of paying his employes every
Saturday night.
* * * * *
Another instance of the lack of enterprise on the part of the daily
paper of that day:
During the summer of 1860 a large party of Republican statesmen and
politicians visited St. Paul, consisting of State Senator W.H. Seward.
Senator John P. Hale, Charles Francis Adams, Senator Nye, Gen. Stewart
L. Woodford and several others of lesser celebrity. The party came to
Minnesota in the interest of the Republican candidate for president.
Mr. Seward made a great speech from the front steps of the old
capitol, in which he predicted that at some distant day the capitol
of this great republic would be located not far from the Falls of St.
Anthony. There was a large gathering at the capitol to hear him, but
those who were not fortunate enough to get within sound of his voice
had to wait until the New York Herald, containing a full report of
his speech, reached St. Paul before they could read what the great
statesman had said.
* * * * *
In the fall of 1860 the first telegraph line was completed to St.
Paul. Newspaper proprietors thought they were then in the world, so
far as news is concerned, but it was not to be so. The charges for
telegraph news were so excessive that the three papers in St. Paul
could not afford the luxury of the "latest news by Associated Press."
The offices combined against the extortionate rates demanded by the
telegraph company and made an agreement not to take the dispatches
until the rates were lowered; but it was like an agreement of the
railroad presidents of the present day, it was not adhered to. The
Pioneer made a secret contract with the telegraph company and left the
Minnesotian and the Times out in the cold. Of course that was a very
unpleasant state of affairs and for some time the Minnesotian and
Times would wait until the Pioneer was out in the morning and would
then set up the telegraph and circulate their papers. One of the
editors connected with the Minnesotian had an old acquaintance in the
pressroom of the Pioneer, and through him secured one of the first
papers printed. This had been going on for some time when Earle S.
Goodrich, the editor of the Pioneer, heard of it, and he accordingly
made preparation to perpetrate a huge joke on the Minnesotian. Mr.
Goodrich was a very versatile writer and he prepared four or five
columns of bogus telegraph and had it set up
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