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Anglo-American Memories

<h3> CHAPTER XXIII SOME ACCOUNT OF A REVOLUTION IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM </h3> I Returning to New York in the early autumn of 1866 and spending the winter in The Tribune office, I was again sent abroad the following year, this time under an agreement to remain till 1870. I was to go as the exponent of a new theory of American journalism in Europe, a theory based on the belief that the cable had altered all the conditions of international news gathering and that a new system had to be created. I had been long enough in London and on the Continent to be convinced that London must become the distributing centre of European news for America. I talked it over with Mr. Young on my return. Mr. Young had a mind open to new ideas and he was unusually quick in deciding. But this suggestion struck him at first as a proposal to impair the authority of the managing editorship. He thought, naturally, there ought to be but one executive head, and that a European manager, no matter how strictly subordinated to {221} his chief in New York, would, at such a distance, acquire too much independence. The proposal, moreover, was far-reaching and had no precedent; not that the want of a precedent troubled Mr. Young much. He had spent much of his time as managing editor of The Tribune in disregarding precedents and laying down laws of his own. But this scheme, he presently saw, would never have been thought of had not submarine telegraphy taken a practicable shape, nor would such a scheme have been of much practical use so long as news went by mail. Nor could it be tried till a great many details had been thought out. Under the old system, each Tribune correspondent reported directly to New York. Had that system remained unaltered, the triumphs of American journalism in Europe would have been impossible. That all the European representatives of this paper should report to London instead of New York might seem no very great matter, but in truth it was vital. When it had once been decided to establish a Tribune office in London, a revolution had taken place. There was to be a responsible agent in charge. He was to organize a new administration. He was to appoint and dismiss other agents all over the Continent. He was—subject, of course, to orders from New York—to transmit news to New York. He was to be the telephone between Europe and the managing editor in New York. But he was to relieve the New York office of its supervision over the European staff. What St. Petersburg {222} and Vienna, Berlin and Paris, had to say to New York was to be said through London. There would be an economy of time. Orders could be sent from London and results received much more quickly than from New York. In an emergency as was presently to be shown, the difference was enormous. The notion of the centrality of London, of its unity as a news bureau, was perfectly simple. But it took years for that one simple notion to get itself completely accepted and acted upon. I will give one illustration. When the fatal days of July, 1870, were upon us I thought I saw a great opportunity. The Tribune alone had an organization in Europe competent for the work of supplying war news. But as I did not know how much news New York wanted, I cabled a question to the editor then temporarily in charge. The answer came back that I was to go to Berlin. It would have been a fatal step. I should have come under German military rule, and cabling from Berlin at that time and much later was a slow and uncertain business. Nor could the plans I had in mind have been carried out from Berlin. There would have been a censorship upon every dispatch, and censorship means not merely mutilation to suit a bureaucratic ideal, but delay. Berlin, moreover, was remote, while London is on the road to New York, and spite of the cable the delay from that cause also would have been injurious. In short, I disobeyed the New York order. I explained, of course, but I pointed out that an {223} unfettered discretion was essential to success, and I asked to be allowed a free hand or to be relieved. I was given the free hand. These methods have since become so familiar that there is little need to explain them, but at that time they were not merely novel but were derided by journalists of great experience. Mr. James Gordon Bennett was one of those who scoffed at them, and presently was one of those who followed them and made a large use of them, greatly to his own profit and to that of the considerable news organization he controlled. But at first he said nothing would induce him to set up in London a rival office to New York. Now, every important journal in the United States has offices in London, and subsidiary offices in Paris and often in other European capitals. But the authority of New York or Chicago remains what it was. The idea once accepted, somebody had then to be appointed to London. Mr. Young asked me to go. I declined. I liked leader-writing much better than news-collecting. I thought the power of influencing opinion through the editorial columns of The Tribune the most enviable of all powers. The London scheme, moreover, was an experiment and I did not think I had had