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Chapter 16 - The Silver Queen
Chapter 16 - The Silver Queen
THE ONLY public disclosure made as to the new ownership of The Tribune, at the time of the announced sale was the appearance of the name of Perry S. Heath in the masthead as publisher and general manager. Just how long the general public was unaware that the owners were Senator Kearns and his partner, David Keith, is difficult to ascertain. The law requiring publication of a sworn statement of ownership and circulation did not become operative until October, 1913. But the Kearns-Keith ownership was disclosed publicly long before that.
Some individuals knew at the time of the transaction that the purchasers were Kearns and Keith and many more suspected it. Within ten days after the announcement of the sale the editor of the Challis, Idaho, Messenger published an item identifying Kearns as the purchaser and adding that the new editor, Heath, was "not to be compared" with Mr. Goodwin, "one of the ablest editorial writers in the world."
But a few days later the weekly Truth, which prided itself on being an authority on both revealed and unrevealed political information in Salt Lake and Utah, published a special dispatch under an Indianapolis, Indiana, dateline and credited to The Chicago Tribune which said in part: "Indiana Republicans say they are convinced Perry Heath bought The Salt Lake Tribune in order to pave a way to the United States Senate. . . ."
Obviously the editor of Truth believed at that time that Heath was the purchaser, for the stock-in-trade of the publication was disclosure of just such behind-the-scenes happenings. Two weeks after the transaction, the Deseret News made a reference to The Tribune as "popularly believed to be owned by Senator Kearns."
A version of the transaction handed down in The Tribune through the years, is that Kearns had Heath buy the paper on behalf of himself and Keith because Lannan would not under any circumstances sell to him. There are ample indications that Lannan had acquired a strong aversion to Kearns, whose election to the Senate over The Tribune's candidate, Salisbury, had rudely compromised the position of The Tribune and Lannan as the accepted spokesman for the national Republican Party.
The skimpy corporate records of The Tribune Publishing Company for this period show only that all the stock was sold to William C. MacBride (apparently serving as broker) and that he in turn transferred all the stock to Heath. At a meeting on December 31,1901, the 300 shares were allocated as follows: Heath, 296; Davjd Keith, 1; C. F. Keith, 1; Frank J. Wescott, who was associated with Kearns and Keith, 1; and Joseph Lippman, 1. Heath was elected president, David Keith, vice president, and Wescott, secretary-treasurer. On January 28, 1902, Heath was officially given the titles of publisher and general manager, positions he retained until 1904 when Lippman was named publisher and general manager. The indicated price paid for the newspaper by Kearns and Keith was about $200,000. This was approximately five times the amount Lannan and Goodwin had paid for it nineteen years earlier.
While Heath was negotiating for and buying The Tribune for the Kearns-Keith partnership, Senator Kearns sailed to Europe again to bring his family back home. The highlight of this trip, so far as hometown publicity was concerned, was a dinner given in London in honor of the senator by Sir Thomas Lipton, world-famous king of the tea business and builder and racer of sailing yachts. The dinner was attended by many distinguished members of the British Parliament. The social function was widely reported in the United States press. The Salt Lake Herald featured the event with a sketch of the two Toms toasting each other from a bottle labeled "hot air" and a verse by William G. Jackson, one of its talented writers, titled "The Meeting of The Toms."
Sound the tom-tom. Our Tom And England's Tom Are seated beside a buried Tomahawk Drinking Tom and Jerry With the Jerry Left out.
Says England's Tom To our Tom "You're a Tom After my own heart, Tom." Says our Tom To England's Tom: "And you too, Tom." And then they both say: "Here's to you, Tom."
And a lot of English Reporters Rush to their offices And grind out A lot of tommyrot About the way The Anglo-American alliance Is being cemented By their Tom And our Tom.
The Herald's cartoon and verse moved the Intermountain Catholic to publish a long editorial under the caption: "Tale of Two Dinners." The first dinner was one in New York City attended by business and political leaders. The main point of the editorial was an expression of hope that Roosevelt's foreign policies would be more like McKinley's than Cleveland's. Referring to the London dinner, the editorial said in part:
When Senator Kearns returned from Europe he was accompanied by Senator Clark of Montana but not by his family. He told a Tribune correspondent in New York that Mrs. Kearns would remain in Geneva, Switzerland, until spring as the children were attending school there. The return of Kearns and Clark together revived press interest in the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake railroad. Two months later on January 14, 1902, The Tribune carried a Washington dispatch which anticipated the first step toward the eventual absorption of the line by the Union Pacific.
The dispatch said that Senator Clark and E. H. Harriman (who had obtained control of Union Pacific) would adjust their differences in the railroad matter and that the San Pedro company would either purchase or lease for a long period that portion of the Oregon Short Line from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Caliente, Nevada.
