Walter Wellman, Washington correspondent of The Chicago record-herald

              Walter Wellman
Washington Correspondent of the Chicago Record-Herald
SUBJECTS:
Behind the Scenes at Washington
A Race for the North Pole
The New Ireland
WALTER WELLMAN, the noted newspaper correspond¬ent and Arctic explorer, is forty-four years old. He was born at Mentor, Lake County, Ohio. His father was a sol¬dier, and poor.   After the war the family removed to Branch County, Michigan, where they lived in a log house while struggling to carve a farm out of the pri¬meval forest. Thence they went overland in "prairie schooners" to central Nebraska, taking a soldier's claim and living first in a "dug-out" and afterward for a time in a sod house. The future correspond¬ent and traveler was clerk in a country store and post office at twelve, and full management of the mails was left in his hands by the postmaster. At thirteen he was an ap¬prentice in a country printing office, and at fourteen, with a cap¬ital of $75 and unlimited youthful enthu¬siasm, he started a county weekly paper, the Sutton Times. Fearing the people would have no confidence in a paper run by a mere boy, he tried to spread the im¬pression that he was eighteen instead of fourteen. Seized with a desire to see something of the world he sold his paper and visited the east, worked as a printer in Cleveland, Ohio, became editor of the Canton (Ohio) Daily Repository, which was the "organ" of Maj. McKinley, then a young Congressman just beginning to attract national attention. The friendship with Mr. McKinley then formed continued till the day of the statesman's death. With his brother Frank, Mr. Wellman estab¬lished the Cincinnati Evening Post, and after selling that started a daily newspaper at Akron, Ohio, which they sold to other parties. Walter then went to Chicago as a writer on the old Chicago Herald, and almost at once won fame as a political correspondent.     Over  the   signature   of "Mentor" he predicted the nomination of both Cleveland and Blaine in 1884, causing a veteran journalist to publish in a New York paper that "this green young man never before heard of in the field of na¬tional politics had a better grasp of the situation than any of the veterans." Thus  launched in the large field of journalism     Mr. Wellman soon found his place.    As a political student and writer he became an authority, whether on national conventions, campaigns or legislative work. He has published some of the most remarkable campaign forecasts ever seen in the American press, and one of his con-temporaries said of him that he "almost seemed to have second sight in discerning how a state or the nation would vote on election day."
As a Washington cor¬respondent Mr. Wellman was in his element. He became noted as a fair, impartial and fearless writer, absolutely without political bias and with a love for getting at the true inwardness of affairs and telling the truth to his readers, no matter whether one party or the other was hurt thereby. The ruling principle of his work has been and is that the reader is his client, his master, and entitled to the truth without fear or favor on all occasions. Far from being infallible, he has made his mistakes, but they were never the mistakes of malice or partiality. His character is well known of course at Washington, and perhaps no other writer for the press en¬joys a larger measure of confidence among public men of all parties. This is true under all administrations. It is a matter of com¬mon gossip at Washington that Mr. Well-man has scored more large "news beats than any other correspondent of his time. Among the more notable may be mentioned:
Advance publication of the complete text of the Dingley tariff bill, one of the most remarkable feats in the history of American journalism, forty thou¬sand words being telegraphed during two nights.
irst publication of the Cleveland-Olney Venez¬uelan message to Great Britain.
First publication of the famous Blount report on Hawaii.
First news of the selection of a former Republican, Judge Gresham, as secretary of state in Mr. Cleve¬land's second cabinet.
First publication of the open door program of Secretary Hay and its bearing upon world politics.
First publication of the text of the Hay-Paunce-fote treaty.
First announcement of the Carnegie ten million dollar endowment for research at Washington.
Advance news of the decision of the Supreme Court that the constitution does not follow the flag, probably the most important judgment that has come down from the supreme bench in twenty years.
Mr.Wellman's reports on the great anthra¬cite coal strike attracted attention through¬out the country. In efforts to settle the strike he was a confidential intermediary between President Mitchell and J. Pierpont Morgan, and was afterwards asked by Presi¬dent Roosevelt to continue in the same relation for him.
While in Paris three years ago Mr. Well-!man discovered and reported that though | the Panama Canal Company would ask the United States from one hundred to one hundred and fifty millions for their property, they would in the end accept forty or fifty millions. Becoming convinced by careful investigation that the Panama route was superior to any other, Mr. Wellman started a campaign in favor of Panama, and prob¬ably had more to do in bringing about the choice of that route than any other man, excepting Senator Hanna.
Mr. Wellman's reports on the situation in Ireland attracted attention throughout the world. Before English newspapers or many English public men were aware of the char¬acter of the government's plans as to the new land purchase bill, Mr. Wellman out¬lined the whole scheme, in principle and detail. His pictures of life in Ireland have been pronounced masterpieces by many good judges.
In 1892, Mr. Wellman led an expedition sent to the West Indies by the Chicago Herald to seek the exact landing place of Columbus on the shores of America, and to mark the spot with an appropriate monu ment. The work was so well done that Sir Clements Markham, president of the Royal Geographical Society, and other authorities have given it their endorsement.
In 1894 Mr. Wellman organized and led an expedition to the Arctic regions. His steamer was crushed in the ice and sunk near the 81st parallel of latitude, Spitzber-gen, but after exciting adventures and interesting explorations the party returned in safety.
In 1898 Mr. Wellman organized a more ambitious effort to reach the North Pole, and spent the ensuing winter in Franz Josef Land. In February, 1899, he set out upon a sledge journey over the sea-ice, and would undoubtedly have approached nearer the Pole than man had hitherto been but for an accident which turned him back at the 82d parallel. This expedition was successful in exploring the hitherto unknown parts of that archipelago, adding many new lands and islands to the map. An extraordinary tragedy accompanying this expedition roused the sympathy of the whole world. Two men wintered in a little hut, built for an outpost. One died of disease, and the other was forced to sleep beside the body of his friend through sixty days and nights of arctic darkness before Mr. Wellman's party arrived to re¬lieve him.
