The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-10-07

wagon ia waiting to receive 1t for trans
fer to the railroad station.
This is all done on the ground floor.
All of the literature ia carefully dis
tributed in piles which contain the same
matter, arranged handily for tho con-
corner may be found all OF the literature
in foreign languages carefully arranged
according to language and subject. This
foreign department il separate and dis
tinct from the others, employing men
who understand the language and who
are likely to get the long, jaw breaking
Polish, Finnish or other names spelled
as they should be.
There is another division which has
charge Of the distribution of Autographs
and pictures. They handle nothing else,
and during the past week Captain Mckee
says they distgi buted 400, 600 of them.
These are of all sorts. A large proper
tion are pictures of Mckinley, while
Others ara big cartoons piotorially de-
picting the issues of the campaign. Sew
eral of the cartoons from the front page
of The Times Herald are among them.
Captain Mckee says that The Times
Herald cartoon on Open Mints and Open
Mills, wv hioh appeared a month ago, Is
probably the most popular. 1t repre-
sents Mckinley standing at one side of
the picture opening the mills to give en-
the other side Bryan is shown opening
the minis to the American silver miners
and 9th r nations Of the world who are
unlading their silver onto Uncle Sam.
Pictures such as these are very popular.
On the second floor of the building Is
the mailing department, which handl les
the very small bundles of literature which
are those largely to individual names.
The national committee does as little of
his work as possible, in order to pre-
vent sending the same literature twice
to tho same people. as might happen
when the state committees and the
national committee were sending to du-
plicate lists of names. Nevertheless
Captain Mckee has thirty or forty people
now at work in this department, and
has at times nearly twice as many ad-
dressing wrappers and wrapping up doc
umsnts singly or in punches of q half q
dozen.
On this floor is the bookkeeping de-
psrtment. upon which Captain Mckee
justly prides himself. The whole is
kept as carefully az a daily newspaper
would keep it's list of subscribers. In
the first place an assistant pastes a copy
of each document In big account book.
Below Is given list of the number con-
tracted for with each printer and the
amount which he Is to be paid for the
printing. 1t can thus be seen at any
time how many copies of each docu-
ment have been ordered.
In another book Is entered anosher set
of samples of the printed matter. This
shows she amount received from each
printer ana when it was delivered.
A set of bookkeepers on the second floor
keep careful list of the matter sent out.
An enorm GUS book with printed head
ings fos each document is used. In this
ia entered the mum her of every ORDER for
III tara fr1r tho nfn
which was sent, anu the person to whom
It was sent. By turning to this book
Mr.. Mckee can find at any time how
many of each document has Eeen distrib-
uted. A glance at the set of hooks show
that McKinley's letter of acceptance ID
tho most popular document issued by the
committee. Next to it In popularity
comes Carl Schurz's speech before the
American Honest Money League, which
is regarded by most Repu blicans as the
ablest and most convincing argument In
favor of the gold standard which has
been printed. A good many more than 8
| million copies of it have been printed,
and the demand for 1t shows no signs of
| abatement.
Similar to this is another set of books,
which is kept by bookkeepers on the
| third floor Of the building. Here are en-.
tered list of all of the doou menta sent
out arranged by states, 30 that the
national com mitteeman from each state,
or any body else who has the right to
know, may be informed in few mo-
ments just how many oopieR OF each
document has been sent to his state and
to each part Of it.
There is a big exchange room on this
floor. Hero force Of men read the news
Tapers which are received daily by the
national committee. They 60 over them
very carefully ana cut out anything
hi oh he, nIor, 1idt
is as largo as that of most of the Chicago
newspapers. and 1t keeps three men
busy reading it. Clippings that may
be Of use to the writers in the literary
bureau over at the Auditorium are sent
to the proper person, while look out is
kept for "roorbaeks" which may need
denial and statements which 10 may be
prepared the plate matter for the coun-
try newspapers. Captain Mckee has
what newspaper men call graveyard, !"
which consists of an arrangement OF dip
pings on su bJects which may be OF use
in the future. 1t is arranged ON novel
plan. A table like desk has been built
which on each eide. by lifting the COW
ers, discloses series of strips OF wood
running lenRthwise across. The clip
pings, folded in common column lengths,
are pasted on cards and SUSPENDED from
these shelves for convenient reference.
The device is an idea of Captain McKees
own invention.
The work of distribCtin this epor-
| nous mass of documents Is gigantic
task. II employs the workmen eight
hours day. Captain Mckee himself
works twelve Or fourteen. But although
it is costly and onerous Chairman Hanna
thinks it is we'll worth while, and 1t IL
| in this way that most of the campaign
funds Of the Republican national COM
mittee have been spent.