The Portland daily press., 1892-06-04
FOR THE CONVENTION.
Eighty Washington Correspondents
are Westward Bound.

How These Trained Observers viii Get
the News and Report 1.-THE Best of
All Convention Writers Is a Woman.
The Modern Newspaper.
Especial Correspondence
WASHINGTON, June 2.-As write the
Washington newspaper correspondents
are on their way to Minneapolis in their
own special train. No delegates. man
aging politicians, magnates Or spectators
will travel to the northwestern city in
finer style than the men who are to
chronicle the proceedings of the conven-
ton. They have sumptuous sleeping,
dining, parlor and observation cars.
They carry their own barber from the
National Capital Press club, their ste
nographers and typewriters. If neces-
sary they could print newspaper in
any town at which they might stop, hav-
ing their copy ready for the printers
hands. At Minneapolis, and later at
Chicago, they will be second in i1npor-
lance only to the members of the con-
vention themselves. The delegates will
nominate the candidates for president,
but it is the newspaper men on whom
the entire country must depend for its
information of the proceedings, the
plots, conspiracies, movements and COM
binations.
No doubt many of my readers will be
surprised to learn that this special train
will carry about eighty Washington cor
respondents to the field of battle. Per-
haps you did not think there were so
many correspondents at the capital. But
these eighty will be only one-half of the
whole number, the remaining eighty be-
ing left here to cover the news of the
nations capital. y
The work of a newspaper man at a
national nominating convention is at
best difficult enough. I have been
through number Of these affairs and
know whereof I speak. The most i'm
portant work newspaper writer can do
is not in the convention, but before it
meets and at night between the daily
sessions. What occurs in the conven-
ton is an open book, or at least easily
understood. II speaks for itself and
only needs to be carefully watched and
intelligently reported. Stenographers
are depended upon to report all speeches
and formal proceedings, and descriptive
writers are stationed at points of van
tage to make pen pictures of the stirring
scenes.
1t is worthy Of remark that the finest
descriptive writer in recent national
conventions was woman Mrs. Mar
garet Sullivan, Of Chicago. She is I'M
rivaled in the vividness of her sketches,
the purity of her language, her quality
of enabling the reader, though thou
sand miles away, to feel that he was
there, catching the marvellous inspira-
ton of the moment and being swayed
by those waves of human exaltation
which sweep over such gatherings.
Mrs. Sullivan will be at Minneapolis
and Chicago. One of her peculiarities
is that she will not sit among the news
paper men on the platform. She prefers
the spectators gallery, where her point
of view is that of the average onlooker,
where platform, delegates and the thou
sands of spectators are spread out before
her like valley seen from a mountain
top.
Tt is during the evening and the night
that the special correspondent from
Washington is most valuable to the pa
per which employs him. Then the lead
ers of the convention, the big politicians,
the bosses, the heads of messes 'sare
tireless, sleepless, deyilishly active" in
promoting the schemes to which they
are attached. There are secret plottings,
midnight conferences, combinations,
conspiracies which may change or affect
the proceedings Of the morrow. AS tire
less, as sleepless, as active as the poll
ticians must the correspondent be. He
must know as well as they, and he usu-
ally knows better, what is going on.
Out of thousand false stories and
strange run1ors he must sift the truth.
Out Of thousand theories, each in turn
supported by a great variety of evil
dence, he IN ust select the true one. 1t
is his mission to look always to the fu-
ture, to point what is likely to be done,
as well as to show what is being done.
The great 1eading public not only wants
to know everything that is going on,
but what it all means and whittier it
drifts; and it depends upon the special
correspondent to harmonic the con-
tlicting indications, the diverse theories
and statements, into an orderly, ra-
tional story which shall embrace not
only the developments of the day but
their probable bearing upon the result.
venture the prediction that these
eighty correspondents who reach the
field of battle today by special train
will from hour to hour and day to day
have better understanding Of the sit
uation in both conventions than any
other men on the field, excepting, per-
haps, four or five men in each conven-
ton who are the generals of opposing
forces. Before the struggle the cor
respondent will inform himself as to the
plans, the purposes, the points of strength
and weakness in each of the camps. AS
| the battle comes on he will thus be able
to judge the value of every onslaught,
every rannIsa aya1.v tamnOrarv aTvan