration in selecting the limited reports he was permitted
to send. It contained four rules for news handling which stood for
many years to come:
THUNDER IN THE WEST 63
Telegraph reports should above all else be reliable; they should be as
brief as possible; information should be selected for its interest to the sub-
scribing papers, not for its importance in New York, and in most cases
editorial comment of New York papers should be disregarded; also news
items should be compiled without giving credit to papers except where the
authority is an essential part of the news.
Small papers as well as large were represented in the Western
Associated Press and it was necessary that action be taken to dispel
any fears of the little publishers that the wealthier newspapers would
dominate. This feeling had manifested itself the year before. The small
papers then were receiving the same budget as more affluent contem-
poraries, although at lower assessments, and in most cases the wordage
was ample for their needs. They were afraid that a larger report would
saddle them with increased expense for news which only the big papers
could handle.
To reassure them, a resolution was adopted specifying that news-
papers having the need and the large resources could obtain more news
without obligating proprietors of the small papers. This regulation was
made part of the working constitution in 1865. In order to allay any
other fears, Medill stepped aside and J. D. Osborne, of the Louisville
Journal, was chosen president to succeed him.
The first big event of 1866 was Cyrus Field's final triumph over
the Atlantic. He had bounded back from his failure of years before
with new backers and many more hundreds of miles of cable.
Dissatisfaction in the Western Associated Press was reaching
intolerable proportions just about the time of Field's success. The papers
felt confidence in the strength of their organization and they knew they
could rely on the financial support of the bulk of their membership.
The end of the Civil War had removed their fears of being arbitrarily
cut off from vital news and they were free to assert themselves. With
the new cable opening up broader news horizons, there was an added
incentive to seek a voice in the management of news gathering and an
end to the inequities which galled them.
The discontent was not confined to the West. Trouble was brewing
among the seven members of the New York Associated Press. The
balance of power was now in the hands of the ultra conservatives. The
four members who held the reins underestimated the force which
64 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
was rising elsewhere in the country. They were blind to the necessity
for initiative in news gathering and failed to comprehend the ferment
agitating the "outside" clients.
Back of the New York dissension was the old rule of the association
forbidding any one of its members to publish telegraph news from
any part of the world without first making it available to all six others.
This was a discouraging burden for the minority because the less
ambitious papers could sit back and feel perfectly assured that they
would receive all the news the others compiled at great individual
expense.
The cleavage thrust General Agent Craig into the most anomalous
position of his regime. He agreed with the minority, yet he was forced
to act counter to his beliefs. The strong-minded Yankee grew increas-
ingly restive. Little by little rumors began to seep west that Craig was
at loggerheads with the men who were dictating the policies at New
York.
The Western Associated Press had waited a long time, but now
the psychological moment had arrived and it was in an atmosphere
of resentment that the membership convened in Detroit on August 7,
1866. Some members were for a quick and open action, but the knowl-
edge that there was disagreement in New York — it was probable that
the information had come from Craig himself— counseled more subtle
tactics.
On the vital issue before the organization — independence of New
York or equality with it — the entire course of action was placed in the
hands of the Board of Directors. The breach in New York was becoming
daily wider and the Western directors bided their time.
The bombshell exploded on November 5. To every client of the
New York Associated Press went a telegraphic note declaring that
Daniel Craig, for fifteen years the monarch of news gathering, "is
discharged by unanimous vote of the members," and that "Mr. James
W. Simonton has been appointed General Agent" in his place. It was
signed by W. C. Prime, as president of the New York association, and
Joseph P. Beach, as secretary.
The wires sizzled with a heated rejoinder by Craig denouncing the
Prime-Beach statement as "utterly and infamously false." He denied
he had been dismissed and volunteered the startling information that he
was planning a new and better news service.
"My resignation," he declared, "has been in the hands of the
Executive Committee for several weeks, and whether accepted or not,
THUNDER IN THE WEST 65
I should have retired at the end of this time, at which time, as I have
good reason to believe, every agent or reporter of the association will
earnestly co-operate in the new movement, which I assure you is started
with the most ample backers, and its results will largely promote the
interests of all the papers outside of this city, and I shall confidently
hope for your earnest approval."
The secret was out. Craig confidently expected to take with him
all the employes of the New York Associated Press both at home
and abroad. The seven squabbling New York members did not know
every detail of his quietly devised plans, but the dominant faction had
acted with lightning swiftness to oust him as soon as it learned that
he proposed to start another news-gathering organization. Craig's sum-
mary dismissal ruined his plan to keep his project under cover until
everything was ready and he could leave the stunned New York
members in the lurch. He was forced to leave his old job at once and
he turned all his energy to his audacious new undertaking.
Simonton, the new general agent and a close friend of Raymond
of the Times, was catapulted overnight into a trying position. He was
suddenly expected to do all things. He must direct the operation of
the news report without interruption. He must meet the menace of
Craig's bold promise to raid the profitable ranks of his news customers.
And he must maintain control of the restless "outsiders" who already
were eager to do business with Craig.
The New York Associated Press had been maneuvered into a
perilous spot and the Westerners did not see how they could lose. Either
New York must grant them the full concessions they were prepared to
demand or else they could sever all relations and join Craig. Each
passing day made the old association more vulnerable, and the strate-
gists of the West watched for New York and its new general agent
to make some overture. But New York was too busy fending off Craig's
forays among its near-by clients.
On the day Craig's new service began the Executive Committee of
the Western organization was on its way to New York. Murat Halstead
of the Cincinnati Commercial, and Horace White of the Chicago
Tribune carried with them complete authority to obtain the concessions
desired or to "make such other arrangements as they should deem
advisable" for another news service.
66 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The envoys from the West were both young men. Halstead, a
stubborn, fiery individual with the mustache and goatee of the tradi-
tional southern colonel, was thirty-eight and his companion several
years younger. Both were experienced journalists and White had the
added advantage of five years' experience as agent for the New York
Associated Press in Chicago. He took the post in 1855 and covered the
famous Lincoln-Douglas debates for the organization he was now ready
to fight.
Halstead and White found New York an industrious city with a
population close to the million mark. The wires from telegraph poles
laced through the branches of shade trees along Broadway. Office
forces worked ten hours a day, six days a week, and there were no
female employes. The basement of the modest J. P. Morgan building
in Wall Street was stacked with the wares of a retail wood and coal
dealer, and inflated rubber bosom pads were the latest boon to the
feminine figure.
The two Westerners went straight to the New York Associated
Press offices on lower Broadway where boxlike containers rattled back
and forth above the street on three miniature aerial railways, shuttling
dispatches from the association's headquarters to the wires of the near-by
telegraph company. The aging, one-time schoolmaster who presided
over the messenger boys greeted them and led the way to the committee
room.
There the powers waited — President Prime; Joseph P. Beach, man-
ager of the Sun; George Jones, business manager of the Times; Samuel
Sinclair, publisher of the Tribune; Manton Marble, of the World, and
Simonton, the new general agent. The Express was not represented,
but Halstead and White already knew that Erastus Brooks was on a
hurried trip upstate in an effort to hold the wavering New York State
Associated Press in line. Nor was there anyone from the Herald. Young
James Gordon Bennett, who had succeeded his father, was busy getting
his sleek yacht Henrietta ready for a transatlantic race.
Halstead, as spokesman for the West, told the New Yorkers that
his association wanted an equal voice in all news-gathering affairs. Such
a proposal shocked the monopolistic group.
"Any such proposal is out of the question," Prime declared.
"Such an idea cannot even be considered."
"Why not?"
Baldish and slightly hunched, the president of the New York
Associated Press wrinkled his brow and attempted to explain.
THUNDER IN THE WEST 67
"The New York Associated Press," he said, "was founded by six
publishers who have sponsored organized news gathering since 1848.
We have facilities for carrying on the work and we do not propose to
delegate any of our authority. It is unthinkable that an outside group
should presume to feel it can have any voice in our affairs. News
gathering is our business enterprise and we do not propose to share it
with others. Consideration of your plan would imply that the Western
Associated Press is entitled to be treated as an equal, and that would
be an intolerable humiliation."
Halstead and White objected to such a narrow concept of news
gathering, but, making no impression, suggested another meeting the
next day. Prime and his colleagues consented — it would give these
Westerners time to realize New York could not be frightened into
agreement with their plan. The second meeting was inconclusive and
a third was arranged.
But Halstead and White were not bluffing. They had proceeded
cautiously pending an opportunity to appraise the preliminary success of
Craig's new independent agency — the United States and Europe Tele-
graph News Association, which was backed by the Western Union.
The new service had begun auspiciously on November 24 and the
reports for the first four days were workmanlike and promising. One
of Craig's initial policies had been to provide, by way of the new cable,
a good budget of foreign news, a large portion of it from sources
formerly controlled by the New York Associated Press. This assured
the West of some improvement in cable coverage and Craig had further
promised to make up a special daily western report designed solely for
the particular needs and requirements of that section.
The two Westerners spent no time on formalities at the third
meeting. They put a prepared statement on the table in front of Presi-
dent Prime. It served notice that the West planned to assume control
of its own news report and that it would obtain news on its own behalf
from any outside organization which could provide what they wanted.
It said:
To The New York Associated Press:
The Executive Committee of the Western Associated Press propose
to get news from all parties who have news to sell, and to provide for its
transmission to their respective journals. They propose to take the regular
report of the New York (Associated) Press at Buffalo, and provide for
its transmission to the various Western cities. For this news they will pay
their own equitable proportion of the cost of collection. They propose also
68 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
to appoint their own agent in New York to collect and buy additional news
from all sources accessible to him and to provide for the transmission of the
same to the various cities.
A hubbub broke loose. There were sharp words, loud threats, and
a noisy storm of voices. Halstead and White sat through the turmoil,
calm and unmoved, making no attempt to reply. The New York group
quickly adopted a resolution prohibiting any subscriber from taking
dispatches from a rival organization under the penalty of being cut off
instantly from its news report. But this time the threat did not work.
The two young men from the West rose.
"Gentlemen," Halstead said, "my colleague and I have made a
most thorough examination of the entire situation. As matters now
stand the press of the West is subservient to and dependent upon the
New York Associated Press for all its news. We are not getting the
kind of news we want and we have no voice in the direction of your
organization. Our decision is that it would best serve the interests of
the West if we aid in the establishment of another news service. Then
we can get the kind of news we want. Accordingly we have made plans
to supply ourselves with news without any further assistance from you.
Gentlemen, we bid you good day."
The two men quit the room. They could hear another wrathful
outbreak as they descended the stairs. The angry voices died, but Hal-
stead and White would have been interested to hear the carefully
studied observation of one of the men they left behind. General Agent
Simonton had watched these Westerners in action. He saw they were
progressive and might be impressed by some startlingly new develop-
ment. The struggle was on, but he believed he could produce a news
report that might play some part in bringing it to an end.
"Mr. President," he began, "I have a plan . . ."
VII. THEY CALLED IT PEACE
GENERAL AGENT SIMONTON'S plan was to take advantage of
the new cable and improve New York's foreign news report. He would
do this by sending an American-trained reporter to Europe — something
the association had never done before. He looked around for a likely
man and called in the son of a New Jersey senator.
When Alexander Wilson left Simonton and climbed down the
long flight of stairs all had been decided. There was a raw, wintry bite
in the early December air of 1866 as he stepped out onto Broadway
and looked down Liberty Street toward the East River. He could see
the graceful masts of clipper ships and California packets towering above
the low water-front buildings, and the sooty columns of smoke from the
less glamorous steamships. Wilson now felt a new, personal interest
in these trim vessels. Somewhere along the docks of South Street was
his transport to a great adventure.
This new foreign assignment at first had seemed a very ambitious
experiment in news gathering, but as Simonton carefully explained its
purpose Wilson realized how logical and inevitable it was. The foreign
report of the past had been contributed by Europeans with no firsthand
knowledge of what American papers needed. In consequence much copy
of comparatively little interest was received at considerable expense.
The completion of the cable brought the long-awaited opportunity to
obtain foreign intelligence while it still was news and Simonton saw
that, by sending his own man abroad, he would have a strong point in
bargaining with the West.
Once his plan was approved by the New York majority, Simonton
offered Wilson the assignment. The new correspondent had had expe-
rience on the New York Times and before that had been associated
with both Simonton and Henry J. Raymond on the Courier and
Enquirer. Now he was in his late forties and once he had recovered from
his surprise at such an unexpected change he was impatient to begin
his duties abroad.
A few days later he stood on the deck of an outbound vessel and
69
70 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
watched the ragged Manhattan sky line fade into the morning mist. It
would be his task henceforth to write Europe's daily history — the wary
duels of the great Disraeli and Gladstone, the negotiations with Russia
for the purchase of Alaska, Garibaldi's invasion of the Papal States,
the rise of a strong German nation under Bismarck, and the troubled
destiny of France.
He set up the first Associated Press office in London, and he did
it in time to cable news of a contest which had all the East talking — the
first transatlantic yacht race from Sandy Hook to Cowes. Young James
Gordon Bennett brought his Henrietta in victorious on Christmas Day,
1866, with a record of 13 days, 21 hours, and 55 minutes for a
tempestuous winter crossing of 3,106 miles. Bennett's two rivals, Pierre
Lorillard, Jr., and George Frank Osgood, scudded in a day later to
pay off the $30,000 stake each had posted.
As European agent for The Associated Press, Wilson inherited
what Craig had left of a loosely-knit staff of foreign-born representa-
tives. These were his lieutenants and to supplement them he had the
reports of the foreign agencies, originally largely commercial in char-
acter, which were developing as news gatherers. There was the agency
which Charles Havas established in Paris in 1836 to obtain financial
intelligence, the German organization founded in Berlin by Dr. Bern-
hard Wolff in 1849, Guglielmo Stefani's Italian enterprise which had
its beginnings in Turin in 1854, and most important, the service Julius
de Reuter launched in London in 1858.
But Wilson's job was to do as much actual reporting as possible,
and Simonton also wanted him to Americanize the foreign news for
American consumption. Wilson had to do the job alone and the news
conflict raging back home made his task an exacting one.
That conflict had been on in grim earnest for weeks. Immediately
upon quitting the New York meeting of November 28, 1866, Halstead
and White dispatched to their fellow members a full announcement
of the break with New York. They reported that arrangements had
been consummated with Craig to provide the service of his United
States and Europe Telegraph News Association, and they instructed
the publishers to refuse henceforth the budgets transmitted by the old
organization.
Craig made his debut as the paladin of the "outside" papers he
THEY CALLED IT PEACE 71
so often had chastised. On November 29 he was designated general
agent of the Western Associated Press. The news gathering machinery
of the country was in a turmoil as the contest began. Both Craig and
Simonton transmitted complete reports, day and night, not only to
the West but to other clients. The agents of the New York Associated
Press in other cities were bombarded first by this faction, then by that.
For a month they hardly knew which side they served.
The prophets who had been saying the West was courting destruc-
tion in its split with New York soon changed their opinions. Craig
had lost none of his old skill. The superiority of his report was apparent
almost from the outset. The rank and file of his old correspondents
rallied to him and many dissatisfied clients of the New York association
came under his banner. The close of his first day of operations found
him proudly enumerating the imposing list of papers he was serving:
The leading journals of Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville,
Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Nashville and Memphis in the West, the
majority of the newspapers in Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas in the South-
west, every paper in Louisiana with a single exception in New Orleans,
all the newspapers in Virginia with but three or four exceptions, four-fifths
of the press of Georgia, one-half of the press of Baltimore, all the news-
papers of Washington City, eight out of the thirteen Philadelphia papers
which publish news by telegraph, two of the three of the prosperous city of
Newark, the entire press of Brooklyn, and three of the nine of New York.
New York, pushed suddenly to the wall, fought back doggedly. A
shrewd statement was rushed to all members of the Western Associated
Press charging that Halstead and White had sought to betray the
interests of their fellow publishers at the price of preferential arrange-
ments for their own papers.
Nevertheless, the tide continued strongly toward Craig. The New
York State Associated Press debated the wisdom of casting its lot with
the rebellious West. The New England association also threatened to
desert, and the few clients remaining in the South grew restive. The
elder Bennett left his semi-retirement for secret conferences with Hal-
stead and White, who had remained in New York to direct operations
with Craig. Then came the first actual break in the solidarity of the
New York Associated Press. The Worldy long sympathetic to the
insurgents, announced its withdrawal from membership.
It was at this juncture that the shaken New York majority actually
ordered all its own news reports withheld from papers using Craig's
service. At the direction of Halstead and White, Craig retorted with a
72 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
broadside notifying his subscribers they could not continue to receive
the new Western news budget if they also took service from the New
York Associated Press. There was ironic inconsistency in this policy.
Halstead and White had been vehement in denouncing just such tactics
on the part of the old monopoly. But this was one of those battles in
which the better part of valor seemed to be to fight the enemy with his
own weapons.
The old association's service began to show a lack of live news,
particularly from the Mississippi Valley. Yet New York stubbornly
showed no signs of yielding. It redoubled its attacks on Craig, Halstead,
and White, revived the old bugaboo of New York's ability to dominate
the telegraph, and preyed on the fears of the timid small publishers
who feared the split eventually would mean an entire loss of telegraph
news. Nor was New York above stooping to sabotage. When Lincoln's
successor, President Andrew Johnson, delivered his important message
to a hostile Congress that December, trees were felled across the wires
being used by Craig to transmit the news.
Although Craig made no effort to conceal his desire for revenge
on New York, he demonstrated that he also had the good interests
of news gathering at heart by offering to turn over ownership of his
United States and Europe Telegraph News Association to its subscribers
the moment they organized on .a national front. There were no strings
attached to the offer and had the opportunity been seized the old
monopoly probably could not have survived. Halstead and White pon-
dered the proposal but felt they could not accept without assuming
greater responsibility than their Board of Directors had authorized.
So the offer was soon forgotten in the rush of other events.
Simonton, the opposing field marshal, meanwhile was laboring to
hold together a disintegrating news empire until Wilson could re-
establish the association's old dominance abroad. The new general agent
placed great store in the importance of Wilson to help turn the tide.
The other factor on which he relied was the mounting bill the West
was being called upon to meet for the expenses of its adventure in news
independence. Despite the forbidding immediate outlook, he was
inclined to be optimistic. Already the subtle New York propaganda
campaign had begun to bear fruit among the apprehensive small papers
in the West. Halstead and White were being called selfish con-
spirators by fellow members, their authority was being questioned, and
there was grumbling about expenses.
Halstead and White were so stung by this sniping back home that
THEY CALLED IT PEACE 73
they issued an indignant rejoinder, defending their course and denying
they had sacrificed the smaller papers to their personal advantage. They
realized, however, that eventually their actions of the past feverish
fortnight must be formally ratified, and definite plans mapped for the
future. They recommended a special meeting and the Western Board
of Directors called one for December 12 at Crosby's Opera House in
Chicago.
No sooner had the meeting convened than J. E. Scripps, testy
managing editor of the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune > leaped into the
fray. He called upon the association to disavow responsibility for every-
thing Halstead and White had done and lashed the two envoys for
their "unwarrantable assumption of power."
Halstead met the attack with a spirited reply.
"The question goes beyond journalism," he declared. "It is a ques-
tion of importance to every merchant and every man who deals in
securities. Every community in the Western country has been robbed
of its intelligence by this monopoly, and what we have to do is to break
it up — to establish competition. I do not expect to be able to crush the
New York Associated Press, but I do expect to be able to release the
Western Press from its despotism."
Scripps's motion was thrown out after an animated debate and the
chairman recognized Erastus Brooks, who had come from New York to
plead for amity. Questions were fired at him from all sides and when
asked point-blank if the West would be given a voice in the New
York Associated Press, he replied firmly that this could be done only
on matters pertaining to its own territory.
Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune, who had been the leading
influence in the foundation of the Western Associated Press four years
before, made short work of Brooks's arguments.
First he reproved the smaller papers for distrusting the motives
of Halstead and White, and then he charged New York with foment-
ing such a feeling in order to weaken the West so that the old monopoly
could divide and conquer the insurgents piecemeal.
"This New York Association is a monopoly in the worst sense of
the word," Medill declared, "the denial of Mr. Brooks to the contrary
notwithstanding. It is one of the most pernicious and crushing monopo-
lies that ever existed. It contracts and collects the telegraphic news to
suit its own wants and tastes, and then deals out scraps of it to others
on such conditions and at such prices as it chooses to affix. What voice
have we in that New York association? We are told that we pay but a
74 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
trifle toward its expenses. I contend that we have paid more than our
full quota on all the dispatches we have received. When the cable dis-
patches were added as a portion to the news of the day, the New York
Associated Press apportioned out to the various places their quota of
the expenses. Did they take five-sevenths of the cost to themselves?
Not exactly. They charged one full third to the association represented
on this floor 5 another third on the papers south of New Yorkj an addi-
tional fraction on those west and north of New York, and the residue,
if any, they pay themselves!
"I am in favor of confirming the action of the Executive Commit-
tee," he continued. "It is necessary for the protection of our interests
as Western publishers to carry this action through. Gentlemen, you
represent and speak to twelve millions of free people! You speak in
the name of twelve states $ they in the name of one city! How much
longer shall we permit this minority to rule over the majority? Don't
be afraid of independence. It is not going to hurt you. It will not take
long before these New York birds of paradise will come down from
their lofty trees and roost lower. Let us simply be united and all the
rest will be easy!"
The meeting voted 21 to n to approve the action of Halstead
and White. The divorce from New York had been duly ratified.
Victory was in the air. Halstead successfully proposed the crea-
tion of a three-man committee to correspond with publishers outside
of New York City with a view to organizing a United States Asso-
ciated Press. Then the meeting ended, confident the power of New
York had been blasted.
The New Yorkers were not so easily annihilated, however. Wil-
son's presence in London was giving Simonton the advantage abroad
which he had awaited. Now the conflict grew even more expensive for
both antagonists. Although cable rates had been reduced from $10 to
$5 per word, transatlantic dispatches remained the most costly con-
venience in newsdom. The fighting factions found their cable bills run-
ning over $2,000 weekly, an outlay which threatened bankruptcy if
continued. Craig struggled to overcome Simonton's advantage, but it
was an uneven contest because Wilson's presence in England made
New York's foreign budget superior to that provided the West by
European correspondents ignorant of American newspaper practice.
THEY CALLED IT PEACE 75
Thus the battle seesawed, with Craig pre-eminent in domestic intelli-
gence and Simonton the leader in the foreign field.
For another fortnight the rivalry continued sharp and intense and
then, surprisingly enough, it was the stiff-necked New York majority
that finally unbent and made the first real move for peace. As 1866
ended they advanced the suggestion that, if the Western Associated
Press would send some of its "old heads" back east along with the
"young men" of the Executive Committee, an agreement might be
reached. Just when the Westerners might have held out a little longer
and perhaps emerged victorious, an unexplained blindness descended.
They seemed too preoccupied with the considerations of the immediate
present — the fight was proving immensely expensive, Wilson's foreign
news report had created a tremendous impression, and the grumbling
small papers were sulky in their support of hostilities. At any rate,
the Westerners overlooked the past abuses and received the New York
overture favorably. They named Medill, H. N. Walker of the Detroit
Free Press, and Richard Smith of the Cincinnati Gazette as the "old
heads" to accompany Halstead and White to the eastern metropolis.
A great show of tactful politeness and diplomacy characterized
the first several days of the revived conference. New York made nu-
merous efforts to win back the West without making major conces-
sions, but the insurgents sat tight, counting heavily on the apparent
friendliness of the New York World and Herald and the presumed
support of both the New England and the New York State Asso-
ciated Press. Again an impasse threatened. Then the New Yorkers
broke the deadlock by resorting to the old divide-and-conquer strategy.
Simonton slipped away one night to Boston and negotiated a new con-
tract which brought New England once more under the old standard.
Bennett's Herald was cozened back and the upstate publishers were
persuaded to return.
Robbed of their fancied advantages, the Westerners settled down
to earnest efforts to reach an agreement. General Anson Stager, super-
intendent of Western Union Telegraph Company, was invited to act
as mediator. For some reason Western Union had lost its initial en-
thusiasm for the Craig venture. The company had been hard put to
handle the voluminous reports of the rival agencies. Soon a pact was
worked out which the Westerners, however mistakenly, considered a
major concession. Craig, the veteran of more than thirty years' news
gathering, was sacrificed to the agreement and under the terms of the
treaty Simonton also was to retire in the interests of harmony. The
76 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
pact was drawn on January n, 1867. It contained the following pro-
vision, among others:
1. Those papers that left either association during the difficulties are
re-admitted.
2. The New York Association is to furnish all its news, for the exclusive
use of the Western Associated Press within its territory, to the Western
agent in the New York office.
3. The Western Associated Press is to collect and furnish all news of
its territory to the agent of the New York Associated Press at Cleveland
or Pittsburgh.
4. Delivery of news is to be made as rapidly as received.
5. Both associations agree not to compete for papers in the other's
territory.
6. The Western Association is to pay: For general news, $8,000 per
annum; for cable news 22 per cent of the expense of obtaining the same,
but not exceeding in gross expense $150,000 per annum; for California
news, 20 per cent of the whole cost to the New York Associated Press at
Chicago.
7. The Western Associated Press is to deliver at Chicago its report
for California customers of the New York Associated Press and for cus-
tomers at other points west of the territory of the Western Associated Press.
Prime, as president, and Beach, as secretary, signed the agreement
for New York. H. N. Walker affixed his signature as president for the
West.
That same day Walker also signed a contract with Western Union
for transmission of news under the new agreement. Buffalo was desig-
nated the eastern relay point for news to the West's afternoon papers,
and New York for the morning. The day file from Buffalo consisted
of a foo-word "early morning report" and a 30O-word "noon report."
The night report contained the more imposing volume of 3,500 words
and went to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville, Chicago,
Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. A night "pony" report
of 1,500 words, abstracted from the larger report, was filed out of
Cleveland to Wheeling, Zanesville, Columbus, Dayton, Madison, Ind.,
New Albany, and Sandusky.
The local news from all large and small points, aggregating 2,000
words daily, went to the major cities. An additional budget called
"River news" was serviced to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, and
St. Louis only. The complete Western report averaged 6,000 words
daily and for its transmission that association paid Western Union
$60,000 a year in $5,000 installments.
THEY CALLED IT PEACE 77
To replace Craig, an experienced telegrapher named George B.
Hicks was appointed general agent for the West and headquarters were
established in Cleveland.
They called it peace, but the settlement left New York still mas-
ter in the field of news. Although the old organization had lost some
prestige, it still retained a tight grip on the highly important cable
news, Washington news, and the news of financial New York. Further-
more, it remained in a position to control, if not to dictate, the news
output of most of the regional associations.
Besides such psychological advantages as the West reaped, it also
won a more satisfactory financial agreement with New York and a
limited degree of recognition. But it had surrendered much for these
concessions. The loudly urged claim for a voice in the operations of
the New York association was quietly jettisoned $ the stubbornly as-
serted right to obtain news from other sources was forgotten, and there
were no specifications as to the quality of the news report itself, long
the subject of agitation.
Disillusioned and embittered, Craig retired from the news field,
but not so Simonton. New York blandly forgot its pledge to eliminate
him — the new general agent had proved himself equal to a great
emergency.
VIII. BLACK YEARS
BY THE time of Grant's inauguration as President, Simonton had set-
tled down in the old New York headquarters, which remained in the
same building on Broadway occupied since the days of the first general
agent. There was a large force of assistants now and the association
had agents in London, Liverpool, Montreal, Quebec, Boston, Phila-
delphia, Chicago, New Orleans, Washington, Albany, San Francisco,
"and in all the principal cities and towns of the United States." News
flowed in at the rate of 35,000 words daily. It came by Atlantic cable,
by Cuba cable, by land telegraph, by ships from South American ports,
by clippers on the China run. Busy copyists with carbon-grimed fingers
transcribed it all on the thin manifold sheets, stuffed it into envelopes
for delivery to the dozen metropolitan papers, or handed it to waiting
regional agents who prepared the reports transmitted to the auxiliary
associations. .
There was much news for the hard-working copyists during 1869.
Wall Street had its famous "Black Friday" when the market went
crashing in a cloud of confusion, bankruptcy, and ruin. On Promontory
Point, out in Utah, Governor Leland Stanford and Thomas Durant
drove the last spike connecting the railroads which first linked the
Atlantic and the Pacific. Arthur Cummings was hailed as the man who
introduced curve pitching in baseball. Sweating English troops invaded
Ethiopia to punish the Lion of Judah. John D. Rockefeller was laying
the foundation for his oil empire, and from Europe the rising tide of
immigration kept rolling. The country's population was close to 39,-
000,000.
Simonton's worries were multiplying. There was a running con-
troversy with the cable company over rates and the priority of press
dispatches. Another source of trouble was the emergence of a struggling
rival — the Hasson News Association — which was providing unaccus-
tomed competition. Then, too, there were the activities of the Western
Union which sold brokers and countinghouses a service of commercial
and market news abstracted from the Associated Press report. Such lib-
78
BLACK YEARS 79
cities were taken under a vague agreement between the company and
the New York association, but there were constant complaints from the
West on the ground that the wire concern was invading the regular
news field.
Soon the general agent was finding Western Union the cause for
more grievous embarrassment. Although close alliance with the tele-
graph company had undeniable advantages in assuring the best com-
munication facilities, it left the news-gathering organization vulnerable
to repeated attack. Throughout the seventies the names of the New
York Associated Press and the Western Union were coupled again
and again in Congress and denounced as "co-conspirators in building a
press monopoly."
In those graft-ridden, ruthless days, Western Union, by controlling
the most important telegraph system, held the whip hand and New
York was expected not to send out anything inimical to its powerful
ally. If necessary the news could be painstakingly selected or colored,
and all criticisms by client papers were prohibited. At one stage the
president of Western Union acknowledged before a Congressional in-
vestigation that the New York Associated Press was under an agree-
ment to use its wires exclusively, and that all papers receiving its re-
ports were forbidden to have any dealings with rival wire systems.
In the face of these incessant assaults, the members who controlled
the New York Associated Press maintained an unworried complacency.
The harried general agent was left to make such defense as the inci-
dents demanded. Eventually it became necessary that a formal answer
to the monopoly charge be made and Congress, after almost ten years
of talking, summoned Simonton to appear before a Senate committee.
There were six counts in the indictment of the press association's rela-
tions with the telegraph company:
1. News associations are compelled by The Associated Press to use
only Western Union wires.
2. By their contracts with Western Union, The Associated Press is
pledged to oppose other wire companies.
3. The inability of New York Evening Post to use a dispatch from
its own correspondent until it has given the dispatch to other members of
the New York Associated Press.
4. News originating in New York is sometimes sent to Washington
for distribution so that those receiving it will think it originated in Washington.
5. The New York Associated Press censors the papers of the country
by cutting off news reports to papers who have criticized The Associated
Press.
8o AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
6. The New York Associated Press is engaged in public business and
therefore is amenable to the laws governing corporations transacting public
business.
Simonton made a lengthy and vigorous reply, stoutly defended the
organization he headed, and did not hesitate to lecture the investigating
committee. He said:
The Associated Press is a private business, carried on under the same
moral, legal and constitutional rights which permit any one paper, in a
country village or in a metropolis, to collect and publish its local news. The
charge of monopoly rests upon the single fact that here and there some
newspapers, which did not share in the labor or risk of establishing The Asso-
ciated Press, are not permitted to come in and share its facilities, now that
the day of experiment and risk has passed. As well might they demand to
force their way into a share of the already created business of any bank or
dry goods house, or other mercantile establishment, which, like The Associated
Press, had spent thirty-one years in perfecting its plans, securing its customers
and their confidence, and creating its opportunities for doing business with
profit. The profit of the bank or mercantile business is in cash dividends; the
profits of The Associated Press are in the use of the news which it collects,
as the profits of the fisherman are in the fish which he captures and takes
from the rivers and the sea, just as we take that in which we deal from the
great ocean of human events.
He declared that the New York Associated Press was merely a
customer of Western Union, denied the association was pledged to fight
opposition telegraph companies, and pleaded ignorance of a mutuaJ
defense agreement. There were some concessions in rates, considering
the large volume of business Western Union received' from the asso-
ciation. Were it not for these rate concessions, the general agent said,
the New York Associated Press would be unable to continue its liberal
practice of supplying news at low cost to the many sections of the nation
where populations were sparse and small journals were struggling for
existence. His exact words were: "The Press and the telegraph com-
pany both agree to give lower rates to the poor and recoup by higher
compensation from the well-to-do."
He dismissed the old monopoly charge by pointing out that the
auxiliary associations, with few exceptions, made their own rules and
determined who should and who should not receive New York's report
in the various territories. As to the charge that New York maintained
a rigid censorship over the press of the country under the threat of
cutting off their news reports, Simonton explained that the so-called
BLACK YEARS 81
censorship in reality was punishment for infractions of rules and regu-
lations. He upheld the association's right to cut off the news report —
"our readiest defense" — whenever a subscriber had the hardihood to
criticize it in print:
I submit that there is not a gentleman here who would sell dry goods,
groceries, or anything else day after day to a man who told him every time
he came in, "You are a thief, a swindler and a liar." You would very soon
say, "If you can't come in and behave yourself, I do not want your trade
and you can get out." That is the sort of censorship we exercise. When
papers insist that they have grievances against us and give us an opportunity
for explanations, they very often learn that they have been in error. But
when papers will persist in abusing us for the alleged grievances in advance
of inquiry, we simply say to them, "We do not want to serve you. If we
cannot be treated like decent men, you had better get your news service
elsewhere."
The general agent recapitulated his testimony in four categorical
statements:
I. The Associated Press is not a monopoly. 2. It is a private business.
3. It is independent of the Western Union Telegraph Company. 4. It has no
franchise from the government and no legislation within the power of
Congress can take from it the tools of its creation.
Simonton acquitted himself well, presenting his organization in
the best possible light, and the committee hearings were productive of
no untoward results.
All these troubles which beset Simonton represented only one side
of the picture. It was a period of great news events and the general
agent proved himself a capable administrator. He was zealous for the
improvement of the report and under his direction it did improve in
spite of the handicaps imposed by the structural nature of the organiza-
tion. His efforts did much to atone for the shortcomings of the ser-
vice. This was particularly true when the news was not of a contro-
versial nature, and 1871 produced an outstanding demonstration.
That was the year of the most famous bovine in history — Mrs.
O'Leary's cow and the lantern she was said to have kicked over. It
was half past nine on an October Sunday night when the flames started
to race through Chicago before a strong wind. Through seventy-three
miles of streets they roared in one mighty, appalling conflagration. Two
hundred lives were lostj 98,500 were homeless; 17,500 buildings were
82 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
destroyed, and some $200,000,000 worth of property went up in smoke.
Together the New York and Western associations brought the
country the story of Chicago's disaster. When special correspondents
arrived in the stricken city they found telegraph offices would not per-
mit their accounts to interfere with the transmission of the thousands
of messages being sent for relief. There was only one exception — The
Associated Press — and its dispatches received the right of way. In order
to get their stories out, other correspondents found it necessary to send
the copy by train to Cleveland.
The next year also there was a great volume of news, including
the extraordinary presidential campaign which gave Grant his second
term, the malodorous Credit Mobilier scandal investigation, and a
host of other occurrences. Cable tolls alone exceeded $200,000 and
special assessments were imposed generally on both New York and
auxiliary Associated Press groups.
The mad postwar spree of spending and speculation was over and
hard times were beginning to pinch.
William Henry Smith, who had succeeded Hicks in 1869 as gen-
eral agent of the Western Associated Press, was beset by pleas for lower
assessments from his members who protested they could not weather
the depression unless the reductions were granted. Occasional evi-
dences of friction cropped up between the West and New York, and
the old cry for cheaper telegraph tolls was raised again, though without
encouraging results.
Telegraph rates had always been a subject of concern, but in 1872
Simonton was occupied with an entirely different aspect of the associa-
tion's transmission problems. Always in the past the telegraph company
had controlled the wires over which the association moved its news.
Simonton wanted to lease a wire outright between New York and
Washington to use in moving the heavy volume of news between those
two cities and the intermediate points of Philadelphia and Baltimore.
He thought it would be more economical and would speed the report.
The telegraph company scouted the request as impracticable. Simonton
persisted in his campaign, with steadfast encouragement from his young
assistant, Walter Polk Phillips, who later became known as the author
of the "Phillips Code" of telegraphic abbreviations. The company de-
layed action for several years, but in 1875 Simonton won and the first
leased wire in press association history began operating.
,v The wire was taken over under a straight leasing arrangement, a
BLACK YEARS 83
practice that grew as the need for exclusive news-transmission facilities
steadily increased.
"It was my good fortune as one of the lieutenants of James W.
Simonton," Phillips recounted, "to select the men to work that pioneer
leased system between New York and Washington. There were eight
of them, two each at New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washing-
ton." The men Phillips picked were Fred N. Bassett, P. V. De Graw,
W. H. C. Hargrave, W. J. Jones, Thomas J. Bishop, H. A. Wells,
W. N. Grave, and E. C. Boileau.
This first leased wire was 226 miles in length and was followed by
similar lines to Boston, Buffalo, then to Chicago and eventually to the
Pacific Coast. The inauguration of the system was one of the great
achievements of Simonton's administration.
The same year that brought the leased wire saw the New York
Associated Press change its quarters for the first time since 1848. The
new home was at Broadway and Dey Street on the eighth floor in the
imposing building Western Union had just erected. The flow of news
turned into this new center — the famous "stolen" presidential election
of Hayes versus Tilden, the expensive Russo-Turkish War, the reign
of the "Molly Maguires" in Pennsylvania, and the election of Pope
Leo XIII.
History quietly repeated itself that decade, for another great ad-
vance in the science of communications passed with scant notice. Alex-
ander Graham Bell's attorney appeared in Washington in 1875 and
filed application for a patent on a new device called the telephone. It
was several years, however, before the instrument came into general
use, even on a small scale, and its quickening effect on news gathering
was not immediate.
It was an important year, but the event that caught popular in-
terest was not BelPs invention. A cavalry officer with a reputation for
insubordination was riding toward the valley of the Little Big Horn
in Montana. And with him and his Seventh Cavalry went a lone news-
paperman— an Associated Press correspondent on a nimble gray mule.
IX. STRING CORRESPONDENT
IT WAS May, 1876, and Philadelphia buzzed with last-minute plans
for the greatest celebration in the history of the nation — the hundredth
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The exposition was
imposing and the agents of the New York Associated Press who drew
the assignment to report the spectacle began sending out their stories
telling of the wonders in store for those who planned to attend.
All this was worlds removed from life in the frontier town of
Bismarck, North Dakota. On May 14, just four days after the ex-
position threw open its gates, there was a small gathering in the home
of Bismarck's town druggist, John P. Dunn. The occasion was a
farewell dinner for the quiet, middle-aged man who had become a close
friend of the family in the three years he had been a reporter for the
weekly Bismarck Tribune. His name was Mark Kellogg and he was
preparing to accompany General George Armstrong Custer and his
regiment into the badlands westward to punish Sitting Bull and his
warlike Sioux. Colonel Clement A. Lounsbury, owner of the Bismarck
Tribune and a part-time correspondent for the Western Associated
Press, had intended making the trip, but last-minute illness in the family
compelled him to delegate the assignment.
The Dunn family knew little of Kellogg except that he had
moved from town to town along the frontier since his wife died some
years before. He was greatly attached to children and he had been
attracted to the Dunns by their rollicking youngsters. His presence at
the Sunday dinners had become a custom and the entire family looked
forward to having him there.
The Dunns lingered as long as possible over the meal because they
would miss their friend. He had to leave at three o'clock to ferry the
Missouri and join Custer at old Fort Lincoln, so dinner had been
served earlier than usual. Mrs. Dunn inquired about his preparations
for the trip and he displayed a little black satchel. In it were tobacco,
pipes, underwear and other pieces of light clothing. There were pencils
tqo, and a supply of paper on which to write his accounts of the cam-
paign against Sitting Bull, for relay by pony across the plains to the
nearest newspaper and telegraph offices, many miles away.
84
STRING CORRESPONDENT 85
Jokingly he told the Dunns that General Alfred H. Terry, com-
mander of the expedition, had assigned him a gray mule. As soon
as he arrived at Fort Lincoln the animal was turned over to him. The
sure-footed little beast was so small that Kellogg's feet touched the
ground, but throughout the campaigning he was able to keep up with
the big chargers of the troopers.
The winding blue and yellow column flowed over the Dakota
hills. Somewhere over the silent horizon were the upper waters of the
Yellowstone where the Sioux were gathered for one last determined
stand against the invasion of the Black Hills.
All along the dusty march, Kellogg sent back his dispatches while
the expedition pushed slowly across the wild, rugged country. Terry
had ignored orders in permitting Kellogg to accompany the troops.
The grizzled old general of the armies, William Tecumseh Sherman,
was very specific in the instructions he sent from Washington before
the expedition started. "Advise Custer to be prudent," he wrote, "and
not to take along any newspapermen." But Custer wanted a journalist
with him.
The correspondent spent almost a month in the saddle before the
column entered the hostile region along the Yellowstone where scout-
ing parties found the fresh trail of the Sioux and their abandoned
campsites. On June 21 Terry held a council of war where the pebbly-
bottomed Rosebud empties into the Yellowstone River. Custer would
push south down the Rosebud with his Seventh Cavalry and circle
westward into the valley of the Little Big Horn River where the In-
dians were believed to be gathering.
He was not to attack from the south, however, until Terry and
General Gibbon's forces arrived from the north on June 26. Kellogg
had his choice. He could stay with Terry's forces, or he could ride in
the advance alongside the impetuous young cavalry leader. Custer's
carefree assurance dispelled any indecision and Kellogg went with the
Seventh. On June 24 Custer made ready to cross the Rosebud and strike
out for the Little Big Horn, so Kellogg sent back a last dispatch de-
scribing preparations for the march. He wrote:
We leave the Rosebud tomorrow and by the time this reaches you we
will have met and fought the red devils, with what result remains to be seen.
I go with Custer and will be at the death.
The next morning commands rattled out and the Seventh went
cantering out of camp, some six hundred strong. At the head of the
86 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
column with the commander rode Kellogg. His little gray mule was
comical beside the officers' big chargers, and the black satchel lent a
most unmilitary note as it slapped against the mule's flank.
There were thin clouds in the Montana sky on June 25 and the
air shimmered with heat as the dust-powdered Seventh pressed toward
Little Big Horn. The trail of the Sioux hourly became plainer and
Custer studied the signs with impatience. There could be no doubt
now. A large concentration of Sioux was at hand. Then the scouts came
galloping back with the news that an immense encampment of lodges
had been sighted. Custer saw glory and the opportunity to whip the
Sioux without waiting for his supporting columns to come up. It would
be routine work for the Seventh which had scattered just such hostile
bands many times before.
No one ever knew what strategy Custer had in mind that day, but
he split the regiment's twelve companies into three detachments. Kel-
logg knew infallibly that all the color and dramatics would be with the
five companies that formed Custer's personal command, so he stayed
with the cavalry's beau sabreur. Holster flaps were opened, sabers clat-
tered, carbines were loosened in their boots, and Custer's detachment
went swinging forward at a fast trot up the dusty rise that lay between
the Seventh Cavalry and the Sioux encampment. Kellogg urged his
mule along and the animal struggled to keep up.
They were on the crest now and below spread the valley of the
Little Big Horn with its rolling ridges and hills. Custer ordered his
adjutant to instruct one of the other detachments to move up imme-
diately with the ammunition packs. A trooper saluted and went gallop-
ing off with the order. Then Custer's red-and-blue personal flag with
its crossed silver sabers disappeared below the rise and the column rode
down into an amphitheater of sudden death.
In an hour it was all over. An officer's charger was the only living
thing in the command to escape. But for two days no one knew what
had happened in the bloody valley beyond the crest. The other seven
companies of the Seventh were too hard pressed elsewhere fighting
off the Sioux hordes which surrounded them. Then General Terry ar-
rived with the main column and his troopers found the field of Big
Horn silent in the hot sun, with 225 bodies dotting the ridges. They
found the body of reckless Custer and they found the crumpled body
of the correspondent who had trotted gallantly to death on his small
gray mule. Only those two had escaped scalping and mutilation. The
red man's code had dictated that the body of the yellow-haired warrior
STRING CORRESPONDENT 87
should not be disfigured, and they did not touch "the man who could
make the paper talk," as the Indians of Dakota had called Kellogg.
True to his promise, Kellogg had been there "at the death" but
the big story of one of news gathering's first part-time, or "string," cor-
respondents never was written.
They found his black satchel where he fell and eventually it was
returned to the Dunn family in Bismarck. The motherly woman who
had been so solicitous for his comfort the day he departed came upon
the pipes, tobacco, and what was left of the blank writing paper.
X. THE LAST TRUCE
A NEW decade — the elegant eighties — was filled with trouble for the
formidable old New York Associated Press. There was discontent once
more in the Western association.
Nevertheless, the tide of news flowed on. The tenth census showed
50,155,783 persons in the thirty-eight states. Boston was ready to cele-
brate her 25<Dth anniversary, and Ben Hur was the literary rage of the
season. There were a half dozen marine disasters, and far across the
oceans the Boers had begun their mutterings against England. In Ger-
many a wave of anti-Semitism was sweeping Jews from Berlin, and in
Ireland the despotic actions of a landlord's agent, Captain Boycott, were
about to make his name a new word in the English language.
It was a tired and ailing general agent who scanned the miscellany
of changing stories. Simonton's constitution never had been robust and
fourteen years at the helm of an ill-contrived organization had left their
mark. The general agent was expected to be all things to all men, a
symbol of the tenuous union in which all the auxiliary associations were
linked.
But, for all its inherent weaknesses, the news-gathering empire
Simonton ruled was apparently flourishing and prosperous. In addition
to its seven members, the New York Associated Press was serving 348
clients and spending $392,800 annually on domestic telegraph tolls.
The foreign service was expanding and the general agent boasted for
the association:
Its London offices are never closed. By means of a double corps of
agents, the news of Europe, chiefly concentrated at the British capital, is
forwarded at all hours as rapidly as received. By contracts with the great
European news agencies, The Associated Press receives their news collections
from every part of civilized Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.
Cable tolls rarely were less than $300 a day and frequently
mounted as high as $2,000.
Even the assessments seemed reasonable for the service Simonton
88
THE LAST TRUCE 89
had built up. Outside of New York the papers paid from $15 to $250
a week each, and in the metropolis itself from $300 to $1,500.
As the new decade moved forward, Simonton found himself once
more with the exacting responsibility of directing coverage of a hard-
fought presidential campaign. The Republican James A. Garfield won
by the slender popular plurality of 9,500 votes and the cynical specu-
lated on how many of those ballots had been influenced by biased dis-
patches. Suspicion fixed likewise on the powerful Western Union Tele-
graph Company which gathered the returns jointly with the New
York Associated Press, for it was no secret that the corporation desired
a Republican victory.
Inauguration came swiftly on the heels of election, and then only
a few months later — on July 2, 1881 — a shocking Washington dispatch
was thrust into Simonton's hands.
A disgruntled office seeker, Charles Guiteau, had shot and mor-
tally wounded the new president.
Chester A. Arthur, the vice-president, took over the duties of the
nation's chief executive and there arose the wild talk that the assassina-
tion had been plotted for the sole purpose of putting Arthur in power.
The feeling against Arthur grew bitter and editorial tom-toms throbbed
to keep it alive. American journalism had not progressed much from
the hate-ridden Reconstruction days.
For three months Garfield lingered. Death came on September
19. Like most news stories, however, it was all over in a few days and
then, without warning, the publishers in the West were surprised and
disquieted by confidential advices from the East. General Agent Simon-
ton no longer directed New York's news-gathering machine.
Inquiries brought assurance that the absence was only temporary
and that Simonton would return as soon as he regained his health.
Meanwhile Erastus Brooks, of the Mail and Express, and James C.
Huston had been designated to take direct charge of the New York
Associated Press activities. The Westerners did not like the change.
They had come to have a sincere respect for Simonton. He could be
counted upon to do his utmost to satisfy them and on many occasions
he had acted as their friend at court.
Simonton's disappearance from the news scene was not the only dis-
turbing factor in 1881. Papers which could not buy The Associated
90 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Press service had been dissatisfied with the makeshift reports they re-
ceived from a succession of ineffectual agencies, and now a concerted
movement was launched to unite all these journals under one banner.
Arthur Jenkins of the Syracuse Herald summoned the dissatisfied
group to meet in his city. Out of that meeting came the decision to
set up another news-gathering agency as a strictly private, money-mak-
ing enterprise. Thus an organization called the United Press was born
and one of its three incorporators was Walter Polk Phillips, Simonton's
former aide. Francis X. Schoonmaker was named general agent and
the organization got under way early in 1882. This United Press had
no connection whatever with the news organization which was to be
established in 1907 under the name of the United Press Associations.
The emergence of this new agency and the continued absence of
Simonton fed the agitation in the Western Associated Press. The 1866
peace treaty with the eastern monopoly had proved an empty coup in
most respects and an unending succession of differences continued.
Convinced that it still occupied a position of nominal servitude, the
West again debated whether to try wresting recognition from New
York or to make one more attempt at a national co-operative service
of its own. There were some members who favored preserving the
status quo, but the majority wanted action, especially since content of
the news report was suffering under the indifferent Brooks-Huston
management.
Once more the time seemed propitious for the West to reassert
itself. The activities of the new commercial agency had become suffi-
ciently vigorous to cause concern, and again New York was embroiled
in a quarrel with Western Union.
The seven members of the New York Associated Press were not
long in hearing the rumblings of this new uprising. Realizing that their
own position was weak, they sought to catch the West off guard by
offering unsolicited minor concessions. The strategy failed, and the
New York Board of Directors met to consider the problem.
David Marvin Stone, of the Journal of Commerce, who had suc-
ceeded Prime as president in 1869, was one of the few who saw the
justice of the West's demands. He proposed immediate recognition of
their claim for full partnership and the creation of a joint board of
control of seven Westerners and seven New Yorkers to administer
the combined organization.
This was too much of a surrender for most of his colleagues and
Charles A. Dana, now editor of the Sun, called for a "more specific
THE LAST TRUCE 91
and guarded substitute." He suggested an arrangement by which both
associations would pool their news under the direction of a five-man
executive committee, two members from each association and a chair-
man chosen by the New York association. Such a plan, he pointed out,
still would give the old organization a three-to-two balance of power.
The Dana proposal failed to appeal to the Western Associated
Press at its next meeting in October, 1882. Old Joseph Medill, long
one of the West's moving spirits, dictated the reply. Flourishing his
black ear trumpet, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune introduced a
resolution which would serve the required notice that the West would
not renew its contract which expired that December 31. He coupled this
notice with the threat that, unless New York granted equality and
sanctioned expansion of the West into certain disputed areas, the or-
ganization would strike out for itself again with its own news service.
The gage of battle was flung at the feet of the New York Asso-
ciated Press. The Easterners were badly prepared for a recurrence of
the costly conflict of 1866.
Two new converts to the cause of equality now came forward.
The Times and the Herald fathered a plan which proposed to give
recognition not only to the West but also to the other leading auxili-
aries. Here, at last, was a definite step in the direction of a truly repre-
sentative co-operative, but it was far too liberal for the controlling
bloc and was decisively voted down.
There was more negotiating between committees representing both
associations and presently the New Yorkers learned that, if they would
make territorial concessions, the West might be prevailed upon to
agree to a union under the five-man joint committee plan advanced by
Dana. The New York committeemen seized the chance and offered
to surrender considerable territory in the South and West. This made
the bargain appear more attractive to the Western committee and a five-
year contract eventually was ratified on January i, 1883.
The New York Associated Press named Charles A. Dana as chair-
man of the five-man governing committee. Its other two members were
representatives of the Herald and the Tribune.
The Western Associated Press named Walter N. Haldeman, of
the Louisville Courier-Journal, and Richard Smith, of the Cincinnati
Gazette, both members of the Western Board and its Executive Com-
mittee, as its representatives.
Again the West hailed a great victory, minimizing the fact that
92 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
the three-to-two committee alignment, carefully stipulated by Dana,
gave veto power to New York.
The most important result of this latest realignment was the
selection of William Henry Smith to fill the vacancy left by General
Agent Simonton. The choice was calculated to inspire confidence in the
West where Smith's ability was well known. As proof of the new
unity in news gathering, Smith also retained his position as general
agent of the Western Associated Press. Thus he became the unifying
head of the two organizations with the new title of general manager.
Smith was born in upstate New York in 1833, the year the penny
press made its first positive appearance with the birth of the New York
Sun. Before the Civil War he published a small weekly in Cincinnati
and by the time hostilities began he was on the staff of the Cincinnati
Gazette. His newspaper work gave him opportunities for numerous
political contacts and he used them to such advantage that in 1863
he was made secretary to Governor Brough of Ohio. The next year
he was chosen secretary of state in the same election which seated
Rutherford B. Hayes in the governor's chair — first major step in a
career which brought Hayes to the White House. Hayes and Smith
became fast friends and the close association led political foes to carica-
ture Smith as "the keeper of the governor's conscience." Subsequently
he resumed his newspaper work and in 1869 he joined the Western
Associated Press in Chicago as general agent.
In his new position as general manager for both associations under
the direction of the five-man governing committee Smith soon showed
results. He began substituting trained newspapermen for the telegraph
operators who had been agents for New York in strategic cities. Most
important, he abandoned the old practice of restricting the association's
field almost entirely to news that could be picked up from or supplied
by member and client newspapers. He believed in a staff of trained
reporters who would show initiative in getting news.
If one weakness could be found in his qualifications as general
manager it was Kis political background. In 1876 his old friend Hayes,
as President of the United States, rewarded him with an appointment
as Collector of the Port of Chicago. It was a political sinecure with a
salary that greatly increased the $5,000 a year he then received from
the Western Associated Press. In the face of criticism, he held on to
THE LAST TRUCE 93
the post until he lost it a year before he assumed joint management of
the two Associated Press bodies. In his new position, just as in the old,
he cultivated his political connections and thereby left the political re-
porting of the association open to suspicion.
'The same months which witnessed the industrious beginnings of
Smith's regime saw the further rise of the United Press. Schoonmaker
lasted only a short time as its general agent and then a new commander
took charge, began improving the service and recruiting new clients. He
was the former Associated Press employe, Walter Polk Phillips, and
he had the resourcefulness needed.
From his several years of employment in The Associated Press,
Phillips was aware of the drawing power of news from abroad. Since
the New York Associated Press held exclusive contracts with such
foreign agencies as Reuters, Havas, and Wolff, making their reports
unavailable to him, Phillips set about under cover to create his own
foreign service. He organized a separate agency called The Cable
News Company and placed Schoonmaker in charge. Soon this disguised
subsidiary was supplying its report not only to United Press clients
but also to some of the Associated Press papers.
Phillips ostensibly was the sole guiding genius of the United
Press, but actually he was not. His fellow triumvirs, discreetly in the
background, were John R. Walsh, financier and part owner of the
Chicago Herald, and, unaccountably, William Laffan, a dramatic critic
who had risen to be business manager of Dana's New York Sun.
In the beginning the identity of these latter two remained un-
known. In time Walsh's connection could be logically explained, for his
publishing partner, James W. Scott, had been one of the founders
of the United Press. Moreover, as a financier, he had a finger in nu-
merous business pies. But the caustic Laffan was by all odds the most
important of the three, and when his part in the undertaking finally
was exposed the anomalous situation presented a mystery. As business
manager of the Suny he enjoyed the full confidence and support of
Dana, and Dana was chairman of the Joint Executive Committee and
kingpin of the renovated Associated Press.
Phillips's disguised Cable News Company continued to expand its
list of clients until it had added Medill's Chicago Tribune. General
Manager Smith quickly called the Tribune to task for using a rival's
report in violation of regulations. He assailed Cable News as "only
an annex to the United Press" and charged it had been organized as a
94 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
subterfuge by the other news agency in an attempt to inveigle Asso-
ciated Press members away from their own association.
The Tribune confronted Schoonmaker with the charges and he
denied them.
"The United Press has no possible connection with the Cable
News Company," he declared, "and my special cables are not only be-
yond the reach of The United Press but, as you will soon see, in hot
opposition to their cable service."
When Smith heard this he threatened to cut the Tribune off from
the report if it did not discontinue the cable service. No epithet was too
strong for Schoonmaker j he was a "scoundrel," "the prince of liars,"
and a news thief who "systematically debauched an employe of the
Western Union Telegraph Company to steal Associated Press cables
for the benefit of the United Press Association." In the face of Smith's
barrage, which he backed by documentary evidence, Schoonmaker
finally admitted the Cable News was connected with the United Press,
and the Tribune dropped the report.
Considering Smith's scathing denunciation, many publishers were
amazed in 1884 when this same Schoonmaker quit his Cable News posi-
tion and was taken into the employ of The Associated Press at a salary
of $4,000 a year. Significantly, on that very same date — August 17,
1884 — the jointly operated Associated Press itself became a subscriber
to the Cable News Company reports — reports which General Manager
Smith so recently had described as "bogus cable dispatches prepared by
a set of sharpers."
Strange things were going on behind the scenes.
The presidential year of 1884 was a poor one for the prestige of
the New York Associated Press. The Republican party, after almost a
quarter of a century in power, nominated James G. Elaine, "the plumed
knight" of Maine, and the Democrats selected Grover Cleveland, the
Buffalo bachelor who enjoyed a game of pinochle in the back room of
his favorite German-American beer garden.
When news of Cleveland's nomination reached the offices of the
usually Democratic New York Sun, Dana, the autocrat of The Asso-
ciated Press, stamped up and down the room.
"It isn't Cleveland ... It can't be Cleveland ... It shan't be
Cleveland!"
THE LAST TRUCE 95
He muttered the words over and over, pounding his palm with
his fist, and throughout the campaign the Sim fought Cleveland with
savage fury.
Dana was only one in the powerful battalions arrayed against
Cleveland. Jay Gould, the singular figure of American finance who
then controlled the Western Union Telegraph Company, contributed
enormous amounts to the Elaine war chest. Other Wall Street operators
added to the golden stream, and the Elaine forces spent their funds
lavishly. There was uncontradicted testimony that the editor of one in-
consequential weekly paper received $60,000 and the disillusioned could
calculate the sums spent elsewhere. To bolster their cause further, the
Republicans seized upon Cleveland's private life — he was declared the
father of an illegitimate child — and dragged his name through the
political mire.
While the campaign swept along, the typewriter made its un-
heralded debut in the newspaper world. Until that year reporters
laboriously wrote their news in longhand and telegraphers copied the
wire dispatches in their fast scrawl. A few business houses were using
the new machine, but little attention had been paid to the invention
generally. Then one day word reached the Chicago office of the West-
ern Associated Press that John Paine, the association's telegraph op-
erator at Nashville, was using the newfangled contraption and that the
editors there were hailing the cleaner, more legible copy. Addison C.
Thomas, the wire chief at Chicago, saw the possibilities and arranged
to have all his men supplied. Soon the telegraph companies followed
suit and the typewriter played a steadily greater part in the production
of news.
The primitive typewriters clacked and as the presidential campaign
progressed increasing interest attached to the state canvasses held prior
to the November vote. They were looked to as barometers of popular
feeling. The Maine primary was held in September and the jointly
operated associations reported the Republican majority as 19,739 when
it was only 12,082. Again, in Ohio the association's figures were out of
line with official totals. Many of the unofficial returns had been gath-
ered by Gould's Western Union j the New York Associated Press and
the telegraph company tabulated the votes jointly as they had done
for years past.
The cry arose that The New York Associated Press was falsifying
returns in Elaine's favor. The Buffalo Courier on October 27, 1884,
96 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
carried a special dispatch from Washington which began pointedly with
this quotation:
"Well," said a prominent Elaine Republican tonight, "it does look as
though The Associated Press were in our interest."
The story cited the reasons behind the opinion and over another
special despatch from the national capital the Courier headlined: "The
Associated Press Severely Criticized For Its Rank Partisanship." The
story stated:
The conduct of The Associated Press in working systematically in the
interest of Elaine continues to be severely commented on here by persons
having facilities for obtaining inside information. As an illustration of the
methods pursued by it during the campaign, the action of the management
in employing one of Elaine's stenographers to represent The Associated Press
during Elaine's tours is cited. The reports of Elaine's speeches and the inci-
dents of his travels came from* this stenographer after careful revision by
Elaine himself. This Associated Press agent was in the employ of Elaine for
Several months preceding and also after his nomination. This is but a speci-
men of the inner workings of a partisan news agency theoretically supposed
to be non-partisan.
Newspapers in the past had been punished with lightning swift-
ness for much milder criticism of the association. They were as sternly
punished for similar transgressions in the future. Yet this time there
was no punitive action. General Manager Smith did not attempt a
reply.
When Elaine arrived in New York City the week before election
the odds were 2 to I in his favor. It appeared that New York State
probably would decide the contest and both parties concentrated their
final efforts there. Although it was his home state, Cleveland labored
under a disadvantage. As governor he had estranged the Tammany,
labor, and Catholic votes. Elaine's managers, who had been wooing the
church vote throughout, assembled a meeting of ministers to greet
their candidate and pledge support. It was such a minor campaign func-
tion that the local papers did not bother to cover it. Nevertheless, the
New York Associated Press sent along Frank W. Mack, a young man
of twenty-three.
The Reverend Samuel Dickinson Burchard, seventy-two years old,
addressed Elaine on behalf of the assemblage. His speech in the main
was newsless until he uttered the dynamite-laden final sentence: "We
are Republicans, and do not propose to leave our party and identify
THE LAST TRUCE 97
ourselves with those whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and
rebellion !"
Seated in the rear of the meeting place, young Mack saw the
sensational importance of Burchard's phrase. His story fanned out over
the wires. In many parts of the country "Rum, Romanism, and Re-
bellion" was a good vote-getting slogan for Elaine, but ironically
enough it also was the most deadly ammunition that could have been
given the underdog Democrats. They jumped to the attack. Burchard
had represented the Republican party inferentially as hostile to Cath-
olicism. That alienated the Catholic support on which Elaine's managers
had been counting so heavily. Furthermore, Elaine's mother was a
Catholic, and Democratic orators were quick to point out that the Re-
publican candidate had suffered Burchard's oblique slur on her to go
unrebuked. In three days the 2 to i odds disappeared and Cleveland
became a 10 to 9 favorite.
Election day came and in spite of ballot box stuffing, vote stealing
and vote buying, the first tabulations showed Cleveland carrying the
all-important New York metropolis by a vote of almost three to two.
Throughout the country crowds gathered outside newspaper offices
to read the hastily lettered bulletins. Cleveland appeared sure of vic-
tory and Democrats quickly organized jubilant torchlight parades.
The New York State vote still was in doubt, but Cleveland seemed
to have an edge. Dana's Stmy which had fought Cleveland so fiercely,
surprised everyone by conceding his victory. Then one ominous fact
began to stand out. A great bloc of rural New York districts, which
normally tabulated early, had failed to report.
Rumors began to fly that Jay Gould's telegraph company was out
to steal the election. Crowds outside the newspaper offices grew denser,
excitement mounted to a fever pitch, and still the Associated Press-
Western Union returns gave the lead to Elaine.
On the day after election the outcome remained in doubt. Elaine
wired party chiefs: "Claim everything." The next day came. Most New
York districts had reported and a Cleveland victory appeared certain.
And still the New York association placed the state in Elaine's column.
All day long Elaine leaders conferred with Jay Gould and when the
session ended shortly before seven that evening a Gould lieutenant
assured waiting reporters: "The state is safe for Elaine."
Almost immediately the wires were carrying a New York Asso-
ciated Press bulletin stating that Elaine had carried New York State
by a margin of more than 572 votes. With thirty districts still missing,
98 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
the count given was Elaine 555,531, Cleveland 554,959, and the dis-
patch asserted the unreported districts were staunchly Republican and
would swell Elaine's plurality.
In the streets there was a sullen, angry rumble as the throngs read
the newly posted dispatch. The rumble swelled into a roar and a mob
poured down Broadway toward the Western Union building which
housed the offices of both Gould and the New York Associated Press.
A great roar went up:
"Hang Jay Gould! Hang Jay Gould!"
Uptown another wrathful crowd, five thousand strong, went surg-
ing along Fifth Avenue to storm the Gould mansion. It marched
to the same fierce cry:
"Hang Jay Gould! Hang Jay Gould!"
Elsewhere other crowds roamed the streets and as the night re-
echoed their cries an editorial writer on the New York Herald was
writing:
. . . Gould controls the Western Union Telegraph Company. During
the last two days Gould, by false reports through his telegraphic agencies,
has been executing his share of the plot of preparing Republican partisans for
a fraudulent claim that the vote of New York has been cast for Elaine. . . .
It is the official returns of the ballot of the people of New York honestly
computed, and it is not Jay Gould and his Western Union Telegraph Com-
pany that are to determine the electoral vote of this state.
At the Western Union building police action prevented violence.
A guard was thrown around the Gould mansion. That night the finan-
cier quit the city for the safety of his yacht in the middle of the Hudson.
Soon after Gould had removed himself, the New York Associated
Press announced that Cleveland had carried New York State by a scant
margin. The official plurality was 1,149, which emphasized how close
the contest was and how damaging to Elaine had been Burchard's inept
speechmaking. With New York in his column, Cleveland had 219 elec-
toral votes to Elaine's 182. Had Elaine carried the state the count
would have been Elaine 218, Cleveland 183.
So the turbulent election of 1884 passed into history. It saw the
New York Associated Press accused of complicity in an unsavory elec-
tion-stealing plot, and yet in contradiction it saw the same organization
break the **Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" story which proved so
fatal to the hopes of the plot's beneficiary.
XL EXPANSION AND DISASTER
GROVER CLEVELAND was inaugurated the twenty-second Presi-
dent of the United States on March 4, 1885. Washington had never
seen such a jubilant assemblage. More than half a million Democrats
flooded the banks of the Potomac.
The size of the Associated Press staff on duty was in impressive
contrast to the one when Buchanan took his oath of office in 1857.
Only Gobright had been present for The Associated Press to report
that story. Now a half dozen reporters were assigned. The recent cor-
ruption and fraud charges still were fresh as they knuckled down to
write about the colorful occasion, but no subversive influences were in-
terested in the coverage of such a straightforward event.
The reports of the inauguration sped across the country. Although
the era of newspaper pictures had not dawned, the Los Angeles Times
seized upon the occasion to publish a humorous pen sketch of Cleveland
mounting the "administration horse." The drawing was jokingly con-
ceived by an artist in the newspaper's office, but the caption accompany-
ing the sketch was an unwitting prophecy of the amazing picture de-
velopment that revolutionized American journalism fifty years later.
The caption read:
This special Photogram to The Times, wired from Washington at
enormous expense, is Short (name of the artist who did the drawing) but
sweet, and gives a graphic idea of Mr. Cleveland's appearance as he mounted
the administration charger. A slight roughness in the lines is due to bumping
against the insulators as it came buzzing along on the overland wires.
With the news pulse quickening, reports were pouring into the
New York headquarters at the rate of more than 40,000 words daily
at the time of Cleveland's inauguration. The dispatches came from a
fair-sized staff, yet the names of the reporters themselves never had
been identified publicly with any of the work they did. Now occurred an
innovation.
Employees of the Missouri Pacific and Iron Mountain Railway
were on strike. The walkout, sponsored by the Knights of Labor,
99
100 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
threatened a stoppage on other railroads as well. The one man who
could point the way to a settlement was Jay Gould, magician of so many
business deals. For a long time he could not be found. Then word
reached New York that he was in Florida. Charles Sanford Diehl, of
the Chicago office of the Western Associated Press, happened to be
on vacation there and the formidable task of interviewing Gould was
delegated to him.
Diehl finally got the interview and his story contained a statement
from Gould which prevented a general walkout. The story was so im-
portant, and Diehl presented his information so well, that the associa-
tion carried his name at the end to indicate it was an exclusive dispatch,
obtained and written by one of its own staff men. That was a great
departure from tradition, marking the first intentional appearance of a
correspondent's by-line in the news report.
DiehPs good work in the past, climaxed by this Florida interview,
was responsible for his almost immediate promotion. A short time later,
when the Western Associated Press found it imperative to open a
division headquarters on the Pacific Coast, he received the assignment.
The papers of the Far West were dissatisfied with the service they re-
ceived and two influential clients had withdrawn. A tactful hand was
needed on the scene to Ijold the others in line and to ensure adequate
Pacific news protection.
Diehl was no newcomer to the newspaper business. Born in Mary-
land in 1854, he was a seventeen-year-old typesetter in Chicago at
the time of the great fire. In an attempt to allay the fears of the
populace he began printing a handbill newspaper. Later he became a
$10 a week reporter on the Chicago Times and a month after the Custer
massacre the paper sent him into the Northwest to cover the redoubled
drive against the Indians. There he operated with the column of Gen-
eral Terry, whose instructions Custer had so tragically disobeyed, and
there he learned firsthand the story of Kellogg's end. He was impressed
by the part that special, or string, correspondents such as the Bismarck
reporter might play in a large news-gathering system. Soon after
joining The Associated Press he encouraged the organization of a sys-
tem of part-time men in the Chicago area and it paid news dividends
from the start.
When Diehl arrived in San Francisco in May, 1887, he brought
energy that was badly needed. The Pacific coast, glamorous and ro-
EXPANSION AND DISASTEI^ 101
mantic, was also a neglected stepchild. The newbudget it received was
haphazardly assembled and irregularly delivered. Diehl saw the possi-
bilities and for the first time a detailed report began to appear west
of Kansas City, transmitted over regular telegraph lines.
The Associated Press picked the right time to open a Pacific Coast
headquarters. Diehl scarcely had established himself and adjusted the
complaints of disgruntled editors before the first in a series of important
news events occurred in a remote part of his vast territory.
In Hawaii — many miles from communication facilities — revolt over-
threw Queen Liliuokalani and her island court. Diehl made special
arrangements for a roving correspondent in Honolulu to report the
revolution.
The correspondent got his story all right, but he couldn't get it
out. Two boats, the Australia and the United States revenue cutter
Richard Rush, were leaving for the mainland the same night. The
Australia was San Francisco bound and would carry mail, but the com-
mander of the Richard Rush, on a shorter run to San Diego, would
neither carry the correspondent's story nor permit anyone aboard to
do so.
Other reporters decided their only choice was to send their stories
by the slower Australia, but Diehl's man had different ideas. In the
bar of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel he saw a sailor whose cap bore the
lettering "Richard Rush." The seaman was quick. A bargain was made.
For $75 he concealed a copy of the dispatch inside his undershirt and
filed it with the telegraph company as soon as he reached San Diego.
In that way Diehl secured the story of the Hawaiian insurrection
twenty-four hours before the Australia arrived at San Francisco — even
before the government in Washington received its official report.
While Diehl was organizing the Coast, activities of an entirely dif-
ferent kind were under way in the East. The five-year joint manager-
ship contract between the New York and Western associations was to
expire at the close of 1887. Its renewal was vital to the furtherance of
the secret plans of certain of the five-man governing committee and the
undercover owners of the United Press. Therefore, early that year
those concerned began to look to the future.
As chairman of the Joint Committee, Dana took steps to see that
there was no hitch. The New York Associated Press accordingly pro-
102 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
posed a five-year renewal and praised the effectiveness of the existing
union. Dana himself urged the Western association to accept it at once.
He was seconded by Richard Smith and W. N. Haldeman, who repre-
sented the West on the Joint Committee, and the arguments they
presented so hoodwinked the Western directors that they ratified the
extension six months earlier than necessary.
The decade moved. Cleveland accepted the Statue of Liberty as
a gift from the French; the Interstate Commerce Commission was
authorized; an ambitious individual completed a trip around the world
by bicycle; the phonograph was invented, and the first paper bottles
appeared and were laughed at.
In a Baltimore basement a German immigrant named Ottmar
Mergenthaler had been trying for several years to perfect a machine
suggested by the idea of James O. Clephane, the Washington stenog-
rapher who had first thought of the typewriter. His object was to per-
fect a mechanism that would set newspaper type automatically, thereby
replacing the old hand-type method.
His first machine was tried out in the office of the New York
Tribune. It was christened the Lin-o-type. By 1888 the apparatus was
ready for more widespread use and publishers spoke of it as the most
significant printing development since the introduction of movable
type ii> the middle of the fifteenth century.
Until the invention of movable type in 1450 printing had been
difficult. It was necessary to carve the whole text on a solid block and
after that laborious process the block was worthless once it had been
used. Movable type made it possible to fashion each letter separately
on a small block and these individual pieces could be properly reassem-
bled over and over again as other documents required printing. That
was the first major advance in typesetting and now, with the advent
of the Lin-o-type, the composing rooms of newspapers began a new
day of rapid operations.
In the beginning the Lin-o-type was an expensive addition to
newspaper equipment; it was several years before it came to be regarded
as a necessity. But news could not wait.
Out in Samoa in March, 1889, an international controversy had
developed over governmental control of the South Sea Islands. War-
ships of the disputing nations assembled threateningly in Apia harbor*
EXPANSION AND DISASTER 103
Diehl, in San Francisco, scented a story of potentially great importance
and dispatched a staff man. John P. Dunning drew the assignment.
In the absence of cable facilities in that part of the world, he was forced
to relay his stories to San Francisco by boat. But it was the violence
of nature and not of nations that made the biggest news.
On March 16 the most devastating hurricane ever to strike in
that tropical latitude swept the islands with a fury that took many lives
and wrecked Samoa and the battleships alike. For a month the world
knew nothing of it, and then on April 13 a story running several
thousand words reached Diehl. It was from Dunning, by the Australian
steamer Alemada^ and it contained first word of the tragedy. After
helping with rescue work Dunning had written his story in the midst of
the wreckage. Regular leased wire facilities of The Associated Press
still had not reached San Francisco, and Diehl had to feed the big news
over the regular commercial lines at a cost of six cents per word.
The eighties, with their wealth of spontaneous news, had made
trained newspapermen more than ever conscious of how words could
paint a quick picture for the reader. Men like Diehl now were schooling
their men to tell all the salient facts in the first inclusive paragraph —
later called the "lead" — of any story. It was the seal beginning of a
modern newspaper style and The Associated Press' was beginning to
answer, in the first few lines, those five most pertinent questions — who,
when, where, why, what.
Dunning's opening sentence on the Samoan disaster was long, but
it told the complete story in less than a hundred words. It said:
Apia, Samoa, March 30 — The most violent and destructive hurricane
ever known in the Southern Pacific passed over the Samoan Islands on the
1 6th and ijth of March, and as a result, a fleet of six warships and ten
other vessels were ground to atoms on the coral reefs in the harbor, or
thrown on the beach in front of the little city of Apia, and 142 officers and
men of the American and German navies sleep forever under the reefs or
lie buried in unmarked graves, thousands of miles from their native lands.
The reporter could have let that paragraph stand alone. The
essential facts had been presented. But Dunning went on to the details.
He gave the names of the ships and their loss of personnel. Then he
returned to the terrifying storm itself, describing its intensity and pic-
turing the great struggle to survive the catastrophe. He told of natives
holding up wooden shingles as protection against a rain so fierce that
it cut their faces, of the heroic activities of rescuers, and of the valiant
efforts at reconstruction.
104 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
It was the longest story that ever had moved by telegraph across
the continent.
The news editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, standing over
DiehPs shoulder as the agent edited the copy for the wires, exclaimed:
"My God, that is a wonderful picture!" Diehl subsequently said: "If
I were to prepare a primer for young writers, not omitting some who
are more mature, I would offer Dunning's opening paragraph of a
memorable sea tragedy as a code to observe." United States Senator
Don Cameron told his colleagues: "When I want to shed tears I read
Dunning's story of the heroism of the human race, as it developed in
Apia harbor." The New York Tribune reproduced the story in pam-
phlet form to satisfy the requests of readers, and in London the Times
called it one of the most perfect bits of English ever written.
May, 1889, arrived cheerlessly, bringing rains which deluged the
eastern states. For three weeks the downpour continued, hampering
communications and swelling rivers. The rain was still falling on May
31 when, toward evening, the vague report reached Colonel William
Connolly, Associated Press agent in Pittsburgh: "Something has hap-
pened at Johnstown."
Telegraph lines and the new telephone circuits were already
crippled. There was only one possible way of reaching Johnstown, in
the mountains of western Pennsylvania and ninety miles away, and
that was by special train. This meant enormous expense, but the Pitts-
burgh papers and Agent Connolly pooled resources to engage a one-car
special.
Before the train pulled out the first shred of news arrived — reports
that a flood had taken as many as a hundred and fifty lives. The agent
hurried the word off to New York and then with Harry W. Orr, his
best telegrapher, set out by train against the advice of railroad officials.
The special crept into the darkness with frequent halts while train-
men splashed ahead with lanterns to inspect the track. The water kept
mounting until it reached the driving rods and the engineer announced
he could go no farther.
Connolly, Orr, and two others — Claude Wetmore, a free lance
ordered to the scene by the New York World, and a reporter for one
of the Pittsburgh papers — plunged into the black water over the
roadbed. Three timid colleagues stayed behind. Connolly waded off in
EXPANSION AND DISASTER 105
search of a farmer who might drive them the remaining miles. While
he was away the others were attracted by the dim light of lanterns.
They sloshed over to a rickety bridge which spanned the raging Cone-
maugh River.
The lanterns were being carried by rescuers fishing for human
bodies. The workers were using lassos to catch arms or legs as bodies
hurtled past in the river. More than two score corpses were piled on
the planks and the gruesome work continued.
Several miles up the river from Johnstown a dam had made the
Conemaugh a vast lake for many years. The weeks of ceaseless rain
had piled up eighteen million tons of water. Late that afternoon the
dam had given way and a liquid wall, seventy-five feet high, swept
down the valley on the low-lying town. A railroad engineer tied down
his locomotive whistle and raced the water toward Johnstown. But
he was too late.
Connolly returned presently with a farmer who, for $50, said he
would attempt to take the four newspapermen across the mountains.
They were six hours covering the few miles and it was seven o'clock
in the morning when they reached the south bank of the Conemaugh
three miles from Johnstown. No conveyance could go farther. They had
to make their own way, slipping and sliding through the muck, slime
and water, past half-buried bodies and the hideous jumble of debris.
One of the party sickened and turned back. Connolly, Orr and Wet-
more struggled on.
Feeling his way along the flooded roadbed, Connolly stumbled
over an abandoned cattle guard and floundered into the rushing water.
When he tried to get to his feet he found his ankle badly wrenched.
The pain was so great he could not even hobble. Orr and Wetmore
managed to get him to a farmhouse on a near-by hillside where he
collapsed. The injured man, however, refused to let them waste time
with first-aid efforts. The only thing that counted was the story of
Johnstown's tragedy.
Orr and Wetmore split up, each with the determination to find
some way to get out a few positive words. As the representative of a
member paper, Wetmore promised Connolly to see that the first news
sent out would be to The Associated Press. In the next few horror-
filled hours the reporter and the telegrapher slogged through muck,
scaled barricades of debris, and brushed past countless bodies of dis-
aster victims. Wetmore had the first luck. He spied a lineman on a pole
cutting in on a wire preparatory to sending a message with a pocket
106 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Morse instrument. The free lance begged him to send a dispatch for
him.
"Hell, no!" the operator yelled down. "This is railroad business."
But Wetmore was not willing to give up.
"Just a few words," he pleaded. "Ask your superintendent at the
other end."
The telegrapher reluctantly consented. A prompt answer came
ticking back and the lineman shouted down.
"All right! Get it up to me!"
Wetmore scribbled on a piece of wet paper, found a long pole and
passed up his dispatch:
OVER TWO THOUSAND DEAD. DEVASTATED JOHNS-
TOWN APPEALS TO THE NATION FOR POOD AND SHELTER
FOR OTHER THOUSANDS WHO ARE HOMELESS AND
STARVING .
Orr encountered Wetmore shortly afterward, and then both were
surprised to see Connolly hobbling toward them, supported by two
bedraggled farmers. He had not received any medical attention, but was
determined to get back to the story. Choosing a vantage point, he found
a large board, lay down on his stomach and began to write.
After midday relief trains started to arrive and on their return
trips Connolly sent out great wads of copy for relay outside the flood
zone. During the afternoon three wire lines were strung into Johns-
town. One was set aside for official messages, one for military instruc-
tions on troop movements and supplies, and one was given to The
Associated Press. Connolly set up headquarters in an abandoned grist-
mill on the east side of the Conemaugh, and there Orr took charge
of the wire, moving Connolly's continuing story directly from the
scene.
Unknown to the two staff men, General Manager Smith spent
that day and most of the next trying to join them. The flood had caught
him near Altoona en route by rail to Chicago. He made his way over
the mountains, stopping to report the death of thirteen passengers in a
train that had been wrecked by the floods.
Connolly was in a pitiful condition by the time the general manager
arrived. He had been working without rest and next to no food for
seventy-two hours. His injured ankle was much worse because he in-
sisted on walking. Smith found that part of the Associated Press head-
quarters had been pressed into service as a morgue. At an improvised
EXPANSION AND DISASTER 107
desk made of a narrow board on two upturned barrels, Connolly wrote
his story and passed it to Orr at his elbow. The rest of the room was a
mortuary.
Not long after Smith appeared, Connolly collapsed and the gen-
eral manager took him back to Pittsburgh, leaving the coverage in
charge of Alexander J. Jones, the first additional staff man ordered to
the scene. Orr refused to leave his telegraph key. A slight, frail man,
Jones was not so vigorous. He could not get anything to eat and twenty-
four hours in the nightmare of destruction unnerved him. He called
for help from Chicago — the only direct point on the Associated Press
wire.
Help arrived, but it was intended for Orr and not Jones. J. Her-
bert Smythe, a young telegrapher in his twenties, had started from Chi-
cago to act as relief operator for Orr. When he reached Johnstown,
Orr broke down after ninety-six hours under pressure and had to be
put on a train for Pittsburgh. Jones departed on the same train.
Smythe proved equal to the emergency. Lacking a pair of rubber
boots, he tied strings around the bottom of his trousers to keep out the
mud and then tackled the story. The first day he sent two thousand
words, writing in pencil on copy paper and telegraphing it when he got
back to the gristmill. He was meticulous about making corrections if
he saw an opportunity to improve the account as he went over it a second
time while operating the Morse key. For a while the only food was
soda crackers and black coffee. On that diet Smythe turned in a brilliant
reportorial performance which won him regular assignment to the
news staff.
A few days after Smythe arrived another Associated Press man
reached the makeshift headquarters. The newcomer was Lewis from
New York, and it had taken three days and nights to wade and flounder
from Harrisburg, a little more than a hundred miles away. He had
been attending a formal dinner in New York when ordered to the
flood zone and the full dress suit he wore was an amazing sight. He
had cut the tails off his coat to facilitate his progress. His collapsible
silk hat was battered, and his boiled shirt was black.
Johnstown was slowly reviving. The remaining houses on higher
ground were crowded with refugees and a small dynamic woman named
Clara Barton had taken charge of relief operations for the Red Cross.
Lewis and Wetmore, unable to find any other sleeping place, ap-
propriated some of the boxes that had been brought in by relief trains
and stacked near the mill for use by the Red Cross. They lined them
AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
s^;;' __
with straw and moved them into the windowless building. For the next
two weeks, while the full story unfolded, they led a harsh existence,
eating what little they could obtain and suffering from the scarcity of
drinking water. They slept occasionally — and the boxes into which they
tumbled for bed were cheap pine coffins. Smythe was more fastidious.
He used a board stretched across two kegs.
From the standpoint of straight news reporting, the Johnstown
flood tested the working newspaperman's determination to obtain first-
hand information despite all odds.
Although news gathering itself was coming of age, the little
handful of men behind the old New York monopoly continued to
take liberties with the facts whenever they dealt importantly with poli-
tics, the almighty dollar, or any of the other major controversial issues
which exerted national influence. Late that same year of 1889 the Mon-
tana copper kings spent more than a million dollars to influence voting
and once again the association was accused of disseminating biased
reports.
XII. FOR THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR
THE country was greedy for quick money as the nation moved into the
closing decade of the nineteenth century. Slick promoters and market
manipulators lured the small investor and shady financial circles in
New York were careful to see that no news leaked out that would dis-
turb the gullible. New states were being admitted to the Union, new
industries developed and the magic of a dawning machine age brought
the promise of a better future. Legislators were so interested in their
own private affairs that enactment of wise regulatory laws was neg-
lected. The entire press was threatened by a news monopoly controlled
by moneyed interests.
The period was one of critical transition in the conception of a
newspaper's obligations to its readers and in journalism's financial read-
justment to the nation's pace. This era of change had begun in the
eighties during the most rapid expansion of population and industry in
the history of the United States. Until that time the press of the coun-
try had been a comparatively small, personalized business. But the
development of the telegraph and the cable, the introduction of the
telephone, the constantly increasing appetite for news, and the eventual
perfection of rapid printing facilities changed the entire complexion of
newspapering. Gradually the future of news gathering itself came to
be involved. Either it was to become entirely the instrument of forces
concerned with profits and special causes or it would emerge as an hon-
est, self-respecting public service.
From Chicago the strongest new figure in the Western Associated
Press surveyed the whole uncertain panorama. Victor Fremont Lawson
was editor and publisher of the Chicago Daily News. He had entered
the newspaper field several years before the beginning of this headlong
time and had had opportunity to study the pyramiding of the nation's
financial structure. He had watched the growth of co|
until they controlled almost every conceivable comr
barbed wire, oil, rubber, cordage, even ice and kindling wood. And he
had seen the news from financial New York phrased or delayed so that
interested men profited to the extent of millions.
109
no AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Lawson knew how the press could influence the masses. His father
had printed foreign-language papers for the large Scandinavian popu-
kitJbns of the Middle West, and Lawson continued the business after
his father's death. His papers had brought him in contact with the
financially unstable Chicago Daily News, founded by an old school-
mate, Melville E. Stone. Lawson bought it and gave Stone freedom
as editor. It was an effective partnership, Stone with his editorial abil-
ities and Lawson with his idealistic conception of a newspaper's mission,
and it lasted until Stone relinquished his position in 1888 because of
poor health. Together the pair made the Daily News one of the most
respected papers in the country. Lawson outlined his views on what
the publication should stand for:
Candid — That its utterances shall at all times be the exact truth. It is
independent but never indifferent;
Comprehensive — That it shall contain all the news;
Concise — The Daily News is very carefully edited, to the end that the
valuable time of its patrons shall not be wasted in reading of mere trifles;
Clean — That its columns shall never be tainted by vulgarity or obscenity;
Cheap — That its price shall be put within the reach of all.
Lawson wondered if these principles could not be applied to news-
gathering, where reform plainly was needed.
Under the terms of the last truce, the Western Associated Press
continued in alliance with the old New York organization and the
combined operations of the two were still directed by the same Joint
Executive Committee of three New Yorkers and two Westerners
which had taken over the dual management at the conclusion of the
1882 hostilities. In the great surge of national development and the
wealth of news which followed that rapprochement, there had been
little inclination to question the arrangement. There had been com-
plaints, but the West's own William Henry Smith was the general
manager of the affiliated associations and the two Western representa-
tives on the Joint Executive Committee had n voice. Superficially this
partnership appeared sound. But when th$|Western Associated Press
members gathered for their annual meeting 'in 1890 there was increas-
ing belief that appearances were deceptive.
For several years the members had watched with misgivings the
phenomenal growth of the new agency — the United Press. Publishers
FOR THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR in
beyond the Alleghenies had been worried when this rival first appeared
in 1882, but the apprehension subsided with the Western-New York*
Associated Press realignment a few months later. Now they realize^
they should have given this upstart organization more attention. It
continued to grow stronger in spite of the apparent opposition of the
more solidly entrenched Associated Press.
On top of everything else, there was a mystery shrouding both its
control and its method of operation. The Westerners had heard rumors
that a small clique of financiers owned the United Press, lock, stock,
and barrel. In retrospect a few noted that one of the greatest periods
of unreliability and distortion in their own news report paralleled the
rise of this agency. Most disturbing of all was the suspicion that the
United Press had secretly perfected an arrangement to siphon news
from Associated Press reports. Some Westerners bluntly charged that
such a state of affairs existed and that there was connivance between
the shadowy commercial interests and some members of their own
Joint Committee.
The Western membership decided at their 1890 meeting on an
official inquiry. The investigation was entrusted to Victor Lawson as
head of a committee of three.
Lawson himself did not know the extent of his undertaking. His
immediate commission was rather limited in scope — to discover what
he could about the growth of the United Press and to establish any
hidden connection it might have with The Associated Press.
Lawson was assisted by Colonel Frederick Driscoll, of the St. Paul
Pioneer-Press, and R. W. Patterson, Jr., of the Chicago Tribune,
among others. During the long months of careful, puzzling research
there were repeated attempts to unseat the committee and to discredit
its efforts. At one stage I. F. Mack, now president of the Western
Associated Press, even attempted to stop Lawson. Others whom Lawson
had trusted most implicitly turned out to be among the most culpable.
Individuals in high places were involved in the most complicated
scheme. Even the majority of the seven members of the old New York
Associated Press had not been aware of what was going on.
Lawson made his preliminary report to the regular 1891 meeting
and then hurried off to Ng|f York to complete his investigation. Interest
ran so high that only one member of the entire Western Associated
Press failed to attend the special meeting called in Detroit on August 18
of the same year to hear the whole shocking story of betrayal and deceit
The meeting was stunned by Lawson's revelations.
112 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
He presented documentary evidence showing that all of the news-
gathering facilities of the country were in the control of a trust domi-
nated by John Walsh, the financier, William Laffan, business manager
and publisher of Dana's New York Swny and Walter Phillips, directing
head of the United Press.
These men — principal owners of the United Press — controlled all
the news by virtue of a secret trust agreement between the United
Press and members of the Joint Executive Committee of the New York
and Western associations.
They had contrived this agreement with the Joint Executive Com-
mittee and they had given stock valued at many thousands of dollars
to the committee members privately in order to effect their plan.
Not only was part of this stock held personally by Charles Dana,
president of the New York Associated Press and chairman of the Joint
Executive Committee, but Richard Smith and W. N. Haldeman,
Western representatives on the committee, and General Manager
William Henry Smith also had been given large financial interests.
The total holdings of all the Associated Press men involved — until
now considered entirely loyal to the best interests of the jointly operated
associations — were as follows:
Charles A. Dana, Editor of the Sun and chairman of the Joint
Executive Committee $ 72,500
Whitelaw Reid, New York Associated Press representative on the
joint committee, in the name of Henry W. Sackett 72,500
W. N. Haldeman, Western Associated Press representative on the
joint committee 50,000
Richard Smith, Western Associated Press representative on the
joint committee, in the name of J. D. Hearne 50,000
William Henry Smith, General Manager of the combined New
York and Western Associated Press 50,000
William M. Laffan, business manager and publisher of the Sun ... 72,500
Total $367,500
It took Lawson more than ten thousand words to recount the
entire story and his report explained for the first time many mystifying
incidents of the past.
3
The incredible situation had its beginning back in 1884 when the
rising young United Press in a masterpiece of salesmanship prevailed
upon the Joint Executive Committee to buy the bothersome report ofc
FOR THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 113
its European news subsidiary, the Cable News Company. Ostensibly
the move was designed to strengthen The Associated Press's own foreign
news service, but there were other shadowy details in the transaction.
It was then that the New York Associated Press employed Francis X.
Schoonmaker who had been head of the Cable News. Many publishers
now recalled that, at the time, they had been surprised by this sudden
change of front by General Manager Smith who had previously
denounced Schoonmaker as a "scoundrel" and "thief," and the Cable
News Company as a purveyor of bogus dispatches.
The Cable News Company proved the entering wedge and for a
while the Joint Executive Committee and the United Press worked
together privately in the field of foreign intelligence. The first arrange-
ment also called for the New York Associated Press to supply its
theoretical rival with news of the New England area, but presently
Congressional and Albany reports were added, and soon The Associated
Press was supplying its news on a national scale. The news usually was
made available to the United Press in New York through a scheme
which kept the overt act well concealed.
In return for the news it received from The Associated Press, the
United Press exchanged some of the news it gathered, but there was
more than reciprocity in the partnership. To cement the union, the
men who controlled the United Press presented thirty per cent of their
organization's stock to four members of the Joint Executive Committee
in 1885. Technically, the committeemen "bought" the stock, but an
immediate hundred per cent "dividend" refunded the purchase money.
Since the co-operation of the general manager of the combined Asso-
ciated Press organization was necessary, the two Western committee
members reissued one-third of their holdings to Smith.
The theory was simplicity itself. The men who directed the oper-
ations of the New York and Western associations would supply the
United Press the great bulk of their news secretly and at virtually no
cost. The operating expense of the United Press accordingly would be
at a minimum and an imposing percentage of its receipts would represent
profits — profits to be distributed as dividends to the coterie behind the
scenes; Furthermore, the United Press would increase its number of
clients by recruiting Associated Press papers to take its report under
threat of subsidizing opposition publications in their territories. Thus,
in effect, those Associated Press papers which were coerced into sub-
scribing to the United Press would be paying twice for substantially
the same news service.
114 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Once the 1885 stock-distributing trust agreement had been ratified,
the plan proceeded, successful and surreptitious. In 1887, however, the
first five-year contract of the Western Associated Press with New York
expired. Failure to renew it not only would cut off the United Press
from the news gathered by the West, but also might affect the personnel
of the all-important Joint Executive Committee and bring about a
change of general managers. That was why the interested parties set
about assuring a renewal of the agreement between New York and
the West.
All this while the dividends had been rolling in. The returns had
surpassed anticipations and carried the promise of even more lucrative
operations. The United Press had found itself handicapped by its
modest capitalization. As soon as the West renewed its New York
contract, Walsh and his group felt free to remedy this deficiency. Ac-
cordingly, in 1887 a new United Press was chartered with a $1,000,000
capitalization. The financier, Walsh, as treasurer, immediately bought
back the old United Press stock from the Associated Press officials,
thereby repaying their initial "investment" a second time.
Then he distributed to them gratis $300,000 worth of the new
stock, and the name of William M. Laffan appeared on the list of
stockholders for the first time along with those of Dana, Reid, Richard
Smith, Haldeman, and General Manager Smith. Dana, Laffan, and
Reid each purchased an additional $22,500, so that the total Joint
Executive Committee holdings were $367,500. Just as with the 1885
agreement, this stock was pooled with that held by Walsh and a few
others to assure continued control of the expanded United Press. Walsh
again filled the powerful position of trustee.
With operations on a big scale and the profits mounting, the
manipulators realized the need for putting their news juggling partner-
ship on a legal basis. Hitherto everything had been done by informal
arrangement. On May 28, 1888, a formal contract was executed and
it was Lawson's discovery of this document which started him on the
trail leading to all the scandalous revelations.
In the course of his report Lawson told of President Mack's
efforts to sabotage the committee's work. He also called for the
resignations of Richard Smith and Haldeman as the West's representa-
tives on the joint committee.
Mack took the floor for an explanation of his strange behavior.
But the membership rebuked him by electing William Penn Nixon,
FOR THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 115
publisher of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, to replace him as the Western
president.
Richard Smith and Haldeman entered an extended defense,
extolling the progress of news gathering during their ten-year service
on the committee. But there was no explaining away the embarrassing
possession of stock.
Then General Manager William Henry Smith asked for indul-
gence to review his twenty-two years in the association. "I have
endeavored to be faithful," he protested, "and have given to the work
of creating this great and honorable news service the best years of my
life." But the members were not to be moved by touching pleas.
The Lawson report was accepted and all its recommendations
adopted. Lawson was elected to head the West's reconstituted Executive
Committee and the membership referred the whole involved business
of the projected trust and the future status of General Manager Smith
to that body.
Those members of the monopolistically inclined New York Asso-
ciated Press who had not known what was going on also were incensed
and disillusioned. At last they saw that monopoly, carried to its logical
conclusion, meant a national news system operated for the dollar first
and news integrity second. The New York majority made some feeble
efforts to recoup their former prestige as a news-gathering combination,
but they realized that the arrogant association they had so jealously
fostered had been virtually stolen from under their noses by a profit-
hungry element of their own membership in league with outright
commercial interests. The New York Associated Press, historic old trail
blazer, was doomed, and they made little attempt to save it.
The day of reckoning had come, but the struggle was only just
beginning.
XIII. CHAOS AND CRUSADE
THE nation rushed heedlessly along toward a financial debacle and,
as the forces of the Western Associated Press left the significant Detroit
meeting, the first scattered signs of the panic of 1893 began to appear.
The price of silver started its decline, the Treasury's gold reserve was
shrinking, there were occasional bank failures, and in some industries
the fear of unemployment no longer could be disguised.
It was at such a critical time in national life that Lawson and the
other Western publishers started their struggle to wrest control of
news from the private money interests. On every side was uncertainty
and confusion. Many publishers, still shocked by the scandal which
Lawson had unearthed, seemed too dazed to realize the serious plight
into which the nation's news-gathering machinery had been maneuvered.
There still were strong elements of opposition among some of the
publishers themselves. The complexity of motives and the ambitions
of selfish interests did not make the future a bright one.
In the next months this clash of interests was bitter. There were
many times when Lawson himself wavered and was unsure, but the
inevitable fact remained that the men behind the United Press controlled
most of the news of the world and were driving resolutely ahead in a
determination to control all.
Under such circumstances it behooved the West to compose its
own internal differences and strengthen that portion of news gathering
which it still controlled. One of the first steps was to employ repre-
sentatives in many important centers where the Western Associated
Press was not already represented. This marked the official introduction
of the large-scale string correspondent system into Associated Press
coverage, extending the plan which Diehl had instituted in Chicago
several years before. Another step was to increase the leased wire
facilities. Heretofore the wires had operated only nineteen hours a day,
but now began the practice of delivering news to big newspapers around
the clock.
The resignation of William Henry Smith as general manager had
116
CHAOS AND CRUSADE 117
not been accepted, though there was little doubt that he had lost much
of his old initiative and spirit. He kept protesting that the United Press
stock in his name actually was the property of Walter Haldeman and
Richard Smith, and that he had been incriminated merely for accepting
dividends. The administration had become sluggish. The news report
suffered and Dana, now in the United Press fold, gloated editorially:
Those journals of The Associated Press that are distressed by reason
of the superior and more accurate news that is regularly supplied by the
United Press are hereby informed that there is no necessity for their remain-
ing in such a state of unhappiness.
The United Press is prepared to furnish the news, foreign and domestic,
to any newspaper that is ready and willing to pay a reasonable rate for the
same; and that without discrimination on account of race, complexion or
previous condition of servitude.
There were many factors, however, which made General Manager
Smith's continuance necessary. Not the least reason was that a large
number of papers in worried auxiliary associations had come to know
him personally and to rely upon him for their news.
This was especially true in the South. Adolph S. Ochs, the young
publisher of the Chattanooga Timesy was secretary of the regional
Southern Associated Press. He was a stanch supporter of the principles
for which Lawson was fighting, and Lawson did not wish to take any
step which might alienate so important a block of newspapers.
Lawson's committee set to work to weld the Western Associated
Press and its affiliates into a more compact front. It held meetings with
representatives of the Southern, New England, and New York State
Associated Press organizations in the hope of convincing them that they
should all join forces and face the future together.
The full significance of that future was becoming increasingly
apparent in Lawson's mind. He saw its inevitable climax must be a finish
fight to decide whether control of news should be in the hands of those
who gathered it or whether it was to be held by a trust whose primary
concern was profit.
The first step was to perfect plans looking forward to the trans-
formation of the Western Associated Press into a potentially representa-
tive national association. This represented an ambitious undertaking
and progress was slow. It was decided, however, to incorporate a new
u8 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
organization under the laws of the state of Illinois. The name of the
projected organization was to be The Associated Press of Illinois.
The second step was an exceedingly delicate operation. It involved
maneuvering the United Press into a disadvantageous position which
would neutralize its superiority in strength and financial resources — an
operation which must be performed without arousing suspicion. The
United Press still wished to do business with the West and Lawson
had suffered negotiations to continue. Now he saw that these negotia-
tions gave him an excellent means to advance toward his second
objective. Accordingly, he welcomed the growing anxiety of United
Press officials for an understanding. The Laffan- Walsh-Phillips trium-
virate had become concerned lest no new working compact be agreed
upon before the end of the year, when the one-time secret Associated
Press-United Press contract formally expired. They were ready to
absorb the legally nonexistent New York Associated Press, and they
privately felt it imperative to keep the West quiescent by any sort of
concessions until that conquest had been accomplished.
Laffan and Phillips therefore went to Chicago in October, 1892,
to expedite matters. The mission had greater magnitude than they
realized.
A provisional "unifying" agreement was drawn. Under it the
United Press was to retire from the territory of the old Western
Associated Press and confine its operations to the states east of the
Alleghenies and north of Virginia. The news exchange agreement was
to be revived officially, the United Press supplying foreign, eastern
seaboard, and Gulf states news in return for the news of the rest of
the country, to be furnished by the projected Associated Press of Illinois.
The proposed contract, which was to be for a fantastic term of ninety-
three years, ostensibly promised a perpetual, peaceful alliance, and at
the time the United Press was eager to encourage this delusion. Hence
the emissaries agreed readily to an innocently phrased stipulation by
Lawson that the tentative contract should not restrict The Associated
Press of Illinois to any specific territory in the collection or distribution
of news. Colonel Driscoll, of Lawson's committee, summed up the
West's attitude: "Bear in mind it was not as though we were treating
with honorable gentlemen."
Once the "unifying" .provisional agreement had been drawn,
Lawson's committee accelerated preparations for the appearance of The
Associated Press of Illinois.
The organization they contemplated was a bold and radical
CHAOS AND CRUSADE 119
departure from anything ever before undertaken in journalism. It was
to be a complete co-operative, making no profits and declaring no
dividends. Its sole purpose was to be the collection and distribution of
news for its newspapers, which were to be members rather than clients.
Each paper was to have a voice in its affairs. Above all, it was to serve
the cause of truth in news.
On November 10, 1892, the application was made for a charter of
incorporation. The objects were set forth as follows:
... to buy, gather and accumulate information and news; to vend,
supply, distribute and publish the same; to purchase, erect, lease, operate and
sell telegraph and telephone lines and other means of transmitting news; to
publish periodicals; to make and deal in periodicals and other goods, wares
and merchandise.
The hastily drawn charter scarcely had been issued before Lawson
learned confidentially that at last the United Press had arranged to
take over everything that remained of the old New York Associated
Press at the beginning of 1893. It was to obtain most of the old
organization's members, its excellent foreign report, its wires and news-
gathering facilities, its New York and Washington budgets, as well
as all the "outside" clients.
That same day the first meeting of the new Associated Press of
Illinois was held in Chicago. Sixty-five newspapers were listed as
charter members entitled to stockholding privileges. They speedily
agreed upon a set of by-laws embodying the revolutionary principle
of nonprofit, co-operative news gathering. William Penn Nixon was
elected president, and Lawson, Knapp, and Driscoll were named to the
Executive Committee. The major business was the question of agreeing
to the proposed "unifying" contract with the United Press which
Lawson had negotiated. The session was a closed one and the delibera-
tions secret — facts against which indignant United Press officials later
inveighed — but before it ended the members ratified Lawson's tentative
agreement and authorized the execution of a "general contract" to
make it effective.
Qn December 31, 1892, the old New York Associated Press
slipped almost unnoticed from the national scene after forty-four event-
ful years. As the sabotaged institution passed, it was significant that a
majority of its staff — the rank and file of the scattered news army which
had made it great in its day — aligned themselves under the standard
of the new Associated Press of Illinois. To them the change simply
120 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
represented a phase of evolution which left the continuity of co-operative
news gathering unimpaired and they regarded themselves as the heirs
or colleagues of those who had contributed so much to Associated Press
history since 1848.
The Laffan-Walsh-Phillips triumvirate counted on the disappear-
ance of the New York organization to leave the outlook serene for
the United Press. With the control of all foreign and most eastern
news now believed secure, they expected to be free to proceed with the
subjugation of the West. Then quite accidentally they learned shocking
news which the West had not intended them to know at that stage.
The Associated Press of Illinois, which they had marked for
destruction, already was active in a quiet campaign aimed at the destruc-
tion of the United Press.
The United Press chieftains made a further discovery which was
additional proof of what they immediately termed "double-dealing."
At the time the tentative "unifying" contract was negotiated, they had
nominated their own general manager, Walter P. Phillips, as the man
to administer the revamped affairs of the two associations. With Phillips
in this position, future moves against the West would be greatly facili-
tated. Lawson's committee had received the nomination and the United
Press negotiators had departed with the belief that it had tacit approval.
Now, to their anger, they learned The Associated Press had no inten-
tion of countenancing Phillips in such a role.
On the contrary, The Associated Press of Illinois already had
another candidate in mind as its general manager. The man was
Melville E. Stone, Lawson's former partner on the Chicago Daily News.
Whether or not Lawson and his committeemen were aware that
the United Press had all this information, they appeared at the Sun
office in New York on February 15, 1893, t° execute the previously
drafted unifying agreement. But it became obvious that the United
Press had no intention of going through with it. Laffan, as vice-president
of United Press, declined to agree to the contract, promising to make
explanations in writing.
The explanations came two days later in an aggrieved letter from
Laffan, not to the Lawson committee but to Laffan's fellow triumvir,
John R. Walsh of Chicago. Laffan accused The Associated Press of
Illinois of bad faith and charged the Westerners had regarded the
tentative agreement merely as a "temporary expedient" whereby the
United Press should be "belittled, restricted and ultimately destroyed."
The committee's motive, he declared, "was to secure our signatures to
CHAOS AND CRUSADE 121
the agreement and then open their ambuscade upon us when we were
no longer in a situation to defend ourselves." The broadside was read
to the Board of Directors of The Associated Press of Illinois in the
presence of Lawson's committee and went uncontradicted.
