Chapter 6 - New Owners Take Over

Chapter 6 - New Owners Take Over

THE YEAR 1882 WAS A busy and exciting one for editors C. C. Goodwin of The Tribune and Charles W. Penrose of the Deseret News. The year was notable because of the empty seat in Congress to which the territory was entitled; the enactment of an anti-polygamy law which was still to be implemented; and a sharp upturn in Liberal hopes of a victory at the polls by reason of a provision in the new anti-polygamy law disenfranchising polygamists.

Goodwin and his chief rival on the Deseret News, as well as the writers for the Herald, were at their best in political infighting. So the three newspapers squared off for a lively and what looked like the territory's most important election campaign up to that time.

Two Utah historians, who were on-the-scene observers, are agreed that the campaign represented a new highwater mark in politics. Orson F. Whitney wrote in his History of Utah:

... for the first time in history of Utah, political parades, with bands of music, torches, Chinese lanterns, Roman candles, and other pyrotechnics illuminated the streets, whose stones re-echoed to the tramp of marching hosts filling the air with hopeful shouts and stentorian prophecies of victory. Each party put forth its utmost exertions, the orators on either side vieing with their opponents in eloquence, wit and satire.

Edward W. Tullidge, in his History of Salt Lake City, said this about the campaign:

It was the first time in our elections that the two parties had fairly recognized each other frankly and conjointly accepting the idea of the "irrepressible conflict" between them, to be fought out by political leaders and the votes of American citizens. Hitherto our election contests had been rather between the Mormons, as a church, and the anti-Mormons, as a body of crusaders in deadly conflict to overthrow that church. This time, at least in profession, they informally agreed to accept each other as purely political parties, contesting for the rule of the Territory by the sovereign votes of American citizens.

Tullidge was no doubt right as to the professed acceptance by the two parties of each other as political parties. But his implied conclusion that the old Mormon versus anti-Mormon nature of the contest had somehow been changed does not appear to be warranted by the platforms subsequently adopted.

The Liberal Party platform, in fact, affirmed in the preamble that the division was on church lines and that the partisan distinctions known in other portions of the United States "were of minor importance." At least nine of the twelve planks comprising the platform were aimed directly at the church, and the other three were indirectly aimed at the same target. The document said in part:

We arraign the Mormon power in Utah on the following grounds: it exalts the Church above the State in matters of purely administrative and political concern. It perverts the duty of the representative in official and legislative matters by demanding that the interests and wishes of that sect and of the priesthood shall be made paramount considerations. It destroys the freedom of the citizen by assuming the right to dictate his political actions and control his ballot. It teaches that defiance of the law of the land when counseled by its priesthood is a religious duty. It encourages jurors and witnesses, when attempts are made in the ordinary course of law to punish the crime of polygamy, to disregard their duties in order to protect offenders who are of their faith.

Continuing with a long list of indictments that included church control of public lands, its negative influence on commerce and business, its exploitation of women and its treasonable and disloyal conduct toward the United States, the Liberal platform concluded:

For these offenses, to which many more might be added, we arraign the Mormon power in Utah, and invoke against it and its monstrous pretensions and practices the considerable judgment of the citizen voter, the statesman and the Christian, and humbly submit that our attitude toward it is not only justified but demanded by every consideration that ought to control the true American citizen in discharge of political duty.

The platform of the People's Party denied point by point the accusations of the Liberal Party and threw the charge of treasonable practices back at the adversary in these words:

We believe that any party or faction of a political community that seeks to subvert the institutions of local self-government, aims a deadly thrust at the Constitution, and that such party or faction is unworthy of the suffrages of a free people. We believe that any official who attempts to stifle the popular voice as expressed at the ballot box is guilty of treason against a sovereign people.

With its list of denials complete and its countercharges firmlylodged, the People's Party platform pledged itself to the:

. . . maintenance and defense of constitutional principles and the inalienable rights of mankind, and proclaim ourselves the friends of true liberty — civil, political and religious, to all people in every part of the habitable globe.

The Liberal Party nominated Philip T. Van Zne, a prominent gentile lawyer, for the House seat after Campbell, a wealthy mining man, had declined to run a second race. The People's Party nominated John T. Caine, an eminent citizen, a Mormon, but not a polygamist. The party leaders knew that at this point a victory at the polls with a polygamist candidate would be a hollow one. For the Edmunds Act, passed earlier in the year, had disenfranchised polygamists and established a federal commission which by the election of 1882 was already beginning to purge the voter registration rolls of polygamists and all, male or female, who had lived in a polygamist relationship since enactment of the 1862 anti-polygamy law.

