| Description |
UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION views. Sometimes without physical conflict. A Salina newsman "called a spade a spade" in 1906 and was escorted to the city limits. C. N. Lund, Jr. later wrote poetically of the clash in his Mt. Pleasant Call, where he'd re-established after his Sevier Valley Call had incurred the wrath of Salina citizens. "Whether good or bad. Whichever it be. A hot headed mob raised H__ with me! I came from Salina RFD, where they didn't do a thing to a guy like me!" A 1915 battle in Price, involving Hall of Fame publisher Robert W. Crockett merited headlines at the time and during subsequent court proceedings. In its July 2nd issue, the Carbon County News reported: "Driven to exasperation by the continual jibes directed at himself and members of his family by the Price Sun, County Treasurer Alpha Ballinger last Sunday afternoon seized the editor, R. W. Crockett, threw him to the ground and gave him a sound thrashing. Crockett later stuck a knife blade into Ballinger's abdomen and that gentleman has been confined to his bed on order of a physician since the cutting." Obviously, both written and verbally-expressed opinions were at the bottom of all conflicts in which early Utah journalists engaged. And it would be surprising, in a state with such a dynamic religious history, if opposing church beliefs didn't frequently ignite those engagements. It would be equally surprising if those early papers which literally waged "verbal war" on that subject long endured in the hostile atmosphere their crusades created for them. The records clearly enunciate the outcome. Of all the papers which espoused an anti-Mormon position, only The Salt Lake Tribune, arguably the state's leading publication today, and the Park Record, elder citizen of the weekly press, have survived. The Tribune makes no effort to erase its early participation in what history has labelled the "irrepressible conflict." Its editors of that era called it "a conflict between two hostile systems, each struggling for permanent mastery." Eventually recognizing it as a "no-win" battle, The Tribune chose to end the editorial tirades and launched what has now become an 272 |
