Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1906-02-17
MAKES THE TRIB-
UNE SQUEAL.

sages were received from Senators
Smoot and Sutherland and Congress
man Howell. Senator Sutherlands
message was very pointed and ex-
ceedingly incisive, but at the same
time dignified and stood on lofty
ground. The structures were mainly
directed at the Tribune and were SO
incisive that they appear to have pen
etrated the rhinosors-like hides of
the owner and editors of that paper
for they have been emitting long and
loud pig like squeals ever since. Mr..
Sutherland's message was as follows:
81 regret very much my inability to
accept your invitation TO be present
at the dinner to be given on the 18th
instant to commemorate the birth of
Lincoln and to celebrate the appear
ance of the new Republican paper.
However, l shall be with you in
thought and in cordial good wishes.
| am glad you are celebrating these
two events together. Abraham Lin
coin was the apostle of liberty in the
broadcast sense, and the history he
made in that connection is not only
the great glory of the party to which
he belonged, but of the Union as well.
The question of physical slavery has
taken it's place with the other dead is
sues of the past, but that other phase
of serfdom-mental slavery-equal, If
not greater in it's sinister influence,
is still being threshed out in the
minds of men.
We live in an age when the influ-
ence of the press for good and, re-
greet to say, sometimes, for evil, is all
powerful. Though the tendency in
this country is to stand Independent
of improper party, religious and per-
sonal influences and to pursue a pol
icy which makes for Independent cit
izenship, yet in particular spots we
are confronted by the degrading spec
| tacle of great genius selling itself for
and lending itself to deception and
misrepresentation. Fortunately, the
| idea is more and more becoming cry
stallized that newspaper is i'm
pressed with public trust and is not
mere means to gain private ends or
crafty personal malice. The public
will no longer stand for mere personal
journalism and the newspaper that
would live upon hate and deceit must
eventually receive the condemnation
of all fair-minded men. l have an
idea that the old-fashioned ethics of
the common, everyday life ought to
be good newspaper ethics. A newspa-
per- therefore, has no more right to
lie than an individual. The owner o.
newspaper who hires an editor to
| lie about people whom the owner does
not like, is just as contemplate as an
individual who should hire a scandal
monger to go about the neighborhood
detailing false gossip about his neigh
bors; and the editor who permits him
self to be hired for this kind of work
is little more contemplate than
either.
"The business Of a newspaper is to
gather news and to publish it fear
lessly, whether it is of a character to
please the owner or not. A newspa-
per, like an individual, may falsify by
suppressing the truth or coloring the
truth to suit the bias of it's proprie
tors quite as effectually as by making
positively false statements. | have
always thought it indecent for r VS.
paper, for instance, to publish false
special dispatches purporting to come
from other places, when, in fact, they
are written in the home Office or to
decline to publish unwelcome news
contained in real dispatches sent by
its correspondents in order to graft.