The collapse of the contract parley ended all pretense of nego-
tiations. Then in one last attempt at intimidation Laffan boastfully
informed Lawson that the United Press had just closed an agreement
with the English agency, Reuters, for exclusive American rights to all
European news. This dismayed Lawson and his colleagues, who had
understood that Reuters planned to deal with them at least on an
equal footing with the commercial agency which held the expiring
contract between the old New York Associated Press and Reuters.
For several days the outlook for the West appeared gloomy. Then
came a turn. Ironically, The Associated Press of Illinois had William
Henry Smith to thank. The old general manager, whose loyalty was
reasserting itself after his fall from grace, was responsible. As soon as
Laffan had announced his negotiation of the foreign contract the
thoroughgoing Smith had cabled Walter Neef, former agent in London,
asking him to investigate. Neef cabled back on February 21, 1893, ^at
the United Press contract, although discussed with Herbert de Reuter,
the European news power, had not yet been executed. The concluding
details had been deferred until Laffan could reach London in person.
Meanwhile Reuter had heard of the news battle in the States, and it
made him adverse to signing any contract which failed to include the
co-operative Illinois association. He told Neef that he was willing to
treat with the Lawson organization.
Laffan was not due in London for six weeks and Lawson's
committee moved warily so as not to betray their valuable information.
An agreement must be concluded with Reuter at once. The Board of
Directors decided the opportune moment had arrived to bring in Stone
as general manager and to send him to London, if necessary, to obtain
a contract at least as favorable as any Laffan might get.
Lawson's committee sought out Stone that night and he was with
them when they met the next day. It was an important meeting.
William Henry Smith received a letter from Neef amplifying the
information he had previously cabled. Lawson immediately cabled Neef,
appointing him London agent for The Associated Press of Illinois and
authorizing him to take steps at once for a contract with Reuter.
Within twenty-four hours the new general manager, too, was on
his way to London.
122 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Melville E. Stone was born in 1 848, the same year which saw The
Associated Press founded by the six wrangling New York publishers.
The son of a circuit-riding Methodist minister, he was attracted early to
newspaper work and at the age of ten he had learned to set type. The
family's peregrinations finally brought him to Chicago and there he
supplemented a haphazard education in the same public school attended
by Victor Lawson. A few years later he became a reporter on the staff
of the Chicago Republican and at the age of twenty he covered General
Grant's nomination for the presidency.
By 1871 reporting temporarily lost its charm and Stone tried to
build up a business selling theater seats. The great Chicago fire wiped
him out. With the slenderest of resources, he founded the Chicago
Daily News in 1876. His great ability was strictly in the field of news
— the business of operation never appealed to him — and he could
not keep his publication on a firm footing. Its financial fortunes went
from bad to worse and it had reached the end of the road when Lawson
stepped in to save it.
Unhampered by money worries, Stone concentrated on the news
department and soon the Chicago Daily News yron a commanding
reputation. It was an exciting life, but in 1888 ill health forced him to
sell his share of the paper to Lawson. He spent two years abroad and
when he returned he became an officer of a Chicago bank. It was from
this post that Lawson's committee summoned him on March 3, 1893.
He set forth his motives:
I had a secret longing to return to the printers' craft. And much more
controlling than any personal interest was the question of public duty. My
friends of the press and I talked it over.
It was quite true that control of the press was wrested from governments
at the beginning of our Republic. The first amendment to our Federal Con-
stitution did this. It forbade any attempt in the United States to stop free
speech or a free press. But, unhappily, this was not sufficient. Government
might not enchain the press, but private monopoly might. The people, for
their information — indeed, for the information upon which they based the
very conduct of their daily activities — were dependent upon the news of the
world as furnished by the newspapers. And this business of news gathering
and purveying had fallen into private and mercenary hands. Its control
by three men was quite as menacing as that of the governmental autocrats of
the ages agone. There could be no really free press in these circumstances.
A press to be free must be one which should gather news for itself.
A national co-operative news-gathering organization, owned by the
CHAOS AND CRUSADE 123
newspapers and by them alone, selling no news, making no profits, paying
no dividends, simply the agent and servant of the newspapers, was the thing.
Those participating should be journalists of every conceivable partisan,
religious, economic, and social affiliation, but all equally zealous that in the
business of news gathering for their supply there should be strict accuracy,
impartiality, and integrity. This was the dream we dreamed. . . .
The new general manager's trip abroad proved largely unneces-
sary. Neef had carried out instructions with far greater success than
Lawson could have hoped. The contract he had concluded was an
exclusive one. It was for ten years with an automatic renewal clause.
It placed at Associated Press disposal the complete reports of Reuter's
Telegram Company, the formidable British organization j the Agence
Havas of Paris, its French counterpart, and the Continental-Tele-
graphen-Compagnie of Berlin, which collected the news of Germany
and of middle and southern Europe.
When Stone arrived in London on St. Patrick's Day, 1893, ^
details had been agreed upon. There was nothing left to do but sign.
But now a tremendous new factor was thrust into the picture. The
nation was on the eve of panic. All through the spring of 1893 g°ld
had been fleeing the country and prices melted on the New York Stock
Exchange and in commodity markets. It was in this uneasy atmosphere
that Grover Cleveland, back in the White House after four years of
private life, pressed a button on May i to open the Chicago World's
Fair.
The fair was expected to be the outstanding event in national life
that year, but Wall Street dispatches carried warnings of much grimmer
things. There came the resounding collapse of the $10,000,000 National
Cordage Company, one of the vast new systems of grasping trusts.
Wall Street values toppled under an avalanche of selling, depositors
stormed banks, factory after factory suspended operations, frightening
rumors flew, and the public nerve was badly shaken. The cataclysm
smote the West with crushing force and banks closed in dizzy succession.
On July 25, 1893, ^e Erie Railroad went bankrupt and one of the
strongest remaining inland banks failed to open.
The panic became a mad rout and despair settled over the country.
This series of jolting financial blows spread confusion in the ranks
of The Associated Press of Illinois. Most of its members were western
publishers and their communities were so hard hit that their only
124 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
thought was to save their newspapers. This was no time for a conflict
which would impose severe strain on badly straitened resources. The
United Press likewise drew back, although far better buttressed finan-
cially. So preoccupied were the opposing associations by the stress of the
emergency that hostilities were temporarily suspended.
In spite of the panic, throngs flocked to Chicago. J. P. Morgan
strode through the Palace of Fine Arts and snorted that the French
exhibit must have been selected by a committee of chambermaids.
Crowds filled the Midway to marvel at James J. Corbett, the "gentle-
man" pugilist who had conquered mighty John L. Sullivan. Blushing
women turned their heads when they passed the concession where
"Little Egypt" entertained with her danse du ventre.
The fair helped ease the strain in Chicago, but the slight relief
did not blind Lawson to conditions elsewhere. News, more than ever,
had tremendous importance. But the news most likely to affect the
progress of panic — the news of Washington, of the New York money
markets, of the industrial East — still was dominated by the opposition
agency. The Associated Press of Illinois had not had the time or the
resources firmly to establish services out of those centers. Even if it
could have done so, the bulk of the country's papers still were under
contract to the United Press and received its service. No one could
say how much damage had been done by news reports which many
people did not trust.
At this disturbing moment the United Press, in violation of the
temporary understanding to cease hostilities, began raiding Associated
Press papers in the West and elsewhere. The Associated Press met the
challenge. Panic or no panic, the long-deferred battle was on.
Fights cost money and The Associated Press soon found itself
seriously handicapped by insufficient funds. The United Press, on the
other hand, had $2,000,000 in resources on which to draw.
While the United Press boldly extended its lines into Associated
Press territory and intrigued with telegraph companies in an effort to
embarrass the new co-operative, Stone was improvising a news-gathering
system of old New York employes to cover the East and Washington.
Temporary New York headquarters were set up in the Mail and
Express building at Fulton Street and Broadway, but later moved to
the Western Union building near by. Stone also called Charles Sanford
Diehl from California where he had labored so capably as Pacific Coast
superintendent.
The first month favored the United Press. When Stone chanced
CHAOS AND CRUSADE 125
to meet Laffan in Columbus at the beginning of October, Laffan
arrogantly told him that The Associated Press might as well disband
and turn over its papers. Stone laughed at him.
Diehl was waiting in Chicago when the general manager returned.
He heard the story of the encounter with Laffan and said he was glad
Stone had given his antagonist no encouragement.
"You want to fight?" asked Stone.
"No."
"You will have to fight," Stone declared.
Diehl offered no objections.
"Wanting to fight and fighting are two different things," he said.
"I have known for ten years we would have to fight."
Stone made Diehl assistant general manager.
Willingness to fight, however, was not enough. Lawson, who had
to provide the finances, saw other obstacles ahead. He knew the United
Press report generally was inferior, but he knew also how cleverly the
enemy had distracted attention from this weakness by spreading defeat-
ist whispers that The Associated Press was on the verge of financial
collapse.
Those whispers were all too true. On October 4, 1893, members
of The Associated Press of Illinois gathered at Chicago. With the
burden of the panic, it did not seem that their new organization
could survive much longer. The membership might not be able to
make the sacrifices necessary to carry on the campaign. In such a
critical moment in their own affairs, it would be easy for them to
abandon the new association and beg for peace on whatever terms the
United Press might grant.
The financial difficulties already were well known and as Lawson
walked through the corridors on his way to the meeting room he saw
bigwigs of the United Press lounging about. They had come from New
York by special railroad car. Lawson gave them one last look and then
went into the meeting.
XIV. THE FIGHT IS OVER
VICTOR LAWSON was the man the members waited to hear as their
meeting got under way. The chairman of the Executive Committee
was grave as he faced them. He had watched the specter of defeat
draw nearer and nearer. Since the last meeting the panic had sucked
the nation deep into its vortex. Men labored all day for the price of
a bowl of soup. Business failures continued and with them suicides,
distress, and starvation. In Washington a wrangling Senate kept block-
ing the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act which was proving
so ruinous to commerce and industry.
Lawson masked his misgivings as best he could and opened his
report. The audience sat in sober silence while he presented one blunt,
uncontradictable fact after another. The Associated Press of Illinois
was facing the end, almost before it had begun to fight. Its news report
might be a marked improvement over anything the United Press could
offer; the new exclusive contract with Reuters provided an undenied
advantage in foreign dispatches, but this superiority had been bought
and maintained at a great price. Already there was a deficit. Ensuing
months were certain to produce larger ones. The campaign could not
continue without better financing.
Lawson had no way of gauging the temper of the members as
he looked from face to face.
To carry the fight to United Press strongholds in the East, he said,
would require an immediate increase in the association's capitalization
from $30,000 to $100,000. This was the first step toward placing
operations on a proper basis, and he advocated it strongly.
There was a buzz of conversation at this recommendation and
Lawson, hearing it, stopped speaking and sat down, still without men-
tion of the major feature of the war-to-the-death program he had
prepared. What he had told them was enough for the time being and
he wanted their reaction to this initial proposal before outlining the
second essential point which would call for great personal sacrifice on
the part of everyone present.
126
THE FIGHT Is OVER 127
"Mr. Chairman!"
The speaker was James E. Scripps, of the Detroit Tribune, stormy
petrel of so many other meetings. Older members could recall how, as
far back as 1866, he had vigorously opposed the first bid of the Western
Associated Press for equity with New York. They also remembered
that in the past decade he had actually deserted their ranks to become
a United Press client, only to return to the fold when he found himself
at odds with the aims and administrations of the commercial agency.
The appearance of the bearded old scholar on the floor was usually a
danger signal.
"Mr. Chairman!"
There was a scraping of chairs and more craning of necks as
President Nixon recognized Scripps and he took the floor.
He opened with a resume of the principles for which The Asso-
ciated Press was fighting and declared the opposition was seeking to
make secure "another Trust even more lucrative than the sugar, the
oil, the cordage, or any of the other numerous modern monopolies
which have grown fat at the expense of the legitimate trade of the
country."
Lawson, intent on all the Detroit man was saying, perceived he
was re-stating the case so ably set forth in a recent attack on the United
Press which he had mailed to all Western publishers. This was a
salutory thing and Scripps was doing it most effectively.
The white-haired publisher warmed to his theme. He told of the
evolution of the profit-hungry United Press to its present state of
affluence, of the free distribution of stock as "bribes" to Associated
Press officials in the past, and of more recent attempts to demoralize
the co-operative by private offers to Lawson and others.
"Gentlemen," he declared, "the issue clearly is: Shall the news-
gathering business be permitted to fall into the hands of a syndicate
of mercenary sharks who will use it simply to plunder the press of
the country, or shall the newspapers continue, as in the past, to
co-operate in the collection of their own news and to enjoy the advan-
tages of controlling the service and getting it at actual cost? . . .
"It is a dangerous opponent we are confronted with," he continued,
"and the more so as the men who dominate the United Press are
without question as able as they are unscrupulous. They are not the
inferiors in any way of the great schemers who have created previous
gigantic trusts and they are not to be met with children's weapons.
"It is a life or death struggle for the great principle of control
128 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
of the news by the parties most concerned in its purity and cheapness,
and to prevent the service from becoming a mere instrument in the
hands of unscrupulous and hungry sharks for the thraldom of the
press of the nation!"
There was a storm of applause when Scripps finished. Large and
small publishers alike were noisily demonstrating one determination —
to close ranks and carry on the battle.
General Manager Stone was next and they cheered him as he
reported on the extended reconnaissance he had made, seeking out
the weak points in the enemy lines. He told of the progress of the
hastily improvised news-gathering system in the East.
There was an ovation, too, for Diehl, whom the United Press
twice had sought to lure away with tempting offers to double the salary
he received. The Pacific Coast papers, he assured them, could be counted
upon. Other regional groups, he said, would give their support if they
could be brought together and given the entire story. As for the enemy's
news service, he pointed his finger at its great shortcoming.
"Their conception," he said, "is that news can be taken out of
newspaper composing rooms after somebody else has obtained it and
written it. The Associated Press is already procuring and distributing
its most important news through its own staff correspondents, and shall
continue to do so."
By the time Diehl finished speaking, there was no question regard-
ing Lawson's recommendation for an increase in the association's
capitalization. The meeting which had assembled in an atmosphere of
apprehension had become an enthusiastic rally.
Lawson took the floor to make a "suggestion."
The fight against the United Press, he reminded the members,
was certain to be a series of emergencies. The United Press had circu-
lated reports that The Associated Press was on the verge of bankruptcy.
To lay these rumors once and for all and to provide the necessary
funds, he proposed that voluntary contributions be made here and now.
"Mr. President," he declared, addressing Nixon, "I am ready to
start such a fund with a subscription of $20,000 for the Chicago Daily
News"
It was a call to arms. In an instant men in all parts of the room
were clamoring for recognition. Parliamentary decorum vanished.
Subscriptions poured in: $10,000 here, $5,000 there, $20,000 more, and
on down the line. Even the smaller papers fought for a place on the
list although their pledges of $1,000 represented a tremendous sacrifice
THE FIGHT Is OVER 129
in the deepening depression. Before the meeting ended $320,000 had
been raised and subsequent subscriptions swelled the total to $550,000.
It was a great profession of faith, for all knew they stood to lose
every cent of their subscriptions if the United Press emerged victorious.
Nor was that all 5 the enemy already had threatened that, in the event
of victory, it would exact heavy indemnities from the losers to pay the
costs. It also promised to punish the conquered further by hiking the
rates for the service that all would be compelled to take.
Lawson wasted little time in getting the renewed drive under way.
Two days later he was writing to Adolph Ochs of the Chattanooga
Times:
By this time you are, of course, fully advised of the magnificent meeting
held day before yesterday by the members of The Associated Press and the
raising of the volunteer guarantee fund of over three hundred thousand dol-
lars toward any possible contingencies growing out of the present contest
with the United Press. If any of our friends on the outside have at any time
held any doubt or question as to the purpose and ability of The Associated
Press to maintain its rights as against the United Press, I think every one
must agree that the meeting this week has definitely and positively settled
all such questions. The fight we are making for the preservation of the
independence of the American Press is in my judgment substantially won
today.
Ochs, prime mover in the Southern Associated Press and long
sympathetic to the West, joined The Associated Press of Illinois at
once. He stipulated only that the other southern papers should be
eligible for admission on the same terms as those given his Chattanooga
Times.
A week later Victor Lawson closed his desk in Chicago and packed
his bags. His destination was the East and his purpose was to bring
a hundred newspapers then receiving United Press service into The
Associated Press. Stone and Diehl had preceded him to open the grand-
scale undertaking.
These aggressive tactics put the United Press on the defensive
and the enemy captains issued a statement setting forth the financial
stability of their organization. It carried an impressive list of signatures,
including the names of Dana and many other leading eastern editors.
Long held in awe by the struggling smaller papers, these men repre-
sented the backbone of United Press strength and many of them
publicly acknowledged that private motives prompted their actions.
130 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Throughout the years these leading newspapers had created their
own elaborate systems of "special" correspondents, with which no small
paper could hope to compete, and it was in their interest to foster no
press association improvement which would jeopardize that superiority.
The Associated Press of Illinois threatened to do so by making available
to all its members, large and small, the extensive news resources pre-
viously enjoyed only by the big publications.
Lawson's invasion of the East was audacious. He struck first at
the opponent's greatest stronghold — New York City. The key men on
three of the papers there once had been connected with the Western
Associated Press. John A. Cockerill, formerly of St. Louis, managed
the New York Advertiser. Horace White, who had been one of the
West's emissaries in the 1866 break with the New York Associated
Press, was a director of the New York Post. The one-time Hungarian
immigrant boy, Joseph Pulitzer, had expanded his journalistic efforts
from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to include the New York World.
All three of these men seemed ready to pick sides and it was on them
that Lawson and Stone concentrated immediate efforts.
Cockerill was the first convert and he brought in both the morning
and evening editions of the Advertiser. Aided by Stone, Lawson next
laid siege to the World } and Pulitzer joined. Then the two Associated
Press men walked into the office of the Posty where they found Horace
White busy on an editorial. Scarcely glancing up from his work, the
editor greeted them.
"I am with you," he said. "I do not believe in an association which
is controlled by three or four men. The Evening Post will join your
company. But I am under pledge to make no move in the matter with-
out consulting my friends of the New York Staats-Zeitung and the
Brooklyn Eagle."
Within a few days the Posty Sta&ts-Zeittwg, and the Eagle came
into The Associated Press. St. Clair McKelway, editor of the Eagley
took occasion to issue an invitation to others.
"The latchstring is out," he said. "Come and toast your tired toes
at the family hearthstone."
Two more New York City papers, the Commercial Advertiser and
the Pressy transferred their allegiance. Then a number of upstate papers
joined and not the least of them was the Syracuse Her aid y in 1881 the
prime mover in the foundation of the now embattled United Press.
Lawson shifted operations to Philadelphia and most of the papers in
that city became converts.
THE FIGHT Is OVER 131
Diehl was busy in New England. The Worcester Spy and the New
Haven Union joined. It was difficult territory but the important Boston
Herald set an example others soon followed.
From New England Diehl moved on to Washington. He obtained
an interview with Frank B. Noyes, a young man of thirty who shared
in the management of the Washington Star, of which his father was
editor.
The Star was served by the United Press. Located outside the
territory in which The Associated Press had been making its biggest
drive, it had listened to the blandishments of the opposition agency,
which had sought to convince Noyes and his associates that the Illinois
organization was doomed to failure.
Diehl found Noyes a quiet listener. He began the interview by
discoursing on the principles for which the news struggle was being
waged, but after some time he realized he had done all the talking —
that Noyes had not asked a single question. The young man, neverthe-
less, seemed to be listening, so Diehl plunged on. He was still plunging
on when Noyes interrupted.
"I am convinced of the justice of your cause," he said. "The prac-
tical question now has to do with your hope for success."
Diehl spoke of the financial stability of The Associated Press and
of the spirit of the men who had made voluntary contributions. He
told Noyes that the United Press, rather than his own organization,
would collapse. Pulling a pencil from his pocket he listed the papers
lost by the commercial agency in recent months, computed the conse-
quent decrease in revenue, and worked out what he believed to be the
probable financial condition of the other agency.
Noyes was on the way to New York the next day to call at the
elegantly furnished office of the United Press in the Western Union
building. Finding Dana and Laffan in conference, he asked a question.
"I would like to know something about the financial condition of
the United Press," he said.
Dana attempted to laugh the matter off, declaring such questions
should not concern the young man from Washington or any other
client of the United Press. But Noyes was insistent and finally Dana
instructed that the books be produced.
Diehl was waiting at a New York hotel for the Washington Star
man to return from his visit to the opposition headquarters. He was
certain the figures he had computed on the deficit in the United Press
were reasonably accurate, but he was not so sure the commercial agency
132 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
would permit inspection of its books, or that it might not loose another
blast against The Associated Press in an effort to cool the Noyes interest.
He waited impatiently. Then Noyes appeared.
"You have told me the truth," the Washington man said, and
extended his hand.
Immediately thereafter Noyes convinced his associates that the
Star should cast its lot with The Associated Press.
Once convinced of the justice of a cause, Noyes was not a man
for a passive role. He joined in the campaign and, with Diehl, made a
trip to Baltimore. Owing largely to his efforts, the Sun and the
American in that city were quickly inducted into membership, followed
later by the Philadelphia Ledger.
The success of the whirlwind invasion aroused the United Press.
Dana used his editorial page for vicious attacks on Lawson, Stone,
and finally Noyes. Damage suits were instituted against deserting
clients. A heavy news-war tax was levied on the big New York papers
which remained in the United Press and an intensive new drive for
customers was launched in the West. But the co-operative lines held
firm. Early in 1894, the four Chicago papers which had formed such
a strong United Press bloc in the midwestern metropolis shook off the
commercial yoke.
In an atmosphere of rejoicing the association gathered for its annual
meeting in Chicago on February 14, 1894, and elected Lawson presi-
dent to succeed William Penn Nixon. The list of eastern papers which
had become members since the previous October filled three closely
printed pages and Lawson reported that these gains meant a loss to
United Press of over $300,000 a year. No one believed the opposition
could survive and the Board of Directors congratulated the member-
ship "upon the happy issue of this contest."
But the self-congratulations were premature. The opposition was
underrated. For all its reverses, the commercial agency was still backed
by many big papers. The conflict continued, sometimes flaring furiously,
sometimes lagging. At various times proposals for peace were advanced
by some quarters and individual United Press clients made overtures for
compromise, but all contemplated a division of territory.
There was no letup in the heavy financial drain on both sides.
While Coxey's Army was marching on Washington, hostilities raged
through 1894 — then on into 1895 as the nation headed into better times.
The United Press made frantic efforts to have the strife halted before
everything was lost. Pressure was exerted on neutral parties to arrange
THE FIGHT Is OVER 133
negotiations with The Associated Press, but Lawson said it would be
a mistake to make concessions merely for the sake of hastening the
inevitable end.
In the fall of 1895 the United Press had difficulty maintaining its
service. General Manager Stone discovered that it was stealing Asso-
ciated Press dispatches. The membership was notified.
The thievery continued and the general manager saw his chance
for a dramatic expose. One day a dispatch arrived from India telling of
a native revolt. Before relay of the story to member papers, Stone
inserted a sentence naming the leader of the revolt as one Siht El
Otspueht. The dispatch promptly appeared in United Press papers and
Stone lost no time in publicizing the fact that the name of the mythical
chieftain — spelled backward — proclaimed the galling indictment: "The
UP stole this."
Early in 1896 an event occurred in New York which exerted
great influence. Adolph S. Ochs of Chattanooga bought the New York
Times, which had been staggering under a heavy burden, not the least
of which was the heavy tax exacted by the United Press. Ochs made no
secret of the fact that he intended to bring the Times back into The
Associated Press as soon as contracts with the United Press could be
terminated. To distract attention from this threatened defection, General
Manager Phillips of United Press blanketed the country with stories
that The Associated Press was prejudiced in favor of the gold-standard
Republican party and would distort the news in the feverish presidential
campaign about to begin. Only the United Press, he announced, could
be counted upon to give equal justice to free-silver Democrats as well
as to gold-standard Republicans. It was about this time, too, that United
Press enlarged its own name to United Associated Presses. But the
change made small impression and the agency remained best known as
United Press.
The presidential campaign of 1896, waged on the controversial
monetary issue, momentarily eclipsed the prolonged news revolution.
On July 6 a 35-year-old congressman stampeded the Democratic con-
vention with his impassioned cross-of-gold speech. William Jennings
Bryan shouted: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor
this crown of thorns j you shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold."
It was Bryan for the Democrats and free silver j William McKinley for
the Republicans and gold. The victory went to the Republicans, and
after the election was over both Bryan and McKinley sent The Asso-
134 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
elated Press unsolicited letters of commendation for the fairness with
which the strenuous campaign had been reported.
Even before McKinley was inaugurated in 1897 The Associated
Press announced its readiness to take all eligible United Press clients
into its membership provided the battered profit agency would retire
from the field. Laffan countered with a proposal to withdraw the
United Press in the West if The Associated Press would withdraw
from the East. He put on a bold front but the situation was beyond the
bluffing stage.
On March 27, 1897, the New York Herald, the Tribune, the
Times, and the Telegram went over to The Associated Press. In the
once formidable stronghold of New York City the United Press had
only two papers left — Dana's Sun, which had rejected a cordial invitation
to become a member, and the New York Journal, which had been
purchased two years earlier by William Randolph Hearst.
Lawson, his health impaired by the demands of the struggle, had
come to New York to take personal command of The Associated Press
forces. But, even the wholesale departure of the Herald, Tribune,
Times, and Telegram failed to wring from the United Press any ad-
mission of defeat, and Lawson could not help admiring the stubborn
determination of his three major foemen — Laffan, Dana, and Phillips.
They might be wrong in their cause, but they were as pugnacious as
ever and Lawson wondered how much longer they could continue.
There was endless rumors and speculation, and finally — on March
29, 1897 — President Dana filed a petition of bankruptcy for the United
Press, listing assets of $38,040 and liabilities of $129,415. A receiver
was appointed.
Lawson was at his desk all the next day in the cramped cubbyhole
of an office on the gloomy fifth floor of the Western Union building
where headquarters of The Associated Press were now housed. The
office was in shabby contrast to the sumptuous United Press establish-
ment two floors below, with its expensive furniture, rugs, wrought-iron
accessories, and stained-glass windows.
But Lawson was interested in what might be happening in those
fine offices, not in the fine furniture they contained. What did United
Press plan to do next?
His office door was flung open and an editor handed him a piece
of paper. He adjusted his pince-nez and read the notice. It was from
the elegant offices below, it was dated March 31, 1897, ^d it was
addressed "To Whom It May Concern." It said:
THE FIGHT Is OVER 135
The News service of the United Press will be discontinued after the
night of April yth, at about two o'clock A.M. on April 8th. No news dis-
patches will be received from correspondents or news agencies or paid for,
and the services of all employees will be dispensed with after that time.
XV. REMEMBER THE MAINE!
BY THE time the United Press disappeared unmourned from the world
of news gathering on April 8, 1897, Lawson's organization was badly
battered after four years of conflict. The menace of a gigantic, mer-
cenary news trust had been destroyed j the co-operative, non-profit
principle had been vindicated, but the difficulties of reconstruction were
many. The fight had cost The Associated Press nearly $1,000,000
over and above the ordinary expenditures necessary to maintain normal
news service. That was a staggering sum in days when $50 would buy
a first-class passage to Europe.
Lawson and his colleagues, however, considered the success of
their crusade worth all the effort and money it had taken.
The organization set about binding up the wounds of war and
consolidating its imperfect condition. Although a great majority of the
clients who had been with the United Press were taken into member-
ship, the brilliant but aging Dana stubbornly rebuffed all invitations.
He announced that the Sun would go it alone, relying on the service
of a news bureau of its own under the direction of the indomitable
Laffan. Dana died a few months later, leaving Laffan in control of the
Sun's destinies.
There were other papers which could not be admitted on the
terms they sought, and they began arrangements to meet their own
particular needs. An additional group of disgruntled losers who pur-
posely stayed out of the co-operative threatened to be a future source
of trouble.
However pressing the problems of reconstruction, the forces of
The Associated Press of Illinois found time to celebrate their triumph.
It was, of course, described as a gay and festive occasion when the
hundred and eight leaders in the long fight gathered in Chicago on
May 19, 1897, for the banquet. There was a huge silver loving cup,
brimming with champagne, and each guest drank to a round of
applause. North, South, East, and West were represented, and there
were toasts, speeches, laughter, and badinage. In honor of the occasion,
136
REMEMBER THE MAINE! 137
a medallion was struck off. Its inscription read: "To commemorate the
triumph of the co-operative principle in news gathering."
The year 1897 seemed ideal for "back-to-normalcy" efforts in the
news report. The times had a strangely placid air about them, a certain
deceptive promise that the world's tomorrows would be serene. In
London Captain Ames, the tallest man in the whole British Army, led
the Diamond Jubilee procession as the empire paid its extravagant
tribute to "the Widow of Windsor."
It was the heyday of the bicycle built for two; "Mr. Dooley"
philosophized while his devotees chuckled j Weber and Fields were
climbing to popularity, and audiences jammed theaters to hear De Wolf
Hopper recite "Casey at the Bat"; music lovers talked of Victor Her-
bert, and John Philip Sousa led the United States Marine Band; the
biggest beer in town was a nickel, and small boys jeered "Get a horse!"
at the first noisy automobiles.
To newspaper readers generally life at home seemed uncommonly
good.
At Key West on February 15, 1898, it was a quiet night. The
cable operator sat at his idle instrument yawning as the minutes
dragged by.
Then the sounder on the desk jumped from silence into sudden
life like some mechanical cricket. Havana calling Key West — Havana
calling Key West. The operator opened his key.
Havana was urgent. The Key West operator decoded the message
as it came off the noisy instrument:
THERE HAS BEEN A BIG EXPLOSION SOMEWHERE
IN THE HARBOR.
Then the instrument lapsed abruptly into silence and it was minutes
before Havana came pounding through again:
THE MAINE HAS BEEN BLOWN UP, AND HUNDREDS
OP SAILORS HAVE BEEN KILLED.
While the sounder danced at Key West, F. J. Hilgert, Associated
Press correspondent at Havana, already was out in the wreckage-strewn
harbor, hurriedly assembling the facts of the disaster which had over-
taken the American battleship as she rode at anchor. One after another
he questioned dazed survivors. He saw the warship's wrecked super-
structure and watched the little fleet of rescue craft scurry about.
138 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Then the Key West sounder started again, spelling out Hilgert's
story, and the cable operator bent excitedly over his typewriter, copying
the hastily written narrative of the explosion which had taken the lives
of 266 men.
Hilgert's story was published throughout the world and the head-
lines shocked the nation. Although the Maine's captain cautioned that
"Public opinion should be suspended until further report," a Spanish
mine was immediately blamed. War fever swept the streets and in a
Broadway bar a man raised his glass and gave the country its battle
cry. "Gentlemen," he said, "remember the Maine!"
For some years past the United States had been watching conditions
in insurrection-torn Cuba, where the natives were waging a seemingly
hopeless fight for independence from Spain. Popular opinion was horri-
fied at the rule of General Valeriano Weyler, the military governor
who, according to rumor, ruthlessly put down insurrectors and mal-
treated noncombatants. Americans and their property frequently suffered
and for some time William Randolph Hearst and his New York
Journal had been demanding intervention.
As early as 1896 The Associated Press decided that a staff man
was needed in Cuba. Hilgert was assigned to Havana, a post normally
filled by a string correspondent. The association took elaborate pre-
cautions to protect his identity, and not even to inquiring members
would the general manager divulge the name of the man ordered
under cover to this dangerous field of news. From the outset Hilgert
worked against endless difficulties and at great personal risk. General
Weyler forbade all newspaper work under threat of the firing squad,
but for two years, by employing all sorts of ingenuity, Hilgert had
managed to smuggle out his thrilling, factual accounts of Cuba's
struggle. The night of the Maine's destruction he threw caution to the
winds and used the cable.
As soon as the news was received, Assistant General Manager Diehl
saw that quick preparations were necessary. He anticipated a rigid
censorship on the Cuban cables. If The Associated Press was to cover
a war in the Caribbean, it would be necessary to assemble a flotilla of
dispatch boats to carry all news to the nearest neutral cable heads at
Jamaica or Haiti. He outlined his plans to General Manager Stone,
who was reluctant to approve lest any undue activity by the association
inflame an already aroused public. Stone had watched the vociferous
efforts of some newspapers to whip the nation into a military frenzy
REMEMBER THE MAINE! 139
and precipitate war, and he was unwilling that The Associated Press
do anything which might set the drums beating louder.
Nevertheless, if news occurs it must be covered. Diehl pointed out
that, if war came and found The Associated Press unprepared, press
and public alike would charge the management with neglect and incom-
petence. The preparations he suggested were precautionary and could
be carried out without attracting attention.
Stone saw the logic of this reasoning and the assistant general
manager was off to Washington to lay siege to official quarters with
an audacious request. He wanted permission to place staff men on the
flagships of the two American fleets most likely to see active service.
Secretary of the Navy John D. Long would not hear of the idea.
Diehl presented his case directly to the President. McKinley knew
of no precedent for such an extraordinary application and thought to
dispose of it tactfully by getting Diehl to acknowledge that such a
thing never had been done before. He asked a question:
"Has a war correspondent ever actually been permitted on board
a flagship in wartime and in action?"
For the moment Diehl was stopped. Then in some vague corner
of his mind a forgotten scrap of information bobbed up.
"Yes," he told the President, "a London Times correspondent was
on the Chilean flagship Esmeralda during the war between Chile
and Peru."
McKinley consented without further hesitation.
The war hysteria mounted in the weeks after the Maine's destruc-
tion, while a Naval Board of Inquiry investigated the explosion. Business
and the President were averse to war, but the pressure of public opinion
had become almost overwhelming. Theodore Roosevelt, assistant
secretary of the navy, lost patience with the hesitation and snorted:
"McKinley has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair." He pre-
dicted: "We will have this war for the freedom of Cuba in spite of the
timidity of the commercial interests."
And already military bands were blaring the marching song of
>9g— "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight."
Although Hilgert's position in Havana had become more perilous
than ever, he stuck to his duties. In spite of official secrecy surrounding
inquiries on the Maine's destruction, he learned that evidence gathered
by the experts who had examined the wrecked hulk established that the
battleship had been blown up "from the outside."
The dispatch doubtless would have been a death warrant if found
140 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
in Hilgert's possession. Use of the cable was out of the question and
so he succeeded in smuggling out his story by mail. Its authenticity
was confirmed March 21 when the Navy Board's report blamed the
disaster on the detonation of a submarine mine by unknown persons.
That report sealed the issue, though its accuracy was later questioned.
Diehl was assembling a flotilla of dispatch boats and a competent
war staff. After scouring shipyards along the coast, he chartered five
vessels: the Wanda, a yacht, and the Dauntless, the Dandy, the Cynthia,
and the Kate Spencer, all tugs.
The staff included Elmer E. Roberts, J. B. Nelson, Arthur W.
Copp, Byron R. Newton, A. W. Lyman, J. W. Mitchell, Howard N.
Thompson, H. L. Beach, Harold Martin, A. C. Goudie, G. E. Graham,
W. A. M. Goode, N. C. Wright, Albert C. Hunt, J. C. Marriott, E.
R. Johnstone, Oscar Watson, R. B. Craemer, and John P. Dunning,
the journalistic hero of the Samoan disaster of 1889 and the only
American correspondent to cover the Chilean Civil War in 1891.
The preparations were completed none too soon. On April 20 —
the day before formal declaration of war — Associated Press dispatch
boats hurried into Key West, the concentration point for the main
American fleet. When Goode climbed aboard Admiral Sampson's flag-
ship, the New York, to which he had been assigned, the greeting was
not reassuring.
"So you want to come aboard and get your head blown off, do
you?" asked Sampson gruffly. "It's foolish."
At daybreak two days later the fleet steamed out, headed for Cuba,
and seaman Patrick Walton on the cruiser Nashville fired the first shot
of the war to capture a Spanish merchantman.
It was the beginning of a conflict such as never had been seen
before, nor has been seen since. From the standpoint of news gathering,
it was a correspondent's war. The newsboats of The Associated Press
cruised at will through the battle lines at sea, maneuvered for the best
vantage points regardless of the fire of opposing sides, and scurried
back and forth delivering their stories to the nearest usable cable heads.
The boats of individual newspapers performed similarly. All sorts of
journalistic personalities were attracted and at times the whole fray
took on a comic opera complexion. More frequently than not the cor-
respondents risked their lives out of all keeping with the over-all
importance of the facts they sought, but there was high interest back
home and the news gatherers meant to satisfy it by one means or
another.
REMEMBER THE MAINE! 141
The first big news came not from Cuba or the southern seas, but
from the far-off Philippines. Admiral George Dewey with the Asiatic
squadron swooped down on Manila harbor on May i. "You may fire
when ready, Gridley," he said to the commanding officer of his flag-
ship, and proceeded to destroy the Spanish fleet without the loss of a
single American bluejacket. The news, rushed to Hong Kong by cutter
and cabled across the Pacific, did not reach the United States until
May 7. The country went wild with rejoicing and almost everyone
sported a large celluloid button boasting: "Dewey Did It."
In the preliminary naval operations around Cuba correspondents
reported the bombardment of enemy works at Matanzas and later the
shelling of the forts at Havana. Besides the men on the dispatch boats
and with the fleet, Diehl also had correspondents in sultry Tampa
where the army drank gallons of iced tea and groused at repeated post-
ponement of its departure for Cuba.
A big question mark kept the army immobilized at Tampa. The
whole country was asking: Where is Cervera? The Spanish admiral,
with the main enemy fleet, had sailed from the Cape Verde Islands
across the Atlantic on April 29. Then there was no word and the uncer-
tainty spawned nervous rumors. One panicky report had it that he
planned to attack the New England coast 5 another, that he would
bombard New Yorkj still another, that his objective was to engage
Sampson's fleet off Cuba.
For one staff correspondent this news meant a welcome chance to
get to the exciting scene of hostilities. George E. Graham had been
assigned to the Brooklyn, flagship of the flying squadron commanded
by Commodore Winfield S. Schley.
"Can you fight?" Schley asked when Graham came aboard. "We
don't allow any loafers aboard a man-of-war, and if a lot of men on
this ship are killed during a combat, you'll have to help take their
places." To a subordinate he added with a twinkle, "Put him to work
with a six-pounder gun crew. He'll be handy."
But Graham had had a very dull time. The flying squadron was
kept at Hampton Roads, Virginia, as a precaution against the possible
appearance of Cervera off the New England or the Middle Atlantic
coast. The news that the Spanish fleet was in southern waters slipped
the leash which had held Schley in port and the flying squadron steamed
toward Key West to co-operate with Sampson.
142 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
But where was Cervera now? More rumors flew as American
warships scouted for the elusive Spaniards. Goode, on Admiral Samp-
son's flagship, was in a position to appreciate how little both Navy
Department and fleet commander knew of the enemy's whereabouts.
Finally, on his own initiative, he went ashore at Haiti on one of the
Association's newsboats and sent cable after cable to Associated Press
correspondents, first in the Caribbean-South American area, and then
in strategic cities elsewhere. All the messages asked for information
on Cervera.
Tense days passed and on May 20 the long-awaited news came in
an Associated Press dispatch from — of all places — the Spanish capital of
Madrid. Member newspapers published the announcement that Cer-
vera's fleet had arrived in the harbor of Santiago twenty-four hours
before. At Washington the Navy Department acknowledged the news
by issuing the bulletin: "The Department has information, which is
believed to be authentic, that the Spanish squadron is at Santiago de
Cuba." And far to the southward Sampson ordered Commodore Schley
to Santiago with all speed to bottle up the enemy in port.
Events moved to a more rapid tempo and at 4 A.M. on June 3
Lieutenant Richmond P. Hobson and his crew sank the Merrimac in
the harbor entrance at Santiago under shell fire from Spanish guns.
Before departing Hobson gave Correspondent Goode the only interview
he permitted, and as the Merrimac dashed for the harbor in the bright
moonlight, Graham stood on the bridge of the Brooklyn peering through
his binoculars for an eyewitness account of the exploit.
No one who saw the young lieutenant and his men set out on their
mission expected them to escape with their lives, but late that afternoon
Goode was scribbling the news that all had been captured uninjured
by the Spanish.
Mauser bullets raked the news yacht Wanda on June 9 as she stood
by off Guantanamo while the marines went splashing ashore in the
first large-scale landing of troops on Cuban soil. Through the surf with
them floundered Harrison L. Beach, the first of Diehl's correspondents
to get his baptism of fire on land. It was almost a fatal baptism. A
Spanish regiment fought the landing in spite of shelling by three
American warships and as the marines drove forward a Spanish sharp-
shooter in the dense chaparral saw Beach before his rifle sights and
squeezed the trigger. The bullet tore across the bridge of his nose just
below the line of his eyes. Blood streaming down his face, Beach kept
REMEMBER THE MAINE! 143
going and the wound was still fresh when Diehl watched him write
his account of the fighting back aboard the Wanda.
The correspondents on the co-operative's dispatch boats with the
blockading fleet off Santiago were having an equally hazardous time.
When the harbor forts were bombarded, the boats were constantly
exposed to the enemy's return fire. Navigation at night was particularly
dangerous, for all ships had to run without lights, and frequently
American warships opened fire on the dispatch boats, mistaking them for
Spanish scouts.
The news craft had been unwelcome when they made their first
appearance, but this hostile feeling was not long-lived. After a few
weeks the navy was pressing the dispatch boats into service whenever
circumstances warranted, to carry messages and to tow or convoy crippled
warships to port for repairs. On one occasion the Associated Press tug
Dauntless was commissioned to take a captured schooner back to Key
West.
The long-delayed army expeditionary force arrived off Cuba in
thirty transports on June 20 and debarkation began two days later at
Daiquiri, east of Santiago. The Wanda, with Diehl aboard, and the
Dauntless were on hand for the preliminary bombardment of the
Spanish land positions, and as soon as the troops started ashore in open
boats, correspondents Lyman, Mitchell, and Dunning were landed to
report the army advance on Santiago. Diehl subsequently reinforced
them with Thompson, Martin, Goudie, and Beach, who still wore a
bandage from the wound at Guantanamo. It was Lyman's last assign-
ment. He contracted yellow fever and died upon returning to the States
after the fall of Santiago.
Four days after the landing at Daiquiri, Dunning was pushing
forward through dense tropical undergrowth with the Rough Riders
of Colonel Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt. A blazing sun
beat down and the sweating troops discarded piece after piece of equip-
ment as they pressed on along the narrow tortuous trail. There was no
sign of the enemy and the tangled mass of trees, vines, high grass, and
chaparral crowded close to the path. Men began to drop under the
intense heat. The trail grew steeper as the column neared Las Guasimas.
Dunning plodded in the van not far from Roosevelt. It was a perfect
144 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
*
place for an ambush. Suddenly from a thicket a Mauser cracked, and
another, and another.
"It's up to us, boys!" shouted Roosevelt,
"Deploy, lie down!" Wood called along the line of the Rough
Riders, and Krag-Jorgenson carbines began to rattle. It was the regi-
ment's first experience in battle and Dunning saw some men waver as
comrades dropped wounded or dying. For an hour the fighting raged.
Then reinforcements came up and the whole line swept forward in a
charge which routed the Spaniards.
Dunning hurried back to find the army base at Siboney seething
with erroneous reports of the action at Las Guasimas. Colonel Wood
had been killed. The Rough Riders were being wiped out. Stragglers
had brought in fantastic stories. The Wanda had just arrived offshore
and Dunning got aboard to begin writing his account of the first major
fighting of the campaign. By the time the yacht made a fast run to
Guantanamo he had four hundred words ready for filing in the section
of the Cuba-Haiti cable which the navy had seized. Then the Wanda
pointed her bow into the teeth of a tropical storm and set out for
Jamaica. Through the night Dunning wrote additional details while
the sea threatened to engulf the buffeted vessel. The dispatch was
ready when they arrived and with it went the only accurate list of dead
and wounded published until official reports were released after the war.
Las Guasimas was merely a prelude. On July i the American
forces began their attack on the blockhouses and outer works of Santiago.
Diehl had Beach, Thompson, and Mitchell on the firing line throughout
the fighting which added the names of El Caney and San Juan Hill
to American military history. The Spanish swept the American lines
with a hail of bullets from fortified positions, Cervera turned the heavy
guns of the fleet on the advancing troops, and sharpshooters hidden in
treetops picked off men like flies.
5
Back in the States newspaper circulations climbed dizzily and the
nation reveled in a delirium of flag-waving patriotism. The war brought
with it the day of shrieking headlines — nowhere shriller than in New
York. Battling to outdo one another, some papers turned front pages
into typographical nightmares. Larger and larger type was used until
the big block letters were four inches high. When the blackest ink
seemed inadequate to scream the latest sensation, drums of red were
rolled into pressrooms and even gaudier headlines appeared.
REMEMBER THE MAINE! 145
The biggest news of the war, however, was yet to come. On July 3
the blockading American fleet off Santiago prepared for Sunday morning
inspection. On the bridge of the battleship Brooklyn, Correspondent
Graham chatted with Commodore Schley. Off to the east the Dauntless
and the Wanda rode easily in calm seas. With Dunning aboard, the
Wanda was just back from the Jamaica cable and fortunate to be back
at all. Port authorities had threatened to quarantine her for three days
because of the prevalence of yellow fever in Cuba. Diehl, alarmed lest
his dispatch fleet be tied up, stayed behind to cable Associated Press
offices in London instructions to appeal to the British Cabinet for an
order exempting his boats from the Jamaican regulations.
It was a perfect Sunday with a blue sky and a hot sun. Graham
talked on with the commodore. Then a voice bawled: "The enemy ships
are coming out!" The Spanish fleet, bottled up in Santiago harbor for
weeks, was steaming out. It was led by Admiral Cervera's flagship, the
Maria Theresa.
Schley grabbed his binoculars.
"Come on, my boy," he exclaimed to Graham. "We'll give it to
them now!"
Orders exploded like a string of firecrackers. Bells jangled.
"Clear ship for action!"
"Signal, cThe enemy is escaping!7"
"Signal the fleet to clear ship!"
With Graham at his heels, Schley went up the ladder to the con-
ning tower. Midway he pulled out a watch — one he had borrowed
from Graham a few days ago.
"It's just 9:35," he said.
The guns of the American fleet roared into action. The tornado of
sound on the Brooklyn almost deafened Graham. Through glasses he
could see the harbor mouth choked with black smoke from the enemy's
funnels and the brilliant yellow splashes of flame from exploding
American shells. The escaping Spaniards turned westward in column.
They were going to run for it.
While Graham watched from the Brooklyn and a hurtling storm
of shot and shell churned the waters, the Wanda and the Dauntless
came steaming into the zone of fire, maneuvering recklessly with the
fleet to get the best possible view. So close was the Wanda that she was
able to save an officer and eight sailors from a Spanish torpedo-boat
destroyer which was sinking under heavy gunfire. The rescued officer
startled Dunning by kissing him on both cheeks.
146 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Before long Cervera's flagship was disabled and caught fire, and
the Spanish admiral himself was picked up from the sea by the U.S.S.
Gloucester. Dunning boarded her to interview the dripping enemy com-
mander. Although Cervera had lost almost all his clothes, his com-
posure was unshaken and he told briefly from a Spanish viewpoint the
story of the battle that still raged.
To the west, at the head of the column, the Brooklyn and the
Oregon kept pouring a devastating fire into the fleeing vessels which
had escaped destruction in the terrific first hour of fighting. On the
Brooklyn Graham stood with several others just in front of the con-
ning tower from which Commodore Schley was directing the action. In
the group with the correspondent was a seaman who was taking the
enemy's range.
"It's twelve hundred yards, sir," the sailor called to Schley.
Graham heard a thud on the deck beside him and warm blood spat-
tered his face and clothes. Before him sprawled a shapeless heap — the
seaman who had been calling out the range a moment before. A Spanish
shell had decapitated him.
At 1 115 P.M. that July 3, 1898, the ensign of Spain fluttered down
in surrender on the last ship of Cervera's fleet. The Wanda came up in
time to witness the final act of the victory. Then, after collecting the
stories written by the men on the Daimtless, Graham on the Brooklyn,
and Goode on the New York, the yacht made her run to the Jamaica
cable.
Dunning, who had woven all the accounts into one complete story
while en route, stepped ashore at Jamaica at I A.M. July 4. Diehl met
him with news that the dispatch boat of one of the New York papers
had arrived an hour before.
"We are beaten," Dunning said wearily. Diehl thought so too until
he learned that the whole Spanish fleet had been destroyed. His dejec-
tion immediately vanished. The rival boat had left the battle after only
two enemy ships had been sunk.
But that rival correspondent intended to do everything to protect
his time advantage on the news of the battle's start. As soon as his
first "urgent" story had been cleared, he filed a long unimportant dis-
patch at low press rates to hold the cable exclusively. Diehl was equal
to the emergency. He served notice on the cable company that, if it
failed to accept Dunning's story at the "urgent" rate of $1.67 a word
as soon as the special's first story had been transmitted, he would sue
for damages. The threat was effective and Dunning's complete story
REMEMBER THE MAINE! 147
of Santiago was promptly put on the cable. At the urgent rate, the tolls
were $8,000.
6
The naval victory at Santiago virtually ended the war. The city
of Santiago surrendered on July 17 and an Associated Press correspon-
dent preceded the troops into the city despite refusal of military authori-
ties to permit newspapermen to enter before the formal occupation took
place. The correspondent was Alfred C. Goudie. When permission was
denied, Goudie, who spoke both Spanish and French, put on peasant
clothes and joined a crowd of Cuban refugees who were being allowed
to return to their homes in the city. Carrying a parrot cage on one arm
and on the other a baby entrusted him by a tired mother, Goudie
passed through the lines without being stopped. Once in the city, he
filed three thousand words describing the arrangements for the sur-
render, the march of refugees, the plight of the city, and the approach
of the American forces.
The press corps had been much depleted by that time. Of the
two hundred correspondents who had landed with the troops in June
to cover operations ashore, only nine remained. Three of them — Goudie,
Martin, and Thompson — represented The Associated Press. The vicissi-
tudes of campaigning, the tropical climate, and the peril of yellow
fever had driven the others home.
Thompson stayed on for four years, and in 1902, when the Ameri-
can flag was hauled down from the palace in Havana and the flag of
the new independent Cuban Republic hoisted in its place he wrote
such a brilliant description of the occasion that the Congress of the
United States by joint resolution unanimously ordered it printed in
the Congressional Record as the official history of the event.
With the fall of Santiago, national interest shifted to the final
drives against Spain in Puerto Rico and the Philippines, where other
correspondents were on the scene.
The guns which started to rumble on other fronts drowned out the
navy's parting shots off Santiago. Several days after the destruction
of Cervera's fleet the U.S.S. Potomac sighted a small craft near the
wreck of one of the Spanish warships. The suspicious gunboat opened
fire and three shots splashed perilously close to the little target. Then
the officers saw the attacked vessel break out her pennant.
The last three "careless" shots of the war off Santiago had been
fired at the Cynthia — one of the five dispatch boats of The Associated
Press.
XVI. THE NEW CENTURY
THE second that comes once every hundred years had arrived. It was
January i, 1900, and there was the clink of many glasses and the
echo of hopeful toasts. For all the optimism and rejoicing, however, it
was a disturbed world that greeted the new century. In the South
African veld black clouds of disaster trailed British arms in their war
with the stubborn Boers. In far-off China the stage was set for the Boxer
uprising. From Berlin came a dispatch saying Kaiser Wilhelm had
chosen the first day of the new century to deliver a strident, sabre-
rattling speech to his garrison officers.
The turn of the century found The Associated Press of Illinois
growing stronger. Nevertheless, the organization was apprehensive
over the outcome of litigation which struck at the very purpose and
spirit of its existence. One of its own member papers had brought a
lawsuit charging that its charter and by-laws were unconstitutional.
An adverse decision would destroy the hard-won gains realized after
the long, bitter struggle against the peril of a commercial news trust
and might so impair the character of the association as to kill it.
Curiously enough, this legal threat was an outgrowth of something
entirely foreign to the field of news — the defeated efforts of a Chicago
utility magnate to obtain, without adequately compensating the city,
a fifty-year extension of his street railway franchises.
Charles T. Yerkes for years had been able by devious ways to
obtain whatever he wanted from the corrupt majority of the Chicago
city council. But finally the indignant public, backed by all the city's
newspapers, rose up in arms to fight him. A citizens' league was formed.
In the forefront of the fight was Victor Lawson. His Chicago Daily
News editorially assailed the corruption which Yerkes had exploited
and his checkbook gave support to the forces crusading for honesty in
government.
Yerkes realized he could not count upon the venal members of the
city council to do his bidding unless they had the encouragement of
an outspoken champion. He needed a newspaper to advocate his cause.
148
THE NEW CENTURY 149
With the press of Chicago arrayed against him, there was only one
way to get such support. On November 21, 1897, the none too successful
Chicago Inter-Ocean announced that a "party of Chicago gentlemen"
headed by Charles T. Yerkes, had purchased the paper. Equally sig-
nificant was the statement that George Wheeler Hinman was the new
editor. Hinman came direct from the staff of the most implacable of
Associated Press enemies, Laffan's New York Sun.
The policy of the Inter-Ocean immediately changed. At the outset
Hinman declared editorially that the twofold platform of the new
management was to "oppose the Chicago newspaper trust" — the anti-
Yerkes publications — and to advocate the supplying of Associated Press
news to any and all papers applying for it.
Hinman quickly singled out Lawson as the one man in the city
pre-eminently identified with both the causes the Inter-Ocean was
attacking. As owner of the Chicago Daily News he was the most promi-
nent anti- Yerkes publisher and as President of The Associated Press
he personified all that the organization represented. Here was a target
and on it Hinman concentrated his fire.
In the beginning the broadsides were against Lawson personally
and as a Chicago publisher. There were baseless charges that he sought
to profit at the city's expense in a schoolsite land "grab," and Hinman
sneeringly dubbed him "Rice Water Lawson" because of the free nurs-
ing care which the Daily News provided for sick children from tenement
districts. Then Lawson's Associated Press affiliations were introduced
into the civic tempest, and on December 2, 1897, Hinman wrote:
It is well to remind our readers that Mr. Rice Water Lawson is the
soul of the newspaper trust of this city, that the sandbagging methods adopted
by him in his editorial capacity have become the methods of the trust, largely
through his influence, and that as President of The Associated Press he has
striven to bolster monopoly and bolster the boycott, even to the point of
dictating the sources of information to which the newspapers of the country
shall turn. Do the people of Chicago regard a man of his ways and means as
the one to dictate the selection, suppression and manipulation of the news
of this great country, city and state?
The next day Hinman, ignoring the fact that the Inter-Ocean was
a member, further assailed The Associated Press of Illinois and spoke
acidly of Lawson, "wrapped in the cloak of religion, exhaling the odor
of sanctity." This time Melville Stone's name figured in the diatribe.
The Inter-Ocean declared:
150 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The leader of the [Associated Press] gang is Mr. Rice Water Lawson;
his henchman and accomplice is Melville E. Stone. To suit the personal and
financial interests of these two men the news of the country has been mis-
interpreted, mangled and suppressed.
Abuse and attack, whether directed at him personally or at The
Associated Press, left Lawson unruffled. In his judgment, the only
intelligent way of dealing with Hinman was to ignore him. Much
earlier he had told Yerkes that the Daily News would treat him and
his utility enterprises impartially and fairly in its news columns. On one
occasion he even wrote the traction company head that, if he changed
his methods, the Daily News would be "quite as ready to commend
you as we now are to criticize." Discussing one of Hinman's denuncia-
tions, Lawson commented:
The attacks of the Inter-Ocean on The Associated Press are quite con-
sistent with the personal antecedents of the new editor and the personal
feeling of the new ownership. I do not imagine that the New York Sun and
the Chicago Inter-Ocean can hurt The Associated Press.
The municipal battle continued until April, 1898, and the anti-
Yerkes forces emerged victorious. The utilities operator failed to get his
franchise extension and soon left Chicago after disposing of his traction
interests and his newspaper, Hinman, however, stayed on as the con-
trolling power on the Inter-Ocean and there was no diminution of his
condemnation of the Illinois association and its president.
Lawson was wrong, however, when he said he did not believe Hin-
man and his former associates on the New York Sun could hurt The
Associated Press. He had underestimated the power for discord which
existed in the Chicago Inter-Ocean by virtue of its Associated Press
membership. Hinman's editorial hostility could be ignored indefinitely,
but when he carried his fight into the courts the situation immediately
assumed a serious character.
The trouble actually began before the elections which ended
Yerkes's power. At Hinman's direction, the Inter-Ocean had been
using dispatches syndicated by the Laffan News Bureau which had con-
tinued since the disappearance of the old United Press. During the bitter
news war of 1893-1897 the Laffan bureau had been pronounced "an-
tagonistic" to the co-operative, and all members were enjoined against
subscribing to it. As soon as the Laffan dispatches were noticed in the
Inter-Ocean, General Manager Stone pointed out to Hinman that their
use was a violation of the agreement under which the paper enjoyed
THE NEW CENTURY 151
its Associated Press membership. Hinman showed his defiance by con-
tracting for a complete special service.
Such a challenge could not go ignored and the directors of
The Associated Press met it by invoking the penalty provided by the
by-laws — the suspension of the news report received by the offender.
The Inter-Ocean, however, had anticipated this action and, before it
could be taken, Hinman went into the state courts for an injunction
restraining The Associated Press from stopping the news report or
enforcing the terms of its contract.
The paper argued the corporate charter of The Associated Press
of Illinois was so worded that it made the organization, in effect, a
public utility, obligated to give its service without discrimination to any
newspaper which sought it. The Inter-Ocean maintained further that
The Associated Press, by forbidding its members to obtain news from
"antagonistic" sources, acted in restraint of trade and therefore un-
lawfully. In reply, The Associated Press contended it was a co-operative,
not conducted for profit, and therefore had a right to limit and govern
its membership.
The Circuit Court upheld The Associated Press. The Inter-Ocean
was suspended from membership and on May 16, 1898, it was declared
antagonistic to The Associated Press. But Hinman carried the fight to
the Appellate Court, and when he lost there he appealed to the Supreme
Court of Illinois. For almost two years the issue went undecided, and
the resultant uncertainty colored the outlook in 1900.
From the date of the organization of The Associated Press of
Illinois — on December 15, 1892 — it was inevitable that sooner or
later its basic membership principle would be subjected to a rigorous
test. There always was the likelihood that an ineligible paper would
resort to legal action in an effort to force admission to membership,
and there was the other possibility that a member paper such as the
Inter-Ocean^ disciplined for a major violation of the by-laws, might
seek to compel the resumption of its suspended report.
Lawson, Driscoll, Knapp, and the others responsible for the evolu-
tion of The Associated Press of Illinois believed their theory of organi-
zation fundamentally sound. The association was to be made up only of
those papers elected to membership and to be governed by those papers.
Its news report would stem from two main sources — the mutual ex-
152 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
change of the local news collected by the member papers themselves,
and the news gathered by the correspondents of The Associated Press
throughout the world. The cost of obtaining and disseminating the
report would be borne pro rata by the members, and finances would be
administered on a strictly non-profit basis. The purity of the news — such
an important factor in the controversy with the defunct United Press
and, earlier, with the old New York Associated Press — would be pro-
tected by the independence of the active management and by the very
diversity of political, social, and religious beliefs among the members
receiving the reports.
As with any co-operative, the association would be a defensive and
offensive alliance, acting for the benefit of those who enjoyed its
privileges, and in this connection certain precautionary measures were
necessary. Among these was the right of a member to protest the
admission of too many other papers in the same city.
The protest right had a twofold purpose: It served not only to
protect existing enterprise but also to exclude financially and editorially
irresponsible publications in an era when fly-by-night newspapers were all
too common. Many times the Board of Directors wisely overruled pro-
tests emanating from selfish motives and admitted desirable papers.
A number of times, too, protest rights were sustained, particularly
where the paper's financial stability figured in the challenge.
In his attacks Hinman repeatedly denounced the organization
as a "monopoly," emphasizing the word which had sinister connota-
tions in the mind of the contemporary public. Lawson realized that noth-
ing could be gained by replying to such charges. The facts spoke for
themselves. Far from being a monopoly, The Associated Press was
serving roughly one-third of the 2,ooo-odd newspapers then published
in the country. The remainder was supplied by various other news-
gathering agencies and most papers appeared quite satisfied.
Under the energetic William M. Laffan, the New York Sun's
Laffan News Bureau had stepped out boldly after the 1893-1897 strife
as a collector of news, serving a sizable list of paying clients. William
Randolph Hearst also made arrangements to supply news for his New
York Journal and San Francisco Examiner, as well as others. Still
another agency was the Scripps-McRae Press Association, which had for
its nucleus four midwestern newspapers owned by Milton McRae and
Edward W. Scripps, the latter a brother of the Detroit Scripps so active
in the fight against the old United Press.
At the time the United Press went out of existence Edward W.
THE NEW CENTURY 153
Scripps had applied for membership in The Associated Press for all
his papers. Some of them were in cities in which all available member-
ships already were taken and Scripps said that, if The Associated Press
could not accept all his papers, it could not have any of them. He
began the development of his own news service.
Additional services also appeared and, although they were all
strictly commercial, operating for profit, their very number provided
insurance against monopoly. Moreover, the evolution of The Associated
Press had given all the publishers of the country a dependable yard-
stick by which the truth, accuracy, and cost of any news enterprise
could be quickly and honestly measured.
But the courts moved slowly. During the first week of 1900
Secretary of State John Hay made news, announcing completion of
negotiations for the "open door" in China. The $35,000,000 contract
for New York's first subway was awarded. Then on February 19 the
Supreme Court of the State of Illinois handed down the long-awaited
decision in the Inter-Ocean case.
The decision was a thunderbolt. Hinman and the Inter-Ocean won
a smashing victory. On every major point the court found against
The Associated Press. Its foes were jubilant, but hundreds of papers
over the country — non-members of the co-operative as well as members
— printed editorials deploring the decision out of which might come
another news monopoly. Ignoring the ruling of the Illinois Supreme
Court, a similar case in Missouri shortly thereafter was declared in
favor of The Associated Press.
However, the court of the association's home state had spoken. The
hasty and loose language used in 1892 when the nonprofit co-operative
was formed had proved its legal undoing. The sweeping decision cited
the fatal portion of the corporate charter which included among the
organization's purposes the right "to erect, lease, or sell telegraph or
telephone lines." Although this right never had been exercised, the
court ruled that it gave The Associated Press of Illinois the nature of
a public utility and in consequence the organization was legally bound
to supply, without distinction, any persons "who wish to purchase
information and news, for purposes of publication, which it was created
to furnish." All the damage, immediate and potential, was in that sweep-
ing ruling.
It was of minor importance that the decision also struck at the
"antagonistic" section of the by-laws. The court held that provision
to be in restraint of trade and declared it null and void.
154 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The Associated Press sought in vain for a rehearing of the case
while the victorious Inter-Ocean took steps to realize everything it
believed the decision guaranteed. The paper applied for reinstatement
as a member, sought a receiver for the association, sued for indemnifica-
tion of alleged losses sustained during the period of suspension, and
petitioned for an injunction to prevent dissolution of The Associated
Press of Illinois in the event the organization so attempted to escape
the result of the protracted court fight. Papers hitherto excluded began
to press for admission on the strength of the decision, and legal actions
against the co-operative multiplied.
It was a disheartened membership that convened in Chicago on
May 1 6, 1900, to hear the formal reports on the stunning setback and
to consider what was to be done. Nominally, the members still were
masters of their association, but it was debatable for how long. The
spirit, concept, and purpose of the organization had been dramatically
altered by legal fiat, and it was likely that the mechanics of operation
would have to change accordingly.
It was apparent that the membership was unwilling to continue
on that basis. All recommendations for the amendment of the by-laws
were rejected. Individual publishers said what they thought. They had
fought a bitter war to organize a press association free of the evils which
had beset news gathering in the past. Many of them had pledged
personal fortunes and had contributed unsparingly of time and energy
in the struggle. When the hard-won victory finally came, they thought
they had earned recognition for the principles they served. Now their
gains had been swept away or jeopardized. Some urged the preserva-
tion of the spirit and methods of the association, but in the mesh of
existing legal entanglements they frankly acknowledged uncertainty
as to how that could be accomplished.
When the time came for the annual election of officers, some sig-
nificant things happened. Victor Lawson declined re-election as presi-
dent. Melville Stone resigned as general manager. Other officers with-
drew their names from nomination. The men who had guided The
Associated Press of Illinois through a great news-war revolution had
mapped their plans.
Charles Knapp, of the St. Louis Republic, absent on account of
illness, was elected president to succeed Lawson, and Diehl was named
THE NEW CENTURY 155
general manager to replace Stone. Writing to Knapp the next day,
Lawson hinted of the strategy in preparation:
I understand that certain ex-directors and other people of their kind
are pursuing their machinations at this moment within the corporate limits of
Chicago with the fell purpose of doing disrespect to our Supreme Court.
All of which grieves me much. I am guessing that the developments of the
near future will bring us face to face again in New York.
That same week all newsdom knew the steps that were being taken.
On May 22, 1900, a certificate of incorporation of a technically new
association, bearing The Associated Press name, was filed in New York.
It carried the signatures of Stephen O'Meara, of the Boston Journal,
Adolph S. Ochs, of the New York Times, St. Clair McKelway, of the
Brooklyn Eagle, William L. McLean, of the Philadelphia Bulletin,
Frank B. Noyes, of the Washington Star, and Alfred H. Belo, of the
Dallas News. So, by coincidence, six papers were represented in this
fresh start, as six papers had been represented in the beginning in 1848.
New York had a law applying specifically to co-operative and non-
profit organizations and the decision of Lawson and his group had been
made to seek incorporation under that statute. This time, however,
the legal technicalities received the most thoroughgoing attention. The
incorporators were determined not only to avoid the pitfalls which
had made the Inter-Ocean suit possible, but also to correct the defects
and inequities which had manifested themselves in the structure of
The Associated Press of Illinois. Great care was taken to make the
membership character of the organization so specific as to admit of no
contention. The certificate of incorporation, after first describing how
newspapers might be elected to membership, stipulated plainly:
No person not so elected shall have any right or interest in the corpora-
tion or enjoy any of the privileges or benefits thereof.
Another unequivocal expression of policy was:
The corporation is not to make a profit or to make or declare dividends,
and is not to engage in the business of selling intelligence nor traffic in
the same.
This phrased a cardinal principle of the new policy — that the mem-
bers would co-operate in gathering the news of the world for their
mutual benefit, each contributing his respective share and each defray-
ing his portion of the total cost 5 they would not buy their news from
156 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
the association, but would be part owners, each with an equal voice in
all Associated Press affairs.
There were other important changes in the constitution. In the
Illinois organization memberships had been divided into two classes
of unequal rights and privileges. This distinction was eliminated. The
incorporators decided against the issuance of capital stock for financing
the association, as had been done in 1892. Instead they substituted
first-mortgage bonds, for which the membership might subscribe in
varying amounts.
Not unexpectedly, Melville E. Stone was designated general man-
ager and he was soon busy sending out invitations to membership.
A special meeting of The Associated Press of Illinois was called in
Chicago, September 12, 1900, and by unanimous vote it was decided to
disincorporate. The details connected with the dissolution required time,
so the Board of Directors was empowered to take the necessary step
to close out the business. Significantly, the directors were specifically
authorized to dispose of the organization's news-gathering facilities
to "such other news association, as, in the opinion of the Board of
Directors, it is deemed wise to have relations with." The way was
cleared for the legal transfer, of the essential working equipment to
The Associated Press which was ready to carry on the traditions of
the service.
The Chicago meeting was, to all intents and purposes, the actual
finale of The Associated Press of Illinois. Legally it continued in
existence several months more during which time the directors, among
other things, paid $40,500 to the Inter-Ocean to satisfy its claims and
to effect a dismissal of additional suits brought by that paper and the
New York Sun.
To lead the transformed Associated Press, the Board of Directors
chose as president Frank Brett Noyes, the 37-year-old Washington Star
executive who had taken such a decisive role in the struggle with United
Press and whose influence had helped the reorganization. He was
young for this important job, considering the number of older men
available. Moreover, some observers considered him too daring because
the Washington Star printed society and sports news in unprecedented
volume. But time proved otherwise.
Quiet, austere, and judicial, Noyes already commanded the respect
THE NEW CENTURY 157
of the membership at large. They knew he had an unswerving devotion
to the best interests of news gathering and that, under him, The Asso-
ciated Press would scrupulously discharge its mission. Time and again
he declared: "News must be non-partisan in its highest sense. It must
have no tinge of bias whether political, economic or religious. It must
neither advocate nor oppose causes." In view of the public trust which
reposed in the press, he believed that no individual had the right to
impose any sort of censorship, direct or indirect, upon the free dissemi-
nation of public intelligence.
"And," he said, "I don't care whether that man is the nation's
ruler, the head of a news agency, or the publisher of an individual paper.
Newspapers are business enterprises, and they must make money to sur-
vive, but any newspaper that distorts news, or resorts to that even
more deadly form of distortion — suppression of essential facts — has no
more right to continued existence than any other business enterprise
which persistently defrauds its customers."
The Associated Press of Illinois delivered its last news report
on September 3, 1900. The next day, over the same wires, the new
Associated Press started the first dispatches of the transformed service.
The change-over was challenged. Court action was instituted on behalf
of some non-member papers, attacking the legality of the transfer to
New York. It was some time before the matter was adjudicated, but
the verdict upheld the right of Associated Press members to take the
course they had followed. The Associated Press of Illinois, the decision
stated, was under no obligation to continue when it found it could not
achieve its proper purposes under the laws of that state. The associa-
tion likewise was free to dispose of all its property and there was
nothing to bar its former members from incorporating the successor
association in New York, which in turn acquired that property.
After years of slow evolution and battle, The Associated Press had
reached its goal as the world's only non-profit, co-operative news-gather-
ing organization. The ideal of truth in news had emerged and the
association dedicated to that ideal now stood on solid ground.
I. PEACE AND PROPAGANDA
BUNDLED in a heavy overcoat, Guglielmo Marconi, then a young
man of twenty-seven, moved about giving orders while a huge kite
strained at its cord of wire in the high winds over Newfoundland.
It was Saturday, December 21, 1901.
There had already been three failures. On Tuesday Marconi and
his assistants had flown their first kite but they had not heard signals
from the English station at Poldhu in Cornwall. The next day they
tried a balloon. Both the balloon and the aerial it supported were car-
ried away in a squall. Then another kite and its aerial were lost,
whipped out to sea by the high winds.
By 11:30 that Saturday morning Marconi and his half dozen
helpers got a third kite up and the crew paid out the wire until it
stretched four hundred feet into the wintry sky. Then they walked back
to the barracklike building where a primitive wireless receiving appar-
atus had been set up. A tense wait began among the jumble of extra
supplies — the zinc sheets, gas cylinders, deflated balloons, and spare
kites.
For days now, by prearrangement, the experimental station seven-
teen hundred miles away in Cornwall had been repeating the same test
signal — the simplest possible. It was the letter S, three dots in tele-
graph code.
For almost an hour Marconi sat listening, a single headphone
clamped to his ear. The five men watched him. At 12:30 his numbed
fingers trembled. The instrument on the table moved almost imper-
ceptibly and the headphone weakly whispered three dots — the letter S!
The signal was repeated, once, twice, several times. It was faint but
unmistakable.
Marconi was on his feet gesticulating. "Avete sentito? Avete sen-
tito?" he shouted. "Did you hear it? Did you hear it?"
They passed the headphone around and one after another con-
firmed the signal. Even the fishermen who helped with the kites had
their chance to listen. The absence of sending equipment prevented
161
1 62 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Marconi from replying. He dashed to the cable office and his jubilant
message to co-workers abroad proclaimed that wireless no longer was
limited to small distances. It could range the earth!
Marconi's 1901 successes prompted the United States Navy to dis-
continue the use of pigeons for communications in the fleet and to
substitute wireless telegraphy. But before the navy took this step,
even before Marconi projected the transatlantic signal test, The Asso-
ciated Press with the co-operation of the New York Herald had used
the inventor and his wireless to report a news event. The story was the
first covered by wireless in this country and marked the initial public
demonstration of the invention in America. That was in 1899. Marconi
had been experimenting in Europe for four years, receiving and sending
messages over limited distances. James Gordon Bennett, Jr., of the
Herald contracted with him to come to New York and demonstrate an
attempt to report the international yacht races that October. He brought
his equipment in two trunks. About the same time another distinguished
visitor arrived. He was the trim, amiable sportsman, Thomas Lipton,
here for his first attempt to lift the symbol of international yachting
supremacy, the America's cup.
Marconi had his opportunity to demonstrate wireless in reporting
the competition between Lipton's Shamrock and the American Columbia.
A tall receiving mast was erected on the Atlantic Highlands. A cor-
responding mast was erected on a building in 34th Street and two
ocean going liners were chartered to follow the races, carrying Mar-
coni's equipment. The Columbia defeated the English contender in
three straight races off Sandy Hook on October 16, 17 and 20, and
detailed accounts were transmitted to the land stations. The cost ex-
ceeded $25,000, a considerable sum in those days for a single story, but
the demonstration was highly successful.
A year later Marconi's wireless again assisted The Associated
Press in covering the 1900 sailing of the international classic. In 1902, a
rival appeared in the person of Lee De Forest, young pioneer of
American wireless development. He raised enough money to get from
Chicago to New York and offered his services to The Associated Press
for reporting the races with equipment he had perfected. General
Manager Stone already had contracted with Marconi again and De
Forest found employment with one of the commercial agencies.
From a yachting standpoint, the first race went off smoothly
enough, but this time the wirelessed news did not fare so well. The
Marconi and De Forest boats docked after the finish only to learn that
not one understandable word had been received. The two primitive
PEACE AND PROPAGANDA 163
spark sets, operating in such close proximity with their ear-splitting,
crackling noise, had set up such a field of interference that they com-
pletely jumbled each other's signals.
Later, with Stone's co-operation, the inventor introduced the first
regular daily news service on the high seas while conducting experiments
on the Cunarder Lucania. At the close of each day Stone sent Marconi
a summary of important news. Reception was uninterrupted all the
way across the Atlantic and the daily news budget Marconi received
was posted in the steamer's smoking room.
Marconi's experiments during the frigid December days at New-
foundland made 1901 historic in the annals of science, but for America
the year marked a national sorrow in President McKinley's assassination
on September 6 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. At the
President's side when Leon Czolgosz fired through a handkerchief
stood a young string correspondent who had been assigned to cover
the reception. The reporter ran to the only telephone in the vicinity
and blurted out his story to an editor in the Buffalo bureau. Then, to
keep his story exclusive as long as possible, he ripped out all the wires
and wrecked the telephone. He thought it an ingenious move until he
realized a few minutes later that he had destroyed his own line of
communication. It required a full half hour to relay further informa-
tion from the scene of the assassination.
In 1902 a greater tragedy made the year's big story. The night of
May 2 brought the first meager tidings — a telegram from St. Thomas
in the Danish West Indies. It reported that Mount Pelee, the volcano
on near-by Martinique, was erupting and the town of Saint-Pierre was
shrouded in smoke and covered an inch deep with volcanic ashes. All
cable communications were broken before The Associated Press could
hear from its two correspondents on Martinique, one at Saint-Pierre and
the other at Fort-de-France, nine miles away.
Through the night New York headquarters endeavored to devise
some way to get the news. Correspondents at St. Vincent, St. Thomas,
Puerto Rico, Barbados, Trinidad, and St. Lucia were ordered to send
any information which might have reached them, and also to make every
effort to reach Martinique. Then Stone discovered that an old news-
paper friend, Ayme, was the American consul at Guadeloupe, a small
island a dozen miles from Martinique. The general manager appealed
164 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
to Washington to grant a leave of absence and then cabled the consul
to charter a boat for Martinique.
All the w*y from Guadeloupe Ayme's boat navigated through a
thick cloud of falling ashes and cinders. It was a dangerous night trip
and when the boat finally reached Saint-Pierre, Ayme was aghast at
what he saw. The entire population of the town, some thirty thousand,
had been buried under the burning mass of hot ashes, and among the
victims was the regular correspondent that New York had tried so hard
to reach. Saint-Pierre was a charnel house and even Ayme's long news-
paper experience did not immunize him to the horror he found. He
began to assemble the story. He was joined presently by the correspon-
dent from Fort-de-France, Jose Ivanes, who had escaped unhurt,
and together these two men worked in the blazing cinders. Ayme pieced
the narrative together as his boat dashed back to Guadeloupe.
Stone called the story "worthy of the younger Pliny," who wrote
the classic description of the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
The performance of The Associated Press during those first few
years of the new century spoke well for the administration of the new
organization, but General Manager Stone was dissatisfied with one
important phase of the report, the propaganda in and the censorship of
European news.
An autumn day in 1902 found him in Paris, walking briskly toward
the Quai d'Orsay. The minister of foreign affairs, M. Theophile Del-
casse, was expecting him.
With the end of the Spanish-American War, the United States
emerged as a modern world power and Stone noticed the heightened
interest of Americans in international affairs. Nevertheless, correspon-
dents abroad still labored under great handicaps. In some countries
there was the strictest censorship, in others there was unofficial yet none
the less rigid regulation, and almost everywhere in Europe there was
the hopeless drawback of government-controlled telegraph systems
which delayed or withheld America-bound dispatches.
The co-operative had competent American correspondents in some
European capitals and in several of the more important cities, but the
twin handicaps of censorship and poor telegraphic service had defeated
attempts to gather European news at first hand. M. Jules Cambon, the
French ambassador at Washington, expressed concern over the need for
PEACE AND PROPAGANDA 165
faster, more adequate news from France and Stone tactfully reminded
him of the obstacles France herself interposed. The Republic had no
formal censorship, but it achieved the same effect by refusing cor-
respondents access to the news of many of its most important depart-
ments. Service of the government-controlled telegraph was so poor
that it frequently took a dispatch six or seven hours to get from a pro-
vincial city to Paris, and there the story was likely tp encounter a like
delay before being routed to the United States.
The ambassador's desire to help improve conditions gave Stone his
first chance. Cambon forwarded Stone's views and added his own
opinion that, if the news of France could be collected and written by
unhindered Associated Press correspondents, relations between the two
nations would benefit.
Stone's reception at the Quai d'Orsay was cordial. M. Delcasse
manifested much interest and appeared well informed. He listened
attentively as Stone cited numerous instances when correspondents had
filed dispatches only to have them thrown aside by a clerk in a gov-
ernment telegraph office until all government, commercial, even family
death telegrams first had been cleared.
M. Delcasse assured Stone he was in agreement that the situa-
tion was bad. However, one could understand that it would be an
extremely serious matter to make changes. The minister of foreign
affairs apologized, but it was something he must first discuss with his
confreres, especially with the minister of telegraphs. He would do that
immediately and would like Stone to have breakfast with him the next
morning so that he might meet the other members of the Cabinet.
The breakfast was served in M. Delcasse's private room in the
palace set apart for the Department of Foreign Affairs. Stone's atten-
tion was attracted by a piece of furniture in the apartment — an old ma-
hogany table — and he was told that it had played an important part in
American history three times. On it three documents had been signed:
the agreement by which Benjamin Franklin had obtained financial aid
from France for the struggling thirteen colonies 5 the treaty of peace
which ended the War of 1812; lastly, the treaty which brought to a
close the Spanish-American War of 1898. The discussion turned tem-
porarily to historical subjects, but when it returned to news, Stone spoke
out.
"If The Associated Press is to gather the news of France at first
hand," he told the ministers, "then our correspondents must be abso-
lutely free and there must be no attempt to influence them. I under
1 66 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
stand, of course, that in order to be useful the representative of The
Associated Press accredited to any capital must be on friendly terms with
the government at that capital, but under no consideration will he be a
servile agent of that government. The Associated Press will not sur-
render the right to free and accurate statement of the news, and any-
thing the association may do in the future must be done with the dis-
tinct understanding that the government of France will not attempt to
influence the impartial character of the service. If the French govern-
ment can see its way to expedite our dispatches on the state telegraph
system, if it will throw open all departments of the government to us
so we can obtain the facts, then I shall be very glad to establish a full-
sized bureau in Paris and take all our French news from Paris direct."
Things moved slowly in the Paris of 1902 and Stone saw it would
be some time before action, if any, was taken. So he returned to
America.
One day less than a month later, a bulky communication reached
him in New York. It was from M. Delcasse.
First and foremost, the French government pledged that its offi-
cials henceforth would supply representatives of the co-operative with
all pertinent information. Officials would answer any questions that
might be of interest to the United States and would do everything in
their power to expedite the news thus obtained. To eliminate delays,
the Ministry of Telegraphs had prepared three special blanks for the
exclusive use of The Associated Press. The first, which had "Associated
Press" printed across its face in red ink, was for routine stories and
took precedence over everything but government telegrams. The second,
bearing the inscription "Associated Press, tres presse," was for more
important matter and assured transmission immediately after any
government message then on the wire. The third, labeled "Associated
Press, urgent? was for news of outstanding importance and superseded
all other telegrams.
The success of this system so pleased the French Foreign Office
that it offered to Bassist Stone in the plans he already had in mind to
break down the barriers in other countries. During his conferences with
M. Delcasse the general manager had mentioned the possibility of
treating with Italy and Spain on the same subject. Accordingly, as soon
PEACE AND PROPAGANDA 167
as the reforms were effected in France, the minister of foreign affairs
suggested that Stone might find the moment opportune to approach the
other two governments. To be helpful, he issued instructions to the
French ambassador at the Quirinal to pursue the matter with Italian
authorities.
So in 1903 Stone went abroad once again. Italy had been tried by
a disastrous Ethiopian War and the assassination of a king since he had
been there as a tourist after he left the Chicago News. The new mon-
arch, Victor Emmanuel III, and dominant Giovanni Giolitti held the
reins of government.
Stone learned that the French ambassador, M. Barrere, had done
much to prepare the way for him. The first solution offered was to have
correspondents in Italy send dispatches on the government-owned tele-
graph to the border for relay on the French wires to Paris. That would
improve matters somewhat, but there was a better way — sending the
dispatches direct from Rome to New York. Stone said so in his con-
ference with officials of the Italian Foreign Office and then came a com-
mand to an audience with the King.
The conversation between Stone and Victor Emmanuel was with-
out formality, but it soon reached a delicate point. Rome, in effect, was
the capital of two sovereigns — Victor Emmanuel, temporal ruler of
Italy, and Leo XIII, spiritual head of the Catholic Church. For years
relations between the government and the papacy had been strained —
it would be more than a quarter of a century before they were satis-
factorily adjusted — and the pontiffs during that period remained volun-
tary "prisoners" in the Vatican. Stone realized that the man he placed
in charge of a Rome Bureau he planned to establish would be in a diffi-
cult position because it would be necessary for him to be persona grata
both at the Quirinal and at the Vatican.
He voiced his thoughts frankly and Victor Emmanuel assured him
that he entertained nothing but the kindliest of personal feelings toward
the Pope. Of course, officially, the Quirinal and the Vatican were
estranged, but the estrangement should not hamper the co-operative.
A few days after his audience with the King,
at the Vatican by the aging Pope who had reigned,
talked for an hour.
Then he opened the new Rome Bureau, anc
head it was Salvatore Cortesi, who had been doiij
for The Associated Press since the mid-nineties.
1 68 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
A few weeks later Stone was in Berlin. He had met Kaiser Wil-
helm's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, during the latter's visit to the
United States in 1902, and he was "commanded" to attend a special
Ordenfest given by the Emperor. After the banquet Stone was sum-
moned to an anteroom for his private audience with the Kaiser.
The Kaiser gave the general manager assurances he would issue
the necessary orders to place The Associated Press in a satisfactory
position in Germany as regarded both censorship and prompt trans-
mission. He turned the details over to Postmaster General Sydow who
agreed on a small red label bearing the word: "America." Pasted on a
press message anywhere in the Fatherland, it guaranteed the telegram
first place on all wires.
That same year the association's new European organization re-
ceived its first major test. It came almost before Cortesi had become
settled as chief of the Rome Bureau and, because of the nature of the
event, it caused the Italian government to proclaim a special censor-
ship. In the silence of the Vatican Pope Leo XIII lay dying. At the
time of his election as pontiff everyone had expected his reign to be
short. He, himself, had jested while being robed on that occasion:
"Hurry, or I shall die before you have finished." That was a quarter
of a century earlier and he had lived to bury all but one of the car-
dinals who participated in the conclave which selected him. Now, how-
ever, the end was at hand and the Italian government notified all corre-
spondents that no dispatch of the Pope's passing could be transmitted
for two hours after his death. This was to permit the Vatican sufficient
time to notify papal legates in other lands.
Ever since he had begun work for The Associated Press in the
nineties, Cortesi had cultivated sources and contacts in the Vatican.
For ten years he had paid weekly visits to Dr. Giuseppe Lapponi, the
Pope's personal physician, and the two men had become close friends.
He also had made it a point to become acquainted with the Pope's rela-
tives outside the Vatican and as many members of the papal house-
hold as possible, until he had a small army of unofficial reporters ready
for any emergency.
Leo XIII fell ill during the intolerably hot Rome weather of
July. Some of the organization's best correspondents immediately were
ordered to Cortesi's aid, among them William A. M. Goode, who
had been on Admiral Sampson's flagship during the Spanish-American
PEACE AND PROPAGANDA 169
War, and Charles T. Thompson, the new chief of the Paris Bureau.
They found Cortesi had the situation well in hand. In spite of official
silence on what was happening in the sickroom, he was able to report
every detail during the eighteen days of the Pope's illness.
The world followed the hourly accounts with anxious suspense.
In the United States both Protestant and Catholic churches offered
prayers for recovery. To show the importance of quick coverage, Stone
cabled Cortesi an account of these services and the correspondent trans-
mitted the message to the Vatican where Monsignor della Chiesa — the
future Benedict XV — showed it to Leo XIII. The sinking Pope scanned
it with dim eyes and exclaimed: "I die satisfied, as this shows that my
idea of the reunion of all Christian churches is not a dream."
Tension increased as the end neared and for weeks Cortesi had
been perfecting a plan whereby he not only hoped to have the news
promptly, but also — and this was hardly less important — to be able
to transmit it to "Melstone, Newyork," the cable address of the gen-
eral manager.
The last day came. In the little Vatican room a Pope passed away.
Then there was an age-old ceremony to be observed. Before the Pope
could be declared officially dead, his private physician first must pass
a lighted candle before the still lips to show the pontiff breathed no
more. Dr. Lapponi stepped into an adjoining room to obtain the candle
for the ceremony. It took only a moment to pick up the telephone there
and whisper a few words. In the Rome Bureau two miles away, Cortesi
heard the few words, wrote down three numbers and dashed out.
Those who braved the blazing heat of that July day stared at the
apparently demented man who tore past them in the streets, running
for the Central Telegraph Office. He slapped the message on the counter
and a perspiring clerk, mystified at the need for such excited haste,
read the innocuous words:
MELSTONE, NEWYORK
NUMBER MISSING BOND 404
(SIGNED) MONTEFIORE.
"Send it all routes," panted Cortesi. "Urgent!"
Nine minutes later The Associated Press in New York learned
what no one in Rome and few in the Vatican yet knew. Leo XIII had
died at 4:04 A.M. The news was flashed across the United States to San
Francisco and from border to border. It went back on the cables to
Europe, giving London, Paris, Berlin, even Rome, the first news of
the Pope's death.
170 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Stone and Cortesi had prearranged the harmless-appearing code
message to circumvent the special censorship. Only the numerals had
to be filled in— and the numerals told the precise minute of the Pontiff's
passing.
The death of Leo XIII demonstrated the remarkable change which
had occurred in the handling of foreign news. When Leo's predecessor
died in 1878, only ten lines were carried. On Leo's death the co-opera-
tive cabled enough to fill a complete newspaper page, approximately
eight thousand words.
6
In America that late summer of 1903 the first automobile crossed
the continent in fifty-two days. Joseph Pulitzer gave Columbia Uni-
versity $2,000,000 to found a School of Journalism. Samuel P. Langley
failed in his attempt to fly a heavier-than-air machine over the Potomac
River. The obstacles blocking the construction of the Panama Canal
were at last being surmounted. Nor was news the only thing. Stone's
thoughts once more turned toward Europe, this time to Russia.
Up to this time the empire of the Czars had been the despair of
news gathering. Every conceivable obstacle was put in the way of corre-
spondents. The censorship was the most stringent in the world. Tolls
on the government telegraph were exorbitant and the service itself so
slovenly that messages frequently were delayed for days. Until some-
thing was done about Russia, The Associated Press could not pretend to
supply a complete and accurate news picture of Europe. Previously,
however, the time had not seemed propitious to carry the crusade to
Muscovy. Now Stone believed the success of his experiment in the
other countries would help show Russia the way.
He enlisted the support of Count Cassini, the Russian ambassador
at Washington, and also obtained the help of the French and German
offices.
It was the dead of winter when he reached St. Petersburg. Bells
jingled as droshkies whirled along Nevsky Prospekt. The river Neva
was thick with ice, and snow blanketed its many islands. An agent
whom Stone had met in London had preceded him to the Russian
capital so the Czar's ministers might know in advance of the general
manager's proposals.
Count Lamsdorff, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, was cordial,
but protested he was powerless to give active help. The question of
cen$pi*hip and the telegraph was wholly in the hands of Minister of
PEACE AND PROPAGANDA 171
the Interior Viatscheslav Plehve, who was answerable only to the Czar.
Stone met Plehve, who also headed the dread secret police, and his
hopes at once suffered a setback. The minister made no secret of the
fact that any change in existing conditions might be dangerous in a
country harried by assassinations, secret societies, and Nihilist plots to
overthrow the government.
"Frankly," he said, "I am not prepared to abolish the censorship.
To my mind it would be a very imprudent thing to do. However, I
will go as far as I can toward meeting your other wishes."
The telegraph service? The press rate? Plehve promised to make
arrangements for dispatches, but of course they could not take prece-
dence over government messages or telegrams from a member of the
imperial family. As for the press rate, that unfortunately was not the
province of the minister of the interior. Stone would have to consult
with the minister of finance.
Shuttled from bureau to bureau, struggling with official red tape
and procrastination, Stone's mission seemed hopeless. He talked with
the timid foreign censor — who also had time to be government censor
of the Russian stage — and found him fearful to pass a single line that
might offend anyone.
As the bleak Russian winter grew deeper, Stone slowly began to
win a few concessions. Rapidity of transmission first was assured. Next,
a satisfactory press rate was negotiated. Then, a little later, two de-
partments agreed to receive the regular correspondent assigned to St.
Petersburg. But the citadel of censorship still stood unshaken. Stone
was almost ready to confess defeat when, on January 18, 1904, he was
asked to an audience with the Czar in the famous Winter Palace.
At the end of a labyrinth of wide halls and endless corridors, lined
with guards, functionaries, and attendants, the general manager was
ushered into a library to meet the Czar of All the Russias, an unassum-
ing man of thirty-five dressed in the braided white jacket and blue
trousers of the navy.
Stone explained the desire of his organization to collect the news
of Russia accurately and swiftly and to transmit it to the United
States. directly from St. Petersburg and not from neighboring nations.
"We come as friends," he said, "and it is my desire that our
representatives here shall treat Russia as a friend j but it is the very
essence of the proposed plan that we be free to tell the truth. We can-
not be the mouthpiece of Russia, we cannot plead her cause, except in
so far as telling the truth will do it."
172 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"That," replied the Czar, "is all we could ask of you."
He asked Stone to enumerate the reforms sought.
"It seems to me, your Majesty," Stone said, "that censorship is
not only valueless from your own point of view, but works a positive
harm. A wall has been built up around the country, and the fact that
no correspondent for a foreign paper can live and work here has re-
sulted in a traffic of false Russian news that is most hurtful. Today
there are newspapermen in Vienna, Berlin and London who make a
living by peddling out the news of Russia, and it is usually false. If we
were free to tell the truth in Russia, as we are in other countries, no
self-respecting newspaper in the world would print a dispatch from
Vienna respecting the internal affairs of Russia, because the editor would
know that, if the thing were true, it would come from Russia direct.
All you do now is to drive a correspondent to send his dispatches across
the German border. I am able to write anything I choose in Russia,
and send it by messenger to Wirballen, across the German border, and
it will go from there without change. You are powerless to prevent
my sending these dispatches, and all you do is to anger the correspond-
ent and make him an enemy, and delay his dispatches, robbing the
Russian telegraph lines of a revenue they should receive. So it occurs
to me that the censorship is inefficient 5 that it is a censorship which does
not censor, but annoys."
The Czar requested Stone to embody his ideas in a formal memo-
randum which he might study before issuing any orders. The man's
sincerity seemed patent and Stone might have been optimistic had not
the monarch been so preoccupied over the crisis in Russia's relations
with Japan in the Far East. With the vast empire teetering on the
brink of war, Stone knew all too well that his memorandum might be
lost in the shuffle.
Little happened that the secret police did not learn and Plehve
soon was advised that Stone's memorandum was in the hands of the
Czar. Unrelenting in his antagonism to any proposal he considered
"revolutionary," he asked Stone to agree to a halfway measure provid-
ing for nominal censorship. The suggestion was rejected.
No word came from the Czar and the crisis with Japan hourly
grew worse. Stone quit St. Petersburg for a few days in Berlin. There
he met the Kaiser again and in a strangely prophetic conversation the
German ruler said of Czar Nicholas: "Poor chap. I think he is likely
to lose his throne!"
Before Stone got back to St. Petersburg Japan launched a crippling
PEACE AND PROPAGANDA 173
surprise attack on the warships of the Russian Far Eastern squadron at
Port Arthur. Two days later the government of the Mikado declared
war. Stone foresaw an indefinite wait before he could get a decision
from the Czar. He discussed his predicament with Robert McCormick,
the American ambassador, and asked him to make inquiries of Count
Lamsdorff in the Foreign Office.
The count was surprised when the subject was mentioned.
"Why, the thing is done!" he exclaimed.
"I do not follow you," the ambassador said.
"Mr. Stone left a memorandum of his wishes with his Majesty,
did he not? Well, the emperor wrote 'approved* on the corner of the
memorandum, and all will be done. There may be a slight delay
incident to working out the details, but it will be done."
The news was received with mixed feelings. Stone could rejoice
over the victory which the Czar's approval represented, but he was
dubious at the mention of "a slight delay incident to working out the
details." That might cover a multitude of postponements and give
hostile ministers opportunities to circumvent the purpose of the im-
perial order. But there was nothing to be gained by staying in Russia
and Stone had business in Vienna. He departed, leaving the St. Peters-
burg Bureau in charge of a man he had been training for that assign-
ment. The correspondent was Howard N. Thompson, the same staff
man who had won notable recognition for his work in the Spanish-
American War and its sequel of Cuban independence.
Stone stepped off the train at Vienna to find a lengthy telegram
waiting. It was from Thompson at St. Petersburg and it said:
I KNOW YOU WILL BE GRATIFIED TO LEARN THAT
ON MY RETURN TO THE OFFICE AFTER BIDDING YOU
ADIEU, AND BEFORE YOUR FEET LEFT THE SOIL OF
ST. PETERSBURG, WE WERE SERVED WITH NOTICE THAT
THE CENSORSHIP WAS ABOLISHED SO FAR AS WE WERE
CONCERNED. BUT COUNT LAMSDORFF FEELS THAT IT
IS A MISTAKE, AND THAT WE SHALL BE CHARGED
-WITH HAVING MADE A BARGAIN, AND ANY KINDLY
THINGS WE MAY SAY OF RUSSIA WILL BE MISCONSTRUED.
HE THINKS IT WOULD BE MUCH WISER IF THE CENSORSHIP
• WERE ABOLISHED AS TO ALL FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS
AND BUREAUS, AND DESIRES YOUR INFLUENCE TO THAT
END.
Stone wired back that he was in full agreement with Lamsdorff.
The Associated Press had no desire to monopolize this new privilege.
174 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Within forty-eight hours after censorship restrictions were rescinded
for The Associated Press, they were rescinded also for all foreign cor-
respondents.
But the world was not standing still. The streets of Tokyo were
already resounding to shouts of "Dai Nippon Banzai! Dai Nippon
banzai! Banzai, banzai, banzai!" The Mikado's troops were starting for
the front, and in Manchuria on the Asiatic mainland the ponderous
columns of the Czar were on the march.
Another war demanded reporting.
II. WAR IN THE EAST
THERE were strange date lines and strange names on the front pages.
Dispatches spoke of Port Arthur, Chemulpo, Chefoo, and the Yellow
Sea. Readers struggled with problems of correct pronunciation as they
learned about General Kuropatkin, Admiral Vityeft, and the Japanese
Kuroki, Nogi, and Togo. The unpredictable limelight of news had fixed
upon a new stage and the popular interest of America shifted with
it to focus on the clash of Russo-Japanese arms in a distant corner of
the Far East.
It was an America of 76,000,000 that read the first scattered war
bulletins in February, 1904. The four years that had passed since the
transformation of The Associated Press of Illinois into the non-profit
co-operative of New York had given the organization time to con-
solidate its new position. The number of member papers now totaled
648 and the budget for annual operations exceeded $2,000,000. The
leased wire network had expanded to 34,000 miles. The news report
averaged 60,000 words daily, moving into editorial rooms by Morse at
the rate of 35 words a minute.
To General Manager Stone only news of gravity was worthy of
notice and he had reproved a youthful member of the Washington staff
who made the first slight deviation. Jackson S. Elliott wrote a humorous
story about a Congressional fashion plate who had provoked much
merriment by appearing absent-mindedly on the Senate floor sporting
a tan shoe on one foot and a black one on the other. The story got on
the wires while the regular wire editor was at lunch. Although papers
from coast to coast seized eagerly on the sprightly piece, Stone called
it "too trivial" for the report and issued orders against any repetition.
The incident, however, was a straw in the wind.
During Stone's extensive travels for the organization, active com-
mand devolved on Diehl, Stone's capable right hand/The two men
were thousands of miles apart — Stone back in St. Petersburg and Diehl
in New York — when the Russo-Japanese War broke, but they were im-
mediately working in unison to complete the mobilization of forces to
175
176 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
report the conflict. From the Russian capital, Stone ordered men post-
haste to the Far East: Henry J. Middleton of the Paris Bureau, who
had done brilliant reporting on the Dreyfus case, Frederick McCor-
ipick, Robert M. Collins, Lord Brooke, journalist son of the Earl of
^Warwick, Kravschenko, an eminent writer who had covered wars in
China, and Nicholas E. Popoff, a young Russian who wrote under the
name of Kiriloff . To supplement the regular staff, he engaged a number
of Russian correspondents to serve as string men for the others. Simul-
taneously in New York Diehl was issuing assignments which sent an-
other corps to Asia — Paul Cowles, of the San Francisco Bureau, Chris-
tian Hagerty, from New York, George Denny, from Chicago, and
Richard Smith, who had covered the Boer War.
The power of military censorship made itself felt early, with
varying severity. Russia invoked it in the war zone, but its application
was not unreasonable and both the men in the field and Thompson in
St. Petersburg were able to obtain and transmit their news without
difficulties. The Japanese, on the other hand, imposed stifling restric-
tions. They forbade correspondents with some of the Mikado's armies
to send a single line and they hospitably "detained" other newspaper
men in Tokyo until the campaigns were well under way.
The focal point of one main Japanese attack was the Russian
stronghold of Port Arthur where the Czar's Pacific fleet lay under the
protecting guns of the forts. With the Japanese fleet controlling the
waters outside the Manchurian port and the first operations all naval
in character, it was obvious that some reliable way must be devised to
get out uncensored news of the warfare in that whole area. The task fell
to Paul Cowles, the Pacific Coast superintendent who had come to the
Orient to supervise the news-gathering operations.
A laconic cable gave New York the first inkling of the way Cowles
did things. J. R. Youatt, then cashier and later treasurer, blinked when
he read the bland message that reached his desk. It was from Cowles:
DRAWING ON YOU FOR $80,000.
This was impossible! Youatt, flabbergasted, went hurrying to
Stone, the fantastic cablegram in his hand. Stone, too, exploded.
"The man must be crazy. This is insane. $80,000! Cable him im-
mediately for an explanation. What can Cowles need that amount of
money for?"
TO BUY A YACHT.
WAR IN THE EAST 177
Succeeding inquiries vindicated Cowles's sanity. Across the Gulf
of Pechili — ninety miles from Port Arthur — was the neutral Chinese
city of Chefoo where news could be put uncensored on the cable for
Shanghai and the United States. Cowles had established headquarters
there and he bought the yacht not only to serve as a dispatch boat
between Port Arthur and Chefoo but also to provide a means for re-
porting any naval engagements in that vicinity.
Youatt honored the draft and when the war ended Cowles sold
the vessel at a profit.
Dispatches from a dozen correspondents gradually brought into
outline the strategy dictating the conflict. On land the Japanese aim was
a quick decisive victory over the main Russian Army under General
Kuropatkin. The Russians were vaguer, delaying decisions until the
arrival of endless reinforcements would give them an overwhelming
superiority.
But it was apparent that the nation supreme on the sea would be
victorious. Admiral Togo had the Czar's Pacific squadron blockaded in
Port Arthur, but he was anxious to destroy it piecemeal before arrival
of the new enemy fleet which was preparing to come halfway round
the world from Europe. The Russian hope was to inflict as much dam-
age as possible without jeopardizing their forces unnecessarily, so that
Togo's depleted fleet would be no match for the combined Russian
Navy when the new squadron reached Asiatic waters.
After some initial successes, Togo found himself with a foeman
of no mean caliber. Admiral Makaroff, a tall, bearded daredevil of a
man, took command of the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, and the two
Associated Press correspondents there, George Denny and Kravschenko,
saw the squadron transformed from a demoralized aggregation into a
confident fighting force. Makaroff's torpedo boats harassed Togo, caus-
ing considerable losses. Other Russian cruisers, based at Vladivostok,
went into action, making the Sea of Japan unsafe for troop transports
and shipping. Togo began to sow mines, and Paul Cowles's $80,000
dispatch yacht had to thread dangerous waters between Chefoo and
Port Arthur.
Knowing MakarofPs impetuous temperament, Correspondent
Kravschenko felt certain that, sooner or later, he would sally forth for
a lightning thrust at the enemy when the Japanese fleet was not present
in full force. He tried to persuade the admiral to grant him permission
178 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
to be on board the flagship Petrofavlovsky when she put out to fight.
At first Makaroff was favorably inclined, but he was a quick-tempered
person and the two got into a quarrel. The admiral banned Kravschenko
from the flagship.
If Kravschenko could not see the action from the bridge of the
flagship, he could watch from shore. Golden Hill, outside of Port
Arthur, commanded the surrounding waters, and Kravschenko went
there on April 10, 1905. For three days and nights he watched distant
ships of the Japanese through binoculars. The weather was bleak, with
snow squalls and cold winds, and on one night fog was so thick that
searchlights of the near-by forts could not pierce it.
It was daybreak on April 13 when Kravschenko picked out a Rus-
sian torpedo boat racing for the harbor. Her sister ship had been
attacked by one of Togo's flotillas. Makaroff immediately dispatched a
cruiser to the aid of the stricken vessel and when another enemy division
appeared on the scene, he ordered all available units out against the
Japanese. Kravschenko saw them steam out, the Petropavlovsky lead-
ing the way with MakarofFs flag snapping at the masthead.
In a few minutes guns were roaring and Kravschenko followed the
running battle between the two fleets which had closed in to ten thou-
sand yards. He was not alone on the hill now. Grand Duke Boris, his
staff, and other officers had arrived to watch the engagement. The Jap-
anese slowly withdrew with Makaroff following. Then smoke on the
horizon told of the approach of Togo's main fleet, and Makaroff, realiz-
ing his inferiority to the combined enemy forces, turned for the harbor
with Togo on his heels.
Kravschenko's watch said 9:43. The Petrofavlovsky had reached
the protection of the forts and was maneuvering into the harbor en-
trance. Without warning there were four tremendous explosions. The
flagship was ripped asunder, her foremast came smashing down, her
bow plunged into the sea, and her stern pointed skyward, propellers
spinning in the air. Then she vanished, carrying the intrepid Makaroff
and 631 men to death. Togo's mines had done their work well.
On Golden Hill beside Kravschenko Grand Duke Boris fainted
when the battleship disappeared. All along the shore officers and men
who had witnessed the disastrous spectacle began to weep and pray.
Kravschenko's graphic account of the destruction of the Petropav-
lovsky was one of the most important stories to come out of the Far
East during the opening months of the struggle, and American readers
read of MakarofFs end the next day.
WAR IN THE EAST 179
The news was not always so swift. On May 15 the Japanese bat-
tleship Yachima struck a mine off Dalny, near Port Arthur, and sank.
It was not until early June that The Associated Press was able to
authenticate the story and cable it to America. Japanese authorities im-
mediately denied the dispatch and insisted that the Yachima continued
with the fleet. The same authorities, however, officially confirmed the
accuracy of the news in November when they formally notified foreign
governments of the ship's loss.
In Manchuria the opposing armies had come to grips and in April,
May, and June the dispatches from Middleton, McCormick, Collins,
Kiriloff, Brooke and the others described the Japanese successes at the
Yalu River, Nan Shan, and Tolissu. Middleton, a Foreign Service
veteran, did not see the campaign through. He contracted dysentery
and collapsed. They took him back to a little Red Cross hospital at
Liang-chia-Shan, near the squalid city of Liaoyang, headquarters for
Russian operations, and there under alien skies, he died a week later —
on June 25, 1904.
A Russian firing squad volleyed over his grave when they buried
him with full military honors two days later. Three colleagues stood
by in silence.
But Liaoyang was not Middleton's last resting place. At Stone's
cabled request, the Czar's representative in the Far East, Viceroy
Alexieff, had the remains disinterred and sent through the lines. The
roar of field artillery ceased and the rattle of rifles stilled as the little
procession with the plain wooden coffin left the Russian entrenchments.
