Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1890-07-11
A NEWSPAPER IN THE ROCKIES.
How an Enterprishfg Business Manager
Got His Speci lis for Nothing.

How an Enterprishig Business Manager
Got His speci.Is for Nothing.
In the winter of 1854 SIS was managing
editor, city editor and the entire reportorial
CORPS OF little dali, paper in Colorado
mining town. We al o had three printers, q
business manager and an Office boy, who act
ed as mailing clerk and carrier The business
manager filed in his leisure time running a
cattle ranch and q cos mine.
The town lad a ''b,omn a year or two be-
fore, but the boom was gone and the place
was left with two daily newspapers and hard
ly business for one we skly. 1t was hard sled
ding. Associated Pres dispatches were out
of the question. We lad to depend upon the
Denver papers, which reached us the same
evening, for our teleg ,aphic news. Our read
ers didn't like this, of course, but it was the
best we could do, and as we were all holding
on like grim death Tor the return of the
''boom," which was a ways six months ahead
of us, nobody cared b. say too much.
But occasionally the trains got showed up
ON the Pass for a weel or more, and then We
were in a box. On OF of these occasions we
hadn't had a mail for four days, and things
were looking blue. There wasn't any local
news to speak of. Tho business manager sug-
gested chapter from the Bible with scare
head. He thought it would be news out there,
and l guess he was RICH
The'town had gas nd water works and a
big hotel as reminder of its departed boom
and it also had a telephone line which con-
nected with another i tile town, thirty miles
further up in the mou ntains, on branch OF
the same railroad. The telephone in the sta
ton thirty miles away was connected every
night with the one in our office before the
central office closed, 50 that in case of an ac-
cident in the mines we could get the news.
Several times, while using this telephone,
had noticed that, late at night when all was
STILL the clicking of tie telegraph instrument
in the station up in the mountains could be-
distinctly heard over the wire. This suggested
an idea The railroad wire was used as q
news wire late at night. If we had anybody
with an ear acute enough to read that faint
ticking inthe telephone instrument we could
learn what was going on over the wires. The
business manager had been an operator, and
good one, back in the States. He tried the
instrument and found that the scheme would
work. The next MOI ming we had column
of specials" includiI & two or three items OF
Washington news, which were of special in
terest just then, as every second man in the
town was a candidate for some Office under
the incoming administ ration.
The editor of the rival paper rushed to the
telegraph office to inquire what it meant He
was told that we had received nothing cover
the wire With the train showed up on tor
of the pass taking from the Denver paper,
was out of the question Yet there were the
dispatches, and unmistakably genuine, too
The wires had been ia pped, that was certain
but where, when, howl The railroad people
ordered am investigation, but discovered
nothing. Nobody thought of the clicking
instrument in the closed railroad station
thirty miles away and the marvellous carry
ing power of the telephone in that clear, still
mountain air
Our brother edito- on the rival sheet
thought it was dead cold fake" but ht
was afraid to say too much about it, as hs
had run out of paper nd we had him at oul
mercy, at least until a train got in. Ol
course the secret was jealousy guarded in
the office, but the specials" were kept VI
until the tram got through. Then we quit
The business manage was a conscientiou.
man, and didn't believe in stealing news when
it could be obtained in any other way. Be
sides, he objected to do the work-M G. N
in New York World