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“Poisoned at the Source”? Telegraphic News Services and Big Business in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Alex Nalbach
Alex Nalbach
Affiliation:
ALEX NALBACH is assistant professor of history at Saginaw Valley State University.
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Abstract

Nineteenth-century newspapers, exchanges, and governments relied heavily for their daily information upon an alliance of four international telegraph services: Havas (Paris), Reuters (London), Wolff's (Berlin), and the Associated Press (New York). The connections of the wire services to financial and official circles bred suspicions that they offered privileged information and suppressed or inserted reports on behalf of special interests. Corporate and official records reveal the wire services’ reliance upon the subsidies, information, and telegraph facilities of firms and governments. As a result, world news coverage was, if not “poisoned” at the source, at least dammed up, filtered, channeled, or watered down.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 77 , Issue 4 , Winter 2003 , pp. 577 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2003

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References

1 Stone, Melville E., Fifty Years a Journalist (Garden City, N.Y., 1921), 215–16Google Scholar.

2 The European agencies were all named after their founders. The punctuation most commonly used by scholars and professionals has been adopted: Reuters and Havas (without apostrophes), and Wolff's (with an apostrophe).

3 Diez, Hermann, Das Zeitungswesen (Leipzig, 1910), 89.Google Scholar (Unless indicated, all translations are my own.) Other agency heads agreed with Diez. In 1871, the Reuters board ex-pressed concern for “our character for impartiality on which we mainly depend for success.” Reuters Board Minutes, 18 Oct. 1871. Reuters Archive, London (hereafter R.A.). In 1912, observed, Stone, “I regard its reputation for truthfulness and strict impartiality as the best asset of The Associated Press.” Proceedings of the First National Newspaper Conference, Madison, July 29-August 1,1912 (Madison, Wise, 1913), 51.Google Scholar

4 For Reuters, see Read, Donald, The Power of News: The History of Reuters, 1849-1989 (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar. For Wolff's, see Basse, Dieter, Wolff's Telegraphisches Bureau. Agenturpublizistik zwischen Politik und Wirtschaft (Munich, 1991)Google Scholar. For Havas, see Palmer, Michael, Des petits journaux aux grandes agences: Naissance du journalisme moderne, 1863-1914 (Paris, 1983)Google Scholar, and Lefebure, Antoine, Havas: Les arcanes du pouvoir (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar. For the Associated Press, see Schwarzlose, Richard, The Nation's Newsbrokers, 2 vols. (Evanston, Ill., 1989-1990)Google Scholar, Blondheim, Menahem, News Over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844-1897 (Cambridge, Mass., 1994)Google Scholar, and the work of Terhi Rantanen.

5 For examples, see Boyd-Barrett, Oliver, The International News Agencies (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Boyd-Barrett, and Palmer, Michael, Le trafic des nouvelles (Paris, 1981)Google Scholar; Fenby, Jonathan, The International News Services (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Mathien, Michel and Conso, Catherine, Les agences de presse Internationale (Paris, 1997)Google Scholar; Pigeat, Henri, Les agences de presse: Institutions du passé ou médias d'avenir? (Paris, 1997)Google Scholar. Most of these works concentrate on the later twentieth century.

6 Lefebure, Havas, 27.

7 Letters to Prefect of Police, 15 and 17 Jan. 1825. Archives nationales, Paris (hereafter A.N.), F 79545.

8 Basse, Wolff's Telegraphisches Bureau, 17.

9 Groth, Otto, Die Zeitung (Mannheim, 1928-1930), vol. l, 490Google Scholar.

10 Ibid.

11 Siemens, Werner, Lebenserrinerungen (Berlin, 1892), 76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Julius Reuter (Aachen) to Nathan Meyer Rothschild, 27 Apr. 1850. Quoted in Ferguson, Niall, The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849-1999 (New York, 1999), 64.Google Scholar Rothschild apparently declined the offer.