The warring troops halted in a silent armistice while Middleton took
his final leave of the battle front that was his last assignment.
Middleton's death almost cost the co-operative another of its best
correspondents. To fill the vacancy with the Russian armies, Cowles
picked Denny, who had reported the Japanese assaults on Port Arthur.
To reach General Kuropatkin's headquarters at Liaoyang, Denny was
compelled to go around the Japanese lines and make a perilous journey
through wild country west of the fighting zone. He traveled for days
in a jolting cart through territory swarming with Manchurian bandits,
and in one encounter he narrowly escaped with his life.
Denny reached Kuropatkin's headquarters safely, but Liaoyang
remained unlucky for staff men. Throughout July and August the
180 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Japanese armies kept battering away toward Liaoyang in three converg-
ing columns. Everyone was asking: "Will Kuropatkin stand at Liao-
yang?" They were answered the last week in August, 1904, when the
troops of the Mikado reached the area and found the Russian forces
drawn up in strong positions. The bloody six-day engagement began
August 29 and the world waited to hear how the troops of the Czar,
now greatly superior in numbers, would acquit themselves against a
foe that had been monotonously successful.
On a rocky spur in the jumble of heights, ridges, and tortuous
valleys surrounding the town, Collins, who was with the Japanese army
of General Kuroki, could sweep the whole field of action with his
glasses as the ground shuddered under the greatest storm of artillery
fire history had yet seen. Wheel to wheel, the Japanese had five hun-
dred guns — many of them captured Russian pieces — hurling destruction
into Kuropatkin's lines. Thundering back came the shells of Russian
batteries, fully as numerous. The hazy summer air was filled with the
ugly orange and red flashes from the mouths of guns, smoke from ex-
ploding shells, and the pyres where the Japanese were burning their
dead.
All day August 30 the duel raged while wave after wave of
Japanese infantry shattered on Kuropatkin's right. Within these lines,
Denny, Kiriloff, McCormick, Brooke, and seven others followed the
battle. On August 31 the hammer of massed artillery continued un-
abated. The blazing forenoon saw more ammunition expended than in
the whole three days of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Collins could watch from his splendid vantage point, but his
colleagues on the other side had a more difficult task, particularly Kiri-
loff who found himself covering the hottest sector of the Russian front.
He was assigned to the corps commanded by Baron Stakelberg — the
general who had arrived in the Far East with his wife, her companion,
two maids, a French chef, a milch cow, and one hundred and twenty-
seven pieces of luggage. It was Stakelberg's division that was bearing
the brunt of the Japanese bombardment.
Kiriloff rode out for his second perilous day in the front lines
at dawn on August 31. All along the five miles of the Haichong Road
he saw the wounded coming back, carts piled with dead, and long
ammunition trains moving up. Shrapnel raked the road methodically
and there was no lull in the thunder of artillery.
Kiriloff made his way to one of the most exposed spots in the
sector, where the field pieces of one battery kept hammering away at
WAR IN THE EAST 181
the blue Japanese lines below. The position was a shambles. Out of
sixty gunners in the unit, forty had been killed or wounded in the first
day's fighting. No food had been sent up for twenty-four hours, but
the guns kept firing and the piles of empty cartridge cases grew higher.
Kiriloff shared what provisions he had brought along, talked to
officers and men, then decided to stay in the shell-smashed emplacement
because it gave a view of all Stakelberg's entrenchments. While guns
roared and recoiled around him, he found a discarded ammunition box
and began to write his narrative.
Time after time he saw the Japanese infantry roll up to the
Russian lines only to fall back broken. A storm of protective rifle fire
covered the charges and bullets rained about Kiriloff as he wrote.
Thousands of miles away, in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg,
Chief of Bureau Thompson matched together the fragmentary dis-
patches that dribbled in from the men at Liaoyang. Sketchy, incon-
clusive, they left the outcome of the fighting in doubt. Then the long
quiet trans-Siberian wire in the Central Telegraph Office came to life.
Kiriloff had filed his story. Thompson edited the account as rapidly as
the sheets came to his hand.
"Prudence urged me to leave the spot," KirilofPs dispatch said,
"but I was fascinated."
There it broke off abruptly and Thompson waited for the next
"take" to come through. But the "take" was not from Kiriloff. It was
signed by a Russian artillery officer, and it said:
KIRILOFF WAS SHOT THROUGH THE RIGHT LUNG
WHILE STANDING BY OUR BATTERY, AND PELL BACK,
SUFFERING INTENSE AGONY. HE INSISTED UPON
BEING PLACED ON A HORSE, SO THAT HE COULD GET
TO LIAOYANG AND FILE HIS DISPATCH. IT TOOK
HIM FIVE HOURS AND A HALF TO COVER THE FIVE
MILES TO THE TELEGRAPH STATION. WHEN HE REACHED
THERE HE WAS SO EXHAUSTED AND WEAK FROM LOSS OF
BLOOD THAT WE GOT HIM TO A HOSPITAL, ALTHOUGH
AGAINST HIS PROTEST. HE ASKED ME TO COMPLETE
HIS MESSAGE FOR HIM. I AM A SOLDIER, AND NO
WRITER; BUT I WILL SAY THAT AFTER THE AWFUL
FIGHTING TODAY WE WERE STILL HOLDING OUR POSITION.
JAPANESE BODIES BESTREW ALL THE HEIGHTS. THEIR
LOSSES MUST HAVE RUN INTO TENS OF THOUSANDS.
WE HAVE LOST FIVE THOUSAND THUS FAR.
While this message came into St. Petersburg telling what had
happened to Kiriloff, Collins was writing the story of the day as seen
from the Japanese side, unaware of what had befallen his fellow corre-
1 82 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
spondent. He had been something of a hero himself that day. A Jap-
anese officer who had become his friend was shot down at the height of
the battle. Heedless of danger, Collins dashed into the thick of the
fray and carried the wounded man to safety.
The battle went on three days more. The Russians were beaten,
hurriedly evacuated Liaoyang and fell back on Mukden.
The next big story of the conflict broke, not on the remote battle
fronts of the Far East, but on the Dogger Bank fishing grounds off
Hull, England. It was news that threatened to plunge Great Britain
and Russia into a European war.
For months the Russians had been building an imposing fleet
at their European naval base on the Baltic. This fleet was to sail half-
way around the world, combine with the Pacific squadron and then give
battle to Admiral Togo.
It left on October 14, 1904, with Admiral Rojestvensky in com-
mand. Uneasy tension marked the departure. Rumors were rife that
the Japanese had torpedo boats in European waters to attack the ships
as soon as they were out of the Baltic. Worried officers and men, keyed
to the breaking point, sought to guard against the invisible dangers.
This psychology made possible the celebrated "Dogger Bank Affair"
on October 21.
Nobody knew where the rumors came from, although the French
Foreign Office suspected they came from Germany. It was a fantastic
business from the start because Lansdowne, the British foreign minis-
ter, pointed out it was impossible for a squadron of Japanese warships
to have reached the North Sea from Japan without being reported
somewhere en route. Unofficially most people who had anything to do
with the affair were inclined to agree with Prince Radolin that vodka
must have played some part in what Rojestvensky said he saw.
Rojestvensky was steaming through the North Sea that night
when one of his repair ships wirelessed: "Foreign torpedo boats are
attacking." Vigilance was redoubled. A little later the fleet encountered
an indistinct flotilla. Russian guns went into action and several "enemy"
boats were sunk or disabled. Later, however, they turned out to be
English fishing trawlers, although Rojestvensky maintained to the end
that he had sunk a Japanese torpedo boat.
By daybreak the association's cable report was carrying what had
WAR IN THE EAST 183
happened at Dogger Bank. "English Fishing Fleet Sunk By Russian
Guns," headlines announced. Great Britain was incensed. Her navy re-
ceived orders to be ready for active duty. War was freely predicted,
but the Russian government refused to take any steps until it had
Rojestvensky's version. For days no one knew what that might be.
The limited range of wireless equipment prevented the Czar's ministers
from communicating with the admiral, who was steaming for a coaling
stop in Spain, totally unaware of the storm. When the crisis seemed at
its worst, Associated Press papers were able to print word that calmer
counsel had prevailed and Great Britain had agreed to submit the mat-
ter to international arbitration.
The situation continued grave, however, in the absence of any
statement from Rojestvensky. Then on October 26 the Czar's fleet
reached the Spanish port of Vigo and two launches quickly put out for
the flagship. One carried the agitated Russian consul-general from
Madrid and the other the co-operative's chief of bureau at Paris, Charles
T. Thompson, who had hurried to Vigo. Rojestvensky was astounded to
learn of the crisis which had arisen from the affair at Dogger Bank.
To Thompson he gave substantially the same account he transmitted
in his official report to St. Petersburg, and the interview, setting forth
Rojestvensky's explanation and defense in detail, did much to relieve
the international tension.
The high significance attached to the news was emphasized in
Paris the next day when the attitude of the government there was de-
scribed in this statement:
The French officials attach much importance to The Associated Press
interview at Vigo with Vice- Admiral Rojestvensky as giving the most reason-
able explanation of the circumstances. The Russian embassy takes a similar
view. Therefore the authorities have taken steps to have The Associated
Press interview reach the French press, as a means of calming public appre-
hension over the affair.
In the East, Port Arthur, without food and supplies, held out
until January I, 1905. Internal conditions in Russia had grown critical
and Denny was detached from the Manchurian front to assist Thomp-
son at St. Petersburg. He arrived in time to help cover "Bloody Sun-
day," January 22, when troops fired on demonstrators who were seeking
political reforms, killing several hundred and wounding nearly three
thousand. The "Revolution of 1905" followed.
1 84 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Then the Japanese decisively defeated Kuropatkin at Mukden in
March — and still the war dragged on. Russia had one slim chance.
It rested with Admiral Rojestvensky who was leading the new fleet
eighteen thousand miles around the world to challenge Togo. Eight
months after he put out from the Russian naval base at Libau on the
Baltic, he kept his rendezvous with history off the Island of Tsushima
in the Korean Strait between Japan and the Asiatic mainland.
Throughout all those months dispatches reported every stage of
Rojestvensky's odyssey through European waters, round the continent
of Africa, into the Indian Ocean, on past the Malayan Peninsula, and at
last into the Pacific. The world knew Togo was waiting and that one
fleet or the other would have to be destroyed before the war could
be won.
The day that made Japan a major naval power was May 27, 1905.
With the strictest censorship in force, Martin Egan, chief of the Tokyo
Bureau, cabled the dispatch American papers printed that day. The
Russian fleet had been sighted in the Strait of Korea $ the whereabouts
of Togo was a mystery. But as readers scanned that news, one of the
greatest naval battles of all time was being fought at Tsushima, where
Togo and Rojestvensky met. In one hour the Russians were defeated,
but it took Togo thirty-one hours to destroy them.
Egan had the news in Tokyo the next day but the censor was un-
yielding. As far as the Japanese government was concerned, the Battle
of Tsushima technically continued in progress. Egan might cable that
the enemy fleet had entered the Strait of Korea, but any further details
were strictly forbidden. Egan thought a moment and wrote the dis-
patch which gave the first hint that the battle had been fought and
that the Japanese had won. He hid the great story in two words —
"Historic events" — and the censor passed the harmless-appearing item:
TOKIO, MAY 28, 9 P.M. -- TRANSMITABLE INFORMA-
TION CONCERNING TODAY'S HISTORIC EVENTS IN THE
NEIGHBORHOOD OP THE TSU ISLANDS IS LIMITED TO
THE BARE FACT THAT RO JEST YEN SKY f S MAIN FLEET,
STEAMING IN TWO COLUMNS WITH BATTLESHIPS ON THE
STARBOARD AND CRUISERS AND MONITORS ON THE PORT
SIDE, APPEARED IN THE STRAITS OF KOREA. ALL
OTHER INFORMATION IS WITHHELD BY THE JAPANESE
AUTHORITIES AND CABLE TRANSMISSION IS REFUSED
TO ANY OTHER REFERENCE TO THE MOVEMENTS OF THE
RUSSIAN OR JAPANESE FLEETS.
In New York headquarters, the two significant words were a sig-
nal that mobilized all the resources of the association to get the story.
WAR IN THE EAST 185
Egan's cable did not long stand alone. Other dispatches arrived — from
Nagasaki, from Chefoo, from Tokyo. In St. Petersburg, Chief of Bu-
reau Thompson gave the Czar and his ministers first tidings of the com-
plete destruction of Russia's fleet. From Washington, Edwin M. Hood
supplied the first detailed account of the Russian losses, as reported by
American naval attaches in the Orient. When the few Russian warships
which escaped reached the safety of Vladivostok, Thompson had a cor-
respondent there for the survivors' stories. From a dozen date lines the
story of Tsushima was completed.
The disaster was the end of Russian hopes in the Far East. At the
invitation of President Theodore Roosevelt, representatives of the
warring powers met in a peace conference at Portsmouth, New Hamp-
shire, early in August, 1905. To report it, General Manager Stone
brought Cortesi from Rome, Thompson from St. Petersburg, and
James T. Williams and R. O. Bailey from Washington. The three
Japanese commissioners, Baron Komura, Baron Takahira, and Baron
Kaneko, and the two Russians, Count Sergius Witte and Baron Rosen,
all were personal friends of Stone. He saw them frequently after their
arrival in the United States and as the conference at Portsmouth pro-
gressed he could not resist the temptation to take the role of peace-
maker as well as news gatherer.
The Japanese insisted that Russia pay a large indemnity. Witte
and Rosen would not consider it. Both believed Japan had passed the
high-water mark of success and was economically unequal to continuing
the war. Witte felt resumption of hostilities on a grand scale would
bring about the destruction of the Japanese armies in Manchuria.
Stone learned privately from Witte and Rosen that the question
of indemnity was causing the deadlock. If that was removed, the Rus-
sians could not in good faith reject a peace treaty, for they already had
reached agreement with the Japanese on all other questions. Stone went
to President Roosevelt. He outlined the terms on which he thought
peace could be reached and suggested that the President cable the Ger-
man Kaiser to use his influence with the Czar to have them accepted.
Ultimately The Associated Press reported that the Japanese were
about to waive all claims for indemnity, and other correspondents at
Portsmouth were loud in ridicule. That was inconceivable. Everybody
knew that when the conference resumed on September 5, Baron Komura
1 86 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
would repeat his demands. The Russian commissioners regarded the
story as a ruse. Their plans were already made. If the indemnity de-
mands were repeated, as they expected, Witte would leave the confer-
ence room and say casually to one of his secretaries, "Send for my
Russian cigarettes." That was the prearranged signal for a code mes-
sage to flash to Manchuria. The heavily reinforced Russians awaited
only that word to loose a smashing offensive.
The conference met in strictest secrecy that day. The Associated
Press men there knew Witte had set 1 1 150 A.M. as the hour he would
leave the conference room and speak the words which might mean a
new deluge of blood in the Far East. Suspense mounted as the ap-
pointed time neared.
Promptly at 1 1 150 the door of the room opened. Witte stepped
out. He did not ask for his cigarettes.
"Gospoda, mir," he said in Russian. "Gentlemen, peace!"
III. LEAD WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON'S emergence as the news center of America was one
of the notable journalistic phenomena in the first decade of the twen-
tieth century. There were several factors involved. The first was the
confidence in the nation's destiny which followed the war with Spain
and gave Washington significance as a symbol of a united democracy.
Second, a period of social consciousness and readjustment had dawned
and Washington was the grand arena for its issues, reforms, and legis-
lation. And there was a third major force — the vigorous news person-
ality of President Theodore Roosevelt, who seemed able to dramatize
himself or a platform plank with equal ease. For the United States and
for other lands, this combination gave Washington date lines a new
magic.
To the United States it was the news of social and economic
changes which most concerned and affected everyday life. Dispatches
from the capital described the stormy progress of pure food and drug
legislation, the continued efforts at trust busting, the controversy over
railroad rates, the measures for conservation of natural resources, the
exposure of graft, and the countless concurrent developments which
marked those years.
Newspapers reflected the changes that were taking place, some im-
perceptibly and some with noticeable swiftness. By and large, discern-
ing journals arrived at a serious realization of the responsibilities which
their public character imposed. A more definite code of ethics and
standards was established. Many editors and legislators united in a
drive on fraudulent and misleading advertisements, abuse of the news
columns, dangerous personal notices, and other evils. Revised postal
regulations, stricter libel laws, and other statutes implemented the cam-
paign. An increasing number of newspapers began extending a helping
hand to the underprivileged — a practice encouraged as early as 1886
when Victor Lawson's Chicago Daily News established a sanitarium for
sick children from the tenement districts. At last the possibilities of such
public service were receiving more widespread recognition and news-
187
1 88 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
paper-sponsored campaigns were helping to provide the needy with
free milk, ice, coal, hospitalization, and other necessities. At the same
time the papers became aware of the tremendous number of women
among their readers, and columns on household hints, menu sugges-
tions, and departments devoted to women's activities were inaugurated.
Things were happening, but the process was gradual. The times
moved to a leisurely tempo. It was the day of Spencerian penmanship
and Delsarte speakers. Good whisky was $2 a gallon and the British
were building the largest steamer in the world — the Lusitania.
The chronicle of such a period was not spectacular. The news relied
for its significance, not so much on any one outstanding story, or any
dozen, as on the great cumulative effect built up month after month.
In retrospect the period seemed landmarked more by incidents side-
lighting the news and by stories-behind-stories than by anything dra-
matic or heroic.
There always was "copy" in the President. The hearty New
Yorker with the high-pitched voice — "Teddy" to the people, although
he despised the nickname — had been on front pages more than ever
since his picturesque Rough Riders landed in Cuba in '98. His penchant
for phrasemaking caught public fancy and there was applause every time
"T.R. got off another one."
The man in the street credited the President with "another one"
in June, 1904 — a fighting one, this time, and the man in the street was
wrong. The Republican National Convention had assembled in Chi-
cago for the formality of ratifying Roosevelt as the party's presidential
standard-bearer in the approaching election, but newspaper readers
momentarily were more exercised over something that had happened in
faraway Morocco. A wealthy American, Ion Perdicaris, had been seized
and held for ransom by a bandit chieftain, Raisuli. The duty of making
the usual diplomatic representations fell to Secretary of State John Hay.
He was completing a draft of his note when Edwin M. Hood
dropped in on his customary State Department round. Hood, of the
Washington staff, had been reporting the activities of the government
for years. He had entree everywhere, was the confidant of many high
officials, and once in the early days of the McKinley administration he
had been offered the post of assistant secretary of the navy — the office
Roosevelt held before the war with Spain. Hay and Hood were old
LEAD WASHINGTON 189
friends and the secretary welcomed an outside opinion on the message.
Hood scanned the document. The message was long, formal, and
full of the phraseology dictated by protocol and diplomatic usage. Hood
shook his head.
"Well?" asked Hay.
"I'm afraid you're slipping, Mr. Secretary," the correspondent
smiled. "If I were you, Pd boil all this down to five words."
He produced a pencil and scribbled five words which reduced
Hay's long note to the simplest terms. He handed his suggestion to
the secretary:
"Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead."
Very much as the cry "Remember the Maine!" captured the pub-
lic imagination, the terse message to the Sultan of Morocco dramatized
the "incident." Roosevelt liked the idea so much that he dispatched
a copy to the Chicago convention. Although the ultimatum to Morocco
bore Hay's signature, everyone said that only the two-fisted man in
the White House could be the author of such a laconic line.
The successful Rough Rider President went back to the White
House after the election of 1904 with Charles W. Fairbanks, one-time
Pittsburgh correspondent of The Associated Press as his vice-president,
and the Washington Bureau settled down to four more years of the
unpredictable "Teddy."
This was before the day of modern press conferences, and both
the President and his Cabinet officers had their own special favorites
among the newspapermen. Usually they saved the richest news plums
for these reporters. However, the advantage was not always so attrac-
tive as it seemed, particularly where the President was concerned. He
frequently gave certain correspondents important stories credited to "an
informed authority" or some such anonymous source — the President
could not be quoted directly — and when public reaction was unfavorable
he would disclaim the story and straightaway elect the "offending" re-
porter to his famous Ananias Club. He didn't call them liars.
One of the best known members of the Washington staff was John
Gross. His assignments were diversified, but somehow when a promi-
nent person was dying John Gross invariably drew the deathwatch.
Cabinet members, senators, representatives, Supreme Court justices, ad-
mirals, generals, and a host of retired officials who made Washington
their home all passed on with John Gross keeping patient watch near
the sickroom door. Unless John Gross wrote a man's obituary, his
political prominence was open to question.
190 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The wife of a former Cabinet officer telephoned one day to say her
husband was extremely ill.
"I know you must send someone to the house to get the news,"
she said understandingly, "but please don't send that terrible Mr.
Gross."
The editor who took the call expressed surprise at the request.
He said Gross was well liked, tactful, and considerate.
"I know," was the reply, "but people say that whenever Mr.
Gross is placed to watch over a sick man, the patient always dies."
The editor assured her again that Gross was the most under-
standing soul he knew and added that most households found him a
help instead of a nuisance.
"Oh, then I have done Mr. Gross an injustice," the lady ex-
claimed. "Please send him."
Gross got the assignment and the former Cabinet member's wife
was so impressed by his consideration that she depended on him to give
out all the news of her husband's condition. Everything went along
nicely for a few days — and then the patient died.
The hard and fast regulations governing both the content of the
news report and its preparation sometimes imposed handicaps on the
Washington staff. The same strict rules applied to the story of a routine
fatality as to important accounts of Congressional maneuvering on
major legislation. The precepts ranged from taboos on "all slang
phrases" and vulgarity down to admonitions against the use of "phone"
for telephone and similar abbreviations. Such regulations encouraged
an uninspired style of writing and a sameness of treatment in the daily
news budgets.
Exhaustive as the code was, it did not prove equal to all occasions
and situations arose where the rules were inadequate or precedent was
lacking. Working at top speed and usually too far from headquarters
to seek official pronouncement, the perplexed reporter had only one
choice in such emergencies — to use his best judgment and trust that
the decision was proper. New York would be prompt to let him
know if it wasn't.
In 1905 Jackson S. Elliott faced the dilemma. The President was
away at the time on a combined hunting and speaking trip through the
Southwest and Elliott went along. The tour was without noteworthy
LEAD WASHINGTON 191
incident until the party reached San Antonio, Texas, where state Re-
publican leaders had arranged a banquet in Roosevelt's honor.
The affair was held in the patio of a local hotel and, although there
were no women among the diners, the wives, daughters, and friends of
many of the men attending listened from surrounding balconies and
windows. The toastmaster, a man of political importance, took the
occasion to poke sly fun at the President's frequent attacks on the evils
of "race suicide." Introducing the chief executive, he made a play on
the words of an old nursery rhyme. Originally, he told his audience,
the verse had run:
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe;
She had so many children she didn't know what to do.
But today, he said, the couplet had been revised in the light of
modern conditions to run this way:
Now there is a young woman; she lives in no shoe;
She hasn't any children — she knows what to do.
Elliott was watching the President, whose dislike for anything
off-color was well known. Roosevelt's jaw snapped and his body stiff-
ened. He appeared so indignant that Elliott thought for a moment he
intended to interrupt the speaker. Instead, he turned to the guest at his
right, opened an animated conversation and paid no further attention.
Then, when he spoke, he made no mention of the offending toast-
master beyond deploring the fact that one of the speakers had chosen
such an inappropriate occasion to recite a rhyme which he said he hoped
was "homemade."
Elliott realized the ticklish story he had on his hands. There was
great interest generally in Roosevelt's reception at San Antonio, and
member papers in Texas particularly were desirous of a complete ac-
count. The turn of events heightened the value of the story, but how
was the correspondent to tell it? Elliott cudgeled his brains for ideas
on the best approach and the most judicious words. He must not trans-
gress the bounds of good taste which regulations insisted upon, and
yet an incident not in good taste was the mainspring of the whole story.
There was no time for extended deliberations, so Elliott solved
his dilemma by writing a story based on the President's displeasure with
certain unfortunate remarks of a crude nature by one of the speakers.
He appended to the dispatch a private "Note to Editors," giving the
text of what the offending toastmaster had said. This was primarily
192 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
for the information of editors, but papers were free to use it or not as
they saw fit. In some places the nursery rhyme parody was printed.
The policy of the individual member was the determining factor.
Member newspapers had widely divergent beliefs and policies and
Washington saw countless examples every day. In that period of con-
troversial legislation and much-debated crusades, the task of staff men
in the capital was to report events factually, objectively, and completely,
without editorializing, without coloring. Member papers might use the
material as they pleased as long as they did not change the facts pre-
sented. Given truthful news, they could use their individual editorial
columns to interpret it, evaluate it, and uphold or attack the issues it
set forth.
Frequently there were two or more camps of editorial opinion
and they all relied on the same factual dispatches for the arguments
and proofs they cited in support of their positions. In the co-operative
this multiplicity of political, social, economic, and religious opinion pro-
vided a constant guard for the integrity of the report. Every dispatch
was subject to endless scrutiny from all sorts of viewpoints.
No one better appreciated the value of such a news report than
publicity-seeking pressure groups eager to have a cause presented in the
best possible light. Washington swarmed with them and they were
eternally besieging members of the staff to include favorable material
or to suppress anything unfavorable. Charles A. Boynton, chief of the
Washington Bureau, issued explicit instructions on how to deal with
such individuals:
If anybody should ever come to you and ask for the publication or sup-
pression of anything on the ground of some alleged acquaintance or rela-
tionship with me or with any other official or person supposed to be influential
in The Associated Press, throw him out of the window and report the case
to the coroner.
Theodore Roosevelt's second term was in full career. Washington
date lines were more numerous than ever and the morgue envelopes
which preserved the day-by-day history of the President's activities grew
fatter as new clippings were added by George Wyville, the librarian in
the New York office who kept the files up to date. At the time no one
realized it, but the files held one story Roosevelt was to regret politi-
cally.
LEAD WASHINGTON 193
The piece was written the night of his sweeping victory over Alton
B. Parker in the 1904 presidential election. Even before the votes had
been counted much speculation had arisen as to the course of Roosevelt's
political future in the event he won as expected. Some pointed out that
he might have three terms without violating the tradition that no man
be elected to the office more than twice. They argued that, since his
first term had been as successor to the assassinated McKinley, a victory
over Parker would mark the first time he had been elected by the peo-
ple, and therefore he would be free to seek the office again in 1908.
The outcome of the 1904 election was not long in doubt. As soon
as returns assured victory, the elated Roosevelt took a few minutes out
to write a statement for The Associated Press. The first two paragraphs
voiced gratitude to the American people and a promise to serve them
well. Then he replied to the 1908 speculation:
On the 4th of March next I shall have served three and one-half years,
and the three and one-half years constitute my first term.
The wise custom which limits the President to two terms regards the
substance and not the form, and under no circumstances will I be a candidate
for or accept another nomination.
Years later he deplored the voluntary promise. Discussing the mat-
ter with a close friend and adviser, Herman Kohlsaat, he pointed to his
wrist and exclaimed:
"I would cut my hand off right there if I could recall that written
statement !"
IV. FLASH!
THREE men were on duty in the Associated Press bureau in the West-
ern Union Building in downtown San Francisco at five o'clock in the
morning April 18, 1906.
On the main trunk wire to the East, Chief Operator Robert Geist-
lich sent the signal for "30" — telegraph symbol for "signing off." Then
he stretched and pulled on his coat to go home. On the circuit serving
California morning papers another operator, Ben Mclnerney, sent "10"
— the sign for the telegraphers' regular ten-minute rest period. He
reached for his usual bottle of early morning coffee. Editor John Fin-
lay was in the midst of a ham-and-egg sandwich.
"See you tonight," said Geistlich, nodding to the two others whose
tour of duty had not ended.
The hands of the clock on the wall moved to 5:10. Mclnerney re-
sumed sending on the state circuit, methodically relaying the news
which Finlay selected and edited from the trickle of late dispatches.
Suddenly the building rocked and trembled, the walls cracked,
plaster showered down, the ceiling light dropped, and the clock crashed,
face up, to the swaying floor.
"Earthquake!"
"Bulletin it! "yelled Finlay.
He jumped to his teetering typewriter and pounded out:
"Bulletin: San Francisco, April 18 — San Francisco was shaken by
an earthquake at" — he took a hurried glance at the silent clock on the
floor — "5:15 this morning."
Operator Mclnerney worked with his state wire. Then he jumped
over to the telegraph instrument on the trunk wire east. He turned to
the telephone.
"All dead!" he shouted, grabbing the bulletin and dashing for the
Western Union office on a floor above.
Pelted by chunks of plaster, Finlay looked out the window at the
crumbling city and kept pounding the typewriter keys.
Mclnerney rushed back into the office and behind him came
194
FLASH! 195
Geistlich, who had dodged the rain of brick and stone to get back to
the men he had left a few minutes earlier.
"All telegraph company wires are out!" panted Mclnerney. "I
left the bulletin in case they ever get a wire through."
"All right, let's go!" said Geistlich, snatching the copy Finlay had
written. "If we can get to the Oakland ferry, maybe we can get some-
thing through on the wires over there."
Geistlich and Mclnerney raced through a nightmare of demol-
ished streets, clambering over ruins, and making mental note of the
devastation as they ran. The downtown area was filling with the panic-
stricken. Some were mad with fear that the world was coming to an
end. Everyone who could stampeded for the ferry. Geistlich and Mc-
lnerney jumped aboard the boat just as she was pulling away. By 6:30
they reached the deserted office of the telegraph company across the
bay. Conditions there were almost as bad as in San Francisco. All lines
were down. They left a copy of the story and headed back to what was
left of San Francisco.
When the earthquake shook the city, Superintendent Cowles of the
Pacific Coast Division was asleep at home. Like thousands of others,
he was pitched from bed by the first mighty shock. He finished dressing
as he sprinted through the streets toward the bureau. He reached the
partially wrecked Western Union building at 5:45. No wires. He hur-
ried to the Postal Telegraph a few blocks away. Swayne, chief operator
for that company, was tinkering distractedly with a broken circuit to
Chicago.
"Barely possible I can get something through soon," said Swayne.
Cowles wrote a bulletin and stood waiting while the telegrapher
tested and tested. The click of the Morse was so faint that it was scarcely
audible above the pandemonium outside. The wire refused to work.
Cowles called to Swayne to keep trying and made for the Pacific Cable
Company office in the same building.
"Your cable functioning?" he demanded.
. "Seems to be."
Cowles seized a blank and wrote out a brief message on the dis-
aster, addressing it to The Associated Press in New York.
The attendant shook his head.
"I can't send a cable to New York," he protested. "Our wires are
under the Pacific to the Far East."
196 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"Route it around the world!" snapped Cowles.
"Sony," faltered the clerk, "Fd do it for you if I could, but the
company doesn't have any regulations covering such an unusual pro-
cedure, and, besides, I don't know the rate."
Cowles exploded.
"Never mind the rules," he bellowed. "I'll pay any rate the com-
pany sees fit to charge j but, please, for God's sake, send it immedi-
ately!"
"I can't, I can't," the man insisted. "You know I would if I could,
but I've got my own job to think of."
"Well, then, send it to Honolulu, at least."
The frightened attendant agreed and Cowles ran back to the
Postal office where Swayne still was coaxing the wire to Chicago.
Cowles paced the floor. After a long wait the line came to life. Both
men hunched closer.
"Got 'em!" exclaimed Swayne.
Then first word of the appalling disaster was swiftly tapped to the
outside world.
Cowles returned to the ruined office in the Western Union build-
ing, collected the members of his staff who had arrived and shifted the
scene of activities to the Postal building. As fast as typewriters could
hammer it out, the story was relayed. The lone wire was too good to
last. It failed and the fire which had followed the earthquake was sweep-
ing closer. The torn pavement outside was almost melted and the
scorching walls made the building like an oven. The Chicago wire
eventually was re-established for a brief time, but by eleven that
morning it was out again. The heat was so intense the building had to
be evacuated.
The flames had not yet reached the abandoned Western Union
building, and, for want of a better place, Cowles and his helpers re-
turned there. More members of the staff had reached the old office and
Cowles took a mental roll call to make sure all were accounted for.
Morse operators? All present — Harry Collins, Fred Burnell, W.
F. Lynch, J. K. Brown, W. Mitchell, and Ben Mclnerney and Robert
Geistlich, who had returned from their dash to Oakland.
Editorial men? There was — Karl von Wiegand, the future foreign
correspondent for Hearst newspapers, Hershel McDonald, Robert
Johnson, E. E. Curtis, and Finlay who had written the bulletin at the
moment of the quake.
Where was Jerry Carroll?
FLASH! 197
No one had seen or heard from him. He might be one of the
hundreds who had been crushed under falling walls. Police, firemen,
and volunteers already were at work in the ruins. They might find him
later. The staff had no time to search for the missing editor. Their
urgent job was to find a means for re-establishing contact with the out-
side world.
Anticipating that troops would take over control of the stricken
city, Cowles sent one man to obtain passes from General Frederick
Funston, commanding officer for the area. He sent others in search
of a launch to transport men and news to Oakland, now that ferry
operations had ceased. No launch could be found, but the hurriedly
procured army passes induced the captain of the government tug
McDowell to take Geistlich and Lynch across the bay and to stand by
for any help he could give. In Oakland both Western Union and Postal
had been busy, and workable wires were set up that afternoon. Official
communications swamped the improvised facilities, but Associated Press
dispatches were given right-of-way.
Back in San Francisco Cowles assigned others of the staff — op-
erators and editors alike — to each section of the flaming city to obtain
every scrap of information and rush it to him for inclusion in the
"leads" he began to write.
By one o'clock in the afternoon Cowles was ordered from the
shattered Western Union building so authorities could dynamite it in
an attempt to halt the fire. He could not wait until his staff returned to
headquarters, where all were agreed to meet, so he made his way to
the office of the Bulletin on Bush Street. There he resumed writing and
sent off the copy by messengers to the wire offices in Oakland. All he
could do was to hope the remainder of the staff might find him.
Dusk fell and still none of the staff had found him. Just as he was
abandoning hope, he looked up from his work and saw a limping bun-
dle of bandages hobbling toward him. He peered at the gauze-swathed
features, heard an attempted laugh, and knew that Jerry Carroll had
been found. A wall had tumbled on Carroll's home, burying him and
his wife under an avalanche of bricks and mortar. Dug out by passers-by,
the editor had spent most of the day getting patched up so that he
could walk. Then he set out to reach the office. Someone who knew
Cowles's whereabouts directed him to the Bulletin office. His shoes had
been burned and his feet were cut by glass and blistered by the hot
pavements.
Carroll received an assignment immediately. Cowles sent him out
198 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
to write a "color" story of the disaster. Carroll went back into the streets,
noting the names of destroyed buildings and the despairing efforts
to check the flames, which then were roaring into the Chinese section.
On all sides he heard the cries of injured and homeless, and frequently
he saw silent rows of blanket-covered dead. In an hour he had the
horrible picture and he sat down in a Chinatown doorway to write his
story in the light of a fire that was costing a thousand dollars a second.
The Associated Press was the only organization to relay news
of the earthquake that day and night. In the twenty-four hours after
the first shock the staff wrote and relayed 21,300 words.
The San Francisco earthquake served to dramatize the need for a
definite method for rushing out the first brief fact on a news event of
first importance. In the past the traditional "bulletin" had been con-
sidered satisfactory, but in a day of many extra editions newspaper
editors required even quicker notice that a story of extraordinary char-
acter was breaking. Some old-time telegraphers had developed the habit
of tapping out the word F-L-A-S-H before the relay of an out-of-the-
ordinary news item. The custom, however, was haphazard and too often
abused on cheap sensations.
The Associated Press put the Flash on a hard and fast official basis
less than two weeks after the San Francisco disaster. In a general order
to all its employes throughout the world these instructions were issued
May i, 1906:
News matter of supreme importance which would necessitate the issuance
of extra editions should be sent first as a "Flash" in a message not to exceed
ten words, and should go on all leased wires. Such "Flash" must take
precedence over all bulletins, must go upon each wire of a double or triple
wire system, must be sent instantly upon the development of the news, and
must never exceed ten words in length.
Accuracy had been the first watchword. Now speed officially be-
came the second.
V. SURVEY AND CRITICISM
ROOSEVELT would not run again. This was plain from his unequivo-
cal election night statement four years before. Although the 1908 po-
litical picture had been complicated by the panic which broke the pre-
ceding October, shrewd observers looked for another Republican
victory when voting time came. William Jennings Bryan was out for
his third nomination as the Democratic standard-bearer and it seemed
certain that Roosevelt's mantle would fall either on New York's
Governor, Charles Evans Hughes, or on the broad 35Opound frame of
William Howard Taft.
While the country at large waited for the campaigns to open,
members of The Associated Press met at the old Waldorf-Astoria in
New York for another of their annual meetings. Peacock Alley was in
all its glory and the sight of fashionably dressed women smoking
cigarettes in public shocked more than one inland publisher. There was
time for chats with old friends and evenings at the theater. A spirit of
camaraderie predominated and the members looked forward to these
gatherings with genuine pleasure.
Although the members were proud of the association they had
fostered, they were practical newspapermen and experience had taught
them the folly of taking things for granted.
With this in mind, the 1908 meeting unanimously voted creation
of a special committee of ten members charged with appraising the
excellences and shortcomings of the entire report, the possibilities for
extension of the service, and the desirability of any changes in the
by-laws.
Once the business calendar had been cleared, the members turned
to the annual banquet, with its speechmaking, and the traditional loving
cup. Each year there had been something about the occasion which caused
publishers and editors to remember it.
Two years before it had been the sparkling address of Mark
Twain. He said: "There are only two forces that can carry light to
all corners of the globe — the sun in the heavens and The Associated
Press down here."
199
200 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Last year it had been the classic story which passed with chuckles
from mouth to mouth — the story of Sam Davis, a Nevada string corre-
spondent who interviewed Sarah Bernhardt for the Carson Appeal, his
own little paper j for the San Francisco Examiner; and for the co-
operative. The actress liked him so much that, when her train was
ready to leave, she put her hands on his shoulders, kissed him on each
cheek, and then squarely on the mouth. She said: "The right cheek
for the Carson Affeal, the left for the Examiner, the lips, my friend,
for yourself." Davis displayed no trace of bashfulness. "Madam," he
exclaimed, "I also represent The Associated Press, which serves three
hundred and eighty papers west of the Mississippi River alone!"
And this year it was William Jennings Bryan holding forth in
his best oratorical form.
There were endless other topics for informal shop talk. The
American Mining Congress considered Associated Press metal market
quotations so accurate that it voted them the standard on which all
settlements be made in the industry. The news of the birth of an heir
to the Spanish throne had been whisked from Madrid to Chicago in
ninety seconds — a notable demonstration in swift transmission. There
was the celebrated Stanford White-Harry K. Thaw murder case and
the dramatic Hay wood trial in Montana — the labor leader for whom
"T.R." coined the phrase "undesirable citizen."
Much interest centered on Canada where an embattled group of
papers had taken first steps in the direction of a co-operative which,
molded closely after The Associated Press, eventually became The
Canadian Press. And in the United States another agency was entering
the domestic field, although as a privately owned commercial enter-
prise. The Scripps-McRae Press Association, founded in 1897, the
Scripps News Association, an affiliated combination, and the Publishers'
Press Association joined forces and formed the United Press Asso-
ciations. The three previously had divided the country between them,
covering one another's areas by virtue of a news exchange arrangement.
In their discussions editors and publishers saw the consolidation as a de-
velopment which would supply news to papers ineligible or undesirous
of becoming members of The Associated Press. They saw also that the
very existence of this agency was irrefutable evidence against any absurd
charges that their co-operative had monopolistic inclinations.
SURVEY AND CRITICISM aoi
When the members departed for home, the Special Survey Com-
mittee remained behind to work. Headquarters were set up, a program
drafted, questionnaires prepared, and one committeeman detailed to
tour the country studying bureau operations at first hand.
While another presidential campaign occupied the politicians, the
public found some respite in the great to-do which followed the classic
"bonehead" play of major league baseball — Fred Merkle's failure to
touch second base in the crucial New York-Chicago game that Sep-
tember. For days the pros and cons of the discussion occupied enough
wire space to rival developments on the political front, and the word
"boner" took its place in the language.
Then the co-operative's committee put the finishing touches on its
report and the thoroughgoing study was ready for the Board of Di-
rectors on December i.
The integrity and reliability of the news report was rated "ad-
mirable," but the committee called for the cultivation of a more
sprightly and concise style and more skillful editing. The report tact-
fully reminded the members that, since much Associated Press news
originated in their own offices because of the mutual exchange principle,
the desired improvement, like charity, should begin at home.
A second recommendation called for the appointment of assistant
superintendents for each of the six geographical divisions of the serv-
ice— New England, New York, Washington, Chicago, Denver, and
San Francisco. Their principal duty was to keep in close touch with
member papers to ascertain their needs or criticisms. The committee
saw in these assistant superintendents an opportunity to weld the ser
vice into a more coherent whole.
Closely connected with the problem of improving the news report
was the widespread demand among the members for greater localization
of their service. At the time the association's facilities were divided into
three major classifications: There was the main coast-to-coast trunk
circuit, which carried only dispatches of general importance. Supple-
mentary to this were the regional wires, which served as the arteries
for geographical divisions comprising several states. There also were
the few, comparatively recent, "side circuits," operating off the main
leased wire or its regional counterpart and serving papers in one state
or occasionally two.
Editors in the bureaus controlling these side or state, circuits had
202 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
been able to anticipate the trend toward a more localized report. Serv-
ing a limited group of papers whose interests were similar, the editors
of these circuits could prepare a report made up of trunk and regional
material which met the needs of the locality and at the same time in-
cluded more state or bi-state news.
Members who received their news budget only on the main leased
wires were not so fortunate. They expressed the need for extension of
facilities to provide more localized news coverage, but the committee
was not inclined to encourage this agitation, declaring that general news
alone was the province of the association. The thorough exposition of
this subject, however, served a purpose. It focused attention on the
success of the few side circuits in supplying a combination of general and
state news, and it raised in some minds the thought that a system of
state circuits which would pay more attention to vicinage news might
represent the ideal fundamental unit for the organization's future op-
erations.
The committee reminded the members that they were receiving
a telegraphic service which, taken as a whole, never had been equaled.
"This report," they noted, "has become the cheapest commodity that
enters into the making of the daily newspaper." They pointed out that
the general news of the entire world was delivered to member papers
at a cost less than that of gathering the news in their own circulating
areas. Some were assessed as little as 52 cents for each thousand words,
while the highest rate was $4.60.
The question of finances likewise was involved in the report. Many
of the reforms recommended called for additional expenditures and it
behooved the organization to move cautiously in this respect. Since
1900 the association had been oscillating annually from surplus to
deficit— a $94,708 deficit for the last half of 1907 was particularly dis-
quieting— and important commitments for the future must be weighed
with a practical eye on the extra outlay involved.
If an occasional skeptic in the membership ranks was inclined to
question the committee's pronouncement on the general excellence of
the news service, the staff soon afterward supplied a brilliant demon-
stration on two of the biggest stories in the opening decade of the
century's history.
The first occurred during the 1908 Christmas season. On Decem-
SURVEY AND CRITICISM 203
her 28 there was a convulsive earthquake in the Italian province of
Calabria. The earthquake and the accompanying tidal wave took 200,000
lives. Joseph Pierce, the correspondent at Messina, perished before he
could get his story through. In Rome Cortesi left a sickbed to write
his account of a catastrophe unparalleled in European history. On the
first five days he cabled 37,780 words.
Cortesi was Cortesi, and the membership had come to expect
superlative work from him. It was not always the front-rank men,
however, who were on the spot the moment important news occurred
unexpectedly in one place or another. Sometimes it was an obscure
correspondent — an ordinary string correspondent such as Jack Irwin
on Nantucket Island.
Irwin was one of those restless men never content to stay in one
place. An Australian by birth, he had a daredevil disposition which took
him to many places in search of adventure. He was in Africa during the
Boer War and saw fighting at Magersfontein and Spion Kop. Eventu-
ally he came to the United States and was attracted by the wizardry of
wireless telegraphy. He settled down for a while as an .operator in the
Marconi station at Siasconset on Nantucket Island, one of the lonely
outposts which gave the first and last greetings to Atlantic steamers.
While at Siasconset he became a stringer for the co-operative, occasion-
ally passing along a small story that came his way, but never anything
of consequence.
There was no promise of anything of consequence on January 23,
1909, as he sat at his key, keeping the early morning tour of duty.
The Atlantic was a thick white wall of fog which came swirling in,
blanketing Nantucket. It was 5 140 in the morning.
A thin, faint signal whispered unexpectedly in Irwin's earphones.
It was repeated again and again . . . CQD . . . CQD . . . CQD —
the international signal for a ship in distress.
Two hundred miles out on the Atlantic Jack Binns, an operator
on the White Star liner Republicy was desperately sending out the call.
The Republic had collided with the freighter Florida and was sinking.
Irwin at Siasconset was the first to pick up the call from the sinking
Republic and her 440 passengers. From that moment on, he kept repeat-
ing the weak CQD and Binns's subsequent messages, utilizing Siascon-
set's stronger power to broadcast the calls over a wider area than the
Republic could cover. Busy as he was, he acted promptly in his capacity
as a string correspondent, rushing word of the Republic?* peril to the
Boston Bureau.
2O4 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
For hours the fate of the Republic remained in doubt while rescue
ships groped through the fog. The White Star liner sank, but thanks to
the CQD, only four lives were lost. Irwin continued to relay details
of the great drama and the country thrilled to the heroism and courage
of the first \videly publicized ship rescue by wireless.
In the weeks which saw the Calabrian earthquake and the S.S.
Re-public disaster, no group among the members studied the survey of
the Special Survey Committe with keener interest and hope than the
limited service, or "pony" papers. For many of these small newspapers,
published in remote inland towns, the earthquake and ship disaster
stories merely demonstrated again an old handicap which plagued them.
They could not afford regular leased wire facilities which delivered
a large volume of news direct to their offices and the exasperating
delays in receiving abbreviated reports over ordinary commercial tele-
graph lines persisted even when public interest in the news was at fever
pitch. The result was that many of these pony members failed to
obtain enough news with sufficient speed to make a showing with their
readers.
Examining the committee's report, these small members discovered
grounds for both hope and discouragement. The committee confessed
that it recognized their plight and wanted to do something about it.
But the committee could advance no constructive plans to eliminate the
delays in news delivery. There was no point in further complaints to
the wire companies. Repeated representations in the past had proved
futile. The facilities of the wire companies already were burdened with
commercial traffic which made impossible the promise of split-second
news service to widely separated small papers. Some solution must
exist, but it had not been found.
VI. THE AIRPLANE MAKES NEWS
THE Associated Press man at Dayton, Ohio, had been inclined to
joke when they showed him the Wright family's prepared statement
and the telegram which had prompted it:
176 C KA CS PAID
KITTY HAWK N C DEC 17
BISHOP M. WRIGHT
7 HAWTHORNE ST
SUCCESS FOUR FLIGHTS THURSDAY MORNING ALL
AGAINST TWENTY ONE MILE WIND STARTING FROM
LEVEL WITH ENGINE POWER ALONE AVERAGE SPEED
THROUGH AIR THIRTY ONE MILES LONGEST 57 SECONDS
INFORM PRESS HOME CHRISTMAS. OREVELLE WRIGHT
52 5P
"Huh," the correspondent commented. "Fifty-seven seconds! If
it were fifty-seven minutes it might be worth talking about."
On the chance that it might be news in some eyes, nevertheless,
he copied the message and the statement which old Bishop Wright,
father of the sender, had helped prepare. Many editors snorted as they
read the dispatch. Perfunctorily it reported that the two Wright brothers
claimed to have made man's first successful flights in an airplane. A
large number of papers ignored the news as humbug, others poked fun
at it, and even some people in Dayton believed it a hoax designed to
attract attention to the local bicycle business the Wright brothers
conducted.
It was the biggest kind of news, however, and except for two
minor errors it was accurate. The commercial telegraph operator who
transmitted the message had misread the time of flight, clipping two
seconds from the actual performance, and had misspelled Orville
Wright's first name.
The dispatch from Dayton was one of the two accounts the co-
operative carried that day on the Wrights. The second, an item of
some four hundred words, appeared under a Norfolk, Virginia, date
line and gave a remarkably good description of the test flights.
205
206 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
People scoffed at those 1903 stories of what Wilbur and Orville
Wright had done at Kitty Hawk, and for more than four years few
took much stock in the claims that man could navigate the sky in a
flying machine. Nevertheless, the Wrights, returning to Dayton, went
forward with their experiments and the local correspondent, who had
revised his first notions on the subject, kept anxiously after them. Con-
sidering the general atmosphere of continuing disbelief, he showed
unusual zeal, following their tests and asking questions.
"Any news on the airship today, Wilbur?"
"No, nothing special."
"You and Orville been flying?"
"Just about as usual. Couple of fights."
"How far?"
"Halfway down the field."
"Not so much, eh? Well, you be sure to let me know if anything
special happens."
There were stories from Dayton as the months rolled by, yet not
until May, 1908, when the Wrights conducted a fresh series of flights
at Kitty Hawk did the world awake to the great news that had been
happening completely unrecognized.
The tardy public recognition of aviation news was accompanied by
a realization that the story of aircraft development had international
scope. A few months after the Wright brothers returned to Kitty
Hawk, cables were telling of aerial experiments along a different line
in Germany, where Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was striving to
perfect the dirigible. The 24-hour flight of his LZ4 was an epochal
achievement in the history of lighter-than-air craft, even though the
cruise ended in misadventure. A staff correspondent, Joseph Herrings,
almost succeeded in an ambitious plan to cover the entire 3OO-mile test
flight singlehanded from the ground.
The zeppelin was docked in a floating hangar on Lake Constance.
Herrings had been sent to Switzerland to watch developments. No an-
nouncement was made, and Herrings's inquiries brought vague replies
that the strange cigar-shaped craft would not be prepared to take off
for several days. The information sounded unconvincing to the reporter.
He arranged for a swift motorboat and the fastest automobile available
and then settled down to watch the hangar in case Count Zeppelin
THE AIRPLANE MAKES NEWS 207
decided on an unheralded departure. It was a wise forethought. Early
one August morning the nose of the zeppelin poked out of the floating
shed.
As soon as he saw the airship being moved out, Herrings tumbled
into his motorboat and started across the lake toward her. The zeppelin
took off smoothly, circled and headed toward Constance with the motor-
boat skimming in pursuit on the water below. The dirigible had not
picked up speed and the correspondent was able to keep her in sight.
While the motorboat rushed along, he scratched off a descriptive account
of the LZ4*s takeoff. By the time the zeppelin's shadow left the lake
at Constance and headed overland, the reporter had ready the dispatch
which he hurried to the telegraph office the moment he jumped ashore.
Then the wild part of the day began. He set out in the waiting
automobile to continue the breathless chase overland. The LZ4 was
cruising at a speed of between 35 and 40 miles an hour and a 1908
model automobile had a hard time keeping up. At towns along the
route Herrings stopped to pass hurriedly written copy to open-mouthed
telegraph operators.
Other correspondents in places over which the zeppelin passed
also had been systematically reporting its progress and across the sea
in New York cable editor Harold Martin assembled the dispatches
into one co-ordinated story.
All morning Herrings roared across Germany in his reckless chase,
and on into the afternoon. He managed to keep the zeppelin in sight
until two o'clock when she disappeared beyond a range of hills near
Laufen. From correspondents at other points, however, bulletins kept
flowing in to New York, telling of the ship's continued progress, her
stop for repairs at Nackenheim, her landing near Echterdingen the
next day, and her destruction by fire while moored there.
Perhaps because distance lent enchantment, aeronautical adventures
and misadventures abroad appeared to command greater attention from
American newspapers than those at home. Even Wilbur Wright seemed
to have greater news value when he went to France to demonstrate
his flying machine to the French government. And when Louis Bleriot
flew the English channel July 25, 1909, editors in the United States
hailed the feat as "one of the greatest news events of a generation."
For a time it seemed likely that aviation would enable man to
208 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
succeed at last in his long attempt to reach the North Pole. Walter
Wellman, newspaperman and explorer, was convinced that an aerial
trip to the top of the world was practicable. Using ships and dog sleds,
he had led polar expeditions in 1894 and again in 1898. Back from
the arctic, he went to work as a Washington correspondent for one of
Victor Lawson's newspapers. When he mentioned his daring belief that
the North Pole might be discovered by air, he found Lawson interested.
The Chicago publisher discussed Wellman's plans with Frank B.
Noyes, president of The Associated Press, and together the two decided
to finance the expedition as a private venture on the part of their
newspapers.
A dirigible, America, was built in Paris, and Wellman made the
first aerial voyage over the Arctic Ocean in September, 1907, only to
have the weather balk a final dash to the pole. By the time Bleriot was
preparing for the celebrated Calais-to-Dover flight, however, Wellman
was heading for Spitsbergen and a second attempt to fly to the pole.
The flight ended in failure when the America was badly damaged
after a forced landing among ice hummocks on August 15. One of the
Americans four-man crew was Nicholas Popoff. He was the same Russian
who had been shot while covering the Russo-Japanese War under the
pen name of Kiriloff .
The possibilities of aerial exploration suffered a temporary eclipse
after Wellman's failure, but before a month had passed the North Pole
was proving one of the year's biggest and most controversial stories.
Associated Press wires carried the first bulletin September i. From the
island of Lerwick, via Copenhagen, came the announcement of Dr.
Frederick Cook, a Brooklyn explorer, that he had discovered the North
Pole on April 21. The news touched off a rush of reportorial activity.
Robert M. Collins, chief of the London Bureau, and R. E. Berry, of
the Berlin staff, were ordered to Copenhagen where Albert Thorup,
the resident correspondent, waited Cook's arrival.
In New York there was skepticism of Cook's claims and the scien-
tific to-do over the alleged exploration assumed great proportions. The
explorer was being lionized, interviewed, and toasted in Copenhagen.
And then in New York on September 6 this telegram was delivered.
62 NX B COLLECT 116P
INDIAN HR VIA CAPE RAY NP 6
ASSD PRESS NY
STARS AND STRIPES NAILED TO NORTH POLE.
PEARY.
THE AIRPLANE MAKES NEWS 209
The message immediately created another sensation. The second
claim to the discovery of the North Pole within a week? A telegram
flashed back to Indian Harbor, Labrador, asking for verification and in
it The Associated Press called attention to Dr. Cook's claims.
The answer came back:
INDIAN HR VIA CAPE RAY NF SEPT 6
MELVILLE E STONE
ASSD PRESS N Y
REGRET UNABLE DISPATCH DETAILS. MY DISPATCH
STARS AND STRIPES NAILED TO NORTH POLE AUTHOR-
ITATIVE AND CORRECT. COOK!S STORY SHOULD NOT
BE TAKEN TOO SERIOUSLY. THE TWO ESKIMOS WHO
ACCOMPANIED HIM SAY HE WENT NO DISTANCE NORTH
AND NOT OUT OP SIGHT OP LAND. OTHER MEMBERS
OP THE TRIBE CORROBORATE THEIR STORY. PEARY.
The new discovery story splashed across front pages within an hour.
Instructions from New York headquarters went north to W. C. Jefferds,
correspondent in Portland, Maine, Peary's home town, and to J. W.
Regan, correspondent at Halifax. With John Quinpool, another staff
man, they had previously received orders to get ready to search for
Peary, who had been overdue. The three men hired the Douglas H.
Thomasy the only oceangoing tug available in Nova Scotia, and set out
on their hazardous 475-mile voyage to Battle Harbor. Regan's assistant,
W. G. Foster, made a fourth in the party.
Before they started Jefferds delivered the news of Peary's dis-
covery to the explorer's wife, who was at a summer home on an island
off the Maine coast. She was skeptical because she thought her husband
would have communicated with her at the same time. However, she
entrusted the reporter with a message to deliver at Battle Harbor. Her
daughter Marie — the famous "Snow Baby" born in the far North on
one of Peary's previous arctic trips — was so overjoyed that she hugged
and kissed Jefferds. An hour and a half after the correspondent
departed the proprietor of the country store on the mainland arrived
with a telegram from Peary confirming the news Jefferds had brought.
The Associated Press tug reached Battle Harbor on September 13
and moored alongside the ice-scarred Roosevelt, Peary's expedition boat.
Fortunately no communication difficulties hampered relay of the
story from Labrador. A low-power wireless station sent out the news
to relay points along the bleak mountainous coast. Thence they were
forwarded to New York.
210 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The redoubtable Dr. Cook was aboard the steamer Oscar II > en
route home from Denmark, and Berry of the Berlin staff accompanied
him. Controversy raged more fiercely than ever. On special request,
the Canadian Marconi Company agreed to transmit Peary's version of
the discovery to Cook in mid-Atlantic, and to bring in the stories Berry
wrote on the Brooklyn explorer's reaction. When Cook's comment was
received, it was relayed to the staff at Battle Harbor for Peary's infor-
mation and reply.
Although separated by thousands of miles, the rival claimants
carried on a stubborn debate and the public read the exchange of state-
ments and contradictions. The four men at Battle Harbor, joined later
by Carl Brandebury of the New York staff, had the unique story there
to themselves until a steamer arrived with American and Canadian
correspondents.
The Peary-Cook dispute made news until a National Geographic
Society commission sustained Peary's claims as the true discoverer of
the North Pole. Cook's purported proofs were submitted to the Uni-
versity of Copenhagen for adjudication and ruled insufficient.
Aviation bounded back into the limelight, and again it was the
newspaperman-explorer Wellman who provided a story with no rival
for drama and suspense. Early in 1910 he was soliciting financial back-
ing for an unheard-of exploit. He proposed to cross the Atlantic from
the United States to Europe in the rebuilt dirigible America. Lawson
could not resist the lure of the great news such a flight might yield
and once more he advanced funds. The New York Times and the
London Daily Telegraph likewise became interested and helped to
raise $40,000. In return the three papers received exclusive rights to
all details of this first attempt at a transoceanic airship flight.
From the outset the story presented coverage difficulties for the
co-operative because Wellman had contracted to give the official infor-
mation on his venture only to the syndicate financing him. The Asso-
ciated Press was left to its own devices to get a story which momentarily
transcended all others.
Wellman selected Atlantic City as the starting point for the flight
and workmen began to reassemble the dismantled dirigible as soon as
it arrived by boat from Paris on August 6. Reporters from the New
York office wrote reams of copy describing the construction of the
THE AIRPLANE MAKES NEWS 211
America, the principle of its "equilibrator," and the lifeboat which was
to be carried, slung under the car of the airship, well away from the
inflammable hull of the ship, to accommodate a short-range wireless
set, a stove, and other equipment. Progress in preparing the America
was slow. August passed. Then September. Many people were calling
Wellman a "fake."
At last, on October 12, Columbus Day, the work was finished. Less
than sixty hours later, Saturday morning, October 1 5, Wellman shouted
"Let go all!" to an improvised ground crew and the America disap-
peared into a dense fog, Europe bound. She carried a crew of five, a
wireless operator, and a mascot kitten, "Kiddo." The wireless operator
was Jack Irwin.
Up and down the coast and in cities abroad the association's forces
were alert for word of the airship's progress.
Crouched in the lifeboat precariously suspended beneath the dirigi-
ble's car, Irwin contacted an Atlantic City station two and a half hours
after the take-off and the first wireless messages exchanged between a
shore station and an airship were sent. "Headed northeast. All well on
board. Machinery working well." Swift bulletins relayed the informa-
tion. A few minutes later Wellman sent a dispatch in code giving details
of the flight up to that point, but it went exclusively to the syndicate
financing him.
Then silence descended and for twenty-four hours no further
reports came from the ocean fog which held the America. Men stopped
one another in the streets to inquire if there was any news. From wire-
less stations all along the coast, from operators on ships at sea, calls
went out to the America. But there was no answer.
Irwin in his swaying aerial lifeboat could hear the calls, but all his
efforts to raise one of the stations failed. His dynamo stopped working,
forcing him to switch to batteries and their limited power reduced his
signal range. One or two vessels were sighted through the fog, but
apparently they carried no wireless equipment. Finally on Sunday
afternoon, he got through an "All's well" message to Siasconset— the
America was then off Nantucket— and Wellman sent a code dispatch
to the syndicate enumerating difficulties that were developing. Then
the long hours of silence returned.
All Sunday night the airship battled a storm which threatened to
destroy her. Irwin flashed CQD after CQD, but the distress signals
were never picked up. The "equilibrator," a long metal device towed
along the ocean's surface like a huge sea serpent to control the airship's
212 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
altitude and to compensate for changes in her buoyancy, kept pulling
the America down toward the crest of the waves. The wind changed
and drove the dirigible southward, off her course.
Throughout Monday the battle against disaster went on. Gasoline,
oil, supplies, even parts of the motors were jettisoned to lighten ship
and keep her from crashing into the ocean. Monday night was the last
night. The five aboard realized it as they ate a meal of cold ham,
biscuits, and water. They might be able to keep the airship in flight
another day, but when the sun set again and the gas cooled, she would
plunge into the sea. They would have to risk launching the lifeboat
sometime Tuesday, dropping it from mid-air and running the double
risk of having it capsize or be smashed by the equilibrator below.
The wireless operator stood watch in the drifting airship until
3 A.M. Tuesday, when Wellman relieved him. Shouts roused him some
time later. A steamer had been sighted. Irwin tumbled down into the
life boat and started calling, but got no answer.
Seizing a flashlight, he commenced signaling in Morse code, blink-
ing out dots and dashes.
Then, suddenly, the steamer was signaling back by the same
method. Irwin asked if they had a wireless aboard and the steamer —
she was the Bermuda liner S.S. Trent — replied her Marconi man would
be routed out at once. In a few minutes Irwin was talking by wireless
with Louis S. Ginsberg, the Trent's operator, arranging the details
of a perilous rescue.
Down came the America. The lifeboat's lashings were loosened.
The last two release hooks were snapped open and the boat plummeted
into the rough ocean with the airship's crew and Kiddo. It almost
capsized, righted itself, and crashed into the dreaded equilibrator.
Seconds later the Trent almost ran them down as she maneuvered and
they were in danger of being cut to pieces by the propellers. Lines
finally were thrown down and the America's bedraggled crew was
pulled aboard the Trent. The abandoned airship drifted away derelict
over the ocean.
Battered and weary, Irwin made his way immediately to the
Trends wireless room. Standing beside the steamer's operator the one-
time string correspondent stole a march on Wellman by dictating a
straightforward report of the America's ill-starred aerial odyssey and
the rescue 375 miles east of Cape Hatteras.
In a matter of minutes the dispatch reached the New York head-
quarters of The Associated Press. It was flash news all wires. The two
THE AIRPLANE MAKES NEWS 213
American newspapers which had contracted with Wellman for the
exclusive story of his adventure got their first tidings, not from him
but from the co-operative in which they held membership. Similarly,
an Associated Press dispatch, relayed to Europe, gave the London
Telegraphy the third syndicate member, its first information.
The America's wireless operator might have signed his dramatic
dispatch from the Trent "Irwin," and that would have been sufficient
for the news editor who first read it in New York. Apparently he
thought more complete identification necessary. After his name he added
three words, and the complete signature read: "Irwin, Associated Press
correspondent."
VII. A NEW PERSONALITY
". . . the revenues for the twelve months of 1910 were $2,728,-
888.64 and the expenses $2,742,492.18." This was another deficit, the
fifth in seven years.
The Associated Press had celebrated its tenth anniversary as a
non-profit co-operative. Its prestige stood high and, as far as externals
went, the organization's position was an enviable one. Yet there were
danger signals.
The financial condition worried General Manager Stone. For the
most part, his efforts had been concentrated on the performance of the
association as an impartial news gatherer. The report was the thing
by which members and newspaper readers alike judged the organization,
and to the report he devoted his genius. Expense, extension of
facilities, and costly commitments were no major objects with him
when it was a question of maintaining Associated Press pre-eminence.
The results bore tribute to his energetic direction and his unusual per-
sonality found valuable expression in dramatizing the new principle
for which the co-operative stood. Yet the demands of actual news
gathering made it difficult for him to turn his notable abilities to less
spirited organizational problems. Business details never captured his
imagination and he was happier in the midst of a great news emergency
than while struggling with the intricacies of a balanced budget.
The difficulty of making ends meet while operating a non-profit
organization on the same assessment basis which went into effect in
1900, before the demands of news gathering began to increase, was
acute. The basis of prorating expenses during the first ten years was
purely experimental. But inasmuch as the formula was based on the
population in each member paper's circulating area, there was no chance
of revising figures until the 1910 Federal Census became available. At
that time Stone and the Board of Directors planned to review the
existing scales and readjust wherever necessary. In the meantime the
general manager could do little more than refer the recurrent vexations
214
A NEW PERSONALITY 215
to Treasurer J. R. Youatt for such inconclusive preliminary action as
could be taken.
As for savings through a realignment of leased wire facilities — one
of the largest items of expense — these possibilities eluded Stone. But he
did realize that the question of improving the lot of the harried pony
papers was important. This was essentially a news detail because it was
necessary that they be served efficiently if they were to remain in mem-
bership and contribute the important news of their territories. If he
ever did forget the plight of these papers, it was not for long. Day in
and day out their messages reached his desk:
"No telegraph budget today until after we had gone to press."
"Today's report not only late but garbled."
"Help. Help. No news telegram today."
"If we can't get news, how can we pay our assessment?"
Spurred by these complaints, Stone ventured into the communi-
cations' field to seek a remedy. He sounded out telegraph companies
once again on the possibility of an arrangement which would guarantee
expeditious commercial delivery without an increase in expense. Com-
pany officials could promise nothing.
Then he attempted to arrange for "short-hour" leased wire facilities
over which important news could be speeded to the small papers. But
wire companies reported this was not feasible except at more expense
than the papers could afford.
Just when the pony outlook seemed blackest, help appeared from
an unexpected source.
The general manager was at his desk one day shortly before
Thanksgiving in 1910, when C. H. Wilson, general manager of the
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, telephoned that he was
sending over a young man who had some practical ideas about trans-
mitting news rapidly to small papers in isolated places.
The young man was Kent Cooper, from Indiana. Stone promised
to see him, but he was not convinced that the solution of the co-opera-
tive's problem of delivering world news to distant papers of only
modest means could come from such an unknown source, particularly
when it was something that had puzzled the best minds in the trans-
mission business. Nevertheless, the general manager had an effective
method of dealing with visitors. He greeted them graciously but with
his body barring the doorway to his private office while he made tentative
appraisal. If sufficiently impressed he could step back in his most cordial
216 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
manner and permit them to enter. But if not, he could dismiss them
without having them suspect that he did not wish to be bothered.
It was in this way that he greeted Cooper.
"I understand you have the solution of the problem of getting news
to small papers which cannot afford leased wires," he said with a
quizzical smile.
Cooper replied that he believed he did.
Stone still stood in the doorway.
"Well," he said, selecting a point about which a Midwesterner
normally would not be expected to have first knowledge, "just exactly
what could you do for Burlington, Vermont?"
Cooper thought for a moment.
"You can't serve Burlington economically from Boston, which
is your nearest New England Bureau," he replied, "because of the
distance."
Stone was surprised that his visitor was that well informed, but the
Burlington problem still was not solved.
"So what could you do?" he asked.
"Well," observed Cooper, "why not serve them by telephone out
of your Albany Bureau, which is closer? From Albany it would involve
only 156 miles of wire as against 233 from Boston, and the cost to
deliver 1,500 words daily over this route would be only $16 a week."
Stone gave the young man another once over.
"Come on in," he said.
Stone did not know it then, but Cooper's experience in newspaper
work had begun when he was a boy of thirteen — the same year Victor
Lawson and his publishing associates started the "revolution of 1893"
out of which had come the non-profit co-operative principle in news.
The son of an Indiana congressman, Cooper began as a carrier
boy and a year later became a fledgling reporter on the Columbus
Republican. His editor belonged to the school which believed that
"names make news" and Cooper's first assignment was to ride his
bicycle to the railroad station daily and get the names of all arrivals
and departures. In time he came in contact with the resurgent Associated
Press and the Chicago Bureau made him a string correspondent at
Columbus. He continued this part-time work in addition to his duties
on the local paper until he left to attend the University of Indiana. His
A NEW PERSONALITY 217
father died in 1899 and he was forced to leave college to earn his own
living.
The Indianapolis Press gave him his start at $12 a week. Later
he joined the Scripps-McRae Press Association and established its
Indianapolis Bureau. Most papers served from that office were
small and Cooper came to know the problems which beset them. In
1905 he struck out for himself with a state or vicinage news service
of his own, set up with $50 of his own money and a similar amount
invested by a friend. He incorporated his enterprise as the United
Press News Association and a year later sold it to Scripps-McRae,
which merged with two other agencies in 1907 to form the United
Press Associations.
Cooper continued as Indianapolis Bureau manager and soon he was
experimenting with a telephone talking circuit serving news to several
small papers simultaneously. Up to that time the telephone companies
had no special press rates but charged on a private-message, point-to-
point basis. Cooper convinced them that it was to their advantage to
fix a rate which would enable them to compete with the telegraph as
a news distribution medium and also demonstrated that the problem
of linking a number of papers together on a talking news circuit was
feasible.
The idea behind the telephone pony circuit was that a press asso-
ciation employee made up an abbreviated news report in a centrally
located bureau and then read it over a long-distance line extending into
the offices of small newspapers several miles to hundreds of miles
away. In each of the offices the local editor listened into the receiver
and copied down the news at it was being read. One appealing feature
was that the receiving editors developed the habit of volunteering to
the others on the circuit the news of their communities, thus exchanging
much neighborhood or vicinage news which ordinarily would not have
found its way into a press association report.
In spite of the success of these early efforts, Cooper was not satis-
fied. He knew of the abuses to which commercially controlled news
had been subjected back before the emergence of the non-profit prin-
ciple, in news, and he felt that The Associated Press offered unique
opportunity on the side of truthful, unbiased reporting. He was familiar
with the practical obstacles which had hindered its expansion into the
more isolated areas such as those he had learned to serve by telephone,
and so it was through telephone officials that he obtained his introduction
to Stone. He began his assignment on December 5, 1910.
2i8 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Although the young Indianian had demonstrated his knowledge
of transmission conditions, he still had to convince Stone that news
actually could be sent by ordinary telephone to scattered newspapers
without losing anything in accuracy — a question about which the general
manager had his worst fears.
"You'll have my resignation if I can't deliver stories by telephone
more rapidly and with greater accuracy and efficiency than you can
deliver them by overhead telegraph," Cooper told Stone soon after
he took up his duties in New York.
The general manager accepted the stipulation.
"You are to make your test on two real 'guinea pigs' I'll select for
you out in Michigan," he said.
Owing to cumbersome wire systems and the burden of commercial
traffic, telegraphed delivery of the association's pony news reports to
the Houghton Gazette and the Marquette Journal had been haphazard
and uncertain at best. Their news budgets, prepared in the Chicago
office, averaged five thousand words nightly and the long telegraph
files were both expensive and subject to frequent garbling.
Cooper lined up his circuit and looked on as the first telephone
news report was read to the two papers by an editor in the Chicago
office. In Houghton and Marquette, miles away, the two member
editors simultaneously copied down dispatch after dispatch as the man
in Chicago read the news into the mouthpiece at the sending end. The
news not only was delivered more rapidly, but a study of the received
copy showed it was completely accurate. Moreover, one telephone circuit
linking both papers was less expensive than the double filing necessary
to deliver the copy to both papers by overhead telegraph.
Stone was pleased.
"You win," he said. "Now go to work and serve all the papers
that have been giving us so much trouble."
He started to wave Cooper away, but on the spur of the moment
called him back.
"Tell me," he smiled, "how in the name of the devil did you
happen to have the answer on Burlington that day you came to see
me? You even knew the exact wire mileage from Albany."
Cooper explained.
"It was very simple," he said. "I studied the situation before I came
A NEW PERSONALITY 219
to see you and memorized the figures on the more isolated places because
they were the ones I thought you'd be likely to ask about!"
First in the Midwest, then in the East, the Rocky Mountain area,
and other sections of the country, Cooper set up the special telephone
pony circuits to supplant the unsatisfactory commercial telegraph trans-
missions. Before he had been in the service four months thirty-six
additional papers were receiving their news over telephone talking
circuits and the program had only begun.
VIII. STANDARD OIL
WHILE Cooper was improving the lot of the association's smaller
newspapers Stone and the Board of Directors were occupied with trouble
that was brewing elsewhere.
There were alarming charges affecting the integrity of the news
report and the probity of the general manager. The most serious accu-
sation was made by Frank B. Kellogg, the government attorney who
later became secretary of state. He had been engaged in prosecuting
the Standard Oil Company under the Sherman antitrust law, and during
that litigation he wrote:
Melville E. Stone is controlled absolutely by the Standard Oil people.
He will not, of course, send out any reports of the testimony that he is not
obliged to, at least that is my opinion from all that I have seen. ... It is
astonishing that that concern can control The Associated Press.
John D. Rockefeller's oil empire had been under attack ever
since the trust-busting era began in earnest with Theodore Roosevelt's
second term in the White House. Roosevelt's vigorous language put
the Standard Oil on the defensive in the public eye. The oil company
had a bad press editorially, and as early as 1905 some of its people
were suggesting that it "start a backfire" to counteract unfavorable
publicity. At that time Congressman J. C. Sibley of Pennsylvania, who
was interested in Standard Oil, wrote confidentially to John D. Arch-
bold, the corporation's vice-president, proposing a definite plan: "An
efficient literary bureau is needed, not for a day but [for] permanent
and healthy control of The Associated Press and other kindred avenues.
It will cost money, but it will be the cheapest in the end and can be
made self-supporting."
No action was taken on Sibley's suggestion and The Associated
Press, unaware of the possible schemes of lobbyists and press agents,
continued to report news concerning the oil company in an objective,
factual manner.
A few years later, however, Kellogg, as government prosecutor,
instituted the lengthy proceedings which ultimately brought the dis-
220
STANDARD OIL 221
solution of the parent corporation in the Rockefeller structure, the
Standard Oil of New Jersey. During this litigation attempts were
made to influence the report in favor of the company. Kellogg was
unaware of this when he made his charges against Stone, but it was
his accusation that started an inquiry.
At the request of member papers in New York City, the Board of
Directors appointed a five-man committee, headed by Oswald Garrison
Villard of the New York Post, for a thorough investigation not only
of Kellogg's allegations but also of any complaints reflecting on the
integrity of the news. None of the committee men was a board member
and the fact that several of them privately disliked Stone was a guar-
antee that nothing would be left undone to uncover evidence of
collusion.
Kellogg's letter attacking Stone obviously was one of the first
points of inquiry. Attempts to have Kellogg appear before the committee
proved unsuccessful. The attorney refused and when the Villard com-
mittee visited him in a body he denied he had written the letter. The
committee confronted him with the original which bore his signature
and he reluctantly acknowledged its authenticity. The letter, he said,
stated his opinion of the situation as he recalled it. He offered to
produce "proof" of the co-operative's failure to carry adequate stories
setting forth the government's side of the oil case.
To obtain this proof, Kellogg had his secretary check on Associated
Pre.ss stories appearing in a single state. Minnesota was the state selected.
The survey disclosed that few dispatches on the subject were printed
there, and the few appearing had been brief. Kellogg soon found,
however, that this survey established nothing except the fallacy of the
conclusion on which he had made his charge of bias. There was little
interest attached to the Standard Oil case in Minnesota and editors of
member papers consequently had made sparing use of the stories they
had received. An examination of The Associated Press files disclosed
that the case had been reported thoroughly, and a check of papers
nationally showed there had been extensive use of the material which
Minnesota editors had trimmed down or discarded.
This phase of the investigation had no sooner ended than Villard's
committee learned with surprise from the general manager that a
correspondent who indirectly covered one phase of the Standard Oil
case for The Associated Press had been in the pay of a Standard Oil
press agent, Captain P. C. Boyle, of Oil City, Pennsylvania. Unaware
of these facts before, Stone volunteered the information as soon as he
222 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
obtained it from Boyle. Some members of the committee were disposed
to be suspicious. It was common knowledge that Boyle, who held mem-
bership in the association as publisher of the Oil City Derrick, was a
friend of Stone.
The investigators sought information on how the Standard Oil
case had been covered both in the extended hearings at New York and
in the final arguments at St. Louis. It developed that Carl Brandebury,
city editor of the New York staff, had been assigned to the case when
it opened in New York. He covered forty-four of the ninety-five hear-
ings and was withdrawn only after all the major witnesses had testified.
The remaining fifty-one hearings were routine and for coverage on
these the co-operative depended on the reports of the City News Asso-
ciation, the local news-gathering agency owned and controlled by the
New York newspapers. City News maintained its own staff and supplied
the New York papers and The Associated Press with the daily routine
and secondary news of the metropolis. Like the co-operative, all but
one of the New York papers recalled their staff men after the important
witnesses had been heard and relied on City News.
Captain Boyle, appearing before the committee, told of his asso-
ciation with the City News reporter who covered the case. As soon as
the oil company hearings were under way, he testified, he felt that
Standard Oil was not receiving fair play in the accounts published by the
New York papers. He said he felt that the government's case, on the
other hand, received too favorable attention. "For accuracy in report-
ing," as he called it, he arranged with the reporter to give the Standard
Oil's side of the controversy "proper" treatment in the City News
reports. These, he knew, would go to the local papers, whether or not
they had staff men present, and he hoped they might influence editors.
Boyle paid the reporter "never less than $100 a week," although
he claimed that the results were so negative that the expense was hardly
justified. When it was pointed out to the witness that The Associated
Press might have been victimized by misrepresentations in the City
News report, Boyle insisted he was thinking only of the local papers
when he retained the City News man. He also declared that the re-
porter was paid to report the Standard Oil side of the case "accurately"
and not to distort any facts.
The City News reporter's status changed when the Standard Oil
litigation shifted to St. Louis for argument. The involved nature of
the case made it desirable that the man covering the argument be thor-
oughly familiar with all the background, and there was no one in the
STANDARD OIL 223
St. Louis Bureau so qualified. While Stone was considering the matter
of the assignment, the City News man offered his services. He said he
had a vacation coming and that he would be glad to utilize the time to
cover the brief St. Louis proceedings for The Associated Press. Stone
felt that this offered an excellent opportunity to arrange for authorita-
tive coverage since the man was familiar with the case, and so he
engaged him. Unknown to Stone, the reporter then got in touch with
Boyle and for $500 promised to "look after" Standard Oil interests.
Boyle acknowledged this in his testimony, but again insisted he
was aiming at the local press in St. Louis and not at The Associated
Press. The local men, he said, would naturally turn to the New York
reporter, as one well grounded, to clarify the intricate phases of the
case. He denied that the City News man had made clear his Associated
Press connection or that this consideration figured in the bargain. He
said that he had gone to Stone promptly with all this information as
soon as he learned the general manager was under investigation.
These facts established, the Villard committee turned to the news
reports to ascertain what effect the secret Boyle understanding had
had on the coverage. The findings, however, suggested that Boyle had
made a bad bargain. The New York reporter's accounts of the New
York hearings had been rewritten by Associated Press men before relay
on the leased wires. His stories at St. Louis had contained editorializing
in favor of the Standard Oil, but the files showed that Melvin Coleman,
vigilant head of the bureau there, had deleted all such references before
the copy reached the wires.
Both Boyle and the City News reporter testified that Stone was
ignorant of their private arrangement.
After the Boyle conspiracy had been exposed, the investigators
turned to less sensational indictments urged against the general manager.
Foreign governments had bestowed decorations on Stone in recognition
of his efforts to break down censorship. Some of his critics contended
that these honors disposed The Associated Press to give preferential
treatment to news involving governments which hadsj^gggired the
general manager.
Another attack centered on the fact that S$nfeJ
his social acquaintances such men as J. P. M^gar^' 'Judge Elbert^H.
Gary, head of the United States Steel Corpcfhtip^ayl vdt&fohfr^
nent in finance and business. These relatioiH,^ }was^argu$I, '
li n\ v V * • " •) ^*
suspicion that the co-operative was primarily ronoCTnea ratl^jgrptectjiig
the interests with which these men were iaintifafld. otbne's
224 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
arranging the Russo-Japanese peace at the Portsmouth Conference in
1905 also was criticized as improper activity for a general manager,
regardless of his good intentions.
The investigation seemed more and more like a hostile expedition
looking for anything to discredit the general manager. Stone found
some consolation in the fact that, although the entire membership had
been canvassed, no charges had come from its ranks. The accusations,
both serious and trivial, emanated from private sources. Nevertheless,
the general manager's position became a trying one, for until the com-
mittee submitted its findings he lived under a cloud.
Under the strained circumstances the service inevitably suffered.
Among the things overlooked was the special work Cooper had been
doing. His duties had taken him into most parts of the country and
his study of wire facilities was bringing to light conditions long un-
noticed. In many places he found that the association was paying for
wires it was not actually using. In others, mileage could be saved by
more direct routing of wires, and in still others the association was
paying higher rates than commercial competitors. In numerous instances
efficiency and economy could be served by combining or realigning
existing wire setups. Cooper discovered, too, that outdated or faulty
mechanical equipment was responsible for costly wire delays and that on
a number of overtaxed circuits the report should be overhauled.
Individually the potential economies were not always imposing — a
few hundred dollars here, a thousand there — but taken together they
made a sum of more than $100,000 yearly, no small amount in the
affairs of an organization with an annual budget of $2,846,812.
There were the immediate demands of the news report for first
consideration — the coronation of King George of England, troubles
in Mexico, revolution in China, a Franco-German crisis, and extension
of the service into South America. But the Cooper plan soon was
adopted with the active encouragement of V. S. McClatchy, of the
Sacramento Bee, and Adolph S. Ochs, of the New York Times. By
1912 the realignment program was in full swing and during a period
of recurrent deficits the savings were most welcome. Together with
a revision of the assessment schedules by which the expenses of the
association were prorated among the member newspapers on the basis
of population figures compiled by the 1910 Federal Census, these
STANDARD OIL 225
savings helped the financial affairs of the association return to an even
keel.
The investigation of Villard's committee entered its closing stages
and the Board of Directors instituted action against Captain Boyle as
the owner of a member paper. His admissions involving coverage of
the Standard Oil litigation had subjected the news report to question.
The board termed his conduct "most reprehensible," fined him $1,000,
and publicly rebuked him for his actions.
After almost a year of testimony, Villard's committee at length
submitted its final report on the whole investigation. Although the
language of the report was not friendly to Stone, it vindicated his
integrity and the integrity of the news report he administered. The
accusations and unsavory insinuations were considered seriatim and dis-
missed as unfounded. The committee stated that most of the charges
against the news report had come from laymen who had jumped to
conclusions that The Associated Press had suppressed news on contro-
versial subjects simply because no dispatch appeared in a (certain
newspaper. In every such instance the committee found that the story
had been carried fully and factually on the wires serving member
papers.
The investigators termed Kellogg's statement that Stone was
"owned" by Standard Oil "inexcusably reckless and unwarranted by
the fact," and added:
Your committee is convinced that whatever the individual faults of
reporting may have been, or whatever attempts were made by the Standard
Oil to color the report, nothing was carried during this long hearing which
violated the integrity of the service.
The subsidization of the City News reporter was mentioned at
some length, and the committee commented:
It is the best possible testimony to the efficiency and integrity of The
Associated Press that his efforts were in vain.
As to charges that Stone's decorations from foreign governments
or that his personal acquaintance with influential figures led him to
favor their interests, they declared:
... it is our judgment that the social relations of the General Man-
ager with individuals in powerful financial circles and likewise his acceptance
226 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
of decorations from foreign governments without objection from the Board
of Directors have, not unnaturally, aroused unjust suspicion of the indepen-
dence and impartiality of his administration of the news service. Nevertheless,
we are convinced that Mr. Stone has not been influenced by these circum-
stances in his conduct of the business of The Associated Press. On the
contrary, we think that he has been indefatigable in developing its services. . . .
He is entitled to great credit for the present efficiency of the news organiza-
tion which has been created largely under his leadership and direction.
The attitude of the committee was that The Associated Press, like
Caesar's wife, should be above suspicion. The fact that serious charges
had been preferred aroused great concern, even though the allegations
had been discredited. It therefore recommended that the general man-
ager and all those connected with the co-operative in future avoid
anything that would give even the uninitiated the least grounds to
question the honesty of the service. It stated:
We consider that the head of The Associated Press should not only in
fact be devoted solely to its interests, but that he should also by his personal
conduct and relations give no ground for a suspicion of his independence
and incorruptibility as the agent and representative of the Press.
The committee discouraged both the future acceptance of foreign
decorations and too great familiarity with individuals who figured in
controversial news.
Stone had held his peace. He had welcomed the fullest publicity
for all phases of his administration, and he had met all criticisms with-
out resentment. After the official findings had been submitted, he felt
free to act. The news report had been vindicated, his personal integrity
had been upheld, and he appreciated the wisdom of the constructive
suggestions advanced. One thing, however, he said he could not ignore
— Kellogg's accusation that he was owned by Standard Oil. He notified
the Board of Directors that he intended to sue Kellogg for libel on
behalf of both himself and The Associated Press.
Kellogg retracted and apologized. He wrote the general manager:
At the time I wrote that statement I felt I was justified in making it.
I have since made further investigation and am now satisfied I was mistaken
and was not justified in making the imputation upon the integrity of
The Associated Press or of its General Manager.
I wish therefore, in justice to you both, to withdraw the accusation
and to express my sincere regret that I was ever betrayed into what I now
believe was an act of injustice.
STANDARD OIL 227
He also repeated his regrets in person.
"I was hot when I wrote this letter," he said, referring to the note
which contained the libelous charges. "I thought I was writing it to
a personal friend, and I was pretty free in what I said, and I didn't
look into it very much."
Stone accepted the apology and the furor of the Standard Oil
allegations slipped into history.
IX. HEADLINE YEARS
ON the eve of the annual meeting of 1912 the Titanic disaster called
forth every news-gathering resource to obtain a great story against
overwhelming odds, and the next years, with their wealth of drama
and excitement, brought still more developments in the methods of
news collection and transmission.
The Titanic was the largest ship the world had ever known and
she was making her maiden voyage.
Far out on the Atlantic three bells clanged sharply in the night.
The lookout called to the bridge frantically:
"Iceberg! Right ahead!"
Seconds later the big ship trembled as a knife of ice sliced into
her like some gigantic can opener. The time was almost midnight,
Sunday, April 14. Many of the 2,201 people aboard did not know what
the ship had struck. Blue sparks crackled and hissed in the wireless
cabin.
Sitting in the supply room of the Boston Bureau, J. D. Kennedy,
a night telegrapher, heard the first electrifying whisper of calamity.
It was his lunch hour and he was eating in the supply room so he
could tinker with the crude wireless set recently installed for emergency
use. He heard the Charlestown Navy Yard station repeat the call and
then dashed back to the newsroom, blurting out the story.
From that moment the Titanic disaster pre-empted the leased
wires. The service was made continuous for both morning and evening
papers.
Other calls from the Titanic followed the first burst of distress
signals. Kennedy and other staff men hunched at the wireless apparatus
and strained ears for the meager bits of information that came through
the ether.
"Come at once, we have struck a berg."
"It's a CQD, old man. Position 41-46^ 5014 W."
"Sinking; cannot hear for noise of steam."
"Engine room getting flooded."
Typewriters rattled out the bulletins. More CQD's, and then the
228
HEADLINE YEARS 229
Titanic's operator suddenly switched to the newer international call
of distress:
SOS . . . SOS . . . SOS . . .
At 2:17 A.M. the signal stopped.
After that there were hours of suspense until the Carfathia reported
she had arrived on the scene at dawn and was picking up survivors.
In New York the Marconi Wireless Company gave The Associated
Press the only complete list of those rescued by the Cwpathia and later
offered the co-operative exclusive rights to all the disaster news its
facilities could obtain. The general manager felt the story was too big
for such an arrangement, however advantageous it might be to The
Associated Press.
"It is a thing of such widespread interest that you ought not to
bottle it up at all," he told the Marconi man.
All that day the news was fragmentary, incomplete, and often
conflicting. Communication with the Carpathia was sharply restricted,
for its wireless was heavily overburdened with official traffic. Messages
late Monday gave the first definite information, and it was not until
Thursday night, when the Carfathiay with 711 survivors aboard, reached
her New York pier, that the whole story became known.
The Associated Press set up an emergency "Titanic Bureau" in a
hotel facing the pier. Special telegraph and telephone lines were in-
stalled and they carried two widely praised eyewitness stories written
for the co-operative by Lawrence Beasley, an Oxford student, and
Colonel Archibald Gracie, who leaped from the stern of the Titanic
just as she made her plunge. Dick Lee, ships news reporter for The
Associated Press since 1878, arranged for both accounts after boarding
the Carfathia at Quarantine. From others among the rescued, Lee also
gathered material for a story of his own and produced what was called
the best detailed narrative of the disaster.
The sinking of the Titank proved the wisdom of the Board of
Directors in immediately authorizing what it termed "Extraordinary
Occasion Service," which was designated EOS for short. Prior to this
time a member paper had not been permitted to publish after its
regular morning or afternoon hours of publication, no matter how
important the news might be. The board realized there were times
when the character of the news was so momentous that, as a public
230 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
service, all papers should be free to publish it immediately, whether
it broke within their hours of publication or not. Thereafter all
dispatches of extraordinary importance were designated EOS and that
slug told editors that they could publish the news immediately if they
desired.
Soon the board took another step in its program of readjusting
operation methods to the advanced requirements of news gathering.
Recognizing that the organization had become too complex to be admin-
istered by one man, it decided to provide the general manager with
executive assistance. The administration was divided into three branches:
News, Finance, and Traffic. The men picked to head these departments
were to direct all activities in their respective spheres, reporting directly
to the general manager. Treasurer Youatt was assigned to head the
Finance Department, Cooper was the choice for Traffic, and a newly
created post of chief of the News Department went to Charles E.
Kloeber, who had won his spurs in the Boxer Rebellion.
At the same time the board remedied another managerial weakness
by appointing Frederick Roy Martin, editor of the Providence Journal,
to be assistant general manager, an office vacant since DiehPs resigna-
tion a short time before. They were grooming him to succeed Stone.
Martin had been one of the five members of the Villard investigating
committee and in 1912 the membership had elected him to the Board
of Directors. He resigned that position to take up his new duties on
September i.
With organizational and financial troubles largely corrected, the
co-operative was amply prepared to cover the famous three-cornered
presidential election of 1912 in which Woodrow Wilson was victorious
over William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt's insurgent Bull
Moose party. Then the news report went on to other things — the rati-
fication of the Income Tax Amendment to the Constitution, another
revolution in Mexico, suffragette agitation, floods in Ohio and Indiana,
the death of J. Pierpont Morgan, the landing of American bluejackets
at Veracruz.
The return to a balanced budget made possible another innovation.
The report of the Special Survey Committee back in 1908 had taken
cognizance of the need for greater concentration on sports news. In the
past these stories had been handled by the regular news staff and, while
coverage had been fair, it was not in keeping with the rapidly increasing
HEADLINE YEARS 231
public appetite for detailed sports information. The Sports Page had
made its appearance before the turn of the century and the volume of
such news expanded with the heightened interest in Major League
baseball, horse racing, and prize fighting. The growth of the educational
system, the fact that the average citizen had more leisure, the improved
standards of living, all contributed.
The game of baseball had been invented back in 1839 and had
established itself so firmly that "Casey at The Bat" was a favored
recitation well before news gathering itself came of age. Horse racing
attracted as well, prize fighting was still illegal in some states, though
gaining in popularity, and generally each nationality had brought with
it the games of its own homeland during the great surges of immigra-
tion. The growth of professional sports and the steady rise of amateur
and collegiate activities were assured.
Owing to financial stringencies, the co-operative had been unable
to enlarge its routine sports coverage to any noticeable extent at the
time the Special Survey Committee made its report. But now the time
had come when something could be done. A general sports editor was
appointed to co-ordinate and expand the service. The man selected for
the job was Edward B. Moss, who had been sports editor of the New
York Sun for the past eight years.
Moss set about establishing a small staff to assist him and the leased
wires began carrying more sports detail — stories on all major events,
expanded boxes, summaries of results, and the like.
From the outset, this quick and detailed coverage attracted atten-
tion, in such interesting contrast to what had gone before. Until the
telegraph and other communications methods had been so highly
developed, the physical difficulties of speedy coverage had been great
because, by their very nature, so many of the events were held in
places where immediate wire facilities were not always available. But
there still were a few employes who could remember one classic
example of ingenious earlier sports reporting in spite of communications
handicaps. It had occurred on July 8, 1889, when prize fighting was
illegal in most states. It was the last bare-knuckle championship bout
under London prize ring rules and it was between John L. Sullivan
and Jake Kilrain. It went seventy-five rounds, lasted two hours and
sixteen minutes, and was held in the woods near the little town of
Richburg, Mississippi, in an attempt to avoid legal complications.
The nearest telegraph office was in New Orleans, a hundred miles
232 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
away, and the problem of relaying the result was accentuated by the
great public interest in the contest.
Because it was primarily a mechanical problem, Addison Thomas,
wire chief of the Western Associated Press Chicago office, was assigned
to direct the coverage.
By the time the eagerly awaited day arrived Thomas had made his
plans. With the co-operation of The Associated Press papers in New
Orleans, he had arranged for a chartered railroad engine and two cars
to race the result back to New Orleans ahead of the special fight trains
on which spectators flocked to Richburg. It was a train reserved for
the exclusive use of Thomas and the representatives of the interested
New Orleans papers and it stood with steam up and ready to go on a
siding a short distance from the ringside.
But that was not the only preparation needed. Thomas and his
associates knew that the excited, shoving spectators would jam the
ringside for the long, knuckle-battering contest, perhaps making it
impossible for anyone to get away quickly with details to the waiting
train. And it was necessary to put the news on the train the moment
the fight was over so that the special could get under way ahead of the
returning passenger trains.
They met that situation by obtaining hollow balls which were con-
structed so that they could be opened in halves and then screwed back
together. Then, as a quick report was written at the conclusion of each
round, they put the copy inside the balls, screwed the halves together
and threw the balls over the heads of the spectators to an assistant who
caught them on the outside fringe of the crowd. The assistant then could
rush them to the train at the conclusion of the bout and the special
would be off in a hurry to the waiting telegraph at New Orleans.
The plan operated like clockwork. The loaded balls were tossed
over the crowd and at the end of the battle the assistant rushed to the
train which quickly got under way.
The plan, however, had overlooked one detail. There were opposi-
tion news men present and in some manner they got through the
crowds quickly. Before the train had raced many miles they were dis-
covered concealed in one of the two cars of the speeding special. That
called for some more quick action.
The Associated Press man hurried up to the engine, cut the two
cars loose and left the opposition stranded on the tracks. Then the
engine ran full speed the hundred miles to New Orleans.
That had been an exciting and ingenious stunt, but by 1913 tele-
HEADLINE YEARS 233
graph lines could be strung direct to the scene of almost any sports
event, irrespective of locale, and the reports written by the new general
sports editor and his small staff could go speeding direct to newspaper
offices.
This step in widespread coverage of still another phase of news
had not been under way long before there came other developments
in news transmission methods.
The tide of news by telegraph had continued with the years. Facili-
ties had been improved, the Morse clicked into virtually every town in
the country, but the old method was the same. Day in and day out,
sending operators took dispatches, translated them into the dash-dot of
code, and the telegraph keys sent the signals on the circuits at a rate of
twenty-five to thirty-five words a minute. In member newspaper offices
along the line the Morse sounders clack-clacked busily and receiving
operators translated the code symbols back into words, copying the
stories in jerky spurts. The news of more than half a century had been
handled that way.
For some time, however, Charles L. Krum, a Chicago cold-storage
engineer, and his son Howard had been working to perfect an automatic
machine which would send the printed word by wire at greater speed
without the intermediary of code. They called their invention the Mor-
krum Telegraph Printer — coining the word Morkrum by combining
the inventor's name with the first syllable in the last name of Joy
Morton, a Chicago businessman who financed them.
Several other automatic telegraphic devices were being promoted,
but Cooper and engineers in the Traffic Department decided Krum's
machine held the most promise for their purposes. Tests got under way.
In the Associated Press headquarters, which had been moved seven
blocks from the old Western Union building to 51 Chambers Street,
a sending operator sat at a keyboard similar to that of an ordinary type-
writer. As he struck the keys, copying the dispatches before him, the
machine perforated a paper tape with a series of holes, each combina-
tion representing a letter. The tape fed into a boxlike transmitter which
transformed the tape perforations into electrical impulses and sent them
along the wires into the receiving machines in newspaper offices. These
impulses actuated telegraph relays and set the receiving Morkrum ma-
chines automatically reproducing the letters which the sending operators
were typing miles away.
234 AP — THE, STORY OF NEWS
The tests demonstrated that the Morkrum could transmit news
hour after hour at the rate of sixty words a minute and the copy was
delivered clean and uniform. Thus began the slow extension of Mor-
krum transmission to the whole leased wire system, replacing the "brass
pounding" Morse keys. It was a transition that required years and until
it was completed both Morse and Morkrum worked side by side in
many places.
5
There were faint rumblings of unrest abroad, but in 1913 it was an
incident concerning a simple matter of office routine in one of the asso-
ciation's European bureaus that set the year apart for the staff itself
and produced a chuckle wherever the story was told.
The story began staidly enough with an action by the Board of
Directors requiring the bonding of all chiefs of foreign bureaus who
handled funds. Treasurer Youatt diligently mailed out the bonding
forms which specified that each bureau chief applying for a bond give
two character references well known in America.
Like many other men abroad, Cortesi in Rome seriously wrote
his answers to the endless questions. When he reached the place where
the character references were to be named, however, a mischievous spirit
seized him.
Cortesi mailed the application back to Youatt and forgot it. Sev-
eral weeks later he had an audience with Pope Pius X and in the midst
of their conversation, the Pontiff exclaimed:
"By the way, I have received a letter from an American surety
company asking for information about you. Why should they apply
to me?"
Bewildered for a moment, Cortesi sheepishly remembered the
bonding application and confessed he had tried to play a joke on the
treasurer of The Associated Press. He had filled out the reference
blank as follows:
NAME OCCUPATION ADDRESS
GIUSEPPE SARTO POPE VATICAN PALACE,
ROME (ITALY)
VICTOR EMMANUEL OP SAVOY KING QUIRINAL PALACE,
ROME (ITALY)
Pius assured Cortesi that he would give him a good character.
That was in 1913 and the spring of 1914 ran on into a summer that
shook the world.
HEADLINE YEARS 235
6
The chief of the Vienna Bureau, Robert Atter, cabled:
SARAJEVO, BOSNIA, JUNE 28 - ARCHDUKE
• FRANCIS FERDINAND, HEIR TO THE AUSTRO- HUNGARIAN
THRONE, AND THE DUCHESS OF HOHENBERG, HIS
MORGANATIC WIFE, WERE SHOT DEAD TODAY BY A
STUDENT IN THE MAIN STREET OF THE BOSNIAN
CAPITAL, A SHORT TIME AFTER THEY HAD ESCAPED
DEATH FROM A BOMB HURLED AT THE ROYAL AUTO-
MOBILES .
IT WAS ON THE RETURN TRIP OF THE PROCESSION
THAT THE TRAGEDY WAS ADDED TO THE LONG LIST OF
THOSE WHICH HAVE DARKENED THE PAGES OF THE
RECENT HISTORY OF THE HAPSBURGS.
AS THE ROYAL AUTOMOBILE REACHED A PROM-
INENT POINT IN THE ROUTE TO THE PALACE, AN
EIGHTH GRADE STUDENT, GARIO PRINZIP, SPRANG
FROM THE CROWD AND POURED A DEADLY FUSILLADE
OF BULLETS FROM AN AUTOMATIC PISTOL AT THE
ARCHDUKE AND PRINCESS. . . .
"Another mess in the Balkans," readers commented. But that dis-
patch became the lead to a story that beggared anything that had hap-
pened before. It saw 65,000,000 soldiers mobilized on battlefields over
the world and before the war ended there were 9,000,000 dead and
22,000,000 wounded in armed forces alone. The casualty list of non-
combatants was as large, if not larger, and the cost was $337,000,000,000.
It was a story that covered both hemispheres and took four years
to unfold.
The cables hummed with the ominous overture. Bureau chiefs,
staffs and correspondents throughout the Continent worked during the
days of tension — Robert Collins, the chief at London j Atter, at Vienna;
Roger Lewis, in charge at St. Petersburg ; Seymour B. Conger, at Ber-
lin 5 Elmer Roberts, at Paris j Ed Traus, at Brussels j Cortesi at Rome,
and the men assigned with them. At first the story was of Austria's
diplomatic moves against Serbia. Inexorably it expanded.
Then came the last week of July and the bulletins flew:
Austria's ultimatum to Serbia . , . Russia Warns Austria . . .
Germany Backs Austria . . . Austria Declares War on Serbia . . .
Russia Mobilizes . . . Germany Begins Invasion of France . . . Ger-
many Demands Free Passage of Troops Through Belgium . . . Great
Britain Protests Violation of Belgian Neutrality . . . Britain Declares
War . . .
AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Armageddon had begun.
As the crisis mounted, The Associated Press rushed some of its
best men abroad to reinforce the European staff. George A. Schreiner,
who had been covering a revolution in Mexico, was sent to Belgium.
Walter C. Whiffen, another of the staff reporting the Mexican troubles,
went to St. Petersburg. Robert Berry, day cable editor at New York,
took the first boat for France. Charles Stephenson Smith, of the Wash-
ington staff, and four others were ordered to London. Assistant Gen-
eral Manager Martin hurriedly embarked for Europe, carrying $20,000
in gold in a leather hatbox to tide foreign bureaus over the financial
stringency which accompanied the outbreak of war.
Endless gray German columns swept through Belgium and with
them went Conger of Berlin. Covering the hopeless efforts of the Bel-
gians to halt the juggernaut were Schreiner and Hendrik Willem Van
Loon, who entered the foreign service in 1906. The stories Schreiner
and Van Loon wrote on the destitution and suffering of invaded Bel-
gium were generally credited with providing much of the initial
stimulus for the relief funds raised in the United States.
Without official sanction Smith reached Belgium after the British
Expeditionary Force — the "contemptible hundred thousand" — and Rob-
erts and Berry followed the French. On the eastern front Whiffen
arrived in time to join the Russians for their early battles, while Atter,
his colleague from Vienna, reported the same fighting from the Austro-
Hungarian lines. On the other side of the world A. M. Bruce used
carrier pigeons, native runners, and the wireless to report the Japanese
siege of the German fortress of Tsingtao.
America read of Liege, Namur, Mons, Louvain, Rheims, Lemberg,
Tannenberg, in lightning succession. Editors and readers alike followed
the seemingly irresistible German advance which swept almost to the
gates of Paris before it was rolled back in the First Battle of the Marne
and the western front settled down to the long months of trench
warfare.
X. COVERING THE FIRST ARMAGEDDON
THE immensity of the war assignment and all its attendant difficulties
became increasingly clear. The old barriers of censorship returned, more
stringent, more unreasoning than ever. Communications were a gamble,
what with warring governments pre-empting telephone, telegraph, cable,
and wireless facilities for official and military use. Propaganda mills
ground out their atrocity stories. Ministries issued communiques which
could not be confirmed. Except on favorable occasions, none of the
belligerents welcomed factual, objective, and unbiased reporting. In a
conflict that was waged with publicity as well as powder, the integrity
of the news report was a prime consideration. The old adage has it that
"Truth is the first casualty in any war," and the management labored
to find the truth.
The Associated Press obviously could not assume responsibility for
the correctness of government statements in formal communiques and
documents. It could and did vouch for the fact that such releases were
issued and what official was authority for them. In all practical circum-
stances, effort was made to have staff men either obtain facts at first
hand or confirm them personally.
The war staff had no easy time of it. Fortunately only one of the
staff was wounded during the opening months, but even outside the
battle zone correspondents were subject to repeated harassment and
trouble. One of the London staff was arrested as a spy while covering
the hit-and-run bombardment of English Channel towns by German
cruisers. That he could read and write German was considered con-
clusive proof of espionage until higher authorities stepped in. Others
were "detained" on different occasions by civil or military authorities.
The German occupation of Belgium forced Schreiner and Van Loon out
of the country into Holland, where they set up a special bureau to
handle the exchange of news between the occupied areas, Germany,
London, and New York. Schreiner later was accredited to the Austro-
Hungarian armies in Galicia and returned to active duty in the war zone.
Ill-health forced Van Loon to resign in 1915.
The belligerents were mindful of the authority which firsthand
237
238 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
stories by Associated Press staff correspondents carried. When both
French and German High Commands claimed possession of Hartmans-
Weilerkopf, an important strategic position in Alsace, Chief of Bureau
Roberts went to the sector and reported what he saw. The French War
Office, realizing the value of this impartial testimony, issued a com-
munique, saying: "The correspondent of The Associated Press visited
today the summit of Hartmans-Weilerkopf, which the enemy has not
attacked for the last two days." There were similar cases in both Eng-
land and Germany. When reports circulated that each of those powers
had lost well-known battleships during North Sea naval operations,
Admiralty officials in London and Berlin invited staff men to visit the
vessels in question and report.
Abruptly in the spring of 1915 the conflict abroad ceased to be
remote for Americans. Until 2:08 P.M. on May 7, the national sentiment
was "Keep out of it." Then came the Lusitania.
The actual beginning of that story antedated May 7. Six days
earlier, copy boys in New York headquarters distributed the first edi-
tions of the morning papers. Editors checked their pages for any local
news that might not have been included in the report. The attention of
several was arrested, not by anything in the regular columns, but by
two advertisements on the ship news pages. The first was a single-column
display announcing that the Cunarder Lusitania, "Fastest and Largest
Steamer now in Atlantic Service, Sails Saturday, May i, 10 A.M."
