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THE PRESS BUREAU.

THE DOCUMENT-ROOM.

issues of the campaign; he must know whether the aspiring spellbinder" is the sort of a man to send to the thoroughly intelligent audience which wants argument, or to go where violent invective and mere abuse of the opposing nominee is the more effective line of attack. He keeps on his wall a huge schedule of States, and cities, and dates, and he handles it like a college professor figuring out by means of curves the theory of value as laid down by the Austrian economists. When one remembers that a man intrusted with a work of such importance and such intricacy is only called upon to discharge it once in four years, one is amazed at the accuracy and the system by which the whole is accomplished. The manager of the speakers' bureau has, perhaps, as many amusing and perplexing situations to deal with as anybody connected with the conduct of the campaign. I have seen a letter to one such man saying that a local club had raised $12, and asking what speaker of national reputation could be sent there for that sum. I have seen other letters from men who had composed dissertations in blank verse, and felt that if they could be put on the platform to deliver them they would do more for the cause that this particular chairman represented than could any ordinary orator.

Indeed, the speaker who cannot speak, and the pamphleteer who cannot write, or who, writing, confuses the dimensions of a pamphlet with those of an unabridged dictionary, form the twin horrors of the national headquarters. Their numbers are amazing, as also is the thorough selfconfidence which each one manifests, always declaring that his speech or his article is the one thing necessary to win victory for the side that he has honored by his support. It is due to these two classes of intruders that much of the time of the manager of a subordinate bureau in

national headquarters is taken up in giving effect to the old nursery maxim, "Learn to say no." They are not the most good-natured sort of mortals either, these saviors of the party, with speeches in their minds and manuscripts under their arms. They usually repay the most courteous treatment with the declaration that the man who has been forced to look with disfavor on their proposition is sure to ruin the chances of his candidate at the polls.

As the whole purpose of conducting a campaign is to affect public sentiment, the chief methods adopted are platform-speaking and the use of type. The press bureau early in the campaign has its main importance. Then it seeks, by every device, to secure the publication in the newspapers of material favorable to the party which it serves; and later, when the contest becomes warm, operates through leaflets, tracts, and printed speeches. Few people who read

only the great city newspapers appreciate how much work is done, in political times, on the part of both parties, to counteract or to supplement the effect of the metropolitan press. The small country weeklies, which are taken into the home of the farmer a night or two after publication, are necessarily made up on the coöperative principle. Their revenues are small, and they either fill their columns by buying what is called "plate matter," which is ready-set and furnished in the form of stereotype plates, column-wide, or else they have one-half the paper printed at some central point, using the blank sides for publishing their local news. And both national committees utilize the firms which supply the plate or "patent inside" matter for the dissemination of their news. Each house which furnishes the ready print sends to its Democratic or Republican customers the statement that it will be glad

to furnish three or four or five columns of ready print each week. The copy for this is supplied by the press bureau of the National Committee. The paper gets it without other charge than that involved in printing the sheets. An immense amount of work is done in the way of furnishing this copy by both national committees, not only at the time of election, but for months preceding the convention.

I can speak only for the press bureau of the Democratic National Committee; but the statistics

HON. WILLIAM J. BRYAN.

(The favorite portrait sent out by the National Democratic Committee.)

of its work may be regarded as fairly indicative of the work of its rival a hundred yards away in an adjoining hotel. Seven patent-inside houses, supplying some 4,000 weekly papers, have for more than a year been supplied with Democratic copy." Plate matter has been but sparingly used, partly because of its expense, partly because of the impossibility of ascertaining with any accuracy the extent to which it is published by newspapers receiving it. A weekly bulletin addressed to the newspapers of the country is issued, containing news and interviews not readily accessible to the country editor, and editorials all ready to his hand-or shears. I have seen a whole page clipped from this bulletin and reprinted verbatim as the editorial page of a local weekly. Occasionally supplements, ready-printed, and covering fully the party position on some

mooted question, such as trusts or imperialism, are supplied to party papers without cost. Of several such offered to Democratic newspapers, more than 3,000,000 each were issued, and doubtful States only were covered.

