THE PRICE OF ICONOCLASM:
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF E.W. SCRIPPS
AND FRANK HARRIS BLIGHTON
DURING ARIZONA'S PURSUIT OF STATEHOOD
by Michael S. Sweeney, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Utah State University
Room 311, Animal Science Building
Utah State University
Logan, Utah 84322-4605
(801) 797-3213 (office)
(801) 787-8696 (home)
email: [log in to unmask]
Presented to the History Division
of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,
Chicago, Illinois,
July 30, 1997
150-word abstract:
The Price of Iconoclasm: The Correspondence of E.W. Scripps and Frank Harris
Blighton During Arizona's Pursuit of Statehood
This paper is the first historical examination of an iconoclastic, pro-labor
newspaper, Voice of the People, which circulated in Tucson, Arizona, during
1910 and 1911, contributed to the passage of a progressive state constitution
and until recently was believed to have no surviving copies. The author draws
upon the correspondence between the paper's editor, Frank Harris Blighton, and
newspaper chain-builder E.W. Scripps, which has been preserved in the Scripps
Manuscript Collection at Ohio University. Although Scripps was notorious for
being tight-fisted, he gave Blighton $1,500 and free access to Scripps's wire
services. The author analyzes the letters and the few remaining copies of the
newspaper and concludes that Scripps and Blighton formed a mentor-protege
relationship that ultimately failed because of the extramedia- and
ideological-level pressures that Blighton's iconoclasm produced in his
community. The author grounds his research in the theories of influences on news
media content proposed by Shoemaker-Reese and Herman-Chomsky.
75-word abstract
The Price of Iconoclasm: The Correspondence of E.W. Scripps and Frank Harris
Blighton During Arizona's Pursuit of Statehood
This paper is the first examination of a pro-labor newspaper, Voice of the
People, which circulated in Tucson, Arizona, during 1910-11 and contributed to
the passage of a progressive state constitution. The author draws upon the
correspondence between the editor, Frank Harris Blighton, and newspaper
chain-builder E.W. Scripps. This paper concludes that Scripps and Blighton
formed a mentor-protege relationship that ultimately failed because of
extramedia and ideological pressures that Blighton's iconoclasm produced in his
community.
If Frank Harris Blighton, a financially struggling Tucson newspaper editor,
had known of E.W. Scripps' reputation as a penny pincher, he might have
hesitated to ask for a handout in 1910. And the newspaper Blighton founded that
year might not have survived long enough to fight for a progressive constitution
in Arizona.
Scripps was an unlikely candidate to give money to a stranger such as
Blighton. Scripps' first rule of moneymaking was to never spend as much as he
earned,[1] and that philosophy helped him build America's first chain of
newspapers. Despite the wealth that by 1910 had allowed him to live in
semi-retirement on a palatial ranch near San Diego, Scripps habitually agonized
over expenses. A decade before he received his first letter from Blighton,
Scripps had decreed that his reporters must buy their own pencils.[2] He had
complained to the Kentucky Post when the editor's wife received $1.50 for
typing a report.[3] And in a notorious budgetary crackdown, Scripps had ordered
the Cleveland Press to stop buying toilet paper. His rationale was that
newsprint would work just as well, and it did, until the pipes became
clogged.[4] By 1910, Scripps was slashing expenses in Chicago in his ultimately
unsuccessful attempt to establish an adless newspaper and free himself from
advertisers' pressures.[5] Thus, when Scripps received Blighton's request, he
reacted in character. He said no -- at first.
Instead of money, he offered advice on how to put Blighton's new paper,
Voice of the People, on sound financial footing. But after another round of
letters flew between Arizona and Southern California, Scripps did the
unthinkable: He gave Blighton free use of stories from the Newspaper Enterprise
Association (NEA), Scripps' feature syndicate; a free subscription to United
Press, his wire service; and finally a series of monthly checks in an attempt to
keep Blighton's paper solvent while Tucson advertisers deserted him and
political foes hounded him. According to his correspondence, Scripps' expenses
totaled at least $1,500, not counting the income he lost when he waived the
franchise fees for Blighton's use of the syndicated and wire service stories. In
the end, however, Scripps' gamble failed. Voice of the People went bankrupt
early in January 1912, although not before Arizona voters endorsed a
constitution that included the progressive political platform Blighton had
championed in its pages. Scripps regarded Arizona's attainment of statehood as
an example of what courageous people could accomplish against long odds.[6] To
that end, his gamble paid political dividends instead of the financial kind.
