The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 21, 1895, Page 14

14 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL,‘ FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1895. THE UNITED PRESS---ITS MANAGERS AND METHODS. The United Press, with which the San Francisco Cary and the San Jose Daily Mercury have formed a permanent alliance, is the most efficient news-gathering asso- ciation in the world. For ail the purposes of collecting and distributing reports of events that affect the affairs and interest the mindsof the masses of this country its equipment and iacilities are complete and co-extensive with the intellectual, in- dustrial and mechanical progress of the age. The United Press isthe legitimate successor of the original association that was organized more than sixty yvears ago the daily newspapers in the city of New York, under the name of the General News Association, and which afterward developed into what has been known as the Associated Press. After its formation, other associations were organized in differ- ent sections the country, all of which allied themse! with the parent institu- tion. The news collected by these local ociations was concentrated in the main office in New York, where it was sent, to- gether with all other telegraphic news, to the city, news and the agents of those other or ions edited the copy for transmission to their respective local- ities, north, south, east and west. For ten ye prior to December, 1892, the United Press was an independent in- stitution created by the necessities of the times. By its modern methods and its uniform policy of studying the needs of newspapers and ad. itself to their requirements it grew to powerful rival of the original association, until at lengtn the New York Herald, Suan, Tribune, Times, World, Journal of Commerce and Mail and Express recognized the condi- tion that confronted them, and in obedi- ence to the law of the survival of the fittest the original Associated Press transferred its assets, contracts, news arrangements and good will to its competitor, and since that time the combined facilities of both concerns have been operated under the name of the United Press. Among the local organizations having ness reiations first with the New York iated Press and then with the com- oncern was the Western Associated stern the past two years this n went practically out rtain of its members sociation in Chicago and States. Withi W e stern organ of business, and c formed a new assumed the na This C hicago org no relation whate for more mind nization, therefore, has r to the one identified an halfa century in the public as the Ass Its man- opened an office in New York and upon the National association d Press—with the purpose, at 1 and afterward avowed, of up the several sub: that were working harmo themselves and of attemp ke ali the ager: cia among maj spapers, earliest available ity the San Francisco CALL and the San Jose Daily Mercury, in justice to themselves and to their readers, resolved from the Chicago Association 1d the weight of their influence to the movement for securing a better news service for the Pacific Coast. At the request of members of the Pacific ciated Press, Colorel Finley Ander- son of the executive department of the United Press came to California with au- thority to negotiate with Pacific Coast newspapers for the news service of his as- sociation w the result that the Carr and the Mercury start in this morning as the leaders of the new movement in this section of the country. Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Sun, who is president of the United Press, in one of his recent lectures on “Ihe Art of Newspaper-making,” said: “The bus ness of collecting news, which has always been regarded as of prime importance, is a necessity; and it is very costly to collect and to bring to any point for printing to- morrow morning the news of the whole world, from England, from Germany, from Russia, from France, from Africa, from South America, from or to the Pacific, so that it may be presented to the reader who takes up the paper to-morrow, and he may have a panorama of all the events of the preceding day. What a wonder, what a marvel it is that here for a few cents you may buy a history of the entire globe of the day before! It is something that is miraculous, really, when you consider it. All brought here by electricity, by means of the telegraph! So that the man who has knowledge enough to read can tell what was done in France yesterday, or in Turkey, or in Persia. That is a won- derful thing. But the very necessity of bringing all this matter together, and the immense expense attendant upon it, have led to the formation of associations among newspapers and to the organization of agencies. I won’t undertake to say now how much the expense is, because I do not remember it with absolute certainty, but itis an enormous sum, say perhaps $3000 to $5000 a day. And the system which is most perfectly organized is the establishment known as the United Press. Itsupplies the news of the whole world, so that the individual editor sitting at his desk has only to look after the news of his own locality. When he has got that he gets from the United Press the news of all the rest of the world and, putting them together, his report of the day’s history of the globe is complete. That is an institu- tion which has revolutionized the opera- tions of the profession so that instead of the struggle to hunt after the news to ap- preciate the importance of events that people generally do not see, and to report. them so that you may have in your journal something that the others have not got, that struggle is mainly obviated by this organization of the United Press.” In its account of the practical opera- tions of The United Press the New York Sun say: 3t is with a feeling akin to awe that one undertakes the task of describing such an institution. To appreciate this, consider for a moment that in a suite