The Mena weekly star., 1907-08-15
nHosE FORT srIlTH STORIES

,ra editorial from The Star of Mon- ,ay evening, which was comment it's displayed article of a previous late announcing that the Kansas .'ity Southern hospital was to be I,cated at Fort Smith.
 'e Then it says:
 eff the Kansas City Southern hospital r a double-riveted cinch and thoroughly ailed down for Mena, what is the use af getting so excited over. what you Tesignate as ''faking' or the story of .ome ssyellow newspaper writer?'' If olort Smith finally succeeds in landing rtn;s institution, why have the good itizens of Mena any more right to be -fssore' than those of several other ,tties who would be highly gratified to . land it
 Y Let's look into this: In recent oears another Fort Smith newspaper, Vince reformed, was in the habit of Giving out statements based on in- x Formation from a reliable source" dhat frequently were injurious to x hMena. The most aggravating in- stance was when this Fort Smith ,oaper announced that from inside information or frorc linen in position to know" it was warranted in saying that Mena was not only to lose it's division point, but was to be left nineteen miles from the new main line that was to be built by the lKansas City Southern. This, with lsimilar reliable" information did hthe people great harm, and in the uend was proven to be based on false premises.
 Now Mena was assured months ago by those who had the authority to locate the big hospital that it !. would be built here. It has gone to much expense in order to overcome all the difficulties that stood in the "way, and is and has been prepared : to meet every obligation placed upon Git in connection with the matter. < Its people have every reason to have : faith in the integrity of the hospital sl board, and have been repeatedly as sured that there was nothing now standing in the way that the hos pital would be begun just as soon as the preliminaries could be handled with proper attention and caution. With this the true situation, and having much at stake. it was cer- tainly annoying to have a paper in a neighboring city put out report tending to impress it's readers with the idea that Mena was to lose what it had every reason to believe it had honestly secured. 1t was true that the first word on the lips of almost every man on reading the article wa fake" but in a new city wh gre many man had staked his all in establishing home and busi- ness, or is preparing to do so, such a report is at least unpleasant.
 Happily, the authentic news in The Star yesterday. relieved the situation.
 As to being sore" it can be said that there have been times when only little organization was neces- sary to have caused Mena's mer- chants to have sidetracked Fort Smiths excellent wholesale houses because the course of one or more of her newspapers seemed to indicate a desire to harm Mena in these matters and this should have some bearing, as Mena probably buys more goods in Fort Smith than any other town in Arkansas. Please reme nber this
 The American in referring to the denial of its story by the railroad attorneys in Fort Smith. continues
 It may be that the local attorneys for railroads know all about the inside affairs of the head management but we have yet to be convinced on that score If we were at liberty to make public the source of our information it would liar" some folks considerably.
 The Star will submit that it be. lieyes that local attorneys of the caliber of Messrs Reid & McDon- ough of Fort Smith are more likely to be in touch with inside affairs of the management of the road they serve than a newspaper that hastens to tell all it knows.
 The Star submits that it believe: the Americans claim of much higher source" of information is un tenable. First, because it is not tn, practice of heads of great corpora tions to give inside information; and, second. if it was, it would nof be given to a newspaper that would immediately give it publicity, claim ing that in some mysterious manner 1t had obtained information tha most people knew would, if true be carefully guarded by those in terested. Third, if some one haC s4l.A1-xl13 e,xol ,,,a,o,.ta,,t N;,esl, 1,