Blighton, whose letters depict extreme self-confidence, credited himself
with the voters' decision to empower themselves to unseat federal judges despite
President William Howard Taft's hostility toward such a measure. This claim
cannot be taken at face-value because he was not alone in trumpeting a
progressive constitution for Arizona. Phoenix's Arizona Gazette switched its
political allegiance in 1910 from Republican to Democratic because it favored
direct democracy, and it carried out a war of words with the Arizona Republican
about the proposed constitution.[7] And former President Theodore Roosevelt
argued in June 1911 in The Outlook, a national magazine that Roosevelt helped
edit, that Arizona voters had the right to shape their constitution as they saw
fit.[8] While it is impossible to quantify each publication's influence on the
constitutional vote, the Voice of the People obviously was part of a small
chorus. The paper's distinction, and perhaps its impact on the constitutional
process, is that its politics were vehemently opposed to those of the entire
Pima County (Tucson) delegation to the Constitutional Convention. All five of
the county's delegates, as well as most of its business and political leaders,
opposed a plank permitting initiative, referendum and recall. Disliking the
constitution as written, the five delegates refused to sign, resulting in the
historical footnote that the original Arizona Constitution lacks any Tucson
representative's signature. Regardless of any statewide influence Blighton's
paper might have had, it changed no votes among the delegates of his hometown.
The short history of the Voice of the People is less an accounting of personal
political triumph than one of political tension between journalists and
government, between laborers and business, and between journalism's ideals and
its need to turn a profit.
Illuminating all three is the correspondence between Scripps, a veteran of
these struggles, and Blighton. Seven letters from Scripps to Blighton and ten
from Blighton to Scripps are preserved in the E.W. Scripps Manuscript Collection
at Ohio University's Alden Library.
This paper is the first to examine their correspondence in detail. It also
is the first to examine copies of the Voice of the People. Throughout most of
the twentieth century, no copies of the newspaper were known to have survived. A
1949 survey of Arizona newspaper archives by the University of Arizona drew a
blank on Blighton's paper.[9] However, the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson
at an unknown date acquired a dozen issues -- some complete, some fragmented --
between June 2, 1910, and October 2, 1911.[10] A complete description and
analysis of these issues is beyond the scope of this study; however, individual
stories, photographs and editorial cartoons will be drawn from this archive to
expand upon the Scripps-Blighton letters.
This paper will examine the history of Blighton's newspaper and his
relationship with Scripps. It will analyze their correspondence and Blighton's
journalistic decisions primarily through the lenses of two theories of media
content. The first, a hierarchical model of influences proposed by Pamela J.
Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese, argues that while most media studies examine the
influences of content upon audience and society, it is equally important to
understand the influences that shape content itself. They describe five
concentric rings of influence on media content, from the micro to the macro:
(1) the individual journalist's background in the center, surrounded by (2) the
journalistic routines in gathering and presenting the news, (3) media
organizational structures, (4) extramedia influences, and (5) ideology. The
outermost three rings are of special interest. According to Shoemaker and Reese,
the media organizational level exerts influence on content through the news
medium's need to make a profit; e.g., concerns about circulation and advertising
help shape the news. Shoemaker and Reese also state that extramedia influence
lies in the social, economic and governmental forces of the community in which
the news medium appears, and that ideological influence becomes apparent when
the news medium challenges such basic community beliefs as capitalism and the
power of the individual.[11] These three broadest rings in the Shoemaker-Reese
model correspond roughly to the "filters" through which potential news stories
flow in the second theory, proposed by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. They
characterize the following five extramedia influences on media content, in no
particular order, as methods of maintaining the status quo and upholding
authority: the news medium's profit motive; reliance on advertising; reliance on
official sources; the "flak" of protest against stories that attack the status
quo; and anti-communism as a national ideology.[12] Of these, all are apparent
in this study of Blighton's paper except the reliance on official sources and
anti-communism.
The Blighton-Scripps letters pass through three phases in five years.
First was the exploration of shared interests, in which the two
newspapermen began identifying with each other. Scripps and Blighton discovered
they both favored labor over capital, and ambition and hard work over knowledge.
Scripps' letters in this first phase, from October through December 1910, were
marked by his advice to Blighton to work hard and cherish the excitement of a
state being born. He compared Blighton's experience to Scripps' own shoestring
operations when he was starting his career. By establishing points of identity
with Scripps, Blighton encouraged broader communication.
