Chapter 28 - Tribune's Crusading Role

Chapter 28 - Tribune's Crusading Role

DURING THE FIRST FORTY years of its life The Tribune was a crusading newspaper. It attacked its enemies and defended its friends with single-minded zeal and enthusiasm. It performed, in a remarkably competent way in view of the facilities it had, the function of communicating information and straight news to its readers. Simultaneously, it expended extraordinary energy in ferreting out causes to support and causes to combat. Its fervor in these pursuits was often more conspicuous than its discrimination.

Up until the end of 1910 its central targets were the economic, political and social aims and practices of the Mormon Church. Throughout this period it was crusading on scores of issues which were peripheral but pertinent to the main targets.

During the following sixty-year span of its life it has not been a crusading newspaper in the sense usually implied by that term. That does not mean that it abdicated its responsibility of keeping a critical eye on governmental affairs; of speaking out on policies and practices it deemed contrary to the public interest or of supporting those it deemed in the public interest; of campaigning for civic improvements; of expressing its views and the reason for its views on controversial alternative courses of action; of initiating and supporting changes which it believed would be constructive or of opposing those it believed would be destructive; and of providing a means for conflicting viewpoints to be heard.

In brief the policy of The Tribune for the past sixty years has been to accept the responsibilities of public watchdog but to avoid the role of public gadfly.

In the era of the "irrepressible conflict" The Tribune supplemented its crusading assaults on polygamy and Mormon Church influence on economics and politics with campaigns for street paving and lighting, improvement of water supply, construction of public facilities and improvement of the school system. It belabored the city government for alleged inefficiencies and discriminations when the People's Party was in control and as vigorously defended the conduct of city government during the few occasions when the Liberal, or its successor American Party, were in control. In a period of extreme partisanship in almost every area of community activity, it sought to be a champion of its friends and the scourge of its enemies. In this it did not differ from other publications, except perhaps in skill.

After the Mormon-gentile conflict had been stilled, The Tribune's campaigns were directed at specific issues related to the public welfare. At times the causes taken up by the newspaper brought it into conflict with its oldest surviving journalistic rival, the Deseret News. However, both newspapers were frequently aligned on the same side.

A notable example of issues other than liquor on which The Tribune and the News took opposite positions was one involving the state's junior colleges. In 1954 two referendum propositions were submitted to the voters. One provided for the discontinuance of Dixie, Snow and Weber Colleges as state institutions and transfer of their properties and facilities to the Mormon Church, which had originally founded them. The other provided for the discontinuance of Carbon College. The Tribune opposed the propositions and so did a substantial majority of the voters.

In that same election The Tribune vigorously opposed and the News supported a proposed constitutional amendment to reapportion the State Legislature by making each county a senatorial district to be represented by a single senator. The effect of the amendment would have been to reduce Salt Lake County from seven senators to one and to give as many as five senators to five-county districts then represented by one. The Tribune favored reapportionment in the opposite direction — that of giving more representation to the populous urban centers. Had the editors been able to peer into the future they would have seen themselves as Don Quixotes waging mock battle over an issue the United States Supreme Court would decide in a way which completely undermined the News position and went somewhat beyond the position of The Tribune. For within a few years, the court began handing down decisions which established the oneman-one-vote principle as the sole criterion for apportionment. No one around The Tribune even dreamed in 1954 that a court created by a Constitution which allocated two senators to each state, no matter how small the population, a minimum of one representative to each state regardless of population, and one spokesman in the House for territories before they attained statehood, would find as it did that Utah's Constitution was in conflict with the federal Constitution because it deviated from the population criterion only to the extent that each county was allocated one representative in the House.

While The Tribune forsook the flamboyance which characterized its early crusades, it did not lose its tenacity in pressing the causes it undertook to promote. In the early 1930's, for example, it initiated a campaign for a grand jury to investigate rumored irregularities in Salt Lake City government. The grand jury was eventually called and some city officials were indicted and convicted. Because of the political pressures exerted against the investigation, Fitzpatrick decided that the state's grand jury system needed to be made more flexible. Accordingly, The Tribune undertook a campaign to accomplish this. It first commissioned and paid for a study by a legal firm to determine what constitutional amendments would be required. These were drafted but were not submitted to the electorate and approved until 1948. Up to this point, the issue had been free of political partisanship. However, when the State Legislature undertook to implement the constitutional amendment liberalizing grand juries, political overtones developed. It was not a Democratic versus Republican conflict but an "ins" versus the "outs" conflict. The party in power tended to look with suspicion and disfavor on the proposed legislation and the party out of power tended to favor it. When the status of the parties changed, their position on the grand jury legislation changed. The apparent reason was a fear that the proposed legislation was politically motivated and had as its target some incumbent officials. So far as The Tribune was concerned, this fear was wholly imaginary. For the newspaper continued to press for the legislation through both Democratic and Republican administrations. It was not until 1967 that the implementing legislation was completed and The Tribune could regard as accomplished the objectives of this long campaign. The newspaper campaigned almost as long for a state medical examiner act which was enacted in 1965.

Another area in which The Tribune has tenaciously but unsuccessfully advocated change is the form of Salt Lake City government. On several occasions the newspaper has initiated, or supported other initiating groups, in efforts to change the government from the commission form adopted in 1912 to some other form. But as The Tribune approached its 100th anniversary, the commission form was still firmly entrenched.

Areas of Tribune campaigning in which repeated frustrations were finally crowned with success include the Salt Palace, a $19-million arena-convention center located in downtown Salt Lake which was opened in 1969; a new $2.5-million library completed in 1964; a $6-million Metropolitan Hall of Justice completed in 1965 and a $10-million sewage treatment plant completed in 1966. Prior to the successful effort to win public approval of a $17-million bond issue to finance the Salt Palace, The Tribune had initiated over a period of thirty years several campaigns to build a civic auditorium. These efforts foundered in the early stages, primarily because of the divisive issue of site. This hazard was avoided in the campaign for the Salt Palace by deferring until after the bond election the selection of a site.