Upon his return from Europe, Senator Kearns made a quick trip home to Salt Lake City to take care of personal business and discuss patronage problems besetting him at the time, and then he returned to Washington to plunge into the social and legislative whirl of his first full-fledged session of Congress. His first notable legislative coup was the blocking of a mineral lease covering the Uintah Indian Reservation to a private mining company. Unable to dissuade the Secretary of Interior from approving the lease, Senator Kearns introduced a resolution into the Senate to require the Interior Department to furnish to the Senate all documents relating to the lease before its ratification. With the help of the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, Kearns was able to get the resolution adopted. This stopped the lease and Kearns then disclosed that he planned to introduce legislation to open the reservation to settlement. Such legislation was introduced and passed.
The Tribune, as might be expected, applauded the senator for his maneuver to stop the proposed leasing. But so did the Democratic Herald. The Deseret News conferred its commendation on all three members of the Utah congressional delegation — Kearns, Senator Rawlins and Representative Sutherland. The weekly press of the state generally credited Kearns with thwarting the leasing scheme.
"Senators Kearns" said the Lehi Banner, "is all right. He got in his resolution just in time. . . . Tom always gets his licks in at the proper time. Utah made no mistake in sending him to the U.S. Senate."
Another typical comment on the incident appeared in the Castle Dale Progress. It lauded the senator's action and added: "And, by the way, the manner in which Senator Kearns is conducting the affairs of Utah at the national capital is agreeably surprising. . . ."
Clearly, this was a case in which public sentiment was so nearly unanimous that political foes felt impelled to give Senator Kearns a pat on the back.
Both in Europe and in Washington, the new Utah senator quickly erased the image given him by political foes during the campaign — that he was a graceless, hard-rock miner who did not know how to wear a dress suit. At the annual charity ball in the Willard Hotel in Washington, the Washington Star singled out as a notable group Senator Kearns' party, which included Mrs. Kerens of St. Louis, Mrs. Perry Heath and Mrs. S. B. E. Holmes of Salt Lake City.
The society reporter identified Mrs. Holmes as a "handsome brunette, the wife of a multi-millionaire of Utah." She was that. She was also a millionaire in her own right when she married Colonel Edwin F. Holmes, a Michigan lumberman who had acquired some mining interests in Utah. Susie, as she was always known to close friends; Utah's "Silver Queen," as she was known to society writers covering the equivalent of the present-day international jet set; or Mrs. Susanna Bransford Emery Holmes Delitch Engalitcheff, her full name when she died in 1942, epitomized an era of quick fortunes and expansive living covering the "gay nineties" and the early ninteen hundreds. A member of a Missouri family impoverished by the Civil War, she made the long trip from the Midwest to the California gold country in a 250-wagon train commanded by her father. While spending a summer visiting with relatives in Park City, she met and married A. B. Emery, who at the time was a railroad baggageman and secretary of several mining companies earning a very impressive income of $250 per month. He mentioned one evening to his young bride that if only he had a little money they could become wealthy. Susie thought she knew how to get the needed money. She went to R. C. Chambers, the wealthy manager of the Ontario mine, reminded him that her father had once grubstaked him and negotiated a loan. Emery used the capital to become a partner with the Kearns-Keith group in the Silver King discovery and was soon thereafter the owner of stock valued at more than a million dollars. He died in San Francisco in 1894 while en route from a trip to Honolulu, leaving a young, attractive and, for that period, a very wealthy widow. Susie did not have long to wait until she found herself in court fighting to retain her inheritance. Chambers sued for half her interest on the grounds that the money he had provided was a grubstake. Susie was able to prove to the court's satisfaction, with checks showing interest payments, that the money advanced was a loan and not a grubstake. She won in the trial court and the decision was upheld on appeal.
One day Susie accepted an invitation from Tom Kearns to drive to Park City and meet a widower "worth about seven million dollars." The widower, Colonel Holmes, began courting her and proposed several times. Unable to get a definite answer, the colonel gave a dinner at Delmonico's. in New York City for a group of Utah friends, including Susie and Governor Wells. During the dinner Colonel Holmes suddenly plucked an American Beauty rose from a huge bouquet, tossed it on the table, arose and announced their engagement. Susie had not been forewarned, but after thinking it over she decided she needed a husband and protector and decided to let the engagement stand. They were married in the Astor Parlors of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The wedding dinner was supervised by Oscar of the Waldorf. After a few weeks residence at the Plaza Hotel, the couple went on a two-year tour of Europe.
The "Silver Queen" recalled a short time before her death that it was "wonderful" trip but that she was bored by her husband's passion for art galleries. Once, when her husband asked a guide in a Moscow art gallery how long it would take to complete the tour, Susie tartly remarked "about three years at this pace."