13 Kieve, J. L., The Electric Telegraph (Newton Abbot, U.K., 1973), 51Google Scholar.

14 Frédérix, Pierre, Un siècle de chasse aux nouvelles de l'agence d'information Havas a l'Agence FrancePresse (1837-1957) (Paris, 1959), 40.Google Scholar

15 Quoted in Fenby, The International News Services, 37.

16 “Telegrams and agencies” expenses at Reuters more than doubled between 1866 and 1878; during the same period, revenues grew by only 60 percent. In 1865, the company paid a dividend of 8 percent, but this was increased to 10 percent until the mid-1870s. The dividend was cut to 7.5 percent in 1875, which remained the norm until the 1880s. See Storey, Graham, Reuters: The Story of a Century of News-Gathering (New York, 1951 [repr. 1969]), 58–9Google Scholar; Read, The Power of News, 48.

17 Groth, DieZeitung, 801. Groth recorded, “Between 1886/87 and 1908/09, Wolff's distributed dividends of on average 11%, then 12% up to the war [of 1914-18]. These profits were realized from the exchange, the transmission business and so forth, while, like most agencies, Wolff's operated with a deficit in the political service.” Ibid., 498.

18 Quoted in Read, The Power of News, 48. Read contradicts the analysis of nineteenthcentury Reuters veteran H. M. Collins, who asserted that the reorganization of the company took place because “the business had become too large and widespread for one man to control.” Collins, H. M., From Pigeon Post to Wireless (London, 1925), 57.Google Scholar

19 Reuter himself took five hundred of the first thousand shares. John Dent, president of Dent and Company of China, took three hundred, but he did not last long on the board. Col. James Holland (fifty shares) served as the deputy chairman of the London and South African Bank and was a director of Agra and Masterman's Bank, which financed the recapitalization. James Sydney Stopford (fifty shares), an East India merchant, was another director of Agra and Masterman's Bank. Admiral Sir John Dalrymple-Hay (Bart., M.P., F.R.S.) was president of the Milval Steam Ship Company. See Read, The Power of News, 46, 48. See also “Memorandum of Association of Reuter's Telegram Company, Limited,” 9 Feb. 1865. Harvard University, Baker Library, Bleichröder Bank Collection, Box 33, “Jewish Affairs,” folder 6b. Bleichröder to Worms, undated (Bleichröder Bank Collection, Box 23 A, f.1).

20 The Indo-European Telegraph Company was the brainchild of Werner von Siemens. The line ultimately connected Lowestoft to Borkum, Thorn, Kiev, Odessa, over the Caucasus to Teheran, where it linked to the lines of the government of India. Completed in 1869, it did not enter into operation until 1870. See Ahvenainen, Jorma, The Far Eastern Telegraphs: The History of Telegraphic Communication between the Far East, Europe and America before the First World War (Helsinki, 1981), 16–17Google Scholar. Ultimately, the nationalization of British telegraphy led to the purchase of Reuter's cable by the British Post Office in 1870, at a handsome profit.

21 See undated memo, almost certainly by Richard Wentzel, c. 1869. Bleichröder Bank Collection. See also Naujoks, Eberhard, “Bismarck und das Wolffsche Telegraphenbiiro,” Geschichte als Wissenschaft und Unterricht 14 (1963): 19–20.Google Scholar

22 Wilhelm to Wolff, 4 Mar. 1865. Copy in Politisches Archive des Auswärtigen Amtes (Bonn) (hereafter P.A./A.A.), Europa Generalia 86, No. 1, Band 7 (National Archives, microfilm, reel T149 254).

23 Schneider, Hofrat Louis, Aus dem Leben Kaiser Wilhelms (Berlin, 1888), vol. 1, 171ff.Google Scholar

24 See Stern, Fritz, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichroder, and the Building of the German Empire (New York, 1977)Google Scholar.