Throughout its life The Tribune has devoted much effort and space to the development and conservation of water supplies; equalization and improvement of educational opportunities and a wide range of other civic and beautification projects. In most of these campaigns it has been but one of several supporting voices and no inference is intended that The Tribune was solely responsible for the improvements. It has been, however, the initiator of some. One of its notable defeats was an effort to win public approval of an urban renewal project in Salt Lake City in an election held on August 17, 1965. The proposal had the support of virtually all communications media in the city but the voters rejected it by a ratio of six to one. A similar proposition submitted to the voters of Provo was rejected but a little less emphatically.

One of the longest editorial and informational campaigns waged by The Tribune was in behalf of silver. Oriented toward mining when it was founded, the newspaper crusaded vigorously to prevent the demonetization of silver; and when that "crime" (in The Tribune's terminology) was committed it continued throughout the late 1880's and through the first third of the twentieth century to campaign for remonetization of the metal. It finally gave up its fifty-year crusade on this subject when a compromise Silver Purchase Act was passed by Congress in 1934.

A recent example of The Tribune's public service enterprises was the initiation on November 29, 1970, of a feature called "Common Carrier." Its purpose is to serve as a forum for discussion of political, social and economic issues or problems. Article selection is made by a five-member board of lay editors working outside the editorial direction of the newspaper and without regard to Tribune policies.

During the Fitzpatrick regime as publisher he, to an extraordinary degree, was the dictator of Tribune policy. This does not mean that he initiated or personally read and approved all policy editorials published in the newspaper, although he did just that with many of them. He was, to a much greater degree than most publishers, a day-to-day participant in the job of getting out a newspaper and determining its content. His editorial writers, through their almost daily contact with him, soon became familiar with his general philosophy and viewpoint on public issues and so could anticipate the editorial course he would want to pursue. But whenever there was a question as to whether The Tribune would support or oppose a particular proposition the decision was made by Fitzpatrick. He frequently did seek the opinions of members of his staff and individuals outside the organization whom he considered knowledgeable on the subject under consideration. When he arrived at a decision after examining the pros and cons, that decision became Tribune policy and staff members accepted it without argument.

The major editorial writers who carried out his policies were G. B. Heal, Noble Warrum, Sr., who joined The Tribune staff in 1934 and was associated with the newspaper until shortly before his death in 1951; Herbert F. Kretchman, who served as editorial writer from 1939 until his retirement in 1967; Ernest Linford, who came to The Tribune from the Laramie, Wyoming, Boomerang in 1948 and left in 1967 to become head of the journalism department of the University of Wyoming; and Theodore (Ted) Long, a Tribune or Telegram man his entire working life, who started writing editorials in 1950 and was editor of the editorial page when he retired in 1970. Linford and Kretchman were replaced by Robert C. Blair, who worked in the news department under Fitzpatrick, and Harry E. Fuller, who joined The Tribune staff in 1962 after Fitzpatrick's death.

The editorial writers were, of course, required to speak for The Tribune on a variety of subjects. But they did specialize to the extent permitted by the size of the staff. For several years Heal wrote editorials in virtually all areas, although he did sometimes assign reporters to contribute to the page on their specialties. Warrum wrote most of the editorials dealing with foreign affairs and national politics after he joined the staff. Kretchman specialized in local and state government and civic affairs. Linford's specialty was natural resources and conservation. Long, as editor of the page, wrote on a variety of subjects but specialized in foreign affairs.

Up to 1911 The Tribune's direct involvement in partisan politics frequently made it a party or factional mouthpiece and it reflected a feeling of obligation to support the officials it helped to elect to office and to criticize those it sought to defeat. From that point onward, the newspaper asserted its independence to applaud or criticize particular actions or policies of both major political parties. It usually endorsed Republican presidential candidates and in 1940 waged a sustained editorial campaign in support of Wendell L. Willkie, Roosevelt's opponent in his successful third term campaign. These endorsements carried no obligation so far as The Tribune was concerned to support all the actions or policies of a successful endorsed candidate. The newspaper, for example, opposed Roosevelt but it editorially supported much of his program. It supported Dwight D. Eisenhower but opposed some of his proposals. Up until 1968 it did not endorse candidates for governor or congressional seats and praised or criticized on a basis of the newspaper's appraisal of positions on specific issues.

Basically, the attitude of The Tribune was to provide the voters with information about the candidates and their viewpoints on issues and then to treat the choice of the voters as the head of state government or the state's representative in the United States Senate or House rather than as Republicans or Democrats. This policy was applied through the eight-year administration of Governor Henry H. Blood, a Democrat; the eight-year administration of Governor Herbert B. Maw, a Democrat; the eight-year administration of Governor J. Bracken Lee, a Republican; the eight-year administration of Governor George D. Clyde, a Republican, and into the administration of Governor Calvin L. Rampton, a Democrat, whom The Tribune did endorse in 1968 along with the Republican candidates for president and the congressional seats. The editorial attitude was the same with respect to Senators William H. King, Elbert D. Thomas, Abe Murdock, and Frank E. Moss, Democrats; Arthur V. Watkins, and Wallace F. Bennett, Republicans, as well as members of the House of Representatives.

The Fitzpatrick policy was objectivity in news coverage and non-partisan fairness on the editorial page. In practical application, this meant that The Tribune's position on a particular cause was based upon its judgment of the merits and not upon whether it was being advocated by a Republican or a Democrat.