The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-05-18

Advisory boards for the Ensuing
Years Work of Newsgathering.
CHICAGO, May 1.-THE annual banquet
of the Associated Press was held at the
Auditorium hotel tonight. Speeches were
made by st. Clair McKelway, of the
Brooklyn Eagle; Gen. Thomas NJ Ander-
son, U. s. A; Gen. George II. Taylor, Of
the Boston Globe; Hon. James H. Eckels,
ex-eomptroller of the currency, and the
Hon. Stephen O'Meara of the Boston
Journal; l.. Markbret, of the Cincinnati
Volksblaat; Harvey w. Scott, of the Port
land Oregonian; r. N. Johnson, of Texas,
and Frank P. McLennan, of the Topeka
Journal. Aside from the speeches the fea-
lures of the occasion were singing by
Alice Nielsen, of the Nielsen Opera com
pany specialties by Carroll johnson,
comedian, and Horace Goldmin, magician,
of William H. Vests minstrels; music by
the Angela sisters, musical trio, and
singing by the Weber quartette
The speech of ST Clair McKeIway was
the event of the evening He said in part:
"As newspaper men, we meet at an in
teresting time in our calling A year ago
we were called on to face the novelty of
war. 1t is novelty, at any period,
thanks to the increasing spirit and habit
of peace in the world. To most of us it
was an absolute novelty, for the nation
had not fired a shot in anger in all our
years of work. To others, the honored
and gray1ng veterans of our guild, war
was not an absolute journalistic novelty,
for they had encountered it in the la
mentable form of strife between brethren
and between states. Even to them, how
ever, that civil struggle was a receding
r. Ar,1xr oil Ill
ntically, as the proof of the settlement
of long vexing questions. 1t was valuable,
historically, as the record and demon
stration of the uncommon vaIor and mag
nanlm1ty OF our common American stock.
1t left no bitter recollections. 1t planted
only an exultant and legitimate pride in
the equal sincerity, the equal bravery, the
equal charity of Americans ALL
THE new experiment of war was with
a foreign foe With no other foreign ma
ton had the republic been at feud of
Its early teens. This war found an indis-
soluble union of indestructible states,
compact OF purpose for liberty and hu-
mainly. Other interests may tell their
own story of participation in the duties
and Of right in the honors of that con-
f1ict. Our own calling has no story to tell
of that kind. For the telling of the story
OF the war itself was our participation in
1t, and the right and the true telling of it
Is our claim to a share in its honors.
By universal admission, that has been
we'll done. There was unreadiness in our
Offices for the work. But so there was
In the war department. There was an
fnadequacy of staff organization, so to
speak, in our offices for the duties de-
volving on us. But so there was in the
same department. And in our cases that
1nadequacy was repaired. New functions
and new forces were extemporized-and
not found wanting: New blood was
devised. And no commission of investi-
cation and no court of inquiry have been
ordered to sit upon our derelictions, to
pass on our incidental errors, or to sift
our mistakes of the past for the greater
security and sufficiency of the future.
WORK WELL DONE.
81 wish, in all seriousness, to say that
the press of the United States has, in the
main, we'll served the country. A per-
centage of our newspapers, as large as
The very few which did not sustain it in
part atoned for that by fairly and fully
reporting it. They exhibited the not I'M
desirable exceptions which Illustrated the
general excellence of our common calling
Absolute unanimity of merit would pro-
duce monotony of virtue that might
surfeit the moral palate and tempt to
wild excuses on the path of reVulsiVe
error cannot think of any better ex-
cuse than this, for those who indefensibly
differed from me in my estimate of the
struggle, and they are welcome to it in
that search for repentance or for eXtenu-
atfng circumstances which 1 hope they
will successfully prosecute.
1T must be admitted that the unity of
the press, the substantial unity of the
press, for the war, has not been followed
by absolute unity among its members on
the results of the war. Fixed facts, how
ever. have commanded that respect even
with newspapers. which they generally
command everywhere. There is no news
paper which believes that we are in
Porto Rico ever to get out. We are there
to stay. There is none which believes
think we will stay there about as long
as Great Britain will stay in Egypt, and
that Great Britain will stay in Egypt
about as long as the Anglo-Saxon race
has a habit of staying where it settles
down. I am willing to differ from my
brethren on this subject, but as my esti-
mate has been only comparative perhaps
there is less room for difference than
might specifically appear. The duration
of our stay in the Philippines IS prodigi-
ously debated. While the debate goes on
we stay. If the debate comedies with
our stay think it will be a protracted
debate''