25 See undated draft of a contract between the bankers and Bernhard Wolff, Bleichröder Bank Collection, carton 33, “Wolffsches Telegraphenbureau,” folder 1; original agreement to form company, 20 May 1865. Bleichröder Bank Collection, carton 33, “Wolffsches Telegraphenbureau,” folder 1. Bleichröder, Magnus, Oppenfeld and three others contributed 330,000 out of a projected 2 million thaler in shares. Stern, Gold and Iron, 264.

26 Circular by three Continental directors, June 1865. Geheimnis Staatsarchiv-Preussisches Kulturbesitz, Berlin (hereafter G.St.P.K.), III.HA (2.4.1) No. 8117.

27 See Frédérix, Un siècle de chasse aux nouvelles, 135.

28 For Éedouard Lebey, see ibid., 135,148.

29 See Stern, Gold and Iron, 41. For Raphaël von Erlanger, see Emden, Paul H., Money Powers of Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York, 1983), 397–8.Google Scholar

30 Lamathière, Théophile de, Pantheon de la Légion d'honneur (Paris, 1875-1911)Google Scholar, in Bradley, Susan, ed., Archives biographiques françaises (London, 1988), fiche 375, 209-11Google Scholar.

31 The first transatlantic cable in 1866 was the monopoly of the Anglo-American Company of Cyrus Field. An important inspiration, for it had been an 1862 assurance that Reuters would spend at least £5,000 per year on dispatches. But, by September 1867, Reuters’ North American service was costing many times more than it had before the cable, so Reuter sought the means to break Fields's monopoly. In July 1868, Reuter teamed up with Erlanger to secure the right from the French government to float a French Atlantic Cable Company, selling stock to banking houses. In July 1869, the Great Eastern completed a cable connecting St. Pierre Island, off the coast of Newfoundland, and Brest, France, which opened for business in August. Even before it opened, Anglo-American rates fell from £5 to £1.10s. per ten words—the rate adopted by the French cable. See Harrow, Alvin F., Old Wires and New Waves: The History of the Telegraph, Telephone and Wireless (New York, 1936), 299Google Scholar; Read, The Power of News, 52-3.

32 See relevant documents in A.N., 5AR 411.

33 For the distribution of shares, see Frédérix, Un siècle de chasse aux nouvelles, 147, n.1.

34 In 1891, Stone also became treasurer of the Chicago Sanitary District, a position for which he accepted no compensation. In 1892, he was made president of the Chicago Banker's Club, president of the Civil Service Reform League, vice president of the Union League Club, and a member of the Commercial Club and the board of governors of the Chicago Club. For his decision to leave the bank for the Associated Press, see Stone, Fifty Years, 215 and Newberry Library, Chicago, Victor F. Lawson Papers, “Outgoing Letters, Special Series, Associated Press,” and “Documents concerning the Western Associated Press, the Associated Press, and the United Press. Chicago, New York (etc.) May 28,1888-Feb. 14,1894.”

35 Fuchs, Friedrich, Die Agence Havas und das Reutersbureau (Ph.D. dissertation, Erlangen, 1918), 56.Google Scholar

36 Fuchs, Die Agence Havas, 53-4.

37 Fenby, The International News Services, 43.

38 Quoted in Ferguson, The House of Rothschild, 64-5.

39 Wynter, Andrew, Our Social Bees (London, 1861), 245.Google Scholar

40 See Chirac, Auguste, L'agiotage sou la troisième République (Paris, 1888), vol. 1, 307, 318-19; vol. 2, 219-21.Google Scholar

41 Herbert de Reuter to S. Levy Lawson, private and confidential, 5 Sept. 1911. R.A., Roderick Jones Papers, Section 1: Reuters, iv: Reuters General 1933-39, (c) Box File 40, copied as attachment to “Note by European General Manager, Report for Sir Roderick Jones,” 11 Apr. 1935. This accusation, coming in the summer of 1911 at the moment of renewal of the news-exchange agreement between the Associated Press and the European wire services, was dismissed by the director of Wolff's, Dr. Heinrich Mantler. Heinrich Mantler to Herbert de Reuter, 2 Sept. 1911. Ibid.