Upon their return to Salt Lake City Colonel Holmes heard that the Amelia Palace, the home built by Brigham Young for entertaining guests, was for sale. He promptly purchased it for Susie, and brought a crew of twenty decorators from Marshall- Field's in Chicago to decorate it. The decorators did such a magnificent job on the gold-leaf dining room walls that even the colonel decided it would be inappropriate to cover them with paintings and so built an art gallery in a building adjacent to the house. After a sumptuous reception and housewarming, Susie went to Washington where she attended the charity ball as a member of Senator Kearns' party and was an honor guest at numerous receptions, the hostess at one being Mrs. Mark Hanna. She was introduced by Senator Kearns to President Roosevelt who thanked her for a generous campaign contribution, particularly since she was a southern Democrat by inheritance. She returned home in response to a letter from Colonel Holmes informing her that he was going to close the home unless she did return immediately. Thereater, for almost twenty years, Amelia Palace was Salt Lake City's social center except for periods when the hosts were in Europe or Washington or New York or the Orient.
Friday was at-home day for the "Silver Queen" and as many as 300 to 400 people would call during the afternoon and evening. The guest list for the largest single party given in the home was approximately 800.
Amelia Palace was subsequently sold back to the Mormon Church and torn down to make way for a new Federal Reserve Branch Bank building. Colonel Holmes then bought Susie a mansion, El Roble, in Pasadena, California.
The colonel died in 1927 while Mrs. Holmes was on another European tour. She did not return for the funeral.
"It was better that way," she said years later. "His first family could bury him without interference, and that's the way he wanted it. He left his money to three daughters and a son. And that's the way I wanted it too."
Mrs. Holmes married a Serbian physician, Dr. Radovan Nedelkov Delitch, in 1930 and divorced him two years later. Soon after the divorce he hanged himself aboard an ocean liner and was buried at sea. In 1933 she married Prince Nicholas Engalitcheff, known to his associates as the "melancholy Slav," and he died in 1935.
The "Silver Queen's" reign ended in death on August 3, 1942. That she enjoyed her title, and role as a romantic symbol of the West's early mining boom days, was obvious. In her later years she lamented, with sorrow but not bitterness, the passing of an era, "when rich people could live like they wanted to live, and could afford to live, without fear of offending the proletariat." But that she could also view it all with an impish sense of humor was signified by one of the grand parties she liked to recall — a party in Honolulu for "three crowned heads, the tin king from South America, the lobster king from San Francisco and the silver queen from Utah."
While Utah did not have many millionaires at the turn of the century, it had perhaps twice as many in relation to total population as the nation as a whole, principally because of the mining industry. The New York World undertook in the 1902 edition of its almanac and encyclopedia to list all the persons in the United States owning wealth in excess of a million dollars. Of the list of 3,600, nineteen were credited to Utah. In addition to the "Silver Queen," Senator Kearns and David Keith, the Utahns listed were S. H. Auerbach, A. G. Campbell, R. C. Chambers estate, Albert F. Holden, W. S. McComick, A. W. McCune, Henry Newell, Samuel Newhouse, John Q. Packard, Joseph R. Walker estate, Matthew H. Walker, Thomas Weir and Brigham Young estate, all of Salt Lake City; Fred J. Kiesel, David Eccles and the D. H. Peery estate, Ogden. The Herald noted that probably a dozen more could be added to the list but did not identify them.
Early in 1902 while Senator Kearns was busy in Washington looking after the state's legislative interests and working to get his choices appointed to federal positions, the Deseret News "scooped" The Tribune with the announcement of plans to launch a new newspaper in the city. The News reported:
The first edition of the new newspaper appeared January 30, 1902. In reply to the News reference to it as the evening edition of The Tribune, the Telegram retorted that it was "the evening edition of The Tribune in the same sense the Herald was the morning edition of the News — no more and no less."
In choosing this device to declare its independence of The Tribune, the Telegram pointed up that any inference that theHerald was a weak sister to the News was far from true. The chief, if not the sole, owner at the time was Senator Clark of Montana. During its life (from June 5, 1870, to its merger with the Inter-Mountain Republican to form the Herald-Republican in August, 1909) the Herald passed through numerous ownerships. Generally, it defended the Mormon Church and its leaders, but it sometimes expressed disagreement with particular actions or policies. The Park Record, to cite one example, reported on May 16, 1896, that "B. H. Roberts has resigned as editor of the Salt Lake Herald, giving as his reason that the position that the paper had taken on the recent 'Manifesto,' was apt to place him in a false light." While at times it sounded, as The Tribune put it like "the minor voice of the church" it certainly did not always adopt Deseret News positions. It was a well-written and competently edited newspaper which was at its journalistic best when defending the Democratic Party or attacking The Tribune. It was, in short, a tough competitor, and the fact that it was The Tribune and not the Herald that survived was a testimonial to the strength and staying powers of The Tribune and its owners.
