Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-01-10
A Note. Worthy Stenegrapher.

John j. McElhone, the chief of the
Official stenographers of the House. has
been in the service of that body as an
official reporter since 1919. He was an
expert stenographer when a mere boy.
When he was eighteen years old he was
reporting the official debates, Dennis
Murphy, the chief of the Senate staff.
began his official work for Congress six
months earlier than McEIhone. Both
are from Philadelphia. McElhone is a
very tall, straight, vigorous. Young
looking man. He has more the air Of
a dashing soldier than that of civilian.
His eyes are clear and resolute. his
nose straight, while his military mus
tache and imperial accentuate his ap-
pearance of vigor and energy. He is a
very cultivated man, and few members
have such thorough knowledge of pub
lie affairs as McElhone. Il IS strange
that none of the younger stenographers
of Washington who are looking forward
to fill the places of the official steno-
graphers of Congress are not doing
something to qualify themselves for the
work. The average stenographer looks
only to the mechanical part of his work.
without a thought of how necessary to
his final success is the possession of a
thoroughly broad and comprehensive
education.
MIR. McElhone explained to me the
other day his method of working. 1t
will probably be revelation to the ay-
erage reporter. He pays no attention
to the mechanical part of his work. He
writes the Pitman system in It's simplest
forms. When he is reporting speaker
he follows his every sentence, CRITICS.
ing it and taking in fully its sense, while
his hand follows his thought like a bit
of exquisitely trained mechanism. The
result is that he has lever yet met a
speaker who can talk too fast for him.
When he meets man who can think
faster than he can, than only will Nc
Elhone be at loss. He saws that in
the last House the three hardest men to
report were Thompson, of Iowa, Black
burn, of Kentucky, and Ranney of Mas
sachusetts.
The hardest piece of reporting ever
done by MeElhone was during the ex-
citing incidents of the counting in of
Hayes by the House of Representatives
When Beebe, of New York, immortaliz-
ed himself by jumping upon his desk,
perfect Bedlam appeared to have been
let loose. To report what was said
with twenty or thirty members appar-
emily talking at once, must have SEEM
ed almost an impossibility. In less
than second McElhone saw that his
reputation as one of the gres test of
living reporters was at stake. He seiz-
ed his note book and dashed right into
/ the centre of the excitement. The
voice of every Member was familiar to
him. Without turning his head he
stood erect amid the widest confusion,
and caught with rigid accuracy the
words of the most distant speaker. He
was very nervous over the result. be-
cause if any Member at that time had
by chance been omitted from the page
of history of that day, McElhone would
have been the subject of many a row.
/ None of the Members believed that he
had been able to get them all, vet when
his report came out in The Record next
day, not one had single word of fault
to find. In fact, it is the only perfect
picture of that exciting period. 1t was
one of the greatest feats of stenographic
reporting ever done in Congress. When
McElhone had finished he was bathed
in perspira.ion from head to foot. and
was rs weak rs if he had been running
in ten-mile match. ~ Washington Post.