The second phase, lasting until October 1911, witnessed the solidifying of
a mentor-prot g relationship. Scripps and his staff read Blighton's paper,
advised him how to improve it, and expressed confidence in him. The high point
occurred in mid-1911, when Scripps and Blighton sent copies of Blighton's paper
to congressmen sympathetic to Arizona's gaining a progressive constitution. In
this period, Scripps' long-distance mentoring role was unusual for an editor. A
mentor has been defined as a long-term coach who promotes career growth and
personal advancement, and as a sponsor and role model in a relationship centered
on the skills a prot g wants to develop.[13] While it is common for mentoring
roles to exist within a newspaper, it apparently is less common for one
journalist to mentor another if they have no organizational connection.[14] A
clear example of one editor coaching another at a separate paper can be found in
Horace Greeley's 1860 letter to a country editor advising him to cultivate
success by getting his neighbors' names into his paper -- but there is no
indication in Greeley's letters that this relationship blossomed into long-term
mentoring.[15] Scripps, on the other hand, had several mentoring or patronage
relationships in his life, and not all of them in journalism. He gave a $5,000
commission to sculptor Arthur Putnam because, he said, he admired the man's
spunk and was curious about what he would achieve. His curiosity also prompted
him to finance Professor William Ritter's marine biological station in
California.[16] Studies of mentoring indicate that interpersonal factors play a
significant role in determining how mentors and prot g s choose each other.
Specifically, if they look for partners who are competent, bright and motivated,
they are likely to pair up with people who appear confident.[17] Blighton and
the other people Scripps supported radiated strength and confidence; it is not
surprising that although Scripps was frugal, he sometimes chose, in his words,
to "bet on a man."[18]
The third phase, beginning with Scripps' investigation into Blighton's
alienation from his wife in October 1911 and ending with Scripps' refusal to
loan money to Blighton in 1915, was one of disillusionment. Scripps' initial
identification with a hard-working iconoclast had become colored by his
realization that Blighton's paper was failing despite Scripps' best efforts,
reflecting poorly on Blighton. The final blow may have been Blighton's
revelation of a successful libel suit against him by the governor of Arizona.
Blighton first wrote to Scripps on October 3, 1910, misspelling Scripps'
Miramar home as "Miramont." The single-spaced, one-page letter showed signs of
being written in a hurry or typed by someone possessed of marginal skill as a
typist -- seven spelling or typographical errors were corrected by overstriking
to make a darker impression.[19] The shoddy typing is noteworthy because
Blighton had worked in newspapers for several years in New York and Arizona
before starting the Voice of the People on May 25, 1910, and said in a later
letter that he made pocket money by hiring himself out as a stenographer.[20] In
light of these facts, his error-filled, muddy letter to Scripps indicated
Blighton's casual attitude and suggested low expectations of receiving a
significant reply. The letter appeared on letterhead for the "Voice of the
People Printing and Publishing Company, Arizona State Weekly," demonstrating
that although Blighton pleaded poverty, he at least had enough money to keep up
appearances in his correspondence. The letterhead carried the motto "For All Who
Labor and Are Heavy Laden." The overall impression was one of earnestness.
Blighton's letter said he was writing to Scripps at the suggestion of a
mutual acquaintance. Ben Heney, the former mayor of Tucson, was the brother of a
friend of Scripps' and had written the publisher in 1909 to alert him about
corruption in the Tucson police administration.[21] Blighton said he had worked
for nineteen weeks, since the founding of the Voice, without compensation,
spending all of the money he had set aside for its development as well as $350
he had obtained from his wife. He listed his weekly circulation as 1,400,
including 1,000 subscribers, and then cut to his request: Would Scripps be
willing to help move a $6,100 newspaper plant from Phoenix to Tucson to
"establish a clean, fearless, progressive daily, with ideas and ideals."[22]
Scripps thought enough of his reply that he pasted a copy of it in his
letterbook collection -- the bound volumes of his correspondence separate from
his looseleaf files. His reply offered advice instead of money, asserting that
"all the capital and energy" he possessed were earmarked for a "peculiarly
difficult and expensive new journalistic enterprise."[23] The letter of advice
to a struggling young journalist was typical of Scripps, who encouraged his
editors with such homilies and included a chapter of them in his
autobiography.[24] He told Blighton:
If the founder of a newspaper has the right kind of stuff in him
he wins whether he has large capital, small capital, or no capital at
all.
