Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-11-27
the STANDARD As 4 DEBA7ER.

Readers of the Anaconda Standard
cannot fail to have noted the lordly air.
and dignified assumption Of intelligence.
with which that paper has approached
the consideration of public questions.
It has given publicity to statement
after statement. relative to matters of
concern to the people, without fortifying
them with any kind of evidence what
soever.
When it's utter lack of logic and pow
erty of proof have been pointed out by
the Inter Mountain. it has wrapped its
cloak of consequential Quietude about it,
and lapsed into a silence as profound
as the petrified larynx of an Egyptian
sphinx.
Until yesterday it was generally be-
lieved, by a wise and discriminating pub
lie, tina the Standards refusal to justify
its position when assailed was due to it's
lack of ability to logically sustain the
statements to which it had committed
itself.
III uAioN - A"teSs 49, N'AN
ard assigns certain reasons for it's i'm
ediat retreat from the field whenever
it saw the Inter Mountain approaching
it's works.
A point had been reached where it felt
that some sort of an excuse must be as
signed, other than utter Indifference to
the existence of a newspaper whose
standing in the community is quite as
good as it's own, whose readers in the
state of Montana are more numerous.
and whose character for truth and
veracity is not adulterated with the po-
litical interests of a gigantic trust.
Hence, the public is informed by the
Anaconda Standard that with all it's
greatness it still lacks a good deal of
being a national issue.
Not having attained that elevated po-
sition, it claims the right to discuss pub
lie questions all by itself. without hav-
ing anybody discuss its discussions.
After pumping courage into Aguinal-
dos cause for a year, at the rate of
three Columns d DAY, NIleH our govern
ment was trying to subdue the bandit,
the sensitive soul of the Standard inces.
and crawls back into retirement under
its own vine and fig tree, when the Inter
Mountain intimates that those who are
not for the republic, when it is engaged
in war, are against it, and those who
are against it are close to the border
lines of treason within their hearts.
-
We are willing to accept in good faith
the confession of the Standard that it
is not a national issue, but that does
not necessarily deprive it of the Inter
Mountains attention.
1t is ayowedly the leading demo-
cratic newspaper in this state, with the
possible exception of the Butte Times,
and as such it is engaged in the un-
%scrupulous work of retailing political
odder to the faithful.
1t %pretends to analyze public questions
for democrats who can't read. and in
variably swings them into line on cleo
ton day.
AS a democratic leader it stands
sponsor for the relation of its party in
Montana to national and state issues.
and it's opinions, when wrong, must not
go unchallenged by those who do not
endorse their orthodoxy or swallow the
sickly pabulum set forth as argument.
The Inter Mountain, therefore, owes
its contemporary no apology for having
taken issue with it's attempt to work off
stale platitudes and pock-n1arked gener-
alities for genuine statements of fact.
1t was a duty which this newspaper
owed to the public, especially to those
democrats who pay the editor of the
Standard a salary to think for them,
under the erroneous impression that they
are getting value received.
Though the Standard has Inundated
itself enough to acknowledge that it is
not a national issue, and therefore is not
of national Importance, it still clings to
the idea that it knows a national issue
when it sees it-an hallucination from
which we hope to see it recover in due
time.
1t has required nearly a year Of con-