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Chapter 19 - Give 'Em Hell Politics Again
Chapter 19 - Give 'Em Hell Politics Again
WHEN EX-SENATOR Thomas Kearns returned from his four-year term in the Senate his political allies were licking wounds inflicted the previous November and preparing for revenge in the Salt Lake City election to be held the next year. The Smoot investigation was still in progress in Washington supplying ammunition for the American Party to use in the forthcoming campaign. The Mormon Church, apparently in response to the disclosures being made in the Smoot investigation and in Kearns' farewell speech in the Senate, was cracking down on members who still refused to comply with commitments of the Woodruff "Manifesto" and the reiteration of that document by President Joseph F. Smith at the April, 1904, annual conference.
The Salt Lake Tribune was being operated under the management of Joseph Lippman, a lawyer who was associated with Kearns and The Tribune intermittently over a long period, and was apparently making a modest profit. But in October, 1905, Lippman was replaced by Frank I. Sefrit, who served in the role of publisher and general manager for the following six years. Frank J. Cannon was the chief editorial writer, but the executive in charge of the news and editorial departments was Colonel William Nelson, a Civil War veteran of imposing appearance whose career with The Tribune spanned thirty-two years.
The Colonel, like some Tribune editors and publishers who followed him, had an aversion to personal publicity in the organ under his control or influence; as a result, his name seldom appeared in the newspaper. Other publications frequently identified him as The Tribune editor or mentioned him in connection with controversies or libel suits involving the newspaper. Information about him handed down verbally within The Tribune organization pictured him as a competent, dedicated, early-west style newspaperman who expected conflicts and threats and who was prepared to meet either verbal or physical attacks. His first act upon arriving at The Tribune editorial offices in the morning, according to unrecorded office history, was to remove a revolver from a pocket and place it on his desk within easy reach. He was then ready to go to work.
A native of Scotland, Colonel Nelson came to the United States as a youth and worked for newspapers in Wisconsin and Illinois before joining the Union Army. He distinguished himself in several battles and spent the last few months of the Civil War in the infamous Andersonville Prison. After the war, he resumed newspaper work, served in the Wisconsin Legislature, and, in 1876, received a federal appointment as United States marshal for the Utah Territory. A change in the national administration removed him from this post three years later. In May, 1881, he joined The Tribune staff as a reporter. He served successively as city editor, telegraph editor, managing editor and editorin-chief, the position he held at the time of his death on October 26, 1913.
Historian Whitney characterized him as one of the "pronounced anti-Mormon federal officials," and during his incumbency as marshal he was sued for $25,000 damages for alleged false imprisonment and maltreatment of a prisoner. The suit was brought by Dr. Jeter Clinton, a police justice in Salt Lake City for many years. Dr. Clinton had been arrested on a grand jury indictment charging him with complicity in a murder committed some fifteen years earlier during the so-called "Morrisite War." The murder charge was subsequently dismissed on motion of the United States district attorney, and the damage action against Nelson was disposed of when the court granted a motion for a non-suit.
The esteem in which the Colonel was held by The Tribune owners and by his co-workers was reflected in the newspaper the morning following his death by a three-column picture on page one, an obituary occupying a full column on page one, and several inside columns devoted to feature stories about his exploits as a Union Army officer and as a federal law enforcement official plus tributes from state and city officials and Senator Kearns. The obituary noted that during his thirty-two years of service on The Tribune he had been absent from his office for only five weeks — two weeks for a vacation and three weeks for an illness. 2 A Tribune editorial stated that his character and career could be summed up with three words — courage, law and order.
The Tribune Publishing Company had been changed from a Utah to a West Virginia corporation in March, 1904 and on October 28, 1905, Kearns was elected a director. It was apparently his first official position with the newspaper, although he had long been identified as the owner in partnership with Keith. He was elected director to succeed Heath, who had resigned four months earlier as publisher and general manager.
Sketchy corporate records indicate that Kearns and Keith spent more on the newspaper than its revenues for the first few years of their ownership. Physical facilities were improved, new equipment purchased, news coverage expanded and various features added. The first dividend of $10,000 was declared on March 1, 1905, and a smaller one followed on June 14. But these were probably the last dividends for several years, as the newspaper was heading into a revival of the "irrepressible conflict" and a succession of operating deficits. Profits were not vital to the survival of The Tribune at this particular period. The Silver King Mining Company was still maintaining a flow of dividends to Kearns and Keith ample to subsidize the newspaper without disrupting the living standards of its owners. However, the mine had reached its peak and was soon to start a decline which was going to eventually change the fiscal status of The Tribune to that of a business which had to make a profit to survive.