enough experience with news to justify my undertaking so large a business. But Mr. Young pressed it, saying it was my scheme and I ought to put it in operation. He might, had he chosen, have issued an order and I should have had no choice but to obey or resign; {224} but that was not his way. He trusted to persuasion; he treated his subordinates as, for some purposes, his equals, and he did not care for unwilling service. He was a past master in the art of stating a case and in the use of personal influence. In the end he convinced me not only that I ought to go, but that I wanted to go, and I gave in, still with misgivings but not without a certain enthusiasm at the prospect of doing a new thing in journalism. It was like Young to say, as he did at parting: "Remember, I don't care about methods. You will use your own methods. What I want is results." The incredulity with which The Tribune experiment was first received gave way slowly, but it gave way. I suppose it was the news service of The Tribune in the Franco-German War in 1870 which finally convinced the most sceptical. So I will pass to that, stopping only to explain one other matter. It was in 1870 also that the first international newspaper alliance was formed. The papers which formed it were The Tribune of New York and The Daily News of London. I saw at the beginning that it was desirable to be in a position to know what news would go to New York through Reuter and The Associated Press. That knowledge was only to be had inside of a London newspaper office, and it was with that view chiefly that I first made a proposal to The Daily News. I suppose I chose that paper because I knew its editor and manager. I did not think it likely {225} that The Daily News service from the battlefields would, at first, add much to our own; nor did it. But I went to Mr.—afterward Sir John—Robinson with an offer to exchange news, whether by telegraph or mail, on equal terms; we to give them everything we had and they to do the like by us. The offer was very coldly received. Mr. Robinson could see no advantage to his paper from such an agreement. I told him what we were doing and intending to do. Still he was incredulous and he finally said No. I told him I did not mean that either paper should narrow its operations at the seat of war in expectation of help from the other, nor that either should credit the other with its news. It was to be a war partnership and each would put all its forces in the field. But he would not have it. It was Mr. Frank Hill, then editor of The Daily News, who came to the rescue. The news department was none of his but he had an all-embracing intelligence, and when he heard what the offer was he pressed it upon his colleague and finally secured its acceptance. The credit for whatever benefit inured to The Daily News from this partnership was therefore due originally to Mr. Frank Hill and not to Mr. Robinson. It remains true that Mr. Robinson was a very distinguished journalist and that his work at a later period of the war was of a high order. If he had done nothing but secure the services of Mr. Archibald Forbes he would have earned a lasting renown as manager. But before Forbes's {226} work had begun to tell, The Daily News, receiving and publishing The Tribune dispatches as its own—as it had an absolute right to do under our agreement—had won a great reputation for its war news. Sir John Robinson is dead but I published a statement on this subject while he was living, which was brought to his attention. I said then, as I say now, that The Daily News owed to The Tribune almost the whole of the war news by which its reputation was at first acquired. This period lasted down to the surrender of Metz; perhaps later. My statement was never disputed. It may still be found in Harper's Magazine, where the facts are set forth much more fully than here, and it was this article in Harper's which Sir John Robinson read. We had ceased to be on good terms. I forget why. He grumbled a little at the publication of the story, though without reason, but he attempted no denial and no denial was possible. The matter was much discussed at the time in the American Press and there were many criticisms, based on an absolute ignorance of the real arrangement between the two papers. Further confusion grew out of the fact that one of The Tribune's war correspondents had a contract with The Pall Mall Gazette, then owned by Mr. George Smith and edited by Mr. Frederick Greenwood, one of the great journalists of his time. This contract left him free to deal with us but not with any London paper. It followed, therefore, that some of The Tribune dispatches appeared in The Daily {227} News and some in The Pall Mall Gazette. Our New York friends could not understand this tri-partite agreement; but then it was not necessary they should; and their comments were much more amusing than they would have been if they had known the truth. The mind moves with great freedom when unhampered by facts. II "American methods," said certain English journalists, seeking to account for The Tribune's successes in the Franco-German War. The phrase, whether meant as eulogy or criticism, was, at any rate, explanatory, for we had had four years of Civil War experience, from 1861 to 