The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-14

wires, and they probably bring tho | total amount of daily press business leaving the city of Washington up tc the tremendous total of 350.000 words The occasion of the second inaugura- l tion of Governor Cleveland Is said to have been the record d-breaking time in the history of telegraphy for the num- city in one day It Is estimated that the total ran up to half million words. The time of the Spanish American War was another period when the telegraphio facilities of | Washington were taxed to the utmost It was not an unusual thing for a single paper to have a ten or fifteen thousand words message filed.
 The greatest performance at the telegraph key in the whole history ot | the business occurred at the time of McKinly's annual message to Congress in the fall of 1900. It was then the custom to release the message by wire | instead of mailing it out as Is now done. The Associated Press was given the document on Sunday afternoon. Ii contained 23.000 words. W. L. Waugh l and Ernest w. Emery. both of whom are still with the Associated Press although no longer at the key. trans mitted the entire message In five and | half hours. which was at the rate of 2,000 words an hour per man. For sustained speed nothing equal to this has ever been done.
 General conditions of newspaper work at the capitol have changed vast ly in the past twenty-five years In the olden days each correspondent had to cover practically the entire field of general news and local matters since there was no press association to handle the routine stuff Today this | burden is taken from the shoulders of the correspondents and they are left Tree to handle the news of local value and to comment on and interpret that of general interest. Serving hundreds of papers representing all shades ot political belief and all degrees ot Journalistic propriety, the press as- sociation has to content itself with the | bare, bald statement of fact.
 There Is no conflict of interest be- tween the correspondent and the press association. After all 1t is the inside details, the analysis of motives and the sidelights which make the best story, and to the press association this l Is forbidden ground Furthermore the | people of the Seventh Virginia District are more interested in knowing what their representative Is doing than what the President himself Is having in
 
 million dollars for the construction of postoffice at Atlanta Is of more in | terest to the people of that city than the appropriation of a hundred million dollars for the United States army. Here Is where the Washington cor 1 respondent finds his useful field Furthermore. 1t is remarkable how much political news of a local interest centers fin Washington. Right now the patronage question Is uppermost Which is the dominant faction in the home state? Who shall have the say | in awarding the offices at home Who Is to be postmaster at Podunk and what is the significance of hi. | selection? Is not the selection of g | United States marshall for the eastern district of Kentucky of more interest to Kentuckians than the appointment | of an ambassador to the Court of St | James? State politics Is made and un. made more In Washington than al home. Senator So-and-So is the | kingpin of his party back home. Hls l lieutenants come here to confer witt him about every move. It requires c local man. one who knows the situa. | ton at home, one who can put the two and two of politics together and mak, l four out of 1t, These things are o1 more frequent occurrence now thar ever before. and the Washington cor. respondent more essential than ever. 1 The government makes ample pro vision for the Washington correspon, dent. Realizing that the safety of tho nation lies in having all the people know what is transpirlnE at the capi | tai. and that the correspondents art the best interpreters of these happen ings. evsry facility Is afforded them tS