Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-11-20
a JoURNALIsrIC REMINIsCENCs

a JOURNALISTIC REMINISCENCE.
At the meeting of the cabinet on Friday,
all the members being present except the
secretary of the treasury, the chief sub
ject under discussion was whether to allow
the publication of the annual reports of
cabinet officers in advance of the Presi-
dents message. This momentuous ques-
ton was decided adversely, aud the mem
bers of the cabinet duly pad-locked and
put under seal. Why there is such an an
nual fuss about the Presi-
dents message is inexpli
cable. It is dreary rubbish at the best.
Not one man in a hundred, perhaps not
one in thousand, ever reads Presidents
message through from beginning to end,
and those that do get no information of
any interest or value. Congress was never
known to pay any material heed to the
suggestions of a message, or to show it
any greater respect than to order num-
Der of thousands printed for the benefit of
the government printer. The newspapers
vie with each other to get possession of the
first copy of the message, and a
few years ago $1,000 was
paid by an enterprising Journal
for stolen advance sheets, but after this
revel of enterprise, the successful paper
had only the qualification of being about
three hours ahead of its contemporaries.
This strife for early publication is no new
thing and existed in the early stage-coach
days before the era of the telegraph and
CT mil froir Tn ha Of ah
period in An eastern city the proprietors
of rival Wing and Democratic papers got
on a strife to secure the first copy of the
message which was coming in the mail
bags, by horse power from
Washington II was under
Wing administration and the postmaster
of the city furnished the editor of the
Wing organ with key to the mailbag
containing the document. The Wing edi-
tor, booted and spurred, met the coach
some forty miles out, unlocked the mail
bag and secured the coveted prize, and
rode post-haste, upon relays Of
horses to his printing Office and
put the boys TO work. The Democratic
editor watched and waited for the arrival
of the slow coach and met it in the sub
urbs of the city. In the hands of pas-
senger he found copy of the
message and with reckless journalistic
enterprise actually offered and bought
the paper for fifty dollars, and rushed to
his Office with the prize. What was his
surprise and modification to see the paper
of his rival selling upon the streets before
he had time to put column of the mes
sage in type For some time the defeat
ed editor was at loss to know how his
Wing rival got the document. At last he
got an inllling of the proceedings and
charged that his rival had opened the bag
by the use of rat-tail file. The bitter
ness that followed the scoop" caused the
Wing editor to sue his adversary for
libel for the b1ld charge of
breaking open the mails. Though the suit
never came to trial the heat was long kept
up, aud the whole community imbibed the
belief that rat-tail file gave the successful
publisher his advantage. Finally the post
master died, and then the editor felt at
liberty to reveal that he had been given
the use of key TO the mailbag, and so
got possession of the message. AS an ear
her revelation would have involved the
postmaster the secret was we'll kept, but at
the expense of mora strife and bitterness
than all the Presidents messages ever
written and printed were worth.