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CHAPTER XVI.

THE OFFICIAL ORGANS IN WASHINGTON.

THE FIRST NEWSPAPER IN WASHINGTON. THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER. -GALES AND SEATON.-ORGANS OF THE Government.-CONGRESSIONAL REPORTING.-ADVENT OF JACKSON. THE TELEGRAPH and Duff Green. -THE QUARREL OF JACKSON AND CALHOUN.-THE GLOBE.-FRANCIS P. BLAIR AND AMOS KENDALL. THE SPECTATOR AND CONSTITUTION. -INTRIGUES AND INCIDENTS.-JAMES WATSON WEBB AND DUFF GREEN.-THE UNION. THOMAS RITCHIE, INTERESTING REMINISCENCES. THE MADISONIAN. THE NEWSPAPERS OF TO-DAY.

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ALL governments have their organs. All political parties, all cliques, all religious denominations have their newspapers, through which they communicate with the people. Nearly every senator and member of Congress has a home organ, more vulgarly called a "mouth-piece."

The English government has the London Gazette, established in 1665. It still lives, and is the second oldest organ in the world; the Pekin Gazette, the official paper of China, being the father of organs. The French government had Le Moniteur Universal; Fournal Officiel de l'Empire Français. It was started in 1789, but on the 1st of January, 1869, Napoleon abandoned it, as it was private property, and established a new organ, which he called the Journal Officiel de l'Empire Français. The empress, it is said, had her organ in La France. Both were swept away by Sedan in 1870. The Thiers government at Versailles and the Communist government in Paris had each a Journal Officiel in 1871. Austria and Andrassy speak through the Gazette of Vienna; Prussia through the Staats Anzarger in decrees and judgments, and Bismarck through the Nord Deutsche Algemeine Zeitung; Italy and Victor Emanuel through the Gazetti Officielle of Florence; Spain and Amadeus through the Gacêta de Madrid; the Pope and Antonelli through the Observatore Romano; Mexico and Juarez through the Diario Oficial; Greece and George through the Messenger of Athens; Russia and Alexander through the Pranitelstoennii Vyestaik; and Turkey and Abdel Aziz through the Turkie.

The present organ of Russia is a new one. The Czar recently became displeased with the Invalide Russe of St. Petersburg, and set it aside. This paper was first issued in 1813, to raise a fund for the relief of the wounded soldiers. It is stated that in that and the

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two following years it gave relief to sixteen hundred and fifty invalids, and at the close of the war in 1815 it handed over to the committee of relief nearly two hundred thousand dollars. Since then it raised an annual income of ten thousand dollars till the Crimean War, when it paid to this fund fifty thousand dollars. It was the organ, especially the military organ, of Nicolas and Nesselrode, and Alexander and Gortschakoff, from 1839 till superseded in 1868. M. Thiers, in the Corps Legislatif in 1868, thus spoke of the influence of a newspaper organ in Russia:

Voyez la presse en Autriche: elle est encore bien jeune, cependant elle révèle déjà l'opinion du pays. Et dans un autre pays que vous serez peut-être étonnés d'entendre citer, en Russie, où la presse n'est pas libre, elle commence cependant à avoir la parole, et il s'y produit un phénomène remarquable; le gouvernement est sage, discret, mesure, sincère même dans son langage; et pourtant, si l'on n'entendait que lui, on ne saurait pas la vérité. Mais il y a à Moscou un homme politique de grande intelligence, M. de Katkof, rédacteur de la Gazette de Moscou; et pour avoir une idée exacte de ce qui se passe en Russie, des mouvemens de cette grande puissance et de ses tendances, il faut combiner les dires du gouvernement avec le langage de la Gazette de Moscou.

The Ottoman Moniteur was edited by M. Blecque, father of the Turkish minister to the United States in 1869. Although printing was introduced in Turkey in 1727, the first newspaper did not make its appearance in that country till 1827, when this same M. Blecque started the Spectator of the East at Smyrna. The present official organ of the Sultan has already been mentioned.

These papers are entirely under the control of the governments de facto. Nothing appears except by authority. There is an amusing illustration of this in the announcement, said to be taken from the Moniteur of France, in March, 1815, on the escape of Napoleon from Elba:

First announcement.-"The monster has escaped from the place of his banishment; and he has run away from Elba."

