The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-01-18
MAGISTRATE MOTT ON REPORT
ERS.

Magistrate Mott of New York has
been angered by the many newspaper
criticisms that have recently been
made upon him How just or unjust
they have been it is impossible for any
one outside of his bailiwick TO say. He
has been pictured and described in
some of the New York papers, and this
has doubtless had an irritating effect
upon him 1t has finally had the effect
to cause him to give an interview eX-
pressing his opinion of reporters It
was given to the New York Evening
Post, and is rather a rare thing. By
way of Introduction he said: I do
not speak to reporters; 1 don't notice
them in any way; my attitude towards
them is one of general boycott
Such an Introduction could not fail
to bring out very entertaining if
not particularly instructive interview.
Magistrate Mott, in part, said:
l have been obliged to assume my
present attitude towards reporters for
three reasons. The first is that /
have found them to be absolutely de-
void Of any regard for the truth. Not
one of the numerous things they We
written about me but has been lie;
there might occasionally have been
some grain OF truth in what they
wrote, but the articles in their en-
tirety and import have been invariably
false and misleading. Sometimes the
things they report are the most absO-
lutte fabricatiOnS. You Will find an eX-
ample of that on the first page of the
Tribune yesterday. The reporter of
that paper first represents me as max
ing a stump speech at the opening of
court on the hardship of having to sit
on Sunday and on my legal. exemption
from so doing. Now you may ask
every clerk and officer here whether l
uttered one word of any such harangue
as was attributed to me. THE clerks,
who We're listening, with unanimity
testified that the magistrate was en-
tirely guitless of the Grafton imputed
to him.I Not content with this delib-
crate misrepresentation the Tribune
man reports me at the end as snap
ping out, in answer to his questions,
that l regarded magistrates as eX-
empted by law from holding court on
Sunday. Now, here's what happened:
When l had retired from the bench
the fellow came and knocked on the
door of my private room; l opened the
door far enough to see him: he began
asking me whether | regarded the law
as relieving me from sitting on sun
day: | closed the door in his face with
out uttering one word. Then he goes
off and writes me down as swapping
an answer to him. when the only thing
/ snapped was the door. There may
have been some rudeness in declining
an interview in that way, but il must
be remembered what sort of fellows
these are, and how much better it is
to keep silent and give them nothing
to distort. But even if it was rude,
does that justify the fellow in sitting
down and writing positive lie?
From the magistrates own account
it appears that the reporter who had
the door slammed in his face was justi-
fed in speaking Of him as swapping
out his answers.
A remarkable thing about this inter
view was the unanimity with which
the clerks of the court testified to the
truth of every statement Magistrate
Mott made. Perhaps they, too, know
of his swapping answers and did not
care to come in contact with them
Another remarkable. thing about the
interview is the fact that Magistrate
Mott should have talked with such vol
utility and at such great length after
declaring that he never spoke to re-
pOrters.
What New York reporters are we
cannot say, but Judging from what we
know of reporters elsewhere, the de-
nunciation of them by Mott is unwar-
ranted. They are not perfect. nor do
they claim to be; they are liable to
error, and they admit it, but generally
speaking they endeavor to report
things as they find them. If the New
York reporters have shown Magistrate
Mott up in an Unenviable light. the
probabilities are that it is because he
has placed himself in an unenviable
light.