The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-10-30

| operator and other local expenses. To
this is added the fixed dues as stated
above for general expense and a GER
tain proportion of the cost of the
wires on the entire circuit on which
the member in question is located.
There is a strange thing about this
Associated Press. 1t has to buy every
thing, and has nothing to sell! It
never sell news. It only distributes it
to its members and to no one else.
That's the difference between the
Associated Press ana these other
You hear sometimes of the United
| Press, the Scripp- McRae service, the
Laffin' or the Sun service, etc.
Every one of these services is man
aged and controlled by a stock COM
pany for profit Each of these COM
panies sells the news where it may.
Several of these organizations are
first class and give the Associated
Press good stiff competition, but most
of them buy q little news here and
there and sell great deal more than
they buy; but they are not organized
on the mutual basis.
The Associated Press pays enorm-
Gus sums for it's news and yet, remen-
Der. sells nothing. During the recent
Portuguese revolution the Associated
Press paid as high as $115 a word for
news from Lisbon. 1t paid that to get
the news for its members and then
when its members printed the big news
in their noon editions the other associ-
atoms grabbed it for nothing and sent
it out to their mem ers.
That is the reason the smaller as
sociations can cut the rate and sell
news at a lower figure than the mem
bership expenses of the Associated
Press papers are in CORRESPONDING
towns. If news costs the Associated
Press S1.15 a word and the other or
CARNATIONS simply appropriate it.
without paying anything, from the
noon or early editions of the Associat-
ed Press papers, you see what an ad-
vantage they have. The advantage |
however, is only apparent. just as the
imitation has an apparent advantage |
over the real thing, in cheapness. The |
fact of it is. all these other news or
CARNATIONS, and I think that there is I
no exceptions, are United for revenue. |
The great organization is simply AS
ISOLATED for news
Little "Old Bill White" of the EN-
poria Gazette, What s-the- Matter
h-Kansas-W White" has one vote
which counts just the same in the AS
sociated Press meetings, as the one
big vote of Big Don Seftz, the heavy
weight of the New York World which
is mourning today for the loss of its
wonderful chief.
The little fellows are stronger than
the big fellows in the Associated
Press, because there are more of them,
just like Lincoln's common people
whom the Lord loves.
BY the way. did you know that,
speaking of the consideration given the
smaller papers, the other day a mem
bershfp was granted to the Princeton
College Daily Paper2 Now, here is a
little college paper printed in Wood
1rw Wilson's own town, which has the
anne voice on the motions and resolu-
lions pertaining to the welfare of the
Associated Press as the one voice of
The great Chicago Tribune or of the
Cincinnati Enquirer.
This seems to be a case where the
nsurgent, Gov. Wilson, slipped one
'ver' the other insurgent, Senator La
Toilette, with Gov. Harmon hoping
or the one vote of the Cincinnati En-
'uirer, to give him triangular chance
n political news.
A few years ago some of the larger
papers formed a sort of club or organi-
sation of a big dozen, and proceeded
% try to improve the Associated Press
service. They spent a lot of the good
money of the members of the Associ-
ated Press, and they did a lot of good
III
me of the principal objects of the big
iozen, or special committee, was -
,hange the bylaws to permit the big
papers to do certain things that they
wanted to do.
Well. they drew up a bylaw, after
months of hard work. that they
bought fitted the case but it was an
Unjust bylaw to the little papers and
he little papers wouldn't stand for it
md they slew that bylaw; and the old :
bylaw remains today as it was or
ginally-
In fact the bylaws of the Associ- :
ted Press are well drawn that it c
s practically impossible to change them
md they really don't need changing.
Frank Moves. the president of the 4
sociation and the man who knows
acre about it than any other man in .
, excepting General Manager Stone,
bought he would like new bylaw. =
lie worked with others trying to get =
mis- new bylaw, but he couldn't get it.
lie found that when he drew up the >
y-laws originally. he drew them so :
Tell and SO tight that they couldn't +
9 constantly changed, especially to +
ne detriment of the smaller papers, 1
ven if it would benefit the larger q
apers and those which paid the most Il