My original capital consisted of $80.00 in money and a vigorous
constitution and enough self-conceit to equip a regiment of ordinary
men.[25]
Blighton fired off a response, picking up on the autobiographical cues that
Scripps had dropped. In three single-spaced pages, filled with overstrikes,
underlines, scribbled editing marks and capitalization of a handful of words
(IDEAL . . . COMPLETE . . . EXACTLY), Blighton tried to draw comparisons between
himself and the magnate of Miramar. His own capital in founding the Voice of the
People was $95, he said, and his supplemental capital included "six feet one
and a quarter [sic] of 200 pounds of flesh and bone and blood, with about
sixteen years of newspaper training and my own determination to quit when I have
to -- and never to have to."[26] Blighton said he was struggling to continue to
print the Voice despite being charged with assault after, he said, he was
attacked by eight henchmen of the corrupt police chief and city recorder, and
arrested ten times on charges of criminal libel.[27] Although he did not say
so, three of the arrests resulted from charges being pressed by a journalist at
a competing newspaper, managing editor James T. Williams Jr. of the Daily
Citizen. Blighton had accused him of being a "carpet-bagger" so cozy with the
political and business elites in Pima County that he rode to and from
Washington, D.C., at the expense of the Southern Pacific Railroad.[28]
What Blighton chose to tell Scripps was that his paper continued to appear,
although he never said whether he had moved the press from Phoenix. He
reiterated that he was broke and his paper in danger of bankruptcy. He blamed
his troubles with authority on his championing a progressive constitution for
Arizona at the Constitutional Convention that fall; his paper said his opponents
favored a "canned constitution" that, in a parody of the Pure Food and Drug Act,
was "guaranteed to contain no modern ideas."[29]
The first issue of the Voice of the People that survives, dated June 10,
1910, testifies to Blighton's status as iconoclast. The front page of the
four-page broadsheet contains six stories. The two above the fold are an attack
on Tucson city officials for controlling the city's business climate and an
attack on the "Tucson Food Trust" for fixing the price of shredded wheat
biscuits at twice the national average. The four stories below the fold concern
the conviction of a contracting firm for hiring illegal immigrants; a report
that the Tucson water supply was running low; a request for citizens to prevent
the loss of the El Paso and Southwestern railroad, coupled with a charge that
one of Tucson's leaders had pleaded with the railroad's surveyors to avoid the
town; and a district attorney's investigation of vegetable-market collusion in
San Francisco. The front page also included a cartoon mocking the "over-rated
power" of one of the city's leaders, identified as the "Kink" of Tucson. Inside,
the editorial page hammered at the necessity of the Arizona Constitution's
inclusion of the initiative and referendum (the recall of public officials was
not mentioned).[30] The next issue that survives in the Arizona Historical
Society's archives, dated November 4, 1910, devoted a front-page editorial and
lead story (upper-right corner) to the battle over initiative and
referendum.[31]
Unknowingly, Blighton had struck a chord with Scripps by his devotion to
grass-roots politics and had taken a major step toward establishing rapport with
the older publisher.
In their politics, Blighton and Scripps were much alike. Scripps, born in
Illinois in 1854, had founded his first paper, the Cleveland Penny Press, in
1878. He organized the first major American newspaper chain, which grew to total
thirty-four papers in fifteen states. His papers subscribed and contributed to
his NEA syndicate, founded in 1902 to supply feature stories, cartoons and
editorials, and to the United Press, the wire service Scripps co-founded in
1907. Scripps' papers were low-priced, edited for what he called "the 95
percent" who made up the common people, and pro-labor. Scripps' editors were
advised of his political views in a 1910 memo from Robert Paine, Scripps'
lieutenant, to William B. Colver, the general manager of the NEA. First on the
list of Scripps' thirty-three editorial policies was "Loyalty to the masses --
[l]oyalty to what is right and best for the common people, especially including
legitimate labor organizations." Also listed were endorsements for a
non-partisan judiciary; government inspection and control of mines; and the
establishment of direct democracy through initiative, referendum and recall,
which allowed voters to bypass legislative bodies to pass laws and remove
officeholders.[32] Direct democracy so enraptured Scripps that he tried to
organize a progressive intelligentsia in 1910. He invited to Miramar the
muckraker Lincoln Steffens, lawyer Clarence Darrow, Wisconsin Senator Robert
LaFollette and others unhappy with the Taft administration, which they
considered too reactionary, but nothing came directly from their meetings.[33]
Nevertheless, Scripps' biographer asserted that this band of reformers helped
spread dissatisfaction with Taft and may have been the most powerful influence
in the birth of the Progressive Party candidacy of Roosevelt in 1912.[34] In the
political hothouse at Miramar, Blighton's letters found fertile ground.