42 Kleine Zeitung, 5 Feb. 1900. Quoted in Witte, Emil, Revelations of a German Attaché: Ten Years of German-American Diplomacy (New York, 1916), 111–12Google Scholar.

43 Deutschen Tageszeitung, 17 Feb. 1902.

44 Witte, Revelations of a German Attaché, 109-10.

45 See Mantler, Heinrich, “Wolffsches Bureau und Haus Bleichröder,” Deutsche Presse 6 (1914): 36.Google Scholar

46 The Reuters archive is quite extensive and is open to scholars at the agency's head office in London. The Havas papers were transferred to the Archives Nationales after the agency closed in 1940. But the Associated Press has no corporate archives dating to the period in question. (The cooperative was reincorporated and relocated many times in the nineteenth century: its records survive in private papers scattered throughout the United States.) And Wolff's head offices (and records) were destroyed during the bombing of Berlin in World War II.

47 Julius Reuter to Bleichröder, 21 Jan. 1875, copy. Bleichröder Bank Collection, Carton 23, “Jewish Affairs,” folder 6b.

48 Bleichröder to Bismarck, 20 Feb. 1875. G.St.P.K., A.A.I. Rep. 4 No. 721, Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Generalia.

49 Tiedemann Memorandum, 26 Apr. 1876. G.St.P.K., A.A.I. a.33 Generalia.

50 A new contract offered scant advantage to the state, since, if the proposed international company injured the national interest, the state could always revoke the existing agreement. Memorandum by State Secretary Ernst von Bülow, 10 Mar. 1875. G.St.P.K., A.A.I. Rep. 4 No. 721, Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Generalia.

51 Continental Telegraphen-Compagnie to Bleichröder, 30 Dec. 1875. Bleichröder Bank Collection.

52 Stern, Gold and Iron, 268.

53 Dennis, Charles H., in Victor Lawson, His Time and His Work (Chicago, 1935), 205,Google Scholar called it a “fight for democracy of the press.” See also Melville E. Stone's description of “The Revolution of 1893,” Address at Minneapolis, 15 Feb. 1924. Newberry Library, Chicago, Melville E. Stone Papers, “Speeches and Addresses by M.E.S.” Similar praise of the cooperative principle and condemnation of private control of news gathering may be found in the “Report of Board of Directors,” Associated Press (New York)Google Scholar, Eleventh Annual Report (1911), 3; and the comments of Associated Press president Noyes, Frank Brett, in “The Associated Press,” North American Review 197 (May 1913): 701–10.Google Scholar Curiously, Associated Press owners of for-profit newspapers did not apply the same concerns and criticisms to their individual enterprises.

54 V. F. Lawson to Frank McLaughlan (publisher of the Philadelphia Times), 1 Nov. 1893. Lawson Papers, “Documents concerning the Western Associated Press, the Associated Press, and the United Press. Chicago, New York (etc.) May 28, 1888-Feb. 14, 1894.” Capitals in original.

55 Diehl, Charles S. (assistant general manager for the A.P.), The Staff Correspondent: How the News of the World is Collected and Dispatched by a Body of Trained Press Writers. The Beginning and Growth of the World-Wide Associated Press News Service (San Antonio, Tx., 1931), 236–7Google Scholar.

56 Encoded telegram, Lawson to Driscoll and Knapp, 22 Jan. 1894; Lawson to Driscoll, 26 Jan. 1894. Lawson Papers.

57 Rosewater, Victor, A History of Cooperative News-Gathering in the United States (New York, 1930), 229.Google Scholar

58 In addition to circulating the Krupp reports, Wolff's also pledged to place the political and general news service bound for its branch at Essen before the Krupp concern first; to telegraph news of special interest to Krupp directly from Berlin; and to send the Olden-berg'sche Korrespondenz by mail. For the relations between Krupp and Wolff's, see Basse, Wolff's Telegraphisches Bureau, ch. 5.5.

