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CHAPTER XLIX.

THE REPORTERS OF THE PRESS.

THEIR EARLY STRUGGLES IN REPORTING SPEECHES AND DEBATES. - THE REVOLUTION.-Value of REPORTS.-NUMber of Reporters.

THE reporter is the amanuensis of the public. Through him statesmen speak to the people; through him Congress is heard; through him orators become celebrated.

There was a time when stenographers and phonographers were scarce in the United States. Joseph Gales was the first reporter, and he was in the first Congress in Philadelphia. Stenographers, fifty years ago, could not have earned twenty dollars a week on any metropolitan journal. No paper of that day would devote the space for a full report of a long speech. There is nothing on record of the great and important speeches in the early history of the country. It was only lately that the early debates in Congress were rescued from oblivion. There is not a speech of Aaron Burr to be found any where. Tradition has made him out a remarkably brilliant orator. There is no proof of the statement on record. It was not till 1837, 38, '39, and '40 that reporters were introduced on our Daily Press. The early troubles in this line of newspaper labor would astonish the present generation to witness.

The New York Herald experienced the same spirit of opposition in first reporting the religious anniversaries in New York that the English journals met with in their early attempts at reporting the debates of the British Parliament; but the Press was successful in both instances only, however, after a severe fight. On the 13th of April, 1738, Sir William Yonge made himself famous in his efforts to have the reporters suppressed. Speaker Onslow, of the House of Commons, complained that there was an account of their deliberations in the newspapers." Sir William then declared his determination to have the printers punished, and in his speeches predicted the wonderful ability and enterprise that have since been developed in this profession. "They deserve to be punished," he said; "and if you do not either punish them, or take some effectual method of checking them, you may soon expect to see your votes, your proceedings, and your speeches printed and hawked about the streets while we are sitting in this house."

The Clergy and the Reporters.

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Our clergymen were at first much opposed to having their sermons reported. Now, with more wisdom and tact, and seeing the advantages of larger audiences, many of those with any ability seek publicity. Henry Ward Beecher is a notable instance of this. His sermons are reported phonographically, and published weekly, not only in pamphlets, but in the newspapers of the day. Thus he preaches to half a million of people every week. The Rev. Dr. Hawkes, less of a genius, and with less tact, took the other view, as we have described. Of course, when once in print, his sermons could not very well be repeated from the pulpit. But this did not alarm Mr. Beecher; he was always ready with a fresh sermon.

The Herald now devotes a page, and sometimes two pages, every Monday morning, to the leading sermons preached the previous day in the churches in the metropolis and vicinity. Many are abstracts, of course, except when of special interest or importance. These reports are very ably done. The way they are received by the clergymen is in singular contrast with the course of Dr. Hawkes, and of the clergy generally, when the proprietor of that paper commenced the reports of the Religious Anniversaries in New York. Here are two indorsements which appeared in one day:

To the Editor of the Herald:

Church of the Messiah, NEW YORK, November 8, 1869.

I have read your reports of my sermons from Sunday to Sunday, and want to thank you for their general accuracy. In these days, when one is so often reported as saying what he has taken great pains not to say, it is refreshing to see an account which is truthful. You get the gist of the sermon every week, and I hope you will not think me intrusive in thanking you for it.

Yours sincerely,

To the Editor of the Herald:

GEORGE H. HEPWORTH.
NEW YORK, November 8, 1869.

Let me thank you for the report of my sermon in this morning's Herald. I have sometimes, and, indeed, so frequently, been made to suffer by the reporters, that it is refreshing to fall into the hands of one at once intelligent and appreciative. Will it be too much trouble for you to give my thankful acknowledgments to the gentlemanly reporter who was in my church yesterday?

Respectfully yours,

WILLIAM AIKMAN.