Directly below was another advertisement, with the one-word heading:
"Notice!" It was so unusual that a story was prepared, telling how
the announcement of the Lusitania's sailing that day had been accom-
panied by an extraordinary warning. The story concluded with its text:
Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded
that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain
and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the
British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial
German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or of any of
her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing
in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
(Signed) Imperial German Embassy
Washington, D. C.
Although Germany had announced in February her intention of
waging submarine warfare on allied shipping, the May i "Notice!"
COVERING THE FIRST ARMAGEDDON 239
went unheeded. General Manager Stone paid as little attention to it
as anyone else. His son Herbert was sailing and Stone with his family
went down to the pier.
On Friday, May 7, off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, the
unthinkable happened. At 2:08 P.M. Unterseeboot 20, commanded by
Leutenant-Kapitan Schwieger, sent a torpedo into the Lusitanta's star-
board side just aft of the bridge. She went to the bottom in twenty
minutes. Of the 1,924 persons aboard, 1,198 were lost, among them
114 Americans.
James Ryan, resident correspondent at Queenstown, flashed the
first news to London and then, with W. A. Herlihy, the Cork cor-
respondent, went to work on the story. Additional staff men were started
for Ireland. In spite of the magnitude of the news, the censors in
Whitehall held up the first bulletin fifty-two minutes.
When the bulletin did reach New York, Stone was at lunch with
a friend. He hurried to the office. Late that night he knew that his son
was lost.
Within a few hours after the torpedoing, the London Bureau,
co-ordinating point for the coverage, found the demands of the occasion
far transcended the limits of news requirements. Countless inquiries
rushed in by telephone and cable from relatives and friends of those
aboard the Cunarder. In order that there might be as little confusion
as possible, a card index was started, listing both survivors and recovered
bodies as they were reported. For days personal inquiries and requests
kept coming in from America, asking the bureau to confirm identifica-
tions, to verify reports of the lost, to take charge of the effects of the
drowned and even to make arrangements for the burial of recovered
bodies.
The destruction of the Lusitania and the diplomatic notes between
the United States and Germany that followed put Washington cover-
age on something like a wartime footing. The policy of the White
House assumed tremendous importance and the State, Navy, War and
Treasury departments became more vital news sources than ever. Neu-
trality, contraband, diplomatic representations, emergency legislation,
the need for protection of American shipping — subjects such as these
took a place in the Washington report.
Among the first major repercussions of the Lusitania affair in
Washington was the resignation of William Jennings Bryan as secretary
240 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
of state because of his disagreement with President Wilson's firm
attitude toward Germany. Hood, dean of the capital staff, learned on
June 8 that Bryan had resigned, but the information was given him
in confidence and he could not use it.
Hood walked into a pressroom set aside for the association in the
War Department building.
"Boys," he said, "there is a big story here that you have got to get.
I know what it is but I cannot say a word more than that it is BIG. The
AP has got to break it. You have to get it. Use your heads and your
legs."
David Lawrence, Stephen Early, Kirke Simpson, and the two
other staff men he was talking to had never seen Hood so excited.
There was a dash for the door, each man mentally reviewing the con-
tacts that might give him some clew.
Hood let all except Simpson go. "This is not on your War De-
partment run, Kirke," he explained. "I have got to tell somebody. I
can't hold it. Bryan just sent for me to tell me in strict confidence that
he had resigned because of the Lusitania note. President Wilson has
accepted, but Bryan says announcement or even a hint must await
White House pleasure. I don't know why he told me, but he did."
"What can I do now?" Simpson asked. "I can't even tap any
Cabinet sources because you've tied me up."
"I know," Hood replied, "but you and I are going now to enjoy a
rare treat. We are going to stroll about and watch the AP staff work
like hunting dogs. They'll get it before night and we'll watch them
do it."
Hood and Simpson walked the corridors, watching fellow staffers
hurry from office to office. Other correspondents, sensing the suppressed
excitement, joined in the blind chase.
Lawrence paused to reason the thing out.
First, he thought of the possibility of a rupture of diplomatic rela-
tions between the United States and Germany. He dismissed that be-
cause the German note on the Lusitania had not yet been answered
by thp State Department. It must be something else. What else? Then
it occurred to him that it might be a story involving Secretary of State
Bryan because there had been friction between Bryan and Wilson.
Lawrence played the hunch. He sought out Secretary of War Garrison.
"What do you think about Bryan's resignation?" he asked.
Disarmed by the blandness of the question, Garrison told him the
story. Lawrence hustled off to the White House, confirmed the Presi-
COVERING THE FIRST ARMAGEDDON 241
dent's acceptance of the resignation, and most important, obtained
permission to release the news. At 5:26 that afternoon the leased wire
network flashed Bryan's resignation.
When Germany answered the Lusitania note which caused Bryan's
resignation, Conger at Berlin transmitted the complete text of the reply
to the United States in time for member newspapers to publish it almost
forty-eight hours before it was officially delivered to the State Depart-
ment. Conger's reportorial activities had been hampered during 1915
by the new restrictions German authorities enjoined on foreign cor-
respondents. Newspapermen were barred from the fronts except on
officially supervised visits. A summary of war news, giving the High
Command's version, was issued three times weekly by the General Staff
office in Berlin, and correspondents were held personally responsible
not only for the dispatches they wrote, but also for headlines and pic-
tures which might accompany those dispatches when they were printed
in America. Berlin officials had been irked by headlines and pictures
unfavorable to Germany's cause, and they would make no exception for
Conger even though the use of headlines and pictures in member news-
papers was, of course, beyond his control.
On the whole, the news during 1915 seemed to favor the Central
Powers. On the western front a year of costly French, British, and Bel-
gian attacks had failed to weaken the German positions. In the east
the ponderous Russian Army had been flung back almost to Riga. The
belated Allied thrust at Gallipoli produced nothing but a casualty list
exceeding 100,000. Bulgaria had cast her lot with Germany, Austria-
Hungary, and Turkey. The Allied nations in the Balkans were overrun.
Italy had entered the war, but her first blows against Austria had been
repulsed with the loss of a quarter of a million men.
The staff suffered its second casualty when Whiffen was wounded
on the Russian front, which he was covering with D. B. McGowan.
Cortesi got his baptism of fire with General Cadorna in th&Alps.
Schreiher reported successes of the Central Powers at the Dardanelles
and in the Balkans, while Paxton Hibben served with the Allied
armies that were thrust back into Greece. Thereon J. Damon, the Con-
stantinople correspondent, wrote the story of the Gallipoli campaign
and Turkish operations in Mesopotamia. Conger and S. M. Bouton, of
the Berlin staff, and men from the London and Paris bureaus cabled
242 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
accounts of the costly French and British offensives in France and
Flanders, where poison gas was used for the first time in modern
warfare.
If 1915 had been an epochal year, 1916 outdid its sensations.
Abroad there was no slackening in the furious pace and at home the
tempo accelerated under the triple pressure of strained relations with
Germany, an expeditionary force in Mexico, and the approach of a
critical presidential campaign. Editors lived in an avalanche of Flashes
and EOS bulletins.
Verdun — the Somme — Irish Rebellion — Jutland — Trentino —
Russian Successes in Galicia — Arabia — Pancho Villa — U-boat Deutsch-
land in Baltimore — Black Tom Explosion — Washington Warns Kaiser
on Submarines.
Jutland was the first great naval battle the association had been
called upon to report since Togo blew the Russian fleet out of the water
at Tsushima in 1905. The first bulletins, giving the German version
of the sea fight off Denmark, came from Berlin by wireless. British
accounts arrived later by cable from London, and member papers all
over the country scored on "Der Tag" — the day the British Grand
Fleet and the German High Sea Fleet should meet in a fight to deter-
mine maritime supremacy.
Der Tag, however, proved indecisive j the German fleet inflicted
heavier losses, but Britain retained command of the sea. Controversy
burst forth immediately and the staffs in Berlin and London set to work
to clarify the conflicting claims as far as censorship would permit.
For the first time since the war started, Captain Hall, of the Naval
Intelligence Bureau in London, permitted the association to quote him
in a statement saying that neither the dreadnought Warspte nor the
Marlborough had been sunk as the enemy claimed. Then followed an
authoritative interview with Winston Churchill, former first lord of
the admiralty, and a naval expert's description of the battle written
from Admiralty reports. Most London papers reprinted these exclusive
features, crediting them to The Associated Press. The staff in Berlin
exhibited similar enterprise. When the German Admiralty refused to
withdraw its claim that the Warspte had been sunk at Jutland The
Associated Press sent a correspondent to see the Warspte and inter-
view her captain who declared, a bit superfluously: "I am still com-
mander of the largest warship in the world."
Another of the top-ranking stories that spring was the Irish Rebel-
lion—"Bloody Easter Week" in Dublin. DeWitt Mackenzie arrived
COVERING THE FIRST ARMAGEDDON 243
in Dublin while the Irish Republican forces still held the Post Office
and Four Courts buildings against the artillery, machine guns, and rifles
of the British military.
Mackenzie drove into the city after nightfall and the assignment
came near costing him his life. Under rigid martial law all civilians
were forbidden on the streets after six o'clock and troops were ordered
to shoot violators on sight. The British patrol Mackenzie encountered
luckily disobeyed instructions and fired over his head. No sooner
had the auto stopped, however, than an officer rushed up, cursing the
men because Mackenzie and the chauffeur had not been shot.
Hands high in the air and a bayonet against his stomach, Mackenzie
tried to convince the officer he was a newspaper correspondent. But the
officer thought otherwise. He had already decided that his prisoner was
a Sinn Feiner with fraudulent credentials, and he ordered him taken
to the barracks. There the rifles of firing squads were cracking as rebels
were led out to the barracks wall.
Mackenzie was doing the most persuasive talking of his life. His
insistence that he was an American at first did not impress his judges, for
some Americans were taking active part in the rising. However, there
was the chance of international complications if a wrong man were
executed, and the reluctant military finally released him and his
chauffeur. Mackenzie's freedom was short-lived. The next day police
interned him for the duration of his stay in Ireland and at the end of
the adventure he learned with a shock that he actually had carried a
death warrant with him that night in Dublin. His taciturn chauffeur,
who had let him do all the talking, was a rabid Sinn Feiner.
On the Continent the war wallowed on through another year.
Frederick Palmer, the only American correspondent with the British
Army on the western front, wrote such graphic dispatches on the great
Somme offensive and the debut of "tanks" that The Associated Press
set a precedent by having them copyrighted. With the exception of
Palmer's copyrighted stories, it was optional with a member paper
whether any dispatch be printed with credit.
News from the fronts, however, had no unchallenged monopoly of
front pages. The slaughter at Verdun dropped to secondary importance
when Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionist, crossed the border in
a night raid and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico.
244 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
George L. Seese, of the Los Angeles Bureau, was in Columbus
when the bandits struck. For several years Mexican disorders had caused
the loss of American lives and property and had necessitated the special
assignment of staff men in the turbulent areas. When the situation
south of the Rio Grande again assumed threatening aspects, Seese was
ordered to El Paso in case Villa's activities immediately across the
border in Chihuahua became of major significance.
Having seen duty in Mexico in 1911, he knew how to keep in-
formed on Villa's movement. Two days before the raid he received
information that the bandit leader's forces were in closer proximity
to the border than usual. He promptly moved to Columbus, on the
border near the camp of the Thirteenth U.S. Cavalry. Once there,
he sent for Edwin L. Van Camp, the leased wire operator at El Paso,
to join him in anticipation of a story.
In the early morning hours of March 10 the two men were routed
from their sleep by the crash of shots as Villa's raiders descended on
the town and the adjacent cavalry encampment. Seese assisted some
women and children to safety and sent Van Camp through bullet-
swept streets to the local telegraph office while he went out to get the
news. When the day leased wires opened Seese and Van Camp had a
complete story ready, giving an eyewitness account of Villa's foray, the
list of killed and injured, and details of the cavalry pursuit of the
raiders into Mexico.
Seese's presence at Columbus for the raid proved too much of a
coincidence for army officers on duty along the border. Department of
Justice agents tried unsuccessfully to learn if he had had advance
knowledge, but he never would tell them how it happened that he was
on the exact spot and waiting for the Villa story to break.
On April 1 8 Morkrum printers and telegraph instruments spelled
out the bulletin that the United States had threatened to sever diplo-
matic relations with Berlin unless Germany abandoned her policy of
unrestricted submarine warfare on merchant shipping.
There was an apprehensive wait of two weeks. Then the Berlin
Bureau advised that a reply was in preparation and news circuits all
over the United States were held fully manned to handle the story
when it arrived. The first "take" began moving shortly after 7 A.M. on
May 5. It announced that Germany would comply with President
Wilson's demands and cease sinking ships without warning. In keeping
with the practice it had inaugurated, The Associated Press brought in
COVERING THE FIRST ARMAGEDDON 245
by wireless the complete text of the 3,ooo-word note, which temporarily
forestalled termination of diplomatic relations.
June added the presidential campaign to the heavy roster of con-
tinuing stories to be covered for 908 member papers. At St. Louis the
Democrats renominated Woodrow Wilson with the slogan: "He kept
us out of war." Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes was
picked by the Republicans and the country plunged into the closest na-
tional contest of modern times.
As the campaign got under way, the name of an old news-gathering
pioneer was restored to its place on Associated Press rolls. The New
York Suny one of the six founders of the original organization, returned
to the co-operative. For almost a quarter century, ever since the break
in 1893, the Sim had been conducting a proprietary news-gathering
agency of its own. When Dana died in October, 1897, Laffan assumed
complete command of the Laffan Bureau, as the service was called, and
carried on the undertaking until his own death in 1909. With diminished
vigor the agency survived for several years until Frank Munsey pur-
chased the Sun on June 30, 1916, and four days later brought it back
into Associated Press membership. The rancor and bitterness of the
feud started two decades before by other owners of the Sim was
forgotten, and the paper was welcomed back.
The return of the Sun was not the only memorable event that
month. The German merchant submarine Deutschland appeared un-
heralded at Baltimore with a cargo of dyes and chemicals. It was an
astonishing story and disquieting for those who hitherto had regarded
submarine warfare as something possible only in European waters. In
less than two weeks San Francisco flashed the Preparedness Day
Parade bombing and the name of Tom Mooney first appeared in the
report. Then the $22,000,000 munitions plant on Black Tom Island,
Jersey City, exploded.
After a summer of war news, political oratory, preparedness
speeches, bombings and explosions, readers turned with genuine relief
to the approach of the World Series. Debating the relative merits of
the Brooklyn Nationals and Carrigan's Boston Red Sox was one way
to escape talk of bloodshed and violence. Sports Editor Moss headed
the five-man staff assigned to report the series, but it was a Traffic
Department triumph which made coverage of the 1916 World's Cham-
pionship games a sensation in the newspaper world.
246 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Ordinarily the leased wire circuits were broken at strategic points
in order that the report might be readjusted for regional needs and
relay. Even when the play-by-play story of the World Series took
precedence over all other news, this transmission method had been
followed. As preparations began for the 1916 edition of the baseball
classic, Cooper conceived the ambitious idea of delivering the play-by-
play story direct from the baseball park to every point on the main
leased wire system without any intervening relay or delay.
Nothing of the kind had ever been attempted before in either
news or commercial transmission. Cooper's Traffic Department, however,
set out to make telegraphic history by arranging for an unprecedented
single circuit, 26,000 miles in length, to operate from the ball parks in
Boston and Brooklyn into the office of every leased wire member news-
paper. The plan worked flawlessly. When John A. Bates, the chief
operator assigned to the World Series staff, tapped out the play-by-play
story dictated by Moss, operators in member offices across the country
received the Morse code signals simultaneously.
Members were impressed by the feat, but one of the greatest ex-
pressions of praise came from an inventor:
KENT COOPER
TRAFFIC AGT AP NY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MUST BE WONDERFULLY
WELL ORGANIZED TO BE ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT
WAS DONE IN THE BALL GAMES. UNCLE SAM HAS NOW
A REAL ARTERIAL SYSTEM AND IT IS NEVER GOING TO
HARDEN
EDISON
The World Series opened in Boston on a Saturday and hundreds
of operators began copying the play-by-play account. The first inning
and a half had been played and Bates in the press box at Braves Field
was sending evenly:
BOSTON, OCT. 7 - SECOND INNING, SECOND
HALF: LEWIS UP. BALL ONE. FOUL. STRIKE ONE.
BALL TWO. BALL THREE. LEWIS WALKED. GARDNER
UP. GARDNER BUNTED SAFELY -
Just as Gardner bunted safely the smooth flow of signals was
interrupted. Then:
P-L-A-S-H
NEWPORT, R.I., OCT. 7 - A GERMAN SUB-
MARINE HAS ARRIVED HERE.
COVERING THE FIRST ARMAGEDDON 247
Frank M. Wheeler, string correspondent at Newport, had tried
vainly to reach the Boston Bureau by telephone with news that the
U-53, flying a German man-of-war ensign, had just put into Newport
harbor. In desperation he ordered the operator at the Newport Herald
to break in on the play-by-play with a flash and bulletin. This was no
Deutschland, such as had turned up at Baltimore, but a fighting sub-
marine. Wheeler was positive of his facts; he had confirmed them with
Rear-Admiral Austin M. Knight and the U.S. Engineers' office in
Newport.
Once he had crowded all the information he had onto the special
World Series wire, he put out in a motorboat to the U-boat's anchorage,
exhibited his credentials and was the first person permitted on board.
Leutenant-Kapitan Hans Rose, her commander, gave Wheeler the story
of the transatlantic trip, explained that he had entered the port "to pay
his respects," and asked the reporter to post a letter for him to the
German embassy at Washington. He said he planned to sail again in
a few hours.
It was not pure chance that gave the association immediate informa-
tion on the U-53's arrival. Conger at Berlin had confidentially advised
headquarters some weeks earlier that another transatlantic submarine
voyage was likely and correspondents along the coast had been in-
structed to watch.
Wheeler followed the U-53 well out to sea by motorboat and was
the only newspaperman to report the halting of the American freighter
Kansan off Nantucket Lightship. Although the Kansan was permitted to
proceed, the news served warning that Leutenant-Kapitan Rose had a
definite mission off New England. Day and night staffs, twenty men
in all, were mobilized. All shipping in the danger zone was charted
so accurately that the Boston staff figuratively watched the liner
Stephana, first of the U-boat's victims, steam toward her doom.
The submarine's torpedoes sent five ships in all to the bottom,
some of them within sight of American shores, but outside the three-mile
limit. Utilizing wireless stations, marine observers, ships at sea, the
British Atlantic squadron, American destroyers, shore correspondents
and staff men, Boston covered the U-53's daring raid with a 10,000-
word budget in the Sunday night report and 14,000 words on Monday.
Staff men went miles offshore in fast motorboats to meet rescue vessels
and get the stories of the survivors.
Editors called the U-53 the biggest story to develop this side of
the Atlantic in connection with the European war. It brought the terror
248 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
of submarine warfare into American waters, revived the public indigna-
tion that had smoldered since the sinking of the Lusitania and imposed
a further stress on the government's policy of neutrality.
In this uneasy atmosphere the nation looked ahead to the climax
of a presidential campaign in which the war had been a major issue.
XL "HE KEPT US OUT OF WAR"
ON THE New York Curb Exchange the odds were 10 to 7 that Charles
Evans Hughes would be the next president. The Republican National
Committee confidently claimed 358 of the country's 531 electoral votes.
Political soothsayers prophesied certain defeat for Wilson. The air was
full of partisan clamor through the final week of electioneering, and
even a second American trip of the submarine Deutschland failed to
displace politics as the top story of the day.
The zero hour was the closing of the polls on the night of Novem-
ber 7, and The Associated Press had been four years preparing for it.
The co-operative's new election service, devised and directed by Wilmer
Stuart of the New York office, faced its first real test on a national scale.
For months Stuart had traveled all over the country, setting up the
machinery by states and instructing bureau staffs on how the service was
to operate. It was painstaking and undramatic work, stressing accuracy
first and then speed in the collection and tabulation of the vote.
Until Stuart began his survey, election coverage had little uniform-
ity in plan or in method. The organization first undertook to report a
presidential election with some independence in 1888. Before that time
the management had relied unquestioningly on the returns collected by
commercial telegraph companies. The ugly charges provoked by the
famous Cleveland-Elaine contest in 1884 led The Associated Press to
cover the next national election, as far as possible, on its own resources.
The procedure was improvised and experimental, varying from state to
state and often changing between one election and another. All the
elections covered in this patchwork way were decided by comfortable
margins j only this kept attention from the inherent weakness in election
service operations.
State by state Stuart examined the existing machinery. In some
the association depended on returns compiled by county clerks or secre-
taries of state, and the vote totals, while accurate, were likely to be
extremely slow. In others, notably the Solid South and traditional
Republican territory, the reports of the dominant party were utilized,
249
250 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
the figures gathered by the minority party providing the basis for a
reasonable check of accuracy. Then there were a few states in which
member papers pooled resources to set up election services of their
own and the returns, as tabulated, were made available to the co-opera-
tive. Stuart also found that returns in any election were zealously com-
pared with the vote polled by the party in the same district in the
previous election to determine the gain or loss. This made for a cum-
bersome and confusing procedure, but politicians and editors generally
were firmly convinced that election returns without these comparative
figures were worthless.
After much study Stuart evolved a system, and in the 1904
Roosevelt election, using New York State as a guinea pig, he subjected
it to its first limited test. The county was made the basic unit of the
machine. A correspondent or member newspaper was instructed to
collect the returns directly from every precinct in the county by tele-
phone, telegraph, messenger, or other means. These were reported
cumulatively to a central bureau where a special force of accountants and
calculators added the votes to those being received from all the other
counties in the state. The voting results were thus obtained not only
swiftly, but also with remarkable accuracy. Stuart introduced the system
experimentally into several other large states for the 1908 and 1912
elections, and again it functioned with smooth and accurate efficiency,
justifying a thoroughgoing test on a major scale. The 1916 election
offered the first opportunity.
Long before the campaign ended Stuart had perfected the ma-
chinery for the service in almost thirty states, among them all those with
large electoral votes and those which surveys listed as doubtful.
The time-honored practice of carrying the comparative vote of the
preceding election was discarded — much to the horror of those who be-
lieved there was no way like the old way — and the association decided to
report the election on the principle that the votes spoke for themselves,
regardless of how rival parties had fared four years before.
On November 7 the election army swung into action. The East
came in rapidly. By 6:03 P.M. New York was definitely in Hughes's
column. Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania were going Republican also. New Hamp-
shire, too, had Hughes in the lead, but by a surprisingly small figure.
"HE KEPT Us OUT OF WAR" 251
The first scattering returns from the nearer Midwestern states began
to trickle in with Hughes ahead.
By eight o'clock two New York papers which had supported Wilson
conceded his defeat. Others followed suit. A number of wire services
flashed a Republican "victory" and bragged of being so many minutes
ahead of competitors in announcing the result. Presses spewed "extras"
that carried editorials on the Democratic downfall. Opposition cables
from abroad gave Europe's reaction to the Hughes "triumph." Wilson,
who had returned to New Jersey to vote, heard the reports with dejected
resignation. Theodore Roosevelt said: "It appears Mr. Hughes is
elected." In the suite on the eighth floor of the Hotel Astor, Mrs.
Hughes embraced her husband and exclaimed: "Mr. President!"
All the while 65,000 miles of Associated Press wires carried the
returns as fast as they were compiled. There were no flashes that the
election had been decided. No "overwhelming defeat" bulletins. Just
facts and figures as they materialized. State by state the report carried
the number of districts counted, the total number of districts involved,
and the vote. As Democratic chairmen and pro-Wilson newspapers in
state after state conceded, stories recorded only the facts.
The storm broke. Messages poured in from member papers, de-
manding an immediate story on the election's outcome. The Associated
Press was a laughingstock! Everybody was conceding a Republican
victory! One news agency after another had flashed the Hughes land-
slide! The Associated Press was pro- Wilson and too stubborn to admit
its man had been beaten! The sheaf of angry telegrams on the general
manager's desk grew larger and the telephone jangled insistently.
Stone talked with Stuart and together they studied the incomplete
electoral jigsaw. The East, of course, was clearly Republican, except
for New Hampshire where a nip-and-tuck fight was in progress. Wilson
led in Ohio and Minnesota, but the greater part of the midwest appeared
safe for Hughes. Even with such a commanding bloc of states assured,
however, the Republicans were still short of mathematical certainty.
Returns from Rocky Mountain and far western states were too meager
to be conclusive, and an abrupt change in the tide there could throw
everything into doubt.
Women were voting for the first time in many of those states and
they were an unknown political quantity. Furthermore, the Progressives
were strong in this area and their support could be decisive. A check
of available returns showed that Wilson had a nest egg of 157 electoral
votes, largely contributed by the Solid South.
252 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"The Associated Press will make no statement on the outcome of
the election until the result has been definitely decided," the general
manager said after his conference with Stuart ended.
In the early morning hours the picture began to change. Missouri
and Kansas plumped for Wilson. The tide was running strongly to him
in the Rocky Mountains and the Northwest. And California, which the
Republicans claimed by 40,000, had started to report.
California, 1,264 out °f 5)9J7 precincts: Wilson 60,734; Hughes
59,OOO . . , 1,557 precincts: Wilson 79,136; Hughes 78,849 . . „
1,784 precincts: Wilson 106,445; Hughes 107,846. . . .
By 3 A.M. Wednesday the vote, contrary to all expectations, was
running so unbelievably close in California, Minnesota, West Virginia,
and New Hampshire — states where clear-cut Republican victories had
been generally anticipated — that Stuart's faith in the accuracy of his
machine faltered momentarily. Urgent instructions were wired to the
staff to recanvass every district already counted and verify the totals.
The rechecks left the figure unchanged. Only in California did a
difference occur and it was a mere 20 votes.
The "landslide" ceased to be a landslide.
Toward dawn papers which had been on the street with headlines
blazoning Hughes's election issued new extras that the result was in
doubt. Editorials which had been written on the "new president" were
thrown out and noncommittal substitutes inserted. The enthusiasm of
"victory" celebrations gave way to misgivings and pay-offs on election
wagers halted abruptly.
All Wednesday the suspense and doubt continued. Wilson's original
lead of 10,000 in Minnesota melted away and Hughes crept out in
front by 803 votes. Hughes went ahead in New Mexico by 258, and
in West Virginia by 1,538. In California Wilson's advantage varied
erratically. In the afternoon it climbed from 1,538 to 2,945, then
to 4,694, and then slumped back to 1,490. By 2:30 A.M Thursday, with
5,347 out of 5,917 precincts reporting, the count stood: Wilson 439,896;
Hughes 438,486. Another lead from San Francisco stressed that most
of the returns were from an area where the Democrats could hope
for the greatest support. Very little had been heard from southern
California or from the northern section of the state. A bloc of more
than a hundred precincts in Los Angeles, where Republicans hoped for
gains, had been locked up for a second night.
KEPT Us OUT OF WAR" 253
The staff in New York labored on into Thursday, poring over the
latest batches of returns. Wilson started the day in California with a lead
of more than 3,000 votes, but before noon additional returns from Los
Angeles and from Alameda County whittled it down to 500. Hughes
pushed farther in front in Minnesota and New Hampshire flopped back
into his column. Wilson was ahead in North Dakota and, by the nar-
rowest of margins, in New Mexico. It was obvious that, without Cali-
fornia, Wilson would lose.
In southern California men on horses and mules went out into the
isolated areas to get news of how the vote had gone. Where storms
had interrupted makeshift communications with back counties, cor-
respondents set out on foot to bring in the delayed tabulations.
With tension at the breaking point, the day wore on. New Hamp-
shire swung back to Wilson. Hughes edged out in front in New
Mexico, but then the substantial Democratic votes from the back settle-
ments arrived — by all manner of conveyances — and Wilson was never
again headed.
Before long the outstanding California districts began to come in,
at first slowly and then at a quicker pace. District after district from
southern California served only to strengthen Wilson's lead. By night-
fall the belated votes of northern California were being tabulated and
the bulletins flew along the leased wires to the offices of 911 member
newspapers. Northern California was sustaining Wilson's advantage.
More districts in. More counties complete. Figures for two-thirds of
the state were back-checked and found correct.
But still the election hung in the balance. There had been so many
lightning changes in the two days since the polls closed that anything
still might happen. The hours dragged by. More missing districts were
reported during the evening. In New York Stuart and Stone waited*
Nine o'clock. Ten o'clock. Eleven o'clock. Eleven-twenty . . .
"FLASH!"
The operator manning the main transcontinental wire yelled it
across the newsroom and began to copy the sudden fast burst of signals.
Men fell over chairs and wastebaskets to crowd around him as the type
bars of his machine flipped out the rapid words:
SAN FRANCISCO - WILSON CARRIES CALIFORNIA
AND IS RBELECTED.
254 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
On the heels of the Flash rode a bulletin giving the vote: Wilson,
465,194$ Hughes, 462,224. A few minutes later another bulletin —
Chester A. Rowell, Republican state chairman for California, reluctantly
conceded the state to Wilson "on the face of the returns as compiled by
The Associated Press."
The news was rushed to the special wire which had been strung
to the President's temporary residence in New Jersey and when Joseph
Tumulty, his secretary, read the first brief report he seized The Asso-
ciated Press operator and waltzed him around the room in a boisterous
whirl of jubilation. Wilson had left on the presidential yacht May-
flower to keep a speaking engagement in New England, so Tumulty
dispatched a wireless message.
Toward midnight, while Wilson's staff rejoiced at Long Branch, an
editor in New York picked up a telephone to break the news to the
man the nation had hailed as the next president only two days ago.
Someone in the Hughes suite at the Hotel Astor answered the call.
"The President-elect," he said officiously, "has retired for the night
and cannot be disturbed."
That was too much for the patience of the editor.
"Well," he replied, "when the President-elect wakes up in the
morning, tell him he isn't President-elect any more."
It was several days before every precinct in the country was
accounted for and the verdict of sixteen million voters confirmed. The
electoral vote was: Wilson, 2775 Hughes, 254. California represented
the difference between victory and defeat. Had Hughes carried the
state, he would have had one more electoral vote than the number
necessary for election. Political experts, trying to explain away their bad
guesses, blamed the loss of the state on Hughes's failure during the
campaign to make peace with Hiram Johnson, the Republican candidate
for the United States Senate in California, who carried the state by the
enormous majority of 296,815.
The 1916 election was a triumph for the efficiency of Stuart's
service. In several states the pluralities were only a few hundred votes
and the smallest percentage of error in tabulating the count would have
given a totally inaccurate result.
The machinery which had proved so efficient at a time when
others were busy "electing" the unsuccessful candidate was continued,
expanded, and refined for other national elections. It became the only
service of its kind in existence, the only one to operate on a nation-wide
scale, and the government at Washington placed so much confidence
f
"HE KEPT Us OUT OF WAR" 255
in it that it accepted The Associated Press returns as conclusive proof
of the election of one candidate or another weeks in advance of the
completion of the official count.
"He kept us out of war," had been Wilson's 1916 slogan but
within weeks after his re-election the war clouds became blacker than
ever. The campaign slogan had been phrased in the past tense.
XII. THE UNITED STATES AT WAR
Front pages carried staggering news on the morning of March i,
1917, and from that date events marched to the climax.
There had been some confidence as the new year began. Wilson
formally appealed to the belligerent powers "on behalf of humanity"
to cease the slaughter and agree to a lasting peace. That was on January
22. Nine days later the White House knew the futility of the proposal.
Tumulty brought the disillusioning information to the President's
private office. The Washington Bureau had just rushed a bulletin from
Berlin to the Executive Mansion. Tumulty laid the slip of paper on
Wilson's desk and watched him as he read it.
The President's face turned gray and when he looked up he said:
"This means war. The break that we have tried so hard to avoid now
seems inevitable."
The Berlin bulletin announced that Germany would begin abso-
lutely unrestricted warfare on all sea traffic to Europe within twenty-
four hours. When Ambassador von Bernstorff delivered the formal
note later in the day, Washington already knew its contents.
On February 3 Wilson went before Congress to announce severance
of diplomatic relations with Germany and a few minutes later von
Bernstorff was handed his passport. The big question everyone kept
asking was: "What next?"
The experts of the State Department decoding room got the first
astounding hint of the answer on February 24 and before the month
ended Hood of the Washington staff learned what the closely guarded
messages contained.
Secretary of State Lansing called the reporter at six o'clock the
night of February 28 and asked him to come to his house. Hood realized
that something was in the air, for Lansing pledged him to secrecy even
before their talk got beyond greetings. Then the secretary of state
proceeded to give Hood one of the most amazing stories of the
reporter's career — a story which, had it not been backed by documentary
proof, Hood certainly would have branded as outright propaganda
although it came from a high government source. Coming from Lan-
256
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 257
sing under the circumstances it still may have been propaganda, but it
also was authentic news of a most sensational nature.
The administration, Lansing explained, had obtained a copy of a
coded German communication from Dr. Arthur Zimmermann, the
Kaiser's foreign secretary, to Count von Bernstorff, ambassador at
Washington, for relay to von Echardt, the German Minister in Mexico
City. The message, the secretary said, was dated January 19 and stated
Germany's intention to resume unrestricted submarine warfare twelve
days later, regardless of Wilson's peace moves then being discussed.
But all that was merely incidental. Zimmermann's coded note
directed von Echardt to propose to Mexico secretly that she ally herself
with Germany and make war on the United States if the nation failed
to remain neutral. Germany would supply financial support and Mex-
ico's reward would be the states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona,
the territory she lost back in the dim, forgotten days when James Gor-
don Bennett and David Hale were co-operating on the pony express
shortly before the formation of The Associated Press in 1848. The final
point in the plan was that Japan should be persuaded to forsake the
Allies and join in the attack on the United States.
Lansing produced proof that the information had been in the
hands of the administration for four days and that its authenticity had
been established beyond question. How the cipher message was obtained
and decoded was something that could not be divulged at the time, but
the secretary in the strongest possible language pledged his word that
it was genuine.
Lansing thereupon told Hood he could have the story, but that
its source could not be disclosed. No administration official could be
quoted and the origin of the news must be vigorously protected at all
costs. Lastly, it even might be necessary for the State Department
to deny knowledge of the document after the story had been published.
An official release had been considered, but Lansing had advised against
such a course because it might appear that the government was using
the news to bring pressure on recalcitrant members of Congress, then
fighting the administration bill for arming American merchant ships
against U-boat attacks.
Hood debated. For The Associated Press to carry such an explosive
story solely on its own authority was contrary to regulations. Never-
theless, this news was too big to wait on precedent.
"I think we can use it," he said.
Immediately upon leaving Lansing, Hood called Jackson S. Elliott,
258 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
his chief of bureau, and repeated the information he had obtained.
Elliott weighed the facts, reflected on the responsibility The Associated
Press would assume by carrying the story, and made his decision.
"Go ahead. I'll be right down," he said.
Hood promptly telephoned Lional C. Probert, news editor at the
bureau. Realizing his own regular assignment to the State Department
would prove a fatal clew if word leaked out that he had anything to
do with the preparation of the story, he requested Probert to take it
over. He told the news editor that Lansing had promised to have the
text of the intercepted note ready later in a sealed envelope.
It was a heavy news night, with a dying Congress grinding out
its final grist in a late session preparatory to adjournment and Wilson's
second inauguration. Probert looked around the room. Byron Price
was needed on the desk. The night editor, Horace Epes, already had
his hands full. David Lawrence was busy.
Probert saw young Stephen Early.
"You're to go to Secretary Lansing's home on Eighteenth Street,"
he instructed, "and bring back whatever Lansing gives you. Then you're
to forget you ever saw the secretary tonight. That's all. No questions."
Early got to the old red-brick house in record time. A servant
ushered him into a reception room and left him to catch his breath.
Presently Lansing came down the stairway. Reaching inside his long
dressing robe, he drew out a big, unmarked envelope.
Probert had the envelope the minute Early came back into the
office. Shirt-sleeved, an uptilted cigar clamped between his teeth, he
hustled Lawrence, Epes, and Price into an inner office and plumped
down before a typewriter. There were a few moments of discussion with
Elliott on the form and wording to be used in the opening paragraphs
of the story. Then Probert began typing in his one-finger newsroom
manner.
It had been decided not to start the dispatch on the wires until very
late that night so that other correspondents would be unable to check
government officials once the news was out. For that reason the need
for haste was not pressing. The facts were there and Probert went to
work on them. He made no effort to heighten the story by emphasis —
the material itself was too sensational. Hammering away at the keys,
he turned out a straightforward, factual story which marshaled every
fact that could be printed without exposing the source. As Probert's
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 259
typewriter rattled, Price prepared a detailed "Add" which reviewed
past difficulties with Mexico and the known facts on German activities
south of the Rio Grande.
Elliott went off in search of the secretary of state. He wanted to
talk to Lansing before the story was actually released, particularly in
view of Lansing's statement that he might have to deny the news after
it appeared. Elliott found the secretary at a diplomatic reception and
they retired to an anteroom.
"You feel, Mr. Secretary, that because of circumstances you may
have to deny all knowledge of this Zimmermann story?" the Bureau
chief asked.
Lansing nodded.
"Yet you agree for us to carry it?"
"Yes."
"Then we'll do it on one condition. You will be asked all sorts of
things about this story at your press conference tomorrow. I don't
care how you reply. The Associated Press man will ask you three ques-
tions. We will carry the story if you will answer those questions as I
request."
Lansing hesitated until he heard the questions, then agreed.
It was almost midnight when Probert walked into the newsroom
of the Washington Bureau with the wad of copy in his hand. He had
written more than two columns. A confidential note had just been sent
to all member papers notifying them that news of surpassing impor-
tance would be transmitted shortly. A clear wire and a ready telegrapher
were waiting.
Probert dropped the pages before the telegrapher:
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, D. C . , FEB . 28-THE ASSOCIATED
PRESS IS ENABLED TO REVEAL THAT GERMANY, IN
PLANNING UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE AND
COUNTING ITS CONSEQUENCES, PROPOSED AN ALLIANCE
WITH MEXICO AND JAPAN TO MAKE WAR ON THE UNITED
STATES, IP THIS COUNTRY SHOULD NOT REMAIN NEUTRAL.
JAPAN, THROUGH MEXICAN MEDIATION, WAS
TO BE URGED TO ABANDON HER ALLIES AND JOIN IN
THE ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES.
MEXICO, FOR HER REWARD, WAS TO RECEIVE
GENERAL FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM GERMANY, RECONQUER
TEXAS, NEW MEXICO AND ARIZONA-LOST PROVINCES-
AND SHARE IN THE VICTORIOUS PEACE TERMS
GERMANY CONTEMPLATED. . . .
260 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Paragraph after paragraph the story went out over the wires, and
with it the text of the document which is now known as the Zimmer-
mann Note. In scores of member offices editors read the dispatch. As un-
believable as the story was, they were even more astonished at the fact
that The Associated Press, on its own authority, was making such state-
ments. It was the first time member papers had been asked to take
momentous news on nothing more than the co-operative's word, but
they did have that word, for the story was accompanied by a confidential
note saying the facts had been thoroughly authenticated.
No sooner had the story appeared than telephone and telegraph
wires began to hum as commercial agencies and individual newspapers
flooded their Washington offices with insistent queries. Unable to con-
firm the news anywhere, other correspondents called the whole thing
a fraud.
The next morning a hundred newspapermen jammed Lansing's
office to find out about this Zimmermann Note. There were shouted
questions. Lansing parried and sidestepped. He said he knew only
what had appeared in the papers. A murmur went through the room:
"The Associated Press has stubbed its toe!"
Lansing managed the interview deftly. Just as he was about to
bring it to a close, The Associated Press man stepped forward and
quietly posed the only questions asked that day by the co-operative.
"Mr. Secretary, did you know The Associated Press had this story
last night?"
Lansing studied for a moment.
"Yes."
"Did you deny its authenticity?"
"No."
"Did you object to The Associated Press carrying the story?"
"No."
With that Lansing stepped through the draperies which hid the
door of his private office and the press conference ended.
Confirmation was forthcoming later in the day. The Senate,
aroused by the disclosures, called upon the President for whatever in-
formation he had. Wilson answered by transmitting a memorandum
from Lansing that the Zimmermann Note was authentic and had been
in possession of the administration for several days. But the most con-
vincing proof of all came when Chief of Bureau Conger cabled from
Berlin that Zimmermann, the foreign minister, volunteered the admis-
sion that he had sent the note. As though to justify himself, Zimmer-
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 261
mann ingeniously stressed that "the instructions were to be carried out
only after declaration of war by America."
The story of how the United States government obtained the text
of the Zimmermann note was not made public until years later. The
British Intelligence Service had intercepted a copy of Zimmermann's
instructions to von Bernstorff and it was turned over to Admiralty
experts for decoding. The contents were so astounding that the informa-
tion was given to the American ambassador at London on February 24,
and he immediately cabled it to the State Department. The State De-
partment later said that the necessity for concealing Britain's knowledge
of German codes was a major reason why Lansing withheld from Hood
any facts on how the Zimmermann message came into the administra-
tion's possession.
The United States entered the World War on April 6, 1917. Presi-
dent Noyes and General Manager Stone called on Wilson and the sub-
ject of wartime censorship was discussed. They suggested that any
American arrangement include provision for competent newspapermen
on the censorship boards so that the people would be assured of receiv-
ing all the news the publication of which was not actually injurious
to the country's interests.
Army and Navy officials, they pointed out, were instinctively dis-
posed to suppress almost everything and might automatically forbid dis-
patches which obviously were of value to the people at home. Wilson
agreed and to a great degree the suggestion was incorporated in censor-
ship methods.
The declaration of war touched off a great surge of patriotism.
Seen from the headquarters of the association, however, the outlook
was hardly as bright as orators painted it. Private advices, the reports
of men on furlough from the front, and what could be read between the
lines of closely censored dispatches gave a dark picture. Britain's spring
offensive in Artois had been a costly failure, and the French thrust in
Champagne had been hurled back with such terrific slaughter that six-
teen army corps mutinied and refused to attack. The news from Whiff en
at Petrograd was no less disquieting. The Czar had abdicated in the face
of revolution and a shaky coalition of moderates were struggling to
keep Russian armies in action. On the seas submarine warfare was tak-
ing an appalling toll of shipping. Allied fortunes were at a low ebb.
America's entry redoubled the importance of news coverage abroad
262 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The general manager started the first contingent of additional staff men
to Europe and selected others to sail as soon as troop movements started.
Overseas the continued collection of news of enemy nations was a definite
problem. The expulsion of staff men made neighboring neutral coun-
tries the substitute channels for obtaining the news of the Central
Powers, and reporters regularly assigned to key neutral centers were
brought to New York for special instructions.
Ulrich Salchow, for years correspondent in Stockholm, was one
of those recalled. When he was ready to embark from Brooklyn to
return to Sweden, he had trouble boarding his boat. A crowd of Rus-
sians jammed the pier, listening to a fiery speech from a man who ha-
rangued them in their native tongue from the ship's rail. Salchow,
who understood Russian, was surprised by what he heard, yet the
police and secret-service men present made no move to interfere.
"I go to Russia to help the revolution," he was yelling. "Russia
will make peace with Germany. We will see to that, and we will end
the loss of Russian lives in a war in support of capitalism. I shall be
back, my comrades, to join you in the destruction of the capitalistic
system in America. England, France, Italy will fall before our cause.
Communism is the call for the world revolution."
Salchow struck up an acquaintance with the speaker when the boat
left port and told him he marveled that he spoke so plainly in the
presence of the police.
"The officers of the law are idiots," the Russian said. "They did
not know what I was saying."
The British Intelligence, however, learned what had been said.
When the ship touched at Halifax two days later the Russian was
arrested and taken ashore. Unperturbed, he promised Salchow: "I shall
charm these fools and I will see you in Stockholm."
Three weeks later the Russian walked into Salchow's office in
Stockholm.
"How in the world did you make it?" asked the correspondent.
"Easy," the visitor replied. "I merely told them how I was going
back to Russia to end the revolution and throw the force of Russia
back into the war wholeheartedly against Germany. That assurance was
all they wanted. They not only released me, free to take the next ship,
but they furnished me some funds as a bon voyage."
The Russian was Leon Trotsky,
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 263
America's first shot of the war was fired April 19, the anniversary
of the Battle of Lexington. A naval gun crew on the American liner
Mongolia opened fire on an attacking U-boat in British waters and sank
her. Captain Rice, the Mongolia's commander, gave the co-operative an
eyewitness account as soon as the ship reached port — an account which
was such big news that commercial competitors pirated it as soon as it
appeared.
By this time piracy of news had reached such proportions that the
association instituted legal action against the major offender, Hearst's
International News Service. The piracy demonstrated the need for hav-
ing the association's dispatches regularly credited, instead of leaving
the matter to the discretion of individual members, for pirates could
always offer the defense that they did not know an uncredited item
was Associated Press news. Accordingly, on April 26 the Board of
Directors issued orders that all Associated Press matter should be
credited and that all members should daily carry printed notice of the
paper's affiliation with the co-operative.
Besides the problem created by piracy, the association, like so
many enterprises in different fields, encountered operation difficulties
as staff men left to join the colors. The Traffic Department suffered
heavily. The Signal Corps was in need of trained telegraph men
and within the first months a hundred of the six hundred and sixty
regular telegraphers had joined. A number of the men were in France
three weeks after their enlistment. Some two hundred others, unable
to serve because of age or disability, devoted spare time to the instruc-
tion of Signal Corps recruits.
The editorial staff also was involved. Seventy-five men joined the
armed forces and others volunteered for Red Cross and Y.M.C.A. units
overseas. Washington lost three front-rank men when Steve Early,
Byron Price, and W. F. Caldwell enlisted, and other bureaus suffered
in proportion to their size.
The first drawing of the draft imposed a tremendous burden on
wire facilities, already hampered by government demands on com-
munications. At 9:49 one summer morning, in the public hearing room
of the Senate office building, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker drew
out the first draft number— 258— and a minute later it went out over
the news network. To the men numbered 258 in each of 4,500 draft
precincts it was notice they had been chosen to fight. In all, io,5Qp
264 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
numbers were drawn in the two days of the draft lottery, and the report
carried every one of them. To handle the story which meant so much
personally to the able-bodied men of the nation, four special parallel
trunk wires were set up. From 9:50 A.M. one day until 2:18 P.M. the
next, the numbers streamed across the continent, until the last one was
flashed ten minutes after it had been drawn. One Traffic man, John
Mooney at the Scranton Republican, stayed on duty twenty-six hours
and fifteen minutes. At 8 A.M. the second day one number ticked off the
sounder that made Mooney grin — it was his own.
The first troops — Regular Army units — sailed for France a few
weeks after General Pershing's arrival in England in June, and Stanley
W. Prenosil, from the Boston Bureau, made the trip in one of the trans-
ports. The news of troop departures was suppressed as a military
measure, but when the first transport reached France with Prenosil
aboard, he cabled a story that touched off unbounded enthusiasm
throughout the United States. Phillip Powers of the Paris Bureau also
sent a story on the landing of the troops on French soil. These dis-
patches were the only ones that came through.
Then a tempest burst. The wartime Committee on Public Infor-
mation criticized the association for carrying the stories. It charged that
the news had been sent in defiance of censorship regulations through
the bribery of a telegraph operator. Publication of the dispatches, it
said, gave the enemy information which jeopardized the lives of troops
still in the danger zone at sea on other transports.
Stone instituted an investigation. Prenosil and Powers were in-
structed to forward sworn statements regarding the charge that they
bribed an operator to violate censorship regulations, and a request
was made to the Intelligence Section of the American Expeditionary
Force for any information its inquiry uncovered.
Developments proved that the exclusive stories were exclusive only
by virtue of an accident. Censorship orders had, in truth, been issued,
directing that all dispatches dealing with the arrival of the first Amer-
ican units in France be withheld for simultaneous release after the
last of the transport fleet docked. The Intelligence section reported:
. . . the fault was not with any correspondent, but with some one who
permitted these telegrams to go through to London before the word of release
was given.
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 265
No retraction of the charges came, however, and in less than two
weeks an even wilder teapot episode occurred. On July 3, after all ships
of the first transport fleet had safely reached France, The Committee
on Public Information released in the name of Secretary of Navy
Josephus Daniels a stirring story of two battles between the troopships
and destroyers under Admiral Cleaves and enemy submarines. The at-
tack, the release said, "was made in force, although the night made
impossible any exact count of the U-boats gathered for what they
deemed a slaughter." On the authority of the wartime information
czar, the Daniels story was carried, but it aroused the doubts of staff
editors informed on submarine warfare. Since U-boats were blind when
submerged, they traveled alone to avoid the dangers of collision and
no one had ever heard of an attack in flotilla force.
A copy of the story was relayed to London and Frank America,
one of the staff there, sought comment from British naval experts and
at the European headquarters of the American naval forces under
Admiral Sims. Two days later New York headquarters received the
following:
JULY 5, 1917. LONDON. THURSDAY CONFIDEN-
TIAL FOLLOWING AMERICAS NAVAL BASE PASSED FOR
PUBLICATION USA ONLY QUOTE PRIVATE ATTITUDE
OFFICIAL CIRCLES HERE THAT DANIELS STORY MADE
OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH THERE NO SUBMARINE ATTACK
WHATEVER NO TORPEDOES SEEN NO GUNFIRE FROM
DESTROYERS STOP OUR DESTROYERS DROPPED EX-
PLOSIVE CHARGE AS PRECAUTION BUT NO SUBMARINE OR
WRECKAGE SEEN STOP EXPLAINED DESTROYERS FRE-
QUENTLY FIRE AT LOGS OR ANYTHING WHICH MIGHT
PROVE PERISCOPE STOP OFFICIALS HERE THEREFORE
DECLINE PERMIT AFTERMATH STORY FROM THIS END.
To the general manager and the news editors alike the preliminary
phrasing of the dispatch proved puzzling. It was marked "confiden-
tial" but it also bore the censor's release: "Passed for publication USA
only." After discussion, the conclusion was finally reached that the
London Bureau had labeled the message confidential because of doubt
that the censor would permit its transmission for publication. As long
as the British censor had passed it for publication, they reasoned, there
was nothing to prevent its use. In a matter of minutes the story was on
the wire, exploding the original story of submarines attacking in fleets.
Washington questioned Secretary Daniels about the London dis-
patch, and Daniels, whose newspaper, the Raleigh (N. C.) News and
266 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Observery was a member of The Associated Press, immediately called
Stone by long-distance telephone. He asked that the story be killed
quickly. The request was an official demand from the wartime govern-
ment and Stone had no alternative. A mandatory notice to kill the story
went out immediately, but in most places the dispatch was in print.
Once more the Committee hurled its charges. The London dispatch
was damned as "a cruel lie ... the work of a correspondent in search
of a story, and the British Court of Inquiry branded him a liar and
expelled him from the fleet." President Wilson was so incensed that
he said he never again would speak to Melville Stone. Daniels was
too philosophical to quarrel, but he told Stone that Admiral Cleaves,
like Wilson, would never forgive him either. Stone expressed his re-
grets, but explained that the story had come from a staff man and
The Associated Press believed it.
Another investigation was ordered and while it was in progress
Stone attended a reception in honor of one of the Allied missions
which had arrived in New York to help co-ordinate war efforts.
"Mr. Stone," said a voice at his elbow, "is there any reason why
you and I can't have a cocktail together?"
The general manager found himself facing Admiral Cleaves, who
had just returned from convoying the first troopships to France.
"Mr. Stone," said the admiral, "I owe you a debt that I never can
repay. I mean for denying that silly story given out from Washington
respecting two fierce battles with submarines. I am a plain common
sailor and not given to that kind of statement. I could not be responsible
for the hysterical rhapsody. Of course, the order to all our boats was
that if anything like a periscope appeared to fire at it, and that was
done. The officers on the individual boats saw evidences of periscopes
and torpedoes and took a shot at them. That was the whole story."
The investigation abroad upheld the truth of Frank America's
dispatch. He had obtained the information from officers at Admiral
Sims' base, where convoy destroyers frequently took on supplies. Pub-
lication of the story in the United States, however, was a mistake.
America had meant the information to be confidential, but the censor's
stamp, "Passed for publication USA only," which should not have
been transmitted, was incorporated as part of the cabled message. As
for America himself, the British Admiralty exonerated him and he con-
tinued welcome at Admiral Sims' headquarters.
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 267
Not long after the submarine episode the general manager went
to Europe to supervise arrangements for the increased news demands
that would arise when American troops began active fighting. He
toured the lines, sloshing through muddy trenches with a sergeant of
marines as his guide. The costly British Passchendaele offensive was
bogging down in the quagmire of Flanders. Bled white by heavy cas-
ualties, the French had reverted to defensive tactics, and on the eastern
front the last fitful Russian drive flickered out under the hammering
of German counterattacks.
Shifting his men to meet the war situation as it existed, Stone
sent Charles T. Thompson to the Italian front. Because of the growing
acuteness of affairs in Russia, Charles Stephenson Smith, correspondent
at Peking, was ordered to Petrograd to relieve Whiffen. Robert T.
Small, with the British in Flanders for some time, was transferred to
Pershing's headquarters where he was later reinforced by Norman L.
Draper.
Just before his reassignment, Small almost lost his life in the
Somme during the limited advance which took Peronne. Crossing a
ruined bridge he plunged through a camouflaged section into the river.
A party of British engineers rescued him.
SmalPs successor with the British and Belgian forces was DeWitt
Mackenzie, the only American correspondent to see what was happening
in the Egypto-Arabic theater of war. Captain John Yardley, D.W.O.,
one of England's World War heroes and then aide-de-camp to the
British commander in chief in the Near East, said of his work:
It was well known to us at General Headquarters that Mackenzie's dis-
patches, not only from Egypt, but from other theaters of war, were the most
potent written, for they lifted the veil, and revealed to the American public
the true facts.
As the autumn waned, William Gibson, an operator, was killed in
London during an air raid and Frank America had a narrow escape
when a zeppelin bomb burst so close that he was knocked down and
covered by falling debris.
In London Stone devoted himself to a firsthand study of the cha-
otic cable conditions which were playing havoc with efforts to get news to
the United States promptly. Government messages took precedence and
their volume was extremely heavy. "Urgent" rates no longer existed,
268 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
so the association began filing a large number of dispatches at the full
commercial rate of 25 cents a word. This boosted cable tolls to $2,000
a day, but failed to improve conditions materially. Western Union de-
clined to guarantee delivery of any press messages in less than forty-
eight hours, and the French cable company refused newspaper dispatches
because it was unable to provide satisfactory service.
Stories sent at the full commercial rate often took from seventeen
to fifty-two hours in transmission. Frequently dispatches filed at the
slower ly-cents-a-word press rate arrived in New York long before full-
rate stories. Communications with Russia were wholly unpredictable.
Some stories never reached New York at all, and many times instruc-
tions from New York never reached Petrograd. One message from
the Russian capital to New York was sixty-two days in transit. Through-
out the remainder of the conflict the erratic cables destroyed many clean
beats and on any number of occasions gave scoops to dispatches which
normally should have been hours behind.
Back home in the United States, the nation was trying to forget
its war worries momentarily by reading of the World Series, and again
Cooper lined up his 26,ooo-mile circuit to report the Chicago White
Sox-New York Giants games direct from the ball parks. Despite the
keen competition of other news, the baseball classic could still command
position on American front pages, and it had one less story to contend
with that October, thanks to one of the co-operative's staff.
Upheavals in Mexico no longer made the stories they once did
now that America was embroiled in Europe, but Pancho Villa continued
active in Chihuahua and was anxious to impress the United States by
defeating President Carranza. An attack on the federal-held town of
Ojinaga seemed to offer a good opportunity, and Villa laid plans for an
assault early in October. Just as he finished preparations, Norman
Walker, a staff correspondent, reached his camp. Villa had known the
reporter during several years of assignments south of the Rio Grande,
and therefore confided his plans to Walker and asked if he considered
the date propitious.
Smiling, Walker told Villa he could not have chosen a worse time.
The World Series, he pointed out, was just starting and what space
American newspapers had for news other than baseball would be pre-
empted by war dispatches.
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 269
"If you wait until after the World Series," Walker said, "you
might make the front pages."
Villa waited, and when he finally took Ojinaga he did make the
front pages.
But there was far greater news that October than the 1917 World
Series or a postponed Mexican battle. On October 24, in a thick fog
intensified by snow and rain, a spearhead of six German and nine Aus-
trian divisions smashed through on the Caporetto sector and the entire
Italian front collapsed. Thompson was caught in the rout which
streamed back toward the River Piave in confusion. The second day
of the swift Austro-German advance found him on the crumbling front
at Gorizia, which was being mercilessly pounded by massed enemy
artillery. He had mounted the highest available rampart to get a better
view of operations, when a shell burst near by, burying him and sev-
eral companions under an avalanche of earth and mud. Rescuers dug
out the party. Thompson was the only one wounded j a piece of shrap-
nel had hit him in the head. The wound was dressed at a first-aid
station and he returned to his task of reporting the offensive which
hurled the Italians back more than sixty miles and at one time threat-
ened the utter destruction of their armies. As it was, General Cadorna
lost 800,000 effectives.
On the heels of the Italian breakdown came the black news from
Russia. For weeks the cables that got through from Whiffen, Chief
of Bureau Smith, H. L. Rennick, and other members of the staff at
Petrograd or at the Russian front had been alarming. They told of
rioting, unrest, demonstrations for a separate peace and the ugly
atmosphere pervading the country. The report began to mention the
unfamiliar names of Nikolay Lenin and Leon Trotsky, Salchow's
shipboard companion of a few months earlier. When Associated Press
dispatches described how Russian troops were shooting their officers and
parading under red flags to shouts of "Down with the war!" the State
Department at Washington felt sufficiently concerned to issue a counter-
statement that diplomatic advices from Russia indicated no grounds
for worry and that full confidence continued in Russia's loyalty to
the Allies.
The bloody Russian Revolution which broke on November 7
proved how well the Petrograd staff had been reporting true condi-
tions. Throughout the Red Terror the men daily took their lives in their
hands when they got their news and arranged for its transmission. Smith
saved an American consular official from being bayoneted by a berserk
270 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
soldier and was promptly felled by a clubbed rifle. Soldiers pounced
on him and beat him up badly. Another member of the staff was shot
in the knee by a sniper. But the news came out — the spread of the
revolution, the conclusion of an armistice between the Central Powers
and Russia, and finally on December 27 the full text of the treaty of
Brest-Litovsk, first Teutonic peace terms formulated since the begin-
ning of the war.
Just as the Board of Directors opposed carrying the by-lines of
staff men, it likewise vetoed any wartime relaxation in the hard and fast
rules governing the handling of cabled dispatches. The policy was to
carry nothing under a foreign date line which did not come by cable, and
the board ordered that this regulation continue to be strictly observed.
Even when half of a story arrived in the day report and the other
half at night, there was to be no rewriting of the previously published
portion so that the night report might have a slightly different lead
from that carried on the day wires. The practice was sharply at variance
with that of commercial agencies and individual newspapers, for many
regularly rewrote and expanded the cables they received, incorporating
matter the original dispatches did not contain, drawing conclusions
from war maps, and giving the stories a literary polish not likely to
appear in copy written in haste under fire.
The only concession made to the war was the introduction of
Undated War Leads, written in New York, which rounded up all in-
formation into one comprehensive story. Undated Leads subsequently
became the approved newspaper method of handling any major story
involving a multiplicity of date lines and developments.
8
General Manager Stone returned from Europe late in the year to
an America which had settled down in earnest to the serious business of
being at war. New York was singing "Over There," "Tipperary," and
"Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," a catchy air written by
a Camp Upton sergeant, Irving Berlin. The advertising signs along
Broadway were darkened by order of the federal fuel administrator.
People joked about wheatless Mondays, meatless Tuesdays, sugarless
coffee, and coalless furnaces. Herbert Hoover had become the nation's
food czar, and wartime Prohibition was around the corner.
The war moved on into 1918. The collapse of Russia had freed
thirty German divisions from the eastern front for service in France,
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 271
Every sign pointed to a gigantic struggle for a decision on the western
front. Charles Kloeber, chief of the News Department, had relieved the
general manager in Europe as active director of the staff, and Cooper,
the Traffic Department head, went abroad to attempt improvement in
the erratic cable conditions. American troops were almost ready for battle
lines and once they went into action there would be an additional heavy
burden on the jammed cables.
Early in March confidential advices began to trickle into New
York headquarters that a German drive on the western front was immi-
nent. Soon after the first advices there came a publishable cable: The
German High Command had invited neutral correspondents to start
for the west "to witness the German offensive." The dispatch aroused
little attention. Military authorities in Washington expressed the opinion
that an Allied offensive was more likely, and the public looked on the
story as a Teutonic ruse. Nevertheless, Jackson Elliott, who had been
brought from Washington to command the News Department in
Kloeber's absence, took all precautions and ordered preparation of a
background story outlining the exact military situation in France so
that it would be ready for use if the Germans unleashed their drive.
The advance information from neutral sources proved all too cor-
rect. At 9:30 A.M., March 21, the leased wires hummed with a bulletin
from Mackenzie telling of the pulverizing German bombardment on
the sixty-mile Arras-Cambrai-Saint-Quentin front. Other cables added
further details: The enemy was hurling a force of approximately half
a million men against the British. An hour and a quarter after the first
bulletin there came further confirmation of the importance of the
offensive. From Amsterdam Correspondent Thomas Stockwell for-
warded a dispatch quoting the Kaiser as saying: "We are at the de-
cisive moment of the war, and one of the greatest moments in German
history."
The tremendous drive was the beginning of LudendorfPs March
break-through and the sagging British lines were thrust relentlessly
backward. As Ludendorff hammered out an ever-deepening salient into
the Somme sector, the cables on March 23 brought from Roberts in
Paris something so improbable that news editors in New York hesi-
tated to use it. The story stated that a heavy siege gun had been
bombarding the French capital throughout the forenoon, firing at fif-
teen-minute intervals. What made the news almost incredible was the
fact that the office war maps showed the nearest German lines to be
272 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
twenty-six miles away— a far greater distance than the range of any
known artillery piece.
The dispatch was withheld and a hurried check made through
Washington with War Department ordnance experts. They called the
story absurd. To bombard Paris from such a distance a gun would have
to hurl its projectile at least twenty miles into the air, and no such
weapon was known to exist.
Stone was in St. Louis at the time and Elliott passed the dilemma
to him. The story gave Stone pause. If the news were not true, he
realized that the consequences would be most serious. On the other
hand, he knew Roberts was not a man to lose his head. The times given
in the dispatch showed the correspondent had waited five hours after
the start of the bombardment before filing his story, and that was evi-
dence he had not acted on the spur of the moment. Lastly, the cable
had been passed by the French censor. Stone made his decision:
"Release Roberts story. We'll stand pat on it."
The appearance of the news that day provoked an outburst of scorn
and disbelief. Commercial agencies ridiculed the notion of such a siege
gun, calling it an "absurd invention" and a "plain blunder."
At a dinner that evening Stone was publicly twitted.
"Well," he said good-naturedly, "back in New York I have a
friend, the Reverend Dr. Minot J. Savage, who holds with a Cape Cod
farmer that the religious faith of the Evangelical Christian is 'believin'
in the thing that you know ain't so.' Such is my position. I believe this
story 'that I know ain't so,' because The Associated Press says it."
For forty-eight hours the co-operative "stood pat," and then the
critics, military and journalistic, belatedly discovered that the facts set
forth were correct. Not airplanes, but a monster long-range gun had
been bombarding Paris.
Cable tolls more than doubled as the German March offensive
smashed forward forty miles before Mackenzie and Roberts cabled that
the break-through had been finally halted. From the Paris Bureau came
equally significant news: Ferdinand Foch had been appointed to co-
ordinate Allied operations, his first step toward becoming generalissimo
a few weeks later.
There was little respite for Mackenzie. Hardly had LudendorfPs
offensive been checked on one sector than Germany loosed a new drive
at another part of the British-held front and shook eleven divisions into
the clear in an April break-through which menaced the vital Channel
ports. It was then that the report carried General Haig's famous order:
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 273
"There must be no retiring. With our back to the wall and believing in
the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end."
American divisions by this time had taken over three front-line
sectors, mostly quiet in character, and four correspondents were as-
signed to cover them — Norman Draper, John T. Parkerson, Samuel F.
Wader, and Philip M. Powers who had served at one time or another
on every front in Europe except the Dardanelles. Wader wrote the
story of the first real engagement of American troops on April 20 at
Seicheprey, when the Germans took the town and held the position for
half a day before they were dislodged. It was a month before cables
told of the capture of Cantigny, which served to atone for the initial
reverse of United States arms at Seicheprey.
While the British were battling desperately to halt the year's
second "big push" by Ludendorff and conditions in France grew more
critical, the members of The Associated Press convened in New York
for the annual meeting. This was no routine assembly. Melville E.
Stone, now seventy, had completed a quarter of a century of service as
general manager and they gathered to fete him. The aging Victor Law-
son was there to pay him tribute, and there was praise, too, from Adolph
Ochs, Noyes, and others of the group that had fought with him in behalf
of honest news gathering during the turbulent 1890*8. Stone spoke of
the testimonial celebration as "a fine funeral," but even this attempt
at levity could not conceal how deeply he was touched.
The war seemed far away during the festive celebration, but before
many weeks had passed Stone was packing his bags to resume direction
of the report in Europe. Matching their March and April drives, the
Germans broke through again in May, this time on the French Chemin
des Dames front which Berry covered, and the gray tide rolled on
toward Paris as it had in the crucial autumn of 1914. Philip Powers and
Burge McFall, formerly of the Washington staff, accompanied the
Second Division at Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood early in June
when United States regulars and marines dramatically stopped the Ger-
man left at the Marne. The brilliant counterattack of the Second Divi-
sion marked the debut of large-scale American action on the western
front and the cables carried every word censors' blue pencils permitted
to go. By the time Stone arrived in Europe the May break-through had
274 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
been completely halted, more American divisions were going into the
lines and the stage was almost set for the Second Battle of the Marne.
The association's entire attention, however, was not focused on
France. Much closer to home a covert bloodless war was being waged
by the Central Powers in South America, and in it the name of The
Associated Press had suffered.
Immediately upon the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, Germany
had invaded the Latin-American nations with a government-subsidized
propaganda service which masqueraded as a news agency under the
name of Prensa Asociada — Spanish for Associated Press. Supplied to
South American papers more or less gratis, the news was strongly pro-
German and the directors of the service cultivated the belief that the
dispatches actually came from The Associated Press. Until the United
States entered the war, the propaganda was directed against the Allies,
but in April, 1917, the service extended its operations to minimize and
deprecate America's part in the conflict.
The tardiness of The Associated Press in expanding into South
America was due primarily to an old agreement between the major
news-gathering organizations of the world. It dated back to the days of
William Henry Smith. Under this pact the Reuter Agency had Great
Britain, her colonies, Egypt, Turkey, China, and the countries within
Britain's sphere of influence. The Havas Agency of Paris took for its
territory France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Central and South
America. The German Wolfe Bureau was given jurisdiction over the
Reich, Scandinavian countries, Holland, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and
the Balkans. The Associated Press had the United States. Foreseeing
that closer relations between the United States and South America
were essential, Stone declined to agree in 1912 to a long-term extension
of the agreement, but the war in 1914 interrupted plans for a definite
program.
Havas, therefore, continued to serve South America, although its
war news was almost as one-sided as the German Prensa Asociada. Con-
trolled by the French government, Havas carried no news of enemy suc-
cesses, enemy communiques, or similar material. When South American
papers, desirous of getting both sides of the story on an important
event, demanded American Associated Press dispatches, Havas repre-
sentatives in New York abstracted the required copy from the co-opera-
tive's report, in contravention of the existing agreement, and relayed it
to Havas men in South America. Except for these occasions when actual
Associated Press news was demanded, South American papers were
largely dependent on Havas and Prensa Asociada. Furthermore, Havas
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 275
was interested solely in distributing news in South America and not in
gathering South American news for the rest of the world. To get any-
thing approaching adequate coverage, The Associated Press had found
it necessary to assign its own staff men to the continent.
With Prensa Asociada redoubling its efforts after America's entry
into the war, it was obvious to the Board of Directors of The Associated
Press that they could not combat such an agency through the medium of
Havas. The State Department, concerned over the influence wielded by
the German propaganda service, urged The Associated Press to give
the nation's Latin-American neighbors factual news both about the war
and the United States. Notice accordingly was served on Havas that the
co-operative would terminate its agreement, and on June 8, 1918,
Cooper sailed for South America.
News of Cooper's coming preceded him. When he reached Val-
paraiso, the first person to seek him out was an agent of Prensa Aso-
ciada. The man came to the point at once. He wanted to negotiate a
contract that would give Prensa Asociada exclusive South American
rights to the name of The Associated Press and distribution of its news
report. He named an attractive figure. Cooper told him Prensa Asociada
might multiply its offer a thousand times, but neither that sum nor any
other astronomical amount could buy The Associated Press.
Cooper spent three months in South America. He found the im-
portant newspapers anxious to obtain a genuine Associated Press report.
They were disgusted with both Havas and Prensa Asociada and they
had lost reliance in the accuracy of one American commercial agency
because of such major blunders as the reporting of the fall of Soissons
thirty days before the city actually fell. Cooper left behind a discredited
Prensa Asociada which collapsed a few months later.
10
In the busy cable room in New York the flood of cables was end-
less. On July 1 5 Ludendorff launched Germany's final bid for victory
in a great Friedensturm, or "peace offensive," on the Marne. Burge
McFall, James P. Howe, Norman Draper, and Samuel Wader were
with the A.E.F. divisions which helped turn the tide. Roberts and Berry
were on the French front to the American left, and in Paris Stone him-
self could hear the thunder of artillery in the battle that was the begin-
ning of the end.
After the second Marne the tide flowed back, and in France alone,
from the North Sea to Switzerland, operations became so continuous
276 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
that no one man, however capable, could hope to cover them adequately.
The story called for a tried and co-ordinated staff, each man contributing
his part to the broad sweep of a narrative that pounded toward its
climax. As the repeated Allied counterblows beat Ludendorff stagger-
ing back, only those in the cable department in New York knew from
day to day which of the men on the front did the outstanding work in
any one twenty-four hours.
Dispatches from Stockwell in Holland and Bouton in Sweden gave
added significance to the German retreat when they told of seething
unrest on the home fronts of the Central Powers, mutinies in the Ger-
man fleet, the insistent demands for peace. And there were many more
— reports of the Central Powers' reverses in the Balkans, Whiffen's
stories on the White Army in Siberia, Smith's cables from the turmoil
of Petrograd, the news Rennick sent from the Allied anti-Bolshevik
forces at Archangel, Frank King's dispatches from another Allied com-
mand at Vladivostok, and all the rest of the heavy transoceanic tide of
copy.
The pins on the map moved.
American First Army Destroys Saint-Mihiel salient . . . British
Take Nazareth . . . Hindenburg Line Broken . . . Bulgaria Surren-
ders . . . Argonne Forest . . . Germany Asks Peace Terms . . .
Kaiser's Abdication Demanded . . . Italians Crush Enemy on Austrian
Front . . . Ludendorff Resigns . . . Americans Take Sedan . . .
E.O.S. Bulletin . . . E.O.S. Bulletin . . .
In France, McFall and Powers "captured" the German stronghold
of Stenay, entering the town alone well before the advancing troops they
had accidently outdistanced. In Belgium, Mackenzie appealed directly
to Field Marshal Haig when no transportation was available to enable
him to keep pace with the rapid British gains. To his bewilderment he
got not one but seven touring cars. From a temporary post in neutral
Denmark, Bouton slipped across the German frontier and started on
his risky way to Berlin. And to the southward W. C. Hiatt followed
the fleeing, disorganized Austrians in a strenuous race to be the
first newsman to reach Vienna.
The general manager returned to the United States November 3,
two days before Germany was informed that the Allies had designated
Marshal Foch to receive delegates and communicate armistice terms.
The pins kept moving on the big cable department map. On the 53,000-
mile leased wire network 1,033 newspapers were waiting around the
clock.
XIII. FALSE ARMISTICE
NOVEMBER 7, 1918.
The lunch-hour crowds flowed tranquilly along Broadway and Park
Row. Then suddenly everyone seemed to go mad in a frenzy of hys-
terical noise. With incredible speed the tidings raced through New
York. Church bells clanged, whistles shrilled, and a storm of ticker tape
and paper swirled down.
They could see all this happening from The Associated Press win-
dows at 51 Chambers Street. Below, City Hall Park swarmed black
with people. Crowds were climbing on top of surface cars, stalled in the
pack of humanity which jammed Broadway to the right and Park Row
to the left. Urchins scaled the scrubby trees behind the Post Office,
waving flags which had materialized from nowhere. Office buildings
disgorged an elbowing tumult of men and women into the bobbing sea
of heads.
The men who looked down from 51 Chambers Street wore wor-
ried expressions. They knew what had touched off the explosion of noise
and emotions, and with that knowledge had come a hopeless, sinking
feeling of defeat. Even before the jubilant clamor shattered Broad-
way's lunchtime serenity, a dumbfounded editor tore across the news-
room with the message which told the story. Inarticulately he thrust
it into the hands of Elliott, chief of the News Department.
Just five words which had come pounding through from an alert
bureau:
UNITED PRESS PLASHING ARMISTICE SIGNED.
Elliott frowned, unbelieving. In a trice another urgent message
was on his desk — "Opposition Has Armistice" — and the wires were
buzzing with a dozen more. They all were the same.
The Associated Press was beaten on the biggest story of the war!
The moment of sick paralysis ended in an instant, and then there
was Elliott's voice, tense but unexcited:
"Get cables after London and Paris! Full rate!"
"Open a line to the State Department! Pll talk to Frank Polk!"
"Bring me a map!"
277
278 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
He kept rapping out instructions to check every possible source.
An oppressive silence descended on the newsroom like some physical
weight, magnifying the staccato of the Morkrum battery, the impor-
tunate voices of the men working telephones, the monotonous rattle of
Morse keys. In the Cable Department tight-lipped editors hung over
every incoming news wire. A staff man, back from lunch, burst into the
office, hurrahing that the Armistice had been signed, but the look on
every face smothered his jubilation.
Elliott sat grimly at the desk which had become the focal point
not only of the office but of the entire domestic service. By leased wire
and telegram a storm of complaint and criticism was rolling in.
Why didn't The Associated Press have the Armistice? Badly
beaten here . . . The Associated Press is pro-German — withholding the
news . . . Resigning our membership as soon as possible . . .
The stacks of outraged communications grew with the minutes.
The telephone clamored repeatedly and Elliott listened to the abuse
and imprecations which members near and far shouted into his ear.
To all verbal inquiries, he gave the same stock answer, repeating
it quietly, almost by rote:
"We have no news that an armistice has been signed. Our men
abroad are on the job. The State Department has made no such an-
nouncement. When The Associated Press gets the news, we will carry
it, but not before!"
All the while the clock hands crept onward, and the thunderous
roar that beat in from the sunlit early afternoon was an incessant
reminder that deepened the gloom of the newsroom.
One by one, each source failed to provide the story. Elliott talked
with Undersecretary of State Polk: the State Department knew nothing
. . . Collins in London could not confirm . . . Still no word from
Paris . . .
The chief of the News Department bent over the large-scale map
spread on the desk. Around him was a knot of intent men — L. F. Cur-
tis, Elliott's assistant j Harry Romer, day cable editor j Harold Martin,
news superintendent for the Eastern Division} and M. A. White night
general editor. With a pair of dividers Elliott measured off miles on
the map while Romer thumbed through a thick file of cable dispatches,
meticulously checking time elements or facts concerning the projected
visit of German plenipotentiaries to Foch to negotiate an armistice.
The opposition flash had stated flatly that the armistice had been
signed at n A.M., yet the big map emphatically told the group at
FALSE ARMISTICE 279
Elliott's desk that it was impossible. Romer produced his cables. At
12:30 that morning the German High Command had wirelessed Mar-
shal Foch the names of its emissaries and requested that he designate the
point along the front where they would be permitted to enter the
Allied lines. Foch's reply, sent at 1:25 A.M., informed the enemy that
the party would be passed through the French outposts near the
Chimay-Fourmies-La Capelle-Guise road. While this exchange oc-
curred, and for at least three hours longer, the German emissaries were
known to be still at German General Headquarters in Spa, Belgium.
Moreover, the latest advices, although without specific timing, had the
general Allied advance smashing forward unchecked.
The map gave the rest of the story. The air-line distance between
Spa and Foch's headquarters in the forest of Compiegne was roughly
105 miles. By road it would be almost half as far again, and a speedy
automobile trip was the remotest of possibilities. Heavy shellfire and
aerial bombardments had been smashing the roads behind the German
front, and those in any sort of repair were clogged with troops, supply
lorries, and great quantities of equipment the Germans were trying to
save.
Elliott shook his head.
"It couldn't be done," he said. "The Germans could not have
reached there from Spa in time to sign an armistice at that hour."
The clocks kept moving, the bedlam of noise from the streets beat
against the windows, and the tension of uncertainty tightened. It
couldn't be true, it wasn't true, yet ...
The general manager had been at lunch with President Noyes
when the first report flew through downtown New York. They battled
their way through the delirious crowds to reach the office. Stone's first
question was on the story.
"How did we make out?" he asked Elliott.
"We didn't, Mr. Stone. We don't have the story."
."What?"
"No, Mr. Stone, and I'm convinced the story is wrong, that no
armistice has been signed."
Elliott quickly sketched everything that had been done since first
word had come of the opposition's flash. Stone nodded as he heard the
exhaustive check made in all conceivable quarters and was impressed
280 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
by the evidence found in the map and in the hours of the Franco-
German exchange of messages early that morning.
"What have you put out on the wire?" the general manager
demanded.
"Nothing, sir."
"H-m. We should carry an informative note giving members the
status of this thing as we know it."
He thought a moment.
"Put out a Note to Editors at once, and one every half hour until
we get to the bottom of this. I want to see all copy. Go ahead."
The informative message hit the wires as soon as Elliott finished
writing it. In member offices people read:
NOTE TO EDITORS
AT THIS HOUR THE GOVERNMENT AT WASHINGTON
HAS RECEIVED NOTHING TO SUPPORT THE REPORT THAT
THE ARMISTICE HAS BEEN SIGNED AND WE HAVE RE-
CEIVED NOTHING PROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS ABROAD
TO SUPPORT IT.
STREET DEMONSTRATIONS ARE TAKING PLACE IN
NEW YORK, AS IS PROBABLY THE CASE IN OTHER
CITIES, BUT WE ARE NOT REPORTING THEM UP TO
THIS MOMENT BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO
CONFIRM THE REPORT ON WHICH THEY ARE BASED.
By that time even the man in the street had come to know that The
Associated Press had not carried any news of an armistice. In some
cities this failure acted as a brake on demonstrations after the first
spontaneous outbursts.
In San Francisco, Mayor James Rolph, addressing an exuberant
crowd which descended upon the City Hall, said: "The United Press
has been informed that the armistice has been signed. I have received
no confirmation of this from The Associated Press, and until I do I
suggest that celebration plans be suspended." A few minutes later,
speaking to the San Francisco Bureau by telephone, he declared: "I
will wait until I hear from you before giving the order for any peace
celebration."
In New York, however, the reaction assumed an ugly character
and an angry phalanx of demonstrators marched on 51 Chambers Street.
The cry of "Damned Huns" went up to the windows and fists were
brandished when one bibulous patriot shouted: "Come on, let's clean
out the rats." Upstairs, Elliott told a reporter to call police headquar-
ters and arrange for a detail to guard the building.
FALSE ARMISTICE 281
Still no word, and still no halt in the succession of heated tele-
grams, messages, and telephone calls. Not even the Hughes-Wilson
election had provoked such a violent outpouring.
Then the suspense snapped. For more than an hour City Editor
Carl Brandebury had been sitting with an ear glued to a telephone
receiver on the line which had been kept open to the State Depart-
ment in Washington. Undersecretary Polk had promised word as soon
as any definite information came from abroad, and the department was
working the cables unsparingly. Brandebury watched the clock hands
tick toward 2:15. The receiver clicked in his ear.
"Elliott!"
The shout brought Stone to the door of his private office.
"Polk will be on here in a second!"
Everyone watched Elliott's face as he jammed it close to the
telephone mouthpiece to shut out the noise of the room. Everyone
watched his pencil fly across a piece of copy paper.
"Bulletin! All Wires! Bulletin!"
Telegraphers waited, ready fingers hovering over suddenly idle
keys.
Copy boys scrambled across the room.
Filing editors grinned with relief.
Morse keys vibrated and the sounders chorused:
BULLETIN
(BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)
WASHINGTON, NOV. 7 - IT WAS OFFICIALLY
ANNOUNCED AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT AT 2:15 0' CLOCK
THIS AFTERNOON THAT THE GERMANS HAD NOT SIGNED
ARMISTICE TERMS.
All other events that day were anticlimactic. It did not even seem
important that Elliott and his aides had their dinners interrupted the
same evening in Whyte's Restaurant and were hurried through a back
door to save them from attack by a bellicose group of drunken revelers
who brandished water carafes.
The end came four days later. Everyone knew then that the Ger-
man emissaries were conferring with Foch. Everyone knew that the
long-awaited news was only a matter of hours. When the regular
"Good Night" was given on leased wire circuits at 2:30 A.M., November
n, operators remained at their keys, lights burned on in newspaper
offices, and composing room crews waited in readiness. It might come
any minute.
282 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
From Washington. Two words. 2:46 A.M.:
F-L-A-S-H F-L-A-S-H
ARMISTICE SIGNED
Then the first bulletin:
BULLETIN
(BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)
WASHINGTON, MONDAY, NOV. 11 - THE ARMISTICE
BETWEEN GERMANY, ON THE ONE HAND, AND THE ALLIED
GOVERNMENTS AND THE UNITED STATES, ON THE OTHER,
HAS BEEN SIGNED.
ADD BULLETIN
THE STATE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCED AT 2:45
O'CLOCK THIS MORNING THAT GERMANY HAD SIGNED.
ADD BULLETIN
THE WORLD WAR WILL END AT 6 O'CLOCK THIS
MORNING, WASHINGTON TIME, 11 O'CLOCK PARIS
TIME.
ADD BULLETIN
THE ARMISTICE . . .
The first whistles started to shriek. Bonfires flared. Gongs clanged.
Cannon boomed. And papers slithered in a damp flood from the whirl-
ing plates.
Extra . . . Extra . . . Extra . . .
Washington functioned with the smooth precision of a highly
geared machine. Before sunset that day the bureau poured 11,582
words onto the leased wires. Treading on the heels of the first Washing-
ton bulletins came the rush from abroad which swept in on the Cable
Department. Paris. Berlin. Amsterdam. Hohenzollern in Holland.
Rome. Vienna. The Front. A.E.F. . . .
The emotional jag of November 7 was a mere rehearsal for the
paroxysm of jubilant celebration which took the country by storm. This
time it was real. This time it was authentic. This time there was no
question of the facts.
As the cheering, screaming throngs took possession of the streets
once more for a hysterical holiday of triumph and relief, telephones
FALSE ARMISTICE 283
jangled in a thousand editorial rooms. Readers who had been misled
November 7 wanted to know if they could trust this latest news.
At a desk in the office of the Tribune Herald at Rome, Georgia,
J. D. McCartney sat before a telephone, answering the endless queries.
"Yes, madam, it's right this time. . . . Yes, it's correct. . . . It's
all in the extra that's on the street now. . . . Oh, no, no doubt what-
soever. . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . ."
It was a boring job when everyone else was out celebrating.
Another call. A staid, elderly woman by the tone of her voice.
"Who says the Armistice has been signed?" she asked briskly.
"The State Department at Washington," intoned McCartney for
the hundredth time.
"Oh, pshaw!" the voice exclaimed impatiently, "Does The Asso-
ciated Press say it?"
XIV. "BACK TO NORMALCY"
WITH twenty-five miles of delirious noise New York welcomed the
first troops home from France on December 23, 1918. That same day
Mr. Justice Pitney in Washington delivered an opinion of the United
States Supreme Court. The case of The Associated Press versus the
International News Service had been in litigation for two years before
the decision was handed down.
Back in the rough-and-tumble days of early nineteenth century
journalism when Hale and Hallock were outdoing the New York har-
bor news combine, competitors regularly filched news from the Journal
of Commerce. Bennett and, later, Greeley both suffered at the hands
of news thieves, but in that era the tendency was to look upon piracy
as an oblique compliment. Some editors even boasted in print that rivals
found it necessary to steal their news in order to keep pace. "We rather
like it," Greeley acknowleged.
This attitude did not long survive the period of individual jour-
nalism. Although outright news piracy came in time to be looked upon
with disfavor, the practice continued uncurbed and for a long while no
consistent efforts were made to stop it.
As newspaper production methods speeded up and transmission
facilities improved, the operations of the pirates assumed more dam-
aging proportions. Editors saw their news, gathered at considerable
effort and expense, regularly pirated by agencies of various types which
made no comparable attempt to cover the world. Most of these agencies
were short-lived in spite of their wholesale appropriation of dispatches,
but the evil remained. At first individual publishers hoped that the
national copyright laws might be extended to protect the contents of a
daily paper. Congress, however, showed no disposition to oblige, and
the bill died in committee.
Ignoring previous failures, The Associated Press in 1899 desig-
nated a special committee to investigate the possibility of having a news
copyright law enacted. The committee's work proved ineffectual.
The World War tremendously stimulated the activities of the
284
"BACK TO NORMALCY" 285
pirates. Without an extensive news-gathering organization abroad, it was
impossible for some agencies to cover the conflict adequately or
promptly, so the appropriators of news began to prey more than ever
on the reports of The Associated Press. If the news thefts were to be
stopped, the organization would have to strike at the practice itself and
not at the devices by which it was carried on.
Late in 1916, because of what it termed "continued garbling of
messages and breach of faith," the British government debarred Inter-
national News Service from securing any news in Great Britain or from
using cable lines running from Great Britain. France, Canada, Portugal,
and Japan followed suit. The actions were based on the publication in
the United States of stories purporting to be International cable dis-
patches which contained statements not appearing in the cables passed
by the censors. The prohibitions became effective November 17, and
after that date the agency was denied the opportunity to obtain or cable
the news from any one of the five countries. Despite this, International
continued to supply this news regularly and promptly as if it were
being normally received by cable.
A discharged employee of the International News Service at Cleve-
land confided to Traffic Chief Cooper that an editorial man of the
Cleveland News was selling the Associated Press war news to the com-
mercial agency at so much per week. Cooper went to Cleveland, got
written statements, and dictated affidavits to which the signatures were
affixed. He returned to New York and told Stone: "Here's the basis
for your legal test of the property right in news."
Armed with these affidavits, The Associated Press took its case
into the Federal District Court at New York on January 4, 1917, and
petitioned Judge Augustus N. Hand for an injunction restraining Inter-
national from further piracy.
International News Service contested the action, disclaiming all
guilt of pre-publication piracy.
An injunction granted by Judge Hand, as modified by the Circuit
Court of Appeals, covered all points raised by The Associated Press.
International News Service then took the fight before the United States
Supreme Court. There the contest centered on a single issue: Whether
the commercial agency had the right to appropriate Associated Press
dispatches once these items had been printed. The Supreme Court held
that it did not, thereby establishing the property right in news.
For The Associated Press in particular and for news-gathering
enterprise in general, the decision was a major triumph. The Board of
286 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Directors spoke of it as a victory that "may well be celebrated." A
mutual, permanent injunction was obtained.
As a supplementary action the Board of Directors renewed its
insistence that all Associated Press news be properly credited, so that
no pirate could plead ignorance of its origin. Accordingly all members
of the co-operative began to credit the news, either with the established
line, "By The Associated Press" or with a logotype — (JP) — which
could be carried in the dateline of each story. The logotype became the
more popular method and in time The Associated Press came to be
known universally as "AP."
General Manager Stone learned of the Supreme Court decision
in Paris where he had gone December 3 to organize the special staff
being assembled to cover the most momentous peace conference of
modern history. The conference was not to open until January, but
already delegations were foregathering to study the intricate and com-
plex problems left by the war.
The Paris Peace Conference proved an unparalleled assignment.
The subject matter presented a distinct departure from the accepted
range of news in prewar days. There were questions of economics,
ethnography, geography, history. Experts collated masses of material
on Mandates, Demilitarization, Self-determination, War Guilt, and
Reparations. The place of a League of Nations in postwar civilization
was envisaged and discussed.
The fact that secrecy shrouded so much of the negotiations imposed
a heavy handicap on all efforts to obtain complete, accurate, and honest
accounts of what was happening. The world-wide interest was tremen-
dous, for mankind looked hopefully to the peace conference to lay the
foundations for a new era of international order on the wreckage of
"the war to end war."
For all its surpassing importance, however, the conference was
merely a news island in a troubled Europe. At Rome, Thomas Morgan
heard members of the Italian Parliament sing the "Red Flag" and hiss
the King. Bouton and Enderis in Berlin had days of street fighting to
report as Communists and Independent Socialists loosed a determined
effort to seize the government. W. S. Hiatt, the correspondent with the
most luxurious mustache in the service, led a peripatetic existence from
Warsaw to Prague, back to Poland, to Galicia, and then to the Ukraine
as the news currents shifted. The virtual state of war in Ireland sent
TO NORMALCY" 287
Guy Moyston and Thomas W. Morris from London to join W. H.
Brayden, resident correspondent at Dublin. Nor was that all. There
were the armies of occupation along the Rhine, the patient watch at
the gates of the Kaiser's refuge in Holland, the luckless campaigns of
White Russian armies, the revolt in Hungary, and the ferment in the
Near East.
In the Cable Department at New York the expectation had been
that, with the end of the war, European news would gradually revert
to the proportions of the days of 1914. On the contrary, before the
Peace Conference was well under way it became apparent that Europe
had assumed a new and vast importance in American affairs. The multi-
colored pins on the big Cable Department map moved as frequently
as they had before the Armistice. The staff abroad was greater than at
any time during the war years, and still growing.
In recognition of this great development, the general manager ap-
pointed Charles T. Thompson to assume immediate supervision, under
the chief of the News Department, of the service from Europe and
Asia. In spite of the costly burden of all the extensive war coverage and
the even heavier expenses of the exacting postwar period, however, the
co-operative could boast that it had been able to deliver an outstanding
report to member papers without once raising assessments. Commercial
agencies, on the other hand, had found it necessary to levy additional
charges on clients for the reports they furnished.
In all, war coverage expenses totaled $2,685,125.12, and meeting
that bill without assessment increases was quite an achievement for an
organization with an annual income from all sources of approximately
$3,000,000. Foreign Service costs for 1913, the lasfc prewar year, were
$225,543. From August I, 1914, when the war broke out, until the
end of the year — a matter of only four months — expenses were $258,-
551. In 1915 the figure was $518,875, or more than double. The bill
for 1916 was $541,935$ for 1917, $564,604. Large-scale American par-
ticipation in 1918 boosted costs for the final year to $801,157 — or almost
one-third of the entire annual news budget.
Owing to the war, the domestic branch of the service had been in
temporary eclipse, but by 1919 it was resuming its place. The greatest
immediate expansion occurred in the Southern Division with extension
of wire circuits, enlarged bureaus, and reorganized facilities. The re-
turn to something approaching a peacetime footing was accelerated by
the return of editorial and traffic employees who had left their desks
or telegraph keys to join the armed forces.
288 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Like the draft drawing of 1917, the news of the home-coming
troops in 1919 provided a succession of stories which intimately touched
the lives of millions of readers. So numerous were special coverage re-
quests that The Associated Press in co-operation with the War Depart-
ment worked out a detailed system to handle the service. Each day the
report carried a cumulative abstract of the homeward bound troops,
giving the names of the transports, dates of sailing, ports of embarka-
tion, the number of troops on each ship and their units, the ports of
debarkation and the names of the camps to which the men were to be
sent before departing for demobilization centers. Two staff men from
the New York office were assigned to meet the incoming ship and one
of them was Stanley W. Prenosil, who had sailed with the first A.E.F.
transports for France two years before.
The general news of the domestic scene had a tenor of unrest
and uncertainty. Labor disturbances were widespread, and the curve of
unemployment mounted as industrial production was sharply slashed
from the peaks of wartime pressure. Boston had its celebrated police
strike which projected Governor Calvin Coolidge into the national lime-
light. The high cost of living added to distress, and there were endless
items dealing with arrests, speechmaking and legislative action concern-
ing the postwar "Red scare."
From a coverage point of view, the Boston police strike showed
all the difficulties which arose in so many of the labor controversies that
year. Feeling ran righ and contending forces read every line of news
with hypercritical eyes. When the strike ended, James H. Vahney,
counsel for the policemen's union, in an unsolicited statement, praised
the Boston Bureau for "utmost fairness," and Governor Coolidge wrote
his appreciation of the "efficient and faithful" manner in which the news
had been treated.
Men who returned to their positions with The Associated Press
that year after the war found that a forward-looking step had been taken
in their absence. The Board of Directors had established a comprehen-
sive system of employes' insurance, pensions, disability and sick benefits.
Heretofore only commercial and industrial corporations with large
financial resources had undertaken to set up such a plan for the welfare
of employes, and the introduction of the idea into the field of journal-
ism on an extensive scale aroused considerable comment.
Until the evolution of the organization into a non-profit co-opera-
"BACK TO NORMALCY" 289
tive, the lot of men who made news gathering their career had been
a precarious one. The precursors of the modern press association gave
scant thought to the welfare of employes. Sickness or disability was
looked upon as an individual's private concern. Long and faithful serv-
ice was of little help to men whose value had been impaired by age.
As for death, it was a calamity survivors had to meet with such savings
as the deceased had been able to build up from salaries which never
had been extravagant.
Under President Noyes and General Manager Stone the co-opera-
tive began to recognize the association's responsibility toward employes.
In spite of the deficits and financial stress of the first decade of the cen-
tury, the board made numerous individual provisions for pensions, sick
pay, and disability allowances. Adolph Ochs, of the New York Times,
consistently advocated the most liberal attitude. There was no well-
formulated, universal policy, however. Each case was considered sep-
arately on the special set of facts involved.
When the association's fortunes became financially stabilized
shortly before the World War, the board gave more thought to the
establishment of a workable plan. Traffic Department Chief Cooper,
who had been an advocate of such a system since his second year in the
service, began a study of various actuarial plans and devised the pro-
gram which the board put into effect on July i, 1918. Besides sick pay
and disability allowance, the plan provided for pensions for retiring
employes and death benefits to surviving families. By the start of
1920 the plan protected 1,038 employes, editorial, clerical, and traffic
alike.
In April, 1920, Melville E. Stone relinquished active duties as
general manager to take an extended leave of absence at his own request
for reasons of health. The Board of Directors appointed the assistant
general manager, Frederick Roy Martin, to be acting general manager
in Stone's absence, and the next day brought further administrative
changes. Cooper was promoted to assistant general manager 5 Jackson
Elliott became general superintendent in immediate charge of the news
report j Milton Garges succeeded Cooper as chief of the Traffic De-
partment.
And so it was 1920. The war was done, peace treaties had been
signed, but the man in the street summed up the times with a rare apt-
ness when he used the new slang phrase, "the cockeyed world." Na-
290 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
tional Prohibition was ushered in. New England buzzed about Ponzi's
extravagant financial manipulations. The KuKlux Klan rode again.
Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford got married. F. Scott Fitz-
gerald wrote of the younger generation. A mysterious explosion rocked
Wall Street, killing thirty-eight. And a cause celebre began with the
arrest of two Italian workmen, Nicola Sacco and Bartolommeo Van-
zetti, for a fatal Massachusetts holdup.
Abroad the turmoil never slackened. Gabrielle d'Annunzio seized
Fiume, the port denied Italy in the peace settlement, and Morgan of
the Rome Bureau buried himself under the coal of a locomotive tender
to get into the city and obtain the first authentic news. Germany bat-
tled through another revolution, the Kapp uprising, and automobiles
placarded "The Associated Press of America" were passed through the
lines by both rebel and government factions. An amazing Red army
smashed the Poles back to the very gates of Warsaw, and James P.
Howe found himself with a 35omile front to patrol. In the Near East
Allied armies occupied Constantinople, and Charles Stephenson Smith
saw Turkey's new man of destiny, Mustapha Kemal.
The Black and Tan terror was loose in Ireland, and four staff cor-
respondents carried on in the face of unconcealed hostility from both
Crown and republican forces. At Amerongen in Holland Rennick and
Berry alternated in the patient wait for a moment that never came —
the opportunity to interview the secluded ex-Kaiser. Experts struggled
with the question of what reparations the Central Powers should pay,
and Correspondent Kloeber in Vienna found himself covering Sir Wil-
liam A. Goode — the British reparations commissioner for Austria but the
same "Billy" Goode whom Diehl had assigned to Admiral Sampson's
flagship back in the days of the Spanish-American War. Monarchist
uprisings in Portugal, maneuvers for King Constantine's return in
Greece, the White Armies in the Ukraine, agitation in Italy, pleb-
iscites in the Balkans — the bulky log ran on from day to day.
The only sustained break in the heavy character of the news came
with the Olympic Games at Antwerp where Correspondent Salchow of
Stockholm doubled in brass by winning the world's figure skating cham-
pionship on the ice and serving on the four-man sports staff which cov-
ered the events.
Throughout the year in Europe the coverage of Russia's news re-
rri^ined a continual source of concern. Since the enforced departure of
the Petrograd staff late in 1918, the association had no regular corre-
'spbjidents in the vast country, except for those with the Allied forces
"BACK TO NORMALCY" 291
operating against the Bolsheviks. Attempts to reach some agreement
with the government encountered a succession of failures. Maxim Lit-
vinoff, commissar of foreign affairs, refused to grant visas to any cor-
respondents not "of known sympathy" with Soviet rule. This imposed
an impossible condition for The Associated Press. For a time an im-
provised service of fair regularity was maintained by a special under-
cover correspondent, Mrs. Marguerite Harrison, but eventually she was
imprisoned and the news halted. Thereafter the association was forced to
rely on staff correspondents assigned to strategic spots along Russia's
borders and such news as could be smuggled out of the country from
time to time.
America was again preoccupied with the concerns of a presidential
year. The bitterly debated League of Nations issue, the disillusionment
which accompanied postwar reaction, and the temper of political feelings
gave the contest an unusual character and placed a premium on accurate,
factual reporting.
The conventions were the first Stone had missed as general man-
ager since the McKinley-Bryan nominations in 1896. Acting General
Manager Martin took charge of the staff first at the Chicago gathering,
which selected Warren G. Harding, and then at the Democratic con-
vention in San Francisco, where James M. Cox was chosen. But he was
not the familiar figure that the old chief had been. The fact proved em-
barrassing to J. C. Godfrey, one of the operators on the traffic force at
the Chicago convention. Arriving early in the press section the opening
day, he found a man sitting quietly there, apparently a spectator who
had wandered into the wrong benches. As Godfrey tested and checked
the telegraph wires, he ordered the stranger about casually, telling him
"ease over here," "slip over there," and "you'll have to move." The
spectator obliged without comment. Then Godfrey began talking by wire
to the Chicago Bureau where the convention hall circuits fed onto the
news network.
"Any AP man there?" asked the bureau.
Godfrey turned to the man sitting near by.
"You happen to be an AP man?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
Impressed by the politeness, Godfrey
"Yes, one fellow here. Guess he's a r <j
He turned to the man again.
"This guy wants to know your name," |
the Morse key.
292 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"Fm Mr. Martin," said the acting general manager of The Asso-
ciated Press.
Before the electorate cast the ballots which produced the great
Coolidge-Harding landslide in November, the country — or at least the
part of it that read the sports pages— was shocked by the sensational
Chicago "Black Sox" scandal, which exposed the "throwing" of the
World Series baseball games between Chicago and the Cincinnati Reds
the previous autumn. Charlie Dunkley and Don M. Ewing of the Chi-
cago staff "broke" the story that Eddie Cicotte and Joe Jackson, two of
the best known Chicago players, had confessed, and it was Ewing who
witnessed the moving scene outside the criminal courts building where
several hundred small boys loyally waited for their idol, Joe Jackson,
to appear after testifying before the grand jury.
Ewing left with Jackson and as they made their way through the
hushed crowd, one tiny youngster timidly stepped up to the outfielder
and tugged at his sleeve.
"Say it ain't so, Joe," he pleaded.
Joe Jackson looked down.
"Yes, kid, I'm afraid it is."
The crowd of little fans parted silently to make a path.
"Well, Pd never thought it," gulped the youngster. "Pd never
thought it."
The Chicago story of Joe Jackson's disillusioned admirer and the
pathetic "Say-it-ain't-so-Joe" entreaty that became a national expression
were typical of the humanizing sidelights which were appearing occa-
sionally in the report. Not yet numerous enough to be considered essen-
tial, they indicated a definite trend.
Superintendent Elliott summed up the record in the accounting of
operations submitted to the Board of Directors a few weeks before 1920
passed into history. Discussing the march of events, he said:
A notable feature of our news service of late has been the large number
of remote and rather inaccessible points, far removed from the old news
centers, which seem to have developed into important news fields — Athens,
Constantinople, Warsaw, Fiume, Lucerne, Geneva, Riga and Dublin. This
has given an exceptional diversity of datelines, and has led to the more gen-
eral use of AP dispatches from the outlying points, as individual newspapers
have their staffs concentrated at the old centers — London, Paris and Berlin,
and are dependent on The AP when important news breaks elsewhere. . . .
This general policy of covering news from the scene of action is a trans-
formation from the old system of covering practically all news largely from
"BACK TO NORMALCY^ 293
London and Paris. Editors no longer want news filtered through the old
capitals. They want it direct from the scene.
To the man in the street the news was still of a "cockeyed" world.
In Chicago a staff correspondent eluded a cordon of guards and inter-
viewed the legendary John D. Rockefeller in his long underwear. The
first Prohibition agent was slain in New Jersey. Cortesi watched the rise
of a black-shirted Fascist party recently founded by a prewar Socialist
named Mussolini. And in the beer halls of Munich a former corporal
harangued crowds, denouncing the Versailles Treaty, the French, the
Jews, the capitalists. Handbills identified the speaker as Herr Adolf
Hitler.
President-elect Warren G. Harding only recently had coined the
phrase: "Back to normalcy."
XV. THE ORDER CHANGES
AROUND the long conference table, members of the Board of Di-
rectors were discussing the possibility of increasing employes' insurance
benefits when Stone entered the room. He was almost seventy-three,
yet he seemed almost as alert and commanding as ever.
"At my time of life," he said, "it must be obvious to anybody that
in the comparatively near future my career must be over. I should be a
fool if I hung on here as general manager like the Old Man of the
Sea until an hour when death thrust someone suddenly into my posi-
tion.
"That is why I asked for a leave of absence last year so it could
be determined whether the personnel that I had gathered around me
was capable of running the service. Not alone whether they were capable
of running it, but whether the Board of Directors felt they were capable
of running it. And not alone that the Board of Directors felt that, but
the membership of the association.
"Now I have purposely avoided going to the office. They have
consulted me from time to time. I have the very warmest regard for
the personnel here. The responsibility is upon you. It must be you
who exercise the judgment, but my own feeling is if you agree with me
that Mr. Martin has shown a capacity, that these other gentlemen have
shown a capacity to carry on the work, then I think it is due Mr. Martin
that he be made, not the acting, but the real general manager. I should
like to resign."
In a few minutes the thing was done. Melville E. Stone ceased to
be the general manager of The Associated Press. But the board was
not willing that resignation should sever all his ties. President Noyes
proposed that the office of counselor be created and that Stone be ap-
pointed to fill it. There were some feeble attempts at levity which did
not quite come off.
"The title of counselor suggests a fountainhead of wisdom," ob-
jected John R. Rathom of the Providence Journal with mock serious-
ness.
294
THE ORDER CHANGES 295
"Mr. Stone is not rejecting that," smiled Noyes, and the resolu-
tion was unanimously adopted.
Henceforth it would be Counselor Stone.
That same day, April 29, 1921, Frederick Roy Martin was ap-
pointed general manager. Theoretically, the assignments of the execu-
tive family lapsed with the naming of a new general manager, but Mar-
tin immediately reappointed Assistant General Manager Cooper and
Traffic Chief Garges, and within two weeks Jackson Elliott was raised
from general superintendent to be a second assistant general manager.
Like Hale, Hallock, and Craig, Martin was a New Englander by
birth. A man of independent means, he had devoted himself to news-
paper work since his graduation from Harvard in 1893 — the same year
Stone, his predecessor, took the helm of The Associated Press of Illinois.
For six years Martin worked in Boston. Then he joined the Providence
Journal and presently became its editor and treasurer. During his ad-
ministration the paper's prestige, circulation, and finances advanced ma-
terially and Martin's reputation gained such influence that in April,
1912, he was elected to the Board of Directors of The Associated Press.
The most immediate administrative problem of the new general
manager was the steady loss of able and experienced staff men. The
wartime development of propaganda had been an object lesson to busi-
ness, big and small, in the possibilities of publicity, and trained news-
papermen were eagerly sought as press agents. Most attractive salaries
were offered — sometimes double what a man earned with the co-opera-
tive— and some men on the staff were sorely tempted. In a period when
the cost of living soared to uncomfortable heights, it was difficult to
refuse the commercial propositions, in spite of the fact that so many of
the positions were obviously transitory.
Martin, Stone, Cooper, and Elliott brought the matter to the
attention of the board and urged that the management be given a free
hand to readjust salaries in order to anticipate or at least meet the bids
of commercial enterprises for staff men. The point carried and the raids
on the personnel were checked to a degree. Another aspect of publicity's
development, however, continued a nuisance. The postwar crop of press
agents utilized all sorts of artifices in their attempts to get publicity
stories on the leased wires, and endless vigilance was required to keep
the report free from advertising matter skillfully disguised as news.
The character of contemporary news, moreover, left no space in
the report for anything not essential. Even the humanizing little features
had to compete against a welter of prime dispatches. Congressional de-
296 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
bate on a soldiers' bonus and tax legislation kept Washington busy.
