The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-05-05
WOULDN'T AGREE TO BE DECENT

WOULDN'T AGREE TO BE DECENT
At last the Smoot organ lets the cat |
ont Of the bag in regard TO It's men
dacity in reporting the execution OF
j. j, Morris. 1t seems anxious to lay
the blame Of its falsehoods upon Shcr-
iff Sharp, a compliment which no doubt
that officer will duly appreciate. IL
boasts that it would not enter into
any agreement whereby it's report OF
the Morris execution could be 'ccn'
sored,' The facts are these The law
requires that executions he private.
The prison management, in order TO af
ford every facility for the newspapers
to get the facts in the case, offered
facilities for fair and candid report
for all, Just as tho Associated Press
news is supplied, stipulatiug only
that the plain facts alone should be re-
ported that there should be no at
tempt at exsggeration or sensational
ism, that is, the papers should. decent
" aud according 10 law, report the
hanging Just as il was, without under
taking TO make yellow sensatlonallsp
out Of it, In other words, the papers
were to be decent in their treatment
Of the case. The Tribune found no
difficulty in agreeing to this, because
that was precisely the sort Of report
that it desired to make. We published
the facts only, plain and uuvarnished.
The other papers in the city also rs
sented to the proposition that they
would con6ne their account to the
facts in the case. The Smoot paper
refused; that is. it refused to agree TO
be decent in its report Of the Morris
execution, and refused TO be bound by
the truth and the facts, refused to &C
cept such a report of the hanging as
it receives every day in its general
news service, pretending that it would
be censored, - that is, it refused to
agree to be truthful In its report. 1t
might lust as we'll say that the general
news report which it gets from the AS.
sociatcd Press is a censored report as
to say that our report of the Morris
exemption was censored.
And now il undertakes to put its
faith altogether in the Sheriff, claiming
that he was in charge of the eXecu-
tion. and consequently selected those
who should be in attendance. and 1T
expressed itself as pleased because 1T
was able to get It's account from those
who were present at the execution on
the invitation Of Sheriff Sharp, This is
a clear intimation that the statements
so clearly denied by Warden Pratt
were furnished by the Sheriff or some
one in his confidence, and 1T insists
that the finding Of what it calls ''thc
knives had an important bearing
uDon the execution, the fact being, as
Warden Pratt explains, that they were
simply strips Of metal which had been
used bv Srmay in undertaking to per
feet an invention upon which he was
at work. and were not knives at all,
nor were they of such character as
would enable them to be used as wea-
pons at all dangerous.
The summing Of the matter is that
the prison officials desired to have a
plain, unvarnished account Of the exc
cution Just as it was. The Salt Lake
papers all agreed to this, except the
Smoot paper, which determined to
leave its way open to e1aggeration,
falsehood, and misrepresentation. That
is. it was false in its account, and IN
tended to be false. In the matter of
the metal spoken Of, it placed the find.
ing of it in connection with the exc
cution. whereas the metal strips had
been withdrawn two weeks before,
simply as measure of precaution, and
vet the Smoot organ undertook to
make a sensation out of the finding
of these "knives' in connection with
the execution Of the death sentence
upon Norris
The public can see. therefore, why
it was that the Smoot paper refused
to pledge itself to be decent and con
fine itself to the truth in the matter of
the Morris execution; it wanted to be
free to indulge IN falsehood and sen
sationalism. The case is perfectly
nlain. on the admission of the Smoot
organ itself. 1t refused to agree to be
decent. and in its account Of the exc
cution it carried out its indecent pur
pose by printing falsehoods aud sen
sational stuff that was both untrue and
that had nothing whatever TO do with
the execution, nor with the Morris case
in any Of its phases.