The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-21
HE UNITED PRESS--ITS MANAGERS AND METHODS

depend for all important or interesting
news that may arise.
"From New York we send out each day a
certain routine service, giving the arrivals
and departures of ships and the market
quotations for everything that is sold In
| large quantities here, from railroad stocks
to medicines. This goes to all the papers
we serve. The Chicago papers pub
lish most of the livestock and pro-
visions reports and throw the rest away.
Other papers are interested in the latest
quotations for baskets or lumber, and do
not care anything for stocks or bonds.
'We have special corps of correspon-
dents at Washington when Congress is in
session. because at that time Washington
is the center of interest for the whole coun-
try. When there is any big event of special
interest we send special men from our near
est Office. That brings me to an incident
of rather unusual nature. which will
show you what kind of work we have to do
at times.
During the races between the Vigilant
and the Valkyrie we had an ex-leutenant
of the navy to write the main story for us.
He is splendid writer and his stories won
a great deal of commentator. On the day
of the third race, when the fate of the cup
was decided, there was great storm in the
West, which broke down all the telegraph
lines between New York and Chicago. At
o'clock in the evening [ had before me
a very interesting account of how the
| Vigilant won the third race and the cup,
but.not the slightest idea of how / was
going to let Pittsburg and Chicago know
even which boat had won. / filed copies
of the story with the Western Union and
the Postal companies, and then tried for
three hours to make our wires work. 1t
was no use. Chicago was for all practical F
purposes further away than China.
CAT 10 80 o'clock went to the Long Dis
lance Telephone office on Cortlandt street f
| and asked Z. T. Bonds, the night
chief, if he could get a connection with
| Chicago. He sent for Hugh Wallace,
the day chief, and for two hours they
worked together in that office, ringing and
halloing like thunderation. At IL o'clock
they got Philadelphia and shortly after
ward they got Pittsburg.
''They telephoned to the Pittsburg oper-
| ator to attach Morse instrument to his
| END of the line and get man to work it.
| While he was doing that they attached
Morse instrument to this end of the line.
l had several operators with me waiting
to pitch in. At midnight it was all in
working order, and 1 teegraphed to the
operator in Pittsburg to telephone to the
| Chicago operator to attach an instrument
to his end of the line. The telephone wire
| from Pittsburg to Chicago was all clear,
but the Pi ttsburg man telegraphed back
| that there was some hitch in the Chicago
office and that nobody there knew how
to attach a Morse instrument to tele-
phone.
And then l sent this message:
| Tell Chicago Office to get telegraph operator
and place your transmitter over the ticker
so that operator in Chicago plainly hear
! the ticking.
"And that is how it was done. Two
operators in Chicago took turns at holding
the telephone receiver to their ear with
one hand and writing out what the instru-
ment in Pittsburg said with the other.
at was 1890 when we began, and at 2:3o
we had sent 1000 words about the yacht
race and the editorial comments of the
London papers of that morning upon the
| result, together with brief account of the
Toulon festivities. 1 stood by prepared at
| any moment to cut short the Yachting
story if the wires threatened to give way,
but nothing happened.
$50 much for that Now, what else can
l tell you? Oh, yes; the European service.
| We have correspondents of our own and of
| the subsidiary associations with which we
| have contract relations in all the big cities
of Europe and other continents. In Eng
| land, for example, the Central News of
London covers the news just as The United
| Press covers the news in this country
| They have also their own correspondents
all over the world. All the news they get
| is given to the manager of our London
| Office, who has charge of all Europe for us.
''On the Continent we have our own cor
respondent in every capital, and he makes
| arrangements with the correspondents of
the best newspapers in that particular coun-
try, or with the newspapers themselves to
| get all the news. Unless the story is of
special Importance it goes first to London,
where our manager translates it if neces-
sary or boils it down if it is too verbose,
and sends it to US.
VERY often, to save time when we know
| that the afternoon papers want the story,
we have it cabled direct to New York In
that case our correspondents are COM
PEELED to pay the overland telegraph tolls
in advance, which makes it necessary for
them to carry large sums of money with
them at times. Thus the Deacon trial in
France was sent almost direct from the
| 10 new DIX. ana the
stories of the festivities at Toulon
all came direct from Toulon, with
out passing through London. For
such stories as these we send special men
from our London Office, so that they may
have nothing to do but attend to one SUBJ
iect and devote all their energy to it.
1--WE have tested these two systems of
sending dispatches-that is, direct and by
way of London-time and time again, and
we find that the former is the swifter by all
the way from ten minutes to half an hour,
and half an hour is good deal for an
afternoon paper.
"When the Emperor Frederick was i'll
we beat the whole world by ali the way
from twelve to twenty hours every day.
All the newspapers that did not take our
| dornr6od Ra11tarIS