A new burden was added this year to the load borne by the managers of the press bureaus by the Independent newspapers. Not wishing to espouse editorially the cause of either candidate, the editors of these newspapers hit, by common consent, upon the device of having the issues of the campaign discussed under the title of Campaign Forum," or "Daily Debate." So they appealed to the managers of the respective press bureaus to supply the material, each for his own side a demand that is new to politics and has necessitated a considerable increase in the literary force. Both parties, however, welcome it as giving an opportunity to put the party creed before voters whose minds are not fully made up. For example, in 1896, the Kansas City Star was bitterly opposed to Mr. Bryan, and its columns were closed to arguments in his favor. This year a joint discussion with Mr. Murat Halstead, of the Republican National Committee, has enabled me to place scores of columns of arguments before its readers. The numbers of the Independent papers are growing rapidly, and I foresee that in 1904 this branch of the press bureau's work will be of the greatest importance.

Of

The press bureau furthermore usually has supervision over the preparation of documents; or, as they are commonly called, "literature." course, all speeches that get into the Congres sional Record are sent without charge under frank through the mail, and these need no editing. But each committee gets out a mass of material pointing out the enormities perpetrated by the opposition party. These documents range from a one-page "dodger" to a book of 240 pages. Their preparation involves a great amount of work and the employment of many men; for in the aggregate they amount, in the course of a campaign, to more than one hundred separate documents. How great the volume of this material sent out is may be judged from the fact that a gentleman representing the shipping-room of the party with which I am not allied, here in Chicago, told me that one day they sent out three and a quarter tons of documents, and on the same day had received four and a half million copies of a single speech. Speaking of this to a Republican United States Senator whom I know intimately, he told me that it was not in any way a record-making performance; that, in the campaign of 1896, the Republican document-room was so well organized that, when a telegram was received from New York on a certain day at 10

AN

o'clock in the morning asking for a carload of assorted documents to be shipped at once, the documents were picked out, the car loaded and shipped by fast freight before 5 o'clock in the afternoon. The man who accomplished that feat had for four years been wholly out of that line of work. It would not be extraordinary for a great wholesale house like Marshall Field or Montgomery Ward & Co., whose shipping-office is always in order and active, to do a thing of that sort; but it does seem an extraordinary manifestation of organizing ability for such a feat to be accomplished after only three or four weeks' preparation.

At the time of writing this article, the Democratic National Committee has issued, or has under preparation, more than one hundred and fiftyeight different documents, of which over 25,000,000 have been distributed. I have seen a bundle of documents sent out by the Republicans which exceeded this number. Whether it was a complete list or not, I do not know. Every language spoken by civilized men is included in this list.

One speech of Mr. Bryan's, that on "Imperialism," has been put in not less than eleven languages by the Democratic Literary Bureau, and there hardly passes a day that there does not come a demand from some State chairman for this document in some other foreign language. Greek, Finnish, and Yiddish figure among the recent demands for foreign literature. The total number copies of this speech issued exceeded 8,000,000, and I have seen a report from Republican headquarters that more than 7,000,000 copies of President McKinley's letter of acceptance were circulated. I have no way of knowing what troubles beset the gentlemen who conduct the Republican Literary Bureau, but I have no doubt that they encounter the same pressure for literature in foreign tongues. We sometimes feel a natural exultation that the Indians are not permitted to vote, and that the committee is saved the expense of putting out documents in Choctaw and in Sioux.

