History

Text compiled from United Press Archives 

The poet Stephen Vincent Benet summed it up in a 1933 Fortune Magazine article:

 “The United Press is . . . a business concern . . . but there is another motive which drives them quite as strongly. You can call it pride of profession or professional zeal or enthusiasm or self-hypnosis. But whatever you call it, it is as common to the stockholding executives and the lunch-money copy boy — it is the strongest of the bonds that holds the UP together.”

“For such men and women there’s a deadline every minute,” wrote Joe Alex Morris in his history of the service’s first 50 years.

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The United Press Associations was founded June 21, 1907, by E.W. Scripps, then publisher of the Scripps-McRae Newspapers (later Scripps-Howard). The news agency delivered 10,000 words each day by Morse telegraph.

At the time, the world news scene was dominated by a cartel – the Associated Press in the United States and by government-subsidized or government-controlled agencies abroad.

Scripps had started several newspapers and wanted to be free to start others wherever he wished.

He also wanted others to be free to start newspapers because he believed in newspapers as such and in the principle which became the motto of the Scripps-Howard newspapers, “Give light and the people will find their own way.”

He saw that a single, powerful press association could become such a monopoly in the gathering and distribution of news as told hold the power of life and death over a publisher whose social and economic views might differ from those of publishers who were in control of the news monopoly.

Under the restrictive membership rules of the AP as they existed then, such publishers could deny the AP’s service to new publishers.

In contrast to the AP practice, he believed that news should be furnished to any publisher who desired it and could pay for it, without regard to competitive interests. He felt that there should be a free flow of information.

“I do not believe in monopolies,” Scripps said later. “I believe that monopolies suffer more than their victims in the long run. I do not believe it would be good for journalism in this country that there should be one big news trust such as the founders of the Associated Press fully expected to build up.”

At its beginning in 1907, United Press served 369 newspapers in the United States. Afternoon newspapers made up the bulk of the UP’s clientele.

Its news went to European newspapers through the British agency, Exchange Telegraph.

Two years later, in 1909, United Press began a cable service to Nippon Dempo Tsushin Sha, the Japanese Telegraph News Agency, later merged into Domei. (This service was to continue until December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.)

UP also challenged the cartel in South America, with prestigious La Prensa of Buenos Aires among the first to sign up.

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What it lacked in size, the fledgling news service made up in brashness and boldness.

Facing a large, firmly entrenched cooperative, the upstart UP had a handful of correspondents and part-timers who aggressively pursued the big stories each day.

When they were done, they swept the floors, kept the books, and sold the news service to newspapers.

Edward Keen, the European manager, was told to track down the former Crown Prince of Germany who was living in exile on an island off the Dutch coast. Keen found the water separating the island from the mainland clogged with ice and cabled New York for instructions.

“Walk,” was the one word reply from Karl Bickel, soon to become UP’s president.

Keen did and signed up the exiled monarch to write a series of feature articles for the wire.

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The gruff, eccentric Scripps, was a Midwesterner who struck out on his own after he and a brother founded The Detroit News, and envisioned a string of dailies selling for a penny and his first was The Cleveland Press.

He had plans for other cities but soon found he was unable to purchase news from The Associated Press, whose rules permitted a publisher to veto AP membership to any news rival in his city Scripps owned the Scripps-McRae Press Association in the Middle West and the Scripps News Association on the Pacific Coast in the early 1900s.

In 1906, he acquired control of the Publishers Press Association in the East and merged the three the following year to form United Press Associations.

The new wire opened its report on July 15, 1907:

NEW YORK, July 15 (UP) — The completion of an important press association consolidation was announced this morning. By arrangements just completed, the Publishers Press Association, the Scripps-McRae Press Association and the Scripps News Association became one concern, under the name of the “United PressAssociations.”

The United Press Associations, incorporated under the laws of the state of New York at Albany, secured by purchase after some negotiations all the franchises, contracts and other assets and obligations of the three press associations which together controlled practically all the existing press association business in the United States outside of the Associated Press.