59 Henri Houssaye (Director of Havas) to Wolff's, 8 Oct. 1888,15 Oct. 1888, 23 Oct. 1888. A.N., 5AR 12.

60 Agence Havas to Havas/Lyons, 26 Mar. 1876. A.N., 5AR 86; quoted in Lefebure, Havas, 133.

61 See Chirac, L'agiotage sous la troisième République, vol. 2, 223-35.

62 Engländer to H. de Reuter, 26 Oct. 1886. R.A., LN 930, 1/01258.

63 For this episode, see Palmer, “L'Agence Havas et Bismarck: l'échec de la Triple Alliance télégraphique (1887-1889),” Revue d'histoire diplomatique (July-Dec. 1976).

64 Copies of both circulars found in pamphlet published by L. Jackson (G. Street & Co., Ltd.), a rival publicity firm. R.A., 1/8713601.

65 Copies of these letters of protest are found in ibid.

66 Sinclair, Upton, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism, 11th ed. (Pasadena, 1936), 41–2Google Scholar.

67 Ibid., 154-68.

68 Ibid., 406.

69 Ibid., 41.

70 See letter from John P. Gavit, managing editor of the Evening Post, to Melville Stone (not dated, but probably spring 1914), reproduced by Sinclair himself, 173.

71 Note on the organization of the press in view of the elections, edited by a chef de bureau of the Ministry of the Interior, 15 Apr. 1869. Reproduced in Papiers et correspondence de la famille impériale (Paris, 1870), 26.Google Scholar

72 Bosse Memorandum, 4 Mar. 1879. G.St.P.K., A.A.1. Rep. 4. No. 721, Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Generalia.

73 Quoted in Storey, Reuters, 61.

74 See Mantler to Otto Hammann (Press Bureau, German Foreign Office), 19 Sept. 1907. P.A./A.A., Europa Generalia, Band 14, No. 2.

75 See Raffalovitch, Arthur, “…L'abominable venalite de la presse…” (Paris, 1931)Google Scholar, a collection of documents unearthed during two years of research by Boris Souvarine, a Frenchman of Russian descent.

76 Raffalovitch to Kokovtzev, 4 Mar. 1905, in L'abominable vénalité, 67. Subsequent letters from that spring indicated that quite a few individual financial bulletins and political papers (le Figaro, le Petit Journal, le Petit Parisien, le Journal, le Temps, I'Echo, and l'Autorité) received considerably more than Havas, and many received as much. See ibid., Raffalovitch to Davidov, 31 Mar. 1905, and Raffalovitch to Kokovtzev, 12 Apr. 1905, 74-80.

77 Palmer, Despetits journaux, 220.

78 Havas to Giaccone (St. Petersburg), 16 Mar. 1905. A.N., 5AR 133. Emphasis in original.

79 According to one letter (20 Oct. 1905), the “Correspondance Havas” received 1,500 francs a month for July, August, and September 1905, while “Havas” received 5,000 francs a month for July, August, and September 1905. See also Raffalovitch to Kokovtzev, 12 Nov. 1905, L'abominable vénalité, 102, 105, 108-10.

80 C. L. Havas to Giaccone, 22 Nov. 1905. On 2 Dec. 1905, Agence Havas wrote Giaccone, “Too often, we are accused of being hostile to Russia, because your service is too pessimistic. It is time to adopt another system. We already have serious difficulties because of your telegrams which appear to us of an exaggerated blackness. Facts, without commentary, if you please.” A.N., 5AR 133. Emphasis in originals.

81 Raffalovitch to Kokovtzev, 22 Nov. 1905, L'abominable vénalité, 111.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid. Report of the Russian Ministry of Finances, 21 June 1907, and Minister of Finance to Raffalovitch, June 1907, 167-8. When, in 1908, the Ministry pressed Raffalovitch to economize, Raffalovitch noted that, “for the Agence Havas, it is to be asked if one could not reduce by half its subscription, this would give you almost 4 + 3 = 7,000 francs. But with Havas it could be found that one had need of it one day.” Raffalovitch to Malichevsky, 11 Apr. 1908, 198.

