The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1916-07-13
HANDLING NEWS
\ OF Conventions
Gigantic Task That Taxes Capac-
ity of Telegraph Com
4ig,.eir panies.
HOST OF FEATURE WRITER'S
News Associations Carry Routine, but
Individual Papers Must Give Sec
tional Color-Hundreds of Thou
Z, sands of Words Sent Out
Every Day.

! st. Louis. - The handling of the
news of national political conventions
taxes to the limit the capacity of the
telegraph companies, and of the sew
eral news organizations of the coun-
try, and at no previous conventions in
the history of the nation has the de-
mand for service been so great as it
was at st. Louis and Chicago during
the Democratic, Republican and Pro-
gressive gatherings of this year.
The news associations, such as the
International News Service, the AS
sOciated Press and the United Press,
carry the main facts of the cOnven-
tons over their own wires, but the
individual newspapers must take care
of themselves SO far as features and
news of particular delegations or for
particular sections are concerned, and
all of this matter must be handled by
the telegraph companies over regular
wires.
The number of star feature writers,
such men as William Jennings Bryan,
William Allen White, Irwin Cobb, Sam
Blythe, Ring Lardner, Percy Ham
mond and many others, was greater
at the conventions of this year than
ever before, and their stuff was all
sent over the wires to the many pa
pers they were serving.
Heavy Demand for Wires.
The fact that two conventions we're
held at Chicago, and the uncertainties
of the situation at that city, created
the heaviest demand of the year for
telegraphic service at that point,
though the Democratic convention
here, even though it followed a pre-
arranged program, proved close sec
ond.
The telegraph business of all three
conventions was, of course, divided
between the Western Union and the
Postal, and both made strenuous eff
forts to get the bulk of it from the
newspaper men. Aside from the mat
ter handled by the news associations,
more than 100000 words were sent
from Chicago in a single day, and
while this was some 100000 words
short of that sent from Chicago on
the day Colonel Roosevelt arrived
there four years ago, the total for the
week was much greater than that of
1912.
= A much greater number of papers
was represented by special CORE
spondents than ever before. In pre-
vious years the special men have been
confined largely to the press of the
few big cities, but this year many of
the comparatively small places were
represented by active newspaper
workers. A Nashua On. H.) CORE
spondent had one wire busy practi-
cally all day from the Republican
convention in Chicago. Newspapers
in such places as Selma, Ala; Fort
Collins, Cole, and Westerville, Ohio,
were represspted by special men: who
helped to keep the wires busy. A
very large number of papers in all
sections of the country were repre-
scented by the Western Newspaper
Union, and the service sent to these
papers helped by some $4,000 to $4,000
words a day to make up the total of
the telegraph business.
Star Operators on Job.
In the main Office of the Western
Union at st. Louis, on what they
called the convention floor, were $50
operators, the best in the employ of
the company, who did nothing but
handle newspaper dispatches. and the
same company employed 200 in the
same way at Chicago. These men are
code" operators, who can make few
letters tell whole sentence, and in