Interview with Jacob Little. "I do," said the man of newspapers, "most clearly." 605 "Well, sir, that was the great mistake of my life. Strange that I should have had such an idea of the value of the telegraph; but I hadn't a particle of faith in it--not a particle." "You were not alone, Mr. Little; I found many connected with the Press, even, whose business was telegraphic, who had the same erroneous idea." "Yes, yes," continued Mr. Little; "but it's too late-too late-too late." Then, as if to change the topic, he said, "Do you see that man walking on the sidewalk?" I looked, and saw a portly man evidently on his way to church. "Yes," said I. "That is That man, sir, would have gone to the dogs in 18- if I had not advanced him $70,000 when he could not get a cent-no, sir, not a cent any where else to save him from suspension. He would not now lend me $5. What do you think of that?" The car had reached the Astor House, and we parted. In a few months after, Jacob Little left the whirl of Wall Street never to return. He was a wonderful man in his day—abrupt in manner, but honorable in business. Vanderbilts, Jeromes, Drews, Fisks, Goulds, have since made their mark, and millions are now counted where thousands were counted before. Telegraphs are projected to every nook and corner of the earth. Every large establishment in Europe and America has its own private wire connecting the city warehouse with the country factory; every leading editor ties his residence to his printing-office with an electric string. Beautiful articles of furniture may be seen in Fifth Avenue palaces, looking like a bijou of an escritoire, or some musical instrument. Suddenly a bell rings, as if by magic. It is rung by electricity. Some one goes to this mysterious piece of furniture and lifts its cover. It is a tele graphic instrument. "Here is a message from the office." "What is it?" "Three friends have just arrived from Europe. They will dine with us to-day. We shall be home at five P.M." Some wonderful journalistic achievements have been accomplished and others contemplated by telegraph. The first feat was in sending an abstract of Henry Clay's speech on the war with Mexico, which he delivered in Lexington, Kentucky, on the 13th of November, 1847. It was expressed to Cincinnati, and thence telegraphed to the New York Herald. This effort cost $500. It was considered an instance of great enterprise. There were then only 3000 miles of wire in the United States. There was no line south of Charleston; none west of Cincinnati; none east of Portland. The next was reporting one of John C. Calhoun's famous speeches in full. This also appeared in the Herald. Calhoun was a telegraphic orator. His speeches had to be given as he spoke them: the matter was fully condensed when uttered. It was contemplated by Robert Bonner, of the New York Ledger, if the first Atlantic cable had been successful, to have a short original story telegraphed by Charles Dickens for the Ledger. After the success of the second cable, and at the conclusion of the triangular contest in 1866 between Prussia, Austria, and Italy, the important speech of the King of Prussia was telegraphed to the New York Herald at a cost of $7000. This dispatch was published by two or three other New York papers, and they paid their share of the tolls. On the appearance of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's defense of her very curious statement relative to Lord Byron, the Pall Mall Gazette of London had a column of the defense telegraphed from New York, a remarkable instance of telegraphic enterprise in an English journal. Since then, the war between France and Germany in 1870 has still farther developed the resistless enterprise of the Press and the unmeasured capacity and importance of the telegraph. The Tribune, Herald, World, and Times have had long and graphic reports of the sharp and decisive battles of Gravelotte and Sedan, the surrender of Napoleon, the operations around Paris, the Commune war, interviews with Napoleon, Bismarck, Von Buest, and Antonelli, obtained and telegraphed regardless of personal labor, personal risk, and lavish expenditure of money. The interest and anxiety created by the Chicago fire throughout the world was, in a measure, owing to the telegraph, and the London correspondent of the New York Tribune, writing on the 21st of October, 1871, gave the following particulars : Nothing could be a better proof, if any proof were needed, of English interest in Chicago, than the extraordinary efforts of the London Press to get early and full accounts. A sharp lookout was kept for the Silesia at Plymouth, and for the Java at Queenstown, bringing, respectively, New York papers of the 10th and 11th. The