| Show THE UTAH NEWSPAPER HALL OF FAME George Crane and Henry Holley the co-owners It was Gibbs baptism of fire in journalism He described the Blade as novelty and said subscriptions soon totalled 150 Local reaction to the paper was less than enthusiastic To the end that Crane and Holley were victims of bad Indian scare and decided to let their editor take over Indian scare historian Cecil Alter explains wasway of referring to supposed secret but summary exterminations by Danites or Destroying Angels alias Mormon vigilantes So effective were they that Gibbs printer concluded setting anti-Mormon editorials was unhealthy and he too vanished He was re placed by two local girls Mary Kelly and Belle Hunt and the paper continued to be produced withnew policy Free thinking free utterance free conduct within the law andsquare deal to all Gibbs next problem was with Viele and Lorenzo Gaisford editor and proprietor respectively of the Millard County Progress in Fillmore They charged Gibbs with beingliterary pirate he had them arrested for criminal libel The Park Record of March 23 1895 reported Gibbs got worsted The handwriting was on the wall Gibbs began to mail the Blade from the Oasis post office rather than Deseret Alter surmised in retrospect that The Oasis postmaster was probably one of the few men in the country who was permitted by the militant editor to say the Blade was second class matter Gibbs own version in his manuscript said One day the late Apostle Francis Lyman opened the sanctum door just wide enough to admit his face and inquired quizzically Is the fighting editor in The gist of that interview was Brother Gibbs you are doinggood work but dongo too far Persuaded Gibbs moved the paper to Nephi retained the name Blade and there published the first edition of Volume Three on June 15 1895 But on October 26 1895 his own paper announced he had accepted editorship of the Provo Dispatch His relationship with the controversial weekly was ended The Dispatch an outspokenly Democratic organ had started asdaily then reduced its frequency to semi-weekly 521 Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
