The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-11-07
on ELECTION NIGHT.

No one on the outside has any idea
what an immense amount Of work Is
done in a daily newspaper Office the
night of an election.
OF course in metropolitan Office II L
greater than in smaller cities, tut even
in the smaller cities there is an Inten-
sIty and anxiety about getting out a
paper which leaves every one concerned
in state of collapse the next morning.
All methods go to smash on this night.
The work-aday plans ahd regular
means of accom- nlisEing results at once
prove TO be inadequate and by midnight
everything is in mess.
Part of the election il Georgia Is at
hand at o'clock in he evening Eight
or zen hours later another piece of
| Georgia news will come siroiling along
the wire. From every part of the
United States these little scraps of news
rain in upon the newspaper office, and if
it is a paper which priles itself Oh its
accuracy and m ke-up it is the work Of
the greatest activity and difficulty TO get
everything in its proper place and keep
ship order.
When the time comes to go to press
there are always about twenty d fferent
pieces which must all have tn p. ecedent
over others in getting put into type for
the first edition.
OF course some OF it must miss, but
there is always an effort to get as much
as possible for tie first issue, and as
result at 3 o'clock the morning after
election the hardest work in the year
and the greatest tension in a newspaper
Office is in progress.
All modern papers classify their news
and It'll q difficult iratter to get things
together in Ineligible style and keep
them that way.
To the outsider the tension around q
newspaper office at such time is sur
prising. Julian Ralph in an article in
in November Scritner's on this subject
points this out.
He says: In the meantime the Office
begins to fill with people never seen
there except on election nights and
with men VINO only come when great
news is stirring. The latter were the
New York correspondents of the great
newspapers of the country and of Can
ada and of England. These We've bust
ness like. They whispered to the man.
aging editor. They wanted figures,
they wanted proof-sheets, they wanted
the editorial utterances of the papers
that was to appear the next morning,
and they wanted reasons for the turn |
the vote Was taking in Brooklyn and |
Buffalo where the people overturned the /
governments. Others were the editorial /
among them those. who only |
work in the dav time and those who /
never come to the office at all. but send /
their essays in by mail or messeE ger. |
They know little of the methods of any
department of newspaper except their |
own and the fact was betrayed in their
nneaslness, their surprised look when
hey saw the main work-room brilliant
lighted as the streets at noon-aud /
crowded; with hush upon it that they
dld not expect; suppressing their after
s~"i~"Sr W IucF UOIlceu
100 that the Office boys vouchsafed them
40 Difference, but elbowed them out
0f the way. And when they essayed TO
joke with the Washington correspondent
and the Albany man, one of these GEN
5lemen said: "Yes-yes; but [ am busy:
excuse me-" With the editorial writers
nave come the notable men found at the
clubs and eager to come down and get
lie news-a federal senator, bibulous
western editor, a judge or two. and a
of the regular army. There is
10 reverence among the newspaper
men. They know humanity too we'll
lot TO see baneath the mere uniforms
md robes by which men are told apart.
SO presently these men withdraw TO the
where the art manager and his
BUSTED to AMI fro among
them IN order TO display the bulletins
'ut of the windows. But the notables
injured the discomfort while one of the
editors went to and fro, getting outlines
Of the exciting election from the man
aging editor.