Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-12-16
facilities for their work At the old White
House. until Secretary Porters tlme'
there was no table for the press.
The Presidents Message.


In at least one respect the method OF dis
tributing White House news has undergone
a marked change, necessitated by growth OF
new conditions and newspaper demands
This is in the manner of giving to the
neWspapers and the country the annual
message of the President to Congress On
til few wears ago the custom preVaileo
of giving out at the White House 10 the
newspapers and press ASSOCIATIONS copies
of the message when word was received
that the messenger from the White House
had reached the Capitol and was prepared
TO announce the document. By this plan
the press associations were required to tele-
graph the message to all parts of the coun-
try on the day of delivery. Obviously this
was a hardship, inasmuch as the wires run
ming out of Washington would be filled with
news about the assembling of Congress and
other matters. The result was that ma
jority of the papers outside of the large
cities had to be content with synopses OF the
message The papers in nearby cities, such
as Baltimore New York and Philadelphia,
could get the message by letter or over
special wires The Chicago and Boston
papers could take it all by wire if they de-
sired 1t was impossible for the press as
sociations to handle the message in full on
the day of it's delivery.
This practice continued up to the Harri-
son administration, when a new plan was
adopted. This was to have the message
printed and copies of it placed in the pos
session of a trusted special messenger on
the afternoon before delivery to Congress
This messenger would leave here on Sun
day afternoon before the assembling of
Congress on his way to Baltimore Philadel-
phia and New York. He would stop in Bal
timore and leave with the postmaster there
a certain number of copies of the message.
taking a receipt therefor. The postmaster
was authorized to deliver these copies
to the Baltimore papers next day. for
which they were held responsible in case
of the document being printed before
it had been read in Congress. In Phila-
delpha the same plan was followed. In
New York the messenger personally dis
trbuted the messages to the representatives
of the newspapers and the press associa-
tions. This plan was little better than the
old one. as it benefited the papers in these
three cities only and assisted very little
in the sending out of the document to the
thousands of papers all over the country
that must depend upon the press assoca-
tions for their news of the Presidents ut
terances to Congress. Colonel w. II.
Crook, the veteran disburs:ng officer of the
White House, was generally the messenger.
Once he did not find the Baltimore post
master and had to return through that
city on the day of the delivery of the mes
sage and give the document to the Balti-
more papers, which were behind all others
in receiving it.
Still another system was once tried, but
only once. This was the plan of sending
the printed messages to postmasters all
over the country for distribution to the
papers on the day of delivery The trouble
was that the message was secured in ad-
vance and given premature publication.
The Present Plan.
About six years ago the present plan of
handling the message was begun. 1t has
been developed until it is most satisfactory,
giving the papers all over the country the
message in full. This is what they desire
and demand, the public wants the rec
concentrations of the President verbatim
and not an abstract. The method is to have
the message put in type as soon as it is
completed by the President. Copies of it
are then placed in the hands of the press
associations under agreement that no
where is the message to be printed until
it has been read in both houses Of Con-
gress. The press associations send the
serve, and by the time the message is read
in Congress it is in type and ready for an
extra if the paper wants to print The
wires of the telegraph companies are not
loaded by the message on the day of the
sembling of Congress to the exclusion of
everything else, and the newspapers have
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