84 The director of Havas political services, L. L. Pognon, also lobbied the Paris correspondent of the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency to have the Russian government increase payments to allies of the Agence Havas in the French press, like Le Temps. “Naturally I make no illusion,” the correspondent added, “and I do not doubt that Pognon acts not for love of Russia, but because Havas is bound by some contract with le Temps (that is the office of Havas which is concerned with the advertising branch).” Copy of confidential letter from the Paris correspondent of the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency to the administrative director of the agency, 5/18, [two dates because of difference in Russian and Western calendars] Feb. 1912. Ibid., 289-90.

85 See Zeitungs-Verlag, 14 (1 Aug. 1913); Witte, Revelations of a German Attaché, 105-6; Groth, Die Zeitung, vol. 1, 506.

86 In 1899, Secretary of War Elihu Root observed, “Trade tends to follow the line of least resistance in communication,” and urged that Americans take the lead in exploiting new communications in order “to secure a large share of the vast trade of the East.” Report of the Secretary of War, November 29, 1899, House Doc, 56th Cong., first sess. (Washington, D.C., 1899), 35-6; quoted in LaFeber, Walter, “Technology and U.S. Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History 24, no. 1 (winter 2000): 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. At the same time, in their annual report for 1900, Associated Press directors noted, “The greater interest in foreign news, particularly from the Far East, has necessitated the expenditure of very large sums in order to satisfy the demand of the American newspaper reading public for a comprehensive and original service of the world's news. Associated Press bureaus have been maintained in the Philippines, China, Japan and St. Petersburg, in addition to those in London, Paris and Berlin.” “Report of the Board of Directors,” Associated Press (New York)Google Scholar, First Annual Volume (1901), 3.

87 See Arco to Biilow, 8 Nov. 1904. P.A./A.A., Europa Generalia, No. 86, Band 13.

88 The American association assumed responsibility for the collection of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Philippine news, which was transmitted to New York before being forwarded by Reuters’ American agent to London. Memoranda, 21 Aug. 1908. P.A./A.A., Europa Generalia No. 86, Band 14.

89 See Baron Alfons Mumm von Schwarzenstein (Tokyo) to German Foreign Office, 21 Dec. 1907, 16 Jan. 1909, 14 Feb. 1909. P.A./A.A., Europa Generalia No. 86, Bande 14-15. Melville Stone further encouraged Japanese discontent with Reuters domination when he visited Japan at the end of a tour around the world in the spring of 1910. Stone had just come from India and China, where Reuters’ control of international news in these territories had impressed him as a yet another act of white subjugation of nonwhites. When Stone paid a call at the little office of J. Russell Kennedy in Tokyo, he vented his indignation before Kennedy and his assistants, all of whom went on to influential positions in the Japanese press. Japan, Stone declared, was the only country in Asia capable of having a powerful and respectable national news agency independent of Western control, and the country should strive toward that goal.

90 Unsigned memorandum from American Embassy in Tokyo to Secretary of State, confidential, 30 Dec. 1913. National Archives, College Park, Md., N.A./C.P., R.G. 49, 894.912/11910-29. When Kennedy was transferred to Russia briefly in May 1913, the Japanese foreign minister, Baron Takahashi, proposed his health at the Tokyo Club, observing that “the deepest impression Mr. Kennedy leaves upon us is by the way in which he used the great influence of his position for the sake of international understanding and good feeling. As representative of the great organ of public opinion and information, he has held a powerful weapon in his hand, and he has been very scrupulous to wield it for the public good.” “Dinner to Mr. J. R. Kennedy,” The Far East (17 May 1913): 327.

91 See letter to the editor by J. Russell Kennedy, “News Agencies in Japan: The Arrangement with Reuter's Company,” North China Daily News (Shanghai), 26 Feb. 1914.

