Page:The Washington Newspaper volume 6.djvu/3



The state campaign for a more compactly organized press in Washington is on, and the district organization authorized at the Yakima convention of the State Press Association in August is a reality.

The first meeting was held at Wenatchee September 24, and by the time this issue of The Washington Newspaper is in the hands of its readers all the series will be going full speed. A full report of the eleven sessions will be given in the November number.

First call for the Wenatchee meeting was sounded by N. Russell Hill, secretary of the State Press Association, and early Friday morning, September 24, O. H. Woody, editor of The Okanogan Independent surveyed the hotels in Wenatchee for twenty editors representing every paper in Chelan, Grant, Douglas and Okanogan counties, which comprise the fourth district. Besides Mr. Woody and his twenty editors, N. Russell Hill and Prof. Fred W. Kennedy of the School of Journalism, University of Washington, answered the initial roll—all primed for the great movement that is to put the state press of Washing ton in the lead for concerted action.

Secretary Hill, who has been devoting the greater portion of his time for the last six weeks to the zoning system, has booked plans for the organization which were tried out in Wenatchee with decided success and will be followed at each of the succeeding meetings.

At the Wenatchee gathering every item touching the betterment of the profession which could be crowded into the rapid schedule was presented. Officers for the fourth district were chosen. Every editor was made a member of the Washington State Press Association, the parent body that is fathering the campaign. Needed legislation was discussed. The Franklin Price List was adopted as Standard. The delegate system to the State Press and the Institute was agreed to. Cooperative buying and field secretarial possibilities were gone over with recommendations for the Institute session. Professional ethics were discussed. And so on until it seemed as though the members of the fourth estate had never been in assembly before.

So much business needed to be talked over, so many matters to be determined, so many tangles to be smoothed out, and so many really good fellows were gathered together to attend to their own affairs that every editor was patting the other on the Tack with such keenness that the time slipped into nothing long before the Rh