Page:Oregon Exchanges volume 5.pdf/287

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
OREGON EXCHANGES
April, 1923

plant had been burned he calmly replied:

“It’s just the fortune of war.”

Then I learned of his plan to print his next edition on the press of the local Finnish paper, the Toveri. He did not need our dispatches that night because he had so much local news—news that was filling the columns of more fortunate papers in all parts of the country. But the following night he was able to take some outside news over a temporarily established telephone service.

The Budget, working from its temporary headquarters at the Y. M. C. A. building. one of the structures saved from the fire, got out its editions on the days following on the press of the newspaper at Seaside, twenty miles away.


TELLING THE STORY OF KELSO

Within a month after the Astoria fire an emergency of another sort developed suddenly. It was the bridge disaster at Kelso, Wash., the evening of January 3rd. I was attending a dinner when a message reached me. I hastened to the office to find that some bulletins had been sent, and urgent messages were coming from Western Division headquarters at San Francisco asking whether I thought it best to go to Kelso. Just then there came piling into the office over a special Western Union wire a message addressed to me from Kelso. It gave an entirely new version of the accident, explaining how the bridge had collapsed because of the snapping of the supporting cable. Earlier messages had reported as the cause a log jam striking the bridge. The message also gave an estimate of eighteen persons lost, whereas earlier re ports had about six missing. After running about 300 words the item ended and I eagerly looked for the signature. It was what I had expected—Ralph Tennal. He is a newspaperman from Kansas who started the Longview News, at Longview, Wash., close to Kelso. I had learned to know Tennal during his visits at our office while he was arranging for the starting of his paper. We became friends. but I had not asked him to act as correspondent. On his own initiative, however, he had rounded up the story, which was not only complete in detail but had an estimate of loss of life at that early hour which approximated the final toll reached after several days of checking up of the missing. This is a striking illustration of meeting an emergency through helpful co-operation.


GOOD WORK AT ROSEBURG

A few weeks ago a story came from Sacramento telling of a missing woman, the daughter of a family living at Sutherlin, Ore. Our San Francisco office asked for a follow. So I called Bert Bates, of the News-Review, at Roseburg, and read the story to him, which he took word for word. In a short time he telephoned back a good follow which he had obtained by telephone from Sutherlin. Then an hour or so later came another call from Mr. Bates. He had sent over to Sutherlin and had some sensational developments, a letter and other facts. This was another instance of loyal and energetic co-operation in meeting an emergency.

On New Year’s Day the Toledo (Ohio) high school football team played the Corvallis high school in a championship match at Corvallis. Of course the interest was keen. C. E. Ingalls, of the Corvallis Gazette-Times, and I had corresponded in regard to covering the game, and we understood that the Western Union was to have a wire to the field over which bulletins could be sent. About an hour before the game I learned that the wire had been leased to a Toledo paper which was not a member of The Associated Press. So I reached Mr. Ingalls by long distance at his home just before he left for the game and told him the situation. I was anxious to get quick bulletins by telephone to our Portland office to meet the competition of the leased wire. The way Mr. Ingalls stood by me in this predicament and shot those bulletins through by long-distance—even when the local team was losing, afforded