of offices on Broadway, which, aithough magnificently furnished and equipped, are infinitesimal upon the face of this carth, there are men who are in as close and speedy communi- cation with the antipodes, with Africa, with Asia, with Australia, as they are with the postoffice, a few doors from them. It would require pages to tell how this or- ganization grew and spread itsroots around the world. It Legan in a humble way, its growth was healthy and fast, and with increasing prosperity and success it spread itself in thousands of directions. Miles upon miles of telegraph wires were leased, contracts were made with cable companies, .correspondents were stationed all over the world, agreements for the exchenge of news were made with ne of the Associated Press. | A.L. SUESMAN ’ PROMINENT NEWSMEN. Some of the Able Leaders Who G WHITELAW REID i AL DANA /4 CHAS. GEO. BLEISTEIN - Charles A. Dana, Editor New York Sun, President of The United Press. Whitelaw Reid, Editor New York Tribune; George F. Spinney, Publisher New York Times—Directors of The United Press. Bleistein, Editor Buffalo Courier and President New York State Associated Press. Walter P. Phillips, Manager United Press; Colonel Finley Anderson, Secretary Executive Committee; Fred N. Bassett, P. V. de Graw, General Southern Manager; ‘A. L. Suesman, General Western Manager; M. G. Jonas, news-gathering concerns in every country | of Europe and America; everything, in | fact, was done to bring with the greatest | speed to every city in this country the most | important and most interesting news from I every other city, civilized or uncivilized, | in the whole world. “Without attempting, therefore, to de- scribe the beginning and growth of The United Press, we will attempt to give an idea of its present greatnessand its method | of gathering and distributing the news of | the world, illustrating them by several in- | cidents that have recently occurred. i “The main offices of The United Press are | on the third floor of the Western Union building on Broadway. The entire ofl'loel was recently remodeled and overhauled completely in order to give the best accom- modation for the service it was to fulfill. Half a dozen of the old offices were thrown into one room for the use of the telegrapn operators and the distributors of the news dispatches. This room is brilliantly illum- inated at night by incandescent lights, but unless the visitor has been through a heavy battle or is accustomed to tremendous noises the clicking of the telegraph instru- ments is likely to drive him out.”” Mr. Fred N. Bassett, general Eastern manager, in giving a rough outline of The United Press system, said: “I hardly know where to begin or just what to tell you. As we are an American concern, and as our object is to serve the newspapers in this country, I think we had better begin with our United States service, “In the first place we are, to a certain extent, a great telegraph company—that is to say, we lease from the telegraph com- panies a certain number of wires, and these we operate with our own men. In this cffice we ‘have our own wires to Boston, Washington, Chicago, Buffalo and San Francisco. The Boston wire takes in the entire New England service, and the news is sent from Boston to all pointsin the northeast. We have two Washington wires which run through Philadelphia and Baltimore. 'From Washington our lines rom all through the Southern States to New Orleans. The Chicago line takes in Pittsburg and the cities of Pennsyl- PV.DE GRAW / M. Gs JONAS uide the Destinies of The United Press. James Gordon Bennett, Proprietor New York Herald ; we cover all the West, Northwest and Southwest, San Francisco and the Pacific slope. On our Buffalo wire we send all our news for this State and for the cities of Canada. ‘‘Mr. Phillips is manager over all the ser- vice, both in this country and abroad. P. V.de Graw is general Southern manager, A. L. Buesman is general Western mana- gerand I am general Eastern manager. The fact of the matter is we have a system of telegraphic communication in this country equal to the facilities of the ‘Western Union and the Postal Telegnph, companies. *'So much for the method of communi- cation. Now for the news. In the first vania, and from Chicago. From Chicago ! place, George Secretary and General General Eastern Manager ; Pacific Coast Manager. our contracts with the 400 newspa- pers that we supply directly in this coun- try stipulate that they shall give to our correspondent ia their town proofs of all the news articles they intend publishing. Should any paper have an exclusive piece of news we agree on our part not to give it to any other paper in that same town. . “Our correspondents, all of whom are men of experience, take from those proofs all that is of interest to people outside of the locality in which the news was ob- tained and telegraph it over their circuit. 1t is sent then to all other centers, and as speedily as possible to every paper that we serve. “In small towns where there are no newspapers or where we have no contract with a newspaper, we have four own cor- respondent—some man upon whom we can depend for all important or interesting news that may arise. “From New York we send out each QJy a certain routine service, giving the arrivals and departures of ships and the market quotations for everything thatis sold in large quantities here, from railroad stocks to medicines. This goes to all the papers we serve. The Chicago papers pub- lish most of the livestock and pro- visions reports and throw the rest away. Other papers are interested in the latest quotations for baskets or lumber, and do not care anything for stocks or bonds. “We have a special corps of correspon- dents at Washington when Congress is in session, because at that time Washington is the center of interest for the whole coun- try. When there is any big event of special interest we send special men from our near- est office. That brings me to an incident of a rather