The 1905 municipal campaign was a wild one, even by Utah standards. The Democratic ticket was headed by the incumbent mayor, Richard P. Morris. The Republicans nominated a ticket with William J. Lynch as the candidate for mayor. The American Party mayor candidate was Ezra Thompson, a business and mining man. The Socialists also entered a ticket.
Never in the most bitter days of the conflict between the People's Party and the Liberal Party had The Tribune fought harder than it did in support of the American Party in this city election. It attacked the incumbent Democratic administration on a wide range of issues, particularly water, taxation and employment. It tried to convince Republicans that they had no chance of victory and could therefore turn the Democrats out only by joining the Americans. It told the Democrats that the Mormon Church was supporting the Republican Party and that their only chance of not being liquidated by an ecclesiastical party was to vote American. It also appealed to Mormons, particularly the younger generation, to cast off their ecclesiastical political yoke by voting American.
The newspaper showed particular concern about gentile Republicans and Democrats and disclosed that some of them had been very bitter because of The Tribune's refusal to wage a war against church influence in the 1903 city campaign.
In one editorial aimed at this group The Tribune said with a rare note of conciliation in its voice:
This editorial indicated quite clearly that The Tribune had been bitterly criticized by anti-Mormons for softness toward the church while Kearns was in the Senate and that the policy was defended on the grounds that the time was not ripe for finishing the long fight which had been temporarily quelled by the "Manifesto" and the division of Mormons between the two national parties.
The campaign waged by The Tribune was appallingly intemperate by standards of political coverage which later became the vogue. But viewed within the frame of then prevailing journalistic practices it was not so shocking. The Herald, the Deseret News and the weekly publications could hardly be described as objective in their approaches to the campaign issues.
The Tribune editorials, slanted news articles and vindictive cartoons were, of course, offensive to orthodox Mormons. Historian Roberts characterized the American Party campaign as "sensational and unscrupulus." Roberts, careful and objective as he was in the area of historical facts, could be much harsher in his judgments of Tribune excesses (and particularly with Cannon as editor) than he was with the excesses of the Democratic Herald or the Deseret News.
The basic affirmative campaign waged by The Tribune in support of the American Party was summed up in this editorial:
One of the issues generated by the campaign involved the question of who was boycotting whom in employment. The Tribune charged commercial leaders of the church were spreading the word that a gentile victory would result in a systematic discharge and boycotting of many Mormon employes. The Tribune replied that boycotting with respect to employment was, and always had been, the other way around. It republished a table of nineteen non-Mormon and nineteen Mormon firms with the number of non-Mormons and Mormons employed by each. It noted that the table had been published a month earlier and that "its correctness has never been disputed even by the shameless liar on the Deseret News."
The table showed Keith-O'Brien, a gentile department store, with 122 Mormon and sixty non-Mormon employes. One of the founders was Kearns' partner in the ownership of The Tribune. For Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution, the major Mormon mercantile business, the division shown was 316 Mormons and nine non-Mormons. Auerbach's, a non-Mormon department store, showed an even division — seventy-five Mormons and seventy-five non-Mormons. Sweet Candy Company, non-Mormon firm, was credited with eighty-one Mormons and forty-nine non-Mormons. McDonald Candy Company, Mormon, was credited with 184 Mormons and eleven non-Mormons.
The table indicated that Mormon banks preferred Mormon employes and that gentile banks preferred non-Mormon employes. The table showed all nineteen non-Mormon firms with some Mormon employes and twelve of the nineteen Mormon firms with no non-Mormon employes.
The breakdown for the Deseret News was 282 Mormons and eight non-Mormons. The Salt Lake Tribune was not listed. Whether this omission was prompted by modesty or consideration for Mormon employes, if there were any, cannot be determined at this late date as no explanation was offered in the article. In a note at the bottom of the table The Tribune conceded that there might be some "slight errors" growing out of the fact "that some Mormons will claim to be gentiles and some gentiles will claim to be Mormons."
On the Monday before the election The Tribune charged that the church had "sent out the word" to vote for Lynch, the Republican candidate for mayor. It gave prominent display on the editorial to an article which began:
Much of the remainder of the article was designed to convince Democrats that they were being betrayed. On the front page of the same issue was a two-column box carrying the heading: "It's a Stampede" and an article with this lead paragraph: "Gentile Republicans and sincere Mormon Democrats, learning of the course of the whisper in Sunday's fast meetings and Sunday-schools were so angered last night that the rush to the American Party is a stampede. . "
The city election, it should be noted, was not a battle between a gentile David and a Mormon Goliath, as were state elections, but to some degree the reverse. By The Tribune's own calculations there were at this time about 22,000 registered voters in the incorporated city, and of these about 12,000 were gentiles and something over 9,000 Mormons. Prior to the election, The Tribune conceded that as many as 2,500 gentiles might vote against the American Party but predicted that this would be offset by Mormons voting for the gentile candidate for mayor.
