a para.-
grapher of the editorial staff of The Chicago Tribune began a
somewhat savage, though disguised as humorous, attack on
New York papers, whereupon Hay reminded Medill, editor of
The Chicago Tribune, of the services offered at the time of the
fire and asked that the picric squibs be stopped. It was done.
ATTACK ON ASSOCIATED PRESS
How James W. Simonton, when Washington correspondent of The New York Times, had exposed the "land graft" has been recorded in another chapter. During Grant's Administration, Simonton was the general manager of the Associated Press and undoubtedly had much to do with the publicity given to the chicanery of many of the appointees of the Administration. Their exposure led to an attempt to depose Simonton as the "sole tele- graphic historian of the country." They drew up an indictment of the Associated Press in which they tried to cast reflections upon its manager. Their attack upon the organization, forming a basis of others which followed later, may be quoted as the atti- tude of its opponents not only in this period, but in the others which followed :
The Associated Press is engaged ostensibly in the collection, sale, and distribution of news dispatches for such of the newspaper press of the country as find favor in its sight. It has numerous agents in the towns and cities of the United States, employed to send dispatches to its headquarters at New York. It makes special and exclusive contracts with combinations of favorite newspapers, and within their charmed circles no other papers are admitted. Being favored by the Western Union Telegraph Company with terms and conditions as to cost and precedence of business much more favorable than any rival concern can secure, the Associated Press has become a power in the land, amounting to a censorship of the press; for as it virtually monopolizes the only tele- graphic system which extends generally throughout the United States, of course no papers can compete with the Associated Press "ring" newspapers in the completeness of news by telegraph. The manager of this overshadowing power has the appointment and removal of all its agents, and his good will being the tenure of their employment, it is in his power to give color and tone to all press dispatches.
Were the manager a man devoted to giving legitimate information concerning passing events, and above all temptation to spread false information, either for gain or to gratify personal feeling, still it would seem hard that he should have the power to dictate which of the papers
