Meeting Week

In one week newspaperdom met itself and met itself and met itself again. The Associated Press met in Manhattan. The American Newspaper Publishers' Association convened at the same place. The American Society of Newspaper Editors sat in Atlantic City.

The first of these drew the most attention because it happened to be addressed by President Coolidge when it opened its meeting. In other ways it merited such attention as was given it. For Associated Press despatches are the principal news nourishment on which America subsists. According to its annual report, its services go to 1208 newspapers. It has 70 bureaus in 41 states. It has over 100 correspondents abroad. It has 44,000 miles of leased wires and transmits about 80,000 words of news a day. Its receipts and expenditures are $6,500,000 a year.

All this is a development of about 30 years, a creation by newspaper men for the sake of journalism. The Associated Press is entirely owned by its members who contribute to pay its expenses. Its nonpartisanship, its accuracy, its great scope are not only generally acknowledged, but unequalled by any other news agency anywhere at anytime.

Hence it was that at its annual meeting a President of the U. S. came to speak. Hence it was the proper body to take charge of and preserve the last stick of type set by Warren G. Harding. This type was set by the late President in the composing room of The Fairbanks News Miner-Citizen on his trip to Alaska last summer. The publisher sent the type south and it was presented to the Associated Press by Secretary of Agriculture Wallace.

In electing its directors for the coming year the Associated Press paid a special compliment to its chief organizer and its first president, Vic tor Fremont Lawson. As a special honor he was reelected to the Directorate by acclamation. Mr. Lawson is publisher of The Chicago Daily News. On Christmas Day, 1875, he, with Melville E. Stone (now retired head of the Associated Press) and two others, set up the News with $5,000 capital. The others soon dropped out. Stone maintained his connection with the News until he took charge of the Associated Press. Lawson and Stone instituted a series of innovations and improve ments typical of a great enterprise. They made the News a penny paper (5 cents was the established news paper price at the time). Chicago did not have enough pennies to buy papers; so they imported them in $1,000 lots. Lawson began to publish unpadded statements of his circulation. He set a fixed advertising rate, instead of leaving the matter to haggling. He could not afford a news-service but he set up a corps of special correspondents of his own and extended his news 'field over the entire world, a policy maintained to the present time (and costing about $260,000 a year) in addition to the news services now acquired.

The News' first great scoop was the nomination of Hayes.

At the time of the Turco-Russian War, the Post appeared to be stealing News despatches. The News printed a despatch concerning a riot in Servia and in the despatch were some Servian words. The Post printed it and the next day the News published a translation: "The McMullens' (publishers of the Post) will steal this sure." Within a couple of years Lawson was able to buy out the Post. In 1881 he founded The Morning News, later called The Chicago Record, later merged into the Record-Herald and finally sold to Hearst to become The Herald and Examiner.

Among the men that developed under Mr. Lawson's tutelage were Eugene Field, George Ade, John T. McCutcheon, Ray Stannard Baker, Peter B. Kyne, Frank B. Noyes.

He was one of the first publishers to leave the old school of partisanship and print both sides of a controversy. He inaugurated and pressed the movement which resulted in the Postal Savings System. He published the first comic strip in the country. He developed classified advertising. In addition, it was he who in 1893 helped to reorganize the Associated Press, put Melville E. Stone at its head, and started it towards the place which it holds today. It was entirely fitting that he should be made a Director of the A. P. by acclaim.