The election, which brought out a remarkably high percentage of the total registered vote if The Tribune calculations were reasonably accurate, produced these mayor totals: Thompson, American, 8,456; Morris, Democrat, 7,797; Lynch, Republican, 4,985.
The Tribune's pre-election forecast of the vote was nothing to cheer about as to accuracy, but the result was and The Tribune cheered with its largest type. Across the top of the newspaper's front page on the morning after the election was a line "Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow." Underneath was The Tribune masthead and an eight-column banner line: "Salt Lake Is an American City." Under the banner line was a six column reproduction of the party's spread-eagle insignia and in the eagle's beak was a scroll carrying this line: "I Go To Spread Glad Tidings." At each side of the eagle were scriptural quotations and beneath it were two more eight-column lines: "Great Landslide Occurs;" and "Salt Lake-American Party Owns the Earth." The remainder of the page was filled with gloating editorial comment and the names of the winning candidates set in large type. 10
Historian Roberts' comment on the page was: "The announcement of the municipal election victory was . . . most extravagantly, not to say hysterically jubilant."
Despite its jubilance over the result, The Tribune, in its hour of glory, humbled itself enough to admit that its forecast was somewhat wide of the results. It had predicted a somewhat larger vote for the American Party with the Republican candidate second and the Democratic candidate third. The fact that the Democratic candidate ran only 659 votes behind the American Party candidate hardly supported The Tribune charge that the church was giving all-out support to the Republican candidate. Its explanation for this miscalculation was that midway in the voting Senator Reed Smoot, and other church leaders, learned that the Republican candidate was doing poorly and that the only hope of beating the American candidate rested with the incumbent Democrat, Morris. They then sent word out to the faithful to switch to Morris. The Tribune modestly conceded that had this development occurred a little earlier, the result might have been different.
The American Party victory in 1905 was no fluke, as it won two successive Salt Lake City elections with John S. Bransford as its candidate for mayor. The party continued to nominate state and congressional candidates but was never able to make a strong showing in the entire state, which was heavily Mormon. The 1907 and 1909 municipal elections were similar in tone to the one in 1905 except that The Tribune and the American Party were defending the administration rather than attacking the administration of the opposition. But in 1911 the American Party and The Tribune as its spokesman, suffered a decisive defeat in the municipal election. The party did not recover. This local election was important in the history of the state, the city and The Tribune for at least two reasons. It introduced non-partisan elections in the city. It firmly established in the state the political alignment on national party lines which began with the division of Mormons between the national parties back in the 1890's.
One of the new elements in the 1911 municipal campaign was a new newspaper, the Herald-Republican. It was born from the merger of'the Inter-Mountain Republican, established in February of 1906, and the Salt Lake Herald, which had been one of The Tribune's journalistic antagonists from its birth. The merger, which became effective August 14, 1909, marked the end of a consistent, effective and high-quality Democratic spokesman (The Herald) as both papers had been acquired by Republicans prior to the merger. The ownership, which underwent frequent alterations, included Senator Smoot, Governor William H. Spry, D. C. Jackling, the rising star in the Utah mining industry, and several other Utahns prominent in the Smoot political organization.
For eleven years prior to its demise by merger, the Herald had been edited by Ambrose Noble McKay, a man whose exceptional talents had been transferred to The Tribune earlier in 1911.
In the 1911 municipal campaign the American Party managers were outmaneuvered from the beginning. The heavily Mormon Legislature had enacted a law changing Salt Lake City government from a mayor-council to a commission form. Three political parties or groups entered candidates in the qualifying primary—American, Republican and a non-partisan Citizens fusion group. The Tribune immediately smelled a church plot to defeat the American Party. The Republican ticket, according to The Tribune, was entered by Smoot to drain gentile Republicans away from the American candidates. The church would support the Citizens ticket, and the Smoot Republicans, if defeated in the primary, would join in that support on a non-partisan basis. Whether or not it was planned that way (or plotted as The Tribune preferred) that is the way it worked out. The Citizens and the American candidates qualified, the Smoot organization backed the Citizens candidates and the Citizens ticket won by a three to two margin. The Tribune charged that the church was brazenly campaigning for the Citizens ticket, citing as proof a speech in the Mormon Tabernacle by C. W. Penrose, speeches by other church leaders in stake and ward meetings; the appearance of the Citizens non-Mormon candidate for mayor, Samuel C. Park, as speaker at a Mormon church meeting in a ward house; and editorials in the Deseret News and the Herald-Republican (always referred to as the Smoot organ by The Tribune).