Little is known of Blighton's background other than what he volunteered to
Scripps in their correspondence. What can be gleaned from his letters portrays a
man who believed in the wisdom of the common people and the importance of
journalism. "Emerson is his [Blighton's] Bible, and Thoreau furnishes his
philosophy," Scripps told an associate in a letter.[35] Scripps related in that
same letter that Blighton had been raised in New York state and worked at
newspapers in Rochester, Albany and Buffalo before moving to the West in 1908 or
1909. He was born in 1874.[36] A photographic self-portrait in Voice of the
People pictured Blighton in a light-colored suit, dark hat and polka-dot bow
tie. He held a reporter's notebook in his left hand and a pen aloft in his
right, not as if he were preparing to write, but rather as if he were presenting
it as a symbol of truth. His face was clean-shaven, his lips full and broad, his
eyes shallow-set, and his gaze direct.[37]
The first exchange of letters between these two newspapermen, in October
1910, occurred during a difficult week for Arizona. The previous month, voters
in the territory had chosen fifty-two delegates to the territory's
Constitutional Convention. In the campaigning before the vote, many of the
territory's papers had urged the election of delegates who would produce a
document that would please Taft, the conservative Republican lawyer who occupied
the White House. Republicans told voters that the most important goal of the
election was to guarantee that Arizona would achieve statehood, and the best way
to do that was to keep initiative, referendum, and recall -- the three pillars
of direct democracy -- out of the constitution. Many Democrats, including
speakers who had experience with the progressive constitutions of Oregon and
Oklahoma, stumped the territory to urge adoption of initiative, referendum, and
recall. In the voting of September 12, 1910, forty-one Democrats and eleven
Republicans were elected to the convention. Thirty-nine Democrats and one
Republican pledged to support initiative and referendum; thirty Democrats
supported the recall of officeholders, including judges. Pima County, which
included Tucson, sent its five opponents of direct democracy.[38] Blighton was
not exaggerating when he told Scripps he had powerful enemies in Tucson.
The Arizona Constitutional Convention opened on October 10, 1910, and the
delegates voted in favor of initiative, referendum, and recall. Territorial
Governor Richard Sloan said the delegates' action meant that Arizona had as much
chance of joining Russia as it did the United States.[39] But Arizona laborers
supported the recall provision so they could get rid of judges who issued
injunctions in labor disputes.
Arizona scheduled a vote on the constitution for February 9, 1911. The
letters between Scripps and Blighton in the months before the vote completed the
initial phase of their relationship. Blighton had sent Scripps copies of the
Voice of the People in November, and although Scripps said his eyesight was too
poor to read the four-page paper, he must have glanced at the headlines and
surmised the contents. Scripps' letter on November 14, 1910, urged Blighton to
avoid overkill. He said,
[Y]ou must not . . . make the mistake of supposing that any
normal human being can give more than a small fraction of his time and
thought to serious subjects no matter how vital they may be.
If you would attract a lot of readers among that very class of
people whose votes and influence you need [in the February election] . .
. you must gain their attention . . . by interesting them and
entertaining them with discussions and stories which will appeal to
them. . . . You cannot get their attention and awaken their interest
with one long "preach."[40]
What interesting and entertaining stories did Scripps have in mind --
especially since Blighton could not afford to hire a staff? Scripps had the
answer: Stories drawn from Scripps' NEA, which he offered to Blighton free for
one year, and the United Press Association, which Blighton could receive at no
expense above the telegraph cost.[41]
Receiving the gift, Blighton said, "I knew exactly how the children of
Israel felt the morning they breakfasted on quails and manna,"[42] a statement
that likened Scripps to Jehovah providing food in the desert. The gift marked
Scripps' and Blighton's tacit acknowledgment of a mentor-prot g relationship:
Scripps believed he had the wisdom and resources to help the Voice, and
Blighton's acceptance of the handout signified his endorsement of Scripps'
superior newspaper skills.
