The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-19
ASSOCIATED PRESS;
HOW IT OPERATES
IND WHIT IT DOES
Facts the Keynote of Great Machine in Collecting and Dis
tributing the News of the World - Its Responsibility
and Its Power

with words, once wrote a story about
another and mythical colorist, in which
his hero rather contemptuously de-
scribed an Associated Press rival. He
told of the 1884 convention at which
James G.. Blaine, who stood before the
people as the great political issue and
character of the day, was nominated
by the Republicans for the presidency
amid great turmoil and excitement
that is even unusual in political con-
ventions- That was the occasion upon
which Robert Ingerson made the NOM
mating speech and at it's climax in
the great hall full of frenZied people
woke perhaps The greatest amount of
excitement turned loose on this CONT
nent in many day by his final refer
ence to the way in which Blaine had
met the aspersion of his enemies. He
referred to him. it will be remembered,
too, as ''plumed knight" After
which, says Mr.. Davis hero in the
story, the newspaper correspondents
spent hours and used reams of paper
and columns of type in describing the
ensuing scene, just how. the crazed au-
dience acted and how a woman in the
gallery lead the tumult into order by
waving a white parasol and into shouts
or blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine"
and the Associated Press operator
pulled out his watch and carefully
timed it all. and this is what ne sent
out against his rivals columns: "(Add
Plumed knight. after which the
cheering lasted fourteen minutes
Associated Press Training.
That has always been considered in
the newspaper world as a good type
of an Associated Press man. The very
man who covered that convention. who
was also the same man who stood on
the steps from the lobby of the Fifth
Avenue hotel when Mr.. Blaine made
his unfortunate ~eply to the Presby-
terrain minister who suggested that the
church was for Mr.. Blaine because his
opponent represented a party of rum,
Romanism and rebellion. Mr. Blaine
was not, upon the evidence of this cor
respondent, accused of having himself
said those Hateful words. but merely to
have remained acquiescent during them.
Indeed, in a recent article published in
a magazine by Mr.. Mack, the Associat-
ed Press man In question, Mr.. Blaine
denied the next day having heard the
delegation use them. Later in life he
said that had he heard them he would
nave protested against them And vet
his silence of those few seconds and
the presence of the Associated Press
man with his notebook and fifty mil
lions Of people ready to take his report
as fact, turned the course of a presi-
Dental election and ruined what was
at that time undoubtedly the most
promising career in American politics.
Yields Great Power.
The Associated Press man must be
so trained as to get nothing but facts,
must think them and dream them and
write them and be so saturated and
intoxicated with their pursuit that ne
cannot know or realize what a power
he holds in his hand. If one viii come
down to an exact realization of values
and carefully consider just what power
man OF standing in their employ has
one VIII see that this must be so: that
it doesn't make much difference what
Mr.. Roosevelt says upon a given occa-
sion If 1t is within the power of the
medium between him and the people
10 make him say quite otherwise. ITpon
the notebook of the Associated Press
reporter who is in charge of covering
the White House hang the opinions of
a great many millions of people as TO
what Mr.. Roosevelt has really said
and done.
The present occupant of that position
is comparatively young man from a
0--Ae.AA NDNii III tChNtd NJulg, whose
name is Elmer Paine. He receives a
salary of SIS a week, and should he
care to do so he could make the peo-
pie of the country believe about what
he chooses concerning almost any of
their affairs. 1t can be readily mag
med how he could with a days cheat
ing Of himself and the organization
which ne represents overturn values
to perhaps a great many
thousand times nis weekly salary, AMI
yet he quite contentedly lives in
modest cottage out in a suburb of the
capital city and is raising a family of
Boys. His ambition is that one dav
one of them may go to the naval
academy and so escape the newspaper
business.
Mr.. Stone in a series of articles in
the Century Magazine, 1904 and 1905.
mas devoted some pages to a description
OF the marvellous organization of which
ne is the general manager and the
executive head. Nothing that he has
written is so remarkable as the TYNE
Of men that his organization and its
system has created. There is one Assoc
ciated Press man whose assignments
in two years covered three continents.
and ran from the night newspaper Of
fees in New York to the final report
of the treaty of peace in Paris and
two wars and three cam
paigns. His experiences included be-
IN, he 81