Silesia arrived at 8 o'clock yesterday morning, and the Java (Queenstown being half a day's sail nearer New York) late in the same afternoon. The Silesia's papers were in season to be forwarded by train to London, but the Queenstown dispatches had to be telegraphed. The Postal Telegraph being seldom equal to an emergency without special preparation, an agent had been sent from London to facilitate the transmission of dispatches both to London and other parts of the kingdom. The newspaper reporters went off in a steam-tug to intercept the Java, caught her some distance out at sea, got papers, and this morning we have from three to six columns in each of the leading journals, partly by telegraph and partly from the papers which came by the Plymouth train. All this is very dif ferent from the sleepy way in which such things were once managed. The use of the inland telegraph, I must add, must become far more common than it now is, and will be limited only by the ability or inclination of the post-office to transact the business which its customers want done. Mr. Scudamore's idea that the newspapers" want too much news" may some day take its place among the fossil curiosities of the department. He must get the consent of Parliament to raise the rates if he expects to check the new enthusiasm of the British Press. They put a clause into the bill which transferred the telegraphs to government, fixing the tariff for Press dispatches at one shilling (24 cts.) for a hundred words from any part Marvelous Telegraphic Enterprise. 607 of the United Kingdom. The actual cost of these very showy-looking dispatches is therefore about $5 a column. Our newspaper telegraphic enterprise is marvelous. It appears that the Press news telegrams alone which passed over the wires in the United States in 1866 were greater than the entire telegraphic correspondence of the whole of Continental Europe in the same year. Here are the figures: STATEMENT SHOWING THE NUMBER OF TELEGRAMS IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE AND OF PRESS TELEGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES IN ONE YEAR. Total number of messages transmitted in Continental Europe for 1866 12,902,538 Gross receipts for above $11,597,682 71 Total number of messages Gross receipts for above 14,715,181 $521,509 3 cents. Improvements are being continually introduced in telegraphy. Accuracy and rapidity are the points now sought to be reached. The highest rate of speed attained in telegraphic communication by the Morse instrument was accomplished between Boston and Providence in May, 1868. Twenty-seven hundred and thirty-one words were transmitted in one hour without a break, and legibly and correctly copied. This was equal to forty-five or forty-six words per minute. On short lines sixty or seventy words per minute have been transmitted. This has been the progress-the expansion. Since then, automatic telegraphic instruments have been invented by Humiston and Little in the United States, and Wheatstone in England. That of Little, which is said to be superior, is capable of transmitting through perforated paper one thousand to fifteen hundred words per minute! When this is in full operation, and each individual can prepare and send his own messages, will not the Postoffice Department give place to a Telegraph Department, and the ti tle of our Post-master General be changed to that of Telegraph-master General? Will not autographic correspondence entirely cease? What reflections must have passed through the mind of the inventor of such a marvelous instrument of civilization and progress as he sat in his study at Poughkeepsie and looked over the result of his inspiration in the narrow berth on board the Sully in 1832! "No pent-up Utica" to his thought then. Artist as he was, he could not picture on his own mind the reality of his wonderful, yet simple discovery; but if he had lived a year or two longer he would have seen the enterprising newspaper of the metropolis filled every morning, with every line of its contents, excepting a portion of its editorials, some of its city news, and a part of its advertisements, made up of telegrams from the surrounding world-from the remotest corner on the surface of the earth, to the nearest neighboring village, ward, or street! CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE NEW YORK ASSOCIATED PRESS. ITS ORIGIN. ITS NECESSITY.—Its Object.—ItS OPERATIONS.—War With THE TELEGRAPH COMPANIES.-ATTEMPT AT MONOPOLY.-LEASE OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND LINE.