The Deseret News firmly denied that the church was participating in the campaign and the "Smoot organ" shouted that the "Silver King Crowd" was trying to fasten its control on the city. I4 Both sides accused the other of turning the campaign into a church fight and both sides charged the other with responsibility for the fanning of religious acrimony. Because a majority of the Citizens candidates were non-Mormons, The Tribune had to concede that the church was more conspicuous in the campaigning than in the candidacies. In an editorial comment on Penrose's speech in the Tabernacle, The Tribune paid the former Deseret News editor some qualified compliments. But the purpose may have been to strengthen the charge of church interference in the campaign and to downgrade Penrose's successor rather than to elevate Penrose in the esteem of Tribune readers.
The editorial said in part:
Almost a year before the defeat of the American Party in the 1911 municipal election an event took place which signaled a change in the policy of The Tribune, particularly with respect to the Mormon Church as an ecclesiastical institution. The event was only partially announced at the time. And as far as this writer can determine, some of the important aspects of the event have never since been publicly disclosed until publication of this history.
The event was a meeting of Senator Kearns and Ambrose N. McKay, a gentile who for some eleven years had served as editor of the Salt Lake Herald. Senator Kearns had offered the position of publisher and general manager of The Tribune to McKay and the purpose of the meeting was to arrive at an understanding as to future policy.
On the morning of January 1, 1911, a Sunday, the appointmentof McKay was announced in a brief article at the top of theeditorial page:
The announcement was signed on behalf of the two newspapers by Frank J. Westcott, secretary of the publishing company.
In a New Year's editorial in the same issue The Tribune had this to say about itself and its policies:
A document with a more important bearing on future policies of the newspaper than the editorial was not published. It was an agreement between Kearns and McKay on general policies which were to serve as guidelines for the new publisher. There was nothing startlingly new or sensational in the agreement. To the general public it probably would not have signified any particular change had it been published in The Tribune. Its significance stemmed from a combination of two elements - what was said about policy and the man who was to implement the policy.
The first item in the ten-point agreement was: "The Salt Lake Tribune is now and will continue to be an American newspaper, devoted to the promotion and protection of American ideals, interests and institutions." The Tribune, and virtually all other American newspapers, had said this about themselves.
The second item could mean much or little, depending upon its interpretation and implementation: "Regardless of political preferences it will hold patriotism above partisanism and open its columns to honest opinions, fairly expressed, by reputable members of all parties and denominations." As it was sure to be interpreted and implemented by McKay, this meant that The Tribune was going to be far more objective in its news coverage of political and ecclesiastical affairs than it had been in the past.
The third item, when related to the newspaper ideas known to be held by McKay, meant that while The Tribune might support various organizations and their objectives, it was no longer to let itself be placed in the role of a dog being wagged by a tail: "The Tribune as an independent organ serving the general public, uninfluenced by personal ambition or animosities, but having an undivided interest in the community with entire freedom from extraneous domination of any kind."
The fourth item committed The Tribune: "To be a crusader for strict observance of the federal and state constitutions, for law enforcement thereunder, and for equal opportunity for all deserving citizens not motivated by hatreds or intolerance." The remaining items were not especially pertinent to the controversies which had agitated Utah in the past.
McKay, as has heretofore been indicated, was not an eloquent, zealous crusader. He was not a Lockley, a Goodwin or a Frank J. Cannon. He was an unimpassioned, objective newspaperman (an uncommon breed in the journalistic world of the previous century) and he had close personal friendships with and the respect of influential Mormons, gentiles, Democrats and Republicans. He was not the sort of person Kearns would have selected for publisher and general manager of The Tribune unless he had decided that the time had come to mute the old fight and strive for an accommodation of the contending forces which had generated the "irrepressible conflict."
The agreement as to The Tribune's future policy would have been even more significant at the time it was signed had it been known that in a few years Kearns would acquire full ownership of The Tribune; that death would place in his shoes a man (John Francis Fitzpatrick) who was dedicated to repression of the "irrepressible conflict;" that death would place at the head of the Mormon Church a man (Heber J. Grant) who would see eye to eye with Fitzpatrick on the desirability of resolving the "Utah problem" in Utah.