92 See Groth, Die Zeitung, vol. 1, 506. For Pooley's subsequent mischief, see Read, The Power of News, 79-80; “News Agencies in Japan: The Arrangement with Reuter's Company,” North China Daily News (Shanghai), 26 Feb. 1914; “Reuter's and the Japanese National News Agency,” China Press (Shanghai), 27 Feb. 1914.

93 See Friedrich Leiter, “Reuter, Havas, Wolff, k.k. Telegraphen-Korrespondenzbureau. Ein Beitrag zu de Lehren des Krieges,” Österreichische Rundschau, Band 44, xliv, Heft 2 (15 July 1915), 59; Rantanen, Terhi, “Foreign News in Imperial Russia: The Relationship between International and Russian News Agencies, 1856-1914,” Annales Academiae Scientarum Fennicae. Dissertationes Humanum Litterarym 58 (Helsinki, 1990), 25.Google Scholar

94 Sinclair repeatedly invited the Associated Press to charge him with libel. He was met with a stony, disappointing and, in Sinclair's estimation, incriminating silence. Sinclair, The Brass Check, 153, 375-6.

95 Kittle, William, “The Making of Public Opinion,” Arena 41 (July 1909): 433–50Google Scholar.

96 Proceedings of the first National Newspaper Conference, Madison, July 29-August 1, 1912 (Madison, 1913), 56.Google Scholar

97 See Kittle, “The Making of Public Opinion.”

98 Will Irwin, “The United Press,” Harper's Weekly, 25 Apr. 1914, 6-8. See also “What's Wrong with the Associated Press?” Harper's Weekly, 28 Mar. 1914,10-12.

99 “Quoted in Sinclair, The Brass Check, 406. See also Proceedings of the first National Newspaper Conference, 45-6; Max Sherover, Fakes in American Journalism (Brooklyn, 1914), 72-8; Charles Edward Russell, Pearson's Magazine, Apr. 1914.

100 It was at least in part the conservatism of the Associated Press that convinced radical publisher E. W. Scripps to break its monopoly by creating a rival agency, the United Press Associations, in the early twentieth century. See Scripps to United Press president Roy W. Howard, 27 Sept. 1912; Howard to Will Irwin, 6 Apr. 1914. Indiana University, Bloomington, School of Journalism, Roy W. Howard Archive. See also Gardner, Gilson, Lusty Scripps: The Life ofE. W. Scripps (New York, 1932)Google Scholar; Cochran, Negley D., E. W. Scripps (Westport, Conn., 1933)Google Scholar; and Morris, Joe Alex, Deadline Every Minute: The Story of the United Press (Garden City, N.Y., 1957)Google Scholar.

101 See Nalbach, Alexander, “The Ring Combination: Information, Power, and the World News Agency Cartel, 1856-1914” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1999)Google Scholar.

102 See Terhi Rantanen, “Mr. Howard Goes to South America: The United Press Associations and Foreign Expansion,” Roy W. Howard Monographs No. 2 (15 May 1992).

103 Manchester, William, The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1968 (New York, 1964), 278.Google Scholar

104 A. Trouvé (secretary general of Havas) to Raffalovitch, 4 July 1910, quoted in L'abominable vénalité, 254-5.

105 Ibid., Raffalovitch to Davidov, 26 Aug. 1910, 265.

106 See Laurent, Marcel, “Les grandes agencies internationales d'informations,” La vie internationale 5 (1914), 299–300Google Scholar.

107 Raffalovitch to Kokovtzev, 6 Oct. 1906, L'abominable vénalité, 148.

108 Agence Havas to Havas/Tunis, 21 Mar. 1892. A.N., 5AR 142.

109 Address of Melville Stone to the Columbia School of Journalism, 1914, quoted in Cooper, Kent, Kent Cooper and the Associated Press: An Autobiography (New York, 1959), 152–3.Google Scholar

110 “Reuter's,” Nation and Athenaeum 17 (24 Apr. 1915): 109.Google Scholar