repre-
sentative, who, in turn, supplied the items to all papers. The most practical way of carrying out this scheme was to select the official representative of the Associated Press at Washington and he became the buffer between newspapers and Government officials. This change in the matter of Government publicity proved more satisfactory and seemed to please the press, save the local representatives at Washington, who suffered some delay and a little more expense by the new method. They appealed to President 'Lincoln, who, in turn, passed their request along to Secretary Stanton with this note :
Hon. Secretary of War: I am appealed to by the proprietors of papers here because they have to get telegraphed back to them from New York, matter which goes from the War Department. Might not this be avoided without harm or inconvenience in any way?
This was done and the New York papers were no longer to be the first publishers of Washington news.
TREATMENT OF NEWS
During the War of the States, the news, both in its subject- matter and its mode of treatment, was so modern that no special space needs to be taken for the discussion of this topic. In the South, however, one peculiarity will be noticed. After South Carolina seceded from the Union, the papers of that State pub- lished all items from the North under the head of " Foreign In- telligence." Secession papers in other States later followed the example set by South Carolina. Throughout the war the most important news, save the announcement of a victory or of a de- feat, was the long list of dead or wounded soldiers which news- papers printed in small type. In the composition of headlines, however, there was extreme modesty: seldom were they wider than one column and frequently they were the same, day after day. Northern papers frequently used as a standing head "The Rebellion," or, set in smaller letters, "The Great Rebellion." Another headline, repeated with routine monotony, was "Im- portant From Washington." After the battle of Bull Run a favorite was the slight variation, "Important If True." The assassination of Lincoln appreciably increased the length, but not the width, of newspaper headlines.