2nd. "The Corsican dragoon, (l'ogre) has landed at Cape Juan."

3rd. "The tiger has shown himself at Gap. The troops are advancing on all sides to arrest his progress. He will conclude his miserable adventure by becoming a wanderer among the mountains; he cannot possibly escape."

4th. "The monster has really advanced as far as Grenoble, we know not to what treachery to ascribe it."

5th. "The tyrant is actually at Lyons. Fear and terror seized all at his appearance."

6th. "The usurper has ventured to approach the capital to within sixty hours' march."

7th. "Bonaparte is advancing by forced marches; but it is impossible he can reach Paris."

8th. "Napoleon will arrive under the walls of Paris to-morrow." 9th. "The Emperor Napoleon is at Fontainebleau.”

10th. "Yesterday evening his Majesty the Emperor made his public entry, and arrived at the Tuilleries-nothing can exceed the universal joy!"

Our government, at first, had no organ. When located in New York and Philadelphia, and during the formation of parties, the papers arranged themselves for and against the acts of Congress as

best suited their interests and inclinations. After the adoption of the Constitution the government was independent. Washington had no newspaper to speak for him. The Aurora appeared in Philadelphia as the organ of the opposition, and the National Gazette as the special organ of Jefferson. Before the city of Washington became the national capital, newspapers had been published there. The Washington Gazette, a semi-weekly, was established by Benjamin Moore in 1796. It made its appearance on the 11th of June, and its prospectus announced that the object of the publisher was first "to obtain a living," and, second," to amuse and inform" his readers.

When the seat of government was removed to Washington in 1800, the National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser was established by Samuel Harrison Smith, and it became the organ of the administration of Thomas Jefferson. Its first issue as a tri-weekly was on the 31st of October. About the same time the Washington Federalist was issued. The National Intelligencer was a continuation of the Independent Gazetteer of Philadelphia. In 1807 Joseph Gales, Jun., entered the office of the Intelligencer as a reporter. became a partner of Smith's in 1810, and in that year the name of Washington Advertiser was dropped. Shortly after Smith retired from business, and connected himself with the United States Bank, and was president of a branch of that institution in the national capital for many years. He died in Washington in 1845. In October, 1812, William Winston Seaton became a partner with Gales, and thereafter the firm was known as Gales and Seaton. Seaton had previously been an assistant editor in Richmond, sole editor of the Petersburg Republican, and sole editor of the North Carolina Journal. He was then connected with the Raleigh Register. The Intelligencer became the first recognized government organ in the United States. John Randolph was in the habit of styling it the "Court Paper." It was the vigorous champion of Madison's administration throughout the war of 1812 and '15. In the capture of Washington by the British the establishment was partly destroyed by the enemy. This event helped the paper wonderfully with the people. It thence started on a fresh and prosperous career.

The National Intelligencer was the reporter of Congress. For thirteen years after Gales became attached to the paper, and for seven years after Seaton joined the establishment, they were its only reporters. Gales had followed in the footsteps of his father, and had acquired a thorough knowledge of stenography. Seaton had also learned the art. One reported the Senate, the other the House. They gave only running reports of the debates at that time, but on important occasions they would take full notes of

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speeches. If it had not been for the presence of Gales, the great speeches of Hayne and Webster in 1830 would have been lost to posterity. The original notes of Webster's speech, corrected by Webster himself, were retained by Gales, and are now in possession of his family. Most of the annals of the early Congresses would never have been preserved but for the efforts of the editors of the Intelligencer. The stenographic notes of the important debates, those that could not be published at the time of their utterance, were filed for future reference and use. There was no public record of them. They would have been lost, like the early proceedings of the British Parliament, if there had not been later action of Congress authorizing Gales and Seaton to write up and publish the "Debates in Congress." In speaking of this action of that body, the Intelligencer of September 3, 1853, said:

It may not be very generally known that the proprietors of the National Intelligencer are engaged in a work, under the sanction of the government, which is to embody and preserve the already perishing history of the earlier Congresses. In this undertaking they have thus far succeeded, even beyond their hopes. In prosecution of the work it has been brought down to the date of the twelfth Congress.