The Salt Lake Tribune, with Goodwin firing the editorial barrages, campaigned vigorously for the Liberal Party candidate. The Deseret News, with Penrose wielding his exuberant, penetrating and sarcastic editorial pen, campaigned just as vigorously for the People's Party candidate. Both men could stand squarely on the platforms of their respective parties, inasmuch as they were probably the chief contributors to the documents.

The Herald, which The Tribune sometimes denounced as caustically as it did the News and sometimes dismissed as the "minor voice of the church, not worth answering," ably supported the People's Party and its candidate.

The campaign editorials on both sides were pretty much a symphony, or cacophony, of variations on the platform themes. Nothing basically new was added to the debate but the editorial writers distinguished themselves for eloquent, inflammatory and sarcastic elaboration of the platform planks. They did not strive for, or stoop to, subtlety.

Despite the disenfranchisement of polygamists and the strenuous campaign put on by the Liberals, their candidate went down to crushing defeat on election day. Van Zile polled 4,884 votes to 23,039 for Caine. This was better than the fourteen-to-one disaster inflicted upon them in the prior election, but this time they had no hope of successfully contesting the result. For Caine was issued a certificate of election by the federally appointed commission. The only question that could be raised was whether he, Caine, was entitled to serve out the unexpired term, which had been denied both candidates. The House did accept him for the unexpired term. Judge Van Zile, a lawyer who knew how to accept defeat when it couldn't be avoided, gracefully acquiesced and extended congratulations to his successful opponent.

Caine's initial act in the new Congress was to introduce a bill for admission of Utah to the Union. It was referred to a committee and there died. Although he was unable to make any headway toward statehood, Caine was reelected four times. The tone of Liberal Party and Tribune attacks upon him indicated that they were somewhat less allergic to him than to prospective replacements, even though he was president of the company which published the Herald.

An ecclesiastical event of 1882, which in later years acquired significance in The Tribune's history, was the sustaining of Heber J. Grant as a member of the Mormon Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. For when a bridge of accommodation was thrown across the abyss dividing Utah's residents, key anchors on their respective sides were Grant, as president of the church, and The Tribune.

But at this point in history the climate was far from friendly to accommodation. By October, 1883, The Tribune was expressing disgust with enforcement, or lack of enforcement, of the Edmunds law; charging the federal government with selling "indulgences" to the church; and calling upon the press and people of the country to demand enforcement of law in Utah. On October 13, The Tribune said editorially:

East and West the public press is demanding to know why in Utah the crimes which are punished everywhere under the flag, are converted into graces too precious to be interfered with. And this has not come from the insidious teachings of The Tribune; it is due solely to the positions taken by the high priests of the Mormon Church, as they in solemn conference stood up to teach their people. The people of the land are slowly awakening to the disagreeable fact that there is really an alien kingdom here, which holds nothing in common with the Republic, which is bound by no rules which bind Americans; which is managed by a code aside from the codes of the country; and which is permeated through and through with treason. These are unpalatable facts, and they are a great humiliation to the wise asses of the East, who have insisted so long that all that is needed in Utah is the spread of intelligence to cure the evil. But it will not last long. The excitement will pass away in a few days; Congress will receive its instructions, as usual, from the railroad corporations and the wholesale merchants of the great cities, to see to it that the stuffing is kicked out of any law which would, if passed, make the Mormons trouble; the agents of the Church will be on hand when Congress meets to explain to Democratic members that the agitation in Utah is due to a little squad of just such unprincipled carpet-baggers as devastated the South, and another year will go by. In that year 4,000 more supports will be imported from Europe, 3,000 or 4,000 more babies will be born, and very soon the old cry will be in order: 'You would not arraign a whole people for treason, would you?' because in this land, when a mighty number engage in violating the laws, it is not criminal any more, but rather a grace. The Saints need not be alarmed. They are rich enough to buy indulgences from the Government of the United States.

The leaders of the church had a somewhat different view of what the Edmunds Act was going to mean to their people. John Taylor, then president of the church, warned that a "tempest of tribulation" was about to burst upon the Latter-day Saints. At the General Conference on April 7,1882, President Taylor alluded to the coming storm and commented: "Let us treat it as we did the snowstorm through which we came this morning — put up our coat collars . . . and wait until the storm subsides. After the storm comes sunshine. While it lasts it is useless to reason with the world; when it subsides we can talk to them."

Taylor's forecast of events for the ensuing few years was much more accurate than that of The Tribune, which was no doubt delighted at its own misjudgment of the temper of the federal government.

