The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-06-10


an experiment to q Success and had COM
menced to reyolutionize the old system of
Gathering news From the earliest moment
tho HERALD seized upon this wonderful
agency and fostered and urged it with unceas-
ing zeal A panic that now seems unaccount-
able had seized upon many of the journalists,
who imagined that the telegraph would
destroy the press, and looked on with dismay
as the mysterious wires stretched from city to
city and from State to State, drawing
the people closer and closer together.
But Mr.. Bennett saw further than
ordinary men. His quick perception
grasped at once the full value and importance
of the invention and taught him that the tele-
graph must become the ally and not the rival
of the daily newspaper. In an article pub
lished in the early days of the enterprise he
foretold that this new agent would destroy
monopoly and localize the press, as he has in
later years predicted that in the course of time
the mode of transmitting news will undergo
yet further change; that the reports, CORE
spondenoe and editorials of leading journals
will one day be dropped into the government
telegraph offices and sent over the wires instead
of through the mails. But Mr.. Bennett gave
more practical assistance than favorable argu-
ment to the struggling invention. He used the
wires regardless of cost for the collection of his
news SO far as they then extended, and
thus brought home to the conviction
of the people the success and value
of the system by placing its results every day
before their eyes, The first speech ever re-
ported in full over the wires was published in
the HERALD exclusively. It was speech
delivered by Mr.. Calhoun on the Mexi-
can war, and its accuracy, both as q
graphy, astonished its author. It did
more in single night to impress Congress
and the whole country with the importance
of the telegraph than could have been accom-
plished by arguments and the transmission of
private messages in year. Before the Mexi-
can war commenced-before General Taylor
had broken up his camp at Corpus Christi and
passed the River Neuces, Mr. Bennett had per-
fected arrangements for obtaining news from
the army. His correspondents were already
out; his plans for tapping the railroads and
telegraph lines wherever they reached were CON-
plete. There was gap in railroad communi-
cation between Montgomery and Mobile Ala,
over which the government mail was run in
The old-fashioned slow and unenterprising
manner. Mr.. Bennett stocked this gap with o
sufficient force of fast horses and adventurous
men. The HERALD dispatches from the seat
OF war we're sent via New Orleans by mail to
Mobile. There they were seized upon instantly
by the couriers and carried as swiftly as the
horse express would allow to Montgomery,
where they again took the rail to New York,
arriving at the metropolis from one to two
days in advance of the government dispatches
or Of any other news from Mexico. The south
ern end Of the telegraph was at Wilmington,
Del, and the HERALD expresses would also run
with special intelligence to that point and
transmit their news over the wires to New
York. In consequence of these comprehensive
arrangements the HERALD received accounts of
the principal battles from Palo Alto to the occu-
patton of the city of Mexico in advance Of all its
contemporaries and Of the government itself,
and information of many important victories
for our arms, such as Buena Vista and Vera
Cruz, was first made known to the authorities
Rt Washington by Mr.. Bennett. These jour
nalistic triumphs, which formed the model for
modern newspaper enterprise In time of war,
created an immense excitement all over the
country. The fame of the HERALD was in
everybody's mouth, and it took the position it |
has ever since occupied as the leading Jour-
nal Of the natl on.
These repeated successes had the good effect
of satisfying Mr.. BENEFITS contemporaries of
the hopelessness Of oil efforts to destroy the
HERALD and Of the wisdom Of emulating it's
enterprise and energy. During the Oregon
excitement, when the popular cry was Fifty
four-forty or fight" the opposition metro
politan papers came to the commend
able resolve of attempting to beat the
HERALD with its own weapons, and trusting in
the strength of combination, they united with
the leading dailies Of some Of the Northern
cities in the organization Of an overland ex-
press all the way from Halifax to Washington,
to hurry forward the news of European steam
ers touching at the former place. The same
association chartered and despatched across the
Atlantic fast pilot boat which was to beat
the packet ships and bring early news
of the Oregon difficulty 80 eagerly
looked for. It was a powerful coalition
against individual enterprise, and was buoyed
by the hope that the union of capital must
prove too strong for a single establishment,
however prosperous But it SO happened that
the Halifax overland express and the fast-sail-
Ing pilot-boat were both anticipated by the
HERALD express and the regular packet ships
boarded by the HERALD boat the money in
vested in the experiments was lost, and the
hrst failure put an end to the combination. It
is not to be supposed, however, that the ex-
ample OF the HERALD failed to Undue other