Blighton's next letters, dated December 2 and 10, 1910, said he had begun
using the NEA feature stories. Three editorials from the NEA appeared in one
issue of the Voice, he told Scripps, and he said he would install a women's
page, sports and humor.[43] The December 23 edition, which survives, was an
explosion of human interest stories that Blighton apparently received from
Scripps and used according to Scripps' advice. The front page comprised a
feature on a philanthropic Sunday-school teacher in Rome, Georgia, and a
reprinting of the Christmas story from Luke and the Beatitudes of Matthew. Page
two included an interview with Arctic explorer Frederick Cook and a feature from
Chicago on an orphan worth $30 million. Editorials about the proposed Arizona
Constitution and a story alleging corruption by Governor Sloan were confined to
pages eight and nine.[44]
The Herman-Chomsky model suggests that media that challenge authority will
be subjected to "flak," which they define as "negative responses to a media
statement or program" and may include "letters, telegrams, phone calls,
petitions, lawsuits, speeches and bills before Congress, and other modes of
complaint, threat and punitive action."[45] Likewise, the extramedia influences
of the Shoemaker-Reese model suggest the rise of pressures in a community to
counterbalance iconoclastic journalism. Such pressures are apparent in the pages
of Blighton's paper and in his letters to Scripps. Blighton's paper quoted a
delegate to the Constitutional Convention as finding a link to socialism in
Voice of the People's support for the right to recall judges, and thus painted
Blighton as opposing the dominant ideology of capitalism.[46] The Voice
reported the firing of a typographer at the Daily Citizen who defended
Blighton's integrity to the Citizen's owner, who also happened to be a
judge.[47] Advertisers deserted Blighton, too. The November 4, 1910, issue
boasted four pages and seven columns of ads, but that ratio of advertising to
news-editorial space steadily slipped. The ten-page December 23, 1910, issue had
six columns of ads, and of the remaining issues that survive in the Arizona
archive, only two have more than two columns of advertising. Normally,
according to the Herman-Chomsky model, advertising pressure and flak nudge a
deviant news medium into alignment with community elites, including government
officials. But Blighton ignored these signals. In his case, the individual
journalist -- the central influence on media content according to
Shoemaker-Reese -- chose integrity over expediency, believing that the truth as
he saw it and Scripps' money would lead to success.
Cruder attempts to influence Blighton's paper included the physical attacks
that Blighton mentioned in his second letter to Scripps and criminal libel
prosecutions in 1910 and 1911. Little is known about the 1910 cases, other than
Blighton's accusations that the presiding judge, John H. Campbell, acted
criminally in not reducing Blighton's bail.[48] More details exist concerning
the 1911 cases. They were initiated by managing editor Williams, who doggedly
pursued Blighton's allegations of receiving free railroad tickets. and by Pima
County Probate Judge William F. Cooper, who objected to an editorial about
Cooper's qualifications to help write the Constitution. Blighton won acquittal
in both.
In countering the pressures he faced in 1910 and 1911, Blighton used
Scripps' letters to boost his image as a man with powerful connections. Blighton
said he showed his Tucson acquaintances the letter in which Scripps offered
monetary assistance.
[Y]our letter has created a great feeling of sympathy for me,
personally. They reason thus: If a BIG man like Scripps goes behind the
VOICE, we may expect to see it prosper, in spite of its enemies.[49]
Blighton's letter suggests that in the relationship between government and
the press, and between labor and capital, a journalist's personal prestige adds
to a paper's success and possibly its influence. Blighton apparently believed
that widespread knowledge of his connections would push his paper toward
financial security. Such beliefs ran counter to Scripps' earlier advice to
Blighton, as well as his advice to his own editors that can be found throughout
the E.W. Scripps Manuscript Collection: Readers choose a paper for its contents;
a paper that cannot attract readers on its own merits is doomed. Likewise, the
Shoemaker-Reese and Herman-Chomsky models link the importance of attracting and
keeping advertisers to a news medium's long-term health.
Scripps' letter responding to Blighton indicated he was more envious than
flattered. Scripps' grandfather helped settle Illinois; his mother persevered in
the early days of Ohio; and his uncle had been a member of Missouri's
Constitutional Convention. In each case, he said, a great state emerged from
hardships. Such was the case in Arizona, he said.
Don't think for a moment that you are fighting a losing battle.
Don't for a moment imagine that Arizona is not destined to be in some
one or more respects the greatest state in the Union. . . .
I can truthfully say, Mr. Blighton, that reading your papers and
reading your letters I envy you.[50]
Scripps told Colver, the head of the NEA, that he would like to have
Blighton join the Scripps organization if he "continues to hold on." He said he
was greatly attracted by Blighton's "most glorious fight" and would rather have
his sons duplicate Blighton's experiences than be millionaires.[51] Thus the
mentor-prot g relationship flowering in the final month of 1910 had parental
overtones for Scripps, who vicariously shared Blighton's exploits much as a
father shares a son's.
Those were the last letters to or from Blighton that can be found in the
Scripps Manuscript Collection until July 1911. In the interim, Blighton
continued to struggle to keep his paper publishing. Records of the First
Judicial District of Pima County reveal his being summoned to court in March to
promise to repay an old debt of $301 to the Tucson Printing and Publishing
Company.[52] Also in the interim, Arizona voters endorsed the proposed
constitution by a vote of 12,584 to 3,920. The constitutional fight then shifted
to Washington as proponents of the progressive constitution sought the
congressional and presidential support required for statehood. When Scripps and
Blighton resumed writing, they circulated copies of The Voice of the People to
members of the U.S. Senate and House, including Senator Miles Poindexter of
Washington and Representatives Alfred Allen of Ohio and William Kent of
California.[53] This marked Blighton's high-water mark in both political
influence and his relationship with Scripps.