The new United Press starts business with 460 newspaper clients, of which 400 are evening newspapers and 60 are Sunday morning newspapers. It is not intended to serve morning papers, but to make the United Press the best and greatest news agency in the world for evening newspapers and Sunday newspapers.

This consolidation completes an interesting chapter of American newspaper history. When the old United Press went out of business in 1897, a group of western newspapers formed the Scripps-McRae Press Association, while a group of eastern newspapers formed the Publishers Press.

Later the Scripps News Association was started in order to supply news to papers on the Pacific coast. All three made remarkable progress, but were hampered by being sectional rather than national organizations.

While they formed working alliances with each other, they were always separately managed.

A step toward consolidation was made last summer, when the E.W. Scripps newspaper interests secured a controlling interest in the Publishers Press. The new association will be under similar control, every person actively interested being connected with the press association business or with the publication of evening newspapers. It is announced that theUnited Press will not be run on narrow or monopolistic lines, but will seek to give fair and impartial service to all legitimate newspaper publishers in the field.

Through its clients, system of leased wires, bureaus and correspondents, the United Press already has splendid news gathering facilities, and these will be rapidly extended and improved.I

ts Washington, European, New York, San Francisco, Chicago and other bureaus are unusually well manned and enterprisingly conducted.

It is the same organization improved which has to its credit such historic “beats” as the assassination of President McKinley, the death of Queen Victoria, the massacre of King Alexander and Queen Draga at Belgrade, the signing of the peace between Russia and Japan, at Portsmouth, etc.

Recently a working arrangement has been made with a new Japanese press association.

The new United Press has more business in the evening field alone than the old United Press had in both the morning and evening fields the year before it was disbanded. The form of organization which brought disaster to the old United Press has been entirely avoided in the new company.

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Roy W. Howard, the brash and energetic young man chosen while in his 20s by Scripps to head UP, was skeptical of a Reuters alliance.

 “I want to see the United Press develop as a worldwide news agency,” he said. The Reuters talks were broken off, and UP cast the die to cover the world with its own reporters. “We’ve got to do things that have never been done before,” Howard told his troops; and they did.Bylines appeared on major stories. Newsfeatures began moving on the UP wires, which were snaking their way westward to California. Interviews with world leaders were regular features.Howard believed that UP stories should be distinct from the somber reporting style of the day. UP reporters were encouraged to weave color and the human element into their dispatches.

Detailed accounts of the suffering and violence during a textile strike in Lawrence, Mass., was widely credited with inspiring a congressional investigation into working conditions in textile mills.

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On Sept. 27, 1912 Scripps wrote a letter to Roy Howard, then general manager of United Press, telling him in clear terms the circumstances in which he founded the wire service and what he envisioned as its purpose:My dear Howard:

You have asked me to give you an account of the founding of the United Press, and the reasons for the same.

My serious and personal experiences with press associations began with the founding of the Cleveland Press in 1878. The old Western Associated Press was similar to the present Associated Press in being monopolistic and a closed corporation. Neither the Detroit News nor the Cleveland Press could at first obtain its service.

Between 1873 and 1883, I can remember that we had a great deal of trouble in getting a very poor news report. Upon returning from two years abroad, I found there had been organized a very substantial institution then called the United Press. I believe it was managed by Walter P. Philips, but was completely dominated and controlled by the Chicago banker, John R. Walsh, who later died in the penitentiary. Walsh was an unscrupulous fellow and Philips was his easily managed tool.

After the Walsh regime – I think by reason that a New York syndicate had taken up Walsh’s bank debts – the New Yorkers came into control of the United Press. The syndicate was composed of Pulitzer, of the old World; Whitlaw Reid, of the Tribune; Dana, of the Sun; and I believe the Herald’s representative was in it. These new controllers of the United Press were, if anything, worse than Walsh had been. They proceeded to milk the U. P. in good form.

