The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-05-27

"Ouack." The fruit tree agent asked
to stay all night; the horses whinnied
Neigh" Peace lowered Ger the
prairie wide; the cattle lowed. the
horses highed; and sounded thru me
village smoke, the bark of watchdog.
elm and oak And he who owned
his farm to beans.
WALT MASON.
The Associated Press and Others.
Mr.. President, Gentlemen of the Club and
1t has been about seventy-five years
since there was any gathering OF news
at all like we have today. In the lat
ter part of the eighteenth century
there were coffee houses in London
and in New York where congenial
spirits congregated and exchanged the
current news gossip among them
selves. One of che most notable OF
these coffee houses was presided over
by DR.. Samuel johnson and was just
off Fleet street. busy then as TO-DAY.
To be sure, some years previous Ad-
olson ard Steele issued at various
times what they called 1.-The Specta-
tor" There have probably been no
essays written since that time
that excelled those in THE
Spectator" in dictum and good
English. But the Spectator was
not newspaper. 1t was, as you
know, a collection of essays mainly
upon political subjects. 1t essayed
not to collect news. OF course,
this being a literary club, doubtless
each one of you has-in his library
Addison and Steele's wonderful clas-
sic writings.
Shortly after the American revolu-
ton a little paper called THE Boston
News Letter" was issued. But still
that was hardly a patron of any news
organization, for the reason that there
was none to patronize.
Indeed, it was not until seventy
| five years ago that any attempt
worthy the name in the way of the
gathering of news was made. The man
to whom the credit is probably really
due as tie first organizer of service
for the collection of news was James
|
James Gordon Bennett who died on
Tuesday of last week in Paris.
About the middle of the last CEN
tury-a little before the middle
James Gordon Bennett was active in
his career as a conductor of even at
that day, a great newspaper. He was
enterprising in the extreme. His
methods at that time, however. bring
smile today. There was no tele-
graph nor cable. The news came, the
big news, to a large extent from the
old country, aside from the important
news of the United States; but the
competition at that time was in the
foreign news.
In order to secure the news ahead
of his competitor, James Gordon Ben
nett used carrier pigeons and the pony
express. When a vessel landed at Bos-
ton, Bennett. with his ponies. met the
ship and the news was conveyed by
pony express from Boston to New
| York.
His competitors soon found they
could get ponies, too, so Bennett re-
sorted to still another stroke of en-
terprise in getting the news first; and
news is not always news unless you get
it first
| Mr.. Bennett conceived the idea of
sending a boat to meet the incoming
ships bearing news, and on that cour-
Ter vessel, which went out from New
York or Boston in time to meet the
ship, was carried a cage of pigeons.
These pigeons were taken on board the
incoming ship, the news collected, put
upon paper in brief form and the pig
cons loosed from a stateroom of the
ship. These pigeons flew to the cote
in the New York Herald building.
For some time Bennett thus pub
lished the news first. But about 1S48
the Morse telegraph began to be used.
There was a line constructed between
Boston and New York and a subsidy
of some $4,000 granted to it by the
government; that brought the news 81
multaneously to New York.
| The newspapers saw that it was nee
essary to form an organization and
they organized what was the first AS
! ISOLATED Press. 1t was composed of
the five leading papers of New York
at that time: the Herald, the Tribune,
the Sun and the Times among them.
Those were the days of the big jour-
nalists, Bennett, Dana. Horace Gree
ley, Jones and Raymond.
| The results of that Associated
Press, which was called the New
York Associated Press" brought about
| similar organizations in different parts
of the country, which purchased their
news from the New York Associated
/ Press.
| Later, what was known as the
| Western Associated Press was or
ganized. That was composed among
others of the Chicago Tribune, the