Towson university is in maryland. This class is just under two hours. Are going to talk today on our subject of White House Communications operations, which is the name of our course. Today we are going to look at a question of when reporters came to the white house and how they did. And it makes a difference, whether it was simply reporters came to the white house because an individual president was interested in bringing the men them in, or whether it was institutional forces bringing them there. At the same time we will be discussing this, we will be looking at a research question. Ago, i had read about a reporter who was generally thought of as the beingwhite house reporter brought into the white house by Theodore Roosevelt. He was standing in the rain. Roosevelt brought him into the white house and said, poor guy, standing out there. Lets bring the reporters in and give them a room. The thing that bothered me about that story was, i just did not believe that was the way reporters could have come into the white house. Is president s from George Washington on have news organizations. Because that is the only way they can get to the public. Thethey have always needed public to understand what it was they were doing, because after all, this is a Representative Government and the people who are going to elect officials, me so it did not seem to of the publicneed for a president and president s are in a situation where power is divided. You have what one political scientist said was separated institutions that share power. The president cannot do a lot on his own. If you look now at president talking in the last few weeks and months that he was take executive actions, if he cannot get congress to pass things, he is going to take executive action. That is nothing new. President s have long used their executive power in instances where they cant get congress to do what they want. In that kind of situation, they have to build support for themselves and their programs. And they have done that why getting to the public, as close to the public as possible. And there is really no other way of doing that other than news organizations. So, that is what they have done. When you look at the relationship a tween the white house and the press, you see that it is an institutional in that,hip president s, no matter who they alsoneed the press, but it has personal elements to it. Some things depend on the president. Does the president like to deal with reporters, or does he not . What about staff . Those things come together. It seems to me that that price, wholliam Theodore Roosevelt said, let him and his friend, give them a room in the white house this was 1902. That story just did not sound right to me. But one thing about that story it was used by many people in their explanations of how reporters got there. The 1950s, for example, douglas cater, who was a reporter and wrote about reporting, he used the story, as did many other people. So, i thought, there must be a way of finding out if this is in fact the case. It, i first taught about thought, well, i am going to need to be in washington for a period of time, because the only place i thought i could find the answers was in the library of congress and in its manuscript edition. The manuscript edition of the has a lot ofngress president ial papers and it also has papers of people who worked for president s. You didth century, not have chief of staff. You had a person called a private secretary. A private secretary is really analogous to a chief of staff today. Nge during the Mckinley Administration and the latter part of the 1900s, latter part of the 1800s, before we came into the 20th century. So, i decided to see if there were papers of april who had worked in the you in the white house. Because there were not president ial libraries for those papers. Ts much of the papers really are in the library of congress. I found a lot of information. And it was a Research Project that i thought was interesting, it was really and fun seeing the cast of characters. I am going to give you some peoplefrom some of the iran across. I also found a literature. There were a lot of reporters who wrote about that time period. And a lot of the reporting was very vivid about their interactions with various president s. Goodher, i found a lot of information. I thought it was worth spending several months on. How the beat was established really does tell you whether it was institutional it was the growth and president ial power, changes a growingganizations, interest in a president and his family whether those were the factors that led reporters to end up at the white house. The story i think everyone took came, i think, from an accounting of a washington clark. Ondent, delbert in 1895,one day William Price, reporter for the washington star welcome to the white house. When politicians calling on occurred, heveland buttonholed them, asking what news they had to give. Before long, reporters from other papers joint price in front of the executive mansion, greatth them, ambrose the , fresh from his communion with the burning bush talking about talking to the president. Riding in the 1930s. From his viewpoint, it was price who started everything and everybody else followed along with him. , you can it apart see that is really not the case. , whose view of clark was he was a passive actor, that price stood waiting for news to come to him by being at the gate. If you look today at the white house, one of the things you , when you are walking up to the west wing, on are a lot ofere Television Cameras and right in front of the west wing to the side is an area of microphones. That is known as the stake out. In effect what price was doing was working a stake out where if people like nancy pelosi or harry reid come to see the president , they come out of the west wing, and then they come and talk to the microphones, and then will talk to reporters. This is, in a sense, what price was doing at that time, but he was doing a lot more. Price was not just a passive reporter. He was active as well. I went through part of the project. I tried to find