Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/285



that fever was a serious factor and that the commissary and

medical supplies were inadequate to cope with the situation, and thus it was complacently assumed that discouragement was

prevented. On the other hand, the Spanish war correspondents, long before the fever broke out, represented the American troops as dying of fever by thousands and encouragement was

thus spread abroad in Spain .87 In reading the war correspondence of the golden age of the

war correspondent, in reading his own accounts of his experiences and his biographies that friends have written, and in comparing this material with the corresponding material of the present day, it seems clear that the historian finds its value affected by the personal equation of the correspondent, but still more that its authoritativeness must in large part be judged by the period in which he worked. In the early period, he waited for the issue

of the battle and then wrote his account of what he had himself witnessed. If no favors were shown the early correspondent and

no opportunities given him, he had at least the opportunity of making opportunity for himself.88 The only censorship that he

recognized was that of the newspaper he represented .89 If he 87 T. F. Millard, “ The War Correspondent and his Future,” Scribner's Magazine, February, 1905, 37 : 242 – 248. 88 “ The war correspondent, it must be remembered, had in those days

no recognized status. The fame which Russell attained was won, the national service which he rendered was done by him merely as a camp follower, treated sometimes with less consideration than was shown to

the T. G .'s, for so the army called the ' travelling gentlemen ' who came out to the front. In such circumstances almost everything depended on the personal appeal made by the correspondent to those among whom his lot was cast. Kinglake, who as a T. G. himself met Russell at the front, admits us to some of the correspondent's secrets. His opportunity of

gathering intelligence depended in great measure upon communications which might be made to him by officers of their own free will. Russell was so socially gifted that he evoked conversation ." - E . Cook, Delane of

“ The Times ,” pp. 75 – 76 . 89 W. H. Russell was once reprimanded by an army official for writing to The Times the exact condition of affairs in the Crimea, on the ground that the letters were regarded at the Conference of Diplomats at Vienna

“ as great impediments to peace.” He replied, “ I am here as a newspaper correspondent, not as a diplomatist. I am writing for the Times, and it is for the editor on the spot to decide what ought to be made public and

what ought to be suppressed in my correspondence.” — J. B. Atkins, Life of Sir William Howard Russell, I, 190- 191.

Lord Raglan wrote the Duke of Newcastle, under date of November 13,

1854, “ I do not propose to take any violent step, though perhaps I should