The growth of the business as well as personal aspect of the relationship
can be seen in Scripps' letter of July 5, 1911, the first surviving bit of
correspondence between the two in the Scripps archive after the letter of
December 12. Scripps filled two pages with questions about Tucson and Blighton's
background. He asked Blighton about his age and family; the population of Tucson
and the territory within 100 miles of the city; Tucson's chances of becoming the
state's dominant metropolis; Blighton's debts, income and assets; and other
questions that signaled Scripps' deepening interest. But was it an interest in
the man or his paper? Scripps' method of expanding his chain of papers was to
lend money to a young publisher and take 51 percent of the profits if the
publisher succeeded; Scripps absorbed the losses of failure.[54] Missing from
the Scripps Manuscript Collection is any clear statement of Scripps' intent
toward the Voice if Blighton made it successful; his comment to Colver that he
might want Blighton in his organization could refer to a partnership, ownership,
syndication or other form of relationship. A letter from Scripps to a
prospective business partner in the summer of 1911 indicates a growing closeness
between Blighton and Scripps, but it can be read two ways. In the letter,
Scripps refused to become a stockholder in the Arizona Republican because "I
have already become keenly and personally interested in a journalistic adventure
in Arizona."[55] While that was an obvious reference to Blighton's paper --
Scripps did not have an Arizona newspaper of his own -- it could be read either
as paternalistic support or as a hint of a formal business relationship.
Blighton's reply to Scripps' list of questions does not survive. It must
have been satisfactory. Scripps' next letter, on July 14, offered the Arizona
editor an immediate check for $500, plus a $200 check each month for the next
five months. Other letters in the Scripps Manuscript Collection reveal that
among Blighton's responses were disclosures that he had 1,500 subscribers, would
break even with 3,000, and make a comfortable profit with 5,000. He charged
twenty-five cents a month for the Voice but received little advertising
because his pro-labor opinions antagonized "all the interests."[56] Scripps told
Blighton to drop the Scripps name as Blighton wrote to progressively minded
members of Congress and to Roosevelt.[57] Scripps also wrote his own note to
Representative Allen, expressing confidence in Blighton -- "when you find a man
as close-fisted as myself plunking down $1,500 cash you may be sure that the
conditions which have so strongly appealed to me must be something out of the
ordinary."[58] Money, to Scripps, was the strongest indicator of his fondness
for Blighton's work.
One of Blighton's purchases after receiving Scripps' check was new
stationery. His next letter to Scripps appeared on letterhead containing a new
logo for the Voice of the People. It was the width of the writing paper and
three inches deep, with black ink overlaying a green floral pattern. [59]
Blighton's message made no mention of the cost or necessity of his new
stationery. Instead, Blighton detailed his troubles with creditors, his hard
work to maintain his paper, and his political ideas. For example, in addition to
his newspaper work, he said that he had spoken to a crowd of 2,000 at a Labor
Day meeting in Globe (and reported that the established newspapers refused to
mention his speech) and printed 2,500 copies of a political platform for a
friend's campaign.
Blighton gave Scripps a copy of Blighton's letter to Poindexter in which he
took credit for the recall provision that Taft disliked:
The recall of the judiciary, Senator Poindexter, went into
Arizona's constitution as a result of the personal venom of this Judge
Campbell [the judge who refused to lower Blighton's bail in a 1910],
manifested toward myself. . . . Had it not been for his atrocious
conduct on the bench, this provision might not have gone into the
constitution.[60]
It is difficult to make an independent assessment of Blighton's impact on
the constitutional process. Blighton's name does not appear in historian Jay J.
Wagoner's account of the passage of Arizona from territory to state. More
research, not only involving Voice of the People but also other contemporary
Arizona newspapers, may shed light on this question. In any event, Congress
decided not to delete the recall provision from Arizona's constitution, and it
passed a resolution for statehood.