One book of very considerable size, issued by each committee, is the Campaign Text-Book,

"

so called. This is supposed to furnish instruction to speakers and writers upon all the issues of the campaign, and forms usually a large quarto of some 340 pages. The Republicans this year have issued their book in a style which is both attractive and convenient. It represents, probably, the most expensive campaign-book ever prepared by a national committee. The circulation of these books is limited. They are intended only for distribution among the few who are called upon to act as instructors for the public. Both parties customarily put a price upon them to the general mass of voters.

lutely certain either for the Republican or Democratic ticket. The latter class gets scant attention, while the States of the first class are flooded with arguments. Perhaps there has never before been a year when so many States were regarded as doubtful. The Democrats, undismayed by the figures of 1896, have pressed their campaign vigorously in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and California; and, although all these States gave majorities hos tile to Bryan in 1896, all are held to be doubtful this year except Kentucky and Maryland, which the Democracy claims positively for her own. The Republicans, in turn, have shown their audacity by attacking Nebraska, which gave Mr. Bryan 13,576 plurality in 1896; Colorado, which gave him 134,882 plurality out of total vote of 189,687, and Missouri, which gave him 58,727. Hope springs eternal in the politician's breast; and I doubt if any one at either headquarters will take issue with me when I say that the glowing "forecasts" which proceed from national chair men and secretaries in the weeks preceding elec tion are based mainly on hope.

As a rule, the material sent out by a national committee is distributed by State committees to the county committees, thence to local or precinct committeemen. Perhaps this is one reason why, even in the most hotly fought campaign, there are hundreds, and indeed hundreds of thousands, of voters who never receive a single document or pamphlet of any kind, and who form their ideas wholly from the newspapers. The chance is great that a county committeeman or a precinct committeeman receiving a bundle of several thousand documents may put them by the side of his desk with the very best intention of distributing them, and leave them there until the end of the campaign. This is a weakness in the system recognized by everybody engaged in political work, but one that seems impossible to correct, unless the whole documentary system be abandoned, and reliance placed on newspapers alone. I have no doubt that, among the readers of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS this month, there will be many who are voters even in doubtful States, and yet who cannot recall ever having had an official document from headquarters put in their hands.

Not all the States are equally favored with oratory and that ponderous form of reading matter which politicians call literature," but which Charles Lamb would surely have put in his list of books that are no books. A national committee will ordinarily classify the States in three divisions doubtful, with the chances favoring its candidate; doubtful, with the chances favoring the opposi tion candidate; and abso

The main struggle in this campaign has centered about New York, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Mr. Bryan's managers have no apprehension of losing any of the States carried by him in 1896, though the Republicans have made de. termined forays into several notably Kansas and South Dakota; nor have they doubted that they would carry Kentucky and Maryland.

Added to the electoral votes of the States which they held to be safe, the votes of New York alone, or of any two of the Middle States mentioned, would give the election to Mr. Bryan. I do not mean that other possible States, such as Michigan or Minnesota, are being neglected; but the center of the line of battle is in these commonwealths. How thoroughly this is appreciated is to be judged from the fact that into New York have been sent 4,000,000 documents; into Indiana 2,500,000, and into Ohio 3,500,000, while every speaker of national reputation in the land has gone up and down these States pleading for

converts.

After all, however, I doubt much whether even the hard work, the systematic work, the astute political devices upon which the politicians so greatly rely, really have as much weight in deciding the fate of an election as people who live entirely in a political atmosphere sometimes think. The success or failure of a candidate for office, and particularly for an exalted national

office, depends very much upon conditions similar to those which determine the success or failure of a book. Many a good book well pushed by its publisher has fallen flat. Many a book of less merit, published without any of the log-rolling devices in vogue to-day, has happily caught the attention of the public, and has rushed ahead to its 400,000 copies. It is somewhat so with a Presidential election. Admitting all the use of money properly and corruptly; admitting that this campaign manager is cleverer than his opponent, still you will find that rising above either of these factors comes, as the determining element in the situation, the temper of the public. Doubtless the newspapers, the documents, and the speakers help, in some slight degree, to form this public sentiment; but if it be against one candidate, the most herculean efforts on the part of his managers cannot stem it. If it be for him, all his associates have to do is to guide it rightly and see that its expression at the polls is correctly recorded.