Weekly journal-miner., 1914-09-09
EVERYBODY'S COM
 PEELED TO RETRACT
tFrom Fridays Oaily.)

UT OlIl I'll iudl S Odllk.J
 . 4 complete rctraction is publish
 cd by Everybody's Magazine for
 September of the article entitled Uncle Sam's Lawbreakers" publish
 cd in April. 1913. and written by
 Frank Harris Blighton, one time editor of a undertaking journal at Tucson srd indicted many times for l;5el The article in Everybody $ magazine contained many false charges against Former Governor and Former U. s. District Judge
 Richard r.. Sloan who sued the
 Ridgeway company. publishers of ;he magazine for $50,OJO damages
 for publishing the false charges. The following is the retraction in full:
 A Correction.
 Evc-Yhody's magazine has made an error and done an injustice.
 In inc issue for April 1913, we published an extended article enti- tied Uncle Som. Lawbreaker" It vas an account of the circumstanc- cs under which the United States Reclamation service has been de veloping the irrigation of arid dis tricts in the southwest. with par ticular attention to the Salt River Valley project in Arizona and the distribution Of power and water from the great Roosevelt dam. The contract between the Reclamation Service and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. by which cleo tricity was sold for distribution in Phoenix was the subject of severe comment.
 In certain pal agraphs of this ar ticle the Hon. Richard F. Sloan was criticized in the statement of facts and in deductions thcrefrom. It was suggested that as Territorial Governor of Arizona. Mir. Sloan had an influential part in sanctioning the contract in question: that as counsel for the Salt River Valley Water Users Association he had failed to render undivided and faith full service in passing upon the con tract; and that later as Federal judge of that district Ca position which he held by appointment of President TafD he might have oc- casion to pass upon litigation aris- ing out of that contract.
 The fact is that the contract un- der discussion was made long be- fore Mir. Sloan was appointed Ter ritOrial Governor He. therefore. could not as governor have been q party to the contract Nor is there any evidence that he used his off cial position in any way in behalf of the contract or of any interest be- hind it. Neither did he during his service as counsel for the Water Users Association have any occa- sion to pass upon. the contract or advise regarding it.
 It has been the custom and the pride of Everybody's to go after anything we believe to be wrong. in a wholc-hcarted. two-fsted way. We have done that in the past: we are doing it in the present. and we shall do it in the future. It is our purpose always to deal in truth: but we have at times in the past made our percentage of human CT TOT. and we shall probably do so again. When we discover that we have done so, we shall as in the past, make frank acknowledgement of the fact, as earnestly as we may have made the statement in the first instance.
 In associating Governor Sloan with this contract, and in drawing the deductions thercirom. we made one of those errors and we are sin ccrely sorry for it. There was no basis for identifying Governor Sloan | with this contract in any way. nor for the inference that his associa ton with the contract would have any influence whatever upon his acts on the Federal bench. We ex- tend to him our sincere regrets. !!