Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/400

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service full of thrillers and closes with motion pictures. The Journal, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, early started a similar welfare movement for its carriers. The Nashville Tennessean, at Nash- ville, Tennessee, soon devoted its attentions to the school children of the city and at its own expense it provided public lectures to amuse, entertain, and instruct the children. Its manager recently said: "It is far from the province of the daily press to print only the news a newspaper should be a community and section builder." The Chronicle, of San Francisco, California, was in- strumental in establishing the zoological gardens in 1880; it started the movement for the Golden Gate Park Museum in 1885. The Examiner, of the same city, erected the Little Jim Hospital for Incurables and the Free Eye and Ear Infirmary for the treatment of unfortunate children of the poorer classes. If space permitted, many other humanitarian news- paper enterprises could be mentioned, but the beginnings of the movement distinctly belong to the Period of Financial Readjustment.

PRESS AS DETECTIVE

With the financial readjustment many newspapers not only undertook humanitarian enterprises, but also assumed other extramural activities. Not content with mere publicity for crime, the press in numerous cities undertook active detective work in locating criminals. Mention might be made of how The Daily News, of Chicago, Illinois, followed D. E. Spencer, presi- dent of the State Savings Institution, who had absconded with something like half a million dollars from the vaults of the Bank of Chicago, step by step across Canada, over the Atlantic and thence through Europe until it finally located him at Stuttgart; or how The' Argus, of Albany, New York, after the police of that city were completely baffled in an attempt to locate a kidnapper, not only found the child, but also captured the criminal.

The most remarkable instance, however, was possibly the identification by The World, of New York, of the man who made an attempt upon the life of Russell Sage. Isaac D. White, then a reporter on The World and now head of its Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play, secured a button from the trousers