1865, while the English, unless we reckon the Indian Mutiny, had to go back to the Crimean War in 1854 for precedents in war correspondence. Moreover, the one great triumph of English journalism in the Crimea was not a triumph of method. It was a triumph due to the genius and courage of one man, Dr. Russell, who exposed through The Times the murderous mistakes of army organization and army administration, and so forced the War Office and the Horse Guards to set their houses in order. It was a great public service; perhaps the greatest which any journalist in the field ever performed. But it was not exactly journalism. It had little or nothing to do with that speed and accuracy in the collection and transmission of news which, after all, must be the {228} chief business of a correspondent. It has never been imitated. It never will be till another Russell appears to rescue another British army in another Crimea. That great exploit was not primarily journalistic but personal. I do not suppose it occurred to any of the many able newspaper managers in London that in dealing with a European war they would find a rival in an American journal. They knew there was an Atlantic cable but probably thought, if they thought about it at all, that the cable tolls would be prohibitive, for, as we shall see in a moment, they had not yet grasped the idea that the telegraph is only a quicker post. Putting the question of cost aside, it does not matter how a piece of news or a dispatch or a letter is transmitted; whether by rail or by steamship or by wire. What matters is that it should get there. To-day this is a truism. Forty years ago it was a paradox; in Europe if not in America. There had been great achievements in the transmission of news long before the telegraph was invented. It may be doubted whether they were not, some of them, greater than those due to the telegraph. But so far as the use of the telegraph is concerned we are dealing with the beginnings. The year 1870 is a year of transition if not of revolution. I think we are entitled to remember with satisfaction that in telegraphic news enterprise, even in Europe, it was an American journal which led the way, and that The Tribune was that journal. In forming their war plans the managers of {229} English journals, as I was saying, left American journals out of account. Perhaps they knew, in a dim kind of way, that The Tribune had an office in London. But the office had been there for three years and no other American journal had yet followed The Tribune's example. Important dispatches had been sent from this London office to the New York office by cable, but the London managers, if aware of the existence of the cable and of The Tribune office in London, had not co-ordinated these two pieces of knowledge. The area of all possible competition in war was news confined, in their view, to Fleet Street and Printing House Square. They sat content, true Britons as they were, in their belief in their own supremacy; a supremacy often challenged, never overthrown. The Times was still The Times. The Morning Post was still a threepenny paper. The Daily Telegraph was still the organ of the small shopkeeper. The Daily News was the mouthpiece of Nonconformist Liberalism, with no great pretensions to any other sort of authority. The evening journalism was not supposed to be eager for news, except news of that peculiar description which offers its readers an afternoon sensation and is unaccountably omitted from the next morning's papers. The news journalism was yet to be born. The Daily Mail had never been heard of. Lord Northcliffe, the man who has done more than all others of his time toward the creation of a new journalism in England, and who is almost more a statesman {230} than a journalist, was then just two years old. Moreover, the outbreak of war was unexpected. Lord Granville was then Foreign Secretary and of an unshaken optimism. Lord Hammond, Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign Office, had announced a fortnight before that never since he had held a place in that office had the sky been so free from clouds. M. Émile Ollivier has lately retold with skill in the Revue des Deux Mondes how the war was brought on, but there is nothing in his elaborate special pleading to show that any reasonable man ought to have expected the French Emperor, or even M. Ollivier himself, to follow the unreasonable, mad, arrogant policy they did follow. Nor can Downing Street or Fleet Street or Printing House Square be blamed for not being aware that the conduct of affairs in France was in the control of men who would play into Bismarck's hands. For, let M. Ollivier say what he will, Bismarck's opportunity would not have come had not France, after Prussia had withdrawn Prince Leopold's candidature for the throne of Spain, demanded a guarantee that it should never be renewed or never be supported by Prussia. Never had events moved so quickly. Prince Leopold was first heard of July 4th, 1870. On the 12th he renounced his claim. On the 13th Benedetti laid before the King of Prussia at Ems the demand of France for guarantees. On the 14th Earl Granville woke from his deep dream of peace and strove to bring France and Prussia to terms. On the {231} 15th the Emperor declared