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UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION road, should be impressed by Tom Kearns was quite understandable. That the attraction should be somewhat mutual was highly unlikely. Thomas Kearns was a legend -- a self-educated farm boy from Nebraska who never went to high school, a multi-millionaire mining tycoon at 35, owner-publisher of Utah's largest newspaper, a United States Senator at 39, flamboyant, colorful, controversial, powerful. John Fitzpatrick, slight, bespectacled, thoroughly impressed if not totally in awe, was often part of the sideline crowd when Senator Kearns swept through the Salt Lake City railroad station with his entourage and mounds of baggage enroute to Washington, New York, Chicago, or San Francisco in pursuit of his myriad interests. Everybody knew Tom Kearns. Almost nobody, except J. W. Mulhern - and Tom Kearns - knew much about John Fitzpatrick. Mulhern did, for he was John's boss. And Kearns did, too, because Tom knew something about just about everybody in the state of Utah. What he knew of Fitzpatrick's integrity and quiet efficiency he liked and admired. Thus, while in search of a secretary in 1913, he inquired of John Fitzpatrick and found him transferred to Grand Rapids, Michigan. He sent him a note, inquiring of his availability. In that marvelous, precise prose of the early century, Fitzpatrick penned a quick response: May 26, 1913 "Dear Senator: Thank you for your kind favor of May twenty-third, which came in hand today. 498 |