The Jewish Rabbinical Convention, held in Philadelphia in November, 1869, closed its labors with a vote of thanks to Mr. Ellinger, editor of the Jewish Times, for his valuable services, and to the New York Herald for the faithful report of its proceedings. The Jewish Synod, held in Leipsic, acknowledged through the Hebrew organs the services of the Herald for spreading its proceedings before the world. That paper also had representatives at the Ecumenical Council at Rome and the Protestant Convention at Worms. Nothing can show the cosmopolitan character of the enterprising Press of the present day more conclusively than these facts. The intimate relations of the Pulpit and Press were recently far more correctly appreciated by a tavern-keeper at a railroad junction than by the

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late distinguished prelate of Calvary Church. The Rev. Dr. Price, of England, in a sermon lately delivered in London, illustrated this fact in relating his experience in America:

Stopping on one occasion at a junction, he went to the hotel close by and had an excellent dinner. Afterwards, going into the clerk's office, he entered his name, "Thomas Price, Baptist minister, Aberdare." "Oh, sir," said he, "I guess you're a minister." "I guess so too," said I. "Well," he said, "you have only half to pay. The dinner is eighty cents; if you pay forty you get free of the other forty." "On what principle is that?" said I; and he said, "We give fifty per cent. off to ministers and editors." "Indeed," I said, "I happen to be an editor too." "Editor of what?" "Of Seren Cymru." "Don't know the paper; where is it published?" "In Wales." "I don't know it; but you're an editor, are you?" "Yes, I am." "Well, I guess we are about square, exactly." I said, "I really think that I will come again on those terms." "Come whenever you like, and we will treat you on those terms."

On one occasion Edward Everett delivered an elaborate address before the New York Historical Society. It had been previously prepared, and proof-sheets of it had been sent to the offices of the morning papers. One of the reporters of the Herald put these proofsheets in his note-book, and attended the lecture in the expectation that Mr. Everett would make alterations in the warmth of the moment, and that the Herald would therefore have a report of the address as it was actually spoken. It was the habit of Mr. Everett never to read his lectures, but to deliver them from memory. This is a New England habit. As school-boys would say, he "learned his lesson by heart." Well, the reporter closely followed Mr. E., word after word, from beginning to end of his splendid production, and how many changes does the reader suppose the lecturer made in the hour and a half he was engaged in "speaking his piece?" One, only one, and that was merely using the synonym of a single word that was in the original!

The United States are a great field for reporters. We have seen it stated that there are four hundred phonographers in the country. Thirty years ago there were none, and not more than half a dozen stenographers. Where there are so many legislative bodies-twenty or thirty in session every winter; where there are so many public meetings and public speeches; so many lectures, and so many important cases in courts, there is room for accomplished reporters in every state and in every city. Our newspapers, too, devote so much space now to these public matters, that skillful stenographers and phonographers can always command remunerative situations. Many of our courts have lately appointed official stenographers. So accurate are these gentlemen, that their reports are given in evidence in vitally important cases, and accepted by judge and jury. Some of the scenes in Congress, in courts, and in state Legislatures are so graphically and accurately reported that the reader can almost imagine that he has the dramatis personæ before him.

Copyright in News.

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CHAPTER L.

THE COPYRIGHT IN NEWS.

WHAT PROTECTION HAS A NEWSPAPER WITH ITS NEWs?-COLONEL THOMAS H. BENTON'S LECTURE.-Weekly Papers entered at THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN. THE PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT TREATY OF 1853. -IMPORTANT LAWSUITS.-THE REAL COPYRIGHT IN NEWS.-WHAT IS IT? -THE NEW COPYRIGHT TREATY.

SEVERAL papers, mostly weekly publications, although we have seen one daily newspaper, regularly appear with this announcement under the head-line:

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, in the office of the Librarian at Washington.

