Chapter 22 - Journalistic Brawl Revived

Chapter 22 - Journalistic Brawl Revived

WHEN JOHN F. Fitzpatrick assumed his new duties as secretary for Thomas Kearns in the spring of 1913 he was embarking upon a far bigger job than he could possibly have anticipated, but the large problems he was to deal with lay in the future. His immediate task was to demonstrate his competence in routine secretarial functions for which he had been employed. One of the first things noted was that the boss's desk was piled high with documents and correspondence. This seeming disorder appalled his orderly mind and clashed harshly with the habits he had formed in the railroad business. So one of his first acts, when Kearns was going to be out of the office for a few days, was to order some cabinets and file the contents of his desk. When an older and more experienced fellow-employe walked into the office and saw a bare desk he reacted with consternation and demanded to know what happened to all the papers. Fitzpatrick explained that he had filed them so he would know where they were. The older employe advised the new secretary to get the papers back on the desk before the ex-senator returned and warned: "If he gets back and discovers that something he wants is filed away where he can't find it, he will file you away." Fitzpatrick did not follow the well-intentioned advice. When Kearns returned he looked at the clean desk, grunted a few times, sat down and called for a particular paper. Fitzpatrick walked to one of the filing cabinets, pulled out the document and placed it on the desk. Then, one by one, Kearns asked for several more documents or correspondence files. Each time Fitzpatrick repeated his first performance. Nothing more was said about the filing system but thereafter the boss worked from an orderly desk. Day by day Kearns became more and more aware that his new secretary had not overstated his qualifications when he wrote, in his application, that he had "the initiative and ability of execution to take up and diplomatically handle correspondence and other matters without dictation, and, in line with your desires." The new secretary was already moving along a course which was to make him indispensable.

The newspaper situation in Salt Lake City at this point was far from stable. The competitive brawl was not quite so wild as it had been four years earlier when five dailies were fighting it out for survival -The Tribune, the Evening Telegram, the Herald, the Inter-Mountain Republican and Deseret News. All were undoubtedly losing money. The merger of the venerable Hera Id and upstart Inter-Mountain Republican to form the Herald- Republican had reduced the combatants from five to four, but the available business was insufficient to provide economic viability for four newspapers and it is doubtful that any were showing a profit in 1913. Had a qualified expert in newspaper publishing been making book at the time on the Salt Lake competition he would undoubtedly have picked the Deseret News as favored for survival, even though it was not at the top in either circulation or advertising volume. Its church ownership and support guaranteed its continuity, regardless of profits or losses. He would almost certainly have rated The Tribune the second best bet for survival, for it was still solidly entrenched in the morning and Sunday fields because of the prestige it had acquired over the years. Its owners had financial resources and were willing to absorb its losses. Additionally, The Tribune appeared to be moving in the direction of financial stability. During the two years since the muting of the "irrepressible conflict" it had increased its daily circulation from 16,000 to almost 19,000 and its Sunday circulation from 23,000 to 32,000. More important, from a revenue standpoint, it was beginning to get advertising from firms which, prior to 1911, shunned it for religious reasons.

Thus, the bookmaker would have encountered his most difficult task in rating the Herald-Republican and the Evening Telegram. The Herald-Republican, although fighting for first place in circulation and advertising volume, appeared vulnerable for several reasons. The prestige built up over a period of forty years by the Herald as a Democratic organ had been dissipated by its merger with the Inter-Mountain Republican and the firm identification of the merged newspaper as the mouthpiece of the Smoot organization of the Republican Party, which was not the entire Republican Party as the editorial feuding of the period clearly revealed. The Inter-Mountain Republican editor at this time was Arthur J. Brown, the former United States senator who had energetic detractors both among Mormons and gentiles. Moreover, it had suffered from ownership changes and diffused ownership. Individuals owning more than one percent of the stock at this particular time were Senator Smoot; D. C. Jackling, the guiding genius of Utah Copper Company; H. E. Booth; E. H. Callister; E. E. Jenkins; James H. Anderson; Senator Sutherland; E. M. Allison, Jr., and R. T. Badger.

The status of the Telegram changed during the year. Until late 1913 it was owned by the Kearns-Keith partnership and edited by C. C. Goodwin. While Kearns had been in the Senate, Goodwin, who left The Tribune when Kearns acquired control, had aimed a steady drumfire of criticism at Kearns. Presumably a personal reconciliation had taken place, or both had decided that an association as owner and editor would be mutually beneficial. But Goodwin was never able to transfer his Tribune prestige and reader appeal to the Telegram, possibly because he had passed his peak, or because the changing Utah climate had outmoded his talents, or because of over-exposure. He contributed a full page of editorials to the Telegram daily.

