The age-herald., 1898-04-10
THE INVASION ON
 NEWSPAPER ROW
By JAY F. DURHAM.


 hive. Every available nooE and corner
 was occupied by some newspaper writer.
 They were located there in gerat numbers.
 It was in 1883 that the New York Herald
 was the first to break ranks and take of
 fees out of the row. MT Bennett took the
 position that his correspondents were too
 near other correspondents, and there was
 great danger of other correspondents gain
 ing information of the Heralds correspond
 ents. Therefore, the Herald took offices
 at the corner of G and Fifteenth streets,
 immediately opposite the Riggs house.
 It was some years before other newspa-
 pers began moving from the historic row.
 It has been invaded by trades people. It
 now boasts of one barber shop, one tailor
 establishment, stock gamblers layout,
 an aristocratic plumber and at its further
 end a real barroom. Trades of various
 kinds march hand in hand in the progress
 of civilization through the row. There are
 few newspaper offices in what once con-
 stituted Newspaper Row proper. The of-
 fees are now centered in various streets.
 Great improvement has been made in the
 offices in the last ten years. The new
 building erected at the corner of and
 Fourteenth streets in which Is also located
 the head office of the Western Union Tele-
 graph company is devoted very largely to
 newspaper offices. It is one of the mod
 ern buildings of the city completed last
 November. From all of the newspaper of-
 fees are chutes and tubes leading into the
 telegraph office. Therefore, all that Is
 necessary after the correspondent has pre-
 pared his copy Is to place 1t in the chute,
 and it goes directly to the receiving office
 of the telegraph company and from there
 it is placed "pon the wires. The same
 thing prevails with the Postal Telegraph
 company in Pennsylvania avenue, near
 Fourteenth street, in that company's new
 building erected about year ago.
 Many distinguished men have been
 turned out from the row. When I first
 came to Washington as a correspondent
 Charles Nordhoff was then the head repre-
 sentative of the New York Herald. Nord-
 hoff came to Washington as the Herald's
 correspondent about the close of the war.
 MT. Bennett permitted him to sign his
 name to his dispatches, and it was not
 long before MT. Nordhoff had a national
 reputation. Nordhoff had for his contem-
 poraries such men as George Alfred Town
 send (Gath), Whtelaw Reid, long since the
 editor of the New York Tribune; l.. Q.
 Washington, a lineal descendant of George
 Washington, for years the correspondent
 to the New Orleans Picayune; John Russell
 Young, Murat Halstead, of the Cincinnati
 Commercial; Henry Watterson, of the
 Louisville Courier-Journal; the late Joseph
 B. Mccullough, of the St. Louis Globe-Dem- tt Ink1 " Cincinnati Commercial; the late Dom Piatt, the late George Butler, nephew of
 General Ben Butler, and the late Ben Perly Poore, together with many others who
 were among the earliest of the Washington correspondents These men all achieved a reputation. Some became great editors, and others, still living. have gone into va- rious kinds of business. MT. Nordhoff owns and lives on a vast ranch in Cali fornia. MT. Young is now the librarian of congress.
 Among the later of the correspondents who have achieved regulations are T. c. Crawford, of the New York World, who has now become magazine writer; Wm E. Curtis, of the Chicago Record; Samuel M. Burdett, of the Chicago Chronicle; O. O. Stealey, of the Louisville Courier-Journal; {; John M. Carson, of the Philadelphia Ledg CT, Walter Wellman. of the Chicago Times Herald; w. c. Mcbride, of the Cincinnati Enquirer; E. w. Lightner, of the Pittsburg Dispatch; Alfred Henry Lewis, of the New York Journal; George w. Rouzer, of the New York Herald David s. Barrey, of the New York Sun; A. Maurice Lowe, of the Boston Globe; H. B. F. Mcfarland, of the Boston Herald; E. J. Gibson, of the Phila- delphia Press; R. B. Mathews, of the New Orleans Picayune; Jos. K. Ohl, of the At lanta Constitution, are but a small per- centage of the able correspondents now here.
 In the early eighties the Congressional Directory contained the names of but little more than hundred newspaper correspon- dents, now it has more than three hundred. The importance of news at Washington has become so great that every newspaper of any standing finds it an absolute neees- | sity to keep one or more of the best men of its staff at the capital. Newspaper Row has turned out some very able men, some | of whom have gone to congress. This is especially true of w. D. Barrett now a | representative from Massachusetts and | James Rankin Young, of Philadelphia, both | of whom were for years correspondents in l the gallery. MT. Young is a brother of | John Russell Young. and ranked as one | of the best newspaper men that ever came | to Washington.
 few years ago there came to Washing | ton as correspondent of the Galveston I and Dallas News one of the most unique | characters known among the correspon- dents. His name is Sterrett, in fact, Colo | nel William Greene Sterrett. Colonel Ster- | rett was born in the Pennyroyal District | of Kentucky. Long before coming to | Washington he was a character in Texas. | Shortly after Colonel Sterrett reached | Washington he was soon known as hu- | morist. He was not only equal to Bill Nye, | but in the opinion of many his superior. | A peculiar thing about Sterrett was that he 1 could not write anything humorous, but was unable to talk anything else. Cleve- l land took a great liking to Sterrett, and