This secures the contents of the paper, thus filed, from piracy, and the intention is to confine these contents within the circle of its own circulation. According to Prudhomme," property is theft," and this copyright law is clearly in opposition to the brilliant idea of this distinguished French philosopher. Colonel Thomas Hart Benton, the senator from Missouri, so far as his public lectures were concerned, was a disbeliever in Prudhomme, much to the annoyance of reporters and publishers. He would not allow his lectures to be reported for the newspapers. He prepared one with great care, and, in order to prevent the reporters from appropriating the flashes of his thunder, he had the lecture copyrighted before uttering a single word. We recollect the supreme disgust of the reporters at the time. The Nautical Gazette, the New York Ledger, Harper's Weekly, and other publications, in having each number copyrighted, only wish to preserve their wares from those who are indifferent to the rights of others. Authors have the same property in their ideas, whether expressed in novels, romances, histories, plays, poems, or lectures, as in reaping machines, telegraph instruments, plows, fire-arms, and printing-presses. Irving, Bancroft, and Emerson's rights are as patent as those of Morse, M'Cormick, or Hoe. Newspapers, it would seem, hardly needed to be copyrighted. With a daily circulation of one hundred thousand, it is fair to suppose that that would practically be a copyright. Not so, however, in all cases. If the Herald, or Tribune, or Times should spend $10,000 for a cable dispatch of an important event in Europe, it could be circulated in half an hour after its issue from another printing-office

which would pay but five cents for the copy of the Herald or Times. There would be difficulties in the way of doing this, yet the sublime feat could be performed by an extensive printing establishment. During the Mexican War, while the Herald, and Sun, and Journal of Commerce were running expresses with intelligence of the battles, another paper in New York regularly stole the news, and unblushingly called the act "ingenuity." Then, however, the circulation of these papers was small compared with the number of copies now issued, and the power of the presses was limited. To-day, for instance, the Herald could print one hundred thousand copies in one hour! This constitutes a very effective copyright, so far as that establishment is concerned.

In 1851, in the effort made in England to remove the stamp from the Newspaper Press, it was urged to grant a copyright in news for twelve hours to the journalist having the enterprise, at great cost, to get important dispatches from India, America, and the Continent of Europe. It was stated by F. Knight Hunt, of the Fourth Estate and of the London Daily News, that instances had been known when the Times, for instance, would receive an important dispatch from Paris, and, while printing it for the railway trains, a penny paper would obtain a copy, and circulate 70,000 to 100,000, and thus completely forestall the Times with its own news, and at one fourth the price. There was some protection in the stamp, but that has now ceased to trouble the English journalists, after an existence of one hundred and sixty-eight years. It finally disappeared on the 30th of September, 1870. The Times gives this historical sketch of this tax:

In the year 1712 Queen Anne sent a message to the House of Commons complaining of the publication of "seditious papers and factious rumors, by which means designing men had been able to sink credit, and the innocent had suffered." On February 12 in that year, a committee of the whole house was appointed to consider the best means for stopping the then existing abuse of the liberty of the Press. The evil referred to had existence in the political pamphlets of the period. A tax upon the Press was suggested as the best means of remedying the evil, and, for the purpose of avoiding a storm of opposition, the impost was tacked on to a bill for taxing soaps, parchment, linens, silks, calicoes, etc. The result of the tax was the discontinuance of many of the favorite papers of the period, and the amalgamation of others into one publication. The act passed in June, 1712, came into operation in the month of August following, and continued for thirty-two years. The stamp was red, and the design consisted of the rose, shamrock, and thistle, surmounted with a crown. In the Spectator of June 10, 1712, Addison makes reference to this subject, and predicts great mortality among "our weekly historians." He also mentions that a facetious friend had described the said mortality as "the fall of the leaf." The witty Dean Swift, in his "Journal to Stella," under date of August 7, speaks of Grub Street as being dead and gone. According to his report, the new stamps had made sad havoc with the Observator, the Flying Post, the Examiner, and the Medley. Twelve years afterwards—namely, in 1724-the House of Commons had under consideration the practices of certain printers who had evaded the operation of the Stamp Act by printing the news upon paper between the two sizes mentioned by the law, and entering them as pamphlets, on

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