Whitney, in his History of Utah, appraised the situation at that period in these words:

The general condition of society and the state of the public mind in Utah . . has been pretty well indicated. Mormons and gentiles, at times friendly and sociable, were gradually 'drawing the lines' more tightly than ever in places — 'taking sides' and surveying each other with mutual suspicion and dislike. Congress, by its late drastic legislation, supplemented by the acts of the Utah Commission — which the Mormons regarded as partial — had done much to divide the never-too-friendly wings of the commonwealth, and the efforts of the local agitators [meaning principally The Tribune, no doubt] had well-nigh effected a complete separation.

In Whitney's view the forces arraigned against the church at this point included: sincere and patriotic men who would have welcomed an end of "war" had the church been willing to surrender polygamy and the political union of church and state; Mormon-haters who would settle for nothing less than the utter extirpation of Mormonism; men who made money out of the agitation and who, as a consequence, did not want a peace which would end the profitable agitation; a majority of the non- Mormon merchants and businessmen, who were not in sympathy with Mormonism but who preferred peace and goodwill because it would bring them Mormon patronage.

The events of this period and the commentaries on them suggest that Whitney's analysis of the anti-church forces was both perceptive and accurate. The position of The Tribune, as reflected in numerous editorials, was that the categories specified by Whitney had their opposites on the church side of the abyss and that it was this situation which made the "irrepressible conflict" irrepressible.

Before the approaching storm broke, The Tribune was to acquire a new owner. In September, 1883, Lockley and his associates had either grown tired of the grinding fight or were presented with an offer they regarded as too good to turn down. Whatever the reason, they sold out to Patrick H. Lannan and C. C. Goodwin, who, as we saw in an earlier chapter, joined The Tribune as editor in 1880. Lannan, whose interests appear to have been centered on the business rather than the editorial side of newspaper publishing, came to Salt Lake City from Nevada. Very little information about him appeared in the local press. He had known Goodwin in Nevada and probably came to Salt Lake City on Goodwin's recommendation. No announcement of the change in ownership was published immediately in The Tribune, but some of the weekly papers reported the transaction. The published reports — and there is no reason to doubt their accuracy _ were to the effect that Lannan and Goodwin had acquired a fourth-fifths interest; Colonel O. J. Hollister and his family, who had bought into the corporation about one year earlier, had retained a one-fifth interest. The purchase was financed with a $60,000 loan from John W. Mackay who had acquired a fortune of many millions from Nevada and California mining. Obviously the confidence and respect Goodwin had earlier shown when he rose to one of his higher levels of editorial rage in defending Mackay from press attacks were reciprocated by the latter.

With Goodwin already at the editorial helm there was no particular reason for announcing an ownership change from that standpoint. The scanty corporate records of The Tribune from that period include a ledger sheet, carrying the notation that it was presented to Lannan and showing an estimated net worth at the time of $39,483.44. This is probably close to the price paid by Lannan and Goodwin for a four-fifths interest, inasmuch as it is consistent with the $10,500 paid by Hollister for his one-fifth interest the year before. Seller of a one-fifth interest was J. R. Schupbach, a founder and first publisher of the Park Mining Record.

The ledger sheet given to Lannan indicated that the receipts of The Tribune for the previous six months amounted to $35,794.36 and expenses $22,060.31. This indicated an operating profit of slightly more than $2,000 per month. But it is uncertain whether the expense total included salaries of the owner executives. Expenses during this period were sometimes reported at the directors' meetings "exclusive of unpaid executive wages." Thus the $2,000 plus per month may have represented executive salaries and profit or profit after salary payments. One thing is certain; financially, The Tribune was no "bonanza" up to this time and successful mining prospectors were doing a lot better money-wise than newspaper editors and publishers.

The change in The Tribune's ownership made no change in basic editorial policy but it did alter the style somewhat. With the new infusion of capital, the appearance of the newspaper in a very short time reflected installation of new equipment. News coverage was improved and features added. Editorially, the old fight was pressed with unrelenting vigor but the voice was not quite so shrill as it had been under Lockley and associates. For example, on October 23, 1883, the lead editorial started out in this fashion: 'There are many men, sincere in their beliefs in the main principles taught by the Mormon creed, who can not understand why they are opposed by the world at large, and especially by gentiles here who can not but see that they are industrious, peaceable, honest in their relations with their fellowmen, and true to their families."

The remainder of the editorial made it clear that The Tribune was not softening its opposition to the church practices. But the new tone must have set extremists on both sides of the conflict wondering what was going to happen.