As I remember it, the U. P. was for a time run mainly for the purpose of saving these four New York papers some part of their cable and special telegraph expense. During the Walsh regime Philips made my acquaintance and began to give me every favor he could. I had great difficulty in getting any good report from the East. I made an arrangement with him by which he gave me the use of the United Press wires at a rate that I believe was not equal to the cost of the telegraph operators. From New York and Washington, I remember, for 1/4 cent a word for filing, he delivered my special reports to all of the then existing Scripps papers.

Later, when the New York crowd got hold, he told me of the inside of the manipulations and showed me how I could get my share of the swag. They had adopted the system of exclusive franchise. For my papers he gave me a field of 100 or 150 miles around the city of its publication. I was allowed to protest but with the understanding that I wouldn’t exercise it, not to prevent service, but only for the purpose of reducing my rate. Of course, I soon enough recognized that we were all grafting the United Press out of existence.

A number of disgruntled United Press clients, together with a large number of the old Western Associated Press men, began to organize a revolt. The United Press was on the rocks and the Western Press Association was in a moribund condition. Senility marked the old institution, and corruption the new one; and competition had reduced the whole press association business to an absurdity.

Finally a time came when it appeared to both sides that the Scripps papers held the balance of power. Philips froze to me and brought me all sorts of messages and promises from Dana, et al.

About this time the insurgents sent me word that they were going to form a new press association and that, if I would join them, I would become the actual owner of one quarter of the stock of this new association. However, as the new association was composed of such men as Victor Lawson, Lawson’s men, Noys and Charles Knapp, my brother James, and a whole raft of what I then considered old fossils, I did not accept the proposition.

The new Associated Press of Illinois was soon enough formed, and rapidly attracted to itself nearly all the stronger papers in the country outside of the New York big four, as well as the big four itself. Finally the crash came to the United Press, and Pulitzer, Reid, and Bennet – I believe it was Bennet – went over to the A. P.

In an instant I found myself a very insignificant factor.

McRae felt that I had maneuvered wrongly and made a desperate attempt to climb in the band wagon. My brother James had already taken in the Detroit News and was very anxious to see my papers go along. McRae was very intimate with Knapp, Lawson, Noys and Stone, and late as the day was, they offered to let us come in on the ground floor. To convince McRae that it would be wise for me to submit, they outlined to him their policy to establish such a monopoly as would make it impossible for any new paper to be started in any of the cities where there were Associated Press members.

I recognized the value of all this, but just then I was feeling very cocky — I considered myself a man-of-destiny. I had ambitious plans of planting a score or more of new papers. So, I pointed out to McRae and my brother that, while under the proposed conditions no one could start new newspapers in our towns, we in turn would never be able to start another paper in some other town. Although the old United Press had been whipped to death, I was determined not to join the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, McRae had wrangled a promise from the directors of the A. P. that if we would be good and humble and submit our request at the next meeting of the board, we might be voted in, and probably would be. I sent him back with the ultimatum that all of our papers were to be received in the association and in each case we were to have A-1 position, or we wouldn’t come in. Mac was astounded but he had nothing else to do but go with the message. He came back with the report that no other place was open for us but that of humble clients. Meanwhile, I had prepared my scheme and even the form of the telegraph announcement to be sent out to all the old U. P. subscribers. Immediately after the rejection of our offer, we put on the wires the announcement that we were going into the press association business.

At about the same time I launched my Scripps-McRae service, the Publishers’s Press Association went into business, and to consolidate our strength we made an arrangement whereby Publishers’s Press was to have the Atlantic States territory, and the combined Scripps Associations everything west of this line. From the beginning, however, we had trouble with the Publishers’s Press. Its management was guilty of all the vices of the old United Press. It bought dollars for $1.10 and $1.20 apiece. It slushed around and tried to cover too much territory. It sold exclusive franchises and got into debet to people who made improper use of their influence over it.

Finally we found that it was not only unreliable but that it was being corruptly used. About this time John Vandercook appeared on the scene and was authorized to act as my agent to negotiate for the purchase and control of the Publishers’ Press. As a result of this purchase and merger, the new United Press in its present form came into existence.

