The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-03-23

dispa tches in your newspaper you will
see that they bear the legend BY the As
ISOLATED Press. And you ask: What is
this Associated Press which has its eyes
and ears over the seven seas and in
four corners of the earth? What is this
Associated Press which knows first
about the crumbling of empires, the
death of Popes and Presidents, the rise
and fall of governments and the affairs
of the world wherever they may be 60
ing on?
You ask. Is it great corporation
which publishes large number of news
papers? Is it a mouthpiece for any
government, or is it q business concern
which gathers and distributes the
worlds news as business proposition
to make profits for stockholders?
Function Of "a. p"
1t is none of those. Some wise man
once said "Give the American people
the facts on any question and they
will make the right decision" With
those words, whoever he was, he dis
closed the function of the Associated
Press. For its sole function, and none
other, is to give the American people
and the people Of the worid-the facts
about every subject of public interest;
to write the history of the world as it
is being made day by day and TO do this
without bias as to politics, religion or
personal interest.
This business of gathering and dis
tributing the news is a very old bust
ness. 1t began in the early days Of the
Roman Empire before anyone had
thought of publishing a newspaper.
Then, announcements Of public impor.
lance were written on bills and posted
on the walls of the city of Rome. The
first newspaper originated there, so far
as we know, but the business of publish
ing made little progress until the inven-
ton of printing. The world grew his
tory widened; one man wrote a letter
to another, recounting the interesting
things of his neighborhood. Then, some
enterprising fellow conceived the idea
of gathering such letters and extracting
the most interesting things from each,
combined them in one, which he sold
to the folks about him who waited to
know what was going on over the
horizon. That probably was the first
newspaper, crude as it was.
News Transmission
But the thirst for knowledge was as
great then as it is now, and when
Gutenberg invented movable types the
publication Of newspapers started on
its way. But the means of communi.
cation were slow in those early days;
there were no steamships, no railroads,
no telegraphs, no submarine cables, no
radio, no airplanes. News was carried
by word of mouth, by letter, by carrier
pigeon, by horseback-by the best
means available. The news of the Bat
tie of Waterloo was not known in Lon
don until several days after it was all
over. In the great war just closed peo-
pie all over the civilized world were
reading about great battles while they
were still going on.
When Morse invented the electric
| telegraph: when Cyrus Field laid the
Atlantic cable; when Bell invented the
telephone and Marconi perfected radio,
the business of gathering and distribut-
ing news entered upon the stage in which
you now know it. These men made the
world smaller. They took the light to
the dark places; they opened the path
WAY for civilization to travel to the
farthest corners, and to them the world
owes a great debt it never can pay.
When these men provided the means
of communication between people and
countries, they created the obligation to
supply the world with information
about itself, and this was taken up by
the men and the forces which now have
come to be known as the Associated
Press.
Pioneer Newsgatherers
The development was rapid, it was a
great experiment, and like all expert
ments it was at first faulty. Means
and machinery for gathering and dis
tributing news in the United States
were privately owned by few men. No
one questions the sincerity or the hon.
esty of these men; they did a great
pioneer work. But the time came when
it was obvious that having the means
and the channels by which the Ameri-
can people were informed of the prog
ress of their own affairs and of the
wide world, owned in fee simple by
anybody, for profit, was not a safe or
a proper thing to be. my mans COM
mon source of information, on which he
forms his opinions and takes his action,
toward public men and affairs is his
newspaper-for an average man has
none other-and if his information be
wrong; if it be poisoned by personal
interest, or tainted by partisan poll
tice or affected by religious prejudice,
it is sure to be unsound.
What, then, was to be done to create
an agency by which men and women
might know the plain truth and decide
for themselves whether their public SER
wants were corrupt or faithful; whether
the policies of their government were
good or bad; whether our foreign neigh
bors bore us i'll will or friendship?
What was there to be done to assure
sound, healthy threads for their fabric
which is woven in the human brain and
called public opinion, that it might be
just and enduring.
Birth OF The Associated Press
A great mutual association of news
papers was formed and it was called
the Associated Press. Into that asso-
citation newspapers were received into
full membership, with equal voice in
its management, without regard to
whether they were republican or demo-
crat, Catholic or Protestant, Gentle or
Jew. And each one pledged to the
other it would supply to them the daily
history of the events of the world in its
own locality-no editorial opinions, bear
in mind-no propaganda for this, that
or the other-just the plain facts of
what happens. In addition to that they
bound themselves to gather in co-opera-
ton and in common with one another.
| the news Of the world beyond the seas,