In addition to his regular newspaper work Mr. Wellman has been a frequent con¬tributor to the magazines—the Century, McClure's, North American Review, Re¬view of Reviews, National Magazine, Col¬lier's Weekly, Success, Wide World, Geographic Magazine, Independent, and others. His versatility is remarkable, as he has written learnedly of the Monroe Doctrine for the North American, and in most vivid and graphic style of the auto¬mobile and long distance balloon races in Europe for McClure's. Mr. Wellman arrived from Europe the morning after President McKinley was shot at Buffalo. During the next five days and nights Mr. Wellman's pen turned out forty thousand words of newspaper and magazine material.
Henry Watterson, in editorial in Louisville Cour¬ier-Journal— Walter Wellman is not only one of the greatest newspaper correspondents in the country, and unrivaled as a news-getter, but he is an observer, traveler and writer of ability and authority.
Dr. Albert Shaw, editor Review of Reviews —We
publish this month a notable article on the Irish ques¬tion from Walter Wellman, our veteran and able journalist, whose pen has so often enlightened the readers of the Review of Reviews.
Dr. Shaw, in Review of Reviews—Mr. Wellman's remarkable article on the Irish Land Question, which we published last month, was so optimistic that it caused the wiseacres to shake their heads, but every¬thing Mr. Wellman predicted has come to pass in the new land purchase bill introduced in parliament by Mr. Wyndham, Chief Secretary for Ireland.
Editorial in London National Review for April, 1903 — A series of remarkable letters on the situa¬tion in Ireland, which appeared between Nov. 26 and Dec. 23, 1902, in an influential and well-informed American journal, the Record-Herald of Chicago, have been placed at the disposal of the editor of the National Review. They were written by Mr. Walter Wellman, a journalist of high character, careful and painstaking. He may be mistaken in his conclusions, but he has evidently worked hard at the study of facts on the spot, and in doing so has made the acquaintance of persons of all positions and opinions connected with Irish affairs. Mr. Wellman's evidence throws a startling light on what he believes to be going on behind the scenes in Dublin.
Kewanee (Ill.) Star-Courier — The country hears gladly that Great Britain has met the Isthmian canal question in a liberal and broad-minded spirit and that an agreement has been reached between the dip¬lomats of the two nations. By the terms of the new treaty, the United States may, in time of war, deal with the canal as it deems best for its own interests. It is to build it and have complete control of it, with¬out restrictions. The substance of the treaty is given in the Chicago Record-Herald today which was able to obtain this eagerly looked-for piece of news through the good work of its regular correspondent, Walter Wellman, to whom belongs the credit for correctly obtaining more important news in advance than any other newspaper man.
Atwood (Ill.) Herald — Few newspapers in the United States are able to command the service of as brilliant a corps of correspondents as that of the Chicago Record-Herald. Its choice of a Washington correspondent is indicative of the Record-Herald policy of obtaining the best there is to be had. Walter Wellman, the well known authority on polit¬ical subjects and one of the ablest writers of the day, acts in that capacity. His incisive discussion of contemporary affairs has given him a high place in the regard of statesmen and scientists of the day.
Lexington (Ky.) Leader — Walter Wellman, the gifted correspondent of the Chicago Record-Herald, whose Washington letters the Leader frequently re¬produces, is contributing a series of European letters to the Record-Herald that is attracting wide attention. He has spent a considerable time in Ireland and his observations give many who have never exactly understood the everlasting " Irish question," abetter understanding of the economic and political troubles of the Emerald Isle.
Racine (Wis.) Journal—Walter Wellman's exposure of Tammany's iniquities has undoubtedly opened the eyes of many indifferent and easy going New York citizens, who could see in the many attacks upon this vicious organization nothing but the de¬sire of another set of politicians to assume the reins of power.
Minneapolis (Minn.) Times—When a correspond¬ent has attained the position that many now hold, it is not only a lucrative one, but an influential one, and justly so. It is not unfair to say that the public at large would rather have the political deductions or prognostications of such men as Walter Wellman, William E. Curtis, Charles M. Pepper, Frank Rich¬ardson, William Nicholas, and possibly a score of others, than the strongest prophesies of Messrs. Hanna or Jones, Payne or Stone.
Clinton (la.) Age—Walter Wellman, the ablest and best posted correspondent in the land.
Terre Haute (Ind.) Gazette—Walter Wellman is one of the Chicago Record-Herald's star correspondents.
New York Evening Post — Mr. Walter Wellman, whose sources of information are excellent, and who is one of the most reliable correspondents at the national capital.
Los Angeles (Cal.) Express — Mr. Wellman has be¬come celebrated for his ability as a correspondent who is in favor with every administration, and his reputation has often been justified by the timeliness and accuracy of his treatment of various matters which were in the nature of government secrets.
Fulton (Ill.) Democrat—Walter Wellman is the newspaper correspondent in closest touch with the administration. He has distanced all other corre¬spondents in accurately forecasting important poli¬cies and events. It is as if a member of the cabinet were writing his letters.
Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser—We have often had occasion to quote from the dispatches of Walter Wellman, the Washington correspondent of the Chi¬cago Record-Herald. He has the confidence of public men of all parties to a remarkable degree, and his writings are authoritative and informing.
New York Sun—We are glad to note that one of the ablest of the Washington correspondents, Mr. Walter Wellman, is not afraid to tell all the truth about the Schley case.