On New Year's Day, 1884, there appeared a long editorial which was, no doubt, intended as a declaration of policy for the new owners. The general tone is reflected in these excerpts:

The Tribune hails another New Year's day, cheered by the support of more friends than have ever gathered around it before, and exultant with more hope than it was ever permitted to indulge in. It enjoys steady prosperity, its bitterest enemies sadly acknowledge that it is a tremendous power, and that its supporters are those people who by right of intelligence and character should shape and lead public opinion in this region. It has had many dark days in the past. ... Its chiefest gratifications are that financially it is on a steadily increasing paying basis, and that it could not be hated as furiously as it is in some quarters, did not a consciousness of its power add fuel to the anger of its enemies. But its greatest hope is that, by and by, to the minds of those who most bitterly inveigh against it now, there will come the consciousness that, after all, it is right, has been right from the first, and that the happiness, self-respect and real prosperity of the majority here have been retarded just in proportion as they have refused to accept its counsels. At present it gives its patrons fuller news than the patrons of any other journal can get. ... In appreciation of this the public extends to it a generous support. Aside from this it is the only real missionary journal, its mission work being the attempt to convert this region to a full allegiance to American laws, and to draw around home the sanctity which is the foundation for greatness in a people. . . And so we hail the New Year exultingly, and so warmed by the joy which there is in the present, and by the hope which cheers with promise the future, with malice toward none and with good wishes for all, we extend a 'Happy New Year' to our patrons and to all the homes of Utah.

In other words the new owners believed The Tribune's policies in the past were right on fundamentals and that a continuation of those policies would shortly usher in a new day of dissipated hatreds and brighter prospects. But, the "exulting" optimism of The Tribune notwithstanding, the brighter day was not to dawn in the new year nor in the thirty that followed.

The issues which provoked the founding of The Tribune by dissident members of the church were as inflammatory as ever. New points of difference were constantly agitating the already turbulent surface of community life. The Tribune, on the one side, and the Deseret News and Herald on the other side, continued to take delight in raising an unending stream of issues to enliven the editorial feud. They could get into snarling arguments over the question of whether hooligans in the public parks, or on excursion trains, were gentile or Mormon young people. The Tribune would denounce a freight rate increase on outgoing ores as a conspiracy between the railroad barons and the church to close the mines until the Mormons got ready to exploit them. The Mormon "Word of Wisdom" relating to liquor, tobacco, tea and coffee appeared to come into greater prominence after the death of Brigham Young and provided topics for editorial outbursts. For example The Tribune, in irritated response to speeches of church leaders on the liquor problem, struck back with this article on August 9, 1893:

While our Mormon friends are posing as advocates of temperance, and claiming, with their usual disregard of truth, that the gentiles introduced drunkenness into Utah, it may be well to place on the record the condition of things in Utah when none but Mormons lived here. Following is a transcript from official sources, of the persons who owned and worked distilleries, and at what places and for what periods. The record extends only from 1862, when the tax on distilled spirits was first levied. What happened before that we have no way of knowing. It closes with the coming of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869, which was also, substantially, the beginning of the gentile era in Utah.

There followed a list of thirty-six distilleries, along with names of the owners and operators. The list included three municipal corporations - Salt Lake City, Provo, and St. George. In true form the article continued:

Joseph Home, to whom William Howard's distillery was sold about the time that the Salt Lake distillery was closed and dismantled, was a cover for the First Presidency of the Church. They, or at least Brigham Young and Daniel H. Wells, gave their notes to Howard for the property and set Home up as a figurehead to run it. The product, some 10,000 or 12,000 gallons, we believe, was sold to the city by Wells, for the most part at $4 per gallon. This continued a year or more or until the Pacific railroad was finished and a branch was well on its way here from Ogden, when they compelled or induced Howard to give up their notes and take back the distillery, probably because they found or feared there was no money in it.

Referring again to the thirty-six distilleries and the Mormon controlled municipal corporations, the article concluded:

When all these stills were running there were no gentiles in Utah, and the population was less than 70,000. Salt Lake, Provo and St. George cities engaged in the business, running a rectifying and a wholesale and retail liquor house, and taxing all opposition without justice or reason or mercy, until Zion's Co-operative Holiness to the Lord Mercantile Institution was organized and became its heir. That institution, of which the Church owns one-third of the stock, sells more liquor without doubt than any other house in Utah. The First Presidency of the Church and its members never tire in these days of bewailing the evils of tippling and the helplessness of the people, being a Territory, to restrain or abolish it. And this is a fair sample of their consistency in all their teaching and preaching. A more muddle headed, or a more fraudulent set of word-mongers never lived. If the Mormons hang together until they become numerous, wealthy and powerful, it will be made plain that a system which endeavors to adapt the law to the appetite instead of to bring the appetite within the law, is as fatal to moderation in the use of alcohol as it is to moderation in salacial indulgences.