Late in the year Kearns and Keith sold the money-losing Telegram. The purchasers were George E. Hale, who became publisher and business manager, and a group of businessmen which included prominent Mormons and gentiles. Among those owning one percent or more of the stock were such well-known Utah names as J. Reuben Clark, Jr., who later served as United States ambassador to Mexico and in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; M. S. Browning and D. C. Eccles of Ogden; Paul F. Keyser, B. F. Bauer, George S. Auerbach, Jay T. Harris, N. W. Clayton and H. A. Schweikhart of Salt Lake City.

Breaking the pattern of the long Tribune-Deseret News feud, the journalistic brawling for a few years during this period was most conspicuous between The Tribune and the Herald- Republican, the morning competitors. Each challenged the other on circulation and advertising figures, even though sworn statements of circulation and ownership were now published semiannually under an act of Congress which had been enabled in 1912. The splenetic outbursts were not confined to charges of fraud in circulation and advertising reports. The newspapers frequently accused each other of publishing direct or implied falsehoods for the purpose of injuring a competitor. A few examples will suffice to reflect the mood of the period.

The Tribune, always on the alert for opportunities to annoy Senator Smoot, reprinted this comment from Harper's Weekly:

Senator Smoot stands at the head of a bi-partisan machine in Utah whose first rule is that any man who has not the machine's O.K. cannot thrive. The machine has quietly at its service the columns of the Deseret Evening News, the official organ of the Mormon church, and openly has the support of the Herald-Republican, a paper founded by Senator Smoot and his close political subordinates. That there was a combination between the two papers was suspected by many, but this could never be proved until a short time ago when the name of Presiding Bishop [C. W.] Nibley of the Mormon church appeared on the executive committee named to dominate the editorial policy of the Herald- Republican. .

The Herald-Republican screamed "foul," and denounced Harper's Weekly for originating and The Tribune for perpetuating a falsehood linking Bishop Nibley to the Herald-Republican for the purpose of creating an impression that it was a Mormon newspaper and thereby depriving it of liquor advertising.

In an article published in the Fourth Estate, a newspaper trade publication, Brown, the editor, and E. H. Callister, the general manager of the Herald-Republican, denied emphatically that Bishop Nibley owned any stock in the newspaper or was in a position to influence its editorial policies. The national advertising representative of the newspaper went directly to the heart of the matter in stating:

It has been claimed that the Herald-Republican is a Mormon newspaper . . . and that Mormons do not buy whisky, cigars, beer, automobiles or in fact anything that the foreign advertiser would advertise in Salt Lake City. The Mormon question in Utah is a dead issue. The Herald-Republican does carry all the beer advertising ... all the big whisky advertising ... a majority of the different foreign tobacco advertising ... a majority of the automobile accounts; in fact, all classes of foreign advertising

None of the articles generated by this controversy provided any hints as to origin of the claim that Mormons did not buy automobiles!

On another occasion The Tribune aroused the ire of the Herald-Republican by reprinting at the top of a news column a notice of assessment levied against its stockholders and followed by this interpretative comment:

Since the organization of the Inter-Mountain Republican several years ago the men engaged in that newspaper venture have had an illuminating experience in the perils of publication. It is said on good authority that considerably more than $200,000 was spent in the effort to make the old Republican go, but without success. . . .

Then, aiming its dart directly at Smoot and other founders of the Inter-Mountain Republican, The Tribune recalled the merger of the Herald and the Inter-Mountain Republican and continued:

The Herald was a sound business with a splendid patronage. It was in excellent financial condition and the new owners, who had failed so disastrously with the Inter-Mountain Republican, got along swimmingly for a time. They forthwith claimed all the circulation in town and boasted of great profits being made, though none of the $100,000 in bonds issued on the merged newspapers ever were taken up and no dividends were ever paid to the stockholders. These clamorous claims have long since been silenced and now, in spite of the new venture have been compelled to admit failure and to assess its stockholders in order to meet the expenses of operation . . .

Editor Brown of the Herald-Republican reacted next day with a half-page editorial under an eight-column red banner line. It started with a sweeping denial that the newspaper was being forced to join The Tribune in "its financial misery." But the details hardly supported the generalization that the Herald- Republican was in satisfactory financial condition. Brown conceded that the merged papers' hopes of paying the purchase price of the Herald out of profits had not been realized. He attributed the disappointment to "the unsatisfactory financial condition of the Herald" and to a financial depression which had had "devastating effects" on all Utah business. Then, shifting back to the stance that all was well with the Herald-Republican financially, he took the offensive:

The Tribune's invitation to join it in the ranks of the newspaper prostitutes must therefore be declined. . . . The Herald-Republican has not sunk $850,000 as has The Salt Lake Tribune and the Evening Telegram under the ownership of Mr. Thomas Kearns. The Herald-Republican has never lost $50,000 in one year as did The Tribune and Evening Telegram according to the sworn statement of Mr. Kearns himself in the United States Court. The owners of the Herald-Republican have never gone into court and blackened the reputation of their own newspaper to rob an employee of a few hundred dollars that were honestly due him as Mr. Kearns did in the case of Frank I. Sefrit.

