The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1950-04-20
News and Views
-. /. By ALEXANDER s. LIPSETT, Can ILNS Feature)

Il Dy
| Nowadays the death of news
paper is such common occurrence
that an obituary is considered q
waste of time and space. Occasion
ally, however, a case comes along
which is All object lesson thought
lessness, a perfect demonstration
of the lack of interest with which
these events are viewed by the
labor movement. Such a case is
that of the Wyoming Utah Labor
Journal, a 40-year-old respected
union newspaper. 1t folded under
circumstances so strange that they
warrant some explanation.
To begin at the beginning: The
Journal, controlled and published
by United Mine Workers District
% was the only union publication
in the Wyoming Utah area; it's
death has left the labor unions of
that region without an official
voice. According to our informants,
the UNIV district leadership had
for years been cool and uncooper-
ative toward the paper. The actual
decision, however, to suspend pub
lication was made on highest union
levels in Washington. A last t-min-
ute attempt to keep the paper GO
ing under the ownership and re-
sponsibility of its employees found
cred on the alleged refusal of the
UNIV leadership to sell control.
= 4 <
Before going into the background
of this strange story, it is well to-
realize that the Journal, in the
words of the Salt Lake Tribune,
was a fortnight spokesman of
trade unionism, its shutdown a loss
to democracy, to intermountain
journalism and to labor. This is re-
freshing praise from a daily which
though by no means pro-labor is
aware of what the destruction of
free journalism is likely to do to
the press, labor and non-labor
alike.
From the staunch Labor Advo-
cate in the neighboring state of
Colorado came comment that the
Journal was zone of the best edit
ed and conscientious" labor news
Under the editorship of
Teno Roncalio. the Journal had
taken on a new lustre as a spokes-
man for the common people. Break
ing the bonds of pure labor news,
it had taken fortnight and pro-
gressive stands on community, ma
tional and international affairs,
and had more and more become the
social conscience of an area unfor
not served by any really
progressive daily paper"
!. i x
What was behind the decision to
a paper which in the
judgment of labor and non-labor
elements occupied an important
place not only in the mountain
states but in the structure of Am
erican organized labor itself ? The
reasons are not difficult to find.
they are, as so often explained in
this column, in the attitude of labor
tself; in the lack of public respon-
,ibility on the part of large seq
nents of labor; i'm their penny
policies and reluctance to
make even an insignificant part of
heir ample means available for the
lpkeep and development of the la
Dor press; and last but not least,
n the unwillingness, to put it
mildly, of some union leaders to
practice the tenets of democracy
md freedom of which they so often
md resoundingly speak.
These are harsh words. Unfortu-
lately, they are confirmed by what
EDITOR Roncalio himself had to sayl
shortly before the Journals end.
The Wyoming Utah Labor Journal, |
lie wrote, is "on its deathbed, the
,ictim of a host of ailments. ;.
t has tried to function as both an
American newspaper and an organ
zation trade sheet. Conflicts We're
Inevitable. Censorship in a trade
'rgan is necessary for organiza-
ional discipline, but is a cancer
md curse to an American news
PAPER. We die, among other causes,
rom cancer of the press"
"The Journal, during its 40-yearl
ife, has been the organ of the Am
rican Federation of Labor, then
he CIO, and more recently of the