out when he started riding about the white house and what he wrote about. He had a column called at the i could take which back to 1897. But he was there before 1897. He simply got his column then. In a discussion of how the white he waseat had changed, riding it in the early 1900s, he how it works. Out he said, as a matter of fact, the news secured at the white house is the result of the efforts of the newspaper men themselves. There is no giving out of prepared news. Their acquaintance with public men all over the country with cabinet officers and departments departmental officials enable them to get tips. These same friends develop the stories for them upon inquiry. Meaning you have to call them up. Sometimes it is a question of are digging to unravel a story, and actually, when you think about the kind of way he was working, it was very much the way that reporters worked today. So, how did reporters get to the white house. Once i discovered reporters had ,een there well before 1902 when the story had it that Theodore Roosevelt brought them in, well, when did they get there . You could say or were several things that brought them there. There were events that occurred and changes in how a president met with the public and reporters wanted to i just to the ways to adjust to the ways in which president s did their job. Increasingly, they went out thegst the public, as country became larger and the president had to travel to cover a larger area, reporters went with him. Ways in which reporters came to the white house on a regular basis was through crisis. When there were crises, reporters would come. This is in the period in the period, there are several things that happen. One of the important times was during the spanishamerican war, and at the end of the 19th century. During that time, there were a lot of reporters that came wasuse the United States involved in war and people wanted information and they needed to get it from their commanderinchief. If not in person, then through his staff. You could tell at that time period, that reporters had been there a while. In thatre instructions in 1898, there were instructions that the private secretary had given to the doorkeeper about reporters, which demonstrate that they are there. The instructions called on the to maked the police sure reporters were corralled on the second floor quarters of the white house. In the late 1800s, the west wing was not there. 1902. St wing is still in as the president s reach became greater, his responsibilities, world later becomes the leader, more is asked of him, and as more is asked, the larger his staff is going to be. The staff at that time, in that latter part of the 19th century, areataff were housed in an that is over the east room. Floor alongt second the area where reporters were supposed to be. In 1898instructions were proper facilities for the inss having been provided the east corridor upstairs, when youut the think of the front of the white house, it really isnt the front, but it is the side where the Television Cameras are, and where you go to enter the west wing. That is the north face of the white house. And there is a big portico in the center. Upstairs lounging about the north portico, on the steps and is pivoted and must prohibited and must be enforced. When you had a big story going on, reporters moved around anywhere they could. They would be at the north portico because they wanted to talk to people who perhaps were the president , and also doing the same on the of the roomnd a lot taken up upstairs, then they were going to be wherever they could. That was something that porters thought was somewhat messy and wanted better control of it. They established a set of rules. These rules that reporters were to follow really clearly precede when roosevelt was supposed to have brought reporters into the west wing. So, one of the things that i ,ound and these i found these instructions i found in the files. Most of them in the files of he wascourt of the of a man who came into the white in the Cleveland Administration. He came over as a stenographer. School at night to being an assistant to be private secretary and then in the Mckinley Administration and the Theodore Roosevelt administration, he was the private secretary, then it roosevelt appointed him to be the secretary of commerce and labor and then he became the head of the Republican National committee and he finally became. He treasury secretary he had a somewhat meteoric rise. Part of it, i think he was a smart guy who understood how a president that leverages resources, and one of them was publicity, how he could get his message to the public and all of the different resources there were. He recognized early on that be importantould for the president. He could see that people wanted to know what the president. Ooked like, who he was i could see in his files mckinley did not want to be photographed. Persisted. There was a woman who was a very good photographer, frances and he wantedton, her to take pictures of the president , which ultimately, she did. Mckinley allow this. , also when they were traveling, and one of their trips when he was working for Theodore Roosevelt i think this was when he was working for Theodore Roosevelt. He wanted to set aside one car on that train as a darkroom so they could send out, the for job refers could send out the photographers could send out photographs. Things he was particularly keen on was making sure they had some control over reporters and where they worked. Had specific instructions that reporters were place they were not to their feet on window sills. That noo had rules beggars or peddlers were allowed into the mansion, and pretty much lumped reporters in that kind of category. And police enforced the rules. Rules. Ere porters he was an assistant, porter. Thathey maintained corridor space. The importance about the space that they had, that they were allowed in that secondfloor corridor or is that they had a table. They had a table they could report from. And when you look at the floor, thef the layout of it, you saw that that table was right outside