-INTERCEPTING STEAMERS OFF HALIFAX AND CAPE RACE. WILL THE ASSOCIATION BE A PERMANENT INSTITUTION? THE Associated Press belongs to the telegraphic era. But what is the Associated Press? Is it not a monster monopoly? Does it not cripple the enterprise of individual journals? Is it a permanent institution? These are common questions with newspaper editors and publishers. They are problems that perplex the journalist. Most of the general news of the world is gathered by the agents of the Associated Press, and its title is known all over the globe. There are news associations in Europe. These were established by individuals, and were considered useful auxiliaries, and encouraged by the absence of enterprise in newspaper proprietors until they became institutions and somewhat dictatorial. Reuter was the first; Havas and Bullier followed. Reuter is now king of news in Europe, and wears a ribbon from one of the German powers for special telegrams during the Franco-German war. He is, besides, a telegraph contractor, and lays cables. He is an electric power. It is the common belief that news associations were the result of the introduction of the telegraph. This is correct so far as the present extensive organizations are concerned; but organizations existed before 1844 on a limited and local scale. There were associated arrangements with several of the New York papers prior to 1840 for the collection of shipping news. There was one, at the head of which was the Courier and Enquirer, which run pony expresses from Washington. There were three in existence in New York City in 1837-'8. Captain Bancker was at the head of one for the Courier and Enquirer and Journal of Commerce; Captain Hurley had charge of another for the Express, Mercantile Advertiser, and Gazette; Captain Cisco was at the head of the third for the Commercial Advertiser, Evening Star, and American. These were for marine news. The Herald had its independent establishment. Captain Hamil commanded the news-boat for that journal. There was no unity then between the "Sixpenny" and the "Penny Press." The Sun aft Early News Associations. 609 erwards set up an enterprise of its own for important arrivals only, one of the men with "a glazed cap," Captain Brogan, in charge. The New York papers had passed through their period of enterprise when the Courier and Enquirer run horse expresses and news schooners in competition with the Journal of Commerce. Those days of spirit and dash, when James Watson Webb was in his glory, had subsided, only to be aroused by the Cheap Press coming vigorously into existence. All "pony" expresses had been stopped, and the newspapers had fallen back on row-boats for the gathering of shipping intelligence. The news schooners Evening Edition, Courier and Enquirer, and Journal of Commerce were laid up "in ordinary" or had become pilot-boats. With the establishment of the Herald this journalistic energy revived. It opened a new era with the American Press. With the increase of this class of papers, full of tact and spirit, with the extension of railroads, the introduction of ocean steamers, the spread of express lines, and the inauguration of the magnetic telegraph, the competition of journalists to keep step with these new forces in the field became lively, comprehensive, and costly. We all see and appreciate the splendid result. The Herald had its row-boats for marine news under the command of such men as Robert Hamil, Robert Martin, William Bassett, Robert Silvey, and John Hall, and they did well. They were a new race of ship-news reporters. Besides these, the pilot-boats, a dozen in number, clippers in every sense, favored the Herald, and that paper, as a matter of course, continually eclipsed the older papers of New York in news from every quarter of the globe, for most of the intelligence from other parts of the world, outside the United States, had to pass Sandy Hook. The "blanket sheets," the old WallStreet Press, were constantly "beaten" in European news. Added to these exploits, the Herald began its expresses from Boston in, 1841-2 with the advices brought by the Cunard steamers. The Sun soon followed in competition. Expresses were also run from Albany with the annual messages of the governors. When the war opened with Mexico, accounts of the several battles were expressed in advance of the government dispatches. All this enterprise produced a great effect. The Herald and Sun, of New York, and Ledger, of Philadelphia, began to make their mark. The despised "Penny Press" were multiplying, and the "blanket sheets" rapidly losing what reputation they had previously acquired. They swelled in size only till many collapsed. The Herald was alone in its enterprise. So was the Sun. But with the progress of events combinations began to be formed in consequence of the persistent success of the Herald, and because of the enormous expense attending these operations. Q & |