The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1917-03-17
SLANDERING A COMMUNITY

The Tribune is reprinting in this issue = communication appearing
in tie Sacramento Bee of March 9th, bearing the signature OF B. R.
Smith. We have not the honor-or the advantage-of Mr.. Smiths
acquaintance, but a careful reading of his communication indicates that
he is, or prefers to be considered, a citizen of California. In one para
graph he suggests that if the Rev Paul Smith is such a wonderful man
to drive out fallen women, he should come to Godheld, Nevada, and
come to Goldfed and start a crusade and stay until it is finished"
Between the opening and closing sentences of his communication
he interjects this: There is Womans Club here, but it does little
good, and often think (O how long would such women live in a
decent place like California;
Where does the Rev. Paul Smith live? In Nevada or California
Where did he make the only crusade he is known to have ever made,
except in "a decent place like California ??
Nj Smth-the correspondent, not the crusader-says there is a
girl not more than twenty who lives on the outskirts OF Goldheld that
keeps a very tough place, and that all kinds of nationaliies go there.
Against what class was the recent crusade OF the Kew. Paul Smith
directed? And where has he crusaded outside of a decent place like
California p
Mr. Smith saws he attended a Gold6eld church and was surprised
to se so few people there, and that the largest coin he saw in the con-
tribution box was a dime. Was he a ten-cent man and was the only
contribution he saw his own?
While the churches of Goldfed are not rich and while the hat
seldom overf1ows, yet if a dime was the largest coin the visitor
aw. and if he made a contribution at all, why didn't he raise the
ante p Anyhow the only pennies eve discovered in a contribution
box of any local. church bore the California brand, for pennies are I'M
known in Goldfed, outside of Uncle Sans postofice.
Godheld has her law-breakers,h her dSreputables, of course, just as
Sacramento has them, and as every town and every community of
any consequence has them, even lin a decent place like California"
We have 4S states in the Union and they all have them.
The Tribune has a very high opinion of the distinguished editor OF
the Sacramento Bee. SO high IN opinion of his discretion and judg-
ment a to know to a certainty that his own eyes never saw the COM
munication referred to-at least not until after it was printed. But
printing in a newspaper like the Bee makes 1t all the more harmful.
While Goldfeld has her disreputabhs and her law-breakers, she
also has her full ratio of those who live clean lives and respect and
,ou+, +a 1owc ~ dece,cv and morality whether written into
the statutes of the state or not.
The writer has visited many communities in California, IT'S min
ing camps, its agricultural commercial and industrial centers. He has
probably seen IS much of California as Smith has seen of Nevada or
of Goldfed. and loves the state; and he can only wonder why the
author of the communication to the Bee should have appealed for the
correction of Goldfeld morals to a crusader who achieved the only
reputation he has, as such, in a decent place like California