of the door of the president. The private secretary. They may not have had a broom of the wrong, but in a way, they had better than that, because they may not have had a room of their own, but anyway, they had better than that, because they had the private secretary right there. Hall. Esident was down the they did not talk to the president in the same way. Are established, there is no going back on them. When reporters come into the in theouse spanishamerican war, nobody is going to leave, because they they get good information, that people are available to talk to them, and they want to make sure that they continue with that. And what to continue with it. So, body watch coverage one of the first interesting cases of body watch coverage i found assassination of james garfield. He was garfield die and did not immediately. ,e was about to go on vacation railwayas shot at the station. They brought him back to the white house. He lingered. He was shot in june and he lingered until september and died. , what did theme public know about what was going on with him . Because people were very interested in it. At they were very upset about his shooting. Large crowds would gather. Those crowds needed information. So, one of the things that the is that theyid , aowed the press representative of the press to come in. A 24hour basis. The reporter, who was a wire service reporter, was allowed in the telegraph room, and the telegraph room is next door to what is today the lincoln bedroom, which was actually in control office space, and there is which was actually. Incolns office space but in the 19th century, it was a telegraph room. The reporter was allowed to be in the telegraph room. People who have nameduty was a reporter Franklin Hathaway Truesdale who works for the Associated Press. The private secretary at the time, joe brown, talked about needing a press representative, and truesdale was one of them. Press left one representative to send out bulletins every other hour through the night. So, truesdale wrote a letter to his wife that i found. I saw referred to, and it said it was not in the library of congress, but the truesdale letter is owned by the white house. So, i asked them if i could have a copy of it and see it, which they did. Right into his wife he puts a dateline of 3 00 a. M. I sit here now, the house is is quite as death. I listen to every sound. A fountain splashes on the lawn. Not a step is heard in the mansion. The president sleeps. So his job was to find out whether the president was still alive. So, what he would do is he left , and everyph room hour or so, he left the telegraph room, walked down the bedroom,he president s and he wrote that the president s door was ajar. Door andood at the listened for the president s breathing. Once he could hear him breathing , then he knew he was still alive. It is hard to imagine how such a inuation could be allowed period. Other time restless. Blic was they wanted to know what was going on. They did not want to depend just on the white house itself. By that organizations point were regarded, especially the Wire Services, as objective reports of what was happening. He was allowed that access. Period, an time interesting case of body watch occurred not of a president , but of someone who was elected and soon to become president , or in several months, and that was abraham lincoln. Elected, the was Associated Press hired a villard, tonry follow him, to shadow him in springfield. He sat in a corner in his office and listened to the discussions of lincoln with various people who were coming to discuss cabinet positions. There one reporter was me, andong period of ti he came with lincoln to washington when he took the before he springfield was inaugurated. Theard would have been First White House correspondent if he had been interested in it, but he decided not to, and he wanted something more exciting to report on. And he went to new york, became interested in finances, and ultimately he became a railroad baron, and a very wealthy man. He and lincoln had a very good relationship. Once the civil war started, he and so i to washington went looking for his footprints, too, and he had an autobiography , and in it, he talked about seeing lincoln, and lincoln asking him because as a civil war correspondent, he went to the battles, so, lincoln wanted battle. On a particular i think it was fredericksburg. And so he did. Trusted by lincoln from the time he had been with him in springfield. Watche after the body coverage of garfield, you also , a around the same time little later, president ial travel. When president s started taking long trips, reporters wanted to be there. Increasingly one element here is president s made news. People sought the president as increasingly an important figure. Even though as far as the president was concerned in the latter part of the 19th century was a period where congress seem thee dominant, but president was becoming increasingly important and news organizations saw it and wanted to be with him. You saw Something Like the following of garfield and his assassination, the more interest there is going to be by news organizations covering the president s travel. Sure they could get at any time what they wanted, which was access to a president. So, president s have been traveling since the beginning. George washington traveled. There were trips that president s took that were called slings are round of the circle. The swings around the circle were efforts to get to the population and give speeches, to see people. One of the interesting things i that was a little booklet accompanied a trip and laid out a trip Theodore Roosevelt took. And that trip was in the early thes, and it went through western part of the u. S. In that little booklet, it had each city they were going to travel to and when they were going to be there, who they were , and factslk to about each city, like comedy people there were, what was the temperature like how many people there were, what was the temperature at the time they were going to be there. Toy were clearly trying accommodate the needs of reporters. And