The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-03-04

I
serve the purposes of an ancestral hall.
Mr.. Man arose late the morning of
/ Washington's birthday to inform Mrs.
/ Man that he might as well have closed
| the store at the usual hour the even
| ing before. Il wasted the evening" he
said. Nobody thought of the holiday
| and we didn't do enough business to
pay for the lights" His neighbors for
got that the butcher and grocer would
be closed that day and they Toasted on
] pot luck" made up partly of 'leav-
/ ings" and partly of borrowed supplies.
Theatres Half Empty.
/ Theatrical managers. including man.
ayers of joyous comic opera. are play
1 ing heavy tragedy roles. The gorgeous
| billboard. already threatened with
abandonment by the more enlightened
show men," has forged another nail
! for the coffin that will hold it eventual
/ ly. 1t emphatically has not delivered
the goods. Scintillating star and fetch
ing soubrette move majesticaIly and
caper devilishly to haif-filled houses.
while gloom piles up i'm the box office
And thus Civilized Man lives here in
semi-darkness. complainingly. Still,
life has not ceased. People eat, drink
sleep, work, rest. play are born. die,
marry, are divorced, laugh. weep, earn
money and spend il. The movement of
the community has only been impeded.
not stopped. People even manage to
get some actual news. besides the be-
lated and inadequate service of the
outside papers.
Civilized Man has learned something
about newspapers he would never have
! learned had there been no newspa per
suspension. He has learned that news
papers are Of value, not only as dis
seminatOrs of information, but as
preventive of the dissemination of
misinformation Rumors, damaging to
business interests. that would have
/ been quieted by denial i'm or omission
from the next issue of the paper. orig
mate i'm irresponsible sources and gath
er volume as they spread. The aver
age citizen has no means of securing
accurate information and, assailed on
all sides by alarming stories, he is
ready to believe the worst. One of the
leading business institutions of the
state was forced TO issue an official
statement, in the form of circular, to
refute a rumor of financial embarrass-
ment. Fears that undoubtedly would
never had existed had the newspapers
been in operation led to a run on a
bank and threatened serious conse-
qGences for a time. Crimes that never
take place are related with circumstan-
tial detail and names. The defendant
in a noted criminal case, who had just
been convicted, was reported to have
committed suicide the morning after
the newspaper suspension. Full par
ticulars of the awful deed had Travelled
by word of mouth all over the city be-
fore a jObless newspaper man volun-
teered to get the straight of it, and
discovered the prisoner enjoying d
hearty meal at the jail.
Newspapers Veracity Accepted.
The observer notes as never before the
rapidity with which Information can
be spread by the lip process. Generally
it is wrong when 1t starts, and becomes
less nearly accurate as 1t proceeds. but
it gets around in a hurry, and some
times il is true. What do you hear?"
is the inevitable question when people
meet The reply is always qualified
and referred back to an authority"
unless it is a negative, and he is a dull
man that finds himself compelled to
say he hears nothing these days when
one may hear anything one wishes to
hear. Third cousins of men in authori-
ty on either side of the controversy are
consulted with a Difference that must
astOnish them, accustomed to less con-
sideration. The principals themselves
preserve silence. broken only by stat
yield. The public listens to all 1t hears,
tries to separate truth from falsehood,
and yearns for it's daily paper again.
The people here will be slow to say
hereafter: You can't believe half you
see in the newspapers" They have
/ learned how much falsehood the news
paper kills. how little falsehood it
prints. The natural-born liar has a
chance to tell whoDDers and escape
nov, because his victims either have
not the time or the means to refute his
statements.
Feared War on Labor
The conditions in this field. precipi-
tated by a strike of less than twenty
men, has many absurd and some SIMS
ter aspects resulting from the great
strength of organized labor and the
close relations of the unions. Radical
union men Drofessed to see in the ac-
ton of the newspapers in suspending
publication the beginning of a war on
labor that would be fought bitterly and
would produce conditions equal to, or
worse. than those that were in Cripple
Creek and the Occur d'Alenes. This sug-
gestion had strength from prospective
action by the Butte Miners union, the
leading labor organization of the state
As Nv
When the newspaper strike began the
Butte miners were soon to vote on the
question of increasing their wage scale
The decision to vote had been made by
the miners long before the newspaper
strike became imminent but other
strikes nv minor unions gave color to
the contention that general strike
would follow the vote of the miners
should they favor The increase. The
miners voted in favor of the increase
Feb. %.
Mining and treatment OF metals form
the basic industry of the region affect
ed by The newspapers now suspended,
and il was conceded that a strike of
miners, with the inevitable suspension
of mining operations in Butte and sur
rounding territory, would paralyze bus
mess for months. The fear OF general
strike has been ailayed. in part at
least by the announcement that fhe