Page:Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star.djvu/43

Rh He spoke, too, of his long acquaintance with the aims and purposes of Mr. Nelson which were the aims and purposes of The Star, and said, as he had said before, that The Star was one of two daily newspapers with which he would be proud of a connection.

The arrangement was that Colonel Roosevelt was to telegraph his editorials to The Star from Oyster Bay or wherever he was when he wrote them. They were put in type in The Star office and sent out from there for simultaneous publication in a selected list of about fifty newspapers. These included the best-known newspapers in the country and represented every section. The service was without charge beyond telegraph tolls, it being The Star's wish to give the widest diffusion possible to Colonel Roosevelt's ideas on the conduct of the war through the best channel in each city.

Frequently there were suggestions from The Star to the Colonel. Always he was gracious in his treatment of those suggestions, invariably writing along the lines indicated and often amplifying and bettering them. On the other hand—except in two instances—the Colonel's editorials were printed just as they were written, and if any change in copy were considered advisable it was made only after he had been consulted by wire and had approved it.

From the start the country was much interested in the expressions from the Colonel. The newspapers which received them printed them faithfully and conspicuously. However, the service had been