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Economic Struggle Again AT THE BEGINNING of Utah's centennial year of 1947 The Salt Lake Tribune, along with its sister newspaper, the evening Telegram, was riding high. It had had its ups and downs during the booming twenties, the depression thirties and the wardominated forties. But its general direction had been up from the time of the muffling of the "irrepressible conflict" beginning in 1911. At that point it had been kept alive and fighting for a decade by infusions of money from the non-newspaper income of Thomas Kearns. It was poorly housed, poorly equipped and meagerly staffed; hated by Mormons for its long fight against various church policies; and scorned, immediately after the accommodation, by the more-hard-nosed gentiles who considered it cowardly for giving up the fight. By 1947 it had a modern, efficient plant, ownership concentrated in a single family, a publisher of extraordinary ability, and a competent staff. It was read and respected by Mormons and gentiles, and its public acceptance indicated t h a t the Intermountain residents regarded it as one of the country's great newspapers. It had from the beginning enjoyed prestige, even when its editorial policy restricted its general public acceptance. One thing the newspaper lacked was financial reserves or a flow of non-publishing income to tide it over periods of deficits should they return. It had been making a good profit since the worst of the depression years and was at its peak in earnings as it entered the state's centennial year. These earnings had been reinvested
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