When I had finished, I sent for the chief engineer. It was now ten o’clock in the evening, and I must get my cable off surely by daylight to insure its getting the edition. We had a heavy head sea and in spite of Morris’ assertion of 12 knots, we weren’t doing much over 8½. We needed all we had, and so I wanted to talk with the man who had charge of the turns of the propeller. I wanted to imbue in him the news idea and the news spirit which, once aroused, are stronger forces for speed and quick action than unlimited golden promises. So when he came in, I gave him a cigar and then for an hour I labored with him, pouring out all the eloquence which the love of the work must always bring from the lips of any true newspaper man who works neither for money, reputation or glory, but for the fascination of “THE CABLE GAME” which knows not the limitations of conventions, and is bounded only by time and space. Any man can talk on the one subject that lies nearest his heart, and it is a poor newspaper man indeed who cannot wax eloquent over the “cable game.” He lives it every waking hour of the day and dreams of it when he sleeps. It is for no material gain which he labors, but the pure love of the work itself. There are dozens of such men who suffer untold hardships and face any risk simply to get their stories out. They care little whether their names are signed or not, and their one aim is that their paper shall be the first to have the news, and that their version of it may have the front page wherever newspapers are published. It may be the depths of winter, and miles away from a cable office, but he will gladly ride hours in a driving snowstorm, even if it takes his last breath to get his story on the wire. Perhaps it is summer in the tropics, but he faces the heat as readily as the cold of winter. Hunger and hardships of all kinds are a part of the day’s work to him if he can but land that priceless “story,” which is the only object of his life from day to day. Few people who read the daily papers dream of the suffering and heart-burn that “special cables” have cost some man in some far corner of the globe. The story which they read complacently at their breakfast table has often all but cost the sender his life in getting it to the telegraph, but the correspondent does it and counts the cost as nothing if he gets his “beat.” From the world he looks for no recognition, and if his chief at home is satisfied, the cable man rejoices and his heart is glad.
All of this I told my nervous little Greek engineer and then pointed out that now he as well as I was a correspondent, and not only he, but every man on the boat was one. “I can do nothing alone,” I told him. “It is only by your co-operation that we can make this expedition a success, yours and every other member of this crew,” and then I explained to him the value of time. How that minutes were worth dollars and days thousands, and that an hour saved might mean the difference between success and failure.
“You have seen the situation in Odessa,” I pointed out to him. “You know as well as I do that there are hundreds of foreigners, your countrymen and mine included, whose lives and property are insecure every day that this reign of terror lasts. They are praying for relief from their home governments and there” (I pointed to my typewriter cable blanks on the table) “is the story of their plight, and their prayer for help. Ten hours after we reach Sulina, that story will be in print, and in 24 it will have been read by every foreign office in the world, and who can tell what will be the result? Next week this time there may be a fleet of warships plowing these waters at full speed to bring protection to every port in southern Russia. Have you ever been in peril and without protection? Have you ever longed and prayed for the sight of a battleship or cruiser flying a friendly flag? Have you watched the harbor mouth day in and day out for the smudge of smoke which may mean the coming of succor? Can you realize what bluejackets, machine guns and friends mean to the people in Odessa? Realize it and you know what the value of minutes and, much more, hours may mean. Perhaps I understand it more than you possibly can, for training on an American paper makes a man consider time more than anything on earth. You people aboard don’t know how the newspapers in America and in England, too, spend thousands to save minutes. Go to a big meeting in my country, and sit through two hours of speeches. When you leave the hall, a newsboy will hand you a paper with the ink still wet, with a complete account of the first hour and a half of what has gone on within.”
The engineer was visibly impressed.
“I can’t understand,” he said, “how your paper can spend so much money for a month of news, much less for one story.”
I laughed and told him of a correspondent in the far east who got to the cable office with a big story. He had barely time to catch the morning edition of his paper. He threw in his 1000 words of copy, and while he was waiting to see that it got off, he saw through the window the correspondent of his paper’s greatest rival at home tearing madly toward the telegraph office with his story clutched in his hands. He looked at his watch and saw that his rival might send his cable after his own, and still get it published the same morning, thus preventing him from scoring a “beat.” For a moment only he was paralyzed, and then he drew from his pocket a novel which he had been reading. With one quick snatch he ripped out twenty pages, stuck his scarf pin through to hold them together, and in pencil scrawled across the top of the first page the name of his paper and signed his name on the last, and as his rival entered the door, he tossed to the operator what amounted to some 7000 additional words of copy. By the time the operator had finished sending this stuff it was just an hour too late for his rival’s cable to get the morning edition. The result was that his story appeared in New York the next morning and was copied all over the world as the big “beat” of the year. To be sure, it cost the management nearly $5000 extra in cable tolls, but they alone got the story that morning.
“Did the correspondent lose his job?” gasped the chief.
“Not on your life,” I told him. “On the contrary, he got a cable of congratulations on his quick action and a raise of salary the same day.”
“Well, what do you think of that?” ejaculated the chief.
I saw I had him interested, and so while I was at it I gave him the story of how a newspaper man saved the Suez Canal to England. “In some way the correspondent of an English paper found that the Khedive of Egypt, who held the controlling interest in the stock of the canal, was going to sell out. In an instant the man realized that he held in his hand the biggest story of his day. Were it published, every power in Europe would be bidding, and no doubt the French, who then had the greatest influence in Egypt, would carry off the plum, which was worth a dozen wars for any power to possess. So he held his tongue and sent a rush message, not to his paper, but to the premier of England. Old Palmerston saw the situation as quickly as had the newspaper man, and closed the deal by cable for $20,000,000, and then made parliament raise the cash. The result was that the newspaper account was the first notice that France had of the loss of the opportunity. So you see, chief, where hours and minutes were worth not thousands, but millions on one occasion.”