Making another quick shift in emphasis to justify rather than deny financial woes, Brown informed the public that, after all, the Herald-Republican was not launched as a commercial enterprise; that its primary purpose was to protect the people of Utah "from the unscrupulous attacks made upon them by the Kearns newspapers." Continuing, he elaborated on this point:

Whatever the silencing of the Kearns batteries of defamation have cost us has been well worth the money, for this newspaper has accomplished the primary purpose of its existence. Within two years after it had entered the field there was an abrupt change in Tribune policy. Its campaign of vituperation, so far as it included the columns of that newspaper, was terminated.

Again returning to the financial status of the Herald- Republican, Brown admitted that its "revenue is smaller than in prosperous times" but added: ". . . we have suffered less in proportion than most ventures that are now struggling with Democratic prosperity in Utah."

At the point in the editorial the ambivalent Brown apparently decided that he had been overly harsh with Kearns. But instead of softening the fatal product, he concluded: "Mr. Kearns, however, is a vast improvement upon many of those who are supporting him and his newspaper."

Despite all the claims of growing circulation and advertising volume, of bright future prospects, and of "satisfactory financial status," the obvious fact was that the Salt Lake City newspaper structure was and had for some time been in an economic wringer which had forced the merger of the Herald and Inter- Mountain Republican and which was still threatening to squeeze the life out of one or more of the four survivors. Because of factors heretofore mentioned, the struggle for survival had shaken down to the Evening Telegram and the Herald-Republican. But the newspaper battle continued for about four more years with four combatants before a break came. A few days after the Herald-Republican announced plans for greatly expanding the contents of its Sunday paper, there appeared on the editorial page an announcement that the issue was the last which would appear "under present management." The deal was rather complicated and all the details were not initially disclosed. But the effect was the transfer on a lease of the Herald-Republican to the Telegram Publishing Company which started publishing a morning Herald Republican-Telegram, an Evening Telegram- Herald-Republican and a Sunday Herald-Republican-Telegram. This arrangement continued for only four months. On July 8, 1918, the Herald-Republican canceled the lease and the following day started publishing what it described as the "new Salt Lake Herald," a seven-day a week newspaper. The brief amalgamation by lease generated a rash of lawsuits filed by the Herald-Republican, which charged breach of contract and asked for a judgment of $157,930.

The new Herald offered no explanation of why the Republican portion of its name had been dropped. Perhaps the purpose was to dim its image as a partisan political organ; or maybe it hoped to recapture some of the prestige and flavor of that tough and pungent Democratic competitor of The Tribune, the old Salt Lake Herald. That hope was not to be realized. Economic pressures on the Herald increased and on January 1, 1920, a new publisher took over. He was A. L. Fish, a former representative of the Los Angeles Times in San Francisco and business manager of the Oregon Journal in Portland, a job he had left to enter the Army during World War I. Fish installed G. B. (Bert) Heal as managing editor. Both Fish and Heal were destined to later serve The Tribune for many years. During the next few months Fish also negotiated a lease or contract which soon led to the Herald's demise. With this lease he assumed operative control of the Telegram from George E. Hale who was in failing health. The arrangement included a monthly payment to Hale for life. Thus, in the Sunday issue of the Herald on July 18,1920, this notice appeared:

The Herald Passes - With today's issue, the Salt Lake Herald suspends publication. Established June 6, 1870, this paper has seen more than 50 years of active service. . . . But now a new era in journalism has come; mounting costs of operation, and the trend of advertising toward the evening field, have made it impossible for the Herald to profitably continue publication. . . . The Salt Lake Telegram Publishing Company has made arrangements to take over the circulation and serve the subscribers of the Salt Lake Herald with the evening and Sunday Telegrams.

Thus, while the Telegram took over the expiring Herald, it was the publisher and managing editor of the Herald who remained to operate the surviving newspaper, the evening and Sunday Telegram.

During the lusty and inelegant squabbling among the competing newspapers prior to the demise of the Herald, the old Tribune-Deseret News feud was notably quiescent. Neither of these veterans of Utah's journalistic wars showed a disposition to reopen the "irrepressible conflict." Occasionally the old mood surfaced briefly. One such incident occurred when the Deseret News published an article quoting unidentified sources to the effect that The Tribune was an unseen influence in the leasing of the Herald-Republican to the Telegram and the subsequent cancellation of the lease.