Sports had the "Battle of the Century" when Jack Dempsey and
Georges Carpentier met at Boyle's Thirty Acres. Rum Row set up busi-
ness off the coast. The depression which began in 1920 sagged toward its
low, with 5,735,000 unemployed. The demand for economic, business,
and financial news continued without abatement, necessitating further
expansion in that department of the report. A number of members were
especially insistent that the association enlarge its Wall Street coverage
to include stock and bond quotations, together with a longer list of other
markets.
The story, however, which made 1921 so memorable for the news
report belonged to Kirke L. Simpson of the Washington Bureau.
But for the impressive solemnity of the occasion, Simpson's assign-
ment might have been considered routine. The nation was bringing its
Unknown Soldier home from France to a final resting place in Arling-
ton National Cemetery, and Simpson was assigned to write the stories
on the final obsequies for the nameless man whom the country paused to
honor.
Simpson was only one of the scores of newspapermen — many of
them journalists of reputation — who stood under the sodden skies in
the gray, chilling rain at Washington Navy Yard on November 9 when
the Olympia, Admiral Dewey's flagship at Manila Bay, slowly swung
up the Potomac bringing the dead Unknown home from the wars.
Minute guns boomed in salute.
Simpson wrote the first of his seven Unknown Soldier stories that
afternoon. The next day he described the steady tide of humanity which
flowed in silence past the catafalque under the vast rotunda of the Cap-
itol. Then on the third anniversary of the Armistice there were the
final ceremonies at the Unknown's tomb on the wooded ridge high above
the Potomac. Simpson's first story read:
Washington, Nov. 9. — (By The Associated Press). — A plain soldier,
unknown but weighted with honors as perhaps no American before him be-
cause he died for the flag in France, lay to-night in a place where only mar-
tyred Presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, have slept in death.
He kept lonely vigil lying in state under the vast, shadowy dome of the
Capitol. Only the motionless figures of the five armed comrades, one at the
head and one facing inward at each corner of the bier, kept watch with him.
But far above, towering from the great bulk of the dome, the brooding
THE ORDER CHANGES 297
figure of Freedom watched too, as though it said "well done" to the servant
faithful unto death, asleep there in the vast, dim chamber below.
America's unknown dead is home from France at last, and the nation
has no honor too great for him. In him, it pays its unstinted tribute of pride
and glory to all those sleeping in the far soil of France. It was their home-
coming to-day; their day of days in the heart of the nation and they must
have known it for the heart beat of a nation defies the laws of space, even of
eternity.
Sodden skies and a gray, creeping, chilling rain all through the day
seemed to mark the mourning of this American soil and air at the bier of
this unknown hero. But no jot of the full meed of honor was denied the dead
on that account. From the highest officials of this democratic government to
the last soldier or marine or bluejacket, rain and cold meant nothing beside
the desire to do honor to the dead.
The ceremonies were brief to-day. They began when the far boom
of saluting cannon down the river signalled the coming of the great gray
cruiser Olympia. The fog of rain hid her slow approach up the Potomac,
but fort by fort, post by post, the guns took up the tale of honors for the
dead as she passed.
Slowly the ship swung into her dock. Along her rails stood her crew
in long lines of dark blue, rigid at attention and with a solemn expression
uncommon to the young faces beneath the jaunty sailor hats. Astern, under
the long, gray muzzle of a gun that once echoed its way into history more
than twenty years ago in Manila Bay, lay the flag-draped casket. Above, a
tented awning held off the dripping rain, the inner side of the canvas lined
with great American flags to make a canopy for the sleeper below. At atten-
tion stood five sailors and marines as guards of honor for the dead at each
corner and the head of his bier. . . .
They were simple stories, unpretentious in style. The exigencies of
wire conditions kept them comparatively short and they were written
with the haste news usually dictates. Yet for all that, Simpson's accounts
of those three solemn days seemed to catch the spirit of all that lay in the
tributes to the Unknown Soldier. The restraint, the emotion, the sin-
cerity with which he wrote made his words a fitting commentary.
Not in a long time had any news story made such a deep impres-
sion on millions of Americans. The co-operative's general offices were
overwhelmed by the outpouring of praise. Editors, public officials,
clergymen, professors, schoolteachers, former staff men, average news-
paper readers, wrote in to express appreciation. From all sides came
inquiries as to the identity of the author — the stories carried no by-line —
and so insistent was the demand that the general manager, relaxing
the age-old rule of anonymity, disclosed Simpson's name. To meet nu-
merous requests, The Associated Press published a special booklet con-
298 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
taining the seven Unknown Soldier stories. In Illinois and other states
superintendents of public instruction issued a similar brochure for class-
room use. Permission was granted for republication of the series in
school readers. From pulpits ministers extolled the simple beauty of the
work, and students in public speaking learned the sentences by heart.
The requests for copies continued for the next eighteen years.
Simpson's brilliant handling of the Unknown Soldier assignment
was formally recognized when he was voted the Pulitzer prize, the first
press association man ever to receive the award.
The day after the Unknown Soldier was entombed, the Interna-
tional Arms Limitation Conference called by Secretary of State Hughes
met in the capital and Simpson was one of the twelve-man staff or-
ganized for its coverage. The conference made diplomatic history when
Hughes proposed a ten-year naval holiday and the scrapping of sixty-
six capital ships in the interests of world peace.
The heart of the Hughes proposal was that the foremost naval
powers — United States, Great Britain, and Japan — "freeze" their navies
at the ratio of their existing strength, one to the other. For several days
news writers generally groped for some terse expression to describe the
formula, which provided for fleet equality between the United States
and Great Britain, and a Japanese navy of 40 per cent less strength. A
number of different phrases were tried but none proved apt.
Simpson was specializing in the technical aspects of the conference
and on November 1 8 he talked over the American proposals with Rear
Admiral Sir Ernie Chatfield, chief British technician. In the course of
that talk Chatfield referred offhand to the Hughes' "big three" formula
as the "50-5030 ratio" plan. Simpson, writing his story that night,
simplified Chatfield's chance description by eliminating the zeros. The
paragraph in which the well-known phrase first appeared read:
It is certain that British naval experts regard their country as already
committed, through Mr. Balfour's speech of acceptance, to what might be
called the "5-5-3 ratio" of naval strength as between Great Britain, the
United States and Japan. That is regarded by both British and American
experts as the heart of the matter.
The expression, "5-5-3 ratio," was invariably used thereafter. Other
correspondents picked it up and soon it appeared also in the official
press statements released by the conference itself.
THE ORDER CHANGES 299
The basis on which Japan ultimately agreed to the Five-Power
Navy Treaty negotiated at Washington was described in the report
weeks before the conference got under way. When the Japanese delega-
tion sailed for the United States, it was accompanied by Joseph E. Shar-
key, chief of bureau at Tokyo. One night, as the boat fought its way
through a typhoon, Admiral Kato, Japan's chief plenipotentiary, sent
word to Sharkey that he would like to see him.
"I am disposed," began the admiral when Sharkey reached his
cabin, "I am disposed — if you fancy it has news value— to tell you the
basic principle of the Japanese policy at the Washington conference."
Sharkey fancied it would have news value.
"All right," said Kato. "Here it is in a few words: Japan will
agree to negotiate an arrangement concerning capital ships, provided
the United States agrees not to increase the fortifications of her posses-
sions in the Far East."
There was a little more, but that was the crux of the story. It
created a stir in Washington. Many congressmen commented that the
condition was utterly impossible of acceptance, but eventually it was
incorporated in the naval and political accords reached at the confer-
ence.
Sharing interest with the disarmament conference were the nego-
tiations in London looking to the end of the bitter warfare in Ireland
between the Sinn Feiners and the military forces of the British crown.
For the better part of three years the men on that assignment had
worked under nerve-racking peril and difficulty in an atmosphere of
ambushes, raids, killings, and reprisals.
Like so many of his colleagues, Guy Moyston, of the London Bu-
reau, led a hectic life the many months he spent in Ireland. Mistaken
for an English agent one night when he arrived late in a rural town,
he was awakened to find himself blinking sleepily into the muzzles of
Sinn Fein rifles and revolvers. On another occasion a British patrol
arrested him and hustled him off at bayonet point to Bridewell prison
in Cork. Information found in his possession on the attempted assassi-
nation of the commander of the crown forces in Southern Ireland gave
rise to the suspicion that he was a rebel dispatch bearer. His arrest
turned out to be a fortunate happening, for upon his release he en-
countered a talkative constable who supplied him with additional
details of the assassination attempt the British wanted to suppress.
300 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Moyston sought for weeks to arrange for an interview with Eamon
De Valera, the President of the Irish Republic who, like so many active
in the rebellion, was "on the run." Negotiations were highly dangerous.
They involved secret meetings with outlawed members of the Irish
Republican Army whom the Black and Tans were ready to shoot at
sight, and the men with whom he dealt would not have hesitated to
kill him on the least suspicion of treachery. The efforts to arrange the
interview seemed foredoomed to failure, but Moyston kept trying.
Another meeting was arranged. Moyston found two men in trench
coats and low-pulled caps waiting for him at the rendezvous. In a trice
he was blindfolded, bundled roughly from the house, and thrust into
a waiting automobile which set off at breakneck speed. Moyston could
feel the bulky shoulders of his two guards against him as the car
careened along. Many an informer and government spy had been taken
out like this and his body found later with an I.R.A. death warrant
pinned to his coat. There was no quarter in the fierce warfare and there
was no assurance that the men in the automobile had not decided that
Moyston was a secret agent with fraudulent credentials. One bogus
correspondent had fled Dublin just in time to escape execution.
It was a torturing ride until the swaying automobile eventually
skidded to a stop. Hands gripped Moyston's arms and hurried him
stumbling along an unseen path. He tripped through a doorway and
into a room. There the blindfold was whipped away and he found him-
self standing before a spare, scholarly figure.
The man was De Valera and it was only then that Moyston knew
for certain that the brusque handling to which he had been subjected
was all incidental to obtaining his long-sought interview.
A truce halted the fighting during the negotiations at London
which led to the establishment of the Irish Free State. The co-operative
had a staff of thirteen men, Moyston among them, covering the various
phases of the conference which led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish
Treaty, a highly controversial subject even in the United States. The
story on the signing of the agreement was complete enough, but it by
no means spelled the end of extraordinary staff arrangements in Ire-
land. The treaty created a schism in Irish ranks and the country plunged
into a civil war which made the task of coverage just as hazardous as
ever.
5
Throughout the year leased wire facilities were steadily enlarged
to cope with the burden of news which assumed heavier proportions.
THE ORDER CHANGES 301
The cable report approximated 6,500 words each twenty-four hours,
and a survey showed that the co-operative brought in an average of
fifty-eight foreign items daily as compared with eleven for commercial
agencies. Although the service from the Orient increased considerably,
Europe remained the major continent in the foreign report, what with
the nightmare of German inflation, the beginning of the Fascist regime
in Italy, the crushing Greek defeat at the hands of Kemal, the League
of Nations, and the perennial maneuverings of Old World diplomacy.
The domestic report had its own sensations with the bloody Herrin
mine war, New Jersey's spectacular Hall-Mills murder case, and the
beginning of the grim gang wars which marked Prohibition. The pattern
of news was unpredictable — flappers, the crystal radio set craze, dawn
of the night club era, Gallagher and Shean, and Abie's Irish Rose.
The year saved its greatest journalistic surprise until the last weeks
when it made a 4,ooo-year-old Egyptian king the most exceptional news
carried in many a day. The tomb of King Tutankhamen was found De-
cember i near Luxor, Egypt. Experts termed it "the greatest archaeo-
logical discovery of all time," and so closely did people follow the story
that reference to "King Tut" cropped up daily in ordinary conversation.
A syndicate headed by the London Times had paid $100,000 to
the British archaeologists excavating at the tomb site, and the contract
carried exclusive rights to all news and photographs. No other corre-
spondents had the right to enter the rockhewn royal tomb while the
scientists were cutting through the wall which was believed to separate
the richly furnished anteroom from the actual mortuary chamber where
they hoped to find the sarcophagus and mummy of the King who ruled
in the fourteenth century before Christ.
As far as the archaeologists were concerned, Valentine Williams
was merely one of some forty correspondents who had no choice but
to wait daily in the blazing heat outside the hidden tomb and labori-
ously piece stories together from such scraps of information as could be
coaxed from secondhand sources. All firsthand news went to the Lon-
don Times syndicate.
That the archaeologist expected any day to broach the rock wall
into the mortuary chamber ceased to be news 5 it only served to deepen
the gloom which pervaded the press corps. On February 16, 1923, Wil-
liams was racking his brains for some forlorn plan to circumvent the
syndicate's monopoly on the story. He happened to notice an Egyptian
official who had just emerged from the vault.
Paying no attention to the newspapermen at the tomb entrance,
302 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
the Egyptian walked over the sands to a water cooler set up about two
hundred feet away. Williams recognized him as one of the party which
had entered the excavation with the archaeologists more than an hour
earlier. He watched the man for a moment and decided that he, too,
needed a drink of water. Casually he strolled after the Egyptian with-
out attracting the attention of rival correspondents.
Williams smiled disarmingly and the Egyptian nodded. They had
a drink of water together. The desert heat made one thirsty.
"Excuse me, sir," said Williams idly, "a controversy has arisen as
to whether you found one coffin or two coffins inside the tomb. Can you
put me straight on it?"
He drew another drink of water.
"Two coffins!" exclaimed the official. "Why, no. Of course not.
We found only one coffin!"
"Oh," said Williams innocently. "The coffin of King Tutank-
hamen?"
"Yes," said the unsuspecting Egyptian, "we believe it is. The
royal seal on the coffin is still intact and the sarcophagus bears the
hieroglyphic cartouche of Tutankhamen."
Williams nodded understandingly.
"And you believe the coffin contains the mummy of the King?"
"Yes, we have every reason to think so," replied the unwitting
official, describing the scenes within the tomb.
"Oh, thank you very much," Williams said politely.
As soon as the Egyptian returned to the tomb, the correspondent
was racing over the Theban plain in a small automobile to the nearest
telegraph office.
In a matter of minutes London had the flash:
TUTANKHAMEN'S SARCOPHAGUS AND MUMMY POUND.
The news shot over the cables into New York. Long before the
archaeologists emerged from the tomb to prepare their official com-
munique, member papers had the story of how, for the first time in
history, a royal Egyptian sarcophagus had been discovered intact and
unprofaned by thieves or vandals.
6
Although it captured popular imagination to an unusual degree,
the news of King Tutankhamen's tomb provided little more than a
diversion in the news log of the months immediately preceding the
THE ORDER CHANGES 303
1923 annual meeting. Of more significance were the dispatches from
James P. Howe, Thomas Topping, Walter Hiatt, and Clifford L. Day
when French and Belgian troops occupied the highly industrialized
Ruhr Valley to enforce German reparations payments. Joseph Sharkey,
assigned to the League of Nations at Geneva, reported the efforts of
the Lausanne Conference to conclude a lasting peace for the turbulent
Near East. And at home the Lick Observatory announced that it had
confirmed Professor Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.
Looking behind the externals of the news service, the members
could gauge the extent of the association's postwar expansion. The leased
wires crisscrossing the continent totaled 92,000 miles, with an operator
at every eighty-five miles along the circuit. The threads of the vast
web linked 1,207 members with the fifty-five domestic bureaus which
served them and, by cable, with the twenty-seven American-manned
bureaus abroad. Employes numbered almost two thousand, annual ex-
penditures exceeded $6,000,000. Member papers published in every
one of the forty-eight states, in Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto
Rico, Cuba, Mexico, Central and South America, and the news ap-
peared in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Jap-
anese. Telegraph keys, Morkrum machines, telephones, cables, and wire-
less sped the general report, totaling 75,000 words daily, over more
than a hundred different channels.
The Board of Directors had an impressive statistical summary to
marshal in the annual report presented to the 1923 meeting of the mem-
bership. President Noyes, who had just returned from a round-the-
world tour, told of the firsthand study he had made of news conditions,
particularly in China and Japan. Then President Harding addressed
the gathering on national and international affairs.
Two months after Harding spoke at the annual luncheon he left
Washington for a trip to Alaska. The country was singing "Yes, We
Have no Bananas" that summer, talking about marathon dances, or
discussing Rudolph Valentino's latest movie. Few, even among the in-
formed, knew definitely the proportions of the political scandals brew-
ing in the Veterans' Bureau, the Interior Department, and other gov-
ernmental quarters at Washington. Perhaps Harding had a feeling that
all was not well. Stephen Early and E. R. Bartley, the staff men
assigned to accompany the party, remarked how weary the President
seemed.
The first four weeks of the trip were humdrum. The special train
rolled across the country, the President made set speeches, audiences
304 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
applauded politely, and nothing unusual happened. When Alaska was
reached, Harding seemed to grow more tired and dispatches spoke of
concern over the President's health. The concern deepened on the
return trip when Harding was stricken at Seattle, July 27. His physician
attributed the attack to ptomaine poisoning. The President insisted that
the journey be resumed, however, and the party arrived in San Fran-
cisco on July 29. There Harding took to his bed and his condition
failed to improve over the weekend.
Early and Bartley understood the gravity of the situation. Hard-
ing's condition had not yet become critical, but the circumstances war-
ranted preparedness. Paul Cowles, superintendent of the Pacific Coast
Division, cut short his vacation. Members of the San Francisco staff
were assigned to work with the Washington men, and a special wire
was looped to the seventh floor of the Palace Hotel, ten feet from a
private back stairway leading to the presidential suite on the floor above.
The coast traflic chief, Percy Hall, took charge of the telegraphers at
the improvised headquarters. "Never leave the wire unmanned for a
second," were his orders. "The man who leaves this room without
permission leaves the service."
On Monday night Harding's condition took a turn for the worse.
Bronchial pneumonia developed and Early, keeping watch outside the
sickroom, saw worried doctors come and go. On Tuesday the Presi-
dent's heart weakened and fears for his life became acute. Telegraphers
ate their meals while they kept Morse keys clicking off the news. Every
minute of the day and night someone was on duty at the chief execu-
tive's bedroom door.
Dispatches Wednesday were better. The President had shown
"remarkable improvement." By the afternoon Dr. Joal T. Boone, one
of the White House physicians, announced the crisis had passed. The
ranks of reporters assigned to the story by individual newspapers began
to dwindle.
For The Associated Press, however, Superintendent Cowles was
not at all satisfied. Even after the encouraging bulletins Thursday after-
noon, he thought it wise to consult San Francisco physicians for their
private opinions. They told him that any patient with symptoms similar
to those described in the presidential bulletins was far from out of
danger. Any reduction in staff precautions was out of the question after
Cowles received that information.
Thursday night Early waited at his post a few feet away from the
THE ORDER CHANGES 305
President's door. Many members of Harding's party were out attend-
ing social functions in the city. The last word from the sickroom had
been reassuring and most correspondents had not yet returned from
dinner. On the Pacific Coast it was about seven-thirty.
Just then the door of the room flew open and Early saw Mrs.
Harding's white, distraught face.
"Call Dr. Boonej call Dr. Boone!" she was crying. "Find him and
the others quick!"
Attendants scurried to find the physician, and Early, after con-
firming what he sensed had happened, went racing down the back stair-
way to the seventh floor. Standing over the operator, he rapidly dic-
tated a series of bulletins which told that the President's condition had
taken a sudden turn for the worse. It was the first intimation that the
President's life was in danger.
A few minutes after the first rush of bulletins, Early was back
again in the wire room, breathlessly dictating:
FLASH-FLASH
SAN FRANCISCO - PRESIDENT HARDING DEAD
The flash gave official Washington the shocking news. In the
confusion at the hotel in San Francisco those in Harding's party forgot
to send any notification to the capital. Vice-President Coolidge was away,
vacationing at his father's home in Plymouth, Vermont.
But Plymouth had not been neglected in the association's precau-
tions. Days earlier, when Harding had been stricken, W. E. Playfair,
night editor in Boston, had been sent to the Coolidge homestead with
instructions to remain close to the vice-president in case an emergency
arose. He found two of Boston's string correspondents, Arthur Granger,
of Rutland, and Joseph H. Fountain, of Springfield, Vermont, already
there, and they worked under his direction as Plymouth's importance
waxed, then waned with the tenor of the bulletins from the San Fran-
cisco sickroom. The little farming hamlet had no telephone or telegraph
lines, and to get out the news it was necessary to go to Rutland, the
nearest leased wire point, or eleven miles to the slightly nearer com-
munities, Bridgewater and Ludlow, where telephones were available.
It was a telephone call to Ludlow from the Boston Bureau that
told Playfair of Harding's death and started him over dark country
roads to the Coolidge farm. The vice-president had gone to bed and
Playfair gave his news to the elder Coolidge who seemed awed by the
gravity of the moment. Other reporters started to arrive, among them
306 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Granger and Fountain. The backfire of automobiles shattered the still
of the night. Coolidge and his wife came downstairs.
"Good morning, Mr. President," someone said.
Coolidge did not reply.
"Is this information authentic ?" he asked.
Technically still vice-president, Coolidge issued his first statement
as the nation's leader:
Reports have reached me, which I fear are correct, that President Hard-
ing is gone. The world has lost a great and good man. I mourn his loss. He
was my Chief and my friend.
It will be my purpose to carry out the policies which he has begun for
the service of the American people and for meeting their responsibilities
wherever they may arise.
For this purpose . . .
As soon as the statement was issued in the hushed farmhouse room,
Playfair left for Ludlow to telephone it to Boston. Granger remained
behind to gather additional details. Then he was off to Bridgewater.
Other correspondents departed in haste to get their own stories in, but
Fountain remained behind. Coolidge had not yet been sworn in as
president and it was Fountain's assignment to stay there until he was.
At 2:43 A.M. on August 3, 1923, by the light of a kerosene lamp,
Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office as President of the United
States, repeating the words as his father read them. Seven persons wit-
nessed the ceremony. The only newspaperman among them was Joseph
H. Fountain.
7
Harding's death was the forerunner of a freshet of big news which
continued until the end of 1923. George Denny, the veteran of the
Russo-Japanese War who had replaced Sharkey as bureau chief at
Tokyo, covered the earthquake which struck Japan on September i,
taking almost 100,000 lives. There also was the Dempsey-Firpo
fight, one of the early events in the so-called "Golden Age" of
professional sports. The six-man staff was directed by a new general
sports editor — Alan J. Gould, who had been appointed to the post in
March when Moss resigned. Two days after the fight interest centered
on the New York pressmen's strike which left the metropolis without
its regular papers for a week. Then Washington took first place in the
domestic report with the startling disclosures of the Teapot Dome
scandal investigation, and in the cable news there were dispatches from
Elmer Roberts at Munich describing an abortive beer-hall Putsch to
THE ORDER CHANGES 307
overthrow the government in Germany. The uprising lost its news
value after one of its leaders, Adolf Hitler, was sentenced to five years'
imprisonment.
With the coming of the new year the association's headquarters
was moved from downtown New York, where so much bygone jour-
nalistic history had been made, to larger offices at 383 Madison Avenue,
in the midtown area. The transfer of operating equipment, the change-
over of wire circuits controlling the leased network, and other details
of the move presented a complex problem, but the new quarters were
occupied on March 2 without interruption in the service.
The presidential campaigns and election called for the dominant
news-gathering efforts in 1924 when the country, swept along by the
tide of increasing prosperity, rallied to the call: "Keep Cool with
Coolidge." The convention staff had it lengthiest assignment in his-
tory at the marathon Democratic sessions in Madison Square Garden,
where Alfred E. Smith lost his first bid for the nomination in an atmos-
phere of bitterness and acrimony. The leased wires flashed the No-
vember verdict: a landslide for Coolidge and his running mate, Charles
G. Dawes.
As the headlines of 1924 told their stories, an important adminis-
trative change was brewing in the co-operative. Vague intimations
reached some of the staff and the better informed members late in the
year. Confirmation came on the eve of the 1925 annual meeting. Fred-
erick Roy Martin submitted his resignation as general manager, effec-
tive the end of April. Private publishing opportunities had presented
themselves, and Martin also had other interests which demanded greater
attention. With a tribute to his service, the board accepted the resigna-
tion which closed the shortest administration since the days of Alexander
Jones in the middle of the previous century.
The unanimous choice of the board, Kent Cooper stepped in as
the new general manager. Frank B. Noyes, whose twenty-fifth anni-
versary came the same year, later said of the appointment: "No
chronicle of my connection with The Associated Press would be com-
plete without a record of the fact of the importance of my service in
bringing forward and encouraging the energies of Cooper through a
long series of years, of my recommendation that he be made general
manager and of my profound satisfaction at his subsequent fulfilment
of my every hope."
Under ordinary circumstances such an important administrative
change might have been expected to monopolize the attention of an
308 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
annual meeting, but 1925 was not an ordinary year. Since it was Noyes's
twenty-fifth anniversary, the uppermost thought of the publishers who
attended in record numbers was to memorialize the occasion.
8
For a quarter of a turbulent century the quiet, distinguished-look-
ing publisher of the Washington Star had guided the destinies of the
organization. Year after year with unfailing regularity he had been
re-elected. Managerial changes occurred, directors came and went, but
Frank Noyes continued. There were many among the membership who
could not remember a time when he was not president of The Asso-
ciated Press, and there were others who had come to consider him an
indispensable personality in the life of the association.
Of medium stature, military in bearing, he was outwardly a stern
but nevertheless benevolent leader among his fellow publishers. In an
even, well-modulated voice he could parry distasteful questions or sud-
den stabs of wit. At annual meetings he spoke in conversational tones
and his words flowed with an ease that frequently confounded some of
the more fiery and excitable members. His opening lines frequently
gave listeners the impression they were in for a deadly serious dis-
course, yet within minutes he was quietly employing a sense of humor
that was as compelling as it was unexpected. The fund of stories from
which he drew to illustrate any pertinent point were so apt, his selec-
tion of words so precise, that any utterance, no matter how impromptu,
assumed a quality of polish that invariably left listeners in open ad-
miration.
Yet active as Noyes was in the inner councils of the association,
well known as he was in high places, he studiously avoided any public
act which conceivably might be construed as reflecting a viewpoint of
the nonpartisan news-gathering agency he headed. He diplomatically
abstained from speaking on controversial subjects, and on only one
occasion during his entire regime was a member of his own craft able
to obtain a headline from him.
On that occasion Noyes was vacationing in Florida and one of the
local papers sent around a cub reporter — an inquisitive little lady who
charmingly peppered him with questions on politics, world affairs, and
his own personal preference in the fields of music, the arts, and the
sciences.
"My dear child," he said, "I am sorry, but I really can't talk on
any of those subjects."
THE ORDER CHANGES 309
The young reporter was determined. She asked her questions over
and over again until finally, in an effort to have her understand fully
why he felt he should not express opinions for publication, he tried
again to state his position.
"You see," he explained, "as head of The Associated Press I try
to maintain a detached neutrality on all public matters because ours is
a factual organization and anything I say personally might be open to
misconstruction."
He paused, mentally framing a definition, and then there was a
barely perceptible twinkle in his eye.
"Because of my position," he smiled, "I suppose that for the past
thirty-five years I have been somewhat of an intellectual eunuch."
The young interviewer heard him through, graciously thanked
him for his kindly reception, and made her departure. Noyes thought
no more about the incident until shown a copy of the reporter's paper
the next day. There on the front page was the young woman's story,
one sentence of which read:
"The president of The Associated Press says he is an intellectual
UNIT."
One of Noyes's greatest contributions during that first quarter
century was the way he maintained the association's stability in the in^
evitable conflicts of interest which arose between the large and the small
papers making up the membership. He said:
There have always been two schools of thought as to the membership
makeup of The Associated Press. One has held to the desirability of having
a large membership consisting of a great number of small papers and a small
number of large papers.
On the other hand, there were those who believed that the membership
should be confined to the larger papers.
The Board of Directors almost unanimously has believed in the theory
of the large organization, and has consistently and scrupulously sought to
conserve the interests of the smaller units of the membership.
The annual meeting was held April 2, 1925, and applause swept
the room when Ralph H. Booth, of the Saginaw (Mich.) News-Courier,
on behalf of the membership, presented the president with a golden
bowl to commemorate the anniversary.
The cheering of several hundred members failed to drown the
voice of Victor Lawson, calling for the floor. The old fighter had lost
much of his vigor, but he still could command attention.
"An ideal is the very essence of any great endeavor inspired by a
3io AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
sincere purpose," Lawson said, addressing Noyes. "The conception of
an Associated Press as a national co-operative news-gathering and dis-
tributing agency, charging itself in the conduct of a business enterprise
with the high responsibility of a great public service in the preservation
of the sources of public information and opinion free from the pollu-
tion of selfish commercialism and political ambition, depended for its
permanent realization upon a loyal and continuing devotion to the com-
mon good. This high conception of public duty has been from the first
the common bond of the membership of this association, and in response
to which you have accepted and discharged the constant and exacting
duties of your leadership."
He paused, then added:
"You have served a great and righteous cause, the cause of Truth
in News, and served it faithfully."
Visibly touched, Noyes for once found it difficult to phrase his
feelings.
"This is indeed for me a day of fulfillment," he said. "I would
not, even if I could, conceal how deeply I am affected by what has been
said here and by those outward and visible signs of your friendship and
good will. While no one realizes better than I do that much that has
been said by my dear friends who have spoken applies to the sort of
president that I should have been and not to what really I have been,
still the words of over-appreciative friendship and tenderness are very
dear to me — precious beyond any words of mine to express. . . ."
To the right of the dais the stenographer, who was keeping the
usual transcript of the proceedings, listened to the spontaneous outburst
which broke loose as Noyes concluded, and conservatively entered in his
notes:
"Great applause."
I. SPEED AND PROSPERITY
A QUARTER of a century of tremendous progress had transformed
the newspaper world into a marvel of high-speed efficiency. Dispatches
were turned into type with amazing rapidity. The total circulations of
American newspapers mounted close to 40,000,000 daily and the in-
come of newspaper enterprises topped $900,000,000 annually.
The afternoon papers, which assumed during the World War a
position they had never held before, continued to advance in the en-
suing years. Sunday editions grew thicker. Chain organizations extended
their holdings and consolidations strengthened the publishing field.
In content and appearance the majority of papers strove to be as
attractive as possible. The development of photo-engraving processes
made good news pictures possible. Typography and format style re-
ceived a larger share of attention in the interests of reading ease, and
increased departmentalizing added noticeably to newspaper appeal.
Day-to-day news continued the essential commodity and its volume
kept increasing as the world turned. If anything, the swift march of
mechanical progress had made news a more perishable commodity than
ever. In keeping with the pace of newspaper manufacture, communica-
tions moved toward greater perfection. The enormous expansion of
telephone systems brought many previously remote regions within the
periphery of speedy news gathering. Technical advances had given
both telegraph and cable lines higher standards of reliability and effi-
ciency. Radio, that comparative newcomer in the communications fam-
ily, provided still another channel. Even such a pedestrian department
of news dissemination as the mail services found a brisker gait, for
postal deliveries were quicker and air mail could be enlisted whenever
haste was essential.
The advent of this high-speed day produced a series of opportuni-
ties and needs which The AP had been tardy in realizing. Many of its
members felt there had been a failure to catch the complete significance
of all the changes taking place in the newspaper world. In the past the
news had been the only important thing, regardless of its presentation.
Now editors and readers were critical of the manner in which a story
3 H AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
was told. They wanted their news written in the most interesting, vivid
style, not only on isolated occasions but as a regular thing. There was
redoubled insistence that the brighter and curious side of life be re-
ported 5 the fads and foibles of an era were as much a part of its history
as were its politics or perils. The long predominance of foreign news
on front pages had diminished, and as balance returned neighborhood
news came back to its own — and the automobile had given neighbor-
hoods a wide area. Not only had people become picture minded but they
also liked diversions, as the interest in feature material testified.
It was at this time that Kent Cooper took over as general manager.
He was loyal to the principles for which the nonprofit co-operative stood
in the field of news and he already had declined offers by commercial
news agencies which would have brought financial rewards many times
beyond what he ever could hope for with The AP. Now that he had
been given his opportunity, he stated his creed:
I believe there is nothing so fascinating as the true day-to-day story of
humanity. Man, what he feels, what he does, what he says; his fears,
his hopes, his aspirations. And, as truth is stranger than fiction, nothing can
be more engrossing than the truthful portrayal of life itself. The journalist
who deals in facts diligently developed and intelligently presented exalts
his profession, and his stories need never be colorless or dull. On the other
hand, the reporter who resorts to the rouge pot to make his wares attractive
convicts himself of laziness and ineptitude. The head of another press associa-
tion once said that it was always proper to qualify the news with color in
order to stimulate reader interest. This I deny. Artificiality and super-
ficiality in news writing not only are unnecessary, but ultimately must have
a baneful influence on the reader. Simple honesty and good business demand
from the newspaperman an uncolored tale of what is. That is my creed.
Zealously adhering to the principle of factual reporting, neverthe-
less Cooper had little patience with the old myth that impartiality
postulated drab, tedious writing. The official drive for livelier, more
interesting presentation of the news was a foregone conclusion. That a
definite part of the staff was ready for such a change was demonstrated
by the promptness of the response. The stiff and sometimes stodgy writ-
ing habits were not to be rooted out overnight, but the process had been
started and it continued without relaxation as part of the fundamental
policy of the new regime.
The second emphasis concerned itself with extending the variety in
SPEED AND PROSPERITY 315
the report. Human-interest stories ceased to be regarded as decorative
and were given due, if belated, recognition. One of the first manifesta-
tions of the new trend was the special daily wire feature called "Flashes
of Life." It was a series of brief items side-lighting the humorous and
the unusual in everyday existence.
At the outset, these departures did not meet with universal ap-
proval. One publisher warned tartly: "We will soon be devoting our-
selves entirely to trivialities." The Board of Directors thought differ-
ently, encouraging the trend until the proportion of humanizing stories
in the report had risen to a respectable level.
The transformation attracted so much journalistic attention that
papers commented editorially, among them the Kansas City Star which
said:
The AP Reports The Human Spectacle
Until recently The Associated Press has conceived its field to be restricted
to the chronicling of serious and important news. From its standpoint, a catas-
trophe, an election, a congressional debate, the death of a distinguished man,
an important trial, pretty much exhausted the topics of human interest.
Until recently. An attentive reader of The Star must have noticed a
change in the last few months. The Associated Press by-line now is appearing
over dispatches that are gay as well as grave. . . . The Associated Press
has begun to live up to the Greek philosopher's saying that nothing human
is alien to him. It has not lowered its standards. It has simply enlarged
the field of its interests. It is striving to report every phase of the human
spectacle.
The transformation has been due to the vision and imagination of
Mr. Kent Cooper.
This "vision and imagination" was by no means an overnight
development. The disclosure of the idea of humanizing the news report
went back to 1916 and a flagman's shanty along a railroad right-of-way
between Utica and Syracuse in New York.
Melville Stone was general ^ manager then and, together with
Cooper, he had entrained one winter night to attend a meeting of
Canadian Press members in Toronto. While the two men sat reading
in a smoking compartment the train came to a stop between the two
upstate cities. The older man and his young assistant speculated on the
cause of the stop and soon Stone closed his book with the suggestion
that they alight and determine the trouble.
They climbed down the steps into a cold rain and looked up and
down the tracks. There was nothing in sight but a lighted flagman's
316 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
hut and Stone suggested they go there to inquire. Inside they found
three railroad employes around a stove. From the gruff greeting there
was no doubt but that the two passengers were considered intruders.
But the cool reception did not abash Stone. A man of exceptional per-
sonality and charm, he observed that one of the men was chewing to-
bacco. The general manager did not make a habit of tobacco in such
form, but he nevertheless asked if he might borrow a chew. The plug
was grudgingly offered and he bit off a sizeable piece.
Stone then stood chewing his wad and conversing lightly with his
newly made acquaintances. Within a few minutes he had the three
railroad employees and Cooper so engrossed in his humorous anecdotes
that the train was pulling away unnoticed.
Stone and Cooper hurriedly swung aboard and in the corridor of
their car they met a former Canadian premier who was an old acquaint-
ance of the general manager. The next ten minutes were given over
to a serious discussion of international affairs— the World War and the
probability of conditions at its termination. The discussion with the one-
time Canadian official was totally unlike that in which Stone had just
indulged with the tobacco-chewing workers in the stove-heated shanty,
yet the general manager seemed equally at home with what interested
each, talking in a language both could understand.
Stone and Cooper resumed their seats in the smoking compart-
ment and the assistant then took over the conversation. They laughed
over the shanty episode and Cooper ventured a thought.
"These two little incidents I have just witnessed have a direct
bearing on what I think The Associated Press news report should be,"
he said. "I think it should be at home and welcome in both such circles
as you yourself have been welcomed tonight."
The two men discussed the suggestion late into the night and as
the general manager said good night he turned to Cooper.
"Well, if I were a younger man I might try your idea as an
experiment," he observed. Then he added with a wry face:
"But that certainly was strong tobacco!"
Cooper little thought that within a decade he himself would be
trying to make all the news completely at home to both such circles on
a world-wide scale.
Reporting the human spectacle, however, sometimes brought hu-
morous repercussions. On one occasion the cables carried a short on the
SPEED AND PROSPERITY 317
fact that soup was disappearing from the menus of many European
hotels. Widely used, this harmless enough little piece aroused the in-
dignation of one large soup manufacturer who protested that the co-
operative was attacking the soup industry.
From the long-range point of view, Cooper's most significant de-
cision perhaps was to concentrate on the development of state services.
A number of factors were involved, notably recognition of the future of
vicinage news, the consequent extension of news-gathering facilities, and
a shift in the basic operating methods of the co-operative.
Although it represented a logical step in the modern co-operative,
State Service development had been slow. When member papers showed
considerable desire in 1908 for a more localized report — something
possible only through the creation of State Services, or "side circuits"
as they then were called — the Special Survey Committee that year dis-
couraged the idea, holding that the co-operative's sphere was news of
general interest only. Nevertheless, the success of existing side circuits
helped to keep the idea alive.
The movement took on fresh vigor in the postwar years and no
difficulties were placed in the way of the members in some areas who
expressed a desire for the development of state services to supplement
their general report. On the contrary, there seemed reason to believe
that the projects received enthusiastic, if unofficial, help from some
members of the management's staff.
By the time he became general manager, Cooper found Noyes and
others on the Board of Directors sympathetic to the State Service-
vicinage news trend and soon the possibilities were receiving the active
stimulus needed. The state was made the basic unit of domestic opera-
tions, and in each a strategic bureau was designated to serve as the
control point. These bureaus siphoned off dispatches of general im-
portance from the regular report and used this material in conjunction
with news of more local origin to build up a special report for the
state circuits they operated. Bureau chiefs were appointed to supervise
activities and to act as the general manager's personal representative in
each of the states. The enlarged scope of operations necessitated a cor-
responding increase in staff personnel.
The full development of the state services had a salutary effect
on the attitude of members. Where the organization as a world-wide
enterprise might be too vast to encourage active interest or personal
enthusiasm, the more compact state organization represented something
tangible and close to home. Members showed interest in the betterment
3i 8 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
and success of these smaller units and one manifestation was the general
introduction of periodical state meetings at which members gathered
to discuss news in terms of the circuits which served their newspapers.
For the General Service, considered in its strictest sense as a budget
containing only the most important news, the strengthening and the
extending of state services had an obvious advantage. If each unit
covered all its own news thoroughly, from small events to great ones,
there was little likelihood that the General Service would fail to receive
promptly any important news with an interest that transcended state
lines.
Another innovation was the appointment of a science editor to
specialize in the news to be found in laboratory research and experi-
ment. The new general manager had been impressed by the possibilities
in this field for news gathering, not in the random manner of the past
when a single important discovery or invention momentarily attracted
popular attention, but rather in a regular day-to-day manner. He talked
of the possibility to the president of Stevens Institute of Technology.
"People even sleep better because of the scientific study of bed-
•springs," he said. "Don't you agree there is a field for science news in
language all newspaper readers will understand?"
"Yes," said the professor, "but you'll need a scientist as a reporter."
Cooper considered that.
"No," he decided j "instead of trying to make a reporter of a
scientist, we'll make a scientist of a reporter. We'll get a man who is
smart enough to know science, but who also knows how to write for
the average newspaper reader."
The appointment of a science editor followed. John Cooley did
pioneering work and, after him, Coleman B. Jones. The science editor
responsible for the development of the new department to full stature
was its third editor, Howard W. Blakeslee, a man with a wide range
of experience in all phases of the service. He developed into a science
specialist of top rank, winning university degrees and a Pulitzer prize.
Coincident with the expansion of the scope of the news report, the
new general manager made another departure from precedent. He
began the practice of using "by-lines" over stories of unusual interest
and importance. In the past the writer of any AP story had been
anonymous, but Cooper felt there was advantage to both The AP and
the staff to have the man identified with the work he did. The practice
SPEED AND PROSPERITY 319
applied only on outstanding cases and the papers receiving the by-lined
stories could carry the name of the author or not, as individual policy
dictated.
In the midst of all this activity, planning, and improving, The
AP lost one of its great figures. On August 19, 1925, Victor Lawson
died. If David Hale could be called the father of The Associated Press,
then Victor Lawson was its foster father, for without him the co-
operative principle never would have been preserved. The membership
and the newspaper world at large mourned him as one of the foremost
figures ever produced by his profession.
In the ranks of the staff, too, old familiar figures were disappearing.
Dick Lee, ship news editor for forty-seven years, died within a few
weeks after illness forced him out of harness. A legendary character,
he always insisted on working seven days a week and until the end
he refused all offers of assistance.
The younger staff men who were replacing such older hands as
Lee experienced a hectic summer in 1925, particularly in the sweltering
heat at Dayton, Tennessee, where the Scopes Evolution Trial made the
strangest news of the year. The epic legal battle between Clarence
Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, the Bible's champion, kept four
staff correspondents busy from dawn until midnight or later. W. F.
Caldwell, news editor of the Southern Division, who was credited with
being the first newsman to see the possibilities of the story when Scopes
was arrested, supervised the coverage, assisted by Brian Bell, W. B.
Ragsdale, and P. I. Lipsey. Bell, who had been on the story even before
Scopes' indictment, became so well known that when the trial ended
in a flood of oratory Judge Raulston called on him for some expression
for the court record.
"Mr. Bell," he asked, smiling toward the AP table, "won't you
say a word?"
"No, sir, judge," was the good-natured reply.
There was no dearth of provocative material in the record the
times produced. There were the navy air disasters: the Shenandoah and
the rescue of Commander Rodgers from the navy airplane PN-9-No.i
after his attempted flight to Hawaii. Florida was having its fabulous
land boom and the Miami Daily News printed the biggest newspaper
yet in journalistic history— 504 pages. Crossword puzzles had become
a national mania, and football fans chanted the praises of that "galloping
320 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
ghost" from the University of Illinois, Red Grange. There was the
8-51 submarine disaster off Block Island, the great anthracite coal strike
in Pennsylvania, Germany's entry into the League of Nations, and the
passing of baseball's immortal Christy Mathewson.
The report itself was feeling a new exterior pressure and by 1926
it became serious. Postwar disillusionment, moral relaxation, the Pro-
hibition era, and the cult of ballyhoo had generated influences which
were producing deleterious effects in American journalism. One mani-
fest tendency was the dramatization of cheap heroics and the sensa-
tionalizing of crime. Old standards of delicacy disappeared in some
published accounts of unsavory scandals. Some newspapers began hippo-
droming events out of all proportion to their objective news value.
To preserve the balance and sanity of the report in the midst
of such an atmosphere required ceaseless care. The Board of Directors
and the general manager reiterated the standing instructions against
the glorification of criminals. The norm of good taste was reaffirmed for
all stories whenever the subject matter transgressed the limits of common
decency. Artificial sensations were ruthlessly dealt with and hysterical
sentimentality got short shrift from staff editors. Some members, who
preferred the gaudy, theatrical trappings of the journalistic moment,
may not have been pleased with the attitude of the administration, but
the vast majority considered it a levelheaded stand.
When the nineteen-year-old Marion Talley made her operatic
debut on February 17, the Metropolitan broke tradition by permitting
the installation of a special news wire. For the first time in the history
of the opera the clicking of a telegraph key mingled with coloratura
arias. The wire was set up in the conductors' room on the stage level
across a narrow passage from the wings. S. A. Dawson wrote the story
of Miss Talley's performance and reception. Ethel Halsey, the first
woman reporter on the New York staff, obtained interviews with Mrs.
Talley and later with the young opera star.
Unknown to the glittering audience of 4,100 which jammed the
opera house and the crowd of 5,000 gathered outside, it was Charles
M. Talley, the star's father, who started the story of the debut onto
the leased wires. A former Associated Press telegrapher, he returned
to the Morse key and tapped out the first story.
As the news beginnings indicated, it was to be a year of infinite
SPEED AND PROSPERITY 321
variety. "Daddy" Browning, fifty-one, wed "Peaches" Heenan, fifteen,
and Germany elected General von Hindenburg president. Swimmers
conquered the English channel and Joseph Stalin was rising to power
in Soviet Russia. President Coolidge's father died in Vermont and a
New York jury heard all about the nude chorus girl in Earl Carroll's
bathtub. Mabel Walker Willebrandt directed the newest federal drive
for enforcement of the Volstead Act, and the Charleston dance craze
seemed likely to stay.
May produced, among a welter of other things, the biggest story
from England since World War days — the British General Strike.
Harry H. Romer, of the New York cable staff, happened to take a
European vacation that spring and it turned out to be a busman's holi-
day. He landed in England on May 3 — the day the first of 4,000,000
workers walked out — and within an hour he was busy in the London
office. The bureau chief, Charles Stephenson Smith, mobilized a staff
of twenty-five for the emergency which turned Great Britain upside
down, brought troops in full field kit into the streets, and put volunteers
to work manning the nation's vital services.
Assigned to labor headquarters, James P. Howe, the former A.E.F.
war correspondent, bought out a little notions shop in order to have
exclusive use of the nearest telephone. The small bewhiskered shop-
keeper sat behind the locked front door, waiting to pull the bolt and
admit Howe the moment he appeared.
Bureau Chief Smith and Frank King were at No. 10 Downing
Street on May 12 for the meeting between Prime Minister Stanley
Baldwin and the Council of the Trades Union Congress which ended
the strike. Bowler hat and notes in one hand and the inevitable London
umbrella in the other, King won the race to get first word to the wires.
Before the echo of the General Strike died, news exploded on
another European front. Marshal Josef Pilsudski staged the swift coup
d'etat which made him undisputed master of Poland, When Pilsudski's
forces seized power on May 15, Louis Lochner of Berlin was ordered
to Warsaw to assist the residential correspondent, Marylla Chrzanowska,
who was in the midst of the fighting which accompanied the coup.
Flying to the Polish frontier, Lochner got a foretaste of the
difficulties surrounding the story. Not only had the strictest military
censorship been invoked, but the border itself was closed. Lochner
322 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
smuggled himself across the frontier and by various means made his
way to the Polish capital, which was swarming with Pilsudski's troops.
It was Sunday, May 16.
All that day Lochner and Miss Chrzanowska pursued the grizzled
old marshal. Pilsudski remained inaccessible. Guards watched every
approach to his headquarters. Soldiers surrounded his car as he hurried
from one place to another. Secret police pounced on anyone who dared
approach too close to the prime minister's palace, another center of
activity.
By nightfall the palace had assumed greater importance than ever.
In spite of the secrecy, Miss Chrzanowska had ferreted out the news
that the first meeting of the new Cabinet was in session, with Pilsudski
presiding. Lochner and the resident correspondent succeeded in talking
their way into the palace. There they encountered fresh obstacles.
Palace flunkies declared they were responsible with their lives for
Pilsudski's safety. Furthermore, no foreigner could be tolerated in the
building. The newspaper pair found themselves back on the street.
Lochner's companion remembered another entrance and they tried
again. Their exit was hurried and unceremonious. The supply of palace
doors had not been exhausted however. The pair entered the third
time, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth, only to be ejected. The guards
were becoming ugly.
The two weary correspondents happened to encounter a director
of the Polish Telegraphic Agency whom they knew. He offered to get
them back into the palace — for the seventh time.
For two hours Lochner and Miss Chrzanowska sat in the palace
rotunda. Presently there was a commotion. The guards started disap-
pearing through a swinging glass door leading to the right wing.
Pilsudski must be leaving. The two correspondents dashed after the
guards. In a few more seconds the opportunity would have been lost.
"Please, Mr. Marshal," Miss Chrzanowska was pleading in Polish,
"don't refuse just one little request by my American colleague."
"My dear lady," Pilsudski said, "Pm extremely tired. I want to
sleep, sleep, and sleep again. For three days I have not been to bed."
He looked haggard and worn as he stood there in the loose-fitting
blue-gray uniform of a Polish legionnaire.
Lochner spoke up.
"But America takes the liveliest interest in Polish events and is
anxious to know the truth."
"You must understand," Pilsudski replied, "that I must consider
SPEED AND PROSPERITY 323
what I say, and in a moment like this Pll either say something stupid
or pronounce an aphorism. I'm a specialist in aphorisms, you know.
Sometimes I can roll off aphorisms one after another, but today I'm
too tired even for aphorisms."
Lochner persisted.
"May I know for my American readers whether you are of the
opinion that stable conditions will now result for Poland after your
coup d'etat?"
An animated light came into the dictator's eyes.
"Why, that's been the purpose of all this. That's what I've been
working for all this time — and I've accomplished it. In fact, I'm quite
surprised we succeeded so quickly. Everything went like a stroke of
lightning."
It was because of that final phrase that the brief chat became known
as the "lightning interview."
"Just one final question," urged Lochner, walking briskly at
Pilsudski's side as the marshal hurried from the palace. "May I say,
as coming from you, that you consider the country pacified and further
ructions unlikely?"
Knitting his shaggy brows and snapping his jaws, Pilsudski an-
swered with a single English word.
"Yes!"
Telephone communication to points outside Poland was still sus-
pended. There was no doubt the censor would hold up the story.
Lochner left immediately for Germany, got across the frontier and
telephoned to Berlin the only statement Pilsudski made for publication
in the first five days of the coup.
8
Competing with the London and Warsaw date lines were dozens
of top-flight stories. Sinclair Lewis created a domestic furor by refusing
the Pulitzer prize for his novel Arrowsmith. The dirigible Norge
reached Alaska after carrying the Nobile-Ellsworth-Amundsen party
across the North Pole from Spitzbergen. The Norg^s flight gave the
co-operative a barren territory of some 4,000,000 square miles to watch.
Aimee Semple McPherson, the California evangelist, announced that
she had been kidnaped and held for ransom in Mexico. Philadelphia
opened its Sesquicentennial Exposition. And in Morocco Abd-el-Krim,
the Riff rebel chieftain, surrendered after his long, amazing war on the
French and Spanish armies.
324 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
During these busy months the service also was developing stories
which could not be classified as spontaneous news, yet were important
or unusual enough to command preferred positions in newspapers.
Cooper himself took the lead in developing these stories, arranging
for a series of notable interviews. The first was with Golfer Bobby
Jones. Of greater historical value, however, were the extended interview
with Mussolini and the much-discussed story on Calvin Coolidge.
White House precedent was against an interview quoting the
President of the United States and Coolidge at first was against it.
Nevertheless, Cooper set to work.
Invited to lunch with the President, he ended by spending the day.
He found the so-called "silent New Englander" engrossing. He had
the assistance of Mrs. Coolidge and the presidential adviser, Frank
W. Stearns, but it finally became evident that the trio were not making
much progress in their attempt to show the President he would be
performing a service to newspaper readers generally by permitting an
extended interview. Cooper pointed out that few actually knew the
President of the United States and still Coolidge smoked his cigar and
was adamant. Cooper tried one last time.
"Mr. President," he smiled, "do you know that all sorts of stories
are going the rounds about you — that they are going the rounds because
people don't really know you."
He glanced disarmingly across at the President and asked:
"Would you like to hear one of the latest?"
The President hunched slightly forward in his chair.
"Yes," he said.
"Well," Cooper began, "they say that a raw young congressman
called on you and said: <Mr. President, the folks back home don't know
much about my job here. They think you and I are great buddies, that
we rub elbows every day and that you call me in for advice whenever
you have a problem of any sort. Of course, that's not the case, but it
would help me no end if I could have some memento or souvenir
from you to show them when I go back for the elections.'
"So, Mr. President," Cooper continued, "they say that you asked
what he would like and he replied: 'I don't want anything very valu-
able, Mr. President, just a band off one of your cigars would do.'
"With that, Mr. President," Cooper concluded, "the story is that
you pulled out your big box of cigars, carefully removed one of the
bands and handed it to the young congressman. Then you put the
SPEED AND PROSPERITY 325
cigar back in the box and put the box away — that you didn't even give
him the cigar!"
Coolidge pondered and for a fleeting moment the usual mask of
seriousness appeared to drop. Then he was in character again.
"Well, Mr. Cooper," he said, smiling faintly, "that congressman
only asked for the band, not for the cigar!"
The Coolidge story appeared in the co-operative's report a short
time later, authored by Bruce Barton at the request of Cooper. It filled
five columns in the New York Times, was used in virtually every
member paper, and in editorial circles it created a sensation. It gave the
country a picture of the Coolidge so few knew — his home life, his
philosophy, and the human side of his official character.
In the field of spontaneous news Florida produced one of 1926*8
biggest emergencies. On September 18 a tropical hurricane roared up
the east coast, smashing a score of communities.
The first stages of the storm were reported in dispatches which
flowed northward to divisional headquarters at Atlanta. Then one after
another the Florida wires began to fail. The last bulletins gave Atlanta
an inkling of the story's proportions — scores dead, hundreds injured,
thousands homeless, and vast property damage. The final wire went
out as the full force of the hurricane struck. At Atlanta the south circuits
were silent.
As the hurricane slashed through Florida, staffers were already
pushing their way into its wake to get the news. In the state and outside
its borders, the association threw every available resource into the
breach. At the first warning, Chief of Bureau O. S. Morton at Jackson-
ville ordered men at once into the region and Atlanta started additional
reinforcements by airplane, train, and automobile. Traffic Department
crews tackled the complicated task of restoring shattered wire facilities.
No one knew what had happened to Correspondent Mitchell at Miami.
Mitchell was all right, struggling to get out his story. When the
hurricane tore out the last wire to Miami on that disastrous Saturday,
he and telegrapher Howard Switzer braved the storm to search for
an automobile to carry them north. Luckily they secured a truck, and
Reese T. Amis, telegraph editor of the Miami Daily Newsy joined them
as they set out.
Progress was slow over the flooded, debris-littered roads. Rain-
326 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
whipped darkness added to their difficulties. Many times the truck was
forced to leave the highway and crawl through fields or woods. Water
sloshed over the running boards. Each hamlet they passed showed
increasingly greater damage. Pressing doggedly on past Hollywood,
the party found the highway blocked by a barricade of trees snarled
with telephone and telegraph wires. The truck mired down at midnight
in a ditch six miles from Fort Lauderdale and the trio struck out on foot
in the heavy rain.
While Mitchell, Switzer, and Amis were trying to get north from
Miami, R. S. Pickens and M. B. Alexander of the Atlanta staff were
flying south through the turbulent edges of the storm. Their goal was
Miami and they made a pact to stay with the plane "till she crashes."
Alexander never forgot the wild ride.
"Through crosscurrents, air pockets, and up and over storms' edges
we went until the big one near Lake City, Florida," he related. "There
in a semicircle ahead was the blackest cloud we ever saw. White streaks
of wind-driven rain were illuminated by vivid flashes of lightning and
suddenly the little plane quivered, dipped, dropped, and then under
the pilot's masterful handling righted herself and climbed. We fought
varying degrees of tropical hurricane for over two hours and finally
won out when the wind changed and headed for Pensacola to continue
its work of destruction."
The daredevil pilot brought the ship down in a water-covered
pasture bordering a swamp. The men waded to a highway and pushed
on to Miami. They found streets blocked by trees, fallen timbers, and
ruined homes. The stench of dead fish made the air nauseous. Searching
parties looked for bodies. There was no safe drinking water and the
food was impossible.
Miami was merely part of the story. At Moore Haven alone no
had been killed. Stephen Early, who had been sent from Washington,
and A. R. Bird, correspondents at Orlando, worked toward the wrecked
community from different directions.
After many detours, Early's automobile got within five miles of the
town, and there the road vanished under water. He drove on cautiously
through the black, stinking liquid that concealed the highway. The posts
near the road edges were the only guides to keep the car from plunging
into the drainage ditches along the sides. The engine finally quit and
the reporter found a truck, which eventually splashed its way into town.
The return trip was a nightmare. A mile after the start, the truck
swamped and there was no choice but to wade through the dark to
SPEED AND PROSPERITY 327
higher ground. Early thought of saving his already bedraggled clothes.
Before plunging from the truck, he bundled them up, and stood there
in shirtail and underwear. The truckman handed him creosote and
coal oil to smear on as protection against insects and the foul water.
Not long after Early left the truck he lost the clothes he thought of
saving. For four miles he labored through surging waters and finally
reached the automobile he had abandoned hours earlier. The balky
engine started and Early drove back to Sebring where wire facilities
were being restored.
All that week the staff worked to bring the nation the news of a
disaster which took 372 lives, injured 6,281, and left 17,884 families
homeless.
II. PICTURES ARE NEWS
THE co-operative could no longer ignore the fact that spot news
represented only a part of the content of the modern newspaper.
Features and spot-news pictures were important. If the association
expanded the scope of operations to include supplemental services in
these auxiliary .fields, its value to member papers would be greatly
increased.
In both prewar and postwar newspapers, extensive use of feature
material marked a definite journalistic trend. Editors had come to the
conclusion that it was no longer enough for newspapers to be informa-
tive. They must entertain and divert as well. At first only the larger
publications had money and facilities for experimenting, and they did
most of the pioneer work. The development of feature syndicates was
a logical sequel. One of the earliest, in the modern sense of the word,
was organized by George Matthew Adams in 1912 at the suggestion
of Victor Lawson, and a mushroom growth in the field followed. By
the mid-twenties commercial companies were supplying papers generally
with budgets ranging from comic strips and popular fiction to picture
matrices and personalized columns of comment by leading writers.
With a large clientele, the syndicates, for a given price, could supply
subscribers with quantities of feature material which no average paper
could duplicate.
A goodly portion of the budgets furnished by these commercial
syndicates duplicated in subject matter, although not in treatment, the
material carried in the co-operative's General Mail Service, which for
years had been sent to members as a supplement to the wire report.
There was this difference, however. Instead of appearing on dreary
mimeographed paper, the commercial features were presented on neatly
printed proof sheets with headlines already written. And most im-
portant, the features were accompanied by attractive pictures, line draw-
ings, or layouts, all designed to make them as visually pleasing as
possible.
This illustrated material was popular from the start. The syndicates
were profit-making ventures, and the greater the margin of profit the
328
PICTURES ARE NEWS 329
more satisfactory the business. There was no rigid rule of thumb
governing the prices charged for budgets. Some salesmen, working on
commission, often charged any price they could get. When any feature
became valuable to a paper, prices were frequently raised and a publisher
had the choice either of losing a circulation-getting attraction or of
paying more money.
As these practices grew, members who had been victimized began
to wonder if their co-operative could not enter the feature field in a
thoroughgoing way and produce just as good a budget on a non-profit
basis. If this could be done, they realized, it would give them good
supplemental material at actual cost and would protect them against
arbitrary withdrawals of features once they had been established.
Strangely enough, however, they did not seem to recognize that in
the General Mail Service the association possessed the complete ground-
work for an efficient feature department. All that was lacking was the
vision, initiative, and the modernizing touch to effect the transformation.
Cooper, as an assistant general manager, saw the great possibilities.
But he knew that the association at that time had not sufficiently adjusted
itself to postwar conditions to develop the plan. He stopped in at the
Chicago Bureau one day during the course of an inspection trip. A
young editor was busy preparing an issue of the General Mail Service.
Looking over his shoulder, Cooper saw the stacks of mimeographed
copy paper.
"Looks pretty dull, doesn't it?" he commented.
The editor shrugged. Single-spaced typewriting, mimeographed on
coarse paper did not, after all, make an exciting appearance.
Cooper examined several sheets and dropped them back on the
desk.
"Well," he said with characteristic directness, "what would you
think of illustrating it?"
"I'd think very well of it."
The assistant general manager ventured a prediction.
"Before long you will be doing it."
Shortly after this incident Cooper became general manager, pressed
the matter with the board, and was directed to proceed. One of his first
steps was to bring the mail editor from Chicago to organize the Feature
Department. The young man was Lloyd Stratton, a Kansan who had
330 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
joined the service in 1920. His earlier newspaper experience had been
in the Middle West except for a wartime interlude in France where
he drove an ambulance until it was hit by a shell, sending driver and
wounded alike to the hospital.
The first Feature Service release — printed proof sheets and matted
illustrations — was mailed to 1228 members without assessment. The
package contained a letter from the general manager, explaining the
plan on which the service would operate and the assessment base for
its financing. The assessments were nominal as compared with the
prices of commercial syndicates, which ran to many dollars a week
in some cases. The maximum assessment for the proof -sheets was
fixed at $6 a week for papers published in areas of more than 100,000
population. From the maximum, the charge scaled down to $i a
week for papers in cities of less than 20,OOO. The assessment for
mats of illustrations, an optional part of the service, was eventually
fixed at $3.50 weekly for all.
Editors on member papers opened the package containing the first
release and promises of support poured in to the general offices. Of
the entire membership, only 78 papers declined to participate.
Like the history of news gathering, the development of pictorial
journalism had its own story. Benjamin Franklin made the first attempt
to provide illustrations with reading matter when he printed his famous
cartoon in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. War with France was
rumored, and to heighten the effect of his editorial appeal for a united
common defense Franklin inserted a cartoon showing a snake cut into
eight parts. The parts represented the various colonies and the caption,
"Join or Die," dramatized the need of the moment.
The value of the cartoon impressed other colonial editors and they
copied the idea, using Franklin's snake with variations. When the
Boston Massacre occurred in 1770 Paul Revere made an engraving of
five coffins to illustrate the Boston Gazette?* account of the funerals for
the victims.
Since the first cartoon was employed to reinforce editorial opinion,
it was perhaps natural that editors came to look upon such illustrations
solely as an editorial medium. On a few occasions they purported to
represent a news event, though the emphasis was always on editorial
connotations.
PICTURES ARE NEWS 331
James Gordon Bennett was probably the first to use a real news
illustration. In 1835 he published a picture of the old Merchants'
Exchange which had burned down in the great fire of that year.
Mechanical difficulties with the presses of the day made for poor,
smudgy reproduction and often the identity of the rough illustrations
could be determined only by reference to the printed caption. Indeed,
when the Herald appeared with a supposed drawing of General Jack-
son's funeral, in 1845, rival papers pounced on Bennett, charging that
the same engraving already had done duty as an illustration for Queen
Victoria's coronation, the funeral of General William Henry Harrison,
and the Croton Water Celebration.
While Bennett's efforts may have been worthy of some note, the
real pioneering work in depicting spot news occurrences was not a news-
paper enterprise. The credit belonged to Nathaniel Currier. As a boy of
fifteen he began his apprenticeship with a Boston firm of lithographers
in 1828, the same year Hale and Hallock were making news-gathering
history in Manhattan. Currier came to New York and set up a small
shop in Printing House Square, the journalistic heart of the city. The
newspaper atmosphere had its influence and when the steamboat Lex-
ington burned with heavy loss of life on Long Island Sound in 1 840,
Currier tried an experiment. A theatrically graphic picture of the
disaster was drawn and three days later Currier had prints for sale
on the streets. They were snatched up eagerly.
The 1840 steamboat disaster decided the future of the Currier
lithographing establishment. Illustrations of spot news became its
specialty. Currier recruited a staff of artists who rushed to the scene
of any news event in the vicinity, sketched the general details, and
afterward completed the more careful drawings from which the litho-
graphs were made.
Currier was joined by James Merritt Ives and the firm's name
became Currier & Ives. For the next three decades they flourished as
printmakers to the American public. Pictures were sold by direct mail,
by representatives in the principal cities, and by peddlers who hawked
them through the streets. Prices ranged from 6 cents for a small print
to $4 for a large picture in full color. Prints on spot-news events were
usually available in New York a day or two after the news appeared
in the papers. The success of the firm gave unmistakable proof of the
great popular appeal of pictorial reporting.
Even before young Currier began issuing his dramatic news-picture
prints, Daguerre's experiments in photography had produced the first
332 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
unheralded examples of the pictorial reporting process which ultimately
exerted such a profound effect on the concept of complete news pres-
entation. Although Samuel Morse and a few others later became
interested, the possibilities Daguerre opened up were not apparent when
the Frenchman announced his discovery in 1838. By the time of the
Mexican War in 1 846, however, photography had advanced sufficiently
to produce the first actual pictures of a major news story. Although the
few daguerreotypes taken of American staff officers and troops had no
particular spot-news value, they were part of the history of pictorial
reporting.
So few people saw the Mexican War daguerreotypes that they
made little impression on the journalistic consciousness of the day. The
accepted pictorial record of the war was a series of illustrations prepared
at the direction of George Wilkins Kendall, the only reporter to
accompany the American Army.
The undeniable popularity of news illustrations encouraged the
appearance of illustrated weeklies in the next decade. Frank Leslie's
Illustrated Newspaper was founded in 1855 and Harper's Weekly
entered the field as a competitor in 1857. The weeklies covered a wide
range of subjects — "current events of interest and importance, art and
story illustrations, portraiture, the humor and comedy of social life,
and foreign and domestic politics." The illustrations were all line
drawings, and both publications maintained large staffs of artists and
wood engravers.
When the Civil War came, the artists of the illustrated weeklies
did the pictorial reporting for the country at large. Their "on the spot"
sketches were scanned almost as eagerly as newspaper dispatches, and
army officials regarded the artists as an integral part of the press corps.
The weeklies continued to be the sole publications which attempted to
provide news pictures. The only initiative demonstrated by newspapers
was in presenting maps of major battles and campaigns. One wood
engraver on the New York Herald was considered phenomenal because
he was able to turn out a half-page war map in twenty-four hours, but
sometimes as many as twenty men worked on a single map to complete
the engraving in half the time. Cartoons disappeared almost entirely
during the Civil War and were not restored generally as a regular
feature until the New York World revived the idea in the i88o's.
PICTURES ARE NEWS 333
The most important single event of the war years was the per-
formance of photography as a vital medium for recording news. The
work of Matthew B. Brady in compiling a photographic history of the
conflict remains one of the greatest achievements in the annals of
photography. Although these photographs made a vivid record for
posterity, the pictures had comparatively small circulation at the time.
Very much as Currier & Ives lithographs had been sold to supplement
the current news, prints and stereographs made from the Brady
negatives were offered for sale to the general public.
Newspapers generally continued to regard illustrated news as
something alien to their activities. However, the New York Daily
Graphic, the first American daily to use illustrations regularly, appeared
in 1873. The paper's existence was bedeviled by mechanical and financial
difficulties arising from printing problems. Illustrations were black-and-
white line drawings exclusively, for no practical process had been
discovered to make possible reproduction of the intermediate tones
found in photographs.
Stephen H. Horgan, a photographer in charge of the Graphic's
engraving and mechanical equipment, made the experiments which led
to the appearance of the first halftone photograph in an American
newspaper. The Graphic printed the picture on March 14, 1880, but
Horgan's successful employment of the screen process failed to clear
the way for regular use of pictures generally.
When Joseph Pulitzer acquired the New York World in 1883
he transplanted the illustrated weekly technique to daily journalism.
He engaged two artists and they depicted the day's important news in
drawings. The pictorial departure had a magic effect on the World's
circulation, but Pulitzer feared large use of pictures tended to lower
the paper's dignity and he ordered the woodcuts gradually eliminated.
The order was rescinded quickly when circulation declined propor-
tionately.
The effect of Pulitzer's experiment attracted attention and other
large papers imitated his methods. Stone borrowed a member of the
World's mechanical force to help him introduce the idea in the Chicago
Daily News. Victor Lawson saw a great future for such a news medium,
but Stone was skeptical.
"Newspaper pictures are just a temporary fad," he remarked, "but
we're going to get the benefit of the fad while it lasts."
The fad was far from temporary and before long many papers
were printing black-and-white line drawings of important events. Pho-
334 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
tography meanwhile had made tremendous strides and by the end of
the eighties action pictures were an established reality. Various difficul-
ties, however, continued to delay the wide employment of the halftone
process.
5
In theory there was little difference between the collection and
distribution of news pictures and the collection and distribution of
written news dispatches. The AP was in a position to gather news pic-
tures as well as news, but the membership as a whole showed no great
interest at first. The prevailing opinion seemed to be that news pictures,
for some obscure reason, did not represent a proper field for the co-
operative. Many publishers held to this view, even though they felt
that news pictures were a necessity for their papers.
When a News Photo Service was first suggested at an annual
meeting it was decisively voted down. The agitation continued. Most
larger papers were indifferent, for they already had their own picture
arrangements, but the smaller papers needed some sort of service.
Commercial picture syndicates had entered the field and the news-
picture situation had become similar to that governing the operations
of the commercial feature syndicates. Prices were high and the attitude
of the syndicates frequently was one of arrogance and independence.
Cooper wanted to extend the work of the co-operative to pictorial
reporting. He saw that the news photo had scarcely begun to come into
its own and he was convinced that there had been a change in the
majority opinion that pictures were not properly a press association
concern. More than anything else, he wanted to extend the non-profit
co-operative principle into this increasingly important phase of news
gathering.
"It is my feeling/7 he told the Board of Directors in 1926, "that
The Associated Press should do anything that is a proper news activity
— whether it be in pictures or in written news."
Nor was that all. He added:
"I visualize the day when we will be sending pictures over our
own leased wire system, just as we now send the news."
That seemed much too visionary at the time, but the board agreed
that a mail News Photo Service should be established. President Noyes
saw the possibilities.
"We are going to recognize frankly," he said, "that the whole
trend in newspaper work is toward making the picture a news medium.
PICTURES ARE NEWS 335
There will be developments all along and we ought to be prepared to
meet them."
It was with this view that the management approached the task
of building up the AP News Photo Service as an integral part of the
co-operative's broadened news-gathering activities.
III. LINDBERGH APPEARS
THE News pattern was spoiling for a change. Crime, scandal, and
ballyhoo had been writing a lopsided amount of top news of the
twenties.
The spring of 1927 produced one forceful demonstration of this
popular preference in news. It was a story which came out of Paris — a
story that in itself had a most unusual background and was destined to
go down in any serious history of the times.
Smith Reavis, a member of the Paris staff, had a note on his
datebook showing that April 6, 1927, was the tenth anniversary of
America's entry into the World War. In charge of the news desk, it
was his job to plan the daily report from the French capital. He noted
the penciled memo a few days in advance and decided to try for a
message of peace from Foreign Minister Aristide Briand for relay to
member papers in the United States.
He sought out the foreign minister and outlined his conception
of the sort of message that should appeal to the public of America. M.
Briand listened and at length promised to prepare something.
Sitting at his desk on the morning of April 6, Reavis found the
promised statement in his mail. He hurriedly scanned the message and
came upon this significant paragraph:
"If there were need of it between the two great democracies
[France and the United States] in order to give high testimony of
their desire for peace and to furnish a solemn example to other peoples,
France would be willing to enter into an engagement with America
mutually outlawing war, to use your [Reavis's] way of expressing it."
The dispatch Reavis wrote that day was credited with laying the
groundwork for the famous Kellogg-Briand Pact to outlaw war. But
so preoccupied was the country that the story was little more than a
lost chord in the whole blatant symphony of national interest. It found
its way into State Department files, however, and months later Presi-
dent Coolidge started a series of representations which quickly developed
the idea of a world-embracing peace treaty.
Though time proved it just another scrap of paper, virtually every
336
LINDBERGH APPEARS 337
civilized nation signed the pact that was evolved. Secretary of State
Kellogg received the Nobel peace prize and the French government,
in a book outlining the background of the treaty, officially gave the AP
correspondent credit for the idea.
Reavis's story was big news, but at the time many people were
reading about something else.
That "something else" was the sordid drama of the Snyder-Gray
murder case — a crime which received greater space and display in
American newspapers than the sinking of the Titanic. Hordes of
curiosity seekers descended on Long Island City for the trial, and
"special" writers turned the court proceedings into a Roman holiday.
In this hippodrome atmosphere the co-operative's responsibility was to
report the case as completely as its news value warranted and yet
preserve the proper balance of decency. Brian Bell's handling of the
trial, in which so much testimony was unprintable, brought praise from
thinking editors.
The Snyder-Gray trial ended on May 9, but the news spotlight
remained focused on Long Island. At Roosevelt Field two planes were
awaiting favorable weather to take off in quest of the $25,000 prize
which Raymond Orteig had offered back in 1919 for the first non-stop
flight between New York and Paris. There was the America with
Lieutenant Commander Richard E. Byrd and an expert crew. There
was also the Columbia piloted by Clarence Chamberlin and Lloyd
Bertaud.
Another story in the making, but no one seemed particularly
excited about it.
Then suddenly things changed. On May 1 2 the Spirit of St. Louis
flew in unheralded from the Pacific Coast. Charles A. Lindbergh was at
the controls. No one had ever heard of him, his chances seemed slim,
but there was something about him that captured the imagination of
a public wearied by the tawdry series of sensations of recent years.
Almost overnight he became the symbol of something new.
From that point on the story was "made." The uncertainty as to
which plane would be the first to take off whetted popular interest.
There was the spice of great danger. The French aces, Nungesser and
Coli, had been lost on a Paris-New York flight for the Orteig prize.
There was high adventure. And there was Lindbergh.
Bell and James MacDonald kept the vigil at Roosevelt Field.
338 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
There were days of rumors and reports, but weather conditions kept
delaying the starts and heightening the suspense*
At dawn on May 20, Lindbergh glanced apprehensively at the
water-splotched runway and studied the weather reports. Rain had been
falling and there was a murky sky. It seemed a poor day to start, but
reports said the unfavorable weather was only local in character. The
flier was not long in making up his mind.
"This is the day," he said.
Five hundred people had waited through the night on the chance
that one flier or another might take off. MacDonald and Bell were at
Lindbergh's elbow as the tall flier prepared to climb into the cockpit.
Commander Byrd arrived to wish his rival well.
"Good luck to you, old man," Byrd said. "I'll see you in Paris."
The crowd milled round.
"Are you only taking five sandwiches?" someone asked.
"Yes," smiled the flier. "That's enough. If I get to Paris I won't
need any more, and if I don't get to Paris I won't need any more,
either."
At 7:52 A.M. Lindbergh lifted the Spirit of St. Louis into the air.
In a hangar near the end of the runway Bell dictated the flash which
went out over the wire. For tense seconds the fate of the flight hung
in the balance. The plane, loaded with 458 gallons of gasoline, rose
sluggishly, fighting for altitude. The crowd waited to see if the ship
would be able to clear the string of telegraph wires which skirted the
far edge of the field. Then there was a gasp of relief.
Bell stood beside his special wire describing the beginning of the
flight:
BULLETIN E.O.S NEW LEAD
ROOSEVELT FIELD, NEW YORK, MAY 20, AP - CHARLES
A. LINDBERGH COMMA QUOTE CAPTAIN UNQUOTE TO
THE MISSOURI NATIONAL GUARD COMMA BUT QUOTE
SLIM UNQUOTE TO HIS BUDDIES COMMA SET OUT TO
DAY ON AN UNMARKED AIR TRAIL FOR PARIS PERIOD.
MacDonald kept feeding Bell additional information. The dicta-
tion continued:
ADD NEW LEAD LINDY
THE MISSOURIAN COMMA WHO PLAYS A LONE
HAND COMMA HAD NO ONE TO SHOW HIM THE WAY AS
HE HURLED HIS RYAN MONOPLANE COMMA THE SPIRIT
OF ST. LOUIS COMMA INTO THE MUGGY AIR OVER
ROOSEVELT FIELD A FEW MINUTES BEFORE EIGHT
O'CLOCK THIS MORNING EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
PERIOD .
LINDBERGH APPEARS 339
MacDonald shouted:
"He's cleared the trees and is disappearing into the northeast!"
BelPs story flowed on.
ADD NEW LEAD LINDY
AT THE VERY LAST COMMA HIS PLANE COMMA
WEIGHTED BY A LOAD OF FIVE COMMA NAUGHT FIVE
FIVE POUNDS COMMA BARELY CLEARED A STRING OF
TELEGRAPH WIRES PERIOD A FEW SECONDS BEFORE IT
HAD ALMOST STRUCK A ROAD SCRAPER AS HE WAS
ATTEMPTING TO GET IT OFF THE GROUND PERIOD
PARAGRAPH THREE TIMES COMMA THE PLANE STRUCK
ROUGH SPOTS AND BOUNCED INTO THE AIR COMMA
ALWAYS COMING BACK TO EARTH AND FINALLY
STRAIGHTENING OUT PERIOD.
After 7:52 that morning Lindbergh was the only news the nation
wanted. The whole country was gripped by a common emotion.
In the New York office George Turner, the city editor, working
with W. W. Chaplin, logged the flight on a chart designed to show
hour by hour the plane's position if it kept to its course. Boston reported
the first stages of Lindbergh's progress as he headed north through
New England, and then The Canadian Press followed him up the
coast until he passed Newfoundland and headed out to sea.
The world waited in vain that night for some further word. In
the Yankee Stadium forty thousand boxing fans at the Sharkey-Maloney
fight rose in silence when Joe Humphreys, the veteran announcer,
asked prayers for Lindbergh.
A few hours later in the New York office Tom O'Neil, the early
report editor, was casting about for some fresh, vivid phrase that would
do justice to the flier who was somewhere out over the sea. Finally a
thought came to him and he typed out the words: ". . . the Lone
Eagle."
The second day wore on toward noon. Along the coast of Ireland
at thirty-six strategic points correspondents watched for the high-wing
monoplane bearing the license markings NX-2H. Each man was
instructed to telephone London as soon as he sighted and positively
identified the Spirit of St. Louis. The precautions proved worth while.
When Lindbergh made landfall at Dingle Bay, County Kerry, Stephen
Williamson called London, and within minutes after the plane had
been sighted the leased wire network in the United States hummed with
the flash that Lindbergh was over Ireland.
The bulletins came faster after the Spirit of St. Louis passed over
Dingle Bay.
34O AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Lindbergh flying high over Plymouth, England . . . Lindbergh
makes French coast at Bayeux . . . Lindbergh reported passing Cher-
bourg . . .
Then:
P-L-A-S-H
PARIS - LINDBERGH LANDED 5:21 P.M.
For Paris the Lindbergh story had begun days before the flier
hopped off from Roosevelt Field, but most of the background never
found its way into print. The loss of Nungesser and Coli on their
Paris-New York flight on May 9 had shocked the French people. As
hope for the rescue of the two popular aviators dwindled, the fantastic
rumor began to circulate that they had been killed by Americans in
order to keep them from stealing the glory from the fliers poised at
Roosevelt Field. At first it was whispered by French housewives and
servants as they did their marketing. Then it spread in ever-wider
circles, stirring up an undertone of resentment and animosity. Parisians
manifested an ugly feeling for American tourists and on one occasion a
crowd forced the newspaper, Le Matin, to take down the United States
flag displayed at the building.
In some quarters the temper reached such a pitch that it aroused
Myron T. Herrick, United States ambassador to France. He feared for
the safety of any American flier who might reach Paris. He telephoned
the AP bureau and asked John Evans to cable a story so emphatic that
it would arouse the government at Washington to cancel all permission
for the projected flights.
Evans listened. He was familiar with the wild rumors and mention
of them had already been made in the bureau's cable dispatches. An
unqualified story of the type Herrick proposed, however, would violate
service regulations. Evans offered to prepare a story quoting the
ambassador's strong language, but Herrick seemed unwilling to com-
mit himself that far. After discussion, he authorized a carefully guarded
statement which failed to throw any new light on the situation.
At Le Bourget Flying Field outside of Paris, Evans and the six-man
staff assigned to cover Lindbergh's arrival found Herrick's anxiety had
not diminished since the telephone conversation a few days before. The
ambassador was present ostensibly to greet Lindbergh, but Evans
LINDBERGH APPEARS 341
learned that he privately feared his real task would be to protect the
flier from rough treatment at the hands of a hostile crowd.
Evans, however, had noticed a distinct change in popular feeling
since Lindbergh headed out over the ocean from the North American
continent. Little by little animosity gave way to grudging concessions
of admiration and then to worried solicitude for Lindbergh's safety.
There was only a small knot of people at Le Bourget when Evans,
Tom Topping, Hudson Hawley, Edward Angly, Sam Wader, and
George Langelaan arrived in the afternoon, but by nightfall 25,000
were on hand. There was only one public telephone at the airdrome,
but one of the men had been able to arrange for the use of a direct line
from a private office in the administration building.
All the while Evans kept his fingers on the pulse of the waiting
people, and the reports he got from the men he assigned to circulate
among the throngs left no doubt in his mind as to the popular feeling.
All hostility had disappeared. There was admiration now and genuine
hope that nothing would stop the flier short of his goal.
Then the drone of a motor was heard. Landing lights flooded the
field and once more the searchlight swept the sky, groping until it
picked out a swift silver monoplane.
In an instant the plane disappeared from the searchlight's glare,
but not before eyes caught the license markings — NX-2I i.
Lindbergh!
Evans flashed the word to Paris that Lindbergh was over Le
Bourget and dictated two hundred words describing the scene. Then the
telephone line suddenly went dead. The minutes that elapsed between
the time Lindbergh was sighted and his landing were frantic for Evans.
A tremendous story was breaking and his line of communication was
gone. Luckily, the erratic telephone came to life again a few minutes
later and Evans picked up with the flash of Lindbergh's landing and a
running account of the frenzied welcome.
Lindbergh's New York-to-Paris flight ushered in a whole new
cycle of news. The headlines belonged to aviation and there seemed
no end to the stories. There was Byrd's flight to
and Chamberlin's long hop to Germany. Brock
made a fifteen-stop air jaunt from Harbor Gracj
was rescued at sea near the Azores when he
forced down. In the Pacific, Maitland and
from Oakland to Honolulu. The FrenchmJ
342 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
spanned the South Atlantic to Brazil. There were altitude flights,
endurance flights, speed flights, and stunt flights. The volume of
aviation news carried on the leased wire system set a record that was
not surpassed for years.
IV. "MORE MARGIN, MORE MARGIN !»
THE nation had reached the threshold of a fabulous era, but there was
no hint of anything startling on August 2, 1927, when President
Coolidge held his regular Tuesday press conference at Rapid City,
South Dakota. The conferences had produced nothing noteworthy in the
seven weeks the chief executive had been vacationing in the Black Hills.
Between occasional puffs on a long cigar, Coolidge discussed the
threatened failure of the Arms Limitation Conference at Geneva, the
encouraging business conditions, governmental problems, Walter John-
son's twentieth anniversary in baseball, and a number of other subjects.
"If the conference will reassemble at twelve o'clock I will have a
statement," he concluded.
That announcement caused no stir. Francis M. Stephenson, the
staff man assigned to Coolidge, thought the President probably had
something to say which would be of interest to the financial world.
There was a three-hour time difference between Rapid City and New
York, so any Coolidge announcement at noon would not reach Wall
Street until after the markets had closed at 3 P.M.
Promptly at noon Stephenson and his colleagues returned to the
school building in which the President had set up summer headquarters.
Coolidge waited for them in a classroom which served as his private
office. In his right hand he held a bunch of paper slips.
"If you will pass in front of me," he told the reporters, "I will
hand these to you."
The slips, Stephenson found, had been folded twice so that their
message was not visible. He opened his and read it:
I DO NOT CHOOSE TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN NINE-
TEEN-TWENTY-EIGHT.
There were exclamations of surprise. The question of Coolidge's
standing for re-election had been discussed in some quarters, but without
particular urgency because his term had a year and a half to go.
"Is there any other comment, Mr. President? Any amplification?"
Coolidge shook his head.
343
344 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"None."
Stephenson dashed for his wire. The bulletin he sent touched off
a rush of activity. There were "follows" from a score of cities. Wash-
ington reported that political leaders now regarded Secretary of
Commerce Herbert Hoover as a leading contender for the Republican
nomination in 1928. And in his California home Hoover cautiously told
a staff man:
"It is too soon to discuss it. I must think over the President's
announcement."
While the country speculated over the proper interpretation of
the phrasing of the President's statement, W. E. Playfair of the Boston
staff, the same man who had covered Coolidge the night Harding died,
kept watch over a far more contentious story. It was the case of Nicola
Sacco, the shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the fish peddler. Play-
fair had been assigned to the story in 1920 when Sacco and Vanzetti were
arrested on a charge of complicity in a fatal holdup. Then it was just
another crime story, of little interest beyond New England. Killings
in payroll holdups were not uncommon. Sacco and Vanzetti were con-
victed on a charge of murder and the long fight to save them from
the electric chair saw their case become one of the most controversial
and highly publicized in the history of American jurisprudence.
Playfair was at the State House in Boston early on August 3.
Governor Alvan T. Fuller, who had conducted a final investigation
of the case with a special advisory committee, had promised to give
his decision during the day. Some expected that he would announce
clemency, or even pardon. There was world-wide interest in the decision
and on the floor above the Executive Offices the gallery of the Massa-
chusetts House of Representatives had been converted into a pressroom.
It was nine o'clock when Playfair took up his watch at the
governor's offices. The day dragged along and night came. Still no
announcement from the governor. More hours of waiting.
It was almost 1 1 130 when the governor's secretary, Herman Mac-
Donald, appeared with sealed envelopes containing the long-delayed
decision. Playfair took one of the first and ran to the press gallery on
the floor above. A telegrapher was ready.
F-L-A-S-H
BOSTON - GOVERNOR UPHOLDS SACCO-VANZETTI
DEATH SENTENCE.
"MORE MARGIN, MORE MARGIN!" 345
The decision had world-wide repercussions. There were bombings
in New York and Albany. The American flag was burned before con-
sulates abroad. A protest strike was called in Czechoslovakia. Appeals
for clemency poured into Boston. There were attempts to picket the
State House. The men were to die at Charleston Prison at midnight
of August 12.
Prison regulations limited the press to one representative at the
execution — and that assignment had been given Play fair in 1921 when
Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted. Ever since Massachusetts took
executions from the hands of county sheriffs in 1901 and turned them
over to the warden of the state prison, the warden's practice had been
to invite an AP man to be the newspaper representative in the death
chamber. The custom had the approval of the state's newspapers and
the only condition the wardens imposed was that the AP man supply,
without reservation, all the details of executions to other reporters as-
signed to the stories.
It was through Playfair's eyes that the whole world watched the
condemned men go to the electric chair. But they did not die the night
of August 12. At 11:12 P.M., less than an hour before the time set for
the electrocutions, a circuit court judge intervened and a ten-day reprieve
was ordered. The news reached the prison at 11:25, Just as Playfair
was about to start for the death chamber with Warden William Hendry.
The reprieve brought no relaxation of tension. The Sacco-Vanzetti
defense organizations opened a new series of desperate legal efforts to
save the two men. One by one their forlorn hopes shattered.
Playfair found Charlestown Prison a veritable fortress the night of
August 22. All near-by streets were roped off, searchlights cut swaths
through the darkness, tear gas and machine gun squads stood ready.
An uneasy feeling pervaded the prison. The dispatches which had
come into Boston that day were disquieting — street fighting in Paris
and in Geneva bomb threats.
Warden Hendry ordered all newspapermen to be on hand by ten
o'clock. For almost two hours there was nothing to do but wait in the
Prison Officers' Club which had been converted into a press and wire
room. All windows had been nailed down, and the room was stifling
in the August heat. Then Playfair left with a guard for the death
house.
Sacco was the first to go. He walked the seventeen steps from his
cell -to the chair in silence. As they strapped him in, he cried out in
Italian: "Long live anarchy!" Then in broken English he spoke again:
346 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"Farewell my wife and child and all my friends," There was a
moment's silence. The executioner was ready. "Good evening, gentle-
men," said Sacco. He was pronounced dead at 12:11 A.M.
A messenger brought Playfair's bulletin on Sacco's electrocution
to the pressroom. It was for all the other reporters, as well as for the
co-operative. In the death chamber Playfair was listening to Vanzetti's
farewell words: "I wish to forgive some people for what they are now
doing to me." Then it was all over.
The schoolroom at Rapid City and the death chamber at Charles-
town Prison made news, but they did not indicate the fantastic days
ahead. As conditions changed, the co-operative had to prepare itself
better than ever to separate the wheat from the chaff. It was a difficult
task because too frequently events that seemed legitimate news were
more artificial than spontaneous, and already in one field the fabulous
days had come.
One month after the Sacco-Vanzetti executions there occurred at
Soldier Field, Chicago, an event quite unlike anything before. Some
150,000 persons paid in a gate of $2,650,000 to watch Gene Tunney
and Jack Dempsey battle for the World Heavyweight Championship.
At the ringside, the association had the largest staff ever assigned to a
sports event — General Sports Editor Alan Gould and a dozen other
sports and feature writers. Ten people died of excitement while listening
to a radio broadcast of the fight, and for days thousands debated the
pros and cons of a referee's decision allowing Tunney a "long count"
because Dempsey had neglected to retire to a neutral corner after the
knockdown.
Perhaps the so-called "golden age" of sports, with its hysterical
following, its parade of heroes, and its incredible gate receipts, was a
good advance indication of the dizzier golden age of prosperity which
followed. At least it hinted at the strange psychological ferment at
work.
In Wall Street during the autumn of 1927, although business
generally appeared to be losing headway and the rediscount rate was
lowered to assist agriculture and industry, the market developed a
buoyant trend upward. Motor and radio stocks seemed to catch the
public fancy. The AP Financial Service recorded the day-to-day fluctua-
tions without comment or editorializing, letting the facts speak for
"MORE MARGIN, MORE MARGIN !" 347
themselves. By the closing months of the year the association's aver-
age for sixty selected issues on the New York Stock Exchange— a quick
index of market conditions — stood in the vicinity of $70.
When the moderate rise began, the Wall Street Bureau was
considered equal to any predictable emergency. Stanley Prenosil, finan-
cial editor, headed a staff of eight specialists, and George A. Wyville
directed the work of the tabulators, checkers, and operators who pre-
pared the quotations of the stock, bond, and other markets for trans-
mission. Until late in 1927, three-million-share days on the New York
Stock Exchange had been rarities, but as the market pushed higher
that trading mark was passed and the Wall Street staff felt it was
working under abnormal conditions.
"What," someone asked, "would ever happen with a four-million-
share day?"
Nothing better demonstrated the absorbing public interest in
industrial news than the debut of the new Model A Ford in December,
1927. During the months when Ford was developing the automobile
which was to replace the old Model T, people devoured every rumor
on the forthcoming car. So tremendous was the pressure that the news
report carried a description of the new Ford and the price list as soon
as the information was released.
Under any other circumstances, such material would have been
barred from the wires as advertising, but the strange alchemy of the
times made it news of national interest. In New York an estimated
one million people tried to get into a showroom for a glimpse of the
automobile the day it was first displayed. In Detroit, Cleveland,
Kansas City, and other cities police reserves were called out to control
the crowds which fought to see the car.
By early 1928 papers considered stock market fluctuations an
essential part of their news report. The general manager was urged to
enlarge the size of the Wall Street staff and to develop further the
entire financial and commodity market service. The Traffic Department
wrestled with the problem of arranging wire facilities so that a heavier
list of daily quotations could be delivered with a minimum of delay.
Financial writers were assigned at Washington, Chicago, and San
Francisco to supplement the Wall Street Bureau.
The new year brought scattered warnings that the market's advance
348 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
was too swift. The news wires told of the $500,00x3,000 increase in
brokers' loans, but from Washington came other stories quoting Presi-
dent Coolidge as saying that he saw "nothing unfavorable" in this
enormous use of credit for "natural expansion of business."
There were 1,228 members receiving AP service as 1928 began.
The leased wire web which linked them covered 160,000 miles, and
an average of more than 300,000 words of news was written and de-
livered each twenfy-four hours. The staff had increased 33 per cent in
three years.
In the supplemental Feature and News Photo services there had
been sustained progress. The Feature Service had been expanded to
include a special budget in Spanish for Latin America. The Photo
Service had started its own corps of photographers — Berk Payne, at
Washington, and N. B. Harris, at New York, were the first two staff
cameramen engaged — and news pictures were made available to the
smaller members through inauguration of a matted news photo service.
If the management had one major problem in the general report,
it arose from the welter of crime news, much of it linked with Prohibi-
tion. Advocates of the Eighteenth Amendment protested whenever the
news showed Prohibition in an unfavorable light. Similarly, anti-prohibi-
tionists grew angry every time they felt the case against Prohibition
was not presented in the strongest possible way. Every questioned item
was investigated as a matter of course and it was invariably established
that the criticism came from those who felt that the story should have
taken the side for which they stood.
All signs indicated that the problem of Prohibition and crime news
would increase rather than lessen, and the approach of a presidential
campaign served warning that the Prohibition issue would add to the
difficulties in the heat preceding a national election.
The stock markets kept advancing claim to recognition as big news.
Members of the Wall Street staff, who had wondered what a four-
million-share day would be like, found out in March. Trading exceeded
that amount and made Stock Exchange history. Brokers' loans continued
to climb, and some papers which had ignored quotations in the past
began to print the lists of stock prices to meet the public demand.
Before the World War five hundred words a day had sufficed to de-
scribe gyrations on the Exchange. Now it was a dull day when the Wall
Street Bureau produced less than five thousand words, and on "big
days" the total climbed to eight and ten thousand.
The record of the first months of 1928 was as varied as any other
"MORE MARGIN, MORE MARGIN!" 349
period which the service had taken in stride. There were the Snyder-
Gray electrocutions and the exile of Leon Trotsky from Russia. Sports
fans discussed Heavyweight Champion Gene Tunney's interest in
literature, music, and other fine arts, and the annual aviation fever be-
gan with the conquest of the North Atlantic by two Germans and an
Irishman in the Junkers plane Bremen.
At the annual meeting of the co-operative that spring, the most
important business was the unanimous action to arrange the voting
power of the membership more equitably by a better distribution of the
association's bonds. An additional bond issue was authorized so that all
members might subscribe in proportion to the amounts they contributed
in weekly assessments. The bonds carried voting privileges in election of
directors. One of the reasons why an inequitable distribution had arisen
was the fact that the Board of Directors had felt itself without authority
to redistribute bonds held in the treasury after being redeemed because
of membership consolidations or other reasons. Thus, until the change
was voted, newly elected members were unable to participate in the
bondholding privilege. As far as the actual operation of the co-operative
was concerned, the change was largely technical in its effects and the
administration continued along established lines.
The Republicans nominated Herbert Clark Hoover for president
at Kansas City and the Democrats selected Alfred E. Smith in the
June heat at Houston. At both conventions Byron Price, the chief of
bureau at Washington, headed a specially chosen staff of seventy-five.
As the campaign got under way, two men and one woman were assigned
to each of the presidential nominees, and one reporter to each of the
vice-presidential candidates.
It was not long before the usual criticisms and complaints began
to reach Cooper from both sides. Republicans charged The AP either
was purposely making Smith seem more interesting, or that the re-
porters assigned to his party were more able than those with Hoover.
The critics were not mollified when it was pointed out to them that
Smith talked freely with correspondents and permitted the use of
question and answer quotations while Hoover imposed a strict regula-
tion that nothing he said was to be quoted without specific permission.
One member of the Board of Directors said of this type of criticism:
350 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"It's the Republicans' fault if Smith is making more news and delivering
more speeches."
In the heat of the campaign, however, the Smith adherents were
just as vociferous as their Republican foes. They charged the co-opera-
tive with aiding Hoover's candidacy by reporting the slang Smith used
or quoting his words and expressions when they were not polished. The
whispering campaigns, the religious issue, the activities of the Ku Klux
Klan, all contributed to the difficulties which attended a fair, accurate,
and unbiased account of the contest.
The campaign ended November 5. The air rang with the slogans
on the prosperity and Prohibition issues — with catchphrases such as "a
chicken in every pot, two cars in every garage."
Thirty-six million Americans cast their votes and in New York on
election night the Board of Directors room was transformed into a spe-
cial election headquarters where a picked staff, working under the im-
mediate supervision of Price and Assistant General Manager Elliott,
tabulated the returns and prepared the election leads.
Cooper, studying the figures as they were brought to his office, was
leafing through a fresh batch of returns when his door opened. Looking
up, he was surprised to see the white-haired figure of Melville E. Stone.
"Well, I just couldn't stay away," the former general manager
explained apologetically.
For a while the two men sat talking. Then Stone took his leave.
He stood for a few minutes on the busy news floor and made his way
to the board room where the election staff was hard at work. His entry
passed almost unnoticed and he found a chair in the corner of the room.
Elliott saw him and nodded a greeting. For a long time the old man
watched the scene. Finally he motioned to Elliott.
"Isn't this beautiful, Elliott?" he exclaimed. "Here is the staff of
The Associated Press doing the same work that has been done in our
organization in preceding elections over a long period. The staff is
made up of new blood, young men whose faces are new to me, and yet
nothing is changed. It is just like every preceding election staff — an
efficient group carrying on without fluster or bluster."
He studied the room again and nodded his head.
"No," he repeated, "nothing is changed, nothing is changed."
A few months later Stone died and messages of condolence poured
in from the world's great and near great who had known him. He was
buried in Washington Cathedral in the crypt set aside for the nation's
distinguished dead. He had said he wished to be buried as a plain
"MORE MARGIN, MORE MARGIN!" 351
citizen, but the cathedral's trustees offered his family the privilege of
having him entombed there, alongside the vaults of Woodrow Wilson
and Admiral Dewey.
6
The Wall Street Bureau was the first to feel the effects of the
Hoover landslide. Markets bounded upward at the opening bell on
November 7 and stories of the broad advances competed for preference
on leased wires already crowded with election material. The "prosperity
bull market" had begun its spectacular career. Before the month ended,
trading on the "big board" reached the unprecedented daily total of
6,900,000 shares, and transactions in other markets mounted accord-
ingly.
It was only a beginning, but on December i the bureau's files
showed how great the gains had been since the last day of trading in
1927. Montgomery Ward, which sold then at 119, had skyrocketed
to 434. Radio had soared from 90 to 382, General Motors from 138 to
211, Wright Aeronautical from 81 to 263, Adams Express from 185
to 390. Other issues followed these bell-wethers with large gains.
Brokers' loans, an index of speculation, exceeded $6,OOO,OOO,OOO, an in-
crease of approximately $2,000,000,000 in the space of eleven months.
Call money rates had climbed as high as 8 and 9 per cent.
Economists and Wall Street spokesmen told reporters that 1929
would be a most prosperous year. Financial analysts expatiated on the
"new business cycle." Sports reported the death of Tex Rickard and
the mass funeral service for him at Madison Square Garden, where his
last "gate" was a big success. The Philadelphia Bureau reported that
the National Association of Merchant Tailors, in convention assembled,
gravely decreed that the well-dressed man should have at least twenty
suits, a dozen hats, eight overcoats, and twenty-four pairs of shoes.
And in her New York night club, Texas Guinan sounded one ironic
keynote for the year when she hailed patrons with the rowdy greeting:
"Hello, sucker!"
So the great news year of 1929 began. The foreign report told of
Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance campaign in India, the War Rep-
arations Conference at Paris which was drafting the Young plan in an
effort to remedy Germany's financial problems, and the signing of the
Lateran Treaty at Rome, ending a half century of estrangement be-
tween the Vatican and the Italian government. The cable dispatches
shared front pages with domestic stories of Anne Morrow's engage-
352 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
ment to Colonel Lindbergh, Chicago's St. Valentine Day massacre, and
the skyward progress of securities and commodity markets.
Through the spring and on into the summer the Wall Street Bu-
reau chronicled the sustained advance of security prices. The booms
of the past seemed insignificant by comparison. Public participation in
the market had never been so tremendous. From the Atlantic to the
Pacific, ticker tape quotations had become the symbols of sudden and
easy wealth. Where once people had bought newspapers to read of
politics, war, achievement, or disaster, now they looked first for the
closing prices.
As the market soared upward, a handful of experts sounded stern
warnings that the orgy of speculation was headed for disaster. These
represented the other side of Wall Street's amazing story, and the
report carried them just as it did the counter forecasts of bankers who
saw boundless prosperity ahead.
The scattered warnings went unheeded. A few of the more vigor-
ous ones caused the market to sell off — the Wall Street euphemism for
such recessions was "technical reaction" — but they had no lasting effect.
The market broke sharply in March when the unprecedented total of
8,246,740 shares were traded in one day and call money catapulted to
20 per cent. Recovery was swift, however, and prices soon poked back
into higher levels. After that, public and professional confidence in the
future of the market was stronger than ever. It survived a sinking
spell in May, and then once more pushed upward resolutely to greater
peaks.
On September 3, 1929, The AP average of sixty selected stocks
reached an all-time high of $157.70, more than double the $70 level
of late 1927. Sales that day were a mere 4,438,910 shares. By mid-
September the co-operative's average began to drop and by October it
was sliding several dollars a day. The Wall Street staff was unable to
find any genuine alarm in brokerage circles. The slow decline was re-
garded as a repetition of the March break which the market had soon
overcome. Brokers realized that the drop in prices was eating away
the slim margin on which billions of dollars' worth of stocks were held,
but the consensus was that the technical reaction could not possibly
go much further. The report quoted their views.
On October 24 — "Black Thursday" — a torrent of liquidation hit the
market and hammered stocks down $5,000,000,000. One issue plum-
meted 96 points. The trading floor was a bedlam and tickers fell far
behind transactions, adding to the confusion as the Wall Street Bureau
M I I I C
"MORE MARGIN, MORE MARGIN!" 353
struggled to keep abreast of the selling. Trading smashed all previous
records with a total of 12,894,650 shares and it was nightfall before
the last quotations were cleared on the special financial wires.
Five days later came the deluge which completely swamped wire
facilities and all but engulfed the staff in its effort to report what was
happening. Tickers were useless, grinding out prices which were hours
behind actual trading. On the Stock Exchange transactions totaled
16,410,030. Curb sales exceeded 7,000,000. Out-of-town and foreign
markets were demoralized.
The crash began as soon as the Stock Exchange opened on October
29 and it quickly became apparent that the regular Wall Street staff
could not cope with the collapse. Claude A. Jagger, acting as financial
editor, recruited reinforcements from the New York city staff and as-
signed them throughout the financial district. Men were stationed in the
office of J. P. Morgan, in all the big banks and brokerage offices, with
the regular members of the Wall Street staff working in key positions
at the various markets. Jagger, a seasoned financial writer, did the
main story of Wall Street's biggest day. He alone wrote 8,000 words
before the day finished.
Those 8,000 words told the story of collapse which wiped out bil-
lions of dollars' worth of open market values and swept prices down in
panic. They told of wild scenes on the Stock Exchange floor as huge
blocks of stock were dumped on the market ; of the tense, white-faced
customers in board rooms watching paper fortunes melt away; of the
solemn conferences of bankers and stock exchange officials ; of the sober
crowds which gathered in the streets of the financial district 5 of broker-
age clerks at telephones demanding "More margin, more margin !"
V. INTO THE DEPRESSION
THE big story was a thousand stories. Some were columns long, some
a few sentences. The date lines were legion. The basic subject matter
was monotonously unvaried — a deepening world-wide depression. The
domestic report told recurrently of fresh lows in security and com-
modity prices, of tobogganing earnings, of bank closings, mounting un-
employment and distress. The news by cable added other details —
Europe's precarious financial condition, slackening of industry, the de-
struction of world markets, and the intricate problems of international
indebtedness. Individually most of the dispatches had no surpassing sig-
nificance y collectively their weight was staggering.
During 1930, as the world slid deeper into the economic morass,
the report was studded with accounts of political unrest. In South
America an epidemic of revolutions kept correspondents working under
pressure and peril. When the Vargas rebellion broke out in Brazil,
E. M. Castro of the Rio de Janeiro staff, raced through the bullet-
splattered streets to flash the beginning of the insurrection. Paul San-
ders, the bureau chief, was routed from his typewriter by a fusillade
of shots which peppered the office walls. A zealous Boy Scout, intent
on rescuing the Brazilian flag on the building, had climbed up past the
office window in human-fly fashion, drawing the fire of a rebel detach-
ment in the street. Censorship added to difficulties, as it had in Peru,
the Argentine, and other South American countries.
Chief of Bureau Morris J. Harris at Shanghai had the upheaval
of China's civil war to report, and in India there were the violent dis-
orders of Gandhi's civil disobedience campaign for national autonomy.
In Germany Hitler's National Socialist party made tremendous gains
in the September election, becoming for the first time a powerful bloc
in the Reichstag. There were reports of impending revolution. The un-
easiness subsided after Chief of Bureau Lochner obtained from Presi-
dent von Hindenburg a statement affirming confidence in Germany's
continued stability and discounting the possibilities of a radical dic-
tatorship.
Although member papers were feeling the pinch of economic con-
354
INTO THE DEPRESSION 355
ditions — smaller publications had been complaining as early as the au-
tumn of 1929 — there was no suggestion that service be curtailed. The
insistence was that the report be maintained unimpaired. This was
particularly true of the financial service, even though the market col-
lapse had robbed security and commodity prices of their 1929 circula-
tion-building magic.
The daily ledger of the depression made a drab background, but
the report had colorful contrasts. The most picturesque copy in many
months came from Addis Ababa where Haile Selassie, "Conquering
Lion of Judah, the Anointed of God, and the Lord of the World,"
was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia with barbaric ceremonials and splen-
dor. The extraordinary coronation in Africa meant a change of scene
for Jim Mills, roving correspondent of the Foreign Service. After
five years in the Balkans, he had been sent to Moscow as chief of
bureau in 1924 for a three-year tour of duty during which he covered
all parts of the Soviet Union. Then he came back to Middle Europe,
once more as chief of bureau at Vienna, with Austria, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, and Rumania for his
territory. During this period he secured interviews with King Constan-
tine of Greece, King Boris of Bulgaria, King Alexander of Yugo-
slavia, Queen Marie and King Carol of Rumania, and King Zog of
Albania. After two years in the post, he was reappointed to Moscow and
was finishing his second year there when he was ordered to Africa for
the coronation of Haile Selassie on November 2, 1930.
