The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1883-02-20
GLIMPsEs OF WASHINGTON
The Fact that the Press Is a Powerful
Agency Demonstrated.


We are all accustomed to the fact that the
press is an all powerful agency in the world,
but its real greatness can only be fully known
by visit to one of the great cities, and es-
pecially to the capital OF the nation where po-
litical opinion is largely manufactured, where
men, ordinary men, are made great-where
the national policy is molded-where the
great business affairs of the country come in
contact with the political management of the
nation at large.
The local press Of the city of Washington
does not rank in the front line with the great
dailies of New York, Boston, Philadelphia,
Chicago, Baltimore and other commercial
cities, but it plays an important part, never
theless, in shaping the daily events at the cap
ital, and taken as whole, Washington news
papers are very creditable and much better
than they have been for many years past in
TACT these capital papers show signs of pros
perity, due to the growth of the city, and the
splendid machinery used to print these papers
tells the story oil their success and importance.
The little Evening Star" uses a couple of
Scott presses, the most perfect printing press
in the world. The Republican," fast forg-
ing its way to the front as a national paper,
will soon be printed from a Scott press.
Heretofore the metropolitan papers of
other cities have kept the local papers of
Washington under par by the maintenance at
Washington OF an able corps of editors, and
the New York papers were looked to for
Washington news and opinions. This is still
the case so far as maintaining able men to edit
| the Washington correspondence. Some of
these correspondents receive as high as
$4,000 year. The poorly paid writer is an
| unknown quantity now. The great men of
the nation are to-day the men who control the
columns of the leading journals; men in the
highest inches of the government bow to the
superior force that controls them and holds
them in the hollow of its hand.
Another feature Of printers ink will be in
| teresting TO the readers of the LIGHT. Our
| congressman have huge printing office at
| their command, the Government printing es-
| tabshment. In this bee hive hundreds of
men and women are Employed in fact, it is
| the largest printing establishment in the
world. In the press room 60 power presses
are always at work. A mammoth
bindery, and complete stereotyping depart
ment, besides the ype-setting rooms with
every modern invention, completes this mann
moth concern. In this Office is produced all
the public printing, which is enormous The
debates of Congress, uttered to-day, are
printed tomorrow morning and on the desks
of the members and Senators. These speeches,
many Of them elaborate, are first reported by
phonographic writers, then written out and
submitted to the members and corrected
before put in the hands of the printer.
Listening one day to the speech of dis
tinguished Senator, | thought it a very poor
effort-full of repetitions, badly constructed
sentences and poor logic. | wondered how it
would look in The printed record. Later on I
saw the Senator looking over manuscript of
his speech, prepared by his trusted clerk; the
Hon. Senator held a pencil in his hand, but
he never touched the paper. read the speech
next day in the printed record and was aston
ished at its polished sentences, concise argu-
ment and complete rhetoric. If il was not for
the intelligence of the clerks, the magic of
printing art, the charity of editors, there were
great men to-day in the United States senate
who would be laughed at both at home and
abroad. Jpn.