As to my motives for founding the United Press: For nearly a quarter of a century I had personal experience with various Press Associations and from my brother James I had learned the story of the old Western Press Associations in which he was a charter member back in the Civil War days when he was chief owner of the Detroit Tribune.

I had been convinced of the correctness of the proverb that what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business when applied to a purely mutual press association, considering the membership as a whole. Clique rule is an inevitable outcome of all mutual institutions. The inner circle gets in its work in the way of graft as well as in the way of improper influence, use, and control.

My experience with the old United Press also had taught me that there was little to choose from as between an ordinary stock company of this kind, and a mutual association so far as proper and honest conduct was concerned. I believe in one-man control just as firmly as I believe in the distribution or the sharing of profits amongst all of the important and capable administrators of a business. I proposed to avoid the dangers of a mutual concern as well as the danger of shifting balances of power of the company of stockholding ownership.

But I had not only a selfish, but also an altruistic motive in founding the new association. I do not believe in monopolies. I believe that monopolists suffer more than their victims in the long run. I did not believe it would be good for journalism in this country if there were one big news trust such as the founders of the Associated Press fully expected to build up.

I not only wanted to start a new paper if I chose, but I wanted to make it possible for any other man to found a newspaper in any city of the Union. The men who hold controlling interest in the present Associated Press would inevitably combine into a trust were it not for us.

Perhaps my greatest reason, however, for my objecting to becoming an integral part of the Associated Press in the crisis was that I knew that at least 90% of my fellows in American journalism were capitalistic and conservative. I knew at that time, at least, that unless I came into the field with a news service it would be impossible for the people of the United States to get correct news through the medium of the Associated Press. I determined to be as free in the matter of gathering telegraph news and printing what I wished as I was in gathering local news and printing what I wanted to print.

In those, my youthful days of pride, my vanity swelled at the thought that I was to be the savior of the free press in America. Of course, I have learned now that it requires more than one man to guarantee such freedom. However, I confess that even now I feel no small sense of satisfaction on account of the results of my efforts. I believe, too, that I have done more good indirectly with the United Press than I have done with it directly, since I have made it impossible for the men who control the Associated Press to suppress the truth or successfully disseminate falsehood.

I am convinced that no such political situation as exists in this country today would have existed had it not been for the direct and indirect results of the United Press work. I really thought, Howard, in those callow days of the nineties, that a very large number of the publishers of American newspapers wanted to be and would be if they could be, really the friends of the people.

Yours sincerely,

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Seeking to gather news abroad, the United Press found itself confronted by a cartel composed of the official and semi-official news agencies of governments in Europe.

These “allied agencies” and the Associated Press exchanged news exclusively with each other. They furthermore allotted to each member the right to exploit exclusively certain regions of the world.

Only the French agency, Havas, for example, could sell its news in South America; while in the Far East, the territory of Reuters, Japanese and Chinese newspapers had to depend on the British agency for their foreign news.

In its competition with the monopolistic alliance, the United Press established two new principles in news agency operation.

One was that a news organization could cover the news of the world independently. The second was that newspapers anywhere could buy this news.

As a result, United Press became the first North American news agency to serve newspapers in Europe, South America and the Far East. At the same time, it established its own bureaus in those areas with staff correspondents instructed to report the news objectively and without government or political bias.

Its success in this endeavor led to an invitation in 1912 for UP to ally itself with Reuters, then the dominant European news gathering organization, which the young news agency rejected.

Such a move would have put United Press in alliance with agencies controlled or dominated by foreign governments, tying it in with an international news cartel which at that time was the foundation of the AP’s foreign service.

Instead, it set a course of aggressive, independent coverage and broad dissemination of its services.

As its foreign news resources and clientele grew, the effectiveness of the allied agencies’ control gradually declined, although it was not until 1934 that they formally gave up trying to retain their particular spheres of influence.

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By 1914, the UP’s clientele had doubled.

With the outbreak of World War I, newspapers in South American began chafing under the allied agencies’ restrictions which compelled them to get their war news from the French agency, Havas.

The South Americans said it was officially subsidized and covered only the allied side of the war.

