The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1924-12-18
BITES THE HAND THAT
REFUSED TO FEED 1T.

ness men OIL Won IOlnJ ny Tic
Roosevelt County Independent, a
newspaper that suspended publication
in this city with its issue Of Deem
Der 5, is so wanton, so undeserved
and so p~itifully misrepresentation of
: the facts that justice to our commune
ity forbids the passing Of it without
comment. 1t is with genuine regret
that remarks Of this nature have to
be given place in our Christmas issue.
The Herald had hoped to refrain COM
pletely from any alteration with its
erstwhile contemporary, but the plain
comment here made is without the
slightest i'll feeling towards Mr.. Tai
bot. His kindly and friendly words
directed in his closing effusion to
the editor of The Herald and his wife
are accepted in the spirit in which
they were apparently given. We met
nothing but courtesy in our dealings
with Mr.. and Mrs. Talbot. But all
that cannot deter us from standing
in defence of our citizens against
the brand of journalism that the In
dependent and related papers deal in.
To begin with Mr.. Talbot never be-
came acquainted with Wolf Point and
is citizens and the great weakness of
his policy as an editor undoubtedly
resulted from following the dictates
of the man higher up. In the article
that served as the closing chapter in
the independents career the writer,
either through misinformation or
misconception was in error in all of
his chief premises. Right at the be-
ginning of his article he says that a
number of the merchants of Wolf
Point own The Herald. Just a few
| INQUIRIES would have shown him that
this statement was untrue. A few
lines later on he refers to The Herald
being ''owned and controlled by a
bunch of business men who have no
thought for aught but their own Il
lancial gain" This is quite an i'm
posing period but is absolutely false.
While a few business men carry a
small amount of stock in The Herald,
they don't own it or pretend to w
t.; they do not control it nor attempt
0 control it. If they had no thought
sor anything but their own financial
yain they would have gotten rid of
his stock long ago, because it has
never returned them a penny in cash
dividends. What the business men
lid for the Herald they did for the
good of the community.
It is of small moment how much
he affairs of The Herald were mis-
represented, but the fact of a few
hares of stock in The Herald in the
hands Of a few business men seemed
o Mr.. Talbot the whole reason for
the lack of patronage accorded the
Independent. In this he was wholly
deceived as he was also in his al
eyed belief in a boycott. The bust
ness concerns Of Wolf Point didn't
p~atronize the Independent because
they didn't want to. They did not
regard it as an advertising medium
Of any considerable value, and be-
sides all that, why throw favors to a
paper which in the past had needless
ly maligned the town and vilified its
citizens, and then invaded the town
With the same hostile, threatening
attitude.
Mr.. Talbot hopes that 'the grip Of
the dictators will soon be broken and
that Wolf Point will come into its
own" 1t is in miserable taste for a
paper owned by Charles E. Taylor to
mention ~dictators. At the outset of it's
brief career in this city the indie
PENDENT assumed a dictatorial atti-
tude, which was one Of the reasons
why it totally failed to gain the con-
fidence of the people. AS to coming
into it's own, the city of Wolf Point
has already come into its own, and
has done so through the united loyalty
and broad guage generosity of its
DlSllGSS iitu, anu III SPiSC " ~
bitter opposition of the Taylor news
papers. A newspaper with the selfish
inconsistent, narrow policy of the In
dependent would never in a thous-
and years help a community to come
into it's own. To stir up dissent, to mis-
lead, to misrepresent, encourage fac
tional strife and teal down what
others are trying to build up, that
is the mission of papers of the indie
pendent's stripe.
Its support acted as a blight. An
alleged friend of the farmer, it sue
ceeded through its strenuous cam
paign in McCone county in defeating
the farmers ticket that was success
full two years ago. Proclaiming loudly