The ceremonies, which lasted a week, were an ordeal, even for a
seasoned reporter like Mills. The rites began at four in the morning
and the heat in the small, stuffy cathedral became unbearable as the
day wore on. The air was foul with the smoke of mutton-fat candles,
the nauseating odor of strange incense, and the overpowering stench of
Ethiopians, greased from head to foot with rancid butter and animal
fat. American and European guests needed surreptitious recourse to
flasks of brandy in order to stand the torture. But Mills survived.
Early in 1931 the foreign report produced one of those teapot
tempests which demonstrated the scrutiny to which dispatches were
subjected by editors and public alike. The news was the address of Pope
Pius XI during ceremonies dedicating the Vatican radio station, HVJ.
An international hookup of 250 stations had been arranged to carry the
Pontiff's message of peace and good will to all parts of the world.
356 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Andrue Berding, the new bureau chief at Rome — Cortesi had just
retired — was at the Vatican for the dedication and the papal broadcast.
After the Pope had begun his talk, Berding hastened to the Vatican
telegraph office with a copy of the speech. The Pope made his address
in Latin, but the prepared copies were in Italian. Berding translated the
text into English and filed it page by page at the telegraph office. Pres-
ently he came upon a Biblical quotation. There was no time to rush
around the Vatican looking for a Bible, so without hesitation he trans-
lated the passage into simple, direct English.
The story did not end there, however. Soon Berding received a
sheaf of letters from Catholics in the United States, saying, in effect:
"You have made the Pope quote the Protestant version of the Bible!"
Accompanying the letters was the general manager's request for an
explanation. Embarrassed by the complaints the bureau chief checked
on the Biblical passage the Pope had used. He consulted the Catholic
version of the Bible, then the Protestant version. The critics were wrong.
The quotation, as Berding had translated it, did not appear verbatim in
either. It was his own version, and he wrote the general manager that
he felt it was as good as either of the other renditions.
All this while the many-sided story of economic distress kept un-
folding. The news was even gloomier than in 1930. Big corporations
announced pay cuts, hunger marchers paraded, Treasury statistics
showed an alarming increase in money hoarding, the army of unem-
ployed grew larger, bank failures averaged almost a hundred a month,
and the price of wheat in the Chicago grain pit sank to the lowest levels
since 1896. From South America cables brought tidings of fresh revo-
lutions. Madrid reported the overthrow of King Alfonso and the
setting up of a Spanish republic. Dispatches from London, Berlin,
Vienna, and other European centers set forth the unchecked develop-
ment of the financial crisis which menaced the Old World.
On June 20, 1931, the report announced a proposal by President
Hoover for a one-year moratorium on all payments of war reparations
and intergovernmental debts — the administration's effort to avert a
catastrophe, inevitable if financial collapse occurred in Germany and
Central Europe. The next day Washington quoted Secretary of State
Henry L. Stimson as saying a personal appeal from President von Hin-
denburg of Germany had figured importantly in Hoover's decision. The
contents of Hindenburg's letter, however, were not disclosed. Hoover
regarded them as confidential and all efforts to obtain the document
proved unavailing.
INTO THE DEPRESSION 357
Failing in Washington, the association turned to Berlin. Cooper
cabled Lochner to secure the text of Hindenburg's appeal. Lochner
afterward called the assignment the most difficult he had ever received.
He sounded out Foreign Minister Julius Curtius.
"As far as I am concerned," the Cabinet official said, "there is no
objection to giving publicity to the letter. But the letter is addressed to
President Hoover and international courtesy demands that your Amer-
ican President, rather than we, give it out. Besides, this is really a
matter which, so far as Germany is concerned, only President von Hin-
denburg can decide."
Lochner went to the presidential palace, but got nothing there.
After days more of trying, he gave up hope. He received instructions
to accompany Chancellor Heinrich Bruening and Foreign Minister
Curtius to London for the Seven-Power Conference on the financial
woes of Europe.
The departure for London was only three hours distant when
Lochner met a government official just back from vacation. There were
a few words of greeting, and then the official said enthusiastically:
"That was certainly a great message your President Hoover ad-
dressed to the world on the moratorium. I read about it when on leave,
but now I must find out just how it came about."
Lochner listened with a poker face.
"By the way," he interposed idly, "I have never seen President
von Hindenburg's appeal to Hoover published anywhere, yet I under-
stand it is a deeply moving document. Can't you have a copy made
and send it to me at London? It seems to me your president should get
some credit for the part he played."
To Lochner's joy, the German did not summarily reject the idea.
"Pd rather not send you the text direct because it might be mis-
construed," the official said. "Pll simply address an envelope to your
wife here in Berlin, and when she opens it she will find the text."
Several nights later Lochner was at a typewriter in the London
Bureau tapping out his story on the progress of the Seven-Power Con-
ference. The telephone operator told him Berlin was calling.
It was Mrs. Lochner with the 5OO-word German text of President
von Hindenburg's letter.
Quitting London with the German delegation two days later,
Lochner picked up an English newspaper. It carried a dispatch from
New York saying The AP had succeeded in obtaining for exclusive
publication the text of President von Hindenburg's letter to President
358 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Hoover. The paper reprinted most of the message. Mischievously,
Lochner passed the paper over to Curtius and indicated the article.
"Herr Reichminister," he said in tones of injured innocence, "that's
what happens when you and I leave the country!"
In spite of the Hoover moratorium, Europe's economic condition
failed to improve. Germany's difficulties became so acute that the gov-
ernment was forced to close all stock exchanges and banks. Heavy with-
drawals of gold from London by frightened Swiss, Dutch, and Belgian
bankers impaired England's financial stability, and on September 21,
1931, the country abandoned the gold standard. The cables were heavy
with the story and its international repercussions.
Because of its sheer magnitude, its endless ramifications and baffling
complexity, the depression produced no one dominant figure who drama-
tized the tremendous story. It was another field of events which gave
the report one of the period's most vivid personalities — Mahatma
Gandhi. The graphic dispatches of Jim Mills, who had gone to India
from Africa, were in part responsible.
Mills managed to win the confidence and respect of the homely
little 62-year-old Hindu. It was his reportorial treatment of Gandhi as
an intensely appealing human character, rather than as a fanatic or freak,
that won the holy man's trust. Gandhi informed him in advance of
every move he planned to make, and the co-operative was able to supply
its members with prompt and complete coverage on all important de-
velopments in India's struggle for independence.
Mills traveled throughout India with Gandhi, reporting the prog-
ress of the civil disobedience movement, riots, and bloodshed. When
Gandhi went to London in September, 1931, for the India Round
Table Conference, Mills went with him. The conference failed and
Mills was forewarned that Gandhi's return to India would be the signal
for a spirited resumption of the civil disobedience campaign.
The British authorities in India moved swiftly to meet the new
challenge and on January 3, 1932, Gandhi confided to Mills that he
expected to be arrested again. Seated at a spinning wheel in the tattered
tent he had pitched on the roof of a Bombay tenement, Gandhi pre-
dicted that a reign of terror would follow his imprisonment.
Jim Mills was there when the police arrived at three o'clock the
next morning.
INTO THE DEPRESSION 359
"They are coming! They are coming!" the leader's disciples cried.
Gandhi, roused from sleep, was told the police were outside. "Usher
them in," he said sleepily. "They are welcome."
A few minutes later the Mahatma repaired to another part of the
roof where he prayed silently with his followers and wrote a few
notes of farewell. Then, spying Mills, he motioned him to approach.
"I do not know when, or whether ever, I shall see you again,"
he said in a low voice. "The Associated Press has reported the political
situation in India as no other news organization in the world has cov-
ered it. Therefore, on the threshold of prison, I give you and The Asso-
ciated Press a farewell message. It may be that I shall die in prison. It
may be I shall never see you again. Therefore, I want to thank you
and The Associated Press for the thorough and impartial way in which
you have always reported my activities and the progress of the Indian
Nationalist movement.
"I hope that after I am gone The Associated Press will continue
to inform the American people of the exact situation in India, telling
them what we as Indian Nationalists are trying to do to emancipate
India. But at the same time I would ask you to do the fullest justice
to the British side of the controversy. For I do not wish to hurt as
much as a hair on any English head."
With that, Gandhi placed himself in the hands of the police who
whisked him by automobile to the Yeroda Prison at Poona, seventy-five
miles away.
On this occasion, while the events of an outside world crowded one
on the other, the Mahatma remained in jail for months. There was great
secrecy when he was unexpectedly given his freedom. To avoid atten-
tion the release was effected after midnight and Gandhi, with his pots,
pans, and goat's milk, was taken by car to a distant railroad station. He
reached the platform, squatted down, and pulled his clattering posses-
sions about him. Peering into the darkness, he discerned someone ap-
proaching. With a toothless smile, he recognized a familiar figure.
"I suppose," said he, shaking his head in mock resignation, "when
I go to the Hereafter and stand at the Golden Gate, the first person
I shall meet will be a correspondent of The Associated Press."
To the general public the news-gathering activities of The AP at
any given time represented the sum total of its operations. Outside of
360 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
journalistic circles, few knew in 1932 that the Board of Directors and
the management faced an acute administrative problem which directly
involved continued news gathering. Two years of depression had sharply
reduced the financial resources of the member papers, and the member
papers defrayed the cost of the entire service. Some had been forced to
suspend publication, a few had consolidated, and a number were barely
able to meet their weekly share of the association's expenses. The board
and the general manager were fully aware of the distress and knew the
papers looked to them to do everything possible to ameliorate the situa-
tion. The gravity of matters could not be exaggerated. Unless mem-
bers were able to meet their weekly assessments, the association would
not have sufficient funds for news operations, and hundreds of employes
would be without jobs.
One publisher, thinking to be helpful, approached the general
manager with a suggestion for a flat 20 per cent reduction in all assess-
ments. It required a lot of explanation to convince him there was no
such easy short cut to a lightening of the financial burden.
In the first place, the member learned, more than 60 per cent of
all the association's expenses went for domestic wire charges. Of that
amount, at least half was obligated under unexpired contracts and could
not be touched. The remaining wire costs could be slashed to effect the
desired assessment decrease, but this would entail an arbitrary curtail-
ment of the leased network.
The next major budget item was the 20 per cent spent on the For-
eign Service and incoming news. Here again, the member found himself
unwilling to urge retrenchment. He knew that if the co-operative
diminished the outlay for the foreign service it would jeopardize its
position in that field. Similarly, if the reductions were made at the cost
of national and state news, papers might get slightly lower assessments
but, on the other hand, they would be forced to spend several times the
amount saved to supplement an incomplete report.
The only other sizable item on the balance sheet was 1 1 per cent
for salaries and all administrative and office expenses. Obviously not
even a 10 per cent assessment reduction was possible here, without
virtually wiping out all payroll, office maintenance, and administrative
costs. During the discussion on the subject of salary cuts, it was pointed
out to the member that if all salaries in the service were reduced 20
per cent, the decrease would range from 10 cents weekly in small
places to $10 or $15 in the largest cities.
The publisher who came to New York to suggest an easy way to
INTO THE DEPRESSION 361
lower assessments was a much better informed man when he left. As
far as he could see, the books held no promise of any major savings.
For the first time, he appreciated the tremendous problem with which
the board and the general manager were grappling.
After a study of the problem, the Board of Directors delegated
General Manager Cooper to devise, if possible, a retrenchment program
which would permit a minimum monthly refund of 10 per cent on
assessments. The assignment was the most formidable administrative
task Cooper had undertaken since 1912 when he turned a threatened
deficit of $50,000 into a $100,000 saving.
No department, domestic or foreign, escaped scrutiny in the
search for economies. Wherever possible, transmission facilities were
realigned or rerouted so that each mile of wire delivered the maximum
of service and linked as many papers as practicable. This was a start.
The greater portion of transmission savings, however, came from
the duplexing of existing wire circuits. Duplexing was a communica-
tions development whereby one wire could carry two sets of signals
simultaneously, without interference. This, in effect, made one wire do
the work of two, for the impulses which actuated either Morkrum
printers or Morse sounders were transmitted in separate harmonic
channels, rendering the wire, for practical purposes, almost the equiva-
lent of a double circuit. This increased the cost of each wire, but the
amount involved was less than the price of two outright wires.
Quite apart from the immediate retrenchments realized, the thor-
oughgoing survey of wires and transmission equipment led to one de-
velopment of long-range value. W. J. McCambridge, a man who had
come up from the ranks to become chief of the Traffic Department in
1928, got to thinking of the advantages a research and experimental
laboratory might yield. The more he considered the idea the more it
impressed him. The possibilities, he saw, were endless. In all likelihood,
a laboratory could work out a number of mechanical refinements to
meet the present need for economies. McCambridge knew how pressing
that need was. Equally important, however, was the fact that the co-
operative would have a unit constantly seeking to invent and perfect
equipment for the future.
McCambridge had no trouble in getting approval for his idea.
His department contained many men of high scientific and technical
ability, and from among them he recruited the nucleus of an able labora-
tory staff. Laboratory enterprise on the part of a press association was
something quite novel, yet the experiment attracted scant attention.
362 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The economy hunt went on. An additional necessary saving was
effected by a 10 per cent reduction in the salaries of the entire personnel.
Cooper authorized the cuts reluctantly. He always had thought staff
salaries were lower than he would like to have them, and only the
emergency compelled his consent to a decrease in the existing scale. It
was the only reduction ordered during the whole depression period.
Cooper, incidentally, was the first to have his salary reduced. Before
directing action on the staff payroll, the Board of Directors reduced the
general manager's salary by a like percentage.
Further decreases in operating costs were worked out by a one-year
postponement of the annual allotments to the Emergency Reserve Fund,
the Employes Benefit Fund, and the fund set aside for amortization of
telegraphic and traffic equipment. All three reserves were in sound finan-
cial condition and payments could be suspended temporarily. Econo-
mies ran from pencils, paste, paper clips, and paper towels up to bigger
items. Typewriters which ordinarily would have been replaced were
made to last a little longer. Office furniture which had seen its best days
continued to do duty. Telephone and telegraph tolls were watched re-
lentlessly and even the outlays for postage were challenged.
The program was helped by a sizable personal contribution from
President Noyes. For several years it had been the custom of the board
to vote him annually an honorarium of $10,000 in appreciation of the
amount of time and money he spent in discharging his duties as the un-
salaried head of the co-operative. From 1932 on Noyes declined the
award.
Member newspapers received the benefits of the economies in two
ways. Assessments generally were adjusted downward — although in
most cases the 1930 census figures actually called for increases — and,
retroactive to January i, 1932, a part of these lowered assessments was
returned to members in regular weekly refunds.
In the first thirty-three months of the emergency budget's opera-
tion, the membership received $1,391,066.78 in cash refunds and
$1,184,220.48 in outright assessment reductions.
The emergency depression measures wisely did not ignore ade-
quate provisions for the association's expansion and growth. Arrange-
ment was made for the continued support of two new subsidiaries — The
Associated Press of Great Britain and The Associated Press of Ger-
many— news and photo organizations which had been set up abroad
in 1930.
In spite of the steps that had been taken, some members were
INTO THE DEPRESSION 363
unable to weather the economic collapse. Others found it necessary to
substitute pony reports for leased wire service.
The big story that was a thousand stories went on through the
months and the dispatches kept adding somber footnotes.
Unemployed demonstrators converge on Washington . . . Farm-
ers' Holiday movement spreads . . . Bankruptcies . . . "Frozen"
credits . . . Currency hoarding . . . Depression . , ,
VI. KIDNAP
IN THE Newark Bureau it was the quietest night in months. Against
one wall a battery of four Morkrums droned along. The last top items
of news had been cleared on the New Jersey wires much earlier. The
best story in the report seemed to be the by-lined account of Morris
J. Harris on the fierce fighting at Shanghai in the undeclared Sino-
Japanese War. The state budget offered nothing better than a fire at
Pennsgrove.
At the filing editor's desk, Gregory Hewlett sifted through a thin
pile of secondary material edited for relay on the double circuit which
served the state's morning papers. At the state news desk, the night
editor, W. A. Kinney, relaxed in his chair. His desk was clear, all the
night report stories were up, and the few early report items had been
written. Dull nights like this were few and far between.
The Morse wire clicked off a message. Hewlett read it and pushed
it across the news desk.
"The nightly Lindbergh rumor," he announced.
Kinney glanced at the message. It was from the Atlantic City Press.
"Hear Lindbergh in accident near Hopewell," it read. "Any-
thing?"
The night editor did not bother to comment. Ever since Colonel
Lindbergh had taken up residence in the state, the bureau had been
plagued with requests to check reports that this or that had happened to
the famous flier. After two years of that, another query did not cause a
great stir. Lindbergh's unlisted telephone number was in the card index
— as a matter of fact, it was only within the past week that the number
of his new estate at Hopewell had been substituted for a temporary
Princeton one — but the office order was that the colonel must not be
bothered in checking such reports. The telephone number was for extra-
ordinary emergencies only, and there never had been occasion to use it.
The time was almost 10:40. The Morse operator, George Wil-
liamson, copied down another message and passed it to the filing editor.
"Here's another one," Hewlett called over to Kinney, now on his
way to the telephone booth which shut out the drumming noise of the
364
KIDNAP 365
Morkrums. "Paterson wants to know if there's anything to Lindbergh
being in a crash somewhere."
The night editor went into the telephone booth and picked up
the receiver.
"Market 2-5400," he told the operator.
That was Newark Police Headquarters. If anything important was
happening in the state, they invariably knew it there quickly.
Headquarters listened patiently.
"No. Nothing tonight. Switch you to the teletype room, but if they
had anything we'd know before this. Hold on."
The teletype room, where police communications were received,
had no information.
"The only State Police stuff we've had in the last hour has been
routine — stolen cars and a few alarm cancellations. They'd have had
anything like that before this. Yes, a couple more phonies, I guess . . .
Wait, there's something starting to come in on the State Police printer
now."
Then the detective's voice exploded in Kinney's ear.
"My God! Listen, AP! Here's the State Police alarm. The Lind-
bergh baby's been kidnaped!"
The editor listened as the detective read the text of the alarm and
then bolted out of the booth. Pulling up a typewriter, he yelled at the
top of his voice.
"Bulletin!"
He didn't think of a flash. Just get the news out. A straightaway
bulletin. Hang it right on the State Police flier.
The typewriter banged out the words:
BULLETIN
NEWARK, N. J., MARCH 1 - (AP) - THE
STATE POLICE TONIGHT BROADCAST THE FOLLOWING
TELETYPE ALARM:
"COLONEL LINDBERGH'S BABY WAS KIDNAPED
PROM LINDBERGH HOME IN HOPEWELL, N. J., SOME
TIME BETWEEN 7:30 AND 10:00 P.M. THIS DATE.
BABY IS 19 MONTHS OLD AND A BOY. IS DRESSED
IN SLEEPING SUIT. REQUEST THAT ALL CARS BE
INVESTIGATED BY POLICE PATROLS."
Hewlett ripped the paper out of the machine as soon as the last
typebar hit, and Kinney darted back into the telephone booth, fumbling
hurriedly through the card index for Lindbergh's private number. In a
moment Hewlett joined him, and sat down at the other telephone.
366 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"I'll get after Breckinridge and Hopewell police," he said.
When Kinney finally got through to the Lindbergh home, he heard
a voice filled with both hope and anxiety. He recognized it immediately.
He had covered Lindbergh on numerous assignments before.
"Colonel Lindbergh, this is The Associated Press in Newark. We
hesitate to bother you at such a moment, but we've just received the
State Police alarm that your son has been kidnaped."
The colonel interrupted.
"I have no statement to make at this time," he said.
He didn't say it the unworried way the editor had heard him say
it often before at the airport. There was time for only a few other
quick questions before the conversation ended, but by then the Newark
editor was convinced the kidnaping report was true.
Hewlett called Colonel Lindbergh's attorney, Henry Breckin-
ridge, and got positive confirmation of the story. Then the Hopewell
police were reached. An officer had been sent up to the remote white
house in the gloomy Sourlands, but until they heard from him there
was no further information.
Hammering away at typewriters, the two men pieced out the story
as fast as they could.
As the story began to roll, Newark raised the other New Jersey
bureau, in the State House at Trenton, so that staff men there could be
started for Hopewell, which was much nearer that city than Newark.
In Trenton Sam Blackman hustled over to State Police headquar-
ters. The lieutenant on duty told him that Colonel Lindbergh per-
sonally had called in the report of the kidnaping, but that was all they
knew. Troopers already were at the estate in the Sourlands. Blackman
started for Hopewell with Frank Jamieson, the correspondent in charge
at Trenton. Jim Lawrence was assigned to the police headquarters and
W. F. Carter manned the State House Bureau so that the men could
relay their news through Trenton in case Newark's telephones were
busy.
To know that Jamieson and Blackman were racing toward Hope-
well gave a lift to the men in Newark, but it might be an hour before
the first word was received from them.
Hewlett remembered a young woman who happened to be a friend
of Anne Lindbergh's sister. Maybe she had heard something. The call
woke her. Hewlett started to tell her.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "and Anne is expecting another baby!"
Things like that kept happening.
KIDNAP 367
Another try at the Lindbergh telephone number produced a quickly
interrupted few words with the state trooper who answered, but the
brief seconds developed that an unspecified ransom had been asked,
and a note found.
Newark then called the estate of Mrs. Lindbergh's mother at
Englewood and told Mrs. Morrow that The AP felt it might be helpful
in the search for the stolen baby if she would supply a description of
the child for immediate nation-wide distribution. She agreed and ex-
pressed her thanks for the suggestion.
The Lindbergh house in the Sourland mountains was a difficult
place to find that dark, blustery March night, but Jamieson and Black-
man had the experience of two previous trips over the winding, bumpy
road. They had written stories of the flier's isolated estate before he
took up residence.
Whateley, the butler, answered the door. He recognized Black-
man but the smile of other visits was gone.
"What about the baby being kidnaped?" Blackman asked.
"All we know," the servant said sadly, "is that the baby isn't here.
Colonel Lindbergh is out on the grounds, but you can come in and
wait."
Jamieson went off in search of the police. Blackman started back
toward Hopewell looking for a telephone. By the entrance to the Lind-
bergh estate, about a half mile from the house, he found the home of
a baker. None too happy at being roused from bed at midnight, the
man grumblingly permitted the use of his party-line telephone. Black-
man talked to Newark — Whateley's few words proved to be the first
positive statement obtained from a member of the Lindbergh house-
hold— and then started back up the dark muddy lane.
From the blackness of the estate's entrance four figures emerged
"Are you troopers?" Blackman hailed.
A tall, hatless man answered him.
"I'm Colonel Lindbergh."
"I'm Blackman of The AP."
The aviator shook his head.
"I'm sorry, Blackman, but I can't say anything now."
Accompanied by two of the troopers, Lindbergh strode on up the
lane toward the house. Blinking flashlights marked the progress of the
368 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
three men. Then the reporter became aware that one trooper had re-
mained near the gatehouse.
"Let's see your police card," the officer asked.
His electric torch flickered briefly as he examined the credential.
Then he flashed it for a moment on Blackman's face.
"O.K., AP, Pll tell you the story, but you don't know where you
got it."
While Blackman scribbled notes, the trooper told what had hap-
pened, filling in numerous gaps in the story which Newark had so
quickly assembled by telephone.
He told how Betty Gow, the nurse, had found the child's crib
empty at ten o'clock. He told of the discovery of the $50,000 ransom
note and its cryptic signature, of the mud tracks on the nursery floor,
of the footmarks in the soft earth below the window, and of the three-
piece wooden ladder and the chisel which had been abandoned near
the house.
Blackman sprinted back to the baker's house. He told his story
over the telephone to Newark where the two men, working in relays,
rushed a New Lead onto the wires with Blackman's by-line. It was
not until two hours later that the State Police held a press conference
at which some of the details of the kidnaping were disclosed.
Overnight, Hopewell, a quiet country town, became the news center
of the world. The shocking story aroused universal anxiety and horror,
not only in the United States but in foreign countries. To cover develop-
ments at the scene, the co-operative assembled a special staff. New
Jersey contributed Jamieson, Blackman, Lawrence, and Kinney. New
York sent Robert Cavagnaro, Morris Watson, Lorena Hickok, and
Katherine Beebe, as well as cameramen Joe Caneva, Tom Sande, and
Walter Durkin.
In reality, those at Hopewell represented only a small portion of
the news force which had a part in the story. No one knew in what part
of the country, or even in what part of the world, the next "break"
might occur. Every staff man considered himself assigned to run down
any lead which might have a bearing on the case. Hundreds of date
lines supplemented the stories from Hopewell. There were dispatches
on the reaction of foreign capitals, on official activity in Washington, on
KIDNAP 369
police operations in a score of cities, and on the epidemic of crank
"clues" which began almost immediately.
At Hopewell it soon became apparent that the story would be ex-
tremely difficult to cover accurately and promptly. State Police sur-
rounded their activities with secrecy. Silence shrouded every develop-
ment detectives thought important. The police issued official com-
muniques from time to time, but the information was carefully selected
and usually dealt with exploded clues or secondary detective work.
For every line of news written there were hours of wearisome, un-
productive digging. Men were kept on duty at the gatehouse of the
estate, watching the mysterious goings and comings of uncommunica-
tive officers. Endless time was spent on hopeful amateur detective
work in the vicinity. And there were the frequent wild rides over back
roads at breakneck speed to run down "hot tips" which never survived
investigation.
But there was real news somewhere behind the barriers which
police had raised, and the job was to get that news for the report. The
New Jersey members of the staff had numerous contacts because of
their service in the state and these were quietly canvassed in the hope
that some reliable channel of information could be found.
Correspondent Jamieson in particular had built up a long list of
confidential news sources during many years of reporting governmental
and political activities. Enlisting the co-operation of an official not con-
nected with the state government, he ultimately was able to improvise
a roundabout but effective and trustworthy way of learning what was
happening behind the scenes.
He reported the receipt of additional ransom notes, the entrance
of Dr. John F. ("Jafsie") Condon as an intermediary in negotiations
with the kidnaper and Colonel Lindbergh's personal activities in the
hunt for his stolen son. His sources of information varied, and the
news might come at any hour of the day or night. To protect the identity
of his sources, Jamieson was forced to take every precaution. He used
out-of-the-way telephones, arranged for hurried meetings in hotel rooms,
and engineered "casual" encounters in places where conversations could
not be overheard.
4
In spite of the most intensive man hunt in police history, days
passed without recovery of the baby or the apprehension of the kidnaper.
There was a flurry of activity when the $50,000 ransom was paid
370 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx the night of April 2, 1932, and
when Colonel Lindbergh searched in vain off the Massachusetts coast
by air for the boat on which the baby was said to be held. The failure
to recover the child turned Lindbergh to John Hughes Curtis, the Vir-
ginia boatbuilder who claimed to have been in contact with a band of
kidnapers. Confidential information from police sources had led the
staff at Trenton to doubt the veracity of his stories, but events in the kid-
naping had been so unpredictable that anything might happen. The boat-
builder's movements were watched as closely as possible.
Another month passed with its series of perfunctory police com-
muniques and occasional alarms. The story had become almost routine
when the air suddenly became tense again with a new epidemic of reports
that an important "break" might soon occur. Colonel Lindbergh, with
Curtis, was on a yacht off the New Jersey coast, combing the sea for
the vessel on which the Virginian said the baby would be found.
At the State House in Trenton, May 12 droned along uneventfully
until late in the afternoon. Then without warning Lieutenant Walter
Coughlin, the press liaison officer of the investigation, announced that
Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf, superintendent of the State Police,
wanted all newspapermen covering the story to be at the Lindbergh
estate in an hour. No reason was given for the abrupt summons but
everyone felt it meant an announcement of exceptional importance.
It was after five o'clock and Jamieson decided on a course of
action.
"Sam," he instructed Blackman, "you go on down to Hopewell.
Pm going to try to get Governor Moore. If anything big is doing,
Moore will know about it. I'll get down to Hopewell then as quickly
as I can."
Blackman remembered that the nearest telephone to the Lindbergh
estate was in the house of the baker he had routed out of bed the night
the baby was stolen. The man worked in Trenton, so Blackman called
him at the bakeshop and arranged to hire his telephone at Hopewell
for as long as necessary. That done, he started over the familiar road
to Sourland Mountains. At the baker's house he stopped and telephoned
New York, explaining the desirability of keeping an open line in readi-
ness for whatever Schwarzkopf's press conference might produce. New
York put a member of the local staff on the wire to chat with the
baker's wife and read her news items so that the line would be kept
busy until needed. With the nearest line of communication assured,
Blackman continued up the lane to the Lindbergh estate. The State
KIDNAP 371
Police headquarters had been set up in the garage and correspondents
were already gathering there.
Back in Trenton, Jamieson had no immediate success in his efforts
to reach Moore. The governor was motoring to his home in Jersey City,
some fifty miles away. The governor's own office seemed to guarantee
the greatest privacy, so Jamieson sat down there and started telephon-
ing. He tried to get the governor in Jersey City but without success.
Instructing the operator to keep trying until she reached the governor,
he called several private sources that might conceivably have an inkling
of what was behind the summoning of reporters to the Lindbergh estate.
No one knew.
The minutes ticked by in the quiet office. Jamieson sat and waited.
The governor was his only hope. If Moore did not reach Jersey City
soon, Jamieson would never be able to get to Hopewell for Schwarz-
kopf's conference. The telephone rang.
"On your call to Jersey City," the operator said, "we are ready."
"Hello, Governor," Jamieson began in his cheery way, "this is
Frank Jamieson."
"Yes, Frank, what's on your mind?"
"Governor, has there been any big development in the Lindbergh
case? Colonel Schwarzkopf has called all the boys to the Lindbergh
estate for a press conference within the next hour and it makes us think
he has something important to say."
"I haven't heard of anything, Frank," Moore answered. "Up until
the time I left the State House there was no indication anything excep-
tional had happened or would happen."
Jamieson knew the governor had followed the case with intense
interest. He suggested:
"Couldn't you get in touch with Colonel Schwarzkopf and find
out?"
"I'll do that immediately," Moore said.
"And, governor," Jamieson asked, "will you call me right back if
it's anything? I'm phoning from your office."
"I'll call you right back," Moore promised.
As soon as Moore hung up, Jamieson picked up a second telephone
and put in a call for New York.
Hastily sketching the situation, he said:
"I don't know what's coming, but it might be big. We'll keep this
line open, so when the governor calls back on the other phone, I can
shoot you the stuff without delay."
372 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
More minutes of waiting. Then the other telephone jangled. It
was 6:10 P.M.
"Hello! Hello!"
"Hello, Frank? This is Governor Moore. It's horrible news. The
Lindbergh baby has been found dead — "
Jamieson shouted:
"Hold it, governor, hold it!"
Snatching up the other telephone, he fired the words over the
open line to New York.
F-L-A-S-H
LINDBERGH BABY POUND DEAD.
Back on the governor's telephone, he heard Moore, obviously
affected, relate all he had learned of the finding of the body that after-
noon in a thicket just off the Hopewell-Princeton highway, only five
miles from the Lindbergh home. The correspondent halted him occa-
sionally in order to relay the details to New York over the other line.
Once the conversation had ended and the last facts were repeated
to New York, Jamieson tumbled into a taxi for a mad ride to get to
Hopewell in time for the press conference.
In the garage on the Lindbergh estate the temporary press head-
quarters buzzed with speculation on the nature of the information
Schwarzkopf had to reveal, and a half a mile away near the estate en-
trance the baker's wife sat listening to news items still being read to her
over the telephone line Blackman had opened to New York.
Jamieson arrived just in time to get into the garage before the
doors were closed. He greeted acquaintances with a disarming smile as if
nothing had happened.
After the garage doors had been locked, Colonel Schwarzkopf ex-
plained that he had ordered the action because he wanted no news-
papermen to leave the building until he had concluded his announce-
ment. Then at 6:45 P.M. he began a lengthy statement. The State Police
superintendent read slowly, pausing to make sure reporters had time
to copy the words verbatim.
And all the while from New York to California, the presses of
member papers were already rolling, and the flood of extras was
hitting the streets.
When the garage doors were flung open, there was a pell-mell
scramble for the nearest telephone. But the nearest telephone was at
the baker's house, and Blackman had tied it up an hour earlier. Not
KIDNAP - 373
only that, it was on a party line and as long as it was busy other tele-
phones in the vicinity could not be used. Jamieson and Blackman
alternated, dictating Schwarzkopf's official statement.
A few rivals later reproached Governor Moore for giving Jamieson
the news. Moore reminded them that the AP correspondent was the
only one to get in touch with him in quest of the information, and that
there had been nothing to prevent others from making a similar
effort. "He caught the train," the governor said. "The others stood
waiting on the platform and let it go by."
Jamieson's work throughout the eleven-week search for the stolen
child won him the Pulitzer prize for the outstanding example of do-
mestic reporting in 1932.
After the finding of the murdered child, John Hughes Curtis was
indicted for obstructing justice by his tale of negotiations with an
imaginary gang of kidnapers. Lawrence and Kinney reported his trial
and conviction at Flemington the last week in June, and the first full
chapter of the bewildering Lindbergh kidnaping mystery reach its con-
clusion. The crime was the first of a series of spectacular kidnapings
which scourged the country through the early thirties. But no one for-
got Hopewell. There was always the chance that sometime, somewhere
the Lindbergh case might break open again with the capture of the
kidnaper.
VII. ANOTHER ROOSEVELT
AT ALMOST any other time the news of the smashing Japanese ad-
vance into the Jehol province of Manchuria would have been the domi-
nant story in the report. For days Jim Mills followed the Mikado's
legions on the unsheltered top of an ammunition truck — the best trans-
portation he could wheedle from the army. He lived on hardtack and
melted snow except when bitter tea was obtainable at dirty Chinese
inns. An occasional rear-bound truck or airplane was his only means of
communication, and many of his stories were lost entirely, probably
thrown away by negligent couriers. Nevertheless, Mills plowed on
through to Jehol City to write of the final phases of the campaign.
The conquest of Jehol, however, was all but eclipsed by the suc-
cession of grave domestic events which filled the report through Feb-
ruary, 1933.
From the Detroit Bureau: Michigan declares an eight-day bank
holiday.
From Baltimore: Maryland banks closed for three days.
From St. Paul: Minnesota places two-month ban on mortgage fore-
closures.
From Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Delaware: Banks authorized to re-
strict withdrawals.
Staff men all over the country saw long queues standing outside
banks, waiting to withdraw savings. State by state, the story almost
defied writing. The causes of the hysteria were obscure. Its spread had
been stealthy. Its manifestations were unpredictable and deceptive. Sta-
tistics on the amount of money in circulation provided the only clue to
the extent of hoarding, but any attempt to compute exact figures was
conjecture. No one could report authoritatively on the psychology of
fear, the fatalism, and the air of gloom. Bread lines, idle factories, and
empty shops were so commonplace that they had long since ceased to
be news in themselves, yet each contributed to the strange thing hap-
pening in the country. It was a struggle to keep the report factual with-
out being alarmist, on the one hand, or without attempting to minimize
374
ANOTHER ROOSEVELT 375
conditions, on the other. Stripped of atmosphere and emotion, the con-
firmable facts were eloquent and ominous.
Against such a gray national background Chief of Bureau Price at
Washington marshaled his staff to cover the inauguration of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt as President of the United States. In spite of anxiety
and faltering confidence, the capital tried to be gay. After a dozen lean
years of absence from power, the occasion was a great one for Democrats
and each state sent its delegation of high officials and party stalwarts to
participate in the ceremonies. Over the web of wires went story after
story telling of the arrival of inaugural parties — from Texas, from
Pennsylvania, from California, from New York . . .
Chaplin, city editor in New York, picked up another batch of copy,
including a secondary Washington dispatch. It concerned the New York
delegation to the inaugural, and one line noted that the newly elected
governor, Herbert H. Lehman, was not among those present although
it was the afternoon preceding inauguration day. Earlier announcements
that Lehman would attend made his absence conspicuous. It might be
that illness had interfered with the governor's plans. In that case there
should be an item for the report. Then again it might be something
else.
"Here, take a look at this," said Chaplin, handing the flimsy copy
to a member of his city staff. "Better check the Lehman residence
and see what's the matter."
The telephone at the governor's New York home was answered
promptly. The reporter thought it was the butler.
"May I speak to Governor Lehman's secretary?"
"He isn't here just now," the voice answered. "Who is calling,
please?"
"This is The Associated Press. We wanted to ask the governor's
secretary . . ."
"Well," said the voice, "this is the governor. Perhaps I could help
you."
Momentarily surprised to find that Lehman himself had answered
the telephone, the reporter began inquiries. Why had the governor
changed his plans for attending the inauguration?
"Oh, so that's what you want to know?" was the light reply.
"There's really nothing to it. Some personal matters arose unexpectedly
and I had no choice but to stay and attend to them."
"Then there is no chance that you will be able to get away in time
for the inauguration?"
376 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"No, Pm afraid not."
"And purely personal matters are detaining you? Nothing con-
cerning state business?"
"Oh, no!"
"Or the banking situation? We understand that withdrawals have
been particularly heavy today in some parts of the city."
"Oh, everything seems quite all right. Nothing to worry about.
There have been withdrawals in some cases, but the banks seem to be
meeting demands very nicely."
The conversation ended there, but it was enough to send the staff
into action. New York and Washington proceeded on the theory that a
banking crisis in New York was keeping Lehman away from the in-
augural. A reporter was sent to the governor's residence. Wall Street
was enlisted to uncover whatever information might be available at the
Federal Reserve Bank or the offices of leading financial figures. A mes-
sage went to Albany suggesting that the bureau there start working on
the superintendent of banks' department. In Washington other staff men
buttonholed Treasury officials.
Through the afternoon, into the evening, and on into the night
Governor Lehman held conferences at his Park Avenue home. Bank
officials came and went. Finally at 4:15 A.M. on Saturday, March 4 —
Inauguration Day — Governor Lehman issued a proclamation. A re-
porter darted for a telephone.
P-L-A-S-H
NEW YORK - GOVERNOR DECLARES TWO-DAY
BANK HOLIDAY.
On the heels of the New York announcement, Harrisburg came
through with news of a similar proclamation in Pennsylvania. Then Illi-
nois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.
Over 200,000 miles of leased wires shuttled dispatches telling of
a national crisis which found all banks closed or operating under sharp
restrictions. From every important foreign date line, the cables brought
the reaction to the financial paralysis which had gripped the United
States.
Perhaps not since Gobright reported the beginning of Abraham
Lincoln's second term in the dark days of the Civil War had an inaugu-
ration assignment been so important. The staff gathered the story of the
ANOTHER ROOSEVELT 377
capital on March 4, 1933 — the end of the last "lame duck" session of
Congress at noon, the swearing-in of president and vice-president, the
1 7-minute inaugural address pledging swift and decisive action, the color
of the traditional parade, the new First Lady, the somber crowds, and
the quiet departure of Herbert Clark Hoover.
That night, Francis M. Stephenson, assigned to the White House,
got little news although he waited hours at the entrance of the presi-
dential offices in the west wing of the executive mansion. There was
a short story from Stephen Early, who had become Roosevelt's press
liaison secretary, but nothing from the White House itself where there
was much coming and going as lights burned late into the night.
The next day — Sunday. Guests argued with hotel managers to cash
checks. Others counted the money in their pockets, grinned and accepted
their predicament in a spirit of adventure. Tension began to appear.
At the White House Stephenson resumed his vigil with a hundred
other newspapermen. It was not until a few minutes before Sunday
midnight that the news came and Stephenson shouted over a telephone:
J-L-A-S-H
WASHINGTON - PRESIDENT ORDERS NATIONAL
4-DAY BANK HOLIDAY.
The holiday, subsequently extended beyond its original time limit,
created a story of vast proportions, demanding accurate, complete, and
prompt coverage. Not only in Washington but in each of the forty-eight
states banking and government officials worked with their tremendous
problem. The news was of vital concern to everyone, from the banker,
wondering when his institution could reopen, to the storekeeper, harassed
by the lack of small coins for making change, to the jobless depositor,
dependent upon his savings for food and shelter.
In the beginning the major part of the news burden fell upon
Washington as the administration worked out plans for a reorganization
of the country's banking system. This news had right of way, and, with
rare exceptions, member papers received the information long before
state banking departments were officially advised by telegrams from
Secretary of the Treasury W. H. Woodin.
New York took over the task of co-ordinating the story of the
banking situation as it changed throughout the nation. Each state pro-
duced detailed stories on its own condition and the reconstructive steps
being taken. In addition, the controlling bureaus regularly sent a synop-
sis of the latest developments in their territories. From this material
378 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
New York prepared frequent undated leads which presented the na-
tional picture in broad outline so that readers might get a general pic-
ture before reading the dated stories which gave particularized news on
the crisis.
As the progressive resumption of banking operations began, these
leads supplied an accurate guide to the day-to-day conditions. With bu-
reaus reporting frequently, the leads announced how many of the
country's 17,600 banks had reopened, how many were state and how
many were national institutions, the number operating on restricted or
unrestricted basis, and the number remaining closed.
With few exceptions, official statements issued throughout the
emergency, especially the national and state regulations governing bank
reopenings, were transmitted in full on the wires. To clarify the numer-
ous steps being taken to end the crisis, Washington turned out inter-
pretive stories which explained the facts in language the man in the
street could understand.
The banking crisis and the Roosevelt inauguration marked the
beginning of a rush of events which imposed an unparalleled load on
the Washington staff. Governmental activities moved at a speed un-
precedented even in wartime.
The New Deal had arrived and story followed story.
Special Session of Congress . . . Emergency Financial Powers
Given President ... 3.2 Beer Legalized . . . Civilian Conservation
Corps Authorized . . . Farm Relief . . . Home Mortgage Refinan-
cing . . . Securities Control . . . Nation Abandons Gold Standard
. . . Industrial Recovery . . . NRA . . .
News gathering in Washington entered a new chapter. A vast
program involving far-reaching economic, industrial, and social changes
was being launched and what happened in Washington affected the lives
of citizens more directly than ever before. The reading public wanted
to know more about the how and why of what was happening in the
capital. It wanted to be told not only a law's national significance, but
also what it would mean in their communities.
This need influenced the co-operative to set up a full-fledged Wash-
ington Regional Service. The purpose was to give the general report a
counterpart which would follow governmental news from the view-
points of the various states. It was the principle of vicinage news applied
to the whirl of events on the banks of the Potomac.
ANOTHER ROOSEVELT 379
The idea was not born of the moment. In a limited way Paul Weir
of the Washington staff had explored the field informally over two
decades by developing stories of special interest to individual members
on census returns and crop reports. Then in 1929 the pioneering work
was put on a definite basis when the management, as an experiment,
sent a correspondent to Washington to concentrate exclusively on gov-
ernment news affecting New Jersey. William Wight, of the Newark
Bureau, got the assignment and became the co-operative's first regional
reporter of capital news. The success of the experiment led to similar
arrangements for several other states but it was not until 1933 t^at the
Washington Regional Service assumed major proportions.
The enlargement of the regional staff enabled Washington to con-
sider major stories from the two approaches which papers desired. A
public works program might be a national story in the sense that it
represented a detail of governmental economics. At the same time it
was an important local story in every community which was to receive
or hoped to receive an allotment. Under the new order the Washington
Bureau could make a bifocal examination of the facts and gauge its
coverage accordingly.
Besides the great volume of front-page news from Washington,
another major story developed with unlooked-for speed. At the outset,
1933 had promised to be an off year for the Election Service, but the
rapid progress of the movement for the repeal of the Prohibition
Amendment to the United States Constitution altered the situation.
From early in April, when Michigan started the parade of states voting
for repeal, until the end of the year, the Election Department was es-
pecially active. In all, forty-three special election services were set up.
The 1933 annual meeting saw the membership adopt tentative
regulations to govern the use of the association's news in radio broad-
casting. The subject had been recurring in official and unofficial discus-
sions for ten years. From the time radio appeared there had been a
cleavage of opinion respecting its relation to newspapers and the co-
operative. Some regarded the new medium as a partner in their pub-
lishing enterprises and became active in the operation of broadcasting
stations. They favored considerable latitude in the use of the news report
on the air. Others— and at first they were in the majority— were inclined
to regard radio as a competitor in the field of both circulation and adver-
380 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
rising and did not want to make any of the report available for broad-
casting purposes.
Before the 1925 annual meeting the Board of Directors had for-
bidden any broadcasting of AP news, whether general or local. The
board penalized two members who transgressed, one of them being Vic-
tor Lawson. The enormous interest in broadcasts of the 1924 presi-
dential election returns caused members to question the wisdom of the
ruling and to consider the advisability of permitting a restricted use of
the report in broadcasting news of special, outstanding events. At the
1925 meeting the board was permitted to allow the broadcasting of
news whenever it was of transcendent importance. The management
supplied radio stations with AP returns in the 1928 and 1932 presi-
dential elections, as well as numerous E.O.S. bulletins on extraordinary
news. <
At the 1933 meeting the subject was thoroughly examined again
and a resolution was adopted setting forth the co-operative's current
policy. The resolution stipulated that no news, regardless of its source,
be made available for chain broadcasting. At a small extra assessment
member papers might broadcast news of major importance with credit
to The AP and the member paper. With minor changes, those regula-
tions governed the association's relations with radio for the next several
years, but eventually the great majority of members saw the advantage
of a more liberalized policy and AP news began to take its place on
the air.
By 1933 daily operations had become so complex, the members had
become so numerous, that too frequently the co-operative was taken
for granted even by those it served and the management was left with-
out much positive help from the membership at large.
Occasionally, nevertheless, the times produced some man or group
of men of high editorial integrity who became fired with the necessity
of active support of the practical ideal on which the modern association
had been built, and sought to kindle the same active interest among the
hundreds of others who daily looked to the co-operative for the news
which constituted the "life blood" of the daily newspaper*
Such a man was produced in 1933 an^ out of his efforts grew one
of the healthiest journalistic influences of the times. He was Oliver
Owen Kuhn, managing editor of the Washington Star, and he came
forward with a suggestion that the managing editors of all AP papers
ANOTHER ROOSEVELT 381
meet annually to discuss newspaper trends and to study at close range
the activities of the unsung organization which supplied the bulk of
their news. The gatherings were to be entirely divorced from the cus-
tomary annual meetings of the publishers in whose name membership
was held, and were to discuss practical newspaper problems rather than
policy or theory of operation.
General Manager Cooper saw so much potential value in the first
such meeting — held at French Lick in the autumn of 1933 — that he
sent the heads of all departments to listen to the discussions and to
answer questions. One after another these key men explained how
domestic and foreign news was collected, how the market and finance
reports were compiled, how news was obtained in Washington, the trend
in sports, and other kindred subjects. The discussions included the de-
velopment of the News Photo and Feature services, the mechanics of
news dissemination, wire facilities, and the scientific advances which
might be expected.
Kuhn himself was named general chairman, a position to which he
was unanimously re-elected until his death in 1937, and the members of
the first executive committee were M. V. Atwood, of the Gannett news-
papers ; C. H. Heintzelman, of the Coatesville (Pa.) Record; M. H.
Williams, of the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram-Gazette, and J. E.
Murphy, of the Baltimore Evening Sim.
In spite of the heavy emphasis on affairs of national government,
the report had its share of dramatics and unexpected stories. The Reichs-
tag burned in Berlin. One-eyed Wiley Post flew alone around the
world in less than eight days. Cuba plunged into revolt and Seymour
Ress, a staff cameraman, narrowly escaped a Havana firing squad be-
cause he photographed the fight. The same months produced a fresh
series of front-page kidnapings, and there was a matter-of-fact reminder
of 1932*8 celebrated case in a short piece from Washington stating that
the Lindbergh mystery had been turned over to the Department of
Justice for renewed investigation.
But the New Deal and its efforts to bring about a return of pros-
perity continued the standout news of the domestic report. As the daily
file of the Financial Service indicated, conditions had improved con-
siderably since the bleak days of February and March, but the depres-
sion was not over. Harassed by problems seemingly more complicated
than ever, many member newspapers struggled to regain some of the
ground lost during four years of economic reverses. Few publishers
were willing to risk heavy financial commitments even though in one
382 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
field of news particularly there was a crying need. The great public
interest in pictorial journalism had made spot-news pictures just as im-
portant as the written word in rounding out coverage on almost any
news event. Yet there was no practical way of rapid transmission of
pictures to newspaper offices over the country once the pictures had
been taken at the scene of one event or another.
Cooper understood the situation existing in the newspaper field,
but he was also convinced that the co-operative could not survive as a
static organization. Unless it kept abreast of the times, unless it antici-
pated them whenever possible, it was certain to deteriorate. Even the
forced postponement of improvements under the "deep depression"
economy program had not met with Cooper's entire approval, for in
the long view the postponements meant lost time to an organization
for which split seconds were vital. His responsibility was to plan not
only for the present but for the future.
The moment, he realized, could not be worse for advancing a pro-
gram that would be as revolutionary as had been the introduction of
the Morse telegraph almost a hundred years before. The tendency was
to worry about the present and let the future — even the immediate
future — take care of itself. There had been an earlier failure by others
who attempted to solve the picture problem, but he was convinced that
The AP could and should go ahead. To wait until business conditions
became prosperous might mean waiting too long.
He wanted to send pictures into member newspaper offices by wire
just as the news was sent.
VIII. THE FIGHT OVER PICTURES
WHEN American newspapers first began to print news pictures from
halftone engravings, Kent Cooper was an unknown cub reporter. Pop-
ular photography was a novelty. The black box camera recorded scenes
for the family album, and tintype snapshot men still did a thriving
business at fairs and amusement parks.
As a youngster Cooper had sat for hours studying cardboard views
through the stereoscope which was as essential then in any well-furnished
parlor as the horsehair sofa and antimacassars. His entry into journal-
ism coincided with the beginnings of modern newspaper photography.
The more he thought of pictures the more convinced he became that
they would play an increasingly important part in the newspaper of the
future.
All through his developing newspaper career he had felt that
a way must be found to deliver pictures to newspapers as quickly as
the written word. At first that seemed almost impossible. Ever since
the early fifties inventors and scientists had labored to perfect some
reliable method for telegraphing pictures. A few experimental systems
were devised, but they were either impractical or fell far short of
solving the problem.
The laboratories of communications companies persevered and
finally were able to announce the development of equipment which
would transmit pictures by wire. A commercial system was set up by
The American Telephone & Telegraph Company in the early twenties,
and opened irregular operations with combination sending-and-receiv-
ing stations located in eight of the metropolitan centers.
The first news of the engineers' success excited Cooper, but critical
examination of the invention disappointed him. Almost an hour was re-
quired to prepare a picture for sending, the speed of transmission was
slow, and the delivered picture invariably came out blurred, fuzzy, and
indistinct. Detail disappeared and the total effect was a vague shadow
of what the original had been.
The experience of the News Photo Service, after its formation in
1927, brought home more forcefully the handicaps which beset the
383
384 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
prompt handling of pictures on a national scale. If photos were sent by
fast train mail, they took eighty-five hours to cross the continent. Even
using air express, it was twenty-four hours and airplane schedules were
at the mercy of weather, particularly in winter. Telephoto transmis-
sion might expedite fuzzy reproductions of an important picture to the
few cities which happened to have receiving stations, but then the
problem of delivery to subscribers elsewhere began all over again.
Nevertheless, telephoto remained the only wire transmission
method and the News Photo Service had no alternative but to use it
whenever a picture had such news value that the few editors benefited
were willing to sacrifice quality in favor of speedier delivery. The asso-
ciation set up divisional distribution centers at Chicago, Atlanta, and
San Francisco, but there was little acceleration of picture delivery as a
whole.
Telephoto's continued unsatisfactory operation could have but one
result even in a picture-conscious era. In June, 1933, the A. T. & T.
abandoned the system after spending $2,800,000 in an attempt to make
it work and the delivery of all pictures once more became a matter
of railroad timetables and airplane schedules. The problem was right
back where it had been before the introduction of telephoto.
Cooper refused to abandon hope that engineering research would
win out. This time he did not have long to wait. Toward the end of
1933 Bell Laboratories reported that, after ten years of experiments
along entirely different scientific lines, it had developed a completely
new picture-sending apparatus. The company claimed that the new
machine could send pictures by wire at two and a half times the speed
of the telephoto and that the transmitted picture was so nearly per-
fect it was hard to detect the difference between it and the original.
In common with all other news-picture organizations, the AP
Photo Service was informed. Costly experience in the business of com-
mercial picture transmission had convinced the sponsors -that the han-
dling of pictures as news was essentially a newspaper enterprise, and so
it offered to let anyone interested take over the mechanism for its
own use.
The new equipment fired Cooper's imagination. Here seemed to
be the scientific miracle he had been awaiting. He had President Noyes
THE FIGHT OVER PICTURES 385
watch a demonstration between San Diego and New York and Noyes
was amazed at the fidelity of the transmitted picture.
The other picture agencies also inspected the apparatus. Hearst's
International News Photos, Times Wide- World, and Acme, the com-
mercial picture agency controlled by the owners of the United Press
Associations, were not interested in the telephone company's proposal.
In the depths of a depression there was no eagerness to sponsor such
a project.
But Cooper was working. He conferred with Norris Huse, his pic-
ture chief, and with AP laboratory experts who had examined the equip-
ment from a scientific standpoint. He already had told the Board of
Directors what he had in mind.
A nation-wide network of leased wires flashing AP pictures to AP
newspapers twenty-four hours a day!
Pictures moving into newspaper offices simultaneously with the
news, appearing in print side by side with stories of the same events!
It would cost money, he acknowledged, probably more than a
million dollars a year. The wire tolls alone would be $560,000 an-
nually, but it was an opportunity for The AP to blaze the trail into a
new era of journalism.
Some members of the Board of Directors were inclined to consider
it an impossible undertaking, particularly during the continuing depres-
sion, but they saw nothing to be lost by authorizing Cooper to sound out
likely subscribers.
Cooper selected Photo Editor Norris Huse for the "impossible"
task. A list of potential subscribers in twenty-five key cities was pre-
pared and Huse set out to interest the members in those places in the
possibility of high fidelity pictures on an exclusive AP network. The
cost to each prospective subscriber was based on the same pro-rata prin-
ciple the co-operative had used so successfully in computing other assess-
ments over a period of years.
The first member to pledge participation in the outlined service
was the Baltimore Sun.
Huse next called on the Washington Star, the paper owned by the
co-operative's president. In view of Noyes's warm personal approval
of the idea, Huse expected that interesting the Star would be a mere
formality. Instead, he found that Noyes had told his managers nothing
about it. He wished them to form their own judgment without being
influenced by his opinion. After the States managers had heard the
details, however, they became enthusiastic.
386 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
One by one the key papers pledged support until the roster was
imposing.
3
The success of all preparatory moves was more than anyone dared
hope for. Huse had demonstrated ably. He brought back to New York
pledges of participation from more than thirty papers, a sufficient num-
ber to underwrite a minimum of five years of operations at a total cost
of between five and seven million dollars.
The news of what The AP intended to do began to leak out and
a number of the members became agitated at the reports they heard.
Controversy developed as to the desirability of the association's com-
mitting itself to such an undertaking. The division of opinion became
sharper as the weeks passed.
Led by the Hearst and Scripps-Howard members within the ranks
of the co-operative, a sizable bloc of vigorous opposition took form. It
was more militant, better organized, and more capably led than any
previous uprising. The insurgent forces went out industriously to recruit
adherents. All sorts of charges flew — that the management proposed to
squander funds on an impracticable, visionary scheme $ that A. T. & T.
was trying to foist its obsolete telephoto equipment on the association $
that, even if the apparatus worked, only a few wealthy papers could
afford the advantage j that the vast majority of the membership never
would receive any benefit.
More than six hundred representatives of AP papers poured into
the new Waldorf-Astoria for the annual meeting in April, 1934, and
most of those who could not attend were represented by proxy. The
conflict brewing was the big attraction.
No sooner had President Noyes called the meeting to order than
the battle began. John Francis Neylan, California lawyer and general
counsel for the Hearst newspapers, fifteen of which held memberships
in the co-operative, took the floor. Standing beside his seat in the front
row, he demanded a showdown on the whole proposition of AP's
projected establishment of a wire picture-transmission network and
charged that the telephone company which had perfected the equip-
ment was attempting to salvage the money it had invested in experi-
ments over a period of years by persuading The AP to take over the
equipment.
Neylan professed to have only the best interests of the association
at heart, but there were doubts about his altruism. The Hearst papers
THE FIGHT OVER PICTURES 387
and their Scripps-Howard allies had their own picture services to con-
sider and protect. If The AP Photo Service could make a success of
telegraphing pictures, rival agencies would find themselves hopelessly
outdistanced in delivery and would be forced to enter the business of
picture wire transmission in order to keep pace. It was to the advantage
of these agencies to see that AP did nothing to disturb the existing
equality of competition.
Neylan made a brilliant field marshal for the opposition. He called
upon the board to furnish the membership with all details of the enter-
prise. It affected the association's financial credit, he asserted, and it
never should have been sanctioned without the approval of an annual
meeting.
"Up to the present time," he shouted, "only a handful of AP
members have even had unofficial knowledge of the undertaking, and
none had official word."
President Noyes informed him that an illustrated booklet, An-
nouncing AP News Pictures by Wirey was ready for distribution to the
members at the meeting. Then he called on the general manager to
report on what had happened.
Cooper outlined the growing popularity of pictures as a news
medium and explained the impossibility of printing them along with
the news they illustrated so long as no speedy delivery system was
available.
"There are no exclusive rights to the proposed wire picture service
as against any member of The Associated Press," he said. "It is avail-
able to any member, any time. Personally, I hope to see the entire
membership benefit by the thing. To my mind, it is the newest and
biggest departure in newspaper work since words were first tele-
graphed."
Replying to Neylan's demand that all financial details with the
telephone company be disclosed, he said:
"I am sure our competitors would like to know all about it."
He pointed out that there had been no departure from precedent
in making preparations for the new service. In every instance, dating
as far back as 1908, the management had submitted its plans for supple-
mental services to the Board of Directors. Then when approval had
been obtained, member participation on a sufficient scale had been
sought to finance the cost of the projected service.
"I think the News Photo Service of The Associated Press, alone,
from one angle, the Feature Service from another, and the Financial
388 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Service from another, have made membership ten to one hundred
times more valuable," he concluded. "If we had let our competitors do
all these things, I don't think there would be any Associated Press
today. This idea of pictures by wire can go. It will go in some form.
If not by us, then by our competitors, or by anybody else who wants to
take it up and do it."
Neylan returned to the attack with all his oratorical skill. Twitting
the management as inexperienced in the field of photo distribution, the
Hearst lawyer reminded his audience again that every other picture
agency had been offered the same opportunity to take over the equip-
ment which was the storm center of the present fight.
"Is it not strange," he inquired, "that all these institutions, which
had had so much more experience in the matter of photo service than
The Associated Press had, went into this matter thoroughly and refused
to take up the white man's burden of the A. T. & T.?"
Neylan's attack occupied all but a few minutes of the morning ses-
sion. By the time the members filed out for the annual luncheon, it
was obvious that the future of the co-operative's administration was at
stake. If Neylan could rally a majority, it would mean in effect a repu-
diation of the Board of Directors for having given the general manager
authority to proceed with the new supplemental service. It was a
crucial situation.
Clark Howell, publisher of the Atlanta Constitution and one of the
elder statesmen of the board, took the floor in the afternoon session.
He told the membership that, although for the present he did not
intend to take the service for his own newspaper, he was convinced of
the association's wisdom in entering the new field.
"Let me say," he declared, "that if Mr. Hearst's organization, or
any other organization, had got to this first and had made the proposi-
tion to establish a service of this kind, then you would have been right
to have criticized your general manager for his laxity."
The chair recognized Fred Schilplin, of the St. Cloud (Minn.)
Times and Journal Pressy a representative smaller paper. He went to
the heart of the matter.
"Summing this thing all up," he said, "about all I can get out of
it is that a group of member newspapers, which is probably able to do
it even in these reconstruction times, has undertaken to underwrite
this experiment. We wish them all success. I don't see anything else
to it. I don't see that any of this means that they are going to get a
THE FIGHT OVER PICTURES 389
larger assessment out of us. Eventually we are going to get some of
the benefits out of it."
President Noyes took this opportunity to remind the members that
the spearhead of the opposition was the Scripps-Howard and Hearst
group of papers, interested in their own picture agencies and reluctant
to support any service which would be in competition.
"Pm sure," he commented, "that Mr. Neylan wouldn't expect
The Associated Press or the general manager to base his activities on
what was especially pleasing to Mr. Hearst's picture service or the
Scripps-Howard picture interests."
Turning to a point of vital interest to the smaller papers which
had to have their pictures delivered to them in matted form because
they could not afford to operate their own engraving plants, Noyes
continued:
"I also want to say that, because of this service, the users of the
picture mat service will be immensely advantaged. There is an element
of time against them now, in that a mat can't be made and delivered
by mail as quickly as a photograph can, but because of this new service
every one of them will benefit by faster service."
Roy Howard, chairman of the Executive Committee of Scripps-
Howard papers which controls the United Press Associations, then took
the floor. He made no fevered emotional appeal in urging his objections
to the new service. He said its inauguration would increase the costs of
newspaper production and urged its rejection for that reason.
Mechanically the new process might be all that was claimed for it,
he conceded, but operation of the system would be tremendously ex-
pensive and, moreover, there were not enough important pictures to
justify it.
The bitter crossfire of arguments had lasted all day, and as the
debate neared its close the scraping of chairs and the hum of conversa-
tion in the crowded audience showed that the membership was im-
patient to have the question put to a vote. It was almost evening, how-
ever, before the last man had been heard and Frank S. Hoy, of the
Lewiston (Maine) Sun-Journal, moved to establish the attitude of the
meeting on the controversial issue. His resolution was that the act of
the Board of Directors in arranging for the new service be ratified and
confirmed. The motion evoked applause, but the opposition, fighting
390 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
to the last ditch, proposed that the entire membership be polled by
mail instead. The suggestion was lost by a decisive 5-to-i margin and
then President Noyes put the question of ratifying the board's action.
There was a chorus of "Ayes."
The immediate threat to the projected wire picture service was
routed by the overwhelming vote of confidence, but its foes left the
meeting as determined as ever in their opposition. Some predicted the
service would "die within a year." Others were frankly skeptical that
it would perform better than the discarded telephoto. The evidence of
laboratory experiments and tests between two points might be com-
pelling, but conditions would be vastly different operating a system with
twenty-five stations and a transcontinental network of wires. Then,
too, there was the formidable task of getting equipment manufactured
and installed, and of training personnel.
The responsibility for perfecting the complicated arrangements
necessary to start the unproved wire picture system rested jointly on
the Photo Service staff and the Traffic Department's force of engineers,
and they had a huge job cut out for them. They hoped to have the
system in operation by a tentative fall starting date, but the months
passed and it did not seem that their goal would be reached. As they
redoubled their efforts news continued to follow its age-old pattern.
Much of it was ephemeral, and much was surrounded by the drama
which marks the making of history.
For five busy weeks that summer hour-by-hour dispatches from
Europe wrote the running story of history-in-the-making on a spectacu-
lar scale. When Chancellor Hitler made the great "blood purge" of
disloyal elements in his National Socialist party, Chief of Bureau Loch-
ner circumvented official government attempts to prevent dispatches
from leaving Germany with the first news for ninety minutes after its
release. He had arranged beforehand to have London telephone Berlin
every half hour in the event the bureau failed to hear from him. The
precaution enabled him to get off his news on an incoming call at the
very time the Nazis were refusing transmission of all outgoing press
communications.
After the blood purge there was the drama in Vienna where the
assassination of Chancellor Dollfuss in an abortive Nazi Putsch on Aus-
tria gave Chief of Bureau Wade Werner and Robert F. Schildbach a
THE FIGHT OVER PICTURES 391
succession of tense days. Then the date lines shifted abruptly back to
Germany and a telephone whisper that "a very old gentleman is ex-
tremely low" gave Lochner his first hint that President von Hinden-
burg was dying.
In spite of the close surveillance of secret police, G. O. Beukert
of the Berlin staff got prompt news of the old field marshal's death at
Neudeck a few days later and rushed it through to Lochner a minute
before the sole Neudeck-Berlin telephone line was cut off for an hour
by government order. Hindenburg's passing cleared the way for Hit-
ler's final assumption of supreme power in the Reich, and the corre-
spondence from the Berlin Bureau began a fresh and amazing chapter.
There were no doldrums that year "in the domestic report. Staff
men at San Francisco donned trench helmets and gas masks to cover
the longshoremen's strike which paralyzed West Coast shipping. Chi-
cago bulletined the death of John Dillinger, Public Enemy No. i, at
the hands of federal agents. The Jersey staff produced another front-
page story when the luxury liner Morro Castle burned at sea with a
loss of 134 lives.
Then, without warning, came the news break for which editors
had waited two and a half years — the arrest of a Bronx carpenter
named Bruno Richard Hauptmann in possession of ransom money paid
in the Lindbergh kidnaping case.
While the news moved, preparations went ahead for the intro-
duction of the telegraphed picture service. Major stories such as the
violent West Coast strike, Dillinger's death, the Morro Castle disaster,
and, above all, the arrest of a suspect in the Lindbergh mystery, accen-
tuated the acute need for faster picture delivery. Member editors wanted
all the pictures they could obtain on these top-ranking stories, and trains,
planes, or special messengers could not deliver them swiftly enough to
meet the rapidly changing newspaper needs.
The intention to start operations of the new picture system in that
fall of 1934 turned out to be optimistic. Manufacture of equipment had
been slow. The installation and outfitting of the twenty-five sending and
receiving stations over the country required from two to three weeks
each. Training personnel to handle the mechanism proved more difficult
than anticipated and a hundred and one other problems had to be met.
The fall months passed without inauguration of the service, and
the vigorous opponents recalled their earlier predictions. The suspicion
grew that, under the demands of actual working conditions, the new
392 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
equipment was not performing with the precision it had shown in the
ideal surroundings of the laboratory.
The untried service, however, had acquired an official name —
Wirephoto. After weeks of search for some distinctive word or com-
bination of words which would tersely describe pictures by telegraph,
Norris Huse hit upon the designation. The name for the revolutionary
new service was all very well, but the big question was yet to be an-
swered.
Would Wirephoto really work?
It was almost 3 A.M. on New Year's Day, 1935, and AP Wire-
photo — storm center of debate — was ready for its crucial test.
Engineers in the wire control room at New York headquarters
made last-minute adjustments on the eight-foot panel containing bulbs,
wires, indicators, and wavering needles. Around them stood intent mem-
bers of the staff, smudgy copy boys, radio announcers, busy newsreel
camera crews, and a cluster of smartly turned out New Year revelers.
Attention was focused on an odd machine which seemed out of
place in the newsroom atmosphere. The contraption rested on a heavy
metal base in the center of the floor and supported a horizontal cylinder.
Nearby was the large panel with its glowing bulbs, a bank of dials, a
telephone, and a loud-speaker. Next to the panel stood a power unit
enclosed in a latticed cage of thin steel.
The technicians bent over the machine. The onlookers talked in
whispers. Along a special io,ooomile network of leased wires, other
engineers and technicians stood over machines in twenty-five cities from
coast to coast, all waiting to see if Wirephoto could send high fidelity
pictures over a nation-wide circuit just as news was sent.
The picture selected for the first sending reported headline news.
A transport air liner had crashed deep in the snow-covered Adiron-
dack Mountains. Searchers had combed the wild country on foot and
by air for days trying to find the wrecked plane. Finally one party,
after floundering through heavy snows in subzero weather, reached the
spot where the ship had crashed. A staff cameraman snapped the scene
as the half-frozen survivors greeted their rescuers.
Rushed to New York and the darkrooms, the wet picture came
out of the developing tank and passed the photo desk for an identify-
ing caption. Then it went to the experts at the new black machine. They
THE FIGHT OVER PICTURES 393
took the picture— an ordinary print — wrapped it, face up, around the
horizontal cylinder and snapped the cylinder back into place.
Out across the continent — in Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta,
Kansas City, Boston, Syracuse, and Philadelphia, in twenty-five cities
— attendants also made their receiving machines ready.
At New York, engineer Harold Carlson gave the photo-encased
cylinder a final glance and stepped to the control board. He nodded to
an assistant at the network telephone and out of the loud-speakers in all
twenty-five cities came the announcement:
"This is New York calling all points. The first picture will be a
shot of the plane survivors just rescued in the Adirondacks. Are you
ready?"
Carlson clicked a button. The picture was on its way over the wires
to papers in cities from 100 to 3,000 miles away.
The cylinder revolved under the small hoodlike housing which
contained a photoelectric cell — the "eye" which was transmitting the
photograph. From the machine came a high-pitched, harmonic whistle —
the sound generated when the network was in use for transmission. For
eight minutes the penetrating whistle continued, then faded and ceased.
The moment the cylinder stopped rotating in New York, the re-
ceiving cylinders halted simultaneously in the twenty-five cities of the
network. Attendants carried the cylinders into darkrooms, negatives
were developed and within another few minutes picture editors had on
their desks the finished photographic print of the air disaster scene
which New York had transmitted.
In quality and fidelity the received pictures were so remarkable
that only an expert could detect the difference between them and the
original on the sending cylinder. There was no trace of the blurs, fuzz,
and streaks which had made the old commercial telephoto so unsatis-
factory.
The first transmission was followed by an air shot of the wrecked
transport and then by a series of photographs which gave a pictorial
account of the New Year celebration. New York sent the boisterous
scene at Times Square. Los Angeles took the circuit to contribute a
picture of the stars in Hollywood welcoming 1935. Miami added a
picture of the holiday gaiety on the beach front. Photos of half a hun-
dred news events were transmitted. They went racing across the coun-
try even as the news circuits were carrying the dispatches they illus-
trated.
394 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Skeptics who had contended there were not enough important news
pictures to justify a Wirephoto network found no consolation in the log
for the ensuing months. The day after the new service began operation,
the trial of Bruno Hauptman for the Lindbergh kidnap-murder opened
at Flemington, New Jersey. Wirephoto subscribers all over the coun-
try were able to publish the pictures of what was happening at Fleming-
ton the same day the events took place, and to publish them side by
side with the news stories on developments in the most publicized court
case in the history of American jurisprudence. It was a compelling
demonstration of the new service's ability to deliver pictures day after
day on a story which monopolized front pages.
In the succeeding weeks and months there was no lack of material
— a new session of Congress convened at Washington ; Amelia Ear hart
flew nonstop from Honolulu to California; G-men killed Fred and
"Ma" Barker, long-sought criminals, in a furious gun battle in Florida;
a new ship disaster took forty-five lives off the Jersey coast; the navy's
dirigible Macon broke up and sank at sea near Point Sur, California;
the Pacific Northwest had its Weyerhaeuser kidnaping, and in New
York James J. Braddock staged the sports upset of the year by coming
back from the has-been ranks to win the World Heavyweight Boxing
Championship. The trunk circuits brought the written stories and the
Wirephoto network simultaneously flashed the pictures.
The forty-six papers subscribing to Wirephoto represented only a
small fraction of the association's 1,340 members, but General Manager
Cooper had promised from the very first to make the new service benefit
the hundreds of papers which could not afford its initial expense. The
vast majority of members had no engraving plants of their own, and
they depended on matted pictures for the photographs they printed.
The AP already was supplying these members with such a service,
matted at strategic centers in the country and distributed by mail, bus,
train, or airplane, as the subscriber desired. Until the advent of Wire-
photo, the pictures from which these mats were made were collected
by the old slow methods. With Wirephoto, pictures of outstanding news
from all over the country could be assembled with unprecedented speed
at the widely separated matting points. At Cooper's direction, the Photo
Department made preparations for a high-speed mat service, called
Telemats, to be produced from pictures transmitted by Wirephoto.
THE FIGHT OVER PICTURES 395
8
There was now no question about the merits of Wirephoto. It
justified the great claims made for it, and it introduced a new stimulus
into the field of newspaper enterprise. Nevertheless, its opponents made
one last attempt to halt its progress at the 1935 annual meeting — even
after the service got under way. Again they called for the membership
to discredit the Board of Directors and the management, but again
they were voted down.
Out of their oblique onslaught, however, came one salutary de-
velopment. Seeking to gain the favor of the smaller members, they
introduced a resolution calling for more representation of the smaller
members on the Board of Directors. Until that time, the board had
been composed of fifteen members, selected from among the various
categories of membership. The opponents to Wirephoto proposed that
the number be increased to eighteen, giving the small members three
additional representatives on the board. It was a plan the board already
had under consideration and eventually it was put into effect.
As for the Wirephoto controversy itself, it slipped into the asso-
ciation's historic files with one parting thrust by a representative of one
of the smaller papers whom the opponents had thought to win over to
their program of opposition to pictures by wire. Carl L. Estes of the
Longview (Tex.) News, listened to the 1935 debate, seconded a
motion to table one of the opposition's proposals, and declared:
"I've had enough of this self-appointed, self-anointed shepherd
of the little fellow. The issue at stake is one of progress. Somebody
has got to pioneer pictures by wire. If The Associated Press paid every
dollar in its treasury to sponsor this thing, I, as one of the smallest
newspaper publishers in the country, think it would be money well
spent."
Pictures by wire had come to stay. Day in and day out the system
was delivering pictures simultaneously to the receiving stations over
the country in only eight minutes each, but the news log of 1935 still
had to produce the transcendent story which would dramatize Wire-
photo unforgettably in the minds of the public as a whole. Then it
came.
Harold Turnblad, chief of bureau in Seattle, was about to leave
the office late the afternoon of August 16 when a report arrived from
a correspondent at Fairbanks, Alaska. Wiley Post, the round-the-
world flier, and Will Rogers, the humorist philosopher, had taken off
396 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
by plane for Point Barrow, five hundred miles away near the rim of the
Arctic Ocean. That night the editor on duty kept in frequent touch
with the United States Army Signal Corps office in Seattle on the chance
that some word might come through from one of the Signal Corps
outposts in the remote reaches of Alaska. There was no news. When
the editor left at the end of his tour of duty, he instructed the night
attendant to keep calling the Signal Corps hourly until the first day
editor reported at 6 A.M.
Turnblad was fast asleep when the telephone beside his bed rang
at daybreak. Drowsily he reached for the phone and heard an apolo-
getic voice which he recognized as that of Captain Frank E. Stoner of
the United States Army Signal Corps.
"I hate to wake you up," the officer began quickly, "but we've
just received word that Post and Rogers were killed last night near
Point Barrow."
The words jolted Turnblad wide awake.
"Say that again!"
As soon as Stoner hung up, Turnblad called the bureau.
"Put on a flash!" he shouted.
F-L-A-S-H
SEATTLE - SIGNAL CORPS REPORTS ROGERS
AND POST KILLED NEAR BARROW IN A PLANE CRASH.
As Turnblad and his staff went into action to develop further
details of the disaster — the string correspondents in Alaska reported to
Seattle — things were happening at the lonely spot where Rogers and
Post met sudden death. At Point Barrow the co-operative had two
stringers — a medical missionary, Dr. Greist, and a grizzled trading post
storekeeper named Brower. As soon as the first reports of the crash
reached Point Barrow, Dr. Greist and Brower set out for the scene with
an ordinary folding camera, the kind so frequently used to record
family outings or picnics.
The news that Will Rogers and Wiley Post had been killed hit
the nation hard. No one had to tell Photo Editor Wilson Hicks in
New York that here was the greatest picture story of the year — if only
pictures had been taken at the scene of the crash in Alaska.
Then came a message. The two stringers at Point Barrow had
taken pictures and they were on their way to Fairbanks in the same
plane that was carrying the bodies of the humorist and his flier com-
panion from Point Barrow.
THE FIGHT OVER PICTURES 397
A relay of planes was arranged to speed the negatives from Fair-
banks to San Francisco, then the nearest station on the Wirephoto net-
work. While the leased wires were carrying stories based on informa-
tion supplied by the medical missionary, the trading post storekeeper,
and other correspondents, the precious negatives were on their way.
In New York Hicks remained at the Wirephoto control board.
At last the loud-speaker of the network came to life. It was Sears,
photo editor at San Francisco — FX by the call designation given to
bureaus. He told Hicks that the Post-Rogers negatives had arrived,
were in the darkroom being developed, and that the first would be
ready for transmitting within a few minutes.
The loud-speaker died for a time and then Sears was on the pic-
ture network's telephone circuit informing all points that the first pic-
ture was ready for sending.
News that the Post-Rogers pictures were about to be transmitted
flew about the newspaper offices and editorial workers left their desks
to crowd about the receiving equipment.
In San Francisco, Sears pushed a button and started the sending
drum rotating. In eight minutes the receiving machines halted in unison,
negative cartridges were rushed into darkrooms for developing, and
soon the first picture was in print in subscribing newspapers through-
out the country.
Through the night other pictures of the tragedy moved over
the network — shots of the wrecked plane, of the bodies being loaded
into a whaleboat, of the Eskimo tent where Post had come down to
ask directions a few minutes before the fatal crash. Subscribing member
papers printed them side by side with the front-page stories which
gave columns to the tragic death of two of America's beloved figures.
Wirephoto had scored a smashing coup on a story of surpassing
reader interest. The pictures found their way into thousands of private
scrapbooks, readers wrote letters to editors commenting on the speed
with which the pictures had been obtained and printed, and the name of
Wirephoto took on a new magic whenever people saw it on pictures of
other news events.
Nor were the two Alaskan stringers forgotten. The two men who
had helped make the Post-Rogers coverage so spectacular were sent
checks for $500 each and — appropriately enough — they also were given
a dozen rolls of film for their all-important little box camera.
IX. DATE LINE: FLEMINGTON
SMALL towns often produce well-remembered date lines. There was
Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925 with its Scopes "monkey trial." In 1932
came Hopewell and the Lindbergh kidnaping. Two years later it was
Callander, Ontario, and the birth of the Dionne quintuplets. And in
1935 it was Flemington and Bruno Hauptmann.
From the time of Hauptmann's arrest until his trial opened on
January 2, the report had carried a tremendous volume of copy on the
Bronx carpenter accused of kidnapping and murdering Charles A. Lind-
bergh, Jr. Hauptmann was front-page and every scrap of news about
him was snapped up. Long before the first juror was chosen it was evi-
dent that coverage of the trial would have to be both superior and
comprehensive.
The mention of Flemington subsequently came to have many con-
notations. For some it meant one of the most widely publicized and
controversial criminal cases in court history. To AP men, however,
Flemington was synonymous with the most mysterious blunder in the
association's records. For a long time staffers winced when they heard
the name spoken.
Preparations and planning for covering the trial began weeks in
advance. The staff — news, photo, and traffic — was selected. Flemington
was to operate as a full-sized, specially constituted bureau.
As chief of bureau at Newark, the strategic center for New Jer-
sey, Henry E. Mooberry headed the trial staff of seven reporters.
O. K. Price was in charge of the special Traffic force assigned to handle
the transmission of copy. Working space in the cramped courthouse was
at a premium, but The AP obtained the use of half the sheriff's private
office, which was located immediately outside the courtroom door.
The trial opened January 2, 1935, and while court was in session
the Morkrum in the sheriff's office raced along at sixty-five words a
minute, pouring the running story directly onto the news network.
As the end of the trial approached, Mooberry became extremely
anxious to have the seven weeks of outstanding work on the story cli-
maxed by the speediest possible flash on the jury's verdict. He antici-
398
DATE LINE: FLEMINGTON 399
pated difficulty in getting the verdict promptly. In all likelihood, the
courtroom doors would be locked from the moment the jury returned
until after it was discharged. Anyone who devised a way to circumvent
the locked doors would be assured a beat on Hauptmann's fate.
The problem of reporting the verdict became a major concern in
the bureau chiePs mind. There was the established method — written
copy coming out from the men assigned in court, just as throughout the
trial. That guaranteed the cardinal consideration — accuracy — but it
might mean sacrificing speed if the anticipated difficulties arose. Moo-
berry knew that others were exerting every resource to circumvent the
barriers of closed courtroom doors and he disliked the possibility that
someone else might stage a last-minute coup which would detract from
the acknowledged superiority of the report he had directed throughout
the trial.
The intense importance attached to the announcement of the
Hauptmann verdict in the public mind strengthened Mooberry's pur-
pose. He determined upon an alternate method of getting the verdict
out of the courtroom.
Without writing to New York for authorization and approval, he
worked out plans for the use of a short-range radio set. The arrange-
ment called for Ralph Smith, a Traffic mechanic and amateur radio
operator, to be in the courtroom with a portable set concealed under his
overcoat, while Price, the Traffic chief, was to station himself at a re-
ceiving set in a locked storeroom in the attic of the building. Price had
borrowed a teletype and installed it there and it could be connected to
the same trunk wire as the Morkrum in the sheriffs office. As soon as
Price received the short-wave signals from Smith, he was to cut in on
the wire and flash the verdict. Control of the wire would then revert to
the Morkrum downstairs without outsiders in the sheriffs office being
any the wiser as to what had been sent.
February 13 was the last day of the trial and the long siege of
work. Pressure and nerve strain were almost finished. In spite of the
general atmosphere of public hysteria pervading the courthouse, it
promised to be the easiest day of the trial— nothing like the hectic ses-
sions when Lindbergh was on the witness stand, or Hauptmann, or Dr.
"Jafsie" Condon.
The jury retired at 11:15 A.M. and the long wait began. State
400 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
troopers cleared the courtroom of all spectators except newspapermen.
Outside in the streets crowds gathered around the courthouse and the
adjoining county jail where Hauptmann paced his cell. The day dragged
on into the afternoon, and the afternoon into the night.
In mid-evening Mooberry summoned Price and Smith to his desk
and gave them each a small card bearing the code signals for the var-
ious verdict possibilities. It had been agreed in advance that, for safety,
the signal must be repeated five times and carry a prearranged signa-
ture. Any message not fulfilling all those requirements was to be
ignored.
The bailiffs detailed to guard the jury sent for the sheriff. Tension
rose in the courtroom. There was a commotion at the doorway leading
to the jury room. At 10:20 the sheriff came out. He announced the jury
had agreed upon a verdict.
The two staff men assigned to do the running story wrote identical
flashes that the jury was ready to report and sent the copy flying out
of the courtroom by messenger boys. Each had been instructed to do
independent running stories. This was a routine precaution against any
loss of copy in the confusion outside the courtroom. With duplicate
flashes, bulletins, and running being sent out, there was a good chance
that at least one complete set could be counted upon to reach the news
desk — unless all copy was stopped completely.
Immediately after the sheriff's announcement, state troopers took
command in the courtroom. The doors were locked and the window
shades drawn. At every door and window a trooper mounted guard.
"No one will be permitted to leave this room until dismissed by the
court," newspapermen were told.
At 10:28 P.M. the bell in the courthouse cupola began to toll its
traditional signal, that a murder case jury was returning to the box
with a verdict.
In the locked courtroom, every member of the staff was at his post.
Two men waited at the locked doors ready to write the flashes they
hoped to be able to slip out across the sill. The two men assigned to
the running bent over their duplicate stories. A relay of messengers
lined the aisles to pass each sheet back as soon as it was torn from the
thick yellow pads. Overcoated and perspiring, Smith with his con-
cealed wireless set stood near the rear benches. Beside him stood a
newsman, pencil and paper ready to scribble off the verdict whicl> the
operator was to tap out in code on the hidden sending key in his
pocket.
DATE LINE: FLEMINGTON 401
Only a wall separated Mooberry in the sheriff's office from the
courtroom, but he might have been in another world. The regular run-
ning story began to come out, describing preparations for the arrival
of the jury, Hauptmann, and Justice Trenchard. Mindful of what had
happened during the judge's charge that morning when copy was held
up almost a half hour, Mooberry looked for a time lag of at least
several minutes between events in court and the appearance of copy.
Unknown to Mooberry and everyone else outside, however, the troopers
behind the locked doors were making no attempt to halt news copy as
they had done in the morning. The running story was being slipped
over the doorsill with only negligible delay.
Hunched at his desk, Mooberry worked fast, editing the copy
shuttled in to him by the messengers posted outside the courtroom door.
Although he watched closely, he found no indication yet as to the size
of the presupposed time lag. The copy was preliminary descriptive and
recorded nothing requiring a time element, something the two men
had been instructed to incorporate on all major developments. As
rapidly as the bureau chief finished with one piece of copy, he passed
the "take" over to the Morkrum in the corner where Sam Patroff,
the operator, kept feeding the story onto the trunk wire.
Everything was going smoothly — like clockwork.
Patroff's fingers suddenly jerked off the keys as if they were hot.
"He's breaking, Henry," he whispered. "He's breaking!"
Mooberry jumped across to Patroff 's side. Price was cutting in
from the attic.
Here it came!
F-L-A-S-H
• FLEMINGTON - VERDICT REACHED GUILTY AND
LIFE
The Morkrum pulsed, idle for a second, then the typebars flipped
up against the printer paper in a quick flurry. Price timed his flash—
10:31 P.M.
For one jubilant moment Mooberry hung over the machine. From
coast to coast, in bureaus and member offices, that flash had just ham-
mered out on hundreds of Morkrums as fast as the letters fed onto the
circuit from the secret machine in the attic at Flemington.
402 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The verdict was out! All over the country! And the courtroom
doors were still locked!
The bureau chief turned back to his desk. His immediate job was
cut out for him. By the time Patroff took back control of the wire,
Mooberry had a bulletin ready amplifying the flash into terse, readable
newspaper copy for waiting telegraph editors and composing rooms.
Then the extras could roll. Crowding on the heels of the bulletin came
bulletin matter explaining that, under New Jersey law, a recommenda-
tion of mercy made life imprisonment mandatory.
Borne along by a great emotional lift, Mooberry pieced together
the story, combining the explanatory, or "stock," material he wrote
himself with the available running copy which had been flowing under
the locked courtroom door. The courtroom copy was still entirely de-
scriptive of the scenes preceding delivery of the verdict. A few minutes
ticked by without bringing any confirmation of the verdict through
the regular channels. To Mooberry, that was understandable enough.
The duplicate running had mentioned the State Police guards at all
doors. Apparently the troopers were holding up copy as they had done
earlier.
The bureau chief looked up from his work to see Price hurry into
the office.
"You're sure you're right, aren't you?" he asked in a whisper
when the Traffic chief reached his side. "The verdict came awfully
quick." He paused and voiced the faint suspicion which had begun to
worry him. "Almost too quick."
"Sure, Henry, sure." Price was tense but positive. "I got the sig-
nals. The number was 4, and 4 means life."
With Price watching over his shoulder, Mooberry returned to the
scrawled running account which had been coming out under the court-
room door. In the light of Price's positive assurance, this copy lagged
at least eight minutes behind actual proceedings. That wasn't bad. Price
read a few pages, and left to return to the attic.
The office boy darted in with another batch of courtroom copy.
Mooberry had his thick black pencil poised to continue editing. Then
he froze. Time elements had begun to appear in the "takes"— time
elements impossible to reconcile with the secret wireless verdict which
had been flashed at 10:31. Frantically Mooberry scanned the next pages.
Perhaps one of the men had made a mistake in noting the time. A glance
dashed that desperate hope. Both sets of running copy carried the times
DATE LINE: FLEMINGTON 403
of events in court, and the times tallied. At 10:31, the time of the attic
flash, the jury's verdict had not been delivered.
In that numbing moment Mooberry reacted instinctively. His
pencil jabbed down on a clean sheet.
F-L-A-S-H
KILL HAUPTMANN VERDICT - ERRONEOUS
Functioning like an automaton, the bureau chief got off the bulletin
obligatory after all kills— a bulletin calling editors' attention to the
transmission of a mandatory kill and directing that the erroneous copy
be destroyed promptly. Regardless of everything else, the error must
be caught and killed without delay.
The seconds seemed ages, but it was barely a few minutes before
the office boy was thrusting a sheet of paper into Mooberry's hand.
P-L-A-S-H
HAUPTMANN GUILTY DEATH SENTENCE
That was from McGrady. Identical written flashes from Ferris,
Lawrence, and Kinney arrived almost simultaneously.
No doubt now. The correct verdict was: Guilty — Death.
The accurate verdict went out at 10:46 — exactly one minute after
the nervous jury foreman announced it from the box.
The established method had done the job accurately and with all
the speed one could ask.
The erroneous flash had stood eleven minutes. In New York, edi-
torial and traffic men alike had been clustered over the Morkrums
when the typebars printed the four false words. All the main wire cir-
cuits had been hooked up directly to Flemington so the news would
have instantaneous distribution.
Then — the Kill. Members of the New York staff went about their
duties with set faces. No one felt like talking. Elevenjrjiflutes was an
infinitesimal speck of time for an organization
seven years, but this error seemed almost a
The circumstances prevailing that niglj
opportunity to obtain the details behind the
verdict had been killed, the first conside
story cleared quickly and smoothly.
404 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Not until the next day did amazed executive editors begin to learn
of the disastrous secret scheme which had caused the false flash. Assist-
ant General Manager Elliott instituted an investigation as soon as he
received intimations that irregularities were involved. The co-operative
had rigorous rules against the use of special transmission systems
in reporting news, unless specifically authorized by New York, and
what had been done at Flemington was, bluntly, a flagrant violation of
regulations.
On his own initiative and without authorization, the bureau chief
had gone ahead with a scheme which placed heavy reliance on a make-
shift signal system. The indictment did not stop there. The scheme
required a special installation of radio and telegraph equipment, some-
thing strictly forbidden except with the approval of a Traffic Depart-
ment executive. Other regulations had been ignored in the unauthorized
use of the borrowed teletype, the extension of the news wire to the
attic location, and even the unauthorized employment of a second
operator to check the verdict signals. New York learned that Traffic
Chief Price had hired a second operator to help him detect the wireless
signals in the attic room and this act assumed further gravity when it
was learned that the man employed was a former Traffic man who had
been dismissed from the service some time before.
Mooberry offered no defense for proceeding without approval on
a plan which flouted so many regulations. All his thoughts had been
concentrated on getting the verdict the instant it was announced. The
consequences left him dismayed.
"It is almost impossible," he wrote General Manager Cooper, "for
me to express my feelings on the situation into which I have thrown
you and The Associated Press."
The general manager waited until all the facts had been examined
and then took action. There was no alternative but to discipline the
three men involved in the unauthorized undertaking. Price was dis-
missed, Mooberry was suspended, and Smith was transferred to work
in another part of the country.
What had happened in the attic storeroom during those fifteen
eventful minutes immediately preceding the announcement of the
Hauptmann verdict?
Even after the investigation, no one knew for certain. When Smith,
DATE LINE: FLEMING-TON 405
the mechanic, left the courtroom on the .verdict night, he encountered
Price coming down the stairs from the top floor. "I got a couple of 4*8
and went ahead," Price explained. In the next breath he was telling
the mechanic that he wasn't positive the signals he received had been 4*8.
They might have been letter V's, a somewhat similar combination of
dots and dashes. He said, however, that the second operator with him
in the attic had identified them as 4*8. The code signal — whether 4 or
V — recurred only twice and bore no signature, he acknowledged, but
he sent the fatal flash on the strength of that reception. The prearranged
code was: i for the death verdict j 4 for guilty, life imprisonment 5 7 for
acquittal j 9 for disagreement.
Having cleared the number 4 flash, Price made his trip downstairs
to see Mooberry, became uneasy after seeing some copy and returned
to the attic. Resetting the dial to the wave length Smith was to use,
he received the correct verdict signal and then heard it repeated. By
that time, however, a correct flash in writing had reached Mooberry
from the courtroom.
The origin of the mysterious signal 4 could not be traced. At
first some of the staff suspected that it might have come from other
portable equipment which had been smuggled into the court by the
representative of one of the metropolitan papers. The man who operated
it was detected after Hauptmann's sentencing, was arrested and later
released. His set, however, proved to be for voice transmission and not
Morse code.
The erroneous flash was a sensation not only in the pressrooms at
Flemington but in newspaper offices over the country. The same edi-
tions which blazoned the Hauptmann death verdict also gave promi-
nence to accounts of the flash which caused so much confusion.
The Associated Press had made a mistake — and that was news.
That some member papers would be highly exercised was to be
expected. What was totally unlocked for, however, was the spontane-
ous outpouring from those who took the occasion to reiterate their con-
fidence. While regretting the mischance, they praised the over-all
coverage of the trial and the efficiency with which the association gath-
ered the news of the world day after day, year after year. A letter
from George B. Armstead, managing editor of the Hartford Cowrant,
the country's oldest daily newspaper, was typical of many. Addressing
Cooper, he wrote:
It must be grand to preside over an organization so far famed for
accuracy and speed that when it makes a slip, it becomes a national sensation.
406 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
We all regret for your sake and that of the men on the story that luck went
against you, but it does serve to point out the great record of The Associated
Press and the tremendous impression its accuracy has made throughout the
years.
Nevertheless, the memory of the false flash remained with the
staff. Realization that the slip was due to the zealousness of an indi-
vidual rather than to any weakness in the established system only served
as a poignant reminder that, in such an era of rapid transmission facili-
ties, the human element became an increasingly significant factor in
the quick marshaling and distribution of eagerly awaited fact. As long
as that human equation was involved there would remain the possi-
bility that some error of individual judgment, some well-intentioned
act, might produce an unwanted result. But no amount of effort to
minimize such possibilities could be overemphasized in an organization
so conscious of its unique position in a nation's daily life.
X. "URGENT"— FROM ETHIOPIA
WAR clouds had been gathering over East Africa for months. There
had been a frontier "incident" in December, 1934, when Italian and
Ethiopian patrols clashed at Ualual in disputed territory between the
boundaries of Italian Somaliland and the primitive kingdom of Haile
Selassie, the Conquering Lion of Judah. By midsummer of 1935 Pre-
mier Benito Mussolini had more than 240,000 troops and labor bat-
talions concentrated in Italy's East African colonies adjoining Ethiopia.
The League of Nations threatened to invoke sanctions against Italy if
II Duce's legions invaded Ethiopia. Great Britain massed naval might
in the Mediterranean area at Suez and Gibraltar.
Once it became apparent that Mussolini was not likely to abandon
his Ethiopian plan, The AP ordered Jim Mills to Addis Ababa to report
developments there and to be on the spot if war should come. For
Mills it was another out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire assignment. He
had just finished covering the revolt in Crete and Greece which resulted
in the flight of Venizelos and the restoration of King George.
Mills arrived at Addis Ababa early in August. He found it the
same sprawling collection of dirty huts and haphazard buildings he
had seen five years earlier when he reported the spectacular coronation
of Haile Selassie. The news in the African capital was neither abundant
nor weighty. Ethiopia was anxious to bring about a peaceful settlement.
Mills renewed his acquaintance with the Emperor and secured several
exclusive interviews with him and with Everett A. Colson, Selassie's
American financial adviser. He also watched the bands of fierce native
warriors troop into the city in their dirty white shammas, savagely eager
for the conflict their monarch wished to avoid.
Little happened in the barbaric city that escaped Mills's attention
and he was on hand when a plane flew in from Egypt with Francis W.
Rickett, a British promoter with an extraordinary career. Mills knew
him of old. Rickett had become known as the "Lawrence of Finance"
because of his operations in Asia and Africa. His arrival touched off a
flurry of rumors among foreign newspapermen in Addis Ababa: He
had come to arrange a gigantic munitions deal. He was entrusted with
407
408 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
a secret political mission bearing on the Italo-Ethiopian crisis. He had
been called for a mysterious conference with the Emperor. The reports
were endless.
Suave and debonair, Rickett dismissed all such talk with a tolerant
smile. There was nothing spectacular behind his visit. He said he had
come as a representative of the Coptic Church of Egypt for a "benevo-
lent" purpose. The Egyptian Patriarch of that church had instructed
him to learn how the Copts of Egypt could best help their Ethiopian
brethren in the event of war. As proof of his mission he exhibited a
letter from the Patriarch to the Abuna— or "Pope" — of the Coptic
Church in Abyssinia.
Rickett managed to disarm suspicion in the press corps. He was
taken at his word and attracted no special attention thereafter.
Mills, however, was not satisfied. He could not believe that a man
of Rickett's caliber would be in Addis Ababa to find out whether the
Egyptian Copts should send money, ambulances, airplanes, doctors, or
what not. The more he speculated the more he became convinced that
something else was afoot. He discovered that he was not the only
skeptic. There was one other — Sir Percival Phillips of the London
Daily Telegraph.
Over the rare luxury of a bottle of cold beer, the two corre-
spondents compared notes in the humid privacy of their hotel rooms.
They were agreed that Rickett was in Ethiopia for no trivial, "benevo-
lent" reason. Mills and Phillips made their plans. The only way to find
out just what Rickett was doing was to keep an eye on him all the
time, wherever he went.
During his first week in Addis Ababa, Rickett saw the head of
the Coptic Church, the Emperor and the imperial advisers. Every place
he went he found himself encountering either Mills or Phillips. At
first he pretended not to notice their interest in his movements, hoping
to throw them off the trail or at least discourage them into abandoning
their sleuthing. But the effort was futile.
Rickett stood up under the surveillance for a few days, then made
overtures for a truce. Slipping into Mills's hotel room one night the
British promoter laid his cards on the table.
"You two have been following me for over a week now. In an-
other day or two the rest of the reporters are going to wake up to the
fact. That is apt to spoil everything — for you as well as for me. What
I have to do here makes it imperative that I act quietly and unob-
served."
"URGENT" — FROM ETHIOPIA 409
ccWell, that's your worry," said Mills noncommittally. <cWhy come
to us about it?"
"I have a proposal to make. If you'll stop shadowing me, within
a few days I'll give you one of the biggest stories that ever happened "
Mills and Sir Percival exchanged glances. The idea of any Ethi-
opian story being of the "biggest-that-ever-happened" variety was a bit
too much for them. They said so. However, they wanted the story be-
hind Rickett's mission and now they knew how to get it.
"I'll go along," said Mills.
Sir Percival nodded agreement.
A few nights later Addis Ababa slept under a clear sky. The full
moon shone down on deserted streets and dark houses. In the Em-
peror's palace four intent figures moved to and fro. They were Francis
M. Rickett, Haile Selassie, Everett A. Colson, and George Herouy,
son of the Ethiopian foreign minister who acted as interpreter for the
Emperor.
Haile Selassie yawned. He looked strained, worried and tired. For
the past two weeks he had been up every night until long after mid-
night, negotiating with Rickett. Because of the need for secrecy about
the bold coup by which he hoped to forestall an Italian invasion, the
Emperor and those negotiating with him had worked only after the
city was asleep.
Rickett handed the Emperor a folio of typewritten sheets.
"There is the revised contract, your Majesty," he said.
The document represented the seventh revision. The Emperor
examined it page by page, announced his approval, and affixed the im-
perial seal.
Mills and Phillips waited in their hotel room. They knew this
was the night. Rickett had told them to be ready for the story that was
to be the "biggest that ever happened," but they still did not know what
it was.
Then the dapper Englishman appeared. He burst into the room,
smiling and elated. Mills and Phillips were on their feet.
"Here it is, signed, sealed, and delivered," he said triumphantly,
throwing the document on the table. "It will make history. It may even
make war. It may indeed make peace. In any case, it will be a triumph
for American and British capital and industry."
4io AP-r-THE STORY OF NEWS
Mills and his colleague pounced on the papers and began to study
them in the lamplight. The two correspondents were astounded by what
they read.
Haile Selassie had signed over to the Standard Oil Company and
some British interests the exclusive rights for the exploitation of all
Ethiopia's oil and mineral wealth in an area three times the size of
New England, and for the amazing period of seventy-five years. The
agreement assured the Emperor of an annual return far greater than
the whole yearly national income of his kingdom. It granted the Amer-
ican-British interests the right to build railroads, pipe lines, bridges,
refineries, new highways, ports, whole cities, and a hundred other great
developments. It involved the ultimate investment of several hundred
million dollars.
Sir Percival smothered a gasp. He turned to Mills.
"This thing is so gigantic," he said, "I'm afraid to send it to my
paper. They won't believe it."
Mills, too, was awed by the contents of the contract.
"But it's signed and sealed by the Emperor, the minister of mines,
and Rickett," he pointed out. "There can be no question of its authen-
ticity."
"You can accept it as Scriptural truth," Rickett declared.
The significance of the document was all too clear to the two corre-
spondents. In signing away the richest part of his domains, the Emperor
had a shrewd motive. With this great area in the hands of powerful
American and British interests, he believed Mussolini would never
attempt to challenge their claims under the concession, nor even dare
to invade that section of Ethiopia, for fear of antagonizing the two
great powers.
Rickett said he was dog-tired after the negotiations of the past two
weeks. He was going to bed, but he'd entrust the main points of the
concession to them until daybreak so that they could prepare their dis-
patches. He asked them to frame a brief communique, based on the
contract, so that the government could release it as an official announce-
ment when the proper time came.
"I'm leaving by airplane for Cairo the first thing in the morning,"
he explained. "Be sure to have everything ready before I go."
Mills and Sir Percival went to work. First they prepared the
"official communique" — a hundred-word statement reciting the broad
general facts of the historic contract. Then they devoted the next few
"URGENT" — FROM ETHIOPIA 411
hours to their own dispatches and to plans for keeping the explosive
story a secret from competitors.
The government wireless station — sole link between Addis Ababa
and the outside world — opened at dawn and Mills filed a i,6oo-word
story. Sir Percival sent off a story of similar length to his paper in
London. After Rickett departed, Mills secured the complete text of
the concession, a 2,oooword document, and dispatched it by wireless,
giving a copy to Sir Percival. Getting out the story was comparatively
costly — 25 cents a word. Under normal circumstances Mills would have
sent his dispatch at the even more expensive "urgent" rate, but he and
his British colleague had agreed to mark their stories for release the
next day, August 30, so that The AP and the London Daily Telegraph
would be able to break the news simultaneously.
By nine o'clock that morning, Addis Ababa time, Mills had his
complete story cleared. With Sir Percival he spent the next few hours
in nervous anxiety lest any hint of it leak out. Their fear was justified.
Word did leak out, and the rest of the press corps went rushing about
the city seeking confirmation of the report and details. Some fifty
correspondents descended in turn upon the Emperor, the minister of
mines, the foreign minister, Mr. Colson, the American legation, the
British legation, the Abuna of the Ethiopian Church. All sources, how-
ever, disclaimed knowledge and refused to comment. Some, like the
American and British legations, professed complete ignorance of the
concession, which was literally true. Other legations termed the reported
story pure invention.
Halfway across the world the first "takes" of Mills's dispatch
began arriving in New York. The time difference between New York
and Addis Ababa made it eight hours earlier in the American metrop-
olis, and the result was that the story reached the cable desk well over
a dozen hours before the stipulated time set for its release in the night
report of August 30. Working against the clock as he did, Mills had
written his dispatch hurriedly, but there could be no mistaking the
significance of the facts he had set down.
The story was promptly brought to the attention of Smith Reavis,
then in charge of the Cable Department, and Milo Thompson, execu-
tive assistant to the general manager.
Both Reavis and Thompson were accustomed to the shocks and
surprises in the daily news of the world, but they were astounded by
412 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
this Cfbreak" in Ethiopia. They saw the importance of the transaction
Mills described. They studied the story and its accompanying text.
Then a series of editorial conferences started. One of the first subjects
raised was the question of trying the two logical domestic sources for
"follows" — the State Department at Washington, for comment on the
international aspects of the Rickett concession, and the Standard Oil
offices in New York, for a statement of the corporation's plans in the
matter. The idea was weighed arid tabled. Any attempt to develop
follows might result in the story's leaking out before time came to
release it in the night report. Mills had said it was exclusive, so both
Reavis and Thompson felt the wisest course was to keep it a secret
and not try any follows until the story actually began to move out on
the wires.
As for the story itself, the more it was studied the more formid-
able it became. Even though it came from Jim Mills, a staff man of
twenty-five years' service, some of the men found the news almost too
overwhelming for belief. Reavis and Thompson had confidence in Mills,
but the dispatch was something that must be confirmed and double
checked thoroughly before a single word was transmitted. They con-
sulted the general manager and he sent an urgent message.
The government-owned wireless station in Addis Ababa closed
down for the night at seven o'clock. At five minutes before seven Mills
was handed the general manager's query. The message said it was
imperative that the authenticity of the story be confirmed beyond
conceivable doubt and that headquarters have complete proof for every
statement in the dispatch as well as the specific source of all the in-
formation.
Mills finished the cable, upset and bewildered. All day long he had
been looking forward to the nightly closing of the wireless station, be-
cause then, if the Rickett story should come out into the open, competi-
tion would have no means of communication for a dozen hours. Now —
five minutes before the station's closing time — came this bombshell
from headquarters.
Mills made quick calculations. Unless he got a reply off to New
York before 7 P.M., he would have to wait until 7 A.M. — and that
would be ii P.M., New York time. It meant losing almost a whole
day. Hatless and coatless, he sprinted for the telegraph office. The
operators were getting ready to go home when he burst into the station.
In two minutes he scribbled off an "urgent" to "Kenper, New York."
He told the general manager that all the details in the dispatch had
"URGENT" — FROM ETHIOPIA 413
come "straight from the horse's mouth" — from Rickett himself} that
the actual text of the concession had been given him personally by
Colsonj and that he had personally seen the original of the contract,
bearing the seals and signatures of those involved.
Front pages the next morning splurged a world copyright story —
Mills's detailed disclosure of the now historic Rickett Oil Concession.
Haile Selassie's desperate attempt to halt an Italian invasion with
the fantastic concession proved a failure. At 5 A.M. on October 3 the
gray-green columns of Fascist Italy crossed the Ethiopian border from
Eritrea and the undeclared Italo-Ethiopian War was on.
