But it took years for that one simple notion to get itself completely accepted and acted upon. I will give one illustration. When the fatal days of July, 1870, were upon us I thought I saw a great opportunity. The Tribune alone had an organization in Europe competent for the work of supplying war news. But as I did not know how much news New York wanted, I cabled a question to the editor then temporarily in charge. The answer came back that I was to go to Berlin. It would have been a fatal step. I should have come under German military rule, and cabling from Berlin at that time and much later was a slow and uncertain business. Nor could the plans I had in mind have been carried out from Berlin. There would have been a censorship upon every dispatch, and censorship means not merely mutilation to suit a bureaucratic ideal, but delay. Berlin, moreover, was remote, while London is on the road to New York, and spite of the cable the delay from that cause also would have been injurious. In short, I disobeyed the New York order. I explained, of course, but I pointed out that an unfettered discretion was essential to success, and I asked to be allowed a free hand or to be relieved. I was given the free hand.
These methods have since become so familiar that there is little need to explain them, but at that time they were not merely novel but were derided by journalists of great experience. Mr. James Gordon Bennett was one of those who scoffed at them, and presently was one of those who followed them and made a large use of them, greatly to his own profit and to that of the considerable news organization he controlled. But at first he said nothing would induce him to set up in London a rival office to New York. Now, every important journal in the United States has offices in London, and subsidiary offices in Paris and often in other European capitals. But the authority of New York or Chicago remains what it was.
The idea once accepted, somebody had then to be appointed to London. Mr. Young asked me to go. I declined. I liked leader-writing much better than news-collecting. I thought the power of influencing opinion through the editorial columns of The Tribune the most enviable of all powers. The London scheme, moreover, was an experiment and I did not think I had had enough experience with news to justify my undertaking so large a business. But Mr. Young pressed it, saying it was my scheme and I ought to put it in operation. He might, had he chosen, have issued an order and I should have had no choice but to obey or resign; but that was not his way. He trusted to persuasion; he treated his subordinates as, for some purposes, his equals, and he did not care for unwilling service. He was a past master in the art of stating a case and in the use of personal influence. In the end he convinced me not only that I ought to go, but that I wanted to go, and I gave in, still with misgivings but not without a certain enthusiasm at the prospect of doing a new thing in journalism. It was like Young to say, as he did at parting: "Remember, I don't care about methods. You will use your own methods. What I want is results."
The incredulity with which The Tribune experiment was first received gave way slowly, but it gave way. I suppose it was the news service of The Tribune in the Franco-German War in 1870 which finally convinced the most sceptical. So I will pass to that, stopping only to explain one other matter.
It was in 1870 also that the first international newspaper alliance was formed. The papers which formed it were The Tribune of New York and The Daily News of London. I saw at the beginning that it was desirable to be in a position to know what news would go to New York through Reuter and The Associated Press. That knowledge was only to be had inside of a London newspaper office, and it was with that view chiefly that I first made a proposal to The Daily News. I suppose I chose that paper because I knew its editor and manager. I did not think it likely that The Daily News service from the battlefields would, at first, add much to our own; nor did it. But I went to Mr.—afterward Sir John—Robinson with an offer to exchange news, whether by telegraph or mail, on equal terms; we to give them everything we had and they to do the like by us. The offer was very coldly received. Mr. Robinson could see no advantage to his paper from such an agreement. I told him what we were doing and intending to do. Still he was incredulous and he finally said No. I told him I did not mean that either paper should narrow its operations at the seat of war in expectation of help from the other, nor that either should credit the other with its news. It was to be a war partnership and each would put all its forces in the field. But he would not have it.
It was Mr. Frank Hill, then editor of The Daily News, who came to the rescue. The news department was none of his but he had an all-embracing intelligence, and when he heard what the offer was he pressed it upon his colleague and finally secured its acceptance. The credit for whatever benefit inured to The Daily News from this partnership was therefore due originally to Mr. Frank Hill and not to Mr. Robinson.
It remains true that Mr. Robinson was a very distinguished journalist and that his work at a later period of the war was of a high order. If he had done nothing but secure the services of Mr. Archibald Forbes he would have earned a lasting renown as manager. But before Forbes's work had begun to tell, The Daily News, receiving and publishing The Tribune dispatches as its own—as it had an absolute right to do under our agreement—had won a great reputation for its war news. Sir John Robinson is dead but I published a statement on this subject while he was living, which was brought to his attention. I said then, as I say now, that The Daily News owed to The Tribune almost the whole of the war news by which its reputation was at first acquired. This period lasted down to the surrender of Metz; perhaps later. My statement was never disputed. It may still be found in Harper's Magazine, where the facts are set forth much more fully than here, and it was this article in Harper's which Sir John Robinson read. We had ceased to be on good terms. I forget why. He grumbled a little at the publication of the story, though without reason, but he attempted no denial and no denial was possible.
The matter was much discussed at the time in the American Press and there were many criticisms, based on an absolute ignorance of the real arrangement between the two papers. Further confusion grew out of the fact that one of The Tribune's war correspondents had a contract with The Pall Mall Gazette, then owned by Mr. George Smith and edited by Mr. Frederick Greenwood, one of the great journalists of his time. This contract left him free to deal with us but not with any London paper. It followed, therefore, that some of The Tribune dispatches appeared in The Daily News and some in The Pall Mall Gazette. Our New York friends could not understand this tri-partite agreement; but then it was not necessary they should; and their comments were much more amusing than they would have been if they had known the truth. The mind moves with great freedom when unhampered by facts.
II
"American methods," said certain English journalists, seeking to account for The Tribune's successes in the Franco-German War. The phrase, whether meant as eulogy or criticism, was, at any rate, explanatory, for we had had four years of Civil War experience, from 1861 to 1865, while the English, unless we reckon the Indian Mutiny, had to go back to the Crimean War in 1854 for precedents in war correspondence. Moreover, the one great triumph of English journalism in the Crimea was not a triumph of method. It was a triumph due to the genius and courage of one man, Dr. Russell, who exposed through The Times the murderous mistakes of army organization and army administration, and so forced the War Office and the Horse Guards to set their houses in order. It was a great public service; perhaps the greatest which any journalist in the field ever performed. But it was not exactly journalism. It had little or nothing to do with that speed and accuracy in the collection and transmission of news which, after all, must be the chief business of a correspondent. It has never been imitated. It never will be till another Russell appears to rescue another British army in another Crimea. That great exploit was not primarily journalistic but personal.