Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/180

 agency, subsidiary associations were formed, mutually advantageous agreements were made with the Western Union Telegraph Company, rival associations sprang up, reorganization was effected, and through various changes the Associated Press has developed into the most important news-collecting agency in existence. In 1921 it had a membership of nearly 1,300 daily papers, the basis of membership was that of mutual association, and its day service and its night service commanded nearly 65,000 miles of leased wire. In 1917 it had 52,000 special correspondents in its service, it had graduated from its affiliations with the Reuter service of London, the Wolff service of Berlin, the Havas service of Paris, and the smaller agencies of other countries, into the maintenance of its own bureaus in all the great capitals of the world, as well as in the leading American cities. Unlike all other news-collecting organizations, which are proprietary, the Associated Press is organized on a mutual basis,—it makes no profits, pays no dividends, has no stock ownership and sells no news, but gathers news on joint account and distributes it to its members in amount varying from 500 to more than 60,000 words daily. "It is the greatest and most successful co-operative enterprise in the world."

It has been necessary to revert to these historical facts in order to understand what is the function of a news-collecting