Andrue Berding, chief of the Rome Bureau, was in the field to
report the first stages of the main Italian advance. The assignment was
afterward taken over by a new recruit in the Foreign Service, Edward J.
Neil, a breezy young man with prematurely gray hair, an infectious
smile, and an engaging personality. Another seasoned newspaperman
from New York, Mark Barron, covered the secondary Fascist thrust
northward from Italian Somaliland. Joe Caneva, one of the top-rank-
ing cameramen on the staff, was the first American photographer on the
scene. He followed II Duce's legions on a moth-eaten donkey. In Addis
Ababa, Mills was joined by Al Wilson, of the London Bureau, who
had been ordered to Egypt when the massing of the British naval force
at the Suez Canal aroused danger of an open clash with Italy.
After Wilson's arrival, the AP establishment in the Ethiopian
capital went on a semi-permanent basis. Mills and his London colleague
leased a little cottage which formerly had housed the Austrian legation.
The cottage was only two blocks from the wireless station, and it
boasted a small truck garden and a barnyard of ducks, chickens, pigeons,
and rabbits — insurance against any food shortage. Wilson lined up string
correspondents in the major Ethiopian towns and helped Mills arrange
with foreign free-lance photographers for pictures. The cottage head-
quarters accumulated a staff of eight — Ethiopians and Arabs who acted
. as messenger boys, runners, and men of all work. Airplanes were hired
to ferry out pictures, and the two-man Addis Ababa Bureau soon found
itself acquiring a truck, an automobile, and a motorcycle.
Once hostilities started, the topic in Addis Ababa was the Em-
peror's projected departure for the front to take personal command of
his warriors. Until the Emperor left no correspondent was permitted
414 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
to leave the capital for the war zone because authorities feared the
ignorant tribesmen would mistake them for enemies and kill them.
Mills had arranged to accompany the monarch. When the day finally
came, Wilson, who remained behind, found himself in trouble with the
government — very much as he expected.
Weeks before the King of Kings started for the front, the Gov-
ment Press Bureau notified all correspondents that the censors would
pass no copy dealing with his Majesty's departure, the route he would
travel, or his subsequent whereabouts. Officials feared the Emperor's
safety would be jeopardized by Italian bombing planes. Wilson could
appreciate the Ethiopian attitude, but his responsibility was to report the
news. When the Emperor left for the front, it unquestionably would be
news. The job was to get it out. After much thought he and his superiors
in London, by a mailed exchange, devised a plan to circumvent the
censor by disguising the information in a routine interoffice message re-
garding bureau supplies. The plan worked. No sooner had the imperial
party departed in mid-November than London had Wilson's message
and cabled New York that Haile Selassie had left for the front, travel-
ing overland via Dessye.
The news got back to Addis Ababa within a short time, and a storm
of Ethiopian wrath descended on Wilson's head. The correspondent
offered no defense. It was news. His job was to get it out. Unfor-
tunately that necessitated outwitting the censor. The logic was unassail-
able, but Ethiopian officials could not be expected to agree. Wilson was
notified that all AP dispatches henceforth would be refused at the wire-
less station — and the wireless station was the only channel to the out-
side world. The ban remained in force several days and was rescinded
without explanation. Perhaps the fact that the wireless was a govern-
ment monopoly had something to do with it — for The AP spent as much
as $ 1,000 a day in wireless tolls.
Ethiopian precautions to conceal the Emperor's whereabouts were
unavailing. On December 6 a fleet of nineteen Capronis roared over the
imperial field headquarters at Dessye, bombing and machine-gunning
the panic-stricken natives. Three Italian bombs fell within a few feet of
Mills, exploding with ear-shattering roars and setting fire to a Red
Cross tent immediately adjoining the one the AP correspondent had
been occupying.
"URGENT" — FROM ETHIOPIA 415
The bombing of Dessye was the first air raid witnessed by any
correspondent attached to the Ethiopian armies. It inflicted casualties
of 84 killed and 363 wounded, but Mills came through it unscathed,
started pictures back to Addis Ababa on one of the AP trucks, and
cleared his story by field wireless to Wilson at the capital. Later Mills
was the first correspondent to make flights over the northern and south-
ern Ethiopian fronts — a dangerous business with the Italians supreme
in the air.
For the staff men on both sides there were plenty of hardships-
The temperatures ranged from blistering heat in the day to below
freezing at night, and the high altitude imposed a severe physical strain.
Eddie Neil had a bout with tropical fever and later suffered a chest
hemorrhage from overexertion. He also suffered a leg injury in the
crash of a bomber which was flying him over enemy lines. The altitude
felled Wilson for a few days, inducing an acute attack of appendicitis
resulting from disturbed metabolism. Before hostilities ended Barron
contracted a virulent tropical disease which made it necessary to bring
him out on a stretcher. Only Mills and the durable Caneva seemed
immune to sickness and altitude.
Even without illness, the assignment was trying enough. Life was
made up of storms, swarms of insects, omnipresent vermin, uncertain
drinking water, and bad food. The men with the Italians lived on a
monotonous diet of spaghetti — with a few Ethiopian flies mixed in
each dish — and uncontaminated drinking water cost forty cents a bottle.
Once in a while on trips back to the Italian base in Eritrea they pooled
resources for a "banquet" — a huge American-style omelet and a jug
of wine — and these rare gastronomic orgies cost each the equivalent of
a week's salary.
Caneva had his own little group of additional troubles. Working
almost entirely in the field with the army, he had to handle his photo-
graphic plates under impossible conditions. Pictures could not be de-
veloped during the day because the heat was so scorching that nega-
tives would melt, and even at night developing was a major problem.
There were no darkrooms or any other photographic facilities.
As the campaign wore on, the main source of news became more
and more the staff men with the Italian troops. Not long after the
bombing of Dessye, the Emperor ordered all newspaper men back to
Addis Ababa and they were kept cooped up there until the government
collapsed.
Flying with Italian pilots, slogging along on foot with sweating
416 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
columns, or bouncing around in a careening army truck, Neil had oppor-
tunities for gathering the news, but getting it out was a different proposi-
tion. Only the briefest stories were accepted over the military communi-
cations facilities. The bulk of the material had to be sent back in any
manner that offered itself — sometimes by courier, sometimes by an
ambulance driver or returning supply truck, and sometimes by an
obliging aviator. Neil marveled that so much of his copy got through to
New York. Speaking of the uncertainty of sending dispatches, he re-
marked: "Once you finished a story, it was like putting it in a bottle
and throwing it overboard in the middle of the ocean. All you
could do was to hope somebody would find it and send it along to New
York."
It was all over in a comparatively few months, and Neil went
whirling into a conquered Addis Ababa with the mechanized column
that formed the spearhead of the final Italian advance.
Prior to 1914 the conclusion of a war had always meant an inter-
lude of reasonable normality for the Cable Department. But now there
was nothing but turbulence. In Asia the scope of another undeclared
war grew wider as Japanese troops extended operations in China. Spain
seethed with unrest, in England King George V had died and Ger-
many's Adolf Hitler, Der Fuhrer of the Third Reich, had begun his
systematic scrapping of the Versailles Treaty.
XL MATTERS OF MOMENT
THROUGH three historic decades and well into a fourth, Frank B.
Noyes had presided as president of The Associated Press. In all that
time there had been no variation in the procedure each year when the
newly constituted Board of Directors convened the day after the
co-operative's annual meeting. The first business was always the election
of officers. On April 21, 1936, the well-established order was followed.
The name of Noyes was placed in renomination. No other candidate
was offered.
As he had done so often before, Noyes told his fellow directors
that he appreciated the honor more deeply than he could hope to
express.
"Nevertheless," he said gravely, "the time is coming — if indeed it
is not already at hand — when I shall have to lay down the cares and
obligations of this high office."
The board was reluctant to accept any suggestion of immediate
retirement and one after another the directors pressed him to reconsider.
In the face of their pleas, Noyes finally consented to accept
re-election. He imposed one condition — that some younger member of
the board be elected first vice-president and in that capacity assume any
part of the president's duties and responsibilities which might be passed
on to him. In effect, Noyes was asking that the man who would succeed
him be designated in advance so that he might work with him for
whatever time remained before he relinquished the presidency.
For first vice-president — and ultimately the next president of The
Associated Press — the board unanimously selected Robert McLean,
publisher of the Philadelphia Bulletin. His father, W. L. McLean,
had been a member of the board from 1900 until his resignation in
1924, and thereafter he continued an active interest in the co-operative's
affairs until his death in 1931. The new vice-president had been elected
to the board to succeed his father and had served ever since. He began
his newspaper career in 1913 when he was twenty-one, soon after his
graduation from Princeton University, and during the World War
served as a major of artillery. In his dozen or more years on the board
41 8 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
he had been close to Noyes, particularly in the fight to prevent the
defeat of Wirephoto.
Noyes's contemplated retirement was only one of the noteworthy
administrative developments in the twelve-month period since the
previous Board of Directors had met to organize. There had been
several executive changes in the management owing to the retirement
of men whose names had long been bywords in the co-operative.
The first major change involved the retirement of a character who
had become an AP legend — Treasurer James R. Youatt. Back in April,
1894, Stone had offered him the position of auditor. For forty-two years
he was the vigilant guardian of the association's finances. He watched
pennies as closely as dollars and the stories about his thriftiness multi-
plied with the years. Once a staffer covering General Pershing's pursuit
of Pancho Villa wired him that a fine second-hand automobile could
be purchased for $800 if approval were given, and that it might facilitate
coverage in Mexico. In those days second-hand automobiles were not
the acme of mechanical reliability. Moreover, desert country did not
present ideal operating conditions. Youatt's reply was a model of
economy and wisdom. "Buy a mule," he telegraphed.
To succeed Youatt the board elected L. F. Curtis. The new
treasurer had been a member of the staff for twenty-five years. During
that time he handled local, national, cable, political, and financial news
assignments, and one of them sent him with President Wilson to the
Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Subsequently he was news editor of
the Eastern Division, and in 1921, when Wilmer Stuart died, he became
superintendent of markets and elections.
A few weeks after Youatt's resignation, Jackson S. Elliott, another
notable figure, relinquished his duties as assistant general manager
preparatory to retiring after more than thirty years of service.
Demands on the management as a whole had assumed such
proportions that some administrative expansion was necessary. For this
reason two assistant general managers — Lloyd Stratton and William
J. McCambridge— were appointed by General Manager Cooper to help
him. Stratton, the first editor of the Feature Service, was assigned to
administrative duties in the field of news. McCambridge was placed in
immediate charge of all matters pertaining to transmission and engi-
neering operations.
MATTERS OF MOMENT 419
Several months after these changes were made effective, the
general manager began consideration of a step looking toward a more
complete unification of all news-gathering efforts. As matters then stood,
the active direction of the news report was divided among three super-
vising general editors — one for the day, one for the night, and one for
the Sunday or weekend report. Assignments to day, night, or weekend
duty made for corresponding divisions of the staff. Under this system
there was sustained staff endeavor around the clock, seven days a week,
and at the same time a healthy rivalry was fostered, for each division
strove to produce a better report than the other. The three supervising
editors — W. F. Brooks, C. E. Honce, and J. M. Kendrick — worked
under the personal direction of the general manager.
The time Cooper could devote exclusively to the news report day
after day was limited and he finally reached the conclusion that it was
desirable to appoint an executive news editor who would be able to
give exclusive attention to the news. For the position he needed a man
of wide experience and proved executive ability. He wanted someone
who would not disturb the rivalry existing among the day, night, and
Sunday staffs.
Byron Price, chief of bureau at Washington, had the talent and
training to fill the requirements Cooper had in mind. He had joined
the staff in 1912, a young man with a Phi Beta Kappa key recently out
of Wabash College. He got his start in the Atlanta Bureau, served as
acting correspondent at New Orleans, and then was transferred to
Washington. He joined the army during the World War. As a first
lieutenant and later a captain of infantry, he served overseas with a
regiment that was cited for conspicuous service during the Meuse-
Argonne offensive immediately preceding the signing of the Armistice.
Mustered out in 1919, he rejoined the Washington Bureau. His subse-
quent assignments covered all fields of governmental, political, and
diplomatic activities.
The program of administrative changes, contemplated or already
in effect, constituted only a part of 1 936*8 story. Much more dramatic
was the unscheduled and unheralded debut of the newest servant of
modern news gathering — portable Wirephoto.
For more than a year engineers in the research laboratory had
been working to perfect a convenient-sized picture-sending machine
which could be hurried to the scene of big news along with staff
420 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
reporters and cameramen. Size was not the only problem. They wanted
a set that could utilize either the regular Wirephoto network or ordi-
nary commercial circuits, and thus be adapted for immediate use in
any place, no matter how isolated, which had a telephone.
Progress was slow. Telephone company experts had not minimized
the difficulties when they expressed doubt that any practical portable
apparatus could be devised. Nevertheless, the laboratory kept at it.
One by one the technical difficulties were overcome, new mechanical
parts designed, and knotty assembly problems worked out. At length
Assistant General Manager McCambridge, Chief Engineer Biele, and
their research staff believed they had developed the equipment they
sought.
The miscellany of parts, vacuum tubes, and wires scattered along
a laboratory workbench looked like a hopeless hodgepodge, but to the
men who had spent months of experimenting they represented a
splendid achievement. They could visualize the equipment mounted
ingeniously in two small traveling cases weighing about forty pounds
each — a power unit in one case and the sending unit in the other —
ready to be rushed to the scene of any news emergency so that pictures
could be transmitted onto the Wirephoto system with a minimum of
delay.
The first experiments had produced satisfactory results. The picture
transmissions were on a par with the performance of the stationary
apparatus in the regular Wirephoto stations. The experiments, however,
were performed under ideal laboratory conditions 5 the network had
not been utilized, and the transmissions were over relatively short
distances. The engineers wanted to satisfy themselves that the portable
would perform with equal fidelity over long distances after being
subjected to the hard knocks and rough usage incident to actual field
operations. The test schedule was mapped along those lines.
But news has never respected engineering programs. The initial
experiments had scarcely started when a succession of violent spring
floods swept the eastern United States. In New England, New York,
Maryland, Ohio, and particularly in Pennsylvania and West Virginia,
bureau staffs went on emergency footing to report another national
catastrophe. Hour by hour the news report brought accounts of the
devastation and The AP News Photo Service obtained eloquent pictures
of the ruin and havoc.
The worst-hit of the flood areas was western Pennsylvania and
West Virginia. Pittsburgh was virtually isolated. The airport there was
MATTERS OF MOMENT 421
inundated and water more than six feet deep flowed through the
business district — "The Golden Triangle." Johnstown, scene of the
terrible flood of 1889, watched the rising water and feared an even
worse disaster. In Wheeling half of the downtown section was under
water, and the swollen Ohio rolled over Wheeling Island, submerging
the homes of hundreds of families.
As the strategic bureau in the stricken area, Pittsburgh became the
clearinghouse for the news and pictures. Once again a staff battled the
problem of getting out the information after communications had been
disrupted. Most telephone and telegraph lines were down, railroad and
motor vehicle traffic was virtually suspended, bridges were out, power
plants had failed, and planes could not take off from the airport.
In spite of the failure of regular news facilities, Pittsburgh man-
aged to keep the news moving out by one means or another. Sometimes
it was a roundabout series of shaky telephone relays, sometimes a
temporary Morse circuit, sometimes amateur wireless stations. With
pictures, however, the difficulties were acute. Although four staff camera-
men were on the job, most of their pictures accumulated unserviced at
Pittsburgh. The city was not then on the Wirephoto network and
there was no means of getting out the pictures rapidly.
For photo editors in New York the situation was maddening. They
had the pictures, any number of pictures, but the pictures were in
Pittsburgh, isolated by the flood. Until the waters receded, there was
little chance of getting them out by the usual methods. To wait until
transportation facilities were restored might mean days, and member
newspapers did not want to wait days.
Photo editors at headquarters held conference after conference but
were unable to devise any workable solution. Finally Assistant General
Manager McCambridge proposed that the unassembled portable equip-
ment on the laboratory workbench be flown to Pittsburgh on the
chance that it could meet the emergency. There was considerable doubt
that a plane could negotiate a landing on the flooded Pittsburgh field.
Even assuming a safe arrival, the portable would have to be able to
operate under the most adverse conditions, utilizing an uncertain wire
circuit for transmission and drawing on storage batteries for power.
The odds were against the success of a machine which was little more
than an experimental model.
The assortment of parts were hurriedly stowed away in two pack-
ing boxes and Harold Carlson and Jim Barnes, who had worked on the
portable ever since research began, were chosen for the trip. Their
422 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
plane was forced down at Harrisburg, two hundred miles short of its
goal, and they chartered another and took to the air again. The second
plane made a splashy landing on the soggy, treacherous flying field at
Pittsburgh that afternoon.
The men headed for the telephone company building only a few
hundred feet from the flood crest. They found conditions as bad as
they had feared. There was no regular electric power, no heat, and
no assurance that a wire circuit would be available. Carlson and Barnes
moved in their packing boxes, tool kits, and storage batteries. The room
placed at their disposal was dark and the only illumination came from
candles and storage battery lights.
For hours they tested, changed, adjusted and readjusted, checking
the equipment piece by piece. Then the telephone company notified
them that a line had been set up and could be cut into the regular
transcontinental Wirephoto network.
A few minutes later the last adjustment had been made, the last
connection checked. The portable was as ready as the engineers could
make it. The latest pictures had arrived by messenger from the Pitts-
burgh Bureau. Earphones clamped to his head, Carlson could hear the
conversations and instructions going back and forth over the Wirephoto
circuit. The control editor in New York gave them a "Go Ahead," and
Barnes flipped a switch.
The portable's sending cylinder began to rotate.
In New York, Boston, Miami, Chicago, Kansas City, San Francisco,
and all the other cities on the picture network the receiving Wirephoto
cylinders revolved turn for turn with the Pittsburgh portable. Eight
minutes later the transmission was finished and the first negative
developed. Across the country photo editors had the wet print of the
Pittsburgh picture before them. It was a photograph of a flooded news-
paper pressroom in the heart of the Golden Triangle. With perfect
clarity it showed the dark waters running deep across the floor, the
details of the half-submerged presses and the rubber-booted press crews
perched high on the machinery.
Portable Wirephoto worked.
During 1935-1936 the series of administrative changes made one
major theme in the co-operative's story. The development of portable
Wirephoto, together with other inventive accomplishments of Traffic
Department engineers, supplied a second. To these was added a third.
It was the subject of labor, although The AP had never been disposed
to regard the question of its own personnel in the controversial terms
of a "labor problem."
XII. BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT
THROUGHOUT the troubled thirties the story of American labor,
its plans and its problems, its gains and its losses, its champions and its
critics, took a more prominent place in the news report than ever before.
The period had begun with the story of labor's struggle against unem-
ployment and then it turned to the uncharted field of economic and
social construction and experimentation. As the worst rigors of the
depression began to pass, labor entered a complex period of transi-
tion. It was a period of labor legislation and great resurgence of union
activities. Often it was a period of contradictions and puzzles, and it saw
organized labor for the second time split into two hostile camps over
the issue of craft and industrial unionism.
The controversial nature of events made the strictest accuracy and
impartiality so imperative that particularized instructions were issued
to the staff, admonishing everyone to exert the most scrupulous care
in reporting, writing, and editing labor news. Both sides in any issue
must be presented correctly, fully, without bias. Given the facts of
any case, newspaper readers should be able to form their own opinions.
Recounting the story of labor was no fresh assignment. In the
eighty-odd years since the association began its career the staff had been
called on to report most of the history of the labor movement in the
United States, but only once did that movement impinge even briefly
on the operations of the organization itself. At the founding of The
Associated Press in 1848, a national "labor problem," in the modern
understanding of the term, did not exist. The country was largely
agricultural in character, and only along the eastern seaboard were
there any industrial centers.
During those early years the subject of staff personnel was one of
the few problems which caused little worry, except that experienced
newspapermen were difficult to find. The staff was small and salaries
compared favorably with the standards of the day. Like colleagues on
daily publications, the men considered their occupation professional or
semi-professional in nature and looked upon it with a professional pride.
People spoke of them as "journalists" and in the popular mind they
423
424 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
constituted a class apart — an impression which most "journalists" con-
sciously or unconsciously encouraged.
Excepting messenger boys, a few clerical workers, and kindred
employes, the staff was entirely editorial in character. With leased
news circuits unheard of, transmission of dispatches was the province
of commercial telegraph companies and the association had no need
to maintain its own corps of Morse operators although many of the
men considered a knowledge of the telegraph as essential to their work
as the modern reporter considers the ability to use the typewriter.
Labor news was negligible, but the years after the Civil War
brought a revival of union activity and for the first time organization
efforts and disputes manifested a tendency toward a national scope. By
and large this movement was political rather than industrial in concept,
representing an evolution from the earlier organizations which had
preached a doctrine of class harmony and humanitarianism with such
slogans as "Union for power, power to bless humanity." The quasi-
political unions were the forerunners of the more definitely trade-union
groups which developed in the years that followed.
In 1875 — two years before The Associated Press covered the first
large-scale industrial dispute in the country — there came a change in its
personnel structure. The association leased its first news-wire circuits
and manned them with its own telegraphers. This introduced a new class
of employe. It was the beginning of a mechanical, or traffic, department,
although that formal designation was not applied until much later.
First staff telegraphers were engaged at salaries identical with
those being paid by the commercial telegraph companies — $17 a week
for day work and $19 a week for night work. Then, as the operating
force increased, James W. Simonton, the general agent, became con-
vinced that the work of a staff telegrapher was more exacting than
that of an operator with a commercial company. Accordingly salaries
were increased to maintain a proper differential.
The great railway strike of 1877 introduced a new type of news.
Before the strike ended seven persons were killed and millions of
dollars in property destroyed. From then on, labor became increasingly
productive of major stories. In 1885 there was the dispute affecting
Jay Gould's Missouri Pacific and Iron Mountain Railroad, which ended
with a victory for the Knights of Labor. This strike was memorable
BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT 425
in AP history both because Charles S. Diehl's exclusive interview with
Gould in Florida was credited with expediting a settlement and because
DiehPs story was the first ever carried in the report with an official
by-line. The eighties saw an epidemic of strikes waged on the eight-
hour-day and lockout issues. From a news standpoint, the most notable
story was the one which culminated in the bloody Haymarket Square
riot in Chicago in 1886 — one of the first assignments covered by John
P. Boughan, later one of the association's best knbwn writers.
The emergence of AP as a non-profit co-operative coincided
with a period in labor history both important and turbulent. The move-
ment was divided on the question of craft versus industrial unions. The
industrial Knights of Labor had begun to decline, and a new craft union
organization — the American Federation of Labor — was gaining strength,
advocating the eight-hour-day. The panic of 1893 was responsible for
large-scale disputes and disorders and the strikes produced the use of
injunctions and federal troops.
In the nature of things, strikes and other labor disturbances made
more news than the peaceful progress of the union movement or
industrial amity, just as an international crisis made more news than a
harmonious world. There was, inevitably, a certain amount of criticism
from time to time by opposing factions, particularly in the heat of strikes
when employers and employes could see only their own side of the
conflict. Proportionately, however, the complaints were neither greater
nor less than the number arising from political questions or other
controversial matters.
The co-operative was zealous to maintain its disinterested approach
to all news, whether it concerned labor or some other topic, and anything
that might raise the slightest doubt about the impartiality of the staff
was a matter to be rectified at once. The Board of Directors even went
so far as to discourage social relationships of General Manager Stone-
with some of the prominent people of his day, lest they create any
suspicions, however unjust, affecting the integrity and independence
of the news.
The return of prosperity after the Spanish-American War gave
organized labor fresh stimulus. Membership in unions increased and
there was a revival of interest in unionism and its aims. As in the past,
however, these activities failed to arouse any perceptible personal interest
among the co-operative's staff. There was an operators' union in the
country — the Commercial Telegraphers Union — but it had enlisted
only a few of the association's Morse men. The salaries of staff teleg-
426 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
raphers were higher than those paid by the commercial companies and
the idea of unionization for editorial personnel had never been broached
either by labor leaders or by editorial employes. As far as the editorial
men were concerned, they considered themselves specialists engaged
in work of a mental and creative character not amenable to the same
hard and fast rules which might apply in purely commercial and
industrial pursuits.
3
The first few years of the twentieth century were marked by the
high cost of living, and many staff telegraphers felt its pinch. Stone
met the situation by increasing the salaries of operators in the larger
cities, where the rise in living costs had been sharpest.
When living conditions failed to improve by 1903, however, he
received a petition signed by 254 of the 374 telegraphers in the service
asking a blanket increase. The request came at a bad time, for the
co-operative was operating at a deficit. Stone ascertained that the asso-
ciation by that time was maintaining a differential of at least 25 per cent
over the salaries paid by commercial companies and railroads. Never-
theless, he recommended that the telegraphers be given two weeks
annual vacation with pay — something no commercial company gave its
operators — and that the men be relieved of the obligation of supplying
and maintaining their own typewriters, a practice then in force
universally.
The results of the 1903 petition seemed to satisfy the majority
of the telegraphers and a number told Stone they thought he had
obtained an equitable adjustment for them.
The C.T.U. continued its campaign to extend its strength and in
1905 sought a written contract, although it represented only a minority
of the men. It presented a series of demands which included salary
increases as high as 50 per cent, and a provision whereby the assignment
of operators, and in some cases their employment or dismissal, would
be entirely in the hands of the union. The Board of Directors rejected
the contract and the C.T.U. retaliated by announcing that its members
thereafter would not accept employment in the co-operative. The union's
action had no effect and the attempt to impair the strength of the
operating force ended in admitted failure.
In July, 1907, a series of strikes against the two commercial wire
companies— Western Union and Postal Telegraph— began throughout
the country. Except in so far as it delayed some news matter being
BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT 427
handled over commercial facilities, the dispute at first did not involve
The AP. The association employed only about one per cent of the
40,000 telegraphers in the United States and there had been no requests,
official or otherwise, for adjustments.
Since the co-operative's New York headquarters were then housed
in the Western Union building, the telegraph staff was well aware of
the tension and the disturbed atmosphere. The news report, however,
continued to move out over the leased wires with accustomed regularity.
Then, without warning, a group of telegraphers on the night staff took
possession of the circuits on August n and canvassed night operators
at all bureau points, asking authority to sign their names to a petition.
Some agreed and the unexpected petition was placed before Stone
the next morning with an ultimatum that its demands be met within
twelve hours. It called for increases aggregating $200,000 a year —
roughly 10 per cent of the whole annual budget at the time — and for
a higher overtime rate. Stone had no authority to grant such a demand
and the deadline gave him no opportunity to arrange for a meeting
of the board to consider it. He offered to confer with a representative
of the men pending a meeting of the board.
The offer went unheeded and a strike was ordered at 7:30 P.M.
that same day — August 12. In the Eastern Division, the largest unit of
the service, 59 of 1 80 telegraphers quit their keys. Some divisions were
not affected at all, but in others enough quit to interrupt temporarily
the local transmission of the report. A majority remained at their posts
and volunteered to work additional hours to keep the news moving.
Reporter-telegraphers on the editorial staff manned empty Morse posi-
tions and in Albany an office boy who had been studying telegraphy
handled one wire like a veteran.
From the outset the strike failed of its objective — a nation-wide
stoppage of the news report. The morning after the strike was called
every member of the New York day telegraph staff reported for work.
They condemned the strike as merely sympathetic to the dissatisfied
commercial workers, termed it an unjust action by a minority element
of their fellow telegraphers, and drafted a message urging the strikers
to return to their posts. Stone's permission was sought for the trans-
mission of the message on the leased wires, but he declined.
The back of the strike was broken after the first week, but it
dragged on in desultory fashion for a month. Then most of the men
applied for their old positions and were taken back without prejudice.
The Board of Directors met in mid-September and Stone expressed
428 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
himself in favor of an even higher wage level, irrespective of what the
commercial companies were paying. Although an annual deficit of
$100,000 already was in prospect, the directors authorized him to
proceed.
In terms of the ensuing years, the telegraphers' strike had no
lasting effect. It did not signalize the beginning of an era in which the
relations between management and personnel were to assume "labor
problem" proportions.
The policy of The AP had been to maintain the relations between
employes and the general manager (himself an employe) on a
personal basis. The size of the staff at the time made such a system
practicable and the general manager had no difficulty keeping in close
touch with the men and their work. Both Stone and Assistant General
Manager Diehl traveled extensively and the staff knew them familiarly
as "M.E.S." and "Charley Diehl."
As the staff grew, however, it became more and more difficult to
maintain these personal contacts. Little by little, personnel relations
became decentralized and the responsibility was divided among the
superintendents in charge of the four main geographical divisions which
comprised the domestic service. Dealing with these smaller units, the
superintendents were able to handle their division staffs on an individual
basis, but the co-operative as a whole lost something in the suspension
of direct relations between the employe and the management.
By 1910, when Cooper entered the service, the handling of per-
sonnel had become, with certain limitations, entirely the province of
the division superintendents. Cooper's duties called for incessant travel-
ing and the assignment unintentionally served a twofold purpose. It
restored to the staff at large a personal link with headquarters, and it
gave the management a firsthand contact with the staff without the
medium of division superintendents.
Several things impressed Cooper. The first was the widening
difference between the editorial and telegraph departments in outlook,
problems, and the type of employe attracted. Once ambitious teleg-
raphers had made editorial positions their goal but now the younger
members of this staff were thinking in terms of scientific and engineer-
ing opportunities. It was clear that the interests of the service would
best be served by divorcing the news-gathering and news-disseminating
staffs, and the formal organization of a Traffic Department folloWed.
BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT 429
Another matter Cooper reported was a tendency toward stagnation
of the news personnel under the administration of division superin-
tendents. The superintendents, concerned only with the most efficient
operation of their respective divisions, were inclined to keep their
editorial men in the same position indefinitely if they filled it well.
With few exceptions, advancement depended on the death or resigna-
tion of the man who was the immediate superior. Such a system mini-
mized merit, tended to discourage initiative, and removed the stimulus
of opportunity. Furthermore, by placing divisional considerations above
everything else, the General Service was being deprived of able men
who might be more valuable in other positions. To remedy this
situation, Cooper recommended more frequent transfer of talented men
from one geographical division to another.
The outbreak of the World War had a tendency to "freeze" the
system in its existing state. Attention was monopolized by the problems
of war coverage and there was little time to study ways and means
of restoring any semblance of the old direct methods in personnel
relations. However, a higher salary scale was made effective to meet
the increased cost of wartime living and, more important, the Board
of Directors inaugurated the general pension, insurance, and sick benefit
plan which Cooper had drawn up.
After the Armistice and the break in war prosperity, labor news
came back with a wave of strikes and disputes largely precipitated by
the reduction of wages from boom peaks. Living costs and mounting
unemployment contributed to the unsettled conditions, but this indus-
trial unrest left the co-operative unaffected because its affairs were
running counter to the general trend. The postwar years saw unprece-
dented expansion in news gathering, wages were maintained at wartime .
levels, and the staff was enlarged rather than curtailed.
The sole personnel problem was the loss of experienced editorial
men who were being sought by publicity-conscious organizations of one
sort or another. The salary inducements often were irresistible and
Stone on occasion found himself reluctantly advising valued editors
to accept positions which offered greater compensation than he could
match. Nevertheless, these raids led to further adjustment of salaries
for editorial employes generally. The management could not always
bid dollar for dollar, but it was anxious to make positions as attractive
430 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
as possible because the general manager thought the association could
be best served by "career" men who regarded their employment as
more than just another job.
Throughout the twenties unions were aggressive in campaigns for
wage increases, shorter hours, and improved working conditions. Key
bureaus developed specialists on their staffs to handle the news so that
coverage would be in the hands of men thoroughly familiar with the
background of union activities.
Although the internal affairs of The Associated Press had pro-
gressed smoothly, no enduring changes had been made in the status
of personnel administration. Division superintendents continued to
discharge most of these responsibilities, and the undesirable features
of such a system persisted. It was not until Cooper became general
manager in 1925 that a concerted effort was made to restore as much
of the old "personal" element as the size of the staff would permit.
He proceeded on a twofold principle. He wanted to centralize
personnel administration at headquarters so that he could keep con-
stantly informed on the staff and use that information to the best
advantage of the service. He also wanted to put relations between
headquarters and staff members back on an individual basis, in so far
as possible. To accomplish these ends, he assumed complete charge of
all personnel matters and instituted a new system of personnel ad-
ministration.
The first step was to inaugurate a special "personal" file at New
York for every member of the staff. Into these individual files went
the complete record of a man's service, his successes and setbacks, salary
increases and promotions, the report of superiors on his work, and a
confidential letter from the employee himself setting forth his ambitions
in the organization.
Cooper called for regular reports from bureau chiefs on each
member of their staffs and when a man showed ability for greater
opportunity he tried to see to it that he got a transfer to some bureau
where opportunity existed. When a man did not seem to be advancing
in proportion to his capabilities, the general manager wanted to know
why. All recommendations for salary increases came to him for approval
and at times he acted without recommendation.
New men were engaged and employes dismissed only after the
general manager had given his approval. In cases where a discharge
was recommended, the employe was informed by his superior and
given opportunity to present his side of the case. Whether an employe
BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT 431
protested or not, the general manager carefully reviewed his file before
making a decision. Sometimes he rejected a recommended dismissal,
either because of the case set forth in an employe's appeal or because
of the record disclosed by the personal file. On such occasions the
superior making the recommendation was called to task for failure to
understand and handle his men properly.
These were the conditions existing at the advent of the depression
in 1929. In many other fields the accompanying epidemic of unemploy-
ment served to make the labor problem acute, but without any notice-
able immediate effect on The AP. There were no dismissals, wholesale
or otherwise, to reduce the staff in line with economic conditions.
Salaries finally were cut 10 per cent in 1932, but as soon as the business
outlook showed promise of improvement, Cooper resumed his practice
of giving increases on merit.
While the labor problem, as such, failed to involve either the
co-operative's personnel or its management during the worst depression
years, the nation's efforts to cope with general labor distress did have
definite effects. Roosevelt called on American enterprises in July, 1933,
to comply with the President's Re-employment Agreement until
National Recovery Act codes were ready. The AP levels were above
those the NRA suggested for minimum hours and wages, but the
organization complied with the spirit of the agreement and 223 mem-
bers were added at a monthly payroll increase of $15,960.61.
When the newspaper code of the NRA was approved, the associa-
tion made certain that all its operations conformed. The code would
have permitted a 30 per cent reduction in the salaries of one group
of employes, but the general manager declined to take advantage of
any provision which sanctioned wage scales below AP standards. A
five-day workweek was introduced for bureaus in the larger cities as
President Roosevelt requested and the general manager further
directed that, in any other city where member papers adopted the
five-day week, bureaus should be guided accordingly. He was not
pleased to make such a distinction which benefited the staffs in some
cities and not in others, but until complicated financial arrangements
could be worked out it was not possible to put the entire domestic
service on five-day week. Then the Supreme Court declared the NRA
and its codes unconstitutional and the association not only maintained its
432 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
wage and hour schedules, but continued to increase the number of
employes and the payroll. In four years the staff increased 43 per cent
and the payroll 47 per cent.
Coincident with the national efforts to get jobless men back to
work, there was a phenomenal resurgence of activity in the field of
organized labor. New unions appeared and for the first time the
trade-union principle was extended to the editorial departments of
newspapers and news gathering. The American Newspaper Guild, an
organization of newspaper editorial workers, was formed and affiliated
with the American Federation of Labor, a craft union group. Some time
later the Guild transferred its allegiance to John L. Lewis's Congress of
Industrial Organizations and expanded to include non-editorial workers
in the commercial and other departments of newspapers. The new
union attracted some AP employes, mainly in the larger centers, but
its following in the service failed to assume large proportions.
In November, 1933, a Guild unit was organized in the New York
office with Morris Watson, a reporter-editor as chairman. There was
no secret about Watson's efforts to enroll members of the staff. The
general manager was aware of the circumstances and as early as 1934
personally assured Watson and a Guild committee that he would
countenance no discrimination against any employe because of union
affiliations. As to the merits of an editorial union, Cooper pointed out
that, because of his responsibility for the impartiality of the news report,
he could not express opinions which might be used either pro or con
by those who favored or opposed any feature of union programs.
Watson, an experienced newsman, had been active in Guild affairs
for more than a year when his editorial supervisors first expressed
dissatisfaction with his work on the grounds that it was not up to its
former standard. Subsequently his duties were twice changed and then
one day in October, 1935, he was informed that the general manager
had been handed a memorandum recommending his dismissal with a
month's salary.
Although Watson himself asked for no review of his dismissal by
the general manager, it produced repercussions. The American News*
paper Guild charged that he had been dismissed for no reason other
than his union activities — a violation of the recently enacted National
Labor Relations Act — and announced it would contest the action. If filed
BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT 4.33
complaint with the Regional Division of the National Labor Relations
Board and before the year ended the co-operative was served notice of
hearings on the Watson case.
The threat of litigation automatically brought the matter to the
attention of the Board of Directors and the subject was referred to
counsel. After a study of the facts involved, counsel decided the case
should be contested, not on the specific point of Watson's discharge,
but on the ground that the Labor Relations Act was unconstitutional
and hence could not apply.
The hearings began in New York on April 7, 1936. Charles E.
Clark, dean of the Yale Law School, served as examiner for the NLRB.
At the request of that body, Assistant General Manager Stratton
testified as to the corporate structure of the co-operative, its non-profit
character, and the various operations involved in the collection and
distribution of news. As stipulated by AP counsel at the outset, no
testimony was produced by the co-operative as to the reasons for
Watson's dismissal.
Watson himself testified at length concerning his career with the
organization, followed by Mrs. Elinore M. Herrick, regional director
for the Labor Board, and it was from their testimony that the co-opera-
tive's asserted reasons for the dismissal quite incidentally became known.
The reporter-editor said that, in the course of his seven years of
employment, his superiors had come to know him as a capable newsman,
but that more recently the general manager had told him that "every
time my by-line was used in the report it brought protests from Asso-
ciated Press members because I was Guild." He said the general
manager also had told him there would be no discrimination against
employes because of their union activities, but that a desirable Foreign
Service assignment was out of the question as long as he was active in
the Guild "because people would think he [the general manager] was
running away from me and that I was running away from him."
He also testified concerning a number of talks that he had with his
superiors about his Guild activities and their relation to and effect on his
work. He told of an occasion on which he had arranged for a substitute
to do his work so that he could attend a meeting held in connection
with his labor activities, and expressed the opinion that his union work
had led to the changes in his assignment and his eventual dismissal.
Questioned on the circumstances surrounding his discontinuance,
he said he asked his immediate superior to tell him the reason for the
action and that he was told:
434 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"Because we are dissatisfied with your work, you are dissatisfied
with us, and I am convinced that you will be happier elsewhere."
He said he thereupon "walked out of the office" and that he made
no efforts to secure reinstatement except through the Labor Board.
The regional director of the NLRB told of the examination she
had made of Watson's "personal" file, the record similar to that kept
on all employes. She said it had been made available to her by the
association at her request and that, with the knowledge of the manage-
ment, she had taken notes on what she found.
Her testimony constituted a lengthy recital of complimentary and
critical comments by Watson's superiors during the time of his employ-
ment and was climaxed by her reference to having had access to the
memorandum of October 18, 1935, by Watson's superior outlining five
reasons for recommending the discharge. She said she had copied the
second of the reasons exactly as it appeared, and quoted it as having
read:
He is an agitator and disturbs the morale of the staff at a time when
we need especially their loyalty and best performance.
She said that, across the top of the five-point memorandum in
penciled handwriting and initialed "KC" — initials of General Manager
Cooper — was a further notation which said:
But solely on grounds of his work not being on a basis for which he has
shown capability.
"I made a note for myself," she said, "that the 'but' was heavily
written in pencil and that the 'solely' was underlined."
The hearing lasted two days and the Labor Board decision was
made public on April 22. Examiner Clark ruled that the "sole" reason
for Watson's discharge was his Guild activities. He held that the
association had engaged in "unfair labor practice," directed it to "desist
from interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employes in the
right of self-organization," and ordered that Watson be reinstated.
8
The legal contest proceeded and the news report covered all
developments factually and impartially, just as though the co-operative
had no interest in what was happening. Then The AP carried the
BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT 435
NLRB ruling to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals on June 16.
The court rendered an adverse decision a month later, upholding the
constitutionality of the Wagner Act and ruling that it "does not hamper
the legitimate right of the employer who may discharge his employes
for inefficiency or any other cause agreeable to him," provided such a
dismissal is not for union activity.
The decision cleared the way for an appeal to the United States
Supreme Court. Briefs were filed by The Associated Press and on
February 9-10, 1937, the court heard final arguments. John W.
Davis, one-time Democratic candidate for President of the United
States, appeared for the co-operative, Charles Fahy, general counsel
for the NLRB, and Charles E. Wyzanski, special assistant to the
United States attorney general, represented the government.
Davis based his attack on the Wagner Labor Relations Act on three
major points: that it was invalid under the First Amendment to the
Constitution because it was "a direct and palpable" invasion of the free-
dom of the press 5 that it was invalid under the Fifth Amendment be-
cause it deprived The AP of rights and liberties without due process of
lawj that it was invalid under the Tenth Amendment because the
legislation undertook to deal with employer-employe relationships, a
subject matter not committed to Congress under the commerce provi-
sions of the Constitution.
Wyzanski and Fahy divided the government's argument. Wyzan-
ski concentrated on the technical legal considerations involved, the
propriety of the Wagner Act's application to The AP, and the court
decisions which bore on the law's constitutionality. In the course of his
argument he shrewdly pointed out a now-apparent salient weakness in
the co-operative's case — no defense had been offered in the proceedings
in the lower courts to controvert the Labor Board charge that Watson
had been dismissed for reasons other than unsatisfactory work. Thus
the findings of the lower courts — that the dismissal constituted unfair
labor practice — stood unchallenged as far as legal considerations were
concerned.
It was left to Fahy to answer Davis's arguments respecting the
freedom of the press. He also pointed out that the association had
offered no testimony in the lower courts to disprove the contention
that Watson had been discharged only because of his union activities.
This being the case, he said the argument that the Wagner Act invaded
the First Amendment to the Constitution was not a valid one.
436 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The Supreme Court announced its decision on April 12, 1937, in
one of the celebrated 5-to-4 opinions which made the court's general atti-
tude on New Deal legislation a subject of heated political controversy.
The decision upheld the constitutionality of the Wagner Labor Rela-
tions Act and made Watson's reinstatement mandatory.
Mr. Justice Owen J. Roberts delivered the majority opinion. He
noted that the co-operative "did not challenge the [Labor] Board's
findings of fact" respecting the reason for Watson's dismissal and
continued:
We, therefore, accept as established that The Associated Press did not,
as claimed in its answer before the Board, discharge Watson because of
unsatisfactory service, but, on the contrary, as found by the Board, dis-
charged him for his activities in connection with the Newspaper Guild.
The question of the freedom of the press received extended treat-
ment in the majority opinion. In part, it read:
The conclusion which the petitioner draws is that whatever may be the
case with respect to employes in its mechanical departments, it must have abso-
lute and unrestricted freedom to employ and to discharge those who, like
Watson, edit the news; that there must not be the slightest opportunity for.
any bias or prejudice personally entertained by an editorial employe to color
or to distort what he writes, and that The Associated Press cannot be free
to furnish unbiased and impartial news reports unless it is equally free to
determine for itself the partiality or bias of editorial employes.
So it is said that any regulation protective of union activities, or the
right collectively to bargain on the part of such employes is necessarily an
invalid invasion of the freedom of the press.
We think the contention not only has no relevance to the circumstances
of the instant case but is an unsound generalization. The ostensible reason
for Watson's discharge, as embodied in the records of the petitioner, is
"solely on the grounds of his work not being on a basis for which he has
shown capability." The petitioner did not assert and does not now claim
that he has shown bias in the past. It does not claim that by reason of his
connection with the union he will be likely, as the petitioner honestly believes,
to show bias in the future. The actual reason for his discharge, as shown by
the unattacked finding of the Board, was his Guild activity and his agitation
for collective bargaining.
The statute does not preclude a discharge on the ostensible grounds for
the petitioner's section; it forbids discharge for what has been found to be the
real motive of the petitioner. These considerations answer the suggestion
that if the petitioner believed its policy of impartiality was likely to be sub-
verted by Watson's continued service. Congress was without power to Inter-
BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT 437
diet his discharge. No such question is here for decision. Neither before the
Board, nor in the court below, nor here has the petitioner professed such
belief. It seeks to bar all regulation by contending that regulation in a situa-
tion not presented would be invalid. Courts deal with cases upon the basis of
the facts disclosed, never with non-existent and assumed circumstances.
The act does not compel the petitioner to employ anyone; it does not
require that the petitioner retain in its employ an incompetent editor or one
who fails faithfully to edit the news to reflect facts without bias or prejudice.
The act permits a discharge for any reason other than union activity or agita-
tion for collective bargaining with employes. The restoration of Watson to his
former position in no sense guarantees his continuance in petitioner's employ.
The petitioner is at liberty, whenever occasion may arise, to exercise its
undoubted right to sever his relationship for any cause that seems to it proper,
save only as a punishment for, or discouragement of, such activities as the
act declares permissible. . . .
The dissenting opinion was delivered by Mr. Justice George
Sutherland. The minority held that the Wagner Act as applied to The
AP violated the First Amendment to the Constitution in that it re-
stricted the freedom of the press. Justice Sutherland, rendering the
opinion, said:
Freedom is not a mere intellectual abstraction, and is not merely a word
to adorn an oration upon occasions of patriotic rejoicing. It is an intensely
practical reality, capable of concrete enjoyment in a multitude of ways day
by day. When applied to the press, the term freedom is not to be narrowly
confined, and it obviously means more than publication and circulation. If
freedom of the press does not include the right to adopt and pursue a policy
without governmental restriction, it is a misnomer to call it freedom. And we
might as well deny at once the right of the press freely to adopt a policy and
pursue it, as to concede that right and deny the liberty to exercise an uncen-
sored judgment in respect to the employment and discharge of the agents
through whom the policy is to be effectuated. . . .
For many years there has been contention between labor and capital.
Labor has become highly organized in a wide effort to secure and preserve
its rights. The daily news with respect to labor disputes is now of vast pro-
portions: and clearly a considerable part of petitioner's editorial service must
be devoted to that subject. Such news is not only of great public interest, but
an unbiased version of it is of the utmost public concern.
To give a group of employers on the one hand, or a labor organization
on the other, power of control over such a service is obviously to endanger
the fairness and accuracy of the service. Strong sympathy for or strong
prejudice against a given cause or the efforts made to advance it has too
often led to suppression or coloration of unwelcome facts. It would seem to be
an exercise of only reasonable prudence for an association engaged in part
in supplying the public with fair and accurate factual information with respect
to the contests between labor and capital, to see that those whose activities
438 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
include that service are free from either extreme sympathy or extreme
prejudice one way or the other. . . .
... If petitioner concluded, as it well could, that its policy to preserve
its news service free from color, bias or distortion was likely to be subverted
by Watson's retention, what power has Congress in the face of the First
Amendment?
At the time the Supreme Court's decision was handed down,
Watson was director of the Living Newspaper, a Federal Theatre
Project on which he had been employed since his dismissal from the
staff. He expressed his gratification and returned to duty April 19, 1937.
Then the co-operative announced its readiness to enter into collec-
tive bargaining negotiations with such unions — mechanical or editorial —
as the NLRB might certify to be the official representatives of a majority
of employes.
After working two weeks, Watson applied for and was granted
the customary vacation with pay to which all regular employes were
entitled. On returning he resigned, explaining that he wished to resume
his WPA activities. In his resignation, dated May 17, he wrote:
I would be remiss if I did not express here my sincere appreciation of
the good grace with which The Associated Press accepted my return. I am
convinced now that there never will be any discrimination against Associated
Press employes for organizing or being active in a union formed for their
economic betterment through collective bargaining.
10
The possibility of a misunderstanding of the co-operative's motives
in challenging the Wagner Act was something which caused concern to
the management. Yet as the situation developed it offered little oppor-
tunity for clarification as long as the question remained one for purely
legal decision. Although the National Labor Relations Board's decision
was not unexpected, since the strategy of the co-operative's counsel was
to offer no testimony, nevertheless it created a practical problem which
could not but be regretted by the management. There was the chance
that silence as to the reasons for the co-operative's action might lead to
the belief that its efforts were directed against unionism, an improved
social economy, the New Deal which created the Wagner Act, and
the Democratic Party which created the New Deal.
The decision of the Court of Appeals cleared the way for the
Supreme Court appeal and the question of a public statement by the
BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT 439
co-operative setting forth its case was considered. Counsel withdrew an
earlier objection to such a course and Vice-President McLean and
General Manager Cooper set about preparation of the document. It
reviewed the whole case and stated that the co-operative's purpose in
challenging the Wagner Act was to make sure that the new law did
not destroy its right to supervise the work of its employes and to
discipline them for cause lest it lose control over the most important
element of its existence — the creation of the unprejudiced and unbiased
daily news record on which millions of readers of all complexions and
beliefs had come to depend.
Circumstances, however, began to militate against the release of
the statement. The 1936 presidential campaign was under way and
there was the likelihood that anything The AP said might be seized
upon for political significance. The statement was reluctantly discarded
and the co-operative continued to hold its silence.
During the time the Wagner case was pending two other matters
were before the co-operative for action or decision. The first was a
request by the American Newspaper Guild for collective bargaining.
The Board of Directors, on advice of counsel, ruled that no action
should be taken until the legal proceedings in the Wagner Act case
had been concluded.
The question of a universal five-day week, however, was something
on which action logically could be taken. Contrasting current standards
with those at the time the association introduced its first revolutionary
pension and disability plan for employes back in 1918, Cooper told
the Board of Directors he was convinced that the trend toward a five-
day workweek was a salutary thing and that he hoped the association
could inaugurate it for all bureaus, irrespective of what others might do.
The financial details represented a considerable item — a universal five-
day week meant an increase of more than $300,000 annually in operating
expenses — but eventually they were worked out with board approval.
In 1936 the shift of the entire Traffic personnel to a five-day week
started, and on January i, 1937, the process began with the editorial
staff.
That the Wagner Act case and all that it came to involve might
have some effect on personnel relations in the co-operative seemed a
foregone conclusion, but the general manager of The AP could not
feel that it should disrupt the revived personalized basis of relations
between the management and its staff. If anything, he felt more than
ever that the strength of the organization, in which there was such a
440 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
definite element of public service, lay in the strength of a keenly
intelligent editorial staff. The Supreme Court decision, while upholding
the constitutionality of the Wagner Act, nevertheless had defined the
rights of both employer and employe, and those rights formed a
basis for future relations.
Regardless of union affiliations, the court's decision made continu-
ance of those relations dependent upon the competence of the employe
and his ability to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the association that
no act of his constituted any threat to the integrity of the report through
bias or prejudice in the handling of news. For the text of this phase of
the opinion clearly read:
The Act does not compel the petitioner to employ anyone; it does not
require that the petitioner retain in its employ an incompetent editor or one
who fails faithfully to edit the news to reflect facts without bias or prejudice.
XIII. "THE PUBLIC MUST BE
FULLY INFORMED"
ACROSS the Manzanares River behind the Nationalist lines Richard
Massock listened to the slam of artillery as Franco's batteries hurled
the first shells of 1937 into beleaguered Madrid. The guns opened
up on the stroke of midnight and fired a dozen times in grim greeting
to the New Year. Inside Madrid, Chief of Bureau Alexander Uhl stood
in the Puerta del Sol and heard the crash as the shells struck the center
of the city. About him, disdainful of the explosions, militiamen were
chewing the twelve lucky grapes which Madrilenos traditionally eat as
a dying year is tolled out and a new year in.
Thus the Spanish Civil War entered its second year, prolonging
the chronic crisis which kept Old World chancelleries in a state of
nervous apprehension and the co-operative's European staff constantly
on the alert. The conflict followed five years of dissension after King
Alfonso XIII fled into exile in April, 1931. The Madrid Republican
government was a "left" government, speaking for workers and
peasants. The insurgents, under General Francisco Franco, grouped the
military, the big landowners, and the aristocracy under the "right," or
Fascist, banner. The Pope recognized the Franco government.
In an attempt to isolate the war, the British sponsored a "Non-
intervention Committee," but in spite of these efforts it soon became
apparent that Italy and Germany were helping Franco and the Soviets
were giving aid to the Madrid government. The Rome and Berlin
bureaus watched Mussolini and Hitler for their next moves and the
Moscow Bureau sought a better line on the Soviets' future course.
Cables from London and Paris described the concern of the western
powers.
The pieces in the puzzling jigsaw that was the map of Europe
were slowly being matched and put together. The pattern still was not
clear, but there were many who said that Spain was a mere testing
ground on which some of the Old World nations were trying out
their modern armaments and strategies.
The staff men in Spain had the riskiest part of the over-all
441
442 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
European assignment, but months of bitter warfare had inured them
to the perils and discomforts incidental to the task of getting the news.
The scream of shells, the rattle of machine guns, the horror of air
bombardment, all these were old things now. Massock and Elmer
Peterson had been with the insurgents since Franco raised his banner
of revolt. They accompanied the column which captured Toledo and
relieved the Alcazar after the 72-day siege, and their eyewitness stories
were frequently written under fire.
On the other side, Chief of Bureau Uhl, James Oldfield, and H.
E. Knoblaugh covered the government, or "Loyalist," forces. In the
north, where the Franco forces thrust toward the Basque cities on
the Bay of Biscay, Robert B. Parker, Jr., watched the fall of Irun and
San Sebastian.
When Franco's advance was stubbornly halted on the outskirts
of Madrid, the AP bureau at No. 4 Calle Mejia Lequerica was in a
section of the city often bombarded by the terrifying insurgent fire.
Shell splinters pockmarked its walls and bomb blasts shattered its
windows. The dozen shots from the insurgent batteries as January i
came in were nothing new, for the staff men with the Loyalists had had
plenty to report during the weeks in which the government forces had
made their heroic defense.
Early in the war it had become obvious that one of the major
objectives of the insurgent Franco forces was to capture Madrid in
an effort to demoralize the seat of the government, and in various
circles it was freely predicted that such a development would mean
dissolution of the "Non-intervention Committee" which had its head-
quarters in London.
The staff men with the government had been in the thick of things
when the Madrid forces began one of their most spectacular defenses
of the city on November 8 and 9, 1936. The assault on Madrid had
come only a few weeks after the insurgents relieved the Alcazar, forty
miles away, and the Franco strategy now was coming into the open.
His forces were fighting down from the north through the Guadarrama
Mountains and up from the south and west in an effort to throw a
semicircle of steel around the embattled capital. At the insurgent head-
quaters in Burgos, General Franco had been proclaimed "Chief of the
Spanish State" and had organized his own "government."
But the terror of modern aerial warfare on November 8 and 9
did not signal the end of Madrid. Uhl and members of his staff scurried
through the streets dodging bombs and explosions as the missiles of
"THE PUBLIC MUST BE FULLY INFORMED" 443
death rained down from attacking insurgent planes which were being
engaged by the determined government forces both on land and in
the air.
During earlier attacks on surrounding towns, Uhl saw pamphlets
as well as bombs rain down and in Madrid he witnessed hand-to-hand
fighting. From balconies and windows he saw women, armed with
guns, proudly picking off the first Franco troopers as they battled in
the streets below, and from others he saw the first of the undercover,
or Fifth Column, Franco sympathizers firing on government militiamen.
While the fierce fighting continued, the government forces quickly
converted homes and public buildings into miniature forts from which
to defend the city. Women who could not procure guns poured hot oil
from the housetops on the heads of attackers.
On the insurgent side Elmer Peterson had to throw himself flat
on his stomach on the roof of a suburban house to escape the gun fire,
and with the government Uhl and his staff watched crowds in the
center of Madrid run panic-stricken to cover, saw ambulances and fire
trucks go clanging into the thick of the fray, and listened to the screams
of wounded and dying women and children.
Throughout November 8 and early again the next day the insur-
gents continued to hurl their deadly missiles from guns and planes.
No one could estimate how many dead and wounded they left in the
streets and in the wreckage of homes and public buildings — but still
Madrid stood.
It was still standing on January i, 1937, and Uhl and the others
with the government forces listened to the explosions, heard the scream
of shells, and wondered how much longer Madrid could last.
The Spanish War lost the news spotlight temporarily during the
spring to two memorable stories — the coronation of George VI as
King-Emperor of the British Empire, and the wedding of Edward,
Duke of Windsor, to the twice-divorced American woman, Mrs. Wallis
Warfield. They provided the final chapters to one of the great news
narratives of contemporary times, and recalled the stirring march of
events not so many months earlier when Edward, in December, 1936,
renounced his throne rather than abandon his determination to marry
Mrs. Warfield, "the woman I love."
Accounts of the majestic ceremonies at Westminster Abbey were
AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
eagerly read, but no crowning of a king-emperor could have the reader
appeal and human interest inherent in the romance of the Duke of
Windsor and Wallis Warfield. People called it the "greatest love story
of our time" and followed with rapt attention the news of the prepara-
tions for the marriage on June 3 in France.
For the occasion, the association set up a special five-man staff,
headed by John Lloyd, chief of the Paris Bureau. With him were
Louis Matzhold, Melvin K. Whiteleather, Robert Parker, who had
just been relieved from duty in Spain, and Alice Maxwell, the Paris
Bureau's style specialist,
Matzhold, of the Vienna Bureau, had been with Windsor during
the duke's exile in Austria for the several months since the abdication.
He had talked with him daily, followed him on his frequent outing
trips and traveled with him to Monts, France, when the duke hurried
there to join Mrs. Warfield on May 3, the day her second divorce
became final. Lloyd was one of the five correspondents chosen from
the world press to attend the civil and religious ceremonies when the
marriage took place in the Chateau de Cande at Monts.
While the one-time king was getting married, Edward Neil, back
on war duty after his experiences in Ethiopia, was plodding along in
the hot June sun with the insurgent legions that pushed relentlessly on
to the Basque stronghold of Bilbao in northern Spain. Neil had lived
all his life literally against an AP background. Indeed, he and his
father claimed they never had had an employer other than The AP.
The senior Neil, when fourteen, got his first job in the Boston office
as a copy boy before the turn of the century, and later became a telegraph
operator. The younger Neil likewise entered the service in Boston and
joined the sports staff in New York in 1926. A vivid style and a wide
knowledge of athletics soon made him one of the association's best
known writers, and sports editors on member papers swore by his signed
stories.
Through the so-called "golden age" of sports, Neil helped cover
most of the major events and in 1932 he won honorable mention for
the Pulitzer prize with a thrilling account of a mile-a-minute ride he
took down the bobsled run at Lake Placid during the winter Olympics.
After a while sports began to pall and he applied for a Foreign Service
assignment. He went to Ethiopia to cover the Italian conquest and after
"THE PUBLIC MUST BE FULLY INFORMED" 445
that came an assignment in the Holy Land, where Arab bombs and
rifles waged war on returning Jewish colonists.
Now he was moving along toward Bilbao with Charles Foltz, Jr.,
a fellow staffer who had relieved Parker on the northern front. On
June 19 Bilbao fell, and Neil, Foltz, and a Latvian newspaperman
named George Timuska, in their haste not to miss anything, found
themselves entering the city ahead of the troops.
With escorts of Basque militiamen, the three newspapermen set
out to tour the shell-smashed city which had been besieged for eighty
days. Bilbao's communications connection with Algorta, the cablehead
fifteen miles to the northwest, had been severed when the Basques
blew up the bridges surrounding the city and the correspondents had
no way of getting their news out.
By late afternoon Foltz had rounded up five cable company
employes and their equipment. He had a plan for sending the news
to London and the arrival of a lone insurgent press officer, who had
followed the correspondents into the city, facilitated matters. The first
Franco troops had just started to move into Bilbao.
The plan was simple. The cable company employes said they
could set up their equipment at the cablehead at Algorta and reach
London within an hour. That would mean much to the correspondents.
It was Saturday afternoon and other correspondents, who had not yet
entered Bilbao, would send their stories from Vittoria or take them
across the French frontier. Vittoria was a good four hours away and
a telegram from there to Vigo, a cablehead, would take at least
eight hours. From Bilbao a trip to the frontier would require five hours
and there was no guarantee that the frontier would be open.
The insurgent captain, who acted as censor, agreed to co-operate
and dragooned all the able-bodied men in the vicinity to help load the
cable equipment on boats for a trip across the estuary to Algorta. On
the other side automobiles were commandeered and the party roared
away up the coastal road to the deserted cablehead. It was a small,
forlorn building at the tip end of a low and barren peninsula. Except
for a bluff a few hundred yards away, the terrain was flat and unpro-
tected. Potentially it was not a healthy spot, for anti-Franco sharp-
shooters still held the opposite shore and did not hesitate to open fire
on any suspected insurgent followers.
Once the party got inside the building, the blinds were drawn,
the lights lighted, and the three correspondents started to pound out
446 „ AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
their stories. Assisted by two chauffeurs, the five cablemen set up their
sending equipment.
The insurgent captain made a pretense of censoring the corre-
spondents' copy, but that night he was too weary to argue and the
dispatches passed his black pencil unedited. Then the newspapermen
waited nervously while the cablemen tried to contact London. The
London cable office had not heard from Algorta for days, but some
English operator had left the Bilbao wire open.
"Hello Bilbao Hello Bilbao Do you have have something for
us?" were the first words from London.
Timuska had written only a brief story, and Neil and Foltz offered
to let him clear it first.
"No," declined the Latvian in his broken English. "My story, she
go third. If I say to my editor in Riga: 'Timuska sent first story from
Bilbao/ my editor say: 'Timuska he is a liar.' But if I say Timuska send
third story from Bilbao, my editor say: 'H-m-m. Third story from
Bilbao. Timuska is a good correspondent, fine correspondent.' "
Neil's story went first, then Foltz's, and then Timuska's, all speed-
ing into London at an eighty-word-a-minute clip. It was a great moment
for three war correspondents who had been accustomed to count eight
to fifty-two hours good transmission time.
They were congratulating themselves on their good fortune when
there was a loud noise in the rear of the cable building, and a crash of
shattering window glass. Foltz and Timuska went back to investigate.
There were round holes in the curtains and bullets buried in the wood
of the opposite walls. They darted back and pulled the power switch,
cutting off the lights and the cable.
A dark shape moved on the waters, heading toward the shore near
the cable building. It was a boatload of government militiamen and they
had opened fire on the cable office, believing it was occupied by Franco's
Nationalist forces. More bullets slapped into the walls and more glass
showered to the floor.
The insurgent captain, who had accompanied the reporters to the
deserted cablehead, took a submachine gun and gave the two chauffeurs
automatic rifles. The cable employes asked for arms as well, but the
captain refused them. They were Basques who had been on the Loyalist
PUBLIC MUST BE FULLY INFORMED" 447
side only the day before. "You were fighting us just yesterday," the
captain said, "so you'll get no chance to try it again today."
Neil, Foltz, and Timuska watched from a window. The nearest
Franco troops were a dozen miles away and the three armed men in the
two-room frame building were the only defenders of a spit of land on
which a trawler loaded with the attacking government militiamen in-
tended to come ashore. There was no chance of dashing out and escap-
ing. The flat, barren country would not give a rabbit cover from the
sharpshooters in the boat.
The rifle fire from the water grew heavier, punctuated by vicious
machine gun bursts. The bullets thudded into the outer walls of the
building, just under the window frames. The captain and the chauffeurs
opened up in return. The three correspondents exchanged glances.
There was no question what would happen if the attackers succeeded in
landing. To them everyone in the cable station was an enemy, and the
correspondents knew what army officers said: "No one takes prisoners
in night attacks. They're too much trouble."
The trawler came on deliberately until it was only seventy yards
from the shore.
For another ten minutes it raked the station with rifle and machine
gun bullets, as it maneuvered for a landing spot not in a direct line
of fire from the building. Then, without warning, a new sound was
heard amid the firing — a noise like Roman candles going off on an
American Fourth of July. A battery on the Franco-controlled shore had
opened fire on the approaching boat. The captain yelled excitedly.
"Tracer bullets! Tracer bullets from our shore!"
The correspondents dashed to the door. The trawler with its cargo
of militiamen was moving at full speed back toward the opposite shore.
It was an easy target for the white balls of fire which streaked after it
— a blinding stream of bullets from a machine gun mounted on the
bluff a few hundred yards inland from the cable station. The bullets
cut a dazzling swath across the water.
Leaving the captain and chauffeurs blazing away at the fleeing ship,
Neil, Foltz, and Timuska ran to the bluff, where they found eight
Nationalist gunners busy with two machine guns. They had been sta-
tioned on the bluff to prevent enemy movements in the area. They
grinned a greeting.
"We would have started firing sooner," explained one of them,
"but we all went back to the village for some food and they came while
we were gone."
448 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"My friend," said Neil, "if you'd had an extra cup of coffee after
that dinner, we'd have haunted you for the rest of your life!"
Foltz was recalled to Paris not long after that and Neil carried on
alone on the northern front.
At the start of the Santander offensive, the next major operation
in the north, he found his movements sharply circumscribed by official
Franco restrictions. The participation of Italian "Volunteers" in the
war on the insurgent side had become an open international issue, par-
ticularly since the rout of an Italian column at Guadalajara on the
Madrid front, and Franco's generals had become wary about permitting
correspondents to learn the exact composition of front-line forces.
When the Santander offensive got under way, rumors had it that
a large number of Italian legionnaires were fighting at the front. It was
virtually impossible to confirm these reports. Ubiquitous press officers
on the insurgent side kept the correspondents out of harm's way at
headquarters and saw to it that they got only such information as
Franco headquarters thought fit to release.
For days Neil chafed at the inactivity and the strict supervision.
He bided his time until one of the press custodians got careless. Then
he slipped away in an old automobile in the direction of the front. It
was not long before he encountered two Italian divisions moving up. He
discovered that he had traveled with both units in Ethiopia and soon
renewed acquaintances with the officers he remembered. They obligingly
gave him the proper directions and he set out again for the firing line.
A few miles along the road he drove up to a railroad track lined
by a long stone wall behind which crouched Italian combat troops in
full field kit. There was no sign of action, so the correspondent halted
and shouted a request for further directions. Two of the soldiers started
toward him with a warning, and the others gestured frantically to him
to seek shelter.
Just then Neil heard the shrill scream of shells. He froze momen-
tarily at the steering wheel, waiting for the explosions. The first struck
with a deafening roar near the left front side of the car, flinging out a
storm of jagged splinters and dirt.
Automatically Neil dived out of the battered machine and made
for shelter.
Another salvo shrieked toward the railroad line and a second later
"THE PUBLIC MUST BE FULLY INFORMED" 449
a direct hit landed on Neil's abandoned car. One of the soldiers who
had run out to warn him was killed and the other lost an eye.
Neil had found the front. His excursion to the battle zone pro*
duced the stories which positively established large-scale Italian partici-
pation on the northern front and brought the question into the open.
To circumvent censorship, the dispatches were sent by courier to the
French frontier.
The assignments in Spain meant constant hard work and a great
deal of drudgery. As in Ethiopia, the perennial nightmare was how to
get dispatches to the communications point once they had been written.
Often after a battle Neil had to climb into his car and drive back as
many as two hundred miles to the nearest telegraph office. Then, before
a story could be accepted, he had to hunt up a translator to put his story
into Spanish. After that there was always the exasperating fight against
the Franco censors and the long wait for a turn on wires already choked
with official and private communications.
Just as with the Franco forces, the men on the Loyalist side also
had their troubles.
On one occasion an American flag displayed on a balcony and the
quick-wittedness of a Spanish employee saved the Madrid Bureau from
attack although it was in the area occupied by government forces, and
its staff had been reporting the war from the "Loyalist" side from the
beginning. There had been sniping from one of the buildings in the
vicinity and a detachment of militiamen moved into the district to
crush it. Members of the Fifth Column — undercover Franco adherents
— had been waging a guerrilla warfare against the government, and
there was no mercy for them when they were caught.
The militiamen decided that the sniping must have come from the
building occupied by the AP bureau. One group deployed to storm the
door, while the other raised rifles and took aim at the windows. Staff
men working at their desks were oblivious of the danger, but Arturo
Cardona, a clerk, happened to pass a window and saw the situation.
There was no time to consult anyone. Risking a volley of bullets he
stepped boldly to the balcony.
"Do you see that flag?" he shouted, draping a flag over the ledge.
"This is the office of the naval attache of the United States of America.
You will lose your heads if you molest this place!"
450 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The untutored milicianos fell back. They did not know that the
United States had no naval attache in Madrid.
The relentless hunt for members of the Fifth Column, suspected
spies, and other designated enemies of the government, made a cor-
respondent's life hazardous, nevertheless. Once in Barcelona a man
walking a few paces ahead of Knoblaugh was shot dead in his tracks
when he failed to hear a sentry's command to halt. Another time, Knob-
laugh and a government official were fired on while on an automobile
tour of Madrid at night. At one time or another Uhl, Oldfield, John
Lloyd, Edward Kennedy, Charles Nutter, Ramon Blardony, Henry
Cassidy, and Robert Okin had comparable experiences.
Most of the news was routed out by telephone whenever possible,
and that meant daily danger after the government placed an artillery
observation post in the tower of the International Telephone Building,
the tallest structure in Madrid. The building was hit repeatedly by
shells. One day while Uhl and Knoblaugh were waiting for a telephone
connection, a six-inch shell smashed through the wall and exploded over
their heads.
Living in constant danger of aerial and artillery bombardment,
some of the men suffered severe nervous strain — "bomb jitters," as they
called it — which made them jump at a slammed door or duck when they
heard the drone of an airplane motor. Because of this terrific tension,
the replacements in Spain were frequent.
Censorship was an endless source of trouble and, because of efforts
to circumvent it, Knoblaugh eventually found it necessary to leave the
country. His difficulties arose from several reasons. He ignored taboos
and wrote about interparty friction and the part foreign intervention was
playing on the "Loyalist" side — two subjects authorities did not wish
discussed. When the censors began striking out from controversial dis-
patches such qualifying phrases as "the government claimed," or
"according to the government," he protested. He pointed out to press
officers that such deletions had the effect of making him the authority
for statements of disputed fact. It was against AP regulations to send
any controversial material without stating the authority. The protests
were unproductive, so Knoblaugh sent out a letter by secret courier
informing New York of the situation. Once advised, the cable desk
could reinsert the qualifying phrases where they belonged.
Kennedy, sent to Valencia to replace Knoblaugh, also had a hard
time. He reported that the activities of the secret police became' worse
as the war continued. His experience was that officials were more in-
PUBLIC MUST BE FULLY INFORMED" 451
terested in getting correspondents to write dispatches that would be
good propaganda than they were in preventing military information
from reaching the enemy. His hotel room was searched, some of his
personal effects "disappeared," coat linings were torn in a search for
"documents," and he was threatened with arrest.
On at least one occasion, however, a reporter got his story through
without official hindrance.
The incident occurred one evening in 1937 when Franco batteries
rammed six shells into the century-old Foreign Office in Madrid. By
this time the war around the capital had settled into a virtual siege
with Franco lines running three-quarters of the way around the city,
cutting off all railroads and six of the seven arterial highways. The
city was slowly starving on the meager supplies that could be brought
in by truck and mule cart, yet few inhabitants left — they had no better
place to go.
The censorship office in Madrid had been shelled out of the tele-
phone building by the Franco artillery perched on hills across the nar-
row Manzanares valley scarcely a mile away. Both censors and cor-
respondents sought refuge in the abandoned Foreign Office, below which
was a labyrinth of dungeons reputedly used during the Inquisition.
The walls were thick, but the building had an open court that was a
constant menace because of the danger of shells dropping into the patio.
Charles Nutter, covering the government side, was sitting in the
pressroom of the cold, exposed building late in the afternoon of October
13. He had just prepared his dispatch, had had it approved by the cen-
sor, and had placed a telephone call for London to transmit the story to
the bureau there for relay to the United States. The established practice
was for the correspondent to telephone his approved dispatch from one
room while the censor listened in on another line. Then, if the corre-
spondent deviated from his copy, the connection could be quickly cut.
The call from London came through simultaneously with a loud
report just outside a window of the Foreign Office. The Franco artillery
had put a six-inch shell into a near-by church and a fragment came
bounding through the window past Nutter's desk. Another shell hit the
Foreign Office itself, seeming to rock its very foundation. A third
landed in the patio and others scooped holes in the heavy walls. It was
obvious that the Foreign Office was the target.
While the shells burst Nutter sat at his desk going through the
necessary motions preliminary to beginning conversation with his Lon-
don office. The censor crouched at his own desk for a moment as the
452 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
bombardment began, but just as the telephone connection was established
he dropped his end of the telephone line and dashed for the basement
where all others in the building were fleeing for safety. It was an uncere-
monious departure, but he paused at the door just long enough to yell
to Nutter, still busy with his line:
"Tell them anything you like about this attack!"
Nutter hurriedly dictated to the London office the story as it de-
veloped, pausing occasionally when the bombardment drowned out his
voice so that the man on the receiving end in London could hear the
noise of the attack.
The shelling lasted for an hour, but the death toll was officially
reported at only six. The only casualty at the Foreign Office was
the AP automobile, which got a piece of shrapnel through its rear
seat. Although no more shells penetrated the office, Nutter had to aban-
don his call after several minutes because of the acrid fumes of the
explosives.
He explained his predicament to London, let the operator on the
other end of the wire listen again to the noise of the shelling and then
broke the connection. His story of another of Franco's attempts to cap-
ture Madrid had gone through without official interference.
"Cheerio," said the man on the London end as Nutter hung up his
telephone.
Outside of Spain the world was going on. Pugilism acquired a new
heavyweight champion, one Joe Louis, whom writers dubbed the
"Brown Bomber." Clipper ships explored the sky lanes for aerial ser-
vice across the Atlantic. In the Far East the undeclared Sino-Japanese
War commanded attention after a temporary lull, this time with both
sides serving notice that it was a fight to the end. Italy joined Ger-
many and Japan in the Anti-Comintern Pact after Mussolini ostenta-
tiously reaffirmed the strength of the Rome-Berlin Axis with a tri-
umphal visit to Adolf Hitler at Munich and Berlin. America's recovery
from the long setback of the depression encountered a sharp "recession"
which sent business indices tumbling. And the Soviets celebrated the
twentieth anniversary of nationhood — a celebration preceded and fol-
lowed by new "purges" of "traitors," self-confessed and otherwise.
The Spanish Civil War, like so many stories of long duration,
temporarily had become a matter of routine interest by mid-Decfember
of 1937. Major developments were few, for winter had retarded mili-
PUBLIC MUST BE FULLY INFORMED" 453
tary operations and Franco was making preparations for a spring offen-
sive. Moreover, front pages were given over to amazing news from the
Far East — the bombing and sinking of the United States gunboat
Panay by Japanese war planes in China. But, quiet or not, there was no
relaxation of coverage efforts in Spain.
The interlude was short-lived. On December 19 the government
army launched a terrific offensive, capturing the city of Teruel and
threatening to sever Franco's Aragon salient at its base. The fight for
Teruel developed into one of the severest battles of the war, both sides
throwing their full weight into the fray.
To cover the seesawing conflict, Neil was with Franco and Bob
Okin and Ramon Blardony were across the lines in the government
camp, as close to the front as the milicianos would allow. The first
impact of the government drive hurled the Nationalists back several
miles, and for days all correspondents with Franco were refused per-
mission to go near the fighting zone.
When the insurgent counter thrust began to gather headway, Neil
again slipped away from the shepherding press officials and made his
way to the front. He cabled an eyewitness account of the fighting on
December 29, describing the assaults of Franco's troops on the govern-
ment front and a synchronized mass attack by two hundred insurgent
airplanes.
Two days later the Franco headquarters lifted the ban on corres-
pondents at the front and Neil and his colleagues started out by auto-
mobile from the base at Zaragoza. In a little while it began to snow
and got bitterly cold. The road was pitted with shell holes and choked
with military traffic. Troops moving up shuffled along numbly in the
freezing winds, and the press car passed knots of peasants huddled to-
gether to keep warm. As they approached the front, the press party
stopped in each village to forage for scraps of news from ahead.
At noon the press cars turned off the shell-pocked main road and
jolted toward the next little hamlet, Caude. Gunfire became louder
and louder. Snow sifted gloomily down. The cold grew so intense that
hands, feet, and ears ached.
In Caude the cars stopped near a barn and the correspondents
piled out to get the latest news. There were Franco reserves every-
where waiting for the command to move into action. A heavy battery
thundered on a field a hundred yards away, hurling projectiles toward
Teruel. Conversation had to be in snatches, between the blasts of the
454 AI? — THE STORY OF NEWS
guns. Four mules stood woodenly by a small pond near the barn where
the press cars had halted.
The news in Caude was quickening. The Franco troops had fought
their way to the outskirts of Teruel. The beleaguered garrison in the
seminary would be relieved and the city recaptured by nightfall at the
latest. Neil and his colleagues were disappointed when an unyielding
press officer refused to permit them to go on. It was still too dangerous,
he said. As a matter of fact, they were too near the fighting zone now.
Someone had blundered in allowing them to come so far.
The men scattered to wait. Some went off to watch the battery and
others to explore the village. Neil, Richard Sheepshanks, of Reuters
Agency, and H. A. R. Philby, of the London Times, returned to their
car, parked some distance from the others. Neil and Sheepshanks had
covered the Ethiopian War together and since their reunion in Spain
had been almost inseparable.
Sheepshanks slipped into the front seat as Neil and Philby climbed
into the back. They sat talking, smoking, and munching chocolate.
The windows were closed against the subzero cold, the snow, and the
bellow of the heavy artillery near by.
Soon they were joined by Brandish Johnson, a young American
who was gathering material for magazine articles. He had just come
back from photographing the heavy artillery in the field.
Poring over a map alone in a parked automobile across the way,
Karl Robson of the London Daily Telegraph heard the terrifying
scream of another shell. There was a stupefying crash and a terrific
concussion. Another shell exploded, and another, and another. Soldiers
shouted and fled to cover. Robson dived out of his car and raced for
the barn. The road rocked under a new burst of gunfire.
As abruptly as it began, the shelling ceased. The newsmen and
the soldiers who had taken refuge in the barn looked out. Three of the
mules near the barn lay dead. The fourth stamped the frozen ground
in terror. There was no other sign of life. Then a man appeared, reel-
ing toward the barn. Blood streaked his face and covered his clothes.
It was Philby.
"They're in there! They're in there !" he yelled, pointing to the
shell-wrecked automobile down the road.
The press officer got there first, with Robson at his heels. They
saw three motionless figures with powder-blackened faces slumped in
their seats. A shell had exploded within inches of the left front wheel
of the car.
"THE PUBLIC MUST BE FULLY INFORMED" 455
When the door was opened, Johnson's body tumbled out from be-
hind the steering wheel. Sheepshanks, who had been seated next to
him, lay back unconscious, his temple torn open. In the back seat
sprawled Neil. He was conscious, but speech was an effort and he could
not move. He had been hit many times. His left leg was torn and
broken by dozens of shell fragments.
Stretcher-bearers carried off Sheepshanks to a dressing station up
the street. Johnson's body lay where it had fallen. Someone threw a
rug over it. The rescue workers had difficulty getting Neil out of the
car. He was heavy and the two-door sedan gave little room for man-
euvering behind the front seat. The Loyalist artillery resumed bom-
barding the village and the rescuers were interrupted several times by
the thud of shells.
"Good work, boys," Neil said when they finally got him out.
"Sorry Pm so heavy. Keep an eye on my typewriter, will you?"
He saw the covered body on the ground.
"Who's that? Robson?" he asked.
They told him and hurried him off to the first-aid hut, thence into
an ambulance with Sheepshanks for the journey back over rutted roads
to a casualty clearing station at Santa Eulalia.
Philby, who had been sitting with Neil in the back of the car, had
had a narrow escape. His head wounds proved not to be serious.
Doctors could do nothing for Sheepshanks. He died that night without
speaking a word. It was New Year's Eve.
Neil was not told of Sheepshanks' death. He was in good spirits
and his colleagues hoped that he was not critically hurt. He joked
with them.
"Well," he said, "I guess the war is over for me."
But Neil was badly wounded. He had been hit by thirty-four shell
fragments and his condition was so grave that doctors at the casualty
clearing station felt he could be attended properly only at the base hos-
pital in Zaragoza. The ambulance made the slow trip in a blizzard and
it was not until one o'clock on New Year's morning — more than twelve
hours after he had been wounded — that Neil reached the hospital. Hal
Philby wrote Neil's story that night and filed it for him to New York.
Philby and William P. Carney, the New York Times correspondent
with Franco, visited Neil on New Year's Day. They found him semi-
delirious. Every effort had been made to prevent his learning of
Sheepshanks' death, but somehow he had heard of it in the hospital.
"They're burying poor Dick tomorrow," he said, "and I'm afraid
456 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
I can't go to the funeral. They keep me here on my back, and I am
getting so sick I soon won't be able to write a story or do anything.
But old Philby has told everything there is to tell by now, haven't you?
Tell my office I'm going to Paris as soon as I can and I'll soon be all
right again."
Then, when his visitors were leaving, he managed one of his flash-
ing smiles.
"So long until tomorrow," he whispered. "I wish I could go to the
nearest cafe with you guys and have a big, cold beer."
Blood transfusions seemed to help Neil, but by the next morning
gangrene developed. He died late that night.
When the word reached The AP in New York, it was a hard
shock. From copy boy to general manager, everyone had known Neil
and liked him. As the story moved out over the wires into bureau after
bureau, the staff's feeling of bereavement increased.
The news touched not only the staff. It affected men on member
papers who remembered working with Neil at one time or another on
the numerous news and sports events he had covered before entering
the Foreign Service. And it meant something personal to many news-
paper readers, particularly the sports enthusiasts to whom Neil's by-line
had long been familiar in the days before he gave up sports writing.
The co-operative's wires were silenced for two minutes on January
3, 1938, the day Neil's body left Spain for home. Zaragoza gave Neil
and his two companions in death a solemn farewell. General Jose Mos-
cardo, hero of the defense of the Alcazar, was present. With members
of his staff, representatives of the provincial government, a delegation
of native newspapermen, and a large group of foreign correspondents,
the general followed the flower-banked hearses afoot. Crowds lined the
city's ancient streets and saluted as the cortege passed. In the famous
Cathedral of La Seo, where the Kings of Aragon were once crowned,
a funeral mass was said for Neil. Then the three coffins were placed
on the train that would carry them to France. An officer called for
"Vivas," and the train moved away to the echoes of "Viva America!"
. . . "Viva Inglaterra!" . . . "Arriba Espana!"
The first matter for consideration when the Board of Directors
met nine days after Neil's death was the question of extraordinary
death benefits for the correspondent's widow, Mrs. Helen Nolan Neil,
"THE PUBLIC MUST BE FULLY INFORMED" 457
and his five-year-old son, Edward J. Neil, III. The general manager
was directed to make special financial arrangements for Mrs. Neil, and
to set up an annuity fund for the support of the boy and his education
through college. Then the directors adopted this resolution:
The Board of Directors of The Associated Press, as representatives
of the entire membership, by this means enter into the permanent records
of the institution this memorial to Edward J. Neil, Jr., gallant reporter,
who died in The Associated Press service at Zaragoza, Spain, as the result
of wounds he suffered while reporting the encounter on the Teruel front.
If democratic institutions are to prevail, as we all believe they will, the
public must be fully informed as to what is happening in the world. We
recognize that the good reporter is the keystone of our journalistic edifice.
Believing this, we also believe that Edward J. Neil's death was not in vain.
He undertook a perilous assignment at our behest and he carried it out
gloriously.
As chroniclers of the day's events, we are proud to pay tribute to his
memory. In him we find a justification of our faith. He accepted and fulfilled
that ultimate measure of devotion which is so rarely found, but which, when
we find it, helps us all go on.
They buried Neil in his native Massachusetts on January 21, with
flowers from all over the world heaped high over his grave. And in
the snow and zero cold of the Teruel front another staff man, Dwight
L. Pitkin, took up the assignment Neil had begun.
XIV. "PEACE FOR OUR TIME"
THE Spanish Civil War staggered on toward its close and the spot-
light of news, more than ever, remained on the Old World. Those
who had felt that Spain was a mere testing ground were saying they
had been right. More than one government talked of peace and pre-
pared for war. The European jigsaw had become a desperate, many-
sided contest in which opposing forces were hammering on toward an
inevitable end.
Adolf Hitler, in whose eyes burned the fire of an ambition to
restore to Germany the power and prestige of pre-World War days, had
become one of the biggest news personalities since 1914. While in
prison for his attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923
the one-time Austrian corporal had written Mein Kampjy and by 1938
it was becoming increasingly apparent that, as Der Fiihrer of the Third
Reich, he was determined to pursue his course.
Hitler sensations had kept the foreign staff on the jump ever since
his appointment as chancellor of Germany in 1933. Each move he made
seemed bolder than the last, touching off a long train of international
repercussions.
The first important news in 1938 came on February 12, when
Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg of Austria journeyed suddenly and se-
cretly to Hitler's Bavarian mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden to confer
with the Fiihrer. For months the relations between the two countries
had been marked by nervous apprehension and suspicion on the part
of Austria — in spite of Hitler's "guarantee" of Austrian independence
— and the unexpected meeting whipped up puzzled speculation. The
official communiques were vague. The Austrian version spoke of a
"distinct triumph" for Schuschnigg, while in Germany there were in-
definite explanations that "improved" Austro-German relations were
likely in the future.
In Berlin and in Vienna the two bureaus went to work to learn the
truth of what actually had happened at Berchtesgaden. What with a
controlled press, propaganda ministries, and self-serving government
departments, real news had a habit of going underground in Central
458
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 459
Europe. It was likely to come in many ways. Sometimes a hurried tele-
phone call from a government employee who could not speak officially.
Sometimes a penciled message on the back of a crumpled handbill tossed
negligently into a correspondent's parked automobile. Sometimes a few
words in a "chance" meeting in some out-of-the-way cafe.
Once the staffs in Austria and Germany began their investigations,
the unexpected meeting at Berchtesgaden assumed a character far dif-
ferent than the innocuous communiques had indicated. Vienna was
able to report that, far from being a "triumph" for Schuschnigg, the
conference had ominous implications. Hitler had served the equivalent
of an ultimatum on the Austrian chancellor, demanding among other
things that he include Austrian Nazis in his Cabinet under the threat
of invasion.
From Berlin came an even more penetrating series of stories. Chief
of Bureau Louis Lochner, who had been building up his contacts in
Germany for fourteen years, pointed out that Hitler had shaken up the
German army only the week before, ousting some of its old leaders and
assuming supreme command himself. He mentioned the general "we-
will-show-them" resentment in Nazi circles against the foreign tendency
to regard the drastic shake-up as symptomatic of general unrest in the
Reich, and recorded the belief in official quarters "that der Ftihrer
might decide on a dramatic step to bolster confidence in Germany's
armed forces." Then he called attention to the fact that the last time
Germany had threatened Austria — in 1934 when Dollfuss was assassin-
ated— Mussolini had massed the Italian army at the Brenner Pass,
but this time Mussolini was a partner in the Rome-Berlin Axis and had
sanctioned the Berchtesgaden meeting. The dispatch was factual
throughout, and the facts gave evidence that an important coup was in
the offing.
The stories of the next several days from Vienna and Berlin began
to clarify the picture. Schuschnigg admitted five Austrian Nazis to his
Cabinet after German troops massed along the frontier. Hitler, in a
Reichstag speech on February 20, not only failed to reaffirm his guaran-
tee of Austrian independence, something he had promised to do in
return for Schuschnigg's concessions, but he spoke pointedly of the
"continuous suffering" and the "unnecessary torture" of Germans out-
side the Reich. Simultaneously in London the British foreign secretary,
Anthony Eden, resigned because of his opposition to Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain's "appeasement" policy toward the dictator na-
tions. There followed a deceptive lull.
460 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The climax came with a sudden rush of cables. On March 9
Schuschnigg, finally convinced that Hitler intended to seize Austria,
made a last desperate effort to forestall such a move by announcing a
plebiscite to determine whether the nation wished to join the Third
Reich or remain independent. The plebiscite was set for March 13.
Almost immediately pressure was brought on Schuschnigg to rescind
the plebiscite order, but he held firm. Disorders and violence broke
out in Austrian border towns which had large pro-Nazi elements. In
Berlin, officials told Lochner that the plebiscite call was an "unfriendly
act" toward Germany and a "betrayal" of the Berchtesgaden "agree-
ment." Austria began to mobilize.
The staff in Vienna— Chief of Bureau Alvin J. Steinkopf, Melvin
Whiteleather, Louis Matzhold and A. D. Stefferud— wrote the story of
Austria's last hours on March 1 1. The first break came in mid-afternoon
after a day of mounting tension and sporadic disorders. Schuschnigg an-
nounced postponement of the plebiscite under threat of Nazi invasion.
A few hours later Steinkopf was flashing far bigger news. Schuschnigg
had resigned as chancellor, again under the renewed threat of invasion.
Then the swift final impacts: the formation of a new pro-Nazi govern-
ment under Seyss-Inquart as chancellor; Seyss-Inquart's request to
Hitler to send troops into Austria "to preserve order" $ and the march
of the German army into Austria.
The next seventy-two hours brought a whirlwind of news. Storm
Troopers took over control of the Austrian capital. Nazi partisans
filled the streets in wild, cheering demonstrations. The beating and
plundering of Jews spread. Wholesale arrests began, and a purge of
"unfriendly anti-Nazi forces" together with "traitorous elements."
Lochner and his Berlin staff reported the Anschluss as Germany saw
it, and Wade Werner accompanied Hitler when he crossed the Salzach
River into his native Austria at Braunau, where he was born, and
started his triumphal progress toward Vienna.
The Nazi seizure of power in Austria multiplied coverage prob-
lems. A tight censorship was imposed. Local telephone conversations had
to be in German and every outgoing call was tapped. There were long
delays in getting calls through to London and other European points,
but dispatches routed via Berlin were transmitted with reasonable
promptness. Nazi surveillance extended to the mails. The handicaps
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 461
under which the staff worked were not lessened by the fact that Storm
Troopers generally regarded foreign correspondents with hostility and
several times threatened arrests.
An incident occurred on March 1 5, the day of Hitler's tumultuous
entry into Vienna. Steinkopf and Matzhold, together with other mem-
bers of the foreign newspaper corps, were summoned to the Chan-
cellery to obtain the permits necessary to hear Hitler speak on the
Heldenplatz and to witness the ensuing parade of the Third Reich's
military might.
Steinkopf and Matzhold got their permits and, with other cor-
respondents, were hurrying downstairs to the courtyard. At the foot of
the stairs their way was blocked by black-uniformed SS guards, the
elite of Nazi organizations. A steel-helmeted officer waved a revolver
at the correspondents.
"Get back at once, every one of you," he shouted. "Get back!
Unless you clear these steps this very moment, I give the order to fire!"
There was no arguing with gun muzzles and an officer of uncertain
temper. Steinkopf and the other correspondents retreated up the stairs
to the press section of the Foreign Ministry where they had just ob-
tained their permits. It became apparent that the press chief there was
as much a prisoner as the correspondents themselves. He telephoned
agitatedly in futile efforts to secure his own release and that of the
newspapermen. He refused explanations and the best idea he had in
the emergency was the suggestion that, by leaning well out the window,
the men could see the Heldenplatz in the distance.
Steinkopf telephoned the American legation and explained the
predicament of the men in the Chancellery building, and his colleagues
made similar appeals to the diplomatic representatives of their govern-
ments. Considerable time elapsed and Hitler's speech was well under
way before the correspondents finally were permitted to leave. The ex-
planation of the Gestapo — the German Secret Police — was that "there
was reason to suspect sudden danger, and immediate and ruthless meas-
ures had to be taken to counteract it. Someone perhaps went too far
in detaining foreign correspondents so long in the building."
The temporary "imprisonment" of Steinkopf and Matzhold, how-
ever, did not affect coverage of Hitler's speech. Wade Werner, who was
accompanying the Fiihrer's party, was on hand to report the address
from the beginning. His credentials had been issued in Berlin and were
not subject to the special regulations imposed on the Vienna press corps.
462 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
The efforts of the Vienna Bureau to tell the swiftly moving story
of Austria's annexation in pictures as well as in words met the same
difficulties. As rapidly as photographs could be obtained, they were
rushed to London either by plane or by wire for radio transmission
to the United States. A surprisingly complete pictorial report went out
in spite of the fact that authorities interposed obstacle after obstacle,
many without explanation. In one instance they refused to permit
the wire transmission of an AP picture showing Hitler's troops entering
the town of Graz, and the messenger was threatened with a prison
camp. On another occasion an employee of the Vienna Bureau was
arrested.
Whiteleather was at work in the office when it happened. Busy
typing out a dispatch, he was interrupted by the sound of heavy foot-
falls in the corridor. He looked up as a jack-booted Storm Trooper
planted himself on the threshold, blocking the doorway.
"Is Willi Jacobson here?" the trooper demanded.
Whiteleather nodded.
Jacobson was a staff photographer of German-Jewish parentage.
Originally he had been attached to the Berlin Bureau, but when the
Nurnberg anti-Semitic laws were enforced he was refused the permit
necessary for all subjects of the Third Reich who were engaged in
newspaper work. Had he stayed in Berlin, he would have been deprived
of his regular livelihood, so Lochner transferred him to Vienna. The
systematic German police, however, kept a careful record.
At the time of the Storm Trooper's arrival, Jacobson was develop-
ing pictures in the darkroom. Whiteleather called him out. He took
one look at the Nazi and understood. The Storm Trooper ordered him
to come along, and he gathered up his coat. Whiteleather's attempt to
intervene was of no avail. He could get no explanation as to why the
photographer was being taken into custody.
Jacobson, like so many non-Aryan Germans in Vienna, was clapped
into prison and kept there for months although no formal charge was
made against him. The combined efforts of the Berlin and Vienna
bureaus to bring about his release accomplished nothing, and the
photographer remained under arrest until the authorities decided to
release him. He returned to Berlin but, being a German a'nd subject to
the country's laws, he was unable to continue newspaper work.
The tempest whipped up by Austria's Anschluss with the Reich kept
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 463
the foreign staff on an emergency footing not only in Vienna and Berlin,
but in London, Paris, Rome, Praha, and lesser points. Hitler's coup
shook Europe and there were tense days during which no one knew
what might come next. In New York the cable and wireless teletypes
turned out the dispatches:
Britain and France Protest in "Strongest Terms" . . . Berlin
Retorts They Have No Right to be Concerned . . . Mussolini Ap-
proves Hitler's Action . . . Reinforcements Rushed to Maginot Line
. . . Czechoslovakia Closes Frontiers . . . Danzig Nazis Ask Union
With the Reich . . . Britain to Speed Up Rearmament, Cautions Hit-
ler Against Designs on Czechoslovakia . . . Russia Proposes Immediate
Conference to Deal With Italo-German "Menace" . . . Hitler in
Reichstag Speech Cites Austria's Fate as Warning to Czechoslovakia
. . . Franco Continues Advance in Spain . . .
The most succinct summary of the foreign situation appeared not
in the cable report but in a story by one of the New York staff's ship
news reporters who interviewed Herbert Hoover on March 28 on the
return of the former President of the United States from an extended
trip abroad. Hoover told him: "The only problem not acute in Europe
is that of parking space."
The echoes aroused by the annexation of Austria were still sound-
ing when the members of The AP met "on April 25 for their 1938
meeting, but for that one day the echoes were temporarily forgotten.
The gathering had one thought — to do honor to Frank B. Noyes, who
was retiring as president after thirty-eight years. Since he first intimated
his intention to step down, he had been prevailed upon to accept
re-election. But now the inevitable time had come and he was officially
surrendering to Robert McLean the gavel he had wielded since 1900.
His retirement, however, did not mean a leave-taking from the asso-
ciation's affairs. The members were anxious that the 75-year-old Wash-
ington publisher continue to be heard in the councils of the co-operative,
and Noyes consented to accept renomination as a director.
The annual luncheon was made the occasion for a remarkable
tribute. A precedent was broken when the assemblage rose and drank
a toast to the publisher and his wife in addition to the traditional
single toast to the President of the United States and the First Lady.
In the principal address, Paul Bellamy, editor of the Cleveland Plain
Dealer, told Noyes:
464 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
"There is one gift we can give you today which will gladden your
heart more than any other. We can and do rededicate ourselves to the
cause of truth in the news. This cause was never in direr need of
defenders than today. But we shall tell the truth— and more resolutely
than ever."
The retiring president expressed his gratitude for the "exaggera-
tions" of the speakers who had described the worth of his long service,
and said:
First, I want to say that no one knows better than I that whatever
the contribution I have been able to give to the modern Associated Press,
its success has not been due to me, but as all of you know, has been
through the staff who have daily gathered the news. Under the direction of
two great men, who have served as general managers, that news was gathered
under the principles that we laid down. And it is also true that if I had
attempted to interfere with that unbiased report I would have been banished.
If it were the general manager or his predecessor who had attempted to color
the news or serve a biased report to you, he would have been banished,
because that is the whole basis of the organization. Fourteen hundred mem-
bers of The Associated Press, as well as the Board of Directors, are on watch
hour by hour and day by day to see that that report is not contaminated, is
not biased, does not represent the beliefs or the opinions or the desires of any
one individual. That, after all, is the real basis of what The Associated
Press is, and that is the reason why in these days at times some of us seem
unreasonably opposed to private control by a private organization of a
dominant news service serving the newspapers of the United States.
I certainly think that Mr. William R. Hearst would not be satisfied to
have a news service controlled by Mr. Roy Howard, nor would I; and Mr.
Roy Howard would not be satisfied to have a news service that was controlled
by Mr. William R. Hearst, nor would I; and I would not be satisfied to
have a news service controlled by Frank B. Noyes, and neither of them would
either.
The truth is that no one man in the world is good enough to be trusted
to color or influence the report that comes to you as the life blood of your
newspapers, and I pray to God that the time may never come when any
individual can dictate to the newspapers of the United States the nature of the
reports that they give.
Mr. Bellamy has said truly that nothing could make me happier today
than to know that this generation were not skeptics as to the things that were
fought for in 1893 and from then on. It would be tragic to me if I did not
feel that the same belief in the vital necessity for a free, unhampered press
was with you today as it was with me in 1893. I would feel that forty-five
years had been wasted so far as I am concerned and that the press of the
country was in a dire situation. But I have no such thought and I am, as
Mr. Bellamy said, happy in the belief that this generation goes on carrying
the banner of an independent press, and the banner of The Associated Press
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 465
as the representative of that independent press. I don't mean that there should
be a dead hand, that times do not change, that there shouldn't be changes
in the organization, that you don't have to give way for the common good,
that we shouldn't modify our hours of publication, or whatever it may be.
Those things are the price of living together. But when it comes to the
maintenance of the principle that nobody else, save the newspapers of this
country, must control the fountains of their news, I hope that you will dedi-
cate yourselves, just as we dedicated ourselves nearly fifty years ago, to the
defense of that principle.
I thank you with all my heart.
There was no doubt but that there were formidable forces arrayed
against honest, impartial news gathering in 1938 — shrewdly manipu-
lated propaganda machines, the tremendous weight of pressure groups,
and the great resources of those whose interest it was to suppress facts.
"In no previous year," the general manager said, "has a graver respon-
sibility rested on the shoulders of a profession vested with the character
of a public service."
One unmistakable index of that responsibility was supplied by
newspaper readers themselves. In other times most dispatches were
regarded as satisfactorily complete if they simply recorded the outward
or official aspects of a situation and left the rest to conjecture. But that
had changed drastically. Now readers wanted something more. They
wanted their information more informative than the immediate current
facts could be. The news report reflected that trend. On virtually every
significant story the dispatches incorporated explanatory background ma-
terial clarifying the latest events, or they went beneath the surface
indications to disclose information which the facts obscured. This ex-
planatory and interpretive treatment of the news was not an innovation
— The AP had been doing it for some time, particularly since 1933 — but
only now had it become an essential element in the composition of the
report.
On the world's news fronts the uneasy spring was followed by an
uneasy summer. In Central Europe the Sudeten German Czechoslovak
crisis simmered. Fierce fighting in Spain marked the second anniversary
of the Civil War. London and Paris reported Franco-British efforts
to rearm. On the other side of the world bombers droned across China,
and to the north Russian troops battled Japanese along the ill-defined
Manchukuo-Siberian border. Even other stories which appeared in the
466 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
report seemed to have faint overtones of remembered conflict. The
Blue and Gray survivors of 1861-1865 held their reunion at Gettysburg,
seventy-five years to the day after the famous battle. At a rededication
service in France, the bells of ancient Reims Cathedral, silenced by
artillery fire in the World War, pealed out for the first time since 1914.
As the first day of September drew near, the wordage of the cable
report began to climb significantly. The pieces of the news pattern one
by one started to slip into place.
From Berlin: Germany Masses Reservists for Maneuvers with
Regular Army.
From London: Britain Warns Hitler She Might Fight if Czecho-
slovakia Is Attacked.
From Praha: Czech Government Offers "Final" Terms for Settle-
ment of Sudeten Grievances.
From Berlin: Nazis May "Sponsor" Sudeten Demands to Speed
Settlement.
From Paris: French Anxiety Deepens, Discuss National Defense.
September came and at the outset the main burden fell on the
staff at the two trouble spots — Berlin and Praha. After these came the
other European centers which inexorably were being drawn deeper into
the developing story with each passing hour — London, Paris, Rome,
Moscow, Budapest, Warsaw, Geneva.
For the first several days of the month the news moved slowly.
Efforts to bring about an amicable settlement of the differences of the
Sudeten German minority in Czechoslovakia got nowhere. The Sudeten
Nazi demand stiffened after Hitler pledged support to Konrad Henlein,
their leader.
Germany moved troops. France moved troops. Czechoslovakia
moved troops.
Lochner heard Hitler call the turn at Niirnberg on September 12.
The German Fiihrer denounced the "shameless ill-treatment" of
3,500,000 Sudetens, demanded they be given self-determination, and
warned "if these harassed people feel they are without rights and
aid, they will get both from us." Two days before Hitler's Niirnberg
address, Lochner had written a story, based on the information
obtained from confidential sources, that Hitler had made up his mind
to demand the annexation of Sudetenland. The NUrnberg speech
marked the beginning of the story's confirmation.
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 467
The stream of dispatches in the next forty-eight hours told of a
continent plunged into the most fearful tension since 1914. From one
capital after another came accounts of military preparations. Disorders
and fighting broke out in the Sudeten areas. At Praha, Steinkopf and
Larry Allen added gas masks to their workaday equipment as anti-
aircraft batteries were moved into the city and laborers dug shelters
in the public parks.
Then came the break. On Wednesday, September 14, the teletypes
in New York began:
BULLETIN
LEAD DAY BRITISH
LONDON, SEPT. 14 - (AP) - IT WAS OFFI-
CIALLY ANNOUNCED TONIGHT THAT PRIME MINISTER
CHAMBERLAIN WOULD PLY TO GERMANY TOMORROW TO
SEE REICHSPUHRER HITLER IN AN EFFORT TO ASSURE
PEACE .
PL GB 410P
BULLETIN MATTER
LONDON - FIRST ADD LEAD DAY BRITISH X X X
ASSURE PEACE.
THE PRIME MINISTER HIMSELF DRAMATICALLY
ANNOUNCED HE INTENDED TO SEE HITLER AND "TRY
TO FIND A PEACEFUL SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS
WHICH IS MENACING WORLD PEACE."
APL GB 413P
BULLETIN MATTER
LONDON - SECOND ADD LEAD DAY BRITISH XXX
WORLD PEACE.
THE GERMAN CHANCELLOR NOTIFIED CHAMBERLAIN
HE WOULD "GLADLY RECEIVE" HIM ON SEPT. 15 AT
BERCHTESGADEN, HIS RETREAT IN THE BAVARIAN
MOUNTAINS. (MORE)
APL GB 41 6P
When Chamberlain, carrying the umbrella which became a symbol,
took off from Heston Airport the next day, DeWitt Mackenzie, one of
the association's Foreign Service specialists, flew after him in a chartered
press plane. For Mackenzie the assignment had an ironic significance.
Twenty years before he had witnessed and reported the birth of the
new Czechoslovak nation in Paris of the Versailles Treaty days. Several
years later he had been a guest of Thomas G. Masaryk, Czecho-
slovakia's first president, at historic Hradschin Castle in Praha, and had
heard his host speak of the little republic's future.
468 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
It was foul flying weather. The Berchtesgaden-bound planes were
pitched about in the turbulent air. Chamberlain, making his first trip
by air, got airsick, so much so that his plane knded outside Munich
to permit him to continue his journey by train. He was not the only
victim of the rough weather. Mackenzie, for whom air travel had ceased
to be a novelty, got just as sick as the prime minister, but he could not
indulge in the luxury of getting back on land at Munich. His job was
to be on the scene at Berchtesgaden ahead of Chamberlain.
The British prime minister's change of plans did not catch Lochner
in Berlin by surprise. He had J. A. Bouman at the Oberwiesenfeld air-
drome when Chamberlain, palely clutching his umbrella and wearing
a weak smile, climbed out of the plane to be greeted by Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop and other Nazi dignitaries. Bouman accom-
panied the party by train to Berchtesgaden where he joined Mackenzie
and Edward Shanke, who had been sent from Berlin.
But even before Bouman's dispatch reached New York there was
another:
BULLETIN
FIRST LEAD CZECH
PRAHA, SEPT. 15 - (AP) - SUDETEN LEADER
KONRAD HENLEIN ISSUED A PROCLAMATION TODAY
DEMANDING ANNEXATION OF THE SUDETEN GERMAN
REGIONS OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA TO GERMANY.
OMH 918 A
The Praha bulletin — which further confirmed Lochner's story of
September 10 on Hitler's Czechoslovakian plans — served advance
notice on the subject matter to be discussed at Berchtesgaden when the
Fiihrer and Britain's prime minister met.
