The San Francisco call., 1896-06-15
Extensive Arrangements Made
for Handling the Volumi-
nous Reports.
THE UNITED PRESS PLANS.
Facilities at st. Louis for Full and
Correct Accounts of the Pro.
ceedings.

WQen w lII1dn MChhleY'S private sec
retary knocks at the bedchamber of his
chief on the morning OF June II and an
nounces, Morning papers, sir" the pop
uIace of the City of San Francisco will al
ready have been apprised OF the doings OF
! the St. Louis Convention.
| 1t will be no meager account of the main
| incidents of the day that will have reached
| the people of this City thus early in the
proceedings. 1t will! be a graphic and ex-
haustive account, gathered by expert
newspaper men, of everything of interest
in and appertaining to the great Republi-
| can concourse.
The citizens of this City will know not
only who has been elected chairman,
what committees were appointed, of the
| speeches that were made, of the party
leaders and the attitude displayed in con-
vention by the delegates toward the Presi-
Dental candidates. They will know also
of the interesting bits of gossip rife about
| the hotel corridors, of the plans that the
managers of the aspirants for high places
are form mulating, of the prominent char
acters seen about the city and what their
own representatives are doing to uphold
| the glory of he Golden State.
| And all this will take words. Words by
| the many thousand until the heao swlms
In contemplation of them. And all these
words must be gathered from the scene of
wild confusion that invariably attends q
! political convention. They must be gath
ered too, in the least possible time, so that
no matter how late the Republican body
may prolong its deliberations, the result of
the days labor may be handed to the
operators and transmitted across the
many miles of territory to the Western
shore.
| These messages must reach the San
francisco newspaper offices in time to
pass through the hands of the telegraph
editor and his corps of assistants, be put
IN type and printed in the same issue of
the local papers in which the St. Louis
! journal describes the events of the day.
| There is no tomorrow in modern Jour-
nahsm.
Never before have such herculean efforts
been put forth by the telegraph compa-
of matter they demand. Never before
has the local press put forth such effective
! efforts to supply the people with full
account of the events away from home.
To further complicate the task which
each has assumed the State Democratic
Convention at Sacramento will be on at
| the same time as the great affair at ST.
Louis.
| Yet for this reason the Sacramento event
is not 10 be dwarfed. On the contrary, ar
! rangements have been made to give a most
extensive account of each gathering, and
the telegraph companies have for weeks
been actively engaged in preparing for this
great tax upon their facilities.
| For the purposes of news distribution
the convention could not have been better
| located. st. Louis and Chicago are con-
| sidered the great distributing centers of
the West. Prom st. Louis to Chicago the
facilities are practically unlimited. Over
150 wires connect these two cities, and if
necessary millions of words day could be
transmitted. Thus far, then, it is all plain
sailing. From. Chicago to the far West
the matter assumes more delicate COM
| plexion.
The Western Union, which owns the
wires over which the bulk of the matter
will be transmitted, has ten main wires
from st. Louis to San Francisco. Five of
| these are along the Central Pacific, two
by the Northern Pacific, one by the At
lantic and Pacific, one by the Southern
Pacific and one by Chicago. On these
| wires the duplex system-that is the sys-
tenn by which messages can be sent in op.
| posite directions at the same time-will
be used, and all ten will be required to
convey the immense volume OF news de-
manded.
Throughout the great entire length of
each of these slender threads of metal
they must be kept intact or they are use.
less.
A blizzard in Canada, cyclone in Mis-
souri,, forest fire in the South or any of
the kindred ealamities which constantly
threaten teiegraphic communication might
at any time render one or more of the lines
imperative.
Ordinarily such an accident would mean
only lem porary Inconvenience. During
the days of the great convention the loss
of wire might mean a serious embarrass-
ment, and the company has taken precau-
tions that such loss may be speedily re-
paired. To this end they have distributed
extra hnemen along each of the routes, at
distances of not more than fifteen miles
apart.
At division stations, that is where there
are engines that might be sent TO the res
cue, there are double forces. These will
be in constant readiness to hasten to the
scene of the accident and at once repair
the break. Between 400 and 500 of these
skilled mechanics will be on watch during
the entire session.
Should there be such general devasta-
ton of wires that all but one of the ten
lines are destroyed, arrangements have
been made that the greatest part of the
matter might be handled, at great trouble
and expense it is true, but still the news
would be delivered, which is the main
consideration.
In the event of such an improbable
calamity the Wheatstone multiplex sys-
tenn would be called into requisition.
This is a most ingenious device by which
$50 words minute may be delivered on
one wire. This system is not used except
in emergencies, as the characters are not
taken by sound, but are printed upon
Slips requiring large force of copyists to
transcribe them. In spite of the unlikeli-
hood of their services being required the
copyists Will be held in readiness.
At ST. Louis the work to be accom-
plished is something collosal. Five min
utes after the Presidential nomination has
been proclaimed the Western Union
promises to have the news in eacn of its
90, 600 offices, and the comparatively less
important matter it is in position to for
ward with equal dispatch.
In order to do this it will have, exclusive
OF the force employed by the United Press
and other associations, forty operators in
the convention hall and over 400 extra
men in st. Louis. These will be ready to
handle on the instant the matter as it is
handed them by the Pacific Coast special
correspondents This will at once be
placed on the wire, and most of it will go
direct to the newspaper offices of San
Francisco.
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