Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1896-11-12

II u
IN dred at the great number of
Il American citizens. who. OH the
morning following national election.
permit their ihreakfast 10 grow odld while
they read the complete story of the bat
tie of the ballots. has even the yaguest
knowledge al the tremendous task inn
posed upon the great newspapers of the
country when n presidential election
comes around. Quite in line with the
progress of the day are ahe interesting
methalis by which the printing press
produces Il perfect mirror of events polti-
cal within few hours after the last bal
lot has been east. giving kilograms from
every State in the Gnim. the vote for
President by counties in tabular form,
The vote an the various State tickets. the
political complexion of the different Leg
islatures, the standing of the next United
States Senate. returns from every Con-
gressionai district. a list of the new
meilibcrs to the House of Representa-
tiyes. the legislative returns for each
State. and, finally. u complete report Of
the election in the city and county where
the newspaper is published
How the News Ii Obtained.
The methods adopted for rapidly and
been reduced to an accurate system by
all the great dailics. but those employed
by the Chicago Times Herald are partic-
niarly efficient To carry them out re-
quires weeks of preparation, the most
liberal expenditure of money. the EN-
plOyment of the most skillful labor, the
exercise of the keenest intelligence, and
the utmost economy of time in every
direction. The details are almost in
numerable, yet all of them have to be
executed TO the letter 40 closely are they
connected with each other in the system
which has been devised for handling the
returns. First in its Importance is the
work of the Associated Press. Through
this great agency the paper receives tele-
graphic reports of the election from all
parts of the Union. At least week be-
fore election the correspondents are for
warded printed Instructions. giving them
fhe form in which they shall prepare their
dispatches. and other rules for their guild
aHce in handling the news from their
localities. These instructions are de-
signed chiefly to insure promptness. ac-
curacy and brevity. In addition TO this
force the special correspondents of the
newspaper itself form an army which
any general would be proud 10 command
If assembled in body. The Times Her
aid has more than 2.Gb0 OF these yiglant
news gatherers scattered from the At |
lantic To the Pacific. and from the Gulf
10 the frontier line on the north. These
watch the polls. ready 10 record the fig.
ures of the election as soon as they are
announced. They supply the news from
those towns and cities in which the As. |
sociated Press has no representatives. and |
perform other special DUTIES deyolying |
upon them should The election he marked |
Icy any unusual incidents in their respect. |
i've localities.
An avalanche of kilograms begins 10 |
get in motion very shortly after the polls |
nre closed on the night of election. Each |,
special correspondent. impressed with |
the necessity of getting his dispatches on
the wires 80 early as possible. rushes to
the telegraph office. Each correspondent
of the Associated Press. animated by the |
same desire, enlists the aid of electricity
at the earliest moment. Thousands and |
thousands Of telegraph operators click
on the messages thrown upon their desks.
AT the same hour the City Press Asso-
station. upon which falls the task of col
lecting the returns for Chicago and
Cook County is busily employed. There
are some States in the Union which can.
not boast of having more election pre-
cincts than are included in the territory
covered by this association on election
night. Chicago has almost thousand
precincts, in addition To which must be
counted more than hundred precincts