war; the Chamber approving by an overwhelming majority. There are in journalism two ways of dealing with a war crisis of this kind. One way is to send into the field everybody you can lay hands on to cover, tant bien que mal, as many points as possible, and so take your chance of what may turn up. The other is to choose the best two men available and send one to the headquarters of each army. I preferred the latter, perhaps because there was a difficulty in finding good men, and there were but two from whom I expected much good. These were Mr. Holt White, an Englishman, and M. Méjanel, a Frenchman. Mr. White was ordered to join the Prussians and M. Méjanel to accompany his own countrymen. The same instructions were given to both; very simple but I believe at that time quite novel in England. Each was to find his way to the front, or wherever a battle was most likely to be fought. They were to telegraph to London as fully as possible all accounts of preliminary engagements. If they had the good luck to witness an important battle they were not to telegraph, but, unless for some very peremptory reason, to start at once for London, writing their accounts on the way or on arrival. If they could telegraph a summary first, so much the better; but there must be no delay. The essential thing was to arrive in London at the earliest moment. They were to provide beforehand for a substitute, or more than one, who would take up their work during their absence. {232} These instructions were based on the improbability that any single correspondent could anticipate any very important news which Governments, the news agencies, and the Rothschilds would all three endeavour to send first. I reverse the order in which a Minister once said to me news of war or of high politics usually arrived. Such news, he said, comes to the Rothschilds first, next to the Press, and to the Government last of all. Besides, the mere fact never contents the public. It wants the full story. There was never much chance of sending the full story by wire from the battlefield or from any town hard by; nor, indeed, from any capital; even from a neutral capital. Only when once in London was a correspondent master of the situation. Mr. Holt White carried out his instructions with an energy, a courage, an intelligence to which no tribute can be too high. In the first instance he witnessed the battle—not an important one except that it was the first—of Spicheren, and wired a column or so to London. It was I believe, the first battle story of any length ever sent by wire from the Continent to London. English journalism, as I said above, had not yet regarded the telegraph as anything but a means of transmitting results. The full account was to come by mail. I had told Mr. Robinson I meant to use the telegraph in this new way, but he was not ready to believe it could be done. So when I carried Mr. White's account to The Daily News office, after cabling a rewritten copy to New York, {233} I took with me the original telegraph forms as well as the second copy. The dispatch as telegraphed by Mr. White was slightly condensed, had been carelessly handled, and was not in good shape for the printers. I handed my copy to Mr. Robinson. He looked at it with undisguised suspicion. "It is your handwriting," he said. I admitted that. "And the battle was fought only yesterday." "Yes." "It could not have come by post." "No." "Well, how then?" "By wire." "A dispatch of that length! It is unheard of." But I thought this had gone far enough and showed him the telegraph forms. Still he said: "Do you expect me to print this to-morrow in The Daily News?" "Print it or not as you choose. It will certainly appear in The Tribune. I have done as I agreed in bringing you the dispatch. You, of course, will do as you think best about publishing it." I repeat this because it indicates better than I could otherwise the journalistic state of mind at that time in respect of Continental telegrams. Mr. Robinson was at the head of his profession, yet this was his reception of this piece of news. In the end Mr. Frank Hill, the editor, was called into consultation. He had no hesitation and, as before, finally brought his colleague to reason. {234} The telegram duly appeared next morning in The Daily News, heralded by a leading article in which the telegram was rewritten, its importance pointed out, the celerity of its dispatch and arrival dwelt on, and so the readers of The Daily News had every opportunity to admire the enterprise of that journal. This was very far from being Mr. Holt White's most brilliant exploit, but it was his first. He had not the luck to see the battle of Worth, the earliest of the grave disasters of the French. No journalist had. That great engagement and the defeat of Marshal MacMahon were foreseen by nobody, the Germans themselves excepted, and there exists no account of the battle in the newspapers of the day, save such as came by hearsay; or, much later, the official reports. But when the bare facts were known they were thought prophetic, and the military critics of Pall Mall and Whitehall said gravely: "This is the beginning of the end." {235} <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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