What has been the result of this work? The Annals of Congress. With the combined labor, skill, and ability of the Gales, father and son, Seaton, Houston, Sutton, Hayes, and their assistants as reporters, and the files of the Intelligencer and Globe, we have the debates of the national Congress from its earliest days. So with the Constitutional Convention. If it had not been for the industry and capacity of James Madison, the important and interesting debates on the Federal Constitution would have been lost to the world. The Convention had no official reporter. The Advertiser, in reviewing Rives's Life of Madison, said:

Mr. Madison imposed upon himself the arduous labor of keeping an exact record of everything said and done in that body. He chose a seat in front of the presiding officer, and noted in abbreviations and marks intelligible to himself what was read from the chair or spoken by the delegates, losing not a moment between the adjournment and reassembling of the convention in writing out his notes. He was not absent a single day, "nor," he says, "more than the casual fraction of an hour in any day; so that I could not have lost a single speech unless a very short one." Mr. Madison regarded these reports as a sacred trust for posterity. He firmly withheld them from publication during his lifetime, while any object of contemporary interest or ambition could be served, intending that, at his death, they should pass into the hands of the representatives of the nation, which was done; and by Congress they have been given to the world. No other complete record of the debates of that convention has been preserved. Judge Yates of New York took some crude and desultory notes, which have been printed since his death; but they have little value. The judge left the convention before the sessions were half completed, or its action had begun to take a definite shape. Besides, he had little tact or experience in such labor. The abstract of these debates which Mr. Rives has given is a valuable contribution to the study of our Constitution.

Of the value of the stenographic notes of Gales, the Budget of

September, 1853, relates the following historical and interesting facts:

Forty years ago, the 12th day of January, John Randolph, of Roanoke, made a speech in Congress. It was one of those long, powerful, sarcastic speeches for which he was so distinguished. It was on the war question. On the 18th day of the preceding June, (1812,) war had been declared against Great Britain. Congress adjourned on the 6th of July, and was called together again on the 2d of November, to adopt such measures as the first brief campaign rendered necessary. Among other measures the military committee reported a bill for raising an additional army of twenty thousand men. A debate followed on the bill in the House, extending through twenty days, in which many distinguished men took part, including Calhoun, and Clay, and Kent, and Lowndes, and Macon. On the 12th of January, John Randolph rose and blowed his bugle blast through the day, reviewing the whole war subject, and the relations between this country and the powers of Europe. Like all his speeches, this was extempore. It fell upon the ears of his hearers, and then was wafted away and lost in thin air. Beyond the mere announcement that Mr. Randolph spoke upon the bill, the press of the country gave the public no information, and no one, save those who heard the speech, knew what he had said, or ever expected to know. And now, lo and behold! on the 3d day of this present month of September, 1853, that unwritten speech, uttered forty years ago, appeared at full length, verbatim, as it was spoken, in the National Intelligencer, filling seven large, closely printed columns, in small type. Who, at this day, when the actors in those scenes are sleeping with their fathers-when Calhoun, and Clay, and Kent, and Lowndes, and Macon, and Randolph, are all in their graves, who has wrought this literary miracle?

The Intelligencer continued to be the recognized organ of the several administrations, with a brief suspension, till the advent of Andrew Jackson in 1828. It then became the oracle of the opposition, and was accepted as the central organ of the Whig Party through the exciting political contests that followed the elevation of the Hero of New Orleans. Some of its articles emanated from the leading statesmen of that party. Webster and Clay, and even Calhoun, wrote for the Intelligencer. One of the incidents in connection with this statement is, that Gales, on one occasion, in preparing an editorial when overwhelmed with other duties, hesitated, and could not proceed to his satisfaction. Webster came to his mind. He sent his unfinished article to that distinguished statesman with a short note of explanation. It came back grandly rounded off and complete. It was the leading article of the Intelligencer of the next day. Webster had an exalted opinion of its editors. He once remarked to a friend, in speaking of Gales and Seaton: "Those, sir, are two of the wisest and best heads in this country; as to Mr. Gales, he knows more about the history of this government than all the political writers of the day put together."

The brief suspension in its organic position occurred while John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State in Monroe's cabinet. Adams got into a controversy with the Intelligencer, and took away the public patronage from Gales and Seaton, transferring it to the National Fournal. This paper was started in 1822 by Thomas L. M'Kinney, a gentleman of the old school, and a great friend of the

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