unusual nature. which will show you what kind of work we have todo at times. “During the races between the Vigilant and the Valkyrie we had an ex-lieutenant of the navy to write the main story for us. He is a splendid writer, and his stories won a great deal of commendation. On the day of the third race, when the fate of the cup was decided, there was a great storm in the West, which broke down all the telegraph lines between New York and Chicago. At k in the evening I had before me interesting account of how the Vigilant won the third race and the cup, but.not the slightest idea of how I was going to let Pittsburg and Chicago know even which boat had won. I filed copies of the story with the Western Union and the Postal compantes, and then tried for three hours to make our wires work. It Was no use. purposes further away than China. “At 10:39 o’clock I went to the Long Dis- tance Telephone office on Cortlandt street and asked E. T. Bonds, the night chief, if he could get a connection with Chicago. He sent for Hugh Wallace, the day chief, and for two hours they worked together in that office, ringing and halloing like thunderation. At 11 o’clock = ward they got Pittsburg. “They telephoned to the Pittsburg oper- ator to attach a Morse instrument to his ena of the line and get a man to work it. ‘While he was doing that they attached a Morse instrument to this end of the line. I had s al operators with me waiting to pitch in. At midnight it was all in working order, and I telegraphed to the operator in Pittsburg to telephone to the Chicago operator to attach an instrument to bis end of the lin The telephone wire from Pittsburg to Chicago was all clear, but the Pittsburg man telegraphed back that there was some hitch in the Chicago office and that nobody there knew how to attach a Morse instrument to a tele- phone. **And then I sent this message: Tell Chicago office to get telegraph operator and place your transmitter over the ticker so0 that operator in Chicago can plainly hear the ticki “And that is how it was done. operators in Chis ng. Two o took turns at holding the telephone receiver to their ear with one hand and writing out what the instru- ment in Pittsburg said with the other. “It was 12:30 when we began, and at 2:30 we had sent 3000 words about the yacht race and the editorial comments of the London papers of that morning upon the result, tozether with a brief account of the Toulon festivities. I stood by, prepared at any moment to cut short the iting story if the wires threatened to give way, but nothing happened. ‘“‘So much for that. Now, what else can Itell you? Oh,yes; the European service. We have correspondents of our own and of the subsidiary associations with which we have contract relations in all the big cities of Europe and other continents. In Eng- land, for example, the Central News of London covers the news just as The United Press covers the news in this country. They have also their own correspondents all over the world. All the news they get is given to the manager of our London office, who has charge of all Europe for us. “On the Continent we have our own cor- respondent in every capital, and he makes arrangements with the correspondents of the best newspapers in that particular coun- try, or with the newspapers themselves, to get all thenews. Unless the story isof special importance it goes first to London, where our manager translates it if neces- sary or boils it down if it is too verbose, and sends it to us. “Very often, to save time,when we know that the afternoon papers want the story, we have it cabled direct to New York. In that case our correspondents are com- pelled to pay the overland telegraph tolls in advance, which makes it necessary for them to carry large sumsof money with them at times. Thus the Deacon trial in France was sent almost direct from the courthouse to New York. And the stories of the festivilies at Toulon all came direct from Toulon, with- out passing through London. For such stories as these we send special men from our London office, so that they may have nothing to do but attend to one sub- ject and devote all their energy to it. “We have tested these two systems of sending dispatches—that is, direct and by way of London—time and time again, and we find that the former is the swifter by all the way from ten minutes to half an hour, and half an hour is a good deal foran afternoon paper. “When the Emperor Frederick was ill All the newspapers that did not take our service depended upon Reuter's Agency, but that agency, being of a partly official character, always waited for the physicians and the officers who were around the Emperor to make their official report, while our men went straight to the phy- sicians and asked several times a day how the patient was getting along. “As for the extent to which we use the cable, I can best iliustrate that by telling you that one night our London manager cabled us the full text of the Home Rule bill, a message of over 8000 words, in which only the words ‘the,’ ‘a’ and ‘and’ were omitted for the sake of economy. “Another feature of our foreign service is that we supply our papers with all special information that they may desire. Thus, when Chicago loomed np as a claimant for the site of the World’s Fair, a Chicago newspaper wanted us to get interviews with prominent people in half a dozen of of Chicago’s claim. It was a herculean task, but the next day all those interviews were published in that Chicago news- paper. “‘Upon another occasion a lover of chess wanted to know whether Mr. Tschigorin, who was thenin St. Petersburg, was will- ing to play chess with Lasker. Within h;venty hours we gave him ‘the informa- tion. We have arranged it so that we can Put any newspaper in this country in Chicago was for all practical § they got Philadelphia and shortly after- we beat the whole world by all the way | from twelve to twenty hours every day. | v ) B Lo St n, S 3 the European capitals, who would approve .