The First 100 Years: A History of The Salt Lake Tribune 1871-1971 by O.N. Malmquist

18 A Redeclaration of War

BY THE SPRING OF 1904 it was time for Senator Thomas Kearns to make an important decision — whether to seek reelection or to retire from the Senate at the end of his four-year term.

On the basis of his record his position appeared to be favorable.

He had played the leading role in blocking an unpopular lease of Uintah Indian Reservation mineral rights to private interests and opening the lands to settlement. He had succeeded in raising Fort Douglas to the status of a regimental post. He had won several political prestige fights over federal appointments, the most notable being the transfer of a tri-state internal revenue office from Helena, Mont., to Salt Lake City and the appointment of his candidate, E. H. Callister, to the position of collector. He had been prominently identified with conservation and irrigation programs of the Roosevelt administration. He had won recognition as one of the Senate's best informed members on mining law and mineral legislation. He had been publicly praised by President Theodore Roosevelt as a trustworthy and able representative of his political party and the people of Utah. 1 He had survived a campaign of ridicule stemming from his lack of formal education and was now being attacked on more substantial grounds.

Under an unwritten political understanding then accepted by both national political parties in Utah, the seat he was occupying was to be filled by a non-Mormon, particularly if the Senate seated Reed Smoot.

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