White Pine news. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1920-1923, 1923-08-26


For the twenty-five years of its ex
istence it has suffered itself to be lee
intellectually-if the word be no
abused by saying the editor of it:
would-be leading newspaper is it
intellectual leader, which in theor,
he is supposed to be-by a man 81
low in the moral and intellectual
scale as to belong to the class O
saloon bouncers and ordinary toughs
without the education to speak o
write a grammatical sentence or tt
carry nm a two-minute conversation
on any public topic whatever. w
w. Booth is utterly ignorant. He
is worse-he is vicious.
In this connection there is .
strange paradox. If another news
paper man in Tonopah makes a sliI
and criticizes Booth in his paper, he
is set upon by two elements. One
is the class which does not want to
stir up his malignant character and
have him exhibit himself in public,
thus undoubtedly drawing the com
petitor down to Booths level and at
the same time bringing reproach up
on the town; the other of more peo-
pie than any intelligent person would
imagine who are actually on a friend
ly footing with him and have proved
themselves times without number to
have some mysterious ties by reason
of which they are always in sympathy
with him right Or wrong"
Booth is a son of John Booth. who
is spoken of as a fine old school
newspaper man Of Nevada. He pub
lished the old Silver State when it
was located AT Austin. and later
ran the Belmont Courier a most
creditable and artistic old-time Ne
vada newspaper. There were -four
sons in the family. One got into a
shooting scrape in his early man
hood and died of wounds received.
merits of the controversy are
but old-timers say he was
the aggressor and in the wrong. Ed
and Merritt were two other brothers.
Ed was a printer and not a bad fell
low. Merritt was more genial than
Bill, but he had that gun idea. One
in Tonopah he had a shooting
with A. A. Bass over a wash
erwcman. 1t was generally under
stood that before that when he at
tempted to enlist in the Spanish war
he vas rejected for mental debility.
When Bill was a boy, as he tells
himself, he would not work ana
was at outs with his father, who tried
TO make a man of him, but failed.
could have learned the printing
but was too ornery. At las.
when he was a young man and SAD
posed to be working in his fathers
printing Office he had e row with his
rather and started an opposition
paper on The opposite side OF the
His father was a staunch
and every one of the fam
lily had been up to that time, but to
make the play good Bill declared
and his paper republican.
Somewhere about the early '9Os he
was living at old Candelaria, Es-
.eralda county, and had a fine wife
and three boys. 1t was when the
camp had gone down and few people
there had money. 1t is presumed
the youngest boy was a babe in
arms, as at the time the family kept
a hired girl. A sweetheart of this
girl was a slight built, small and
young man who was work
ing rs a clerk IN q store. He was
one Of the few who had money. |
was summoned as a Juror al
then county seat. He
borrowed the amount of his fare
from this young man. Returning at
the end of the week Mrs. Booth had
gone and he learned that she had de-
parted by train. They had had con-
siderable trouble and since the
young store clerk was at the house
often on account of the hired girl
he knew more about the trouble than
an ordinary outsider and Booth is
supposed to have suspected him of
sided with the wife. As d
of fact she had borrowed the
money of him to go away, but at
time Booth did not know it. Yet
|~o'" vi pioiiih6 IA yOuliS HAL
siding with her. Booth was anrag-
II he secured the none to pay
what he had borrowed for his fare
o Hawthorne, went to the store.
it down on :hs counter and
commenced abusing the clerk for his
absence. A scuffle around the
ensued lasting, it is said, TWEEN
minutes to half an hour. Booth
was much the larger man and if il
had developed into a real fight he
could have defended himself to say
least. but he chose to put a notch on
his gun He pulled a s~ix-shooter and
shot the young man in the abdomen.
The wound was treated in Candle
laria and healed up. Sc hat the vic
tim was out a short time later, but
it appears that the bullet had not
been extracted and was giving him
trouble. At last he went to San
Francisco, where he died on the
table.
Never had anybody breathed n
word against the character Of Mrs.
Booth. which was above reproach