For Mackenzie, who handled the main story there, and for the
two Berlin staffers who assisted him, the assignment meant a struggle
against twin handicaps of inadequate communications and official secrecy.
The little village had only two telephone lines, one of which was
monopolized most of the time by official Nazi business. But in spite of
the fierce competition for the single remaining line, the AP men fared
exceptionally well in getting their copy through to Berlin for relay
to America. Many times, however, good secondary material went into
the wastebasket because there was no hope of getting it on the wire.
As far as the details of the Hitler-Chamberlain' discussions were
concerned, each correspondent was left to his own resources to find out
what he could. The official communique was a model of vagueness. It
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 469
took fifty-four words to state that there had been an "extended, frank
exchange of views on the present situation," and that "a new conversa-
tion takes place within a few days."
Canvassing private resources, Mackenzie, Shanke, and Bouman
were able to establish some positive facts. No great enthusiasm was
evident or expressed in quarters close to Hitler or Chamberlain. It was
certain that the prime minister had obtained no guarantee of peace
from Germany. Furthermore, all indications were that Hitler was
adamant in supporting the Nazi Sudeten demand that Czechoslovakia's
German minority be united with the Reich, and for him the only
question was how this might be accomplished. The one hopeful sign was
that the conversations were scheduled to continue after Chamberlain
had opportunity to confer with the French. All this went into the stories
from Berchtesgaden. Mackenzie's impression was that Chamberlain left
Germany a far sicker man than when he arrived.
Chief of Bureau Lochner had remained in Berlin. His long expe-
rience with the rigid government control of news had taught him that
often the real story could be obtained, not on the scene, but in apparently
unlikely places miles away. Once Chamberlain took off for home,
Lochner's story was the one that the New York cable desk wanted. If
anyone could pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding the Berchtesgaden
discussions, New York felt Lochner could. The story came through
from Berlin via London :
FIRST LEAD GERMAN
BY LOUIS P. LOCHNER
BERLIN, SEPT. 16 - (AP) - ADOLF HITLER
WAS SAID TODAY TO HAVE DEMANDED BOTH CESSION
TO GERMANY OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA'S SUDETEN AREA
AND BINDING ASSURANCES THAT CZECHOSLOVAKIA'S
FOREIGN POLICY SHOULD BE IN HARMONY WITH
GERMANY ! S .
THIS INFORMATION WAS VOLUNTEERED BY A MAN
WHO TALKED TO HIGH CHANCELLERY OFFICIALS AT
BERCHTESGADEN, WHERE HITLER RECEIVED PRIME
MINISTER CHAMBERLAIN OF GREAT BRITAIN YESTERDAY.
ANOTHER GERMAN DEMAND, THIS SOURCE SAID,
WAS THAT AFTER GERMAN ABSORPTION OF THE CZECHO-
SLOVAK SUDETEN AREA, WHAT IS LEFT OF THAT RE-
PUBLIC SHOULD FIT ITSELF INTO GERMANY'S ECONOMIC
SYSTEM, AT LEAST TO THE EXTENT THAT CZECHO-
470 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
SLOVAKIA DID NOT HINDER REALIZATION OP GERMAN
ECONOMIC AIMS.
THE QUESTION OP UNION OP THE SUDETEN AREA
WITH GERMANY, THIS INFORMANT SAID, IS NOT EVEN
REGARDED AS AN ISSUE BY HITLER.
IT WAS SAID TO HAVE BEEN HITLER'S STARTING
POINT IN DISCUSSIONS WITH ALL OTHER QUESTIONS,
SUCH AS PROCEDURE UNDER WHICH THE CHANGE COULD
BE EPPECTED WITHOUT WAR GROWING OUT OP IT.
(MORE)
ES-1135AED
While the teletypes reeled off Lochner's story that Hitler, in
effect, wanted a virtual protectorate over Czechoslovakia, events in
Europe had resumed the furious pace which prevailed before the brief
respite of Berchtesgaden. London found it increasingly difficult to com-
municate with Steinkopf and Allen at Praha. Telephone calls were
limited to six minutes. The delays in getting a connection mounted
from several minutes to six hours. On top of that, a new scene of action
had developed in the Sudeten areas, where fighting was going on
between members of the Nazi Free Corps and Czech gendarmes or
troops.
Whiteleather of the Berlin Bureau was the first to reach the fresh
trouble zone. Armed with credentials from both German and Czech
authorities, he was given a roving assignment to work on both sides of
the disputed frontier in the Asch-Eger district, reporting the disorders
and the stormy Nazi demonstrations for a return of the Sudetenland
to the Reich. Whiteleather was followed by Roy Porter, of the Paris
Bureau, who took over the task of patrolling another turbulent section
of Sudetenland by auto. Later a third man, Edward Kennedy of Rome,
was moved into the area. Across the German frontier R. F. Schildbach
took up the job of covering troop concentrations, the arrival of Sudeten
"refugees," the activities of the fugitive Sudeten Nazi leader, Konrad
Henlein, and the mobilization of the "Free Corps" which made its
headquarters on German soil.
The border districts swarmed with secret police and the populace
was infected with a spy scare. The possession of pencil and paper, and
especially a map, was a good ticket to the nearest police station. Twice
in one day Whiteleather found himself in the hands of the police.
Because he was seen asking questions in Selb, a small Bavarian town,
he was taken into custody and questioned exhaustively before the officer
finally agreed to release him. The Czechs were just as suspicious. A
post-office official in Eger, Nazi Sudeten stronghold, who examined the
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 471
correspondent's credentials, jumped to the conclusion that the safe-
conduct letter from the Czech Foreign Office was a forgery. He sum-
moned the criminal police and Whiteleather was taken to the local
headquarters.
An effort to obtain an interview with the elusive Henlein led to
the worst experience. Tipped off that Henlein would address an un-
scheduled Sudeten rally one night in Dresden, Germany, Whiteleather
set out by automobile with Kenneth Anderson, a Reuters correspondent.
They did not find Henlein, but there was plenty of news in the fiery
mass meeting, with one of Henlein's aides proclaiming: "With gun in
hand we are going to fight for our freedom."
The meeting hall was jammed and the two correspondents joined
the overflow throngs gathered outside to listen to the harangue over
loud-speakers. They were busily taking notes when a Sudeten loudly
began denouncing them as spies. The crowd set upon them and before
the police arrived the reporters were roughly handled. The local police
turned the pair over to the Gestapo and from that point on they were
unable to help themselves.
Whiteleather and Anderson were stripped of everything they
carried. Requests for permission to communicate with an American or
British consul were a waste of breath. They were thrust into a room. A
moment later an officer stalked in, planked his heavy automatic on a
table, and then began to ask questions.
The questioning lasted for an hour and a half and all the while,
Whiteleather realized, the exclusive Sudeten rally story was getting
colder and colder. Then abruptly the officer left the room, the two
newspapermen were taken back to another part of the station where
their belongings and credentials were returned without comment. They
were free to go.
The news was what mattered, and the tom-tom of events grew
faster in a crisis which had become a war of nerves. The cable teletypes
in New York were never quiet:
Czechoslovakia Dissolves Nazi Sudeten Party . . . Germany
Accuses Czechs of "Provocation" . . . Ten Million Men Under Arms
in Europe . . . French and British Statesmen Meet in London to
Draft Answer to Hitler . . . Czechs Decree State of Emergency . . .
The outcome of the fateful Franco-British conference at London
was a decision to support Hitler in his demands concerning the German
minorities in Czechoslovakia. The two powers jointly "proposed" that
the Czechs agree to cede the Sudeten areas to the Reich. While Czecho-
472 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
Slovakia's answer was awaited, the teletypes spelled out another foot-
note to the future:
BULLETIN
GENEVA, SEPT. 21 - (AP) - MAXIM LITVINOFF,
SOVIET RUSSIA'S FOREIGN COMMISSAR, TODAY
BITTERLY ACCUSED BRITAIN AND PRANCE OF AVOIDING
"A PROBLEMATICAL WAR TODAY IN RETURN FOR A
CERTAIN AND LARGE-SCALE WAR TOMORROW."
GB 755A
BULLETIN
FOURTH LEAD CZECH
PRAHA, SEPT. 21 - (AP) - THE PROPAGANDA
MINISTRY DISCLOSED INFORMALLY TONIGHT THAT
CZECHOSLOVAKIA HAD ACCEPTED THE BRITISH
FRENCH PLAN FOR MEETING REICHSFUHRER ADOLF
HITLER'S PEACE TERMS.
OL145P
BULLETIN MATTER
PRAHA - FIRST ADD FOURTH LEAD CZECH XXX
TERMS.
AN OFFICIAL OF THE MINISTRY SAID AT 6:15
P.M. THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAD YIELDED TO THE
PRESSURE OF LONDON AND PARIS.
THE BRITISH AND FRENCH LEGATIONS WERE
NOTIFIED OF THIS DECISION IN NOTES DELIVERED
LATE THIS AFTERNOON.
GB 146P
8
Mackenzie, Shanke, and Fred Vanderschmidt of the London staff,
were at Godesberg on September 22 for the second of Chamberlain's
three meetings with the German Chancellor. As far as coverage prob-
lems went, it was another Berchtesgaden with inadequate communica-
tions and a stone wall of official reticence. The hotel where Hitler
stayed was surrounded by army units, Hitler elite guards and Gestapo
men. Correspondents were denied all access. Nazi officials were the soul
of politeness, but where news was concerned their co-operation ended.
A few secretly contributed some information, but the bulk of the facts
were obtained sub rosa from Britishers on the staff accompanying
Chamberlain.
The conference dragged through two nerve-racking days. Most of
the co-operative's news was routed through Berlin, and the facilities
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 473
left much to be desired. The German capital could be reached only
by so-called "lightning calls" which cost ten times the ordinary tolls,
and the connections were arbitrarily broken after a certain number of
minutes, the time allotment varying unpredictably from hour to hour.
The story that Mackenzie, Vanderschmidt, and Shanke sent from
Godesberg was the story of a deadlocked conference with Hitler increas-
ing his Czechoslovakian demands and insisting they be met by October
i under threat of war. From Praha, Steinkopf flashed the order for
a general mobilization of Czechoslovakia's armed forces, and on the
heels of that news came John Lloyd's bulletin from Paris that Premier
Edouard Daladier had decided to decree general mobilization the
moment Germany marched against Czechoslovakia.
Europe began to black-out.
Then with the terrific tension close to the breaking point, another
respite — another momentous scrap of copy:
THIRD NIGHT LEAD CHAMBERLAIN
BY FRED VANDERSCHMIDT
GODESBERG, GERMANY, SEPT. 24 - (AP) - (SAT-
URDAY) - PRIME MINISTER CHAMBERLAIN SALVAGED
THE EPOCHAL "PEACE OR WAR" CONFERENCE WITH
ADOLF HITLER TODAY WITH A MIDNIGHT PROMISE TO
PUT NEW PRESSURE ON CZECHOSLOVAKIA, MENACED AND
MOBILIZED.
349AMA
If communications with Praha had been erratic before, they became
virtually impossible once the Czechoslovakia mobilization was decreed.
More calls were put in to Praha 236:1 — SteinkopPs telephone number
— than to any other single staff phone in Europe, but only rarely did
one get through. Nearby Budapest refused even urgent calls to Czech
points, and except for wireless, the little republic was virtually isolated.
Marylla Chrzanowska, correspondent at Warsaw, managed to get
through a call from Poland, but it was quickly interrupted. Without
success, London enlisted the help of amateur wireless stations in an
effort to contact Steinkopf or Allen. One story did come through to
New York by short wave, addressed jointly to The AP and one of its
local members, the Herald Tribime.
Other facilities developed alarming symptoms of disintegration
on September 25. Telephone calls from London to Paris were subject
to a forty-minute delay and were limited to six minutes. The London-
Budapest delay was at least an hour. The London-Moscow lines were
474 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
so uncertain under normal conditions that a change for the worse there
could not make much difference. At London, peacetime hub of the
organization in Europe, there was evidence that delays might soon
extend to the cables, and Chief of Bureau J. C. Stark warned New
York to stand ready to handle quick transatlantic telephone calls. To
make communications trouble complete, atmospheric conditions badly
hampered the radio transmission of pictures.
In the no man's land of the Sudeten regions, Whiteleather, Porter,
and Kennedy were finding their assignments more perilous than ever,
what with land mines, snipers, and barbed-wire entanglements. Al-
though instructed to take no unnecessary risks, the men frequently faced
machine gun and rifle fire to get their stories. Regulations became more
severe. The Nazi Free Corps barred all correspondents from approach-
ing within gunshot of their rear guard unless they had special passes,
and these were valid for only a few hours. Because of the paralysis of
Czech communications, Whiteleather had to drive sixty miles to get
his stories out, while his two colleagues, lacking German credentials,
could not cross the border and were forced to rely either on couriers
to neighboring countries or on the uncertain telegraph.
Whiteleather's experience with spy scares and police of one sort
or another convinced him it might be wise to show his nationality
plainly. He got a small American flag and pinned it to his coat lapel.
His confidence was deflated when an innkeeper at Asch inquired
curiously: "What's that you have, a German war flag?" On another
occasion he got a lift across the border from Anderson of Reuters, who
had a British flag on his car. When they stopped at Selb in Germany
to file their stories, a peasant girl touched the AP man's arm and
pointed to the Union Jack. "Is that the new Sudeten German party
flag?" she asked. After that Whiteleather gave up the flag idea.
The anxiety and tension before the Chamberlain-Hitler meeting
at Godesberg was as nothing to what succeeded it. Dispatch after dispatch
told of a continent sweeping toward a precipice which all those con-
cerned professed every desire to avoid. Even the small, traditionally
neutral nations were girding for an emergency. Occasional items such
as the report of a prize fight in London or a soccer game in Dublin
seemed incongruous news indeed, sandwiched as they were between
stories of air raid scares in Paris and black-outs in Praha.
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 475
Editors in New York swiftly relayed the incoming flood of copy,
inserting the deleted first names, articles and prepositions, then rushing
the dispatches to the Morkrums:
BULLETIN
SECOND LEAD FRENCH
PARIS, SEPT. 24 - (AP) - PRANCE MOBILIZED
270,000 RESERVISTS TODAY IN THE LAST STEP
BEFORE GENERAL MOBILIZATION AS EVACUATION OP
TOWNS ALONG THE GERMAN FRONTIER BEGAN.
RFH 523 AED
BULLETIN MATTER
PARIS - FIRST ADD SECOND LEAD FRENCH XXX
FRONTIER BEGAN.
TWO FULL CLASSES WERE ORDERED TO THE COLORS
THIS MORNING, PUSHING PRANCE'S MEN UNDER ARMS
TO CONSIDERABLY OVER THE 2,000,000 MARK.
AT THE SAME TIME IT WAS REPORTED THAT
PREMIER DALADIER WOULD FLY TO LONDON THIS
MORNING BECAUSE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION
GROWING FROM GERMAN EFFORTS TO TAKE OVER
CZECHOSLOVAKIA'S SUDETENLAND HAD BECOME MUCH
WORSE .
TFH 525AED
More copy:
BULLETIN
VICENZA, ITALY, SEPT. 25 - (AP) - PREMIER
MUSSOLINI THREATENED TODAY TO TAKE MILITARY
MEASURES IF OTHER NATIONS DO NOT CEASE MOBILIZ-
ING MEN AND WARSHIPS.
MUSSOLINI DID NOT MENTION BY NAME EITHER
FRANCE OR GREAT BRITAIN, BOTH OF WHICH HAVE
TAKEN EMERGENCY PRECAUTIONS, BUT IT WAS BELIEVED
HIS DECLARATION WAS DIRECTED AT THEM.
BB 1242A
By this time the situation had become so ominous that the question
of evacuating the families of correspondents arose. Stark of London
advised the general manager that he was sending the wives and children
of his staff men to the country, pending provisions for their return to
the United States. Boat accommodations were at a premium, he cabled,
but Joseph P. Kennedy, United States ambassador to England, was
canvassing all possibilities before asking for American ships. Chief of
Bureau Lloyd in Paris had a similar problem, with the wives of seven
staff men and their nine children to consider. He sent them off to
476 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
remote French villages until a decision was reached on returning them
to America. From Geneva Charles Foltz cabled his family to cancel
their plans to sail from New York to join him. Wives of the men
on the Berlin staff began to pack up and make ready to leave Germany.
Simultaneously preparations were made for the protection of the
bureaus in event of war. Those responsible had to think in terms of
sandbags, black-out paper for windows, and strips of criss-cross tape to
keep the panes from shattering should bombers strike. Final arrange-
ments were completed in cable exchanges with New York for the staff
abroad to revert to a full wartime basis at a minute's notice, filing direct
to New York instead of to London. London still was clearing the bulk
of European copy, but an increasing proportion of dispatches were being
sent direct. Stark also reported that everything was in readiness to
shift the London Bureau to a previously selected secret location if
war came and air raids made the British capital untenable.
All this, of course, was incidental to the main task of reporting
under the most driving pressure. Yet Lloyd in Paris found time to
worry about his staff and the fact that he couldn't procure gas masks
for them. Foltz at Geneva proved the hero of the emergency. He found
a Swiss shop where a limited supply was available at fifty francs each.
He sent thirty to Paris by plane.
And the teletypes hammered on:
BULLETIN - v
FIRST LEAD FRENCH
PARIS, SEPT. 25 - (AP) - THE FRENCH CAB-
INET AGREED UNANIMOUSLY THAT REICHSFUHRER
HITLER'S MEMORANDUM TO CZECHOSLOVAKIA DE-
MANDING QUICK OCCUPATION OF SUDETENLAND BY
GERMANY WITHOUT GUARANTEES FOR NEW CZECHO-
SLOVAK FRONTIERS WAS "UNACCEPTABLE."
BB1232P
BULLETIN
FIRST LEAD BRITISH
LONDON, SEPT. 25 - (AP) - THE CZECHO-
SLOVAK GOVERNMENT'S REPLY TO REICHSFUHRER ADOLF
HITLER'S "FINAL OFFER" FOR PEACE WAS REPORTED
RELIABLY TONIGHT TO CONSTITUTE VIRTUAL IF NOT
COMPLETE REJECTION.
OL 120P
BULLETIN MATTER
LONDON - FIRST ADD FIRST LEAD BRITISH
XXX REJECTION.
IT WAS STATED THE REPLY WAS HANDED TO THE
-BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE BY THE CZECHOSLOVAK
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 477
MINISTER, JAN MASARYK, SHORTLY BEFORE FRENCH
PREMIER EDOUARD DALADIER AND FOREIGN MINISTER
GEORGES BONNET ARRIVED TO CONSULT WITH BRITISH
LEADERS .
OL 12 7P
Czechoslovakia's isolation had become more complete than ever*
Traffic was virtually suspended for all except the military. Most border
points were closed and censorship imposed on all telephone calls. Each
time London heard from the men in the Sudeten region it was a relief.
The dispatches Allen sent through by courier to Budapest offered
assurance that he was safe, but anxiety was felt for Steinkopf. Louis
Matzhold prevailed upon the American legation at Budapest to put
through a diplomatic call to the legation at Praha, and this established
that Steinkopf was well and working hard. Later the Czech legation at
Budapest informed The AP that the Foreign Office in Praha was
making special arrangements to permit Steinkopf to send his dispatches
via wireless.
While the world waited on September 26, the crisis which seemed
to have no end pushed to more terrible peaks. Mussolini again warned
France and Britain to leave the Czechs to their fate. Chamberlain sent
a new appeal to Hitler. And in the huge, swastika-draped Sportspalast
at Berlin the German Chancellor took the rostrum before his wildly
heiling followers for his final pronouncement on the Sudeten issue.
Lochner, Rudolf Josten, and Bouman were there to handle the spot
news, leaving the color to Shanke and Mackenzie, who had attached
himself to the Berlin staff after Berchtesgaden.
Copy — from Paris, not Berlin:
BULLETIN
PARIS, SEPT. 26 - (AP) - AN OFFICIAL
STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE FOREIGN OFFICE TODAY
SAID THAT IF, IN SPITE OF ALL EFFORTS MADE BY
PRIME MINISTER CHAMBERLAIN, GERMANY WERE TO
ATTACK CZECHOSLOVAKIA, FRANCE WOULD GO TO THE
AID OF THE LITTLE REPUBLIC AND THAT BRITAIN
AND RUSSIA WOULD STAND BY FRANCE.
EDB 336 PED
From the Sportspalast:
NIGHT LEAD HITLER
BY LOUIS P. LOCHNER
BERLIN, SEPT. 26 - (AP) - REICHSFUHRER
ADOLF HITLER TONIGHT TOLD THE WORLD THAT IJ
478 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
CZECHOSLOVAKIA DOES NOT GIVE GERMANY THE
TERRITORY HE HAS MARKED AS SUDETENLAND BY
OCTOBER 1, HE WILL ACT.
"THE TIME HAS COME TO TALK BUSINESS," HE
SAID. "THE SUDETENLAND IS THE LAST TERRITORIAL
DEMAND I HAVE TO MAKE IN EUROPE, BUT IT IS A
DEMAND PROM WHICH I NEVER WILL RECEDE."
2145 HTM 530P
Take after take of the story flowed across the cable desk in New
York and thence to the domestic wires. Hitler Text . . . Add Hitler
Descriptive . . . First Add Lochner . . . Second Add Lochner . . .
And the bank of cable teletypes kept spelling out more.
The next day Ambassador Kennedy confidentially advised Stark
to get the families of the London staff out of England and offered to
arrange for accommodations on a Swedish liner sailing September 29.
The British government started the final preliminary moves for the
imposition of censorship. Because two out of three news pictures dealt
with war preparations or subjects of a military nature, they had to be
submitted to the War Office for approval before transmission. Paris
already was feeling the censor's hand. One dispatch was held up two
hours and thirty-seven minutes. Lloyd switched his entire urgent file
direct to New York, reporting that delays on all channels to London
had become several hours long.
At Praha the staff got ready for the terrific impact of the German
Blitzkrieg which everyone expected. Steinkopf informed New York
that he, Allen, and Porter, who was just back from Sudetenland,
planned to divide if the government left the Czech capital. One of
them, however, would remain at Praha as long as communications held
out. The news would go out by radio to the Paris Bureau for relay
to the United States. Steinkopf had no direct word from the border
regions where Kennedy and Whiteleather were still on assignment.
Resentment in Praha ran high against France and Britain, for the
Czechs felt that they had been "sold out" by the earlier concessions to
Hitler. Allen was spat upon by one group of Czechs who thought he
was English, but they apologized when they learned he was an
American.
Not only in Czechoslovakia, but in Hungary and other Central
European countries, the money problems of staff and resident corre-
spondents became acute. Government-controlled communications facili-
ties were insisting on prepaid tolls in all cases. Banks refused to cash
checks, and in some instances no withdrawals were permitted. Treasurer
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 479
Curtis got a steady stream of urgent requests to cable dollars. No
foreign exchange. Dollars.
And all the while the news:
SECOND LEAD BRITISH
BY RADER WINGET
LONDON, SEPT. 27 - (AP) - JAN MASARYK,
CZECHOSLOVAK MINISTER TO LONDON, TODAY MADE
PUBLIC HIS GOVERNMENT'S NOTE FLATLY REFUSING TO
ACCEPT ADOLF HITLER'S "FINAL" TERMS FOR CUTTING
UP CZECHOSLOVAKIA AS THE PRICE OF EUROPEAN
PEACE .
ADS 737A
THIRD LEAD DEFENSE
LONDON, SEPT, 27 - (AP) - THE OFFICIAL
GAZETTE TODAY PUBLISHED A ROYAL ORDER FROM
KING GEORGE DECLARING "A CASE OF EMERGENCY
EXISTS" AND AUTHORIZING THE CALLING UP OF
AUXILIARY AIR FORCES FOR DEFENSE.
OMH 154P
BULLETIN
FIRST LEAD CHAMBERLAIN
LONDON, SEPT. 27 - (AP) - PRIME MINISTER
CHAMBERLAIN DECLARED TONIGHT HE WOULD NOT HESI-
TATE TO TAKE A THIRD TRIP TO GERMANY IF HE
THOUGHT IT WOULD DO ANY GOOD, BUT AT THE
MOMENT "I CAN SEE NOTHING FURTHER THAT I CAN
USEFULLY DO IN THE WAY OF MEDIATION."
GB 211P
LONDON - FIRST ADD FIRST LEAD CHAMBERLAIN
XXX MEDIATION.
"IF I WERE CONVINCED THAT ANY NATION HAD
MADE UP ITS MIND TO DOMINATE THE WORLD BY FORCE
I SHOULD NOT HESITATE TO RESIST IT," THE PRIME
MINISTER DECLARED IN A BROADCAST FROM FAMED
TEN DOWNING STREET.
"I FIND HERR HITLER'S ATTITUDE UNREASONABLE
IN HIS FINAL DEMANDS," HE CONTINUED.
"BUT I SHALL NOT GIVE UP MY HOPE FOR A
PEACEFUL SOLUTION."
GB 218P
BULLETIN
LONDON, SEPT. 27 - (AP) - THE ADMIRALTY
TONIGHT ANNOUNCED THE IMMEDIATE MOBILIZATION OF
THE ENTIRE NAVY.
CCC 614P
480 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
10
The night of September 27-28, taut and weary correspondents knew
the explosive situation could not last much longer. For the past two
weeks they had been battling a maelstrom of propaganda, inspired
untruths, and false reports, endeavoring to sift out truth and actual
facts and to report them honestly, without emotionalism or synthetic
hysteria. A miscue, a lapse in levelheaded thinking under those circum-
stances might conceivably have disastrous results.
Stark sent a message the morning of September 28, saying that
Witt Hancock would handle the running story and Vanderschmidt the
leads when Prime Minister Chamberlain appeared in the House of
Commons that day to report on the crisis and announce Britain's
readiness to go to war, if need be. Everyone expected that to mark
the beginning of the end.
Before the Parliament session started the news indicated how near
that end might be. Germany recalled all her shipping from the seas.
The British Air Ministry sent up fighting planes to guard against any
lightning thrust of enemy bombers. France ordered a new partial
mobilization of army reserves. The Czechs were ready to resist invasion
to the last ditch.
The impersonal teletypes in New York mechanically carried on
with the story which for days had been pouring from 20,000 to 30,000
words across the sea to The AP each twenty-four hours.
BULLETIN
CHAMBERLAIN RUNNING
LONDON, SEPT. 28 - (AP) - PRIME MINISTER
CHAMBERLAIN, OPENING HIS HISTORIC DECLARATION
TO PARLIAMENT TODAY, SAID, MWE ARE PACED WITH
A SITUATION WHICH HAS NO PARALLEL SINCE 1914."
APL GB
And a little later:
BULLETIN
LEAD CHAMBERLAIN
LONDON, SEPT. 28 - (AP) - PRIME MINISTER
CHAMBERLAIN TOLD PARLIAMENT TODAY THAT ADOLF
HITLER HAD INFORMED HIM AT BERCHTESGADEN THAT
"RATHER THAN WAIT" TO HELP THE SUDETEN GERMANS
ACHIEVE SELF-DETERMINATION "HE WOULD BE PRE-
PARED TO RISK A WORLD WAR."
GB 946A
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 481
At the cable desk and in the offices of member papers, editors
gravely watched the story line after line as it came from the typebars.
This looked like the end.
Then in the House of Commons, as Chamberlain was reaching
the close of his speech, a cabinet minister hastily passed him a message
on a folded piece of paper.
The news printers jangled with the bells that signaled only the
most urgent news.
BULLETIN
SECOND LEAD CHAMBERLAIN
LONDON, SEPT. 28 - (AP) - PRIME MINISTER
CHAMBERLAIN DRAMATICALLY ANNOUNCED TODAY THAT
HE, PREMIER DALADIER OP PRANCE, AND PREMIER
MUSSOLINI OP ITALY WOULD GO TO MUNICH TOMORROW
TO MEET CHANCELLOR HITLER.
APL GB1024A
BULLETIN MATTER
LONDON - PIRST ADD SECOND LEAD CHAMBERLAIN
XXX HITLER
THE PRIME MINISTER SAID HITLER HAD AGREED
TO POSTPONE MOBILIZATION OP THE GERMAN ARMY POR
24 HOURS TO PERMIT THE HOLDING OP THIS CONPER-
ENCE IN SEARCH OP A WAY TO AVERT A EUROPEAN WAR.
APL GB 1028A
The bureau chiefs abroad drafted plans for covering the Munich
conference. Lochner, who proceeded at once to the Bavarian city, headed
the staff chosen for the assignment. Mackenzie accompanied him.
Vanderschmidt flew from London. His particular responsibility was the
British delegation. Foltz was selected for similar work with the French.
The fifth member of the staff was Whiteleather, who knew the Italian
end of the axis because of his previous experience in Rome. He got
word of his assignment while under fire during one of the numerous
Czech-German frontier clashes that had been taking place.
The staff took over a hotel suite for its Munich headquarters. A
regular news desk was set up and arrangements perfected for routing
the bulk of the story to London by telephone, and the overflow to
Berlin by telegraph. The story Lochner wrote on the eve of the con-
ference stated on authoritative information that Hitler would insist on
getting the Sudetenland, as he had determined all along.
Lochner and Mackenzie watched Hitler and Mussolini arrive by
482 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
train the next morning, Thursday, September 29. Hitler was smiling
and self-assured. His axis partner, Mussolini, was heavy-eyed and
drawn. The German officials to whom Mackenzie spoke were not
optimistic, but they all manifested a hopeful air. Lochner got a more
positive reaction from his sources. Bavaria's governor, General Earl
Ritter von Epp, a doughty old warrior, had no misgivings. "Herr
Lochner," he explained, "Munich today is the center of the world. It's
right here that its axis is going to be greased!"
At the airport Foltz flashed the arrival of the two Allied spokes-
men, Daladier and Chamberlain. Daladier was the first to land. He came
armed with plenary powers under which he could place France on a
war footing by a single telephone call if the conference failed. Cham-
berlain's plane landed a half hour later. The prime minister was affable
as he received the greeting of Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, but
his smile vanished when he was escorted across the field to review an
honor guard of black-uniformed SS troops.
The conferees held three carefully guarded sessions before the
final agreement was signed, sealing the fate of Czechoslovakia. The
first began at 12:45 P.M. and continued until 2:45 P.M. After a two-
hour interval the statesmen convened again and sat until 8:20 P.M.
The final conference started at 10 P.M. and lasted until after midnight.
Except for the strictly cautious and limited announcements of govern-
ment spokesmen, the progress of the discussions was shrouded with
secrecy and uncertainty. The air was full of all sorts of rumors, sur-
mises, and speculation.
The interval between the first and second sessions gave Lochner
the opportunity he needed and he went behind the scenes, as he had
done repeatedly during the year, to determine what was actually
happening. An hour after the second session began, he had a story on
the cables setting forth in detail an authentic summary of what was to
be the outcome of the conference. Hitler, his information ran, would get
virtually everything he demanded. The only difference was that the
annexation of the Sudetenland would be effected by degrees over a
period of ten days, instead of in toto on October i. The Polish and
Hungarian claims to portions of the Czech state were to be settled, and
then a guarantee by the four powers to protect what was left of the
little nation against unprovoked aggression.
The succeeding hours produced unofficial confirmation bit by bit,
not only at Munich but in European capitals involved, and finally
sixteen minutes before the formal communique was issued:
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 483
BULLETIN
LEAD
MUNICH, SEPT. 30 -- (FRIDAY) - (AP) -
WESTERN EUROPE'S POUR MAJOR POWERS EARLY THIS
MORNING ANNOUNCED AGREEMENT "IN PRINCIPLE" ON
PLANS FOR CEDING TO GERMANY THE SUDETEN REGIONS
OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND THUS KEEP EUROPE AT
PEACE .
WW 753P
There followed the terms for "peace for our time" — terms which
Lochner had described more than eight hours earlier — and a compre-
hensive roundup not only of what had happened at Munich, but also
an explanation of the events and their effect on the nations of Europe.
Simultaneously from Berlin, Rome, London, and Paris came stories
of relief at the settlement of the crisis. Only the dispatches from
Moscow and Praha struck a contrary note. In the Soviet capital the
Munich powers were branded "beasts of prey," and in Praha there was
the bitter grief of a nation which had sacrificed itself to "superior force"
in order "to save the peace of Europe."
ii
Munich produced one more major story September 30— the signing
of a special statement by Hitler and Chamberlain as earnest "of the
desires of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again."
Whiteleather and Mackenzie started for the German-Czech border
to join Schildbach and cover the advance of the German army of
occupation when it started to move into the Sudeten areas on October i.
They found strict regulations had been promulgated to govern all
correspondents. Any foreigner not officially attached to headquarters
or not accompanied by an army officer was subject to arrest. Reporters
were promised an opportunity to see everything, but warned against
independent investigations. Photographers were denied permission to
accompany the troops. The only pictures available would be made by
army cameramen. Across the border with the Czech troops who were
waiting to fall back as the Germans advanced The AP had Kennedy,
Porter, and Allen. They were not subject to the same restrictions, and
photographers had the opportunity of recording the story from the
Czech side without interference.
The hour when the occupation would begin on October I was left
indefinite, but Lochner had his resident correspondents alert at all
484 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
points in case the move was made at some place not immediately
accessible to the staff men with the army. Konstantin Kreuzer at Salz-
burg stayed up all night and flashed the first word when a reconnais-
sance vanguard of infantry battalion strength crossed the border at
2 A.M. near Aigen, Upper Austria. Kreuzer's news of the start of the
occupation — news sharply challenged at the time in a number of
quarters — was confirmed many hours later by both the Propaganda
Ministry in Berlin and by the headquarters of the army.
After that the story settled down to a schedule basis with the
installment occupation of the ceded zones, the Fuhrer's triumphal
progress through the Sudetenland, the Polish and Hungarian annexa-
tions of the areas they claimed, and the readjustment of Czecho-
slovakia's national life to meet her straitened circumstances.
In the judgment of the general manager, the Czech-German crisis
with its weeks of suspense, upheaval, and uncertainty was one of the
greatest tests the co-operative's foreign staff had faced. He wrote an
appraisal in a special message to all employes:
It has been a time when calm, sound, and accurate reporting in the midst
of rumors and alarms was a requisite of highest consequence. Millions of
Americans have made the reports of The Associated Press their first reliance
in their eager quest for the truth. The staff has met that responsibility fully.
It has recorded only the truth. It has reported no wars that did not mater-
ialize, and no peace settlements until they were arrived at.
It is gratifying to know that developments were covered with uniform
promptness — in many instances with surprising and unparalleled speed.
But far beyond that, it is more satisfying than words can express that
nothing you have written need be erased, but can stand as an authentic day
to day history of one of the great international episodes of our times.
The Pulitzer Prize Committee voted Lochner the award for
outstanding work by a foreign correspondent during 1938.
12
As the reverberating echoes of Munich began to subside, Mac-
kenzie, free to assume his roving assignment as a Foreign Service
specialist, set out to visit Eastern and Central Europe Jo study at first
hand the long-range results of the four-power agreement. The question
was: What next in Europe? As a trained observer, he sought the signs
and the evidence. What Munich had meant to the nations most vitally
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 485
concerned, and what officials of those nations thought it might mean in
time to come — that was news.
The first country Mackenzie visited was Poland. He found the
Poles, although jubilant over their share in the Czech spoils, suspicious
of what Hitler might do next. They did not discount their fears of
aggression, and they seemed to have little confidence in the power of
Britain and France, under "appeasement" governments, to deter the
German Chancellor from any subsequent move.
In Warsaw the correspondent had a long talk with an authority
who had been close to the late Marshal Pilsudski, Poland's "strong
man."
"Ah, Mr. Mackenzie," said the informant, "Hitler should have
been stopped long ago. In 1933, the year he became the power in
Germany, Marshal Pilsudski urged strongly upon our ally, France, the
great need for waging a preventive war against the Reich. It would
have been easy then. 'Now is the best time,' Pilsudski told the French.
'You'll have to do it sooner or later.' But France could not be per-
suaded."
As to Poland's future, the Pole intimated that their course de-
pended largely on Hitler's attitude. "He's the master of Central Eu-
rope. Poland doesn't have much choice. It is prepared, as you say, to play
his game economically and in other ways as long as he makes no efforts
to intrude on our sovereignty. It can't do anything else, situated as it is.
But if it ever becomes necessary to defend Polish sovereignty, be
assured that the Poles will fight to defend themselves."
Throughout the Balkans, government officials and others of stand-
ing in the little nations were inclined to take an even gloomier view,
Mackenzie found. He talked with Cabinet ministers, diplomats, army
officers, businessmen, educators, and the peasants he encountered along
the roadsides. Everywhere he found the same feeling that Hitler was
the dominant figure on the Continent, that all Franco-British influence
in Central Europe had been ended by the "defeat" at Munich. Govern-
ments feared that their nations might be the next victims. A great deal
of what Mackenzie learned was in confidence or for his personal infor-
mation as background in writing interpretive articles. By far the largest
portion of the material, however, appeared in the series of first-person
stories he wrote on conditions during the course of his travels.
Christmastide, 1938, was approaching when Mackenzie got back
to London. Almost at once he felt that something fundamental had
changed since he left England three months earlier to fly to Berchtes-
486 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
gaden for the first of the conferences which were climaxed at Munich.
There had been shouts of "Stand by Czecho!" then, but the vast
majority of the people were adverse to stiff measures. The attitude
toward Hitler had been a mixture of tolerance, indulgence, and
exasperation.
This old attitude had disappeared. Exactly when or why, Mac-
kenzie could not ascertain. The new feeling was still extremely vague,
as if it had only started to crystallize.
In search of reliable information, he arranged an appointment with
one of the most important single figures in the British government — a
man who delayed his appearance in Parliament half an hour for the
talk which occurred.
"I have not come to you for an interview," Mackenzie explained,
"because I know you cannot grant one. But I seem to have sensed the
beginnings of a change in British sentiment and policy toward Germany.
I will be grateful if you can tell me if I am right or wrong, and what
it all means."
The statesman did not resent the direct approach.
"You're right," he replied. "The British government reluctantly
has come to the conclusion that the policy of appeasement is a failure,
and there is no longer any use to pursue this policy. We reluctantly
have come to the conclusion that Hitler is not susceptible to any moral
influence. He is a man with a dangerous obsession. We have decided
that we must smash him. We hope to do it by economic or political
means — but if these fail — we shall use force!"
Because of the statesman's high position, the publication of the
blunt, unequivocal statement was not possible, but Mackenzie was given
permission to use the information guardedly as "background" without
positively indicating its source. Accordingly in one of his last first-person
interpretive stories from abroad in 1938 he wrote:
I am in a position to state with assurance that many officials of the
democracies have now adopted the view that Fiihrer Hitler's mind is so
inflexibly fixed on his program of empire building that nothing will stop him
short of defeat in war or the collapse of his regime.
Advocates of a policy of appeasement toward the dictators clung to the
last to the idea that they could bargain with Hitler.
I understand, however, this hope has been abandoned very generally
and it is now agreed that the only value of such an appr6ach to Berlin is
to postpone an ultimate reckoning.
That pretty well sums up the sentiment with which England entered
the Christmas holidays. There is a fairly grim determination to get down
"PEACE FOR OUR TIME" 487
to cases and have an end to war scares, even if it takes a major war to
establish peace.
Here was the answer to: What next in Europe?
13
Even before Mackenzie's illuminating confidential talk with the
member of the British Cabinet, General Manager Cooper had been
assaying post-Munich Europe from the standpoint of the news demands
it might be likely to produce. None of the "peace for our time"
developments had caused him to alter his opinion that, whether it be
peace or war, Europe was a continuing emergency, certain to produce
news of extraordinary calibre.
One of his first steps was the leasing of a special cable between
New York headquarters and the London Bureau — something for which
the association had been negotiating without success over a period of
years. This represented a great advance in transatlantic communications.
It gave The AP control over its cable line, and it meant that an
operator could sit at his keyboard in the London Bureau and send
directly into member paper offices all over the United States, for the
cable and the domestic leased wire system could be hooked together
when outstanding foreign news warranted.
Two other features in the post-Munich program were the addi-
tional assignments of picked staff men to the bureaus abroad, and an
enlargement of the cable desk force at home. The general manager's
final decision was the appointment of Milo M. Thompson, bureau chief
at Washington, as resident European executive. Thompson's duties in
the post were to act as co-ordinator for all the association's efforts in
Europe and to take over the general administrative work abroad so
that bureau chiefs there could concentrate on the news exclusively.
News considerations in Europe and plans for the year ahead were
important during the Christmastide of 1938, but the season also chanced
to witness one of those rare occasions when the co-operative had another
job which, in the last analysis, was quite incidental to the task of
gathering and distributing news. The organization was moving New
York headquarters into its own building.
The dream of a special building to house the organization's general
offices and related agencies was not a new one. Years earlier, both
Stone and Adolph S. Ochs, as a member of the Board of Directors,
had broached the idea, but the discussions had been indefinite. Cooper,
488 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
as general manager, had the same idea and worked toward its
realization.
The new home of The AP was a fifteen-story building in the
Rockefeller Center group off midtown Fifth Avenue, six blocks from
the old Madison Avenue offices. Four floors were made ready, one of
them an immense newsroom of some 34,000 square feet in area. There
the world's most complicated news control board and an intricate
labyrinth of wires were installed to make transmission of the news
virtually instantaneous to member newspapers across the nation. For the
first time in any New York building the power lines of all five city
power stations were cut into the switchboard. Engineers pointed out
that, with this precaution, although the metropolis might be bombed
or ravaged by fire, flood, or hurricane, the chances were almost negli-
gible that all five power stations would fail simultaneously.
The move meant something more than a mere shift in geographical
location. Cooper expressed it in a note to the staff:
The new Associated Press Building is a monument to the association's
newspaper members and its employes. Through 90 years they have mutually
striven that an accurate, unbiased chronicle of events, interestingly recorded,
be available to newspaper readers. . . .
What you have aided in accomplishing in the past must continue into the
future so that "By The Associated Press" shall prevail as long as the rights
of a free press continue to make possible an uncensored, unfettered collection
and dissemination of truthful news.
The future of which he spoke even then had started.
XV. "BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS"
ALMOST a century of news gathering. . . .
They had been crowded, busy years. The news was always the
thing, but in retrospect the unpretentious beginnings of 1848 seemed
hopelessly inadequate for the task undertaken. Then the entire regular
news staff consisted of the versatile and overburdened Alexander Jones
and an inexperienced assistant. Only six papers received the service.
Except on rare occasions, the report never exceeded a few hundred
words a day and the total of all expenses was less than $20,000 annually.
The organization at first boasted no regular foreign correspondents and
the coverage of domestic news depended almost entirely on the enter-
prise of free-lance "telegraphic reporters" who peddled their dispatches
at so much a word.
By the end of the first forty-five years, when The Associated Press
became a non-profit co-operative, news gathering as a public service had
come far indeed. But the years after 1893 wrought a much greater
transformation.
The contemporary association was spending more than $i I,OOO,OOO
annually to collect the world's news and news pictures for 1,400 member
newspapers in the United States and for scores of others over the world.
Yet it had no capital stock, made no profits, declared no dividends. For
its tremendous task it could muster a staff of 7,200, supplemented by
the auxiliary army of editorial workers on member newspapers and
with affiliated news agencies in other countries. To produce the report
of a single day approximately 100,000 men and women contributed
their ability and effort, directly or indirectly. The volume of news had
reached staggering proportions — 1,000,000 words in every twenty-four
hours, more than any one member newspaper received, more than any
one member newspaper could print.
Day after day, on general, regional,
flood of copy poured over 285,000 miles
network more than twice the size of any
of 3,300 teletype machines busy around
item after item. It was a flood that came
489
490 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
— from the association's own world-wide staff, from member news-
papers, from string correspondents, from bureaus in every major city
in the United States, from American-manned bureaus in foreign coun-
tries, and from representatives in virtually every other city, town, and
hamlet of the globe.
At first news had but one medium — the written word. Now a
second had developed— the visual medium. The same forces that were
on the alert around the world to report the news in textual form were
equally vigilant for pictures with which to complete the story told by
the written word. Wirephoto, the only regular picture network in
existence, whisked photographs across the United States to record
pictorially the same history which was simultaneously being written on
the news wires.
The contrasts between the first year and the current year seemed
endless, but those who looked had no difficulty in finding one sur-
passingly important element common to both.
The big story was the same — the fate of Europe.
In 1848 the Old World was shaken and torn. In France, Louis-
Philippe lost his throne. Another Louis abdicated in Bavaria. Ferdinand
of Austria surrendered his scepter to Franz Josef, who lived to see the
World War. There were uprisings in Ireland, Hungary, Italy, and the
German states. There was unrest in England, where the Chartist move-
ment constituted an assault on the existing order.
Now Europe was plunged into another conflict of enormous gravity
and consequence for the entire world. The key figure was Adolf
Hitler and, despite Munich, Hitler was not through.
The vast world-wide resources of news gathering, all of the
modern facilities afforded by the expansion of The AP into its own
new building, combined to keep abreast of events which marched
relentlessly toward one climax. Staff men, struggling in a whirl of
contradictions and unbelievable realities, strove harder than ever for
the truth.
The mechanized Nazi legions moved into Poland on September i,
i939,Vand the cables rushed news of the crushing invasion to the new
headquarters in New York, whence it sped along the wires and through
the air to newspapers in virtually every country in the world.
As recorded by the news, that move by Hitler marked the end
"By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS" 491
of one era and the beginning of another. All that was awaited was the
official Allied declaration.
Then it came — swiftly, dramatically, yet almost quietly at dawn
in the newsroom of the new headquarters of The AP in New York.
It was early Sunday, three days after the German forces moved
on Poland. Outside the streets were gray and empty, except for a few
worshipers en route to St. Patrick's Cathedral, a block away. In the
brilliantly lighted AP headquarters it might have been just another
Sunday morning except that the men, alert for the momentous words
from other staff men abroad, were waiting beside the pulsing cable
machines for news they knew would come.
Everything was in readiness to relay on the news and picture wires
the black-and-white record of history in the making.
A bell jangled on the cable machine and the men hovered to
watch the words as they spelled out:
F-L-A-S-H
CHAMBERLAIN PROCLAIMED BRITAIN AT WAR WITH
GERMANY.
The great story of the generation had begun. Immediately it was
called another World War. Yet, from the outset, it appeared different,
taxing as never before the resources of those whose daily duty it was
to go beyond mere externals in search of all the newsworthy facts. The
conflict involved the same clash of countries, the same struggle for
territory, the same brands of death and destruction. But those concerned
with objective reporting had to realize that it also brought into battle
both physical and intellectual forces beyond anything yet recorded.
Whatever the issues, propaganda and pronouncements from both
sides already had made it clear that there no longer was a question
merely of who should be defeated. The story loomed larger, con-
cerning most of the people of the world because it involved the kind
of governments they might have in the future. Freedom of the press
and of speech, intellectual and religious problems, and the problems
of world trade, in the minds of most people seemed to depend upon
the outcome of the conflict pitting Hitler, a world power after a com-
paratively few years in public life, against the British with their, vast
empire "on which the sun never sets."
Against such a background of world interest, the forces of news
gathering were called upon to report the complex struggle between
Hitler's conception of Germany's rights in the world and Britain's
492 AP — THE STORY OF NEWS
conception of what might follow a Nazi rule of Europe or the world.
Later that same September 3, France joined the conflict. Canada
issued its declaration a week later.
And those events were only the beginning.
The association's foreign correspondents were in action. In Warsaw,
Elmer Peterson and Lloyd Lehrbas dodged dive bombers and the
lightning-swift destruction of a modern Nazi Blitzkrieg to witness the
terror of a military attack such as history never before had known.
With the Germans, Louis Lochner was the first correspondent to follow
the Nazis into action. Russian troops entered Eastern Poland and with
them went Melvin K. Whiteleather.
From all directions, from all vantage points, staff men moved to
obtain the news, hampered by censorship, privation, physical dangers,
and all the conscienceless dictates of those to whom human life seemed
suddenly unimportant. The second World War was barely under way,
yet the number of men already engaged in reporting it outnumbered
many times over those on duty during 1914-1918.
The big story developed, consuming nation after nation in its
relentless flame:
. . . Germany and Russia Agree on Partition of Poland . . .
Germany Announces Capitulation of Warsaw . . . Hitler Narrowly
Escapes Bomb in Munich Cellar . . . Russia Invades Finland . . .
Germany Blows Up Own Pocket Battleship Admiral Graf Spec in
Montevideo Harbor . . . Moscow Announces Treaty Ending Russian-
Finnish War . . . German Blitzkrieg Overruns Denmark, Occupies
Points in Norway . . . British Land Troops in Norway . . . Allies
Begin Withdrawal from Central Norway . . . Germans Invade Neth-
erlands, Belgium and Luxembourg . . . Winston Churchill Succeeds
Neville Chamberlain as Britain's Prime Minister . . . Dutch Army
Surrenders after Queen's Flight to London . . . King Leopold III
Orders Surrender Belgian Army . . . Trapped Allied Troops Begin
Withdrawal from Dunkerque .... Italy Declares War on Britain and
France . . . Germans Bomb Paris, 254 Dead, 652 Wounded . . .
Norway Surrenders . . . Germany Occupies Paris ; . . French Sign
Armistice With Germany, Then With Italy ...
Britain Fights On ...
So the second World War continued, past the time when these
"Bv THE ASSOCIATED PRESS" 493
words were written, past the time they were sent to press. As a climax
to almost a century of reporting daily history, Munich's "Peace for our
time" had seemed a beautiful note on which to end any story of news.
But over the world AP men were busy — and the news went on.
New York, N. Y.
June 25, 1940
INDEX
Abell, Arunah S., 13
Accuracy, 198
Adams, George Matthew, 328
Advertising matter, disguised as news, 295
Airplane, 205-213
Alaska, purchase, 70, 395-397
Alexander, M. B., 326
Allen, Larry, 466, 470, 473, 477, 478, 483
America, dirigible, 208-213
America, Frank, 265-267
American Expeditionary Force, 264, 267,
271-276, 284, 288
American Federation of Labor, 425, 432
American Indians, 62, 84-87, 100
American Mining Congress, 200
American Newspaper Guild, 432, 433, 436,
439
American Telephone & Telegraph Company,
A 3?3, 384
Amis, Reese T., 325, 326
Anderson, Kenneth, 471, 474
Anglo-Irish Treaty, 300
Angly, Edward, 341
Anti-Comintern Pact, 452
Anti-Semitism, 88
Ant isla very movement, 19
"Appeasement," 4^9, 485, 486
Appomattox, 52, 53
Archbold, John D., 220
Argonne Forest, 276
Armistice, 281-283; false, 277-281
Arms Limitation Conference, 342
Armstead, George B., 405
Arthur, Chester A., 89
Associated Press, The, administrative expan-
sion, 418, 419; annual meetings, 381; build-
ing, new, 487, 488; change in operating
methods, 317; election _ service, 249-255;
employes' benefits, 28$, 289, 429, 430,
439; "Extraordinary Occasion Service,"
(EOS), 229, 230; Feature Service, 329,
330, 348, 381; Financial Service, 230, 346,
347; Foreign Service, 355, 360, 484; Gen-
eral Mail Service, 328, 329; General Serv-
ice, 318; laboratory, 361; leased wires (see
Wires); logotype, 286; moves (i9.24)»
307; New York meeting (Stone anniver-
sary), 273; news credited, 263, 286; News
Department, 230, 271; News Photo Serv-
ice, 3?4, 335, 348, 381, 383, 387, 390, 394;
1900 incorporation, 155-157; non-profit co-
operative, I5S-IS7, 175, 3io, 3H; person-
nel administration, 428-431; postwar ex-
pansion, 303, 317, 318; radio and, 379,
380; "reports human spectacle," 315-31?;
retrenchment program, 359-363; scienca
editor, 318; South America, 274, 275;
Special Survey Committee, 201, 204, 230,
231, report, 201, 202; State Services, 317,
318; Traffic Department, 230, 233, 263,
264, 390, 424; war coverage expenses, 287;
Washington Regional Service, 378, 379
Associated Press of Germany, The, 362
Associated Press of Great Britain, The, 362
Associated Press of Illinois, 117-124; con-
flict with Inter-Ocean, 148-155; co-opera-
tive non-profit, 119, 122, 123, 132, 136,
I51-i56; dissolution, 156, 157; Eastern
papers join, 130-134; meetings, Chicago
(1893), 125-129, (iopo),i54; struggle with
UP, 124-135; "unifying contract" with UP,
119, 120; victory celebration, 136, 137
Associated Press, New York (see New York
Associated Press)
Atlanta Constitution, 388
Atlantic cable, 32-35, 50, 63, 67, 69, 78
Atlantic City Press, 364
Atter, Robert, 235, 236
Atwood, M. V., 381
Austria, Anschluss, 458-463; first World War,
235-237, 269, 276
Aviation, 336-342
Bailey, R. 0., 185
Baker, Newton D., 263
Baldwin, Stanley, 321
Balfour, Sir Arthur, 298
Balkans, 235, 241, 276, 290, 485
Baltimore American, 132
Baltimore Press, 29
Baltimore Sun, 13, 14, 22, 132, 354, 385
Bank failures (1893), 116; (1933): 374-3/6
Barnes, Jim, 421, 422
Barrere, M. 167
Barron, Mark, 413, 415
Bartley, E. R., 303, 304
Barton, Bruce, 325
Barton, Clara, 107
Baseball, 78, 231, 245, 246, 292, 320, 342
Bassett, Fred N., 83
Beach, Harrison L., 140, 142-144
Beach, Joseph P., 64, 66, 76
Beach, Moses, 13, 19
Beasley, Lawrence, 229
Beebe, Katherine, 368
Belgium, 235-238, 241, 276, 492
Bell, Alexander Graham, 83
Bell, Brian, 319, 33^-339
Belo, Alfred H., 155
Benedict XV, Pope, 169
495
496
INDEX
Bennett, James Gordon, 10-15, 19-21, 31, 34,
39-41, 71, 75, 284, 331 f
Bennett, James Gordon, the younger, 66,
70
Berchtesgaden, Chamberlain's visit, 467-470;
Schuschnigg's visit, 458-460
Berding, Andrue, 356, 413
Berlin, 88, 123, 148, 168, 169, 260; revolu-
tion, 286
Berlin, AP bureau, 70, 235-238, 241, 242,
244, 247, 256, 441
Bernhardt, Sarah, 200
Bernstorff, Count von, 256, 257, 261
Berry, R. E., 208, 210, 236, 273, 275, 290
Bertaud, Lloyd, 337
Beukert, G. O., 391
Biele, Chief Engineer, 420
Binns, Jack, 203
Bird, A. R., 326
Bishop, Thomas J., 83
Bismarck Tribune, 84
Black and Tans, 300
"Black Sox" scandal, 292
Black Tom explosion, 242, 245
Blackman, Sam, 356-368
Blaine, James G., 94-98, 249
Blakeslee, Howard W., 318
"Blanket" sheets, 4
Blardony, Ramon, 453
Bleriot, Louis, 207, 208
Blitzkrieg, 478, 492
"Bloody Sunday," 183
Boers, 88, 148, 176, 203
Boileau, E. C, 83
Boone, Dr. Joal T., 304, 305
Booth, John Wilkes, 53, 54
Booth, Ralph H., 309
Boris, Grand Duke, 178
Boston, AP Bureau, 228, 246, 247, 264, 305;
early news gathering, 3; police strike, 288
Boston, newspapers: Columbia Centinel, 5;
Gazette, 330; Herald, 131; Journal, 155
Boughan, John P., 425
Bouman, J. A., 468, 469, 477
Bouton, S. M., 241, 276, 286
Boxer uprising, 148, 230
Boyle, Captain P. C., 221-225
Boynton, Charles A., 192
Braddock, James J., 394
Brady, Matthew B., 47, 333
Brandebury, Carl, 222, 281
Brayden, W. H., 287
Brest-Litovsk, treaty, 270
Briand, Aristide, 336
Brooke, Lord, 170, 179, 180
Brooklyn, flagship, 141, 142, 145, 146
Brooklyn Eagle, 130, 155
Brooks, Erastus, 66, 73, 89, 90
Brooks, Noah, 53
Brooks, W. F., 419
Bryan, William Jennings, 133, 199, 200, 239-
241,319
Buchanan, James, 32, 33, 99
Buffalo Courier, 95; Pan- American Exposi-
tion, 163
Bulletins, 194, 198, 248, 276, 281, 282
Bull Moose Party, 230
Bull Run, First Battle of, 40, 41-42; Second
Battle, 46
Burchard, Reverend Samuel Dickinson, 96,
97
"By-lines," 46, 100, 270, 297, 315, 318, 319;
first, 425
Byrd, Richard E., 337, 341
Cable, 237, 303; special, London-New York,
487; tolls, 88
Cable, Atlantic (see Atlantic cable)
Cable dispatches, 74, 77, 78, 109, 276-282,
287; World War, 239, 267-272
Cable News Company, The, 93, 94, 113
Cadorna, Arturo, 449
Cadorna, General, 241, 269
Calabria, earthquake, 202, 203
Caldwell, W. F., 263, 319
California, Wilson election, 252-254
Cambon, Jules, 164, 165
Cameron, Senator Don, 104
Canadian Press, The, 200
Caneva, Joe, 368, 413, 415
Carlson, Harold, 393, 421, 422
Carney, William P., 455
Carpathia, liner, 229
Carpentier, Georges, 296
Carranza, President, 268
Carrier pigeons (see Pigeon post)
Carroll, Jerry, 196-198
Carson Appeal, 200
Carter, W. F., 366
Cartoons, 332; first, 330
"Casey at the Bat," 137, 231
Cassini, Count, 170
Castro, E. M., 354
Cavagnaro, Robert, 368
Censorship, 79-81, 157, 223, 285, 323, 354;
Civil War, 44-46, 48; Czech crisis, 477-
478; Ethiopian, 414; of European news,
164-166; first official, 41; Germany, 168;
Nazi, 460; Russia, 170-174; Russo-Japa-
nese war, 176, 184; Spanish war, 445-451;
World War, 237, 239, 241, 242, 261, 264-
266, 272
Census, Federal, 24; (1910), 214, 224
Cervera, Admiral, 141-146
Chamberlain, Neville, appeasement, 459,
485, 486; Berchtesgaden, 467-470; Godes-
berg, 472-475; declaration to Parliament,
479-481; Munich, 481-486; war declara-
tion, 492; succeeded by Churchill, 492
Chamberlin, Clarence, 337, 341
Channel ports, 272
Chaplin, W.Wy 339, 375
Charleston (S.C.) Courier, 7
Charleston (S.C.) Mercury, 37, 38
Chateau-Thierry, '273
Chatfield, Rear Admiral Sir Ernie, 298
Chattanooga Times, 117, 129
Chicago, 20, 62, 71, 73, 76, 78, 109, 125-129,
293; "Black Sox" scandal, 292; fire ( 1871),
8 1, 82, 100, 122; World's Fair, 123, 124
INDEX
497
Chicago, AP Bureau, 216, 218, 232
Chicago, newspapers: Daily News, 109, no,
120, 122, 128, 187, 333; crusade, 148-150;
Inter-Ocean, 115, 148-156; Republican,
122; Tribune, 60, 65, 66, 73, 91, 93, 94,
in; Times, 100
Chilean Civil War (1891), 140
China, Boxer uprising (see Boxer uprising);
civil war, 453; "open door" in, 153
Chrzanpwska, Marylla, 321-323, 473
Churchill, Winston, 242, 492
Cincinnati, 61, 62, 71
Cincinnati Commercial, 45, 65
Cincinnati Gazette, 75, 92
Cipher code, first, 23
City News Association, 222-225
Civil War, 36-52, 60, 62, 64; pictorial re-
porting, 332, 333
Clark, Charles E., 433
Clephane, James 0., 102
Cleveland, Grover, 76, 77, 94-99, 102, 123,
249
Cleveland News, 285
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 463
Cobb, Howell, 32, 33
Cockerill, John A., 130
Codes and ciphers, 30
Coleman, Melvin, 223
Colfax, Sumner, 54
Collective bargaining, 439
Collins, Harry, 196
Collins, Robert M., 176-179, 181, 208, 235
Colson, Everett, 409, 411, 413
Columbia Centinel, Boston, 5
Columbia University School of Journalism,
170
Columbus, New Mexico, 243, 244
Columbus Republican, 216
Commercial Advertiser, New York, 8, 130
Commercial Telegraphers' Union, 425-427
Committee on Public Information, 264-266
Communists, 286
Condon, Dr. John F. ("Jafsie"), 369, 399
Confederate States of America, 38
Conger, Seymour B., 235, 236, 241, 247,
260
Congress of Industrial Organizations, 432
Connolly, Colonel William, 104-107
Constance, Lake, 206, 207
Continental-Telegraphen-Compagnie, 123
Cook, Dr. Frederick, 208-210
Coolidge, Calvin, 288, 292, 305-307, 321,
324, 342, 343, 348
Cooper, Kent, 215, 216, 224, 233, 268, 357,
361, 362; appointments, 404, 418, 419; as-
sistant general manager, 285-295; general
manager, 307, 3H, 3^5, 3*8, 324, 325, 329,
334, 349, 350, 381; post-Munich program,
487, 488; Traffic Department, 230, 246,
271, 275, 428; Watson case, 434-439; Wire-
photo, 38 1-397, 424
Cooper, Peter, 35
Copp, Arthur W., 140
Corbett, James J., 124
Corporations, 80
Cortesi, Salvatore, 167-170, 185, 203, 234,
235, 241, 293, 356
Costes and Le Brix, 341, 342
Courier, New York, 28, 41
Courier and Enquirer, New York, n, 12,
19-21, 29, 69
Cowles, Paul, 176, 177, 179, 195-197, 3<H
Cox, James M., 291
Coxey's Army, 132
Coyle, John Francis, 53
Craig, Daniel, 12, 13, 26-31, 34-43; founds
new agency, 65, 67, 68, 70; general agent,
Western Associated Press, 71-77; resigna-
tion, 64, 65; second general agent, AP, 28,
45, 47, 50, 56, 61, 62, 70
Credit Mobilier scandal, 82
Crossword puzzles, 319
Cuba, 23, 188; war for independence, 138-
H7, .173, 38i
Cummings, Arthur, 78
Currier, Nathaniel, and Ives, James Merritt,
331
Curtis, E. E., 196
Curtis, John Hughes, 370, 373
Curtis, L. F., 278, 478, 479
Curtius, Julius, 357, 358
Custer, General George A., 83-87, 100
Cynthia, dispatch boat, 140, 147
Czechoslovakia, 463, 467-488; British-French
pressure, 472, 473
Czolgosz, Leon, 163
Daguerre, 331, 332
Daily News, New York, 51
Daily Star, New York, 52
Daladier, Edouard, 473, 475, 482
Dallas News, 155
Dana, Charles A., 90, 91-95, 101, 102, 112,
114, 117, 129, 131, 132, 134, 136, 245
(see also New York Sun)
Daniels, Josephus, 265, 266
Dauntless, AP tug, 140, 143, 145
Davis, Jefferson, 38, 39
Davis, John W., 435
Davis, Sam, 200
Dawes, Charles G., 307
Dawson, S.A., 320
Day, Clifford L., 302
d'Annunzio, Gabrielle, 290
De Forest, Lee, 162
De Graw, P. V., 83
DelcassS, Theophile, 164-166
Democratic party, 90, 97, 99, 199, 245, 252,
253, 291, 307, 349, 350, 438
Dempsey, Jack, 296, 346
Dempsey-Firpo fight, 306
Denny, George, 176, 177, *79, 180, 183, 306
Depression (1929), 354-3^3, 452
Detroit newspapers : Advertiser and Tribune,
73; Free Press, 62, 75; Tribune, 127
Deutschland, submarine, 242, 245-247, 249
Dewey, Admiral George, 141, 296, 351
De Valera, Eamon, 300
Diehl, Charles Sanford, 100-103, 116, 125,
127, 129, 131, 132, 175, 176, 230, 290, 428,
498
INDEX
429; assistant general manager, 138-146;
first by-line, 425; general manager, 154,
Digby, Bay of Fundy, 27
Dillinger, John, 391
Dionne quintuplets, 398
Dirigible, 206-208
Dix, General John A., 50, 52, 56
Dogger Bank fishing rounds, 182, 183
Dollfuss, assassination, 459
Draft lottery, 263, 264, 288
Draper, Norman, 273, 275
Dreyfus case, 176
Driscoll, Colonel Frederick, in, 118, 119,
ISI
Dunkerque, 492
Dunkley, Charles, 292
Dunn, John P., 84, 85, 87
Dunning, John P., 103, 104, 143-147
Duplexing of wire circuits, 361
Earhart, Amelia, 394
Early, Stephen, 240, 258, 263, 303-305, 326,
327
Echardt, Heinrich von, 257
Eden, Anthony, 459
Edison, Thomas A., 246
Editorial page, 36
Edward, Duke of Windsor, 443, 444
Egan, Martin, 184, 185
Egypto-Arabic war, 267
Einstein (Albert) relativity theory, 303
Elliott, Jackson S., 175, 190-209, 257-259,
271, 272, 292, 295; assistant general man-
ager, 350; chief, News Department, 277-
281; general manager, 404; general super-
intendent, 289
Emergency Reserve Fund, 362
Employes Benefit Fund, 362
England (see Great Britain)
EOS bulletins, 242, 276, 380
Epp, General Earl Ritter von, 482
Epes, Horace, 258
Erie Railroad, 123
Estes, Carl L, 395
Ethiopia, 78, 167, 407^16, 444, 448, 454
(see also Haile Selassie)
European news, 21, 22, 31, 67-74, "3, 354;
censorship, 164-166; first all-wire message,
26; post-Munish, 487; post-war, 287;
World War, 261-283
Evans, John, 340, 341
Everett, Edward, 49
Ewing, Don M., 292
Exchange Coffee House, 3-7; Reading Room,
3-5
Express, New York, 10, 29, 51, 66
"Extraordinary Occasions Service" (EOS),
229, 230
Fahy, Charles, 415
Fairbanks, Douglas, 290
Farragut, Admiral, 46
Fascist party, 293
Feature syndicates, 328
, Cyrus, 32-35, 50, 63
Fifth Column, Spanish, 443, 449, 450
Finlay, John, 194-196
Fiume, 290
Five-day week, 439
Five-Power Treaty, 299
Flanders, 242, 267
Flash, 198, 242, 246, 247, 253, 254, 282
"Flashes of Life," 315
Flemington, Hauptman trial, 373, 394, 398-
406
Floods, 420-422; Pittsburgh, 420-422
Florida, hurricane, 325-327
Florida land boom, 319
Foch, Marshal Ferdinand, 272, 276, 279, 281
Foltz, Charles, Jr., 445-448, 476, 481, 482
Ford, Henry, 347
Ford's Theatre, 53-57
Fort Sumter, 38, 49
Fountain, Joseph H., 305, 306
Four-power agreement, Munich, 481-484
France, 70, 102, 182, 183, 466, 475; AP news
from, 164-166; appeasement, 458-488;
World War, 235-242, 261, 267, 271-274
Francis Ferdinand, Archduke, assassination,
235
Franco, General Francisco, 441-451, 463
Franklin, Benjamin, 165, 330
Fuller, Governor Alvan T., 344
Funston, General Frederick, 197
Gallipoli campaign, 241
Gandhi, Mahatma, 351, 354, 358, 359
Garfield, James A., 23, 89
Garges, Milton, 289, 295
Garibaldi, 24, 70
Garrison, Lindley M., 240
Gary, Elbert H., 223
Geistlich, Robert, 194-197
Geneva, 303, 342, 476
George III, 3
George V, 224, 416
George VI, 443, 479
Germany, 70, 88, 123, 206; aids Franco, 44V
annexes Czechoslovakia, 458-488; Anti-
Comintern Pact, 452; armistice, 277-283;
Hitler (see Hitler); invades Poland, 492;
Lusitania warning, 238-241; moratorium,
J56-358; post-war, 351; Propaganda Min-
istry, 484; revolution, 290; unrestricted
submarine warfare, 256-261; Gestapo, 461,
471
Gettysburg, 48, 49, 466
Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 7
Gibbon, General, 85
Gibson, William, 267
Gilbert, Samuel, 4
Ginsberg, Louis S., 212
Gobright, Lawrence A., 31-33, 38-41, 48, 53-
58,99,376
Godfrey, J. C., 291, 292
Gold rush, 23
Gold standard, 116, 133; England abandons,
358; United States abandons, 378
"Golden Triangle," 421, 422
INDEX
499
Goode, Sir William A. M., 140, 142, 146,
168, 290
Goudie, A. C., 140, 143, 147
Gould, Alan J., 306, 346
Gould, Jay, 94, 95, 98, 100, 425, 426
Gracie, Colonel Archibald, 229
Graham, George £., 140-142, 145, 146
Grange, Red, 320
Granger, Arthur, 305, 306
Grant, Ulysses S., 23, 46-57, 78, 82, 122
Graves, Admiral, 265, 266
Great Britain, abandons gold standard, 358;
appeasement, 458-486; Dogger Bank affair,
182; fights on, 492; Five-Power Treaty,
298, 299; General Strike, 321; Intelli-
gence service, 261, 262; International
News Service, barred by, 285; World War,
first, 235-238, 241, 242, 261, 267, 271-276;
second, 407, 491
Greeley, Horace, n, 19, 41, 54, 284
Gross, John, 189, 190
Guiteau, Charles, 89
Hajg, Field Marshal Douglas, 272, 273, 276
Haile Selassie, 355, 407-416
Haldeman, Walter N., 91, 112, 114, 115,
117
Hale, David, 8-10, 12, 14, 24, 25, 284, 319,
331; Associated Press originated by, 19-21;
co-operative news gathering, 15, 19
Halifax, Nova Scotia, 26
Hall-Mills case, 301
Hall, Percy, 304
Hallock, Gerard, 8, 10, 12, 284, 331; first
president AP, 39, 40, 42, 43
Halsey, Ethel, 320
Halstead, Murat, 65-68, 70-75
Hand, Judge Augustus N., 285
Harding, Warren G., 291-293, 303-306, 344
Hargrave, W. H. C., 83
Harper's Weekly, 332
Harris, Morris J., 364
Harris, N. B., 348
Harrison, Mrs. Marguerite, 291
Hartford Courant, 405
Hasson News Association, 78
Hauptmann, Bruno Richard, 391, 398-406
Havana, 137-141
Havas (Charles) agency, 70, 93, 123, 274,
*75..
Hawaii, 101
Hawley, Hudson, 341
Hay, John, 153, 188, 189
Hayes, Rutherford B., 83, 92
Haymarket Square riot, 425
Haywood trial, 200
Hearne, J. D., 112
Hearst, William Randolph, 134, 138, 152,
196,263,385-389
Hemtzelman, C. H., 381
Hendry, Warden William, 345
Henlein, Konrad, 466-471
Henrietta, yacht, 66, 70
Henry, Prince, of Prussia, 168
Herald, New York (see New York Herald)
Herald Tribune, New York (see New York
Herald Tribune)
Herlihy, W. A., 239
Herouy, George, 409
Herrick, Mrs. Elinore M., 433
Herrick, Myron T., 340
Herrin mine war, 301
Herrings, Joseph, 206, 207
Hewlett, Gregory, 364-366
Hiatt, W. C., 276, 286, 302
Hibben, Paxton, 241
Hickok, Lorena, 368
Hicks, George B., 77, 82
Hicks, Wilson, 396, 397
Hilgert, F. J., 137-140
Hindenburg, Paul von, 321, 354, 356-358,
391
Hinman, George Wheeler, 149-152
Hitler, Adolf, 293, 307, 354, 4*6, 441;
Austrian Anschluss (see Austria); Berch-
tesgaden, 467-470; "blood purge," 390;
"final" terms, 476-479; Godesberg, 472-
475; Munich, 481-486; Mussolini visit,
453; Sportspalast speech, 477, 478; su-
preme power, 391, 458, 459
Hoarding, 563, 374
Hobson, Richmond P., 142
Hoe, Robert M., 29
Holland, 237, 276, 282, 287, 290, 492
Honce, C. E., 419
Hood, Edwin M., 188, 189, 240, 256-258,
261
Hoover, Herbert, 270, 344, 349, 350, 377,
463; elected, 351; moratorium, 356-
358
Horgan, Stephen H., 333
Houghton Gazette, 218
Howard, Joseph, 52
Howard, Roy, 389
Howe, James P., 275, 290, 302, 321
Howell, Clark, 388
Hoy, Frank S., 389
Hudson, Frederic, 19, 22, 26, 28
Hughes, Charles Evans, 199, 245, 249-254,
281, 298
Human-interest stories, 314, 315
Humphreys, Joe, 339
Hungary, 287, 482, 484, 490
Hunt, Albert C., 140
Hunter, William, 31
Huse, Norris, 385, 386, 392
Huston, James C., 89, 90
Illinois Supreme Court, 151, 153
Illustrations, news, 328-335
Independent Socialists, Germany, 286
India, 354, 358, 359; revolt, 133; Round
Table Conference, 358
Indianapolis, 61
Indianapolis Press, 217
Inflation, German, 301
International Arms Limitation Conference,
298
International News Service, 263, 284, 285
Interviews, 324
5oo
INDEX
Ireland, 88, 239, 286, 287, 339, 480; Black
and Tans, 290; Easter Rebellion, 242, 243;
Free State, 299, 300
Irwin, Jack, 203, 204, 211-213
Italy, aids Franco, 441, 448, 449; Anti-
Comintern Pact, 452; (1848), 490; news
from, 166-169; World War, 267, 276;
second World War, 492
I vanes, Jos6, 164
'ackson, Andrew, 7, 10, n, 331
ackson, Joe, 292
ackson, Stonewall, 40
"acobson, Willi, 462
Dagger, Claude A., 353
Jamieson, Frank, 366-373
Japan, 257, 259, 465; Anti-Comintern Pact,
452; earthquake (1923), 306; Five-Power
Treaty, 298, 299; invades Manchuria,
374; war with Russia, 172-186; World
War, 236
fefferds, W. C, 209
[enkins, Arthur, 90
"ews, persecution, 460, 462
bhnson, Andrew, 58, 72
Johnson, Brandish, 454, 455
Johnson, Hiram, 254
Johnstown, flood, 104-108; second flood,
421
'ones, Dr. Alexander, 23-25, 107, 307, 489
ones, Bobby, 324
ones, Coleman B., 318
Josten, Rudolf, 477
'journal of Commerce (see New York Jour-
nal of Commerce)
Jutland, battle of, 242
Kansas City Star, 315
Kato, Admiral, 299
Kellogg, Frank B., 220, 221, 225-227
Kellogg-Briand Pact, 336, 337
Kellogg, Mark, 83-87, 100
Kemal, Mustapha, 290, 301
Kendall, George Wilkins, 332
Kendrick, J. M., 419
Kennedy, Edward, 450, 470, 474, 483
Kennedy, Joseph P., 475, 478
Kennedy, J. D., 228
Kent, William, 54
Kidnaping, 364-373, 381, 391; Lindbergh
case, 364-373, 38i, 39i, 398-406
Kilram, Jake, 231
King, Frank, 276, 321
Kinney, W. A., 364-366, 368, 373, 403
Kiriloff (see Popoff, Nicholas)
Kloeber, Charles E., 230, 271, 290
Knapp, Charles, 119, 151, 154, 155
Knight, Rear-Admiral Austin M., 247
Knights of Labor, 99, 424, 425
Knoblaugh, H. E., 442, 450
Komura, Baron, 185
Kravschenko, 176-178
Kreuzer, Konstantin, 484
Krum, Charles L. and Howard, 233
Kuhn, Oliver Owen, 380, 381
Ku Klux Klan, 290, 350
Kuroki, General, 175, 180
Kuropatkin, General, 175, 177, 179, 180,
184
Labor, 422, 423; disturbances, 288
Laffan, William M., 93, 112, 114, 118, 120,
121, 124, 125, 131, 134, 136, 149, 152
Laffan News Bureau, 150, 152, 245
Lamsdorff, Count, 170, 173
Langelaan, George, 341
Langley, Samuel P., 170
Lansing, Robert, Secretary of State, 256-
261
Lapponi, Dr. Giuseppe, 168, 169
Las Guasimas, 143, 144
Lateran Treaty, 351
Latona, brig, 6
Lausanne Conference, 303
Lawrence, David, 240, 258, 403
Lawrence, Jim, 366, 368, 373
Lawson, Victor Fremont, 109-130, 187, 208,
309, 3io, 333, 380; Chicago Daily News
crusade, 148-152; co-operative principle,
319; invasion of East, 130-134; death, 319
League of Nations, 286, 291, 301, 303, 407
Leased wires (see Wires)
Lee, Dick, ship news editor, 229, 319
Lee, Robert E., 48, 49, 51, 52
Lehman, Herbert H., 375, 376
Lehrbas. Lloyd, 492
Leo XIII, Pope, 83, 167-170
Leopold III, King of the Belgians, 492
Leslie's (Frank) Illustrated Newspaper,
33.2
Lewis, John L., 432
Lewis, Roger, 235
Lewis, Sinclair, 323
Liaoyang, 179-182
Limited service papers, 204
Lincoln, Abraham^ 36, 37, 39, 42, 44, 50-52,
376; assassination, 53-59; farewell at
Springfield, 37, 38; Gettysburg address,
49; inaugural address, 38
Lincoln, Mrs., 53, 56, 57
Lincoln-Douglas debates, 66
Lindbergh, Charles A., 352; flight, 337-341;
son kidnaped, 364-373, 381, 391, 398-406
Lin-o-type, 102
Lipsey, P. L, 319
Lipton, Sir Thomas, 162
Little Big Horn, 83-86
Litvinoff, Maxim, 472
Lloyd, John, 444, 450, 473, 475, 476, 478
Lochner, Louis, 321-323, 354, 357, 358, 391,
459, 462, 466-469, 477-484, 492; Pulitzer
prize, 484
Logotype, 286
London, 123, 261, 357; AP bureau in, 70, 74,
78, 88, 208, 235-239, 241, 242, 265, 487;
Diamond Jubilee, 137; Reuter service, 70
London Daily Telegraph, 210, 213, 408, 411,
454
London Times, 46, 104, 139, 454
Long, John D., 139
INDEX
501
Los Angeles Times, 99
Louis, Joe, 452
Louisville, Kentucky, 38, 44, 62
Louisville Journal, 63
Lounsbury, Clement A., 84
Loyalists, Spanish, 441-457
Lucania, Cunarder, 163
Ludendorff, Erich von, 271-276
Lusitania, 188, 238-241, 248
Lyman, A. W., 140, 143
Lynch, W. F., 196, 197
McCambridge, W. J., 361, 418, 420, 421
McCartney, J. D., 283
McClatchy, V. S., 224
McClellan, George B., 41
McCormick, Frederick, 176, 179, 180
McCormick, Robert, 173
McDonald, Hershel, 196
McFall, Burge, 273, 275, 276
McGowan, D. B., 241
Mclnerney, Ben, 194-196
McKelway, St. Clair, 130, 155
McKinley, William, 133, 134, 139, 163, 188,
193
McLean, Judge, 24
McLean, Robert, 417, 439, 463
McLean, William L., 155, 417
McLean, Wilmer, 52
McPherson, Aimee Semple, 323
McRae, Milton, 152
MacDonald, Herman, 344
MacDonald, James, 336-339
Mack, Frank W., 96, 97, in, 114
Mackenzie, DeWitt, 242, 243, 267, 271, 272,
276, 467-473, 477, 481-487
Macon, dirigible, 394
Madrid, 441-443, 45O, 45*
Mail and Express, New York, 89, 124
Mail services, 313
Maine, 95; blown up, 137-139
Maitland and Hegenberg, 341
Makaroff, Admiral, 177, 178
Manchukuo, 465
Manchuria, 174, 176, 179, 183, 186, 374
Manila Bay, 141, 296, 297
Marble, Manton, 52, 66
Marconi, Guglielmo, 161-163
Marine telegraph, 9
Marne, First Battle, 236; Second, 274
Marquette Journal, 218
Marriott, J. C., 140
Martin, Frederick Roy, 230, 236, 289, 291-
295, 307
Martin, Harold, 140, 143, 147, 207, 278
Martinique, eruption, 163, 164
Masaryk, Jan, 477, 479
Masaryk, Thomas G., 467
Mathewson, Christy, 320
Matzhold, Louis, 444, 460, 461, 477
Maxwell, Alice, 444
Medill, Joseph, 60-63, 73, 75, 9*. 93
Mein Kampf, 458
Mergenthaler, Ottmar, 102
Merrimac, 49, 142
Messina, earthquake, 202-204
Mexico, 236, 242-244, 257, 259, 268, 269,
418; war with, 13-15, 19
Mexican War daguerreotypes, 332
Miami Daily News, 319, 325
Middleton, Henry J., 176, 179
Mills, Jim, 355-359, 374, 407-415
Missouri Pacific, 99, 100
Mitchell, J. W., 140, 143, 144
"Molly Maguires," 83
Mongolia, liner, 263
Monitor, 49
Montana copper kings, 108
Moobeny, Henry E., 398-405
Mooney, John, 264
Mooney, Tom, 245
Moore, Governor, 370-373
Morgan, J. P., 66, 124, 223, 230, 353
Morgan, Thomas, 286, 290
Morkrum Telegraph Printer, 233, 234, 244,
278, 303, 36i
Mormons, 19, 20
Morning Courier, New York, 8, II
Morro Castle, burning, 391
Morse, Samuel F. B., 13, 332
Morse telegraph, 20, 29, 233, 234, 246, 361
Morton, Joy, 233
Morton, 0. S., 325
Moss, Edward B., 231, 245, 246
Moyston, Guy, 287, 299, 300
Mukden, 184
Munich, 293, 306, 481-486, 493
Munsey, Frank, 245
Murphy, J. E., 381
Mussolini, Benito, 324, 441, 463; and Czech
crisis, 475, 477; Ethiopia invaded by,
407-416; Hitler, visit to, 453; at Munich,
481, 482; Rome-Berlin axis, 459
National Intelligencer, Washington, D. C.,
National Labor Relations Board, 433, 43 8
National Socialist Party (Nazis), 354, 390,
459-488, 491, 492
Neef, Walter, 121, 123
Neil, Edward J., 413, 4*5, 4i6, 444-449,
453-457
Nelson, J. B., 140
Neutrality, United States, 238, 248
New Deal, 378, 438
New England, papers join AP of Illinois,
131; submarine raid, 247, 248
New England Associated Press, 71, 75, "7
New Haven Union, 131
New Orleans Picayune, 14, 52
Newton, Byron R., 140
New York Associated Press, 60, 94, 95, 122,
152; agents, 23; bureaus, first two, 31;
code of regulations, 30, 31; controlled wire,
first, 26, 27; coverage, 116; end of, 119;
European agent for, 69-74; European
news, first all-wire, 26; first office on for-
eign soil, 26; first years, 23-35; foreign
service, 88; founded, 19-21; geographical
groups, 29; headquarters, 23, 45, 66, 78,
502
INDEX
83; military messages, Civil War, 41;
news monopoly, 31, 78-81; official stamp,
52; Western AP, alliance with, 110-115,
117, 118, 127; break with (1866), 66-71,
130; compact with, 75-77; conflict with,
71-75, 88; contract with (1883), 91, 102;
Western Union and, 78-80
New York City News Association, 48
New York City, armistice, 281-283; false
armistice, 277-281; news getting, early,
7-10; papers join AP of Illinois, 130;
secession sentiment, 38; in World War,
270
New York City, newspapers: Advertiser,
130; Courier and Enquirer, 24; Daily
Graphic, 333; Evening Post, 79; Express,
19, 29, 51, 66; Herald, 11-14, 19, 20, 23,
28, 29, 31, 34, 40-42, 44, 51, 66, 75, 91. 98,
134, 331; Herald Tribune, 473; Journal,
134, 138, 152; Journal of Commerce, 8-10,
20, 29, 39, 40, 42, 43, 51, 52, 284; Mail
and Express, 89, 124; Morning Courier,
8, n; Post, 8, 130, 221; Press, 130;
Staats-Zeitung, 130; Standard, 8; Sun, n,
13, 19-21, 28, 29, 51, 66, 90-95, 112, 120,
134, 136, I49-IS2, 156, 231, 245; Tele-
gram, 134; Times, 21, 28, 29, 41, 51, 65,
66, 69, 91, 133, 134, 155, 210, 224, 289,
325, 455; Tribune, 28, 29, 41, 50, 51, 55,
56, 66, 91, 102, 104, 134; World, 41, 51,
52, 66, 71, 75, 104, 130, 332, 333
New York^State, bank holiday, 375, 376;
papers join AP of Illinois, 130
New York State Associated Press, 29, 66,
67, 7i, 75, U7
New York Stock Exchange, 52, 346-348,
Newport Herald, 246, 247
News, cumulative effect, 188; domestic, 31;
European (see European news); explana-
tory and interpretive treatment, 465;
fields, diversity of, 292, 293; first carried
by wireless, 162; first European cable, 34;
humanizing sidelights, 292, 295; lively
presentation, 314; increasing volume of,
29, 30; local, 152; monopoly, 31, 109-115,
136; property right in, 285, 286; rules for
handling, 62, 63; truthful (see Truth in
news); vicinage, 317
News gathering, 7-15, 66-68, 152; century
of, 489; co-operative for, 21, 118, 119;
monopoly, 31; need for reform, no; sec-
tionalism, 36; systematic, 7
News Photo Service, 334, 335, 348
News piracy, 263, 284, 285
Newspapers, afternoon and Sunday, 313;
chain organizations, 313; circulation, 313;
code of ethics, 187; public service, 187,
188; style, presentation, 314
Neylan, John Francis, 386, 388
Nicholas II. Czar, 171-173; abdication, 262
Nixon, William Penn, 114, 119, 127, 132
"Non-intervention Committee," 441, 442
Norge, dirigible, 323
North Pole, 207-213
Noyes, Frank Brett, 131, 132, 155-157, 208,
273, 279, 384-387; AP president, 261, 289,
294, 295, 362; employes' welfare, 303-
310; re-election, 417-418; retirement, 463-
465; twenty-fifth anniversary, 307-310
NRA, 378; newspaper code, 431
Nungesser and Coli, 337, 340
Nutter, Charles, 451, 452
Observer, New York, 8
Ochs, Adolph S., 117, 129, 155, 224, 273,
487; buys New York Times, 133; em-
ployes' welfare, 289
Ohio river, floods, 421, 422
Oil, Ethiopia, 410-412 (see also Standard
Oil Company)
Oil City Derrick, 222
Okin, Bob, 453
Oldfield, James, 442, 450
O'Leary, Mrs., 81
O'Meara, Stephen, 155
O'Neil, Tom, 339
Olympia, flagship, 296
Olympic Games, Antwerp, 290
Oregon, battleship, 146
Orr, Harry W., 104-107
Orteig (Raymond) prize, 337
Osborne, J. D., 63
Paine, John, 95
Palmer, Frederick, 243
Panama Canal, 170
Panay, gunboat, 453 .
Panic (1893), 116, 123, 124, 126, 129 (see
also Depression)
Paris, AP bureau, 70, 166, 169, 176, 235,
236, 241, 242, 264; bombardment, 271,
272; Germans occupy, 492; mobilization
(1938), 475; Peace Conference, 286,
287
Parker, Alton B., 193
Parker, Robert B., Jr., 442
Parkerson, John T., 273
Patroff, Sam, 401, 402
Patterson, R. W., Jr., in
Payne, Berk, 348
"Peace for Our Time," 458-488, 493
Peary, .Robert E., 208-210
Pel£e, Mount, eruption, 163, 164
Pennsylvania Gazette, 330
Penny press, II, 12, 14, 20
Perdicaris, Ion, 188, 189
Pershing, General John J., 264, 267, 418
Peterson, Elmer, 442, 443, 492
Petrograd, 267-270, 276, 290
Petropavloysky, flagship, 178
Philadelphia, Centennial, 84; papers join
AP of Illinois, 130; Sesquicentennial, 323
Philadelphia Associated Press, 29, 351
Philadelphia newspapers: Bulletin, 155, 417;
Public Ledger, 14, 22, 132
Philby, H. A. R., 454
Phillips, Sir Percival, 408-413
Phillips, Walter Polk, 83, 90, 93, "2, 118,
120, 133, 134; code, 82
INDEX
503
Photo-engraving, 313
Photography, 331, 332, 483; news, 47
Picayune, New Orleans, 52
Pjckens, R. S., 326
Pictures, Anschluss, 462; Czech crisis, 483;
sport-news, 328-335
Pierce, Joseph, 203
Pigeon post, 12, 13, 26, 27, 162, 236
Pilsudski, Marshal Josef, 321-323, 485
Pitkin, Dwight L., 457
Pitney, Mr. Justice, 284
Pittsburgh, 104; flood, 420-422
Pius X, Pope, 234
Pius XI, Pope, 355, 356
Playfair, W. E., 305, 306, 344-34$
Plehve, Viatscheslav, 171, 172
Poison gas, 242
Poland, 290, 321-323; demand on Czechs,
484, 485; invasion of, 490, 491
Polk, James K., President, 23
Polk, Undersecretary of State, 278, 281
Pony circuit, telephone, 216-219
Pony express, 10, 13, 14, 26-28, 84
"Pony" papers, 204, 215, 216
Ponzi, 290
Popoff, Nicholas E. (Kiriloff), 176, 179-181,
208
Port Arthur, 175-177
Porter, Roy, 470, 474, 478, 483
Portsmouth Conference, 224
Post, Wiley, 381, 395-397
Post, New York (see New York Post)
Postal Telegraph, strike, 426, 427
Powers, Philip M., 264, 273, 276
Praha, 466-477
Prenosil, Stanley W., 264, 288
Prensa Asociada, 274, 275
Press, controlled, 458; freedom of, 122, 123,
436-438, 491 (see also Censorship); mon-
opoly, 122, 127, 128
Press, New York, 130
Press agents, 295
Presses, hand, 4; first rotary, 29; mechani-
cal, 13
Pressure groups, 465
Price, Byron, 258, 263, 349, 350, 375, 4'9
Price, 0. K., 398-405
Prime, William Cowper, 43, 52, 64, 66, 67,
76,^90
Printing presses (see Presses)
Prize fighting, 231, 232, 296, 306, 339, 346,
394, 452
Probert, Lional C., 258, 259
Prohibition, 270, 290, 293, 301, 320, 348;
repeal, 379 , . ^
Propaganda, 295, 458, 465; in European
news, 164; German World War, 274,
275; South America, 274, 275; World
War, 237, 238; second World War,
462
Providence Journal, 230, 294, 295
Public utility, 151, 153
Publishers' Press Association, 200
Pulitzer, Joseph, 130, 170, 333
Pulitzer Prize, 318, 323, 373, 444
Quinpool, John, 209
Radio, 313, 355, 379
Ragsdale, W. B., 319
Railroads, Civil War, 46; to West, 20, 62, 78
Raisuli, 188, 189
Raleigh (N. C.) News and Observer, 265,
Rathom, John R., 294
Raulston, Judge, 319
Raymond, Henry J., 19-21, 26, 28, 41, 65,
69
Reavis, Smith, 336, 337, 411, 412
Red Cross, 107
"Red scare," postwar, 288
Regan, J. W., 209
Reichstag fire, 381
Reid, Whitelaw, 112, 114
Rennick, H. L., 269, 276, 290
Reparations, 303; moratorium, 356-358
Reporter, American, in Europe, 69, 70, 72,
75; Bennett first, n, 12; Civil War, 44, 47
Reporting, factual, 314
Republic, liner, 203, 204
Republican party, 95, 98, 133, 191, 199, 245,
249-254, 349, 350; conventions, 188, 291
Ress, Seymour, 381
Reuter, Herbert and Julius de, 70, 121
Reuters Agency, 70, 93, 121, 126, 274, 454,
Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 468, 482
Richmond Enquirer, 36
Rickett, Francis W., oil concession, 406-413
"River news," 76
Rober, Harry H., 321
Roberts, Elmer E., 140, 235, 236, 271, 272,
275, 306
Roberts, Justice Owen J., 436
Robson, Karl, 454
Rockefeller, John D., 78, 220, 221, 293
Rodgers, Commodore, rescue, 319
Rogers, Will, 395-397
Rojestvensky, Admiral, 182-184 \
Rolph, Major James, 280
Rome-Berlin Axis, 452, 459
Rome, Georgia, Tribune Herald, 283
Romer, Harry, 278
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, and bank holi-
day, 377, 378; inauguration, 375-380, 431
Roosevelt, Mrs. F. D., 377
Roosevelt, Theodore, 139, 143, 185-193, 199,
200, 220, 230, 250, 251
Rosen, Baron, 185
Rough Riders, 143, 144, 188
Rowboats, 5-8, 34
Rowell, Chester A., 254
Ruhr Valley, 303
"Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," 96-98
Russia, aids Madrid government, 441; AP
and, 170-174, 290; Bolshevist revolution,
262. 269, 270; invades Finland, 492; in-
vaaes Poland, 492; and Munich settle-
ment, 472; Red Army, 290; "Revolution
of 1905," 183; Soviet twentieth anniver-
sary, 452; war with Japan, 172-186, 224,
INDEX
465; with Turkey, 83; World War, 236,
241, 242, 267-270
Ryan, James, 239
Sacco, Nicola, and Vanzetti, Bartolomeo,
290, 344-346
Sackett, Henry W., 112
Sacramento Bte, 224
Saginaw (Mich.) News-Courier, 309
St. Cloud (Minn.) Times and Journal"
Press, 388
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 130
St. Louis Republic, 154
Saint-Mihiel, 276
St. Petersburg, AP bureau, 170-175, 181,
185, 235, 236, 261 (see also Petrograd)
Saint-Pierre, 163, 164
Salchow, Ulrich, 262, 269, 290
Samoa, disaster, 102-104, 140
Sampson, Admiral, 140-142, 168, 290
Sande, Tom, 368
Sanders, Paul, 354
San Francisco, AP bureau, 100-104, 280,
393; earthquake and fire, 194-198; Hard-
ing, death of, 291, 305; Preparedness Day
bombing, 245; Wilson campaign, 252, 253
San Francisco Chronicle, 104
San Francisco Examiner, 152, 200
San Juan Hill, 144
Santiago, 144-147
Sarajevo, 235
Savage, Dr. Minot J., 272
Schildbach, Robert F., 390, 470, 483
Schilplin, Fred, 388
Schley, Commodore Winfield S., 141, 142,
145, 146
Schoonmaker, Francis X., 90, 93, 94
Schreiner, George A., 236, 237, 241
Schuschnigg, Kurt, 458-460
Schwarzkopf, Colonel H. Norman, 370-373
Scopes Evolution Trial, 319
Scott, James W., 93
Scott, General Winfield, 19, 24, 36, 41
Scranton Republican, 264
Scripps, Edward W., 152, 153
Scripps, James E., 73, 127, 128
Scripps-Howard papers, 387r 389
Scripps-McRae Press Association, 152, 153,
200, 217
Sears, photo editor, 397
Semaphore, 9
Serbia, 235
Seese, George L., 244
Seven-Power Conference, 357
Seward, William H., 54-58
Seyss-Inquart, 460
Shamrock, yacht, 162
Shanke, Edward, 468, 469, 472, 473, 477
Sharkey, Joseph E., 299, 303, 306
Sheepshanks, Richard, 454-456
Shtnandoah, 319
Sherman, William Tecumseh, 44, 45, 52, 85
Sherman antitrust law, 220
Sherman Silver Purchase Act, 128
Sibley, J. C., 220
Silver, 116, 133
Simonton, James W., General Agent, 64-78,
88-90, 92; leased wire, first, 82, 83; and
Senate Committee, 79-81
Simpson, Kirke L., 240. 296-298
Sims, Admiral, 265, 260
Sinclair, Samuel, 66
Sinn Fein, 299, 300
Sino-Japanese War, 364, 452
Six-penny papers, II, 12
Slavery, 35, 37
Small, Robert T., 267
Smith, Alfred E., 307, 349, 350
Smith, Charles Stephenson, 236, 267, 269,
276, 290, 321
Smith, F. 0. J., 21
Smith, Ralph, 399, 400, 404, 405
Smith, Richard, 75, 91, 112-115, 117, 176
Smith, William Henry, 82, 92, 93, 106,
110-115, 117, 121, 274
Smythe, J. Herbert, 107, 108
Snyder-Gray case, 337, 349
Somme offensive, 243
Sousa, John Philip, 137
South America, AP, 275; German propa-
ganda, World War, 274, 275; revolutions,
354
Southern Associated Press, 29, 62, 71, 117,
129
Spain, Civil War, 441-457, 463, 465; re-
public. 356; war with (1898), 138-147,
164-169, 173, 187
"Special" correspondents, 130
Special Survey Committee, 317
Spies, Civil War, 44
Spirit of St. Louis, 337-340
Sports, news of, 231-233, 296, 346, 394,
>m
SS guards, 461, 482
Stager, General Anson, 75
Stakelberg, Baron, 180
Stalin, Joseph, 321
Standard, New York, 8
Standard Oil Company, 220-227, 410, 412
Stanford, Leland, 78
Stanton, Edwin M., 45, 46, 48, 50, 52, 56,
58, 59
Stark, J. C., 474, 478
State services, 317
Stearns, Frank W., 324, 325
Stefani (Guglielmo) agency, 70
Stefferud. A. D., 460
Steinkopt, Alvin J., 460, 461, 466, 473, 477.
478
Stephenson, Francis M., 342, 377
Stevens Institute of Technology, 318
Stimson, Henry L., 356
Stockwell, Thomas, 271, 276
Stone, David Marvin, 43, 90
Stone, Herbert, 239
Stone, Melville E., no, 120-133, H9, l$l>
154, 214-230, 251-253, 261-281, 285, 286,
289, 315, 3i6, 333, 350, 418; European
relations, 162-173; General Manager AP,
156, 175, 176, 179, 214-219, 239, 425; re-
INDEX
505
tires, 294, 295; twenty-five years, anniver-
sary, 273
Stoner, Captain Frank E., 396
Storm Troopers, 460-462
Stout (Thomas) Agency, 47, 48
Stratum, Lloyd, 418, 433
Strikes, railway (1877), 423, 424
String correspondents, 116, 163, 200, 203,
216, 490
Stuart, Wilmer, 249, 250-254
Submarines, German, 247, 248, 263, 265,
266; unrestricted warfare, 238-242, 244,
256-261
Sudeten Germans, 465-484
Suez Canal, 407, 413
Sullivan, John L., 124, 231
Sun (see New York Sun)
Sutherland, Justice George, 437
Switzer, Howard, 325, 326
Sydow, Postmaster General, Berlin, 168
Syracuse Herald, 90, 130
Taft, William Howard, 199, 230
Talley, Charles M., 320
Talley, Marion, 320
Tappan, Arthur, 8
Taylor, Zachary, 19, 24
Teapot Dome, 306
Telegram (see New York Telegram}
Telegraph, 4, 23, 27-30, 39, 95, 104, 109,
233, 244, 303; Civil War, 46, 47; inven-
tion, 13; news, 14, 20, 21, 60-64, 72, 73,
78, 79; "Phillips code," 82; rates, 80, 82,
170; to West, 62; World War, 237
'Telegraph reporters," 22
Telephone, 83, 104, 109, 303; dispatches,
468, 472-474, 477, 48i; invention, 83;
Spanish War, 450; tolls, 362, 473; World
War, 237, 239 ^ ^
Telephone pony circuit, 216-219
Telephoto, 283-286
Terry, General Alfred H., 85, 86, 100
Terucl, 453, 454, 457
Thaw, Harry K., 200
Thomas, Addison C, 95, 232
Thompson, Charles T., 169, 181-183, 186,
267, 269, 287
Thompson, Howard N., 140, 143, 144, 147,
173, 176, 185
Thompson, Milo M., 411, 412, 487
Thorup, Albert, 208
Tilden, William, 83
Timuska, George, 445
Titanic sinking, 228, 229
Togo, Admiral, 175, 177, 178, 182, 184, 242
Topliff, Samuel, Jr., 5-7
Topping, Thomas, 302, 341
Trades Union Congress, 321
Traus, Ed, 235
Trent, S.S., 212, 213
Tribune, New York (see New York Tribune)
Trotsky, Leon, 262, 269, 349
Truth in news, 157, 192, 237, 238, 310, 488
Tumulty, Joseph, 254, 256
Tunney, Gene, 346, 349
Turnblad, Harold, 395, 396
Turner, George, 339
Tutankhamen, tomb of, 301, 302
Twain, Mark, 199
Typewriter, 4, 95
U-boats, 239-242, 244, 245, 247, 263 (see
also Submarines)
U-53, 247
Uhl, Alexander, 441-443, 450
Undated War Leads, 270
Unemployment, 116, 288, 354, 356, 363,
4.23
Unions, craft and industrial, 423; after
Spanish war, 424; newspaper, 432-440
United Press, 90, 93, 94, 101, 110-121, 124,
150, 152, 280; bankruptcy, 134, 136;
struggle with AP of Illinois, 124-135;
"unifying contract," 119; union with New
York AP, 110-115, 119; United Associated
Presses, change to, 133
United Press Associations, 90, 200, 285, 289
United Press News Association, 217
United States, abandons gold standard, 378;
Five^Power Treaty, 298, 299; Lusitania
sinking, 239, 240, 248; warning to Ger-
many, 244, 245; World War, 256-283
United States and Europe Telegraph News
Association, 67, 70, 72
United States Associated Press, 74
United States Supreme Court, 284-286, 431,
435-440
Unknown Soldier, 296-298
Vahney, James H., 288
Valentino, Rudolph, 303
Van Camp, Edwin L., 244
Vanderschmidt, Fred, 472, 473, 481
Van Loon, Hendrik Willcm, 236, 237
Veracruz, 230
Verdun, 242, 244
Versailles Treaty, 293, 416, 467
Vicksburg, 45, 48, 49
Victor Emmanuel III, 167
Victoria, Queen, 26, 32, 33
Vienna, Anschluss, 458-463; AP bureau,
235, 236, 390
Villa, Pancho, 242-244, 268, 269, 418
Villard, Henry, 37, 43, 50
Villard, Oswald Garrison, 221-225, 230
Volstead Act, 321
Wader, Samuel F., 273, 275, 341
Wagner Act, 435-440
Walker, H. N, 62, 75, 76
Walker, Norman, 268, 269
Wall Street, 12, 52, 66, 95; AP Bureau,
346-348, 351, 352; "Black Friday" (1869),
78; explosion, 290; 1929 boom, 346, 347;
break, 351, 352; "Black Thursday," 352,
353; panic (1893), 123
Walsh, John R., 93, 112, 114, 120
Walton, Patrick, 140
Wanda, news yacht, 140, 142-145
War correspondents, Civil War, 41-50; news
5o6
INDEX
leaks through, 44-46; Spanish-American
war, I39-H7
"War diary," communiques, Civil War, 50,
"War Hawks/' 3
War of 1812, 3-7, u
War Reparations Conference, 351
Warneld, Mrs. Wallis, 443, 444
Warspite, dreadnought, 242
Washington, D. C., 52-59; AP bureau, 31,
78, 239-242, 256-259, 282, 283; news cen-
ter, 77, 187-193 ^ o
Washington (D. C.) Star, 131, 132, 155,
156, 308, 309, 380, 385
Watson, Morris, 368, 432-438
Watson, Oscar, 140
Webb, James Watson, 8, n, 12, 14, 19, 27,
28, 41
Weigan, Karl von, 196
Wellman, Walter, 207-213
Wells, H. A, 83
Werner, Wade, 390, 460, 461
Western Associated Press, 29, 60-68, 232;
alliance with New York AP, 110-118, 127;
contract (1883), 91, 92; new friction with,
63-77, 88, 89, 102; rules for news han-
dling, 62, 63
Western Union, 67, 75, 76, 78-81, 89, 90, 95,
98, 194-198, 268, 426
Wetmore, Claude, 104-108
Weyler, General Valeriano, 138
Wheeler, Frank M., 247
Whiffen, Walter C., 236, 241, 261, 267, 269,
276
White, Horace, 65-68, 70-75, 130
White, M. A., 278
White, Stanford, 200
White Army, 276, 290
White House, the, n
Whiteleather, Melvin, 460, 462, 470, 471,
474, 478, 481, 483, 492
Whitman, Walt, 48
Wjegand, Karl von, 196
Wilderness, battle, 50, 51
Wilhelm, Kaiser, 148, 168, 172, 185, 271,
276, 282, 287, 290
Williams, Tames T., 185
Williams, M. H., 381
Williams, Valentine, 301, 302
Williamson, George, 364
Williamson, Stephen, 339
Wilson, Alexander, 69, 70, 72, 75, 413, 414
Wilson, C. H., 215
Wilson, Woodrow, 240^255, 351; 1912 vic-
tory, 230; renomination, 245; second elec-
tion, 249-255; World War, 240, 261;
Zimmerman Note, 261
Wing, Henry J., 50, 51
Wireless telegraphy, 203, 204, 237, 303; first,
161-163
Wirephoto, 381-397, 418, 490; portable, 419-
422
Wires, leased, 82, 83, 116, 215, 216, 300,
joi, 424
Witte, Count Sergius, 185, 186
Wolff (Dr. Bernhard) agency, 70, 90, 274
Wood, Colonel Leonard, 143, 144
Woodin, W. H, 377
Worcester Spy, 131
World, New York (see New York World]
World Series, 245, 246, 268, 269, 292
World War, 235-283, 316; America's entry,
336; second, 492
Wright, H. C, 140
Wright, Orville, 205, 206
Wright, Wilbur, 207
Wyzanski, Charles E., 435
Yacht race, first transatlantic, 70
Yardley, Captain John, 267
Yerkes, Charles T., 148-150
Youatt, J. R., 176, 177, 230, 234, 418
Young Plan, 351
Zeppelin, Count Ferdinand von, 206, 207
Zimmermann, Dr. Arthur, Note, 257, 250-
261