To get the news of both sides, they turned to United Press. It began its first news file to South America in 1915. La Prensa of Buenos Aires, started using United Press service in 1919.

Direct UP service to newspapers in Europe was inaugurated after the first World War, in 1921, to clients in Cologne, Frankfurt and Vienna.

United Press service direct to newspapers on the Asian mainland followed in 1922, to publications in Peking and Tienstsin.

In 1922, the British United Press Ltd., was organized to serve newspapers throughout the British Empire.

Boasting of beats from Morocco and Moscow, Paris and Peking, United Press moved into the 1920s with a slogan proclaiming “Around the World, Around the Clock.”

New bureaus were springing up. A morning newspaper service (United News) was created, along with a syndicate (United Features) to market special features and first person accounts by notables.

By 1929, the United Press was serving 1,170 newspapers in 45 countries and territories.

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During these years, in addition to pioneering new territories, the United Press broke new ground in news agency style and method.

It was the first service to emphasize the by-line of the correspondent writing the dispatch. It introduced the big-name interview and developed the feature story as an important part of the daily news report.

It encouraged its writers to tell their stories in terms of people. It gathered its own news. It strove for penetrating reporting and excellent writing.

In 1935, United Press became the first major American news service to supply news to radio stations.

At the outbreak of World War II, in 1939, the number of United Press clients had grown to 1,715 newspaper and radio stations, in 52 countries and territories.

These included 486 newspapers outside the United States of which 194 were in nations which went to war with the U.S. in 1941 or in territories occupied by them.

The war cost UP those 194 papers, yet before it was over, UP’s list of clients was greater than ever. In 1944, the total was 543.

UP had emerged as a major international new service, with a worldwide reputation for enterprise and independence.

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In May 1958, the United Press combined with the International News Service.

Time Magazine reported:

In wire rooms from San Diego to Karachi, the teletypes of the United Press and International News Service clattered out their biggest news of the day:

 “The United Press Associations and International News Service joined forces today around the world in the creation of a single news agency named ‘United Press International.’ ”

For both services, the merger made solid sense. Founded in 1907 by E. W. (“Damned Old Crank”) Scripps, the bustling, colorful U.P. last year grossed $28.8 million, but its profit margins have always been as thin as newsprint. With the merger, the U.P. eliminated a pesky competitor, increased its domestic clientele by some 120 daily newspapers to a total around 950 (v. the A.P.’s 1,243), will have “available” the services of such well-read I.N.S. byliners as Bob Considine, Ruth Montgomery and Louella Parsons, who will remain on the Hearst payroll. There was no question about who was taking over whom. U.P. will control 75% of U.P.I.’s stock, and U.P. President Frank H. Bartholomew will become president of the new agency.

For I.N.S., the deal was even more logical. Started in 1909 by William Randolph Hearst, who wanted his own wire service for his own papers, I.N.S. has long been in trouble. Kept going more out of Hearstly pride than profit, it averaged an annual loss of some $3,000,000 over the past few years. To compete with the A.P.’s thoroughness and the U.P.’s color, I.N.S. fell back on splash-and-dash journalism. On a coronation story, editors could rely on the A.P. for the dimensions of the cathedral, the U.P. for the mood of the ceremony, and the I.N.S. (sometimes) for an interview with the barmaid across the way.

By throwing in his hand, William Randolph Hearst Jr. got rid of a hopelessly losing proposition and picked up 25% of what should become a profitmaking business. Hearst did have to pay one heavy price: all U.P. employees will be kept on; most I.N.S. employees will be dropped.

When the merger was announced, the Department of Justice wondered if it did not violate the antitrust laws. But in basic news coverage, the undermanned I.N.S. was never in the running with its rivals. By the merger, the new beefed-up U.P.I, would become a news agency better able to compete in news coverage with the monolithic, nonprofit A.P.

Ironically, the A.P. beat the U.P.I, on its own birthday story. Picking up the news from the Dow Jones wire, the A.P. moved the story a full 19 hours 7 minutes before its new rival owned up to its existence.

CONTACT: wb2kqg@arrl.net