The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-04-14
ITS CLUMSY LYING.

The clumsy lying of the Snoot or
gan was never more open and evident
TO all than in its first page attack upon
The Tribune yesterday morning. 1t
copied the headline of an article which
appeared apparently as wired dispatch
from this city in the Los Angeles Elk.
aminer's issue of last Friday morning,
April 7tb. The matter referred to was
report of the remarks of President
Joseph +. Smith in opening the April
Conference here on Thursday, April 9Th
The matter which the Smoot organ OBJ
iects to, which was printed in The
Tribune on April 7th, was printed
the same morning in the Los An
geles paper, the claim being made by
the Smoot organ that the Los Angeles
paper copied its idea and report of the
Smith remarks from The Tribune This,
Of course, is a manifest impossibility,
for what was wired to the Los Angeles
paper was the News s report, and that
alone. The fact that the head writer
on the Los Angeles paper construed
the Smith remarks as applying to
polygamy is something that The Trib.
une is in no way responsible for.
We have no idea who sent the Los
Angeles Examiner its dispatch from
this city, but evidently whoever did so
took the News's version of the Smith
remarks which it printed on Thursday
evening, April 9th, precisely as The
| Tribune did.
| The claim that The Tribune misrep-
resented President Smith is absurd, in
view of the fact that we printed his
remarks precisely as they were given
in the official church organ on Thurs
day evening April 9Th. They were
given in quotation marks, apparently
being intended to be taken as a YER
batim report. We so construed it, and
copied accordingly. The Smoot paper is
constantly contrasting its own report
on Friday morning with the report
given in the official organ of the church
on Thursday evening to the disadvan-
taGe of the latter, With that conten-
tion we have nothing to do We, of
course. could not know what the Smoot
organ was going to sa" about this mat
ter on Friday morning, or how il was
going to quote President Smith. Its
report was not available for our use !;
nor could we possibly have seen it until
we saw the paper on Friday morning.
We may say, however, that even if we
had seen it, we would not have con
strued it as authoritative and exact,
as was the apparently verbatim report
carried in the official organ Of the
church. We would have given the
News s report the preference, as a mat.
ter Of course, and In taking the News 's
report we took it exactly as the News
gave it. How, then, is it possible for
, any claim to be made that we mis-
represented President Smith, In our
, comments upon the report we stated
that it was incredible that there should
have been within year so many plural
marriages. and that President Smith un'
doubtedly had included in the eleven
hundred unapproved marriages which
he mentioned, other forms that were
unapproved, as well rs the polygamous
form. Still, we do not wonder that
, the Los Angeles paper made the state
ment which 1T did. inasmuch as Presi
dent Smith. according to the officia
, church organ IS verbatim report, pro
2 ceeded at once to speak on unlawful
$ polygamous marriages in the same par
aoraph and in the very next sentence
/ following the one In which the mum
, ber Of unapprovcd marriages was
{ given.
: But the stupid clumsiness, as well al
c the dishonesty of undertaking to claim