The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-07
HOW ROOSEVELT USES
 THE DAILY PAPERS A Washington Correspond dent Tells All
 About It. NEWSPAPER CUCKOOS A Proud Title, But One Not Easy to Hold
 On To.
CUCKo0s

In writing of Roosevelt the press agent no word of disrespect is meant, for no feeling of disesteem is enter talned. w hat shall be said will be based upon personal experience or about a year as assistant press agent under the president, and close ob- servation extending over the entire period of his occupancy of the White House. To be more specific and to l give my simple narrative the virtue of frankness and direetness 1 shall make a confession at the outset to | wit: For the greater part of year l | was what is known in Washington as | one of the Presidents newspaper | cuckoos. In the parlance of Wash ington, a cuckoo is a journalistic bird that is permitted to make its princi- pal roost close to the executive cham Der and report for the delectation of his editor, for the enlightenment of the public and the accommodation of the President, such outgivings or in- ternal operations of the presidential mind as may suit the purpose or the whim of the nations chief magistrate.
 There are in Washington about 200 men whose principal vocation Is the gathering of news and it's dissemina- ton to the four corners of the earth. Not over 40 of this number at any one time or period can boast the proud t- tie of cuckoo. EIe who Is cuckoo to- day may find his place upon the perch taken tomorrow by another bird of fairer plumage for the cuckoo wots not at what hour he Is to be divested of his honors, his privileges and immuni- ties It is as much the Presidents prerogative to choose his assistant press agents as to select the members of his cabinet, and it is as incumbent upon the one as the other to step aside whenever the President indi- cates a desire for a change. And when | the deposed cuckoo flutters with brok- | en wing from his roost under the White House eyes he may find that | his editor has separated him from his salary. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't But as this, too | Is all in the days work it has no prop CT place in this discussion
 1 Rarely does the President com municate with more than one of his cuckoos at time. Occasionally he assemblies the whole flock and pours out to them en masse the thoughts he has formed or is forming upon a sub ject of greater or less public interest. In his handling of his assistant press agents he observes the Napoleonic method of not intrusting the full de- tails of a campaign to any one of them. If the assistant press agent be the representative of Washing
 ton newspaper MT. Roosevelt may impart to him fuller mass of detail
 than to the representative of a news
 paper elsewhere. The reason for this Is obvious. The Washington
 newspaper is read by the members
 of congress and other public men in
 all parts of the country. Thus, If lit suit the Presidents purpose better
 to plant the seeds first in the minds
 of the peoples servants preliminary to sowing the whole broad field, he will employ his Washington cuckoo
 to make primary announcement, in way somewhat cryptic to the populai intelligence, but sufficiently significant to the minds of the experienced poll
 ticians to give them warning of what they would better do if they do no want to get hurt. If thereafter, thu
 politicians display either obtusenes' or perversity, the President ther calls to his side the ouckoos of out of-town newspapers and througl them inaugurates a campaign of edu = cation that may be either nation-wid or confined to those sections of thu country where he has reason to be J lieve the people should be informed of the indispositlon of their chosei representatives at Washington to bent willingly to the executive purpose.
 The best illustration of the em
 ployment of this method that come
 to mind is found in his propaganda Q f the Taft presidential boom. It ha ] been more than a year since throug his Washington newspaper cuckoo { the same being none other than tn 8 contrite writer of these lines-Mi | Roosevelt began publicly to let tn : world know that he desired his abl
 secretary of war to succeed him | : the White House. Faithfully his de
 sire in this matter was promulgate
 in a Washington newspaper so tha
 every member of congress who ra
 might read. In droves they ran whe / they did read--straight to the Whit
 House. There went Foraker, almoS
 bursting with suppressed wrath. As k followed Foraker's amiable colleague
 MT. Dick, his curiosity whetted Il razor edge. Precious little satisfac
 ton did either of them get on tn e main point, for the good and suf7
 clent reason that it is the prerogativ
 of the executive to envelop himse in vast, impenetrabIe silence when h
 so wishes on any topic under tn
 sun "Ha! la" nervously and wit l affected merriment chortled Senator |. Foraker and Dick when they had vlE 1t tied the sphinx. Another newspt
 liner lie nailed" Just the san
 Messrs. Foraker and Dick proceede
 to get very busy in Ohio, lest u = cuckoo might not have lied. They al
 busv vet, and as the summer solstit
 approached, their busy-ness increase - until now they are about the busie
 tstatesmen on this hemisphere. Lik,
 wise a varied assortment of newspi
 per euckoos, for the presidential pr
 rogative extends to them as to a
 humber folk. In the instance
 Taft, it suited the executive purpo 1 best to plant the seeds in the col
 eressional mind first, and so it ft