Reacting with old time vigor, The Tribune replied over the name of Thomas Kearns that the Deseret News had never in its long career of half-truth and defamation printed anything as "distasteful as this innuendo which tries to connect" The Salt Lake Tribune "with the unfortunate history of that foul sheet known as the Herald-Republican. . . ."

Noting that the vitriol in The Tribune statement was aimed at the Herald-Republican, the Deseret News sought to turn away wrath with a soft answer. Accepting Kearns' statement, the News, tongue now in cheek, congratulated him "that he had nothing to do with a campaign which has brought about the present conditions with the Herald-Republican, conditions which for some months practically removed that paper from the field of competition with The Tribune."

While The Tribune was still disposed to bare its teeth on occasion in the give-and-take of the competitive newspaper war, A. N. McKay, the publisher, presumably with the assent of Kearns, had drastically toned it down in the political arena. In the 1916 election, for example, the old brawler which had lived most of its life in the eye of a political hurricane, stood placidly on the sidelines. It expressed a polite preference for Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican presidential candidate, over President Woodrow Wilson and his "he kept us out of war" reelection campaign; but it took no editorial position on candidates within the state and was impeccably objective in its news coverage. It was accused by the Herald-Republican of supporting Simon Bamberger, the Democratic candidate for governor; but this charge would have been difficult to support by anything which appeared in its columns prior to election day. The Herald-Republican would have been right had it said that the owners of The Tribune favored Bamberger over Nephi L. Morris, the Republican candidate for governor, and William H. King, Democrat, over Republican incumbent George Sutherland, in the United States Senate contest.

The Tribune's preference stemmed not so much from any aversion to the Republican candidates as from their association with and obligation to Senator Reed Smoot and the Herald- Republican. Both gubernatorial candidates campaigned as advocates of state-wide prohibition. The Tribune, forsaking its old position that "dry" laws would aggravate rather than eliminate the liquor problem, was now lending its support to the prohibition movement. While The Tribune adequately covered the campaign as a non-combatant observer, its rival Herald-Republican became directly embroiled. Democratic Party officials ran large advertisements in The Tribune asserting that local breweries were influential stockholders in the Herald-Republican and charged that the "Smoot organ" had made a deal with the "liquor interests." Whatever the facts, it must have been an intriguing situation for those veterans of the "irrepressible conflict" who had campaigned so long to force the political processes out of an ecclesiastical mold. Their efforts, or events which they did not control, or some of both, had really mixed things up in Utah. The devil's disciple of the campaign was no longer The Tribune but the journalistic organ of a political organization led by an apostle of the Mormon Church. The Deseret News and The Tribune were for once backing the same cause — prohibition. The gubernatorial candidate who proclaimed that he had no ties or obligations to the "liquor interests" was Simon Bamberger, a Jew and the first non-Mormon ever elected governor of the state. His opponent, Morris, who was accused by the Democrats of having obligatory ties with the "liquor interests" was a respected member of the Mormon Church.

Whatever the reaction of the voters might have been to the campaign charges and counter-charges, they gave the Democrats a decisive victory on election day. Wilson carried the state by more than 15,000 votes, King beat Sutherland by some 12,000; Bamberger won over Morris by a slightly lesser margin and carried with him the entire state Democratic ticket and a majority of both houses of the State Legislature. With the predictable help of Republican legislators, Bamberger promptly made good on his promise of a "bone dry" state prohibition law. The law was signed by the governor on February 8 and became effective on August 1, 1917.

Two days after the election The Tribune, relapsing into the editorial style of an earlier period, disclosed its views on the election under the heading: "Smoot Rebuked."

The result in Utah is a statewide rebuke to Senator Smoot. . . . The returns show that within his own church there exists an overwhelming sentiment against the senator's brazen assumption of a threefold leadership — in religion, in politics and in finance. His amazing arrogance and egotism have finally met with the disaster they invited. . . .

The editorial charged that "Smoot and his fellow ringsters" had prevented the renomination of Republican Governor William Spry and thereby made the greatest of a long series of blunders. It echoed the Democratic charge of a "deal" with the "liquor interests" and added:

What the terms of the deal might be the public did not know, but when they saw the saloon vote swing suddenly to Mr. Morris they did not need to know the details of the agreement. They made up their minds then and there that the Smoot crowd, which had been tied up with the liquor interests for years, were merely at the old game. . . . But this deal was simply one of the many Smootian blunders. The people of Utah had determined to repudiate him and they carried out their purpose in the most convincing fashion. They were done with Smoot and his pretensions forever.

It looked like a sweet political victory for The Tribune at the time, but it would have turned sour had those relishing Smoot's discomfort been able to peer into the future and see him occupying a Senate seat and enlarging his influence in that body for sixteen more years.