Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-03
The Haskin Letter By s : %ssa
PHOTOGRAPHIC THE SUPREME COURT

Washington, ID. c., Sept. 30.-When
Justice John Hessin Clarke resigned
from the supreme court the other day.
he did a service not only to the man
appointed to succeed him, but also,
though quite incidentally. to n OF
more news photographers in Wash
ington. A new justice on the supreme
tbench means a new photograph of the
I supreme court, and a new photograph
I.of the supreme court is worth many
hundreds of dollars to the photog-
rapher who secures it.
But photographing the supreme
court is all in the days Business for
the news photographer in the national
capital, although not many photographs
are so valuable. A photograph of the
supreme court has a historic value
which causes it to be purchased not
only by newspapers and magazines,
| but also by lawyers. law Libraries. "et
al, to use legal phraseology. Yet il
frequently happens that the news pho
tographer by some lucky shot secures
a picture that out-distances the formal
group photograph of the supreme jus
tees as q seller. This is usually @
view of some great man in an imposed
and human attitide-the well-known
picture of Mrs. Harding fastening q
~buttonhole was an example-but it may
be merely a still picture or some seen
ic phase.
The man who first photographed the
reflection of the capitol's dome on the
tune. How many copies of the pho
tograph of the blossoming cherry trees
along the tidal basin in Washington
have been sold? Tens of thousands oil
them. Some day, when the landscapine
of the approach to the Lincoln Memoir.
ial is done, some lucky button-presser
will get that right and there will be
another fortune made.
No other city in the world is SC
thoroughly photographed, both as to its
inhabitants and visitors and as to its
streets and buildings as Washington
The firm of Harris & Ewing alone
owns over a half million negatives OF
Washington pictures of news value
past and present. The firm of Under
wood & Underwood, although estab'
lished III Washington only for a few
years, also possesses an enormous file
Besides these there are several other
photographers whose business is pri'
marily a studio business, but who dea
in news photographs to a greater oil
less extent. 1t is probably safe to es
innate that there now exist the mega
tives Of a million news photographs Of
Washington and its people taken BY
professional photographers. And thu
Oldest of these negatives is not muct
more than Is years old.
Photographers Rank. With Reporter'
The business of photographing tn.
progress of our government has grown
to be as highly specialized as that o.
reporting it in print. The p%hotogra
piers have their regular station at thu
White House, for instance, just as do
the representatives of the press asso'
Citations. This is all an ultra modern
development. Infants born before thu
modern action news photograph was
understood at all are still minors. 1e
today there is scarcely any phase o
historical progress anywhere in thu
world that is not being completely pre-
served in photographs.
TO appreciate the truth OF this state
|, ment. the reader has only TO serci
his recollection for a mental image of
say. President Benjamin Harrison il
some active pose. He has no such rec
objection, for he never saw an actor
picture of Harrison. Except for thos'
who saw President Harrison in lif'
the public today has no better mean
Of knowing what he really looked Xix
| than it has of knowing what Juliu
Caesar looked like. 1t has some for
NAL portraits and that is all. Tn
! same is substantially true of Presl
/ dents Cleveland and Mckinley; al
j, though motion picture had been in
vented by Mckinley's time, and tn
i movie camera was turned upon him.
. But the photographing of news. a
- -. -. = lavon AprinO Rnncp
i, yelt's administration. when Barne
CIinedinst. a Washington p~hotogra
pher. imported from Germany a cam
era with a shutter so rapid that
} would stop upon the photograph
! plate the swiftest kinds of action. n
man was more receptive TO new idea
than Roosevelt: and when Clinedins
| told Roosevelt about the new Gamer
the president invited the Photographic
TO test the new instrument by takin
some snapshots of T. r. on horseback
r The famous photograph of RooseveI
~yaulting a five-bar fence on a hors
> was the result of that first appoint
c ment-a photograph that is said
o have made Clinedinst over $20,0Oo. !
: was the forerunner of the modern az
ton picture of public men.
t Roosevelt was the best of all pres
idential subjects for the camera. II
- was Il man Of striking actions. and h
!, was that most excellent of all poser
: the man who can be utterly himself i
: front of the cameras eye. But I. !
{ had something more: he could sit !
r a studio and register a portrait tbs
. fairly glowed with his own %personait!
! Other public men a get this resu
occasionally. and then they secure wins
d they cherish as their best pictures; br
e ,uas due To the war and not to tt