Taft vetoed the resolution on August 15, 1911.[61] Ten days later, the
president said he would allow Arizona to become a state if it removed the recall
of judges from the constitution. That sent the matter back to the people of
Arizona. On December 12, 1911, the voters by a eight-to-one ratio amended the
document to conform to Taft's wishes. It was clear both to Taft and to the
voters that once Arizona was admitted as a state, it could amend its
constitution once more and reinstate the recall provision -- which is exactly
what happened. Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912, and the recall was
restored the following November.[62]
The summer 1911 letters, in which Blighton described his political and
newspaper work, marked the beginning of the decline of the Scripps-Blighton
relationship. In his litany of self-congratulation on continuing to publish
despite adversity, Blighton mentioned that his wife had gone to New York and
would be unable to help him. Furthermore, she was refusing to accept money from
him, he said. This statement caused Scripps some concern. He or one of his
associates contacted the United Press office in New York City, where UP General
News Manager Roy Howard sent a reporter to investigate about Mrs. Blighton.[63]
The reporter did not find her, but was able to locate a friend of Mrs.
Blighton's named Ruelberg. Howard summarized the reporter's findings in a letter
and telegram. Frank Harris Blighton got a copy of the letter, along with a
memorandum from the investigative reporter. The memorandum is not in the Scripps
Manuscript Collection, but the telegram is. It cast a shadow on the crusader's
image that Blighton projected in his letters to Scripps:
Miss Ruelberg in 34th Street has letters telegrams [sic] from
Blighton which wife refuses to open. Latter living Brooklyn refuses give
Ruelberg her address, latter says Mrs. Blighton in serious financial
difficulties over check for note cashes without funds to cover is trying
to borrow thousand dollars absolutely refuses communicate with
husband.[64]
After receiving Howard's letter and private memorandum, Blighton fired off
a letter to Scripps. The old man did not answer. Instead, Scripps, who was ill
and depressed,[65] referred the letter to his son James, who responded coolly.
"You may expect from me that I will carry out whatever agreements my father has
made with you, but nothing more," James Scripps said. While he added that he
sympathized with Blighton's work and urged him to get a business partner, the
younger Scripps said he had no one to recommend for the job and no time to help
Blighton himself until the new year. In short, a cordial brush-off. No direct
link can be established between the revelations about Mrs. Blighton and the
cooling of the mentor-prot g relationship other than chronology: After Scripps
received the telegram from Howard, the tone of the correspondence changes.
Missing from the archive is a clear explanation of the decline; however, Scripps
learned the unpleasant details of Blighton's marriage at roughly the same time
that the Voice was foundering despite Scripps' assistance -- the final
surviving copy of the Voice had only two columns of advertising amid ten pages
of news, features, and a tiny notice that the paper's stockholders would meet
the following evening.[66] The combination of financial and familial instability
was likely the turning point in the relationship.
By the time 1912 arrived, the Voice of the People was dead. Blighton
explained to Paine, Scripps' aide:
I have kept the paper going in the face of a blacklist which has
stripped me of advertising. Job work and subscriptions -- and the $200 a
month aid from Mr. Scripps has done the trick. And NOW, right on the
verge of SUCCESS, because I lack a few dollars to meet a payment on a
mortgage (which I did not know would be due until March when in San
Diego) I am OVERBOARD. The plant will be lost. The paper will go down.
And WORST of all, I am without a nickel -- had to wait today until paper
sales came in before I could eat.[67]
Paine's response -- if he made one -- was not filed with Scripps' papers.
It matters little what he thought or said. The Voice ceased publication January
1. The reason that Blighton eventually gave to Scripps, in a two-page letter
containing many of Blighton's typographical errors but none of his
capitalizations, was what he described as a campaign of judicial harassment. He
did not mention a mortgage payment. He did, however, quote the grand jury of
Pima County, which he said had summoned him in November 1911 to prove his
paper's claims of political corruption. To wit: "Moved by Rule . . . that we
ignore the evidence regarding forgery of school records presented by Blighton.
Carried." And "we have carefully and conscientiously examined into the charges
brought by Frank H. Blighton in his newspaper, Voice of the People, and find
the same without any foundation whatever." He said he laid out these facts so
Scripps would know he hadn't turned "yellow" when he let his paper expire.[68]
It was important to Blighton to demonstrate that if could not meet his mentor's
goals, he at least had followed his instructions.
A second letter six days later asked Scripps to help elect a federal judge
endorsed by Blighton. Scripps said he was tired, and his response offered
roundabout support. If others wrote and signed letters to the Senate and sent
copies to Miramar, he would write also. While the letter called Blighton a
fighter and a reformer, it did not invite a continued relationship. Scripps was
finished with Blighton and the Voice. When the creditor who assumed Blighton's
interest in the Voice asked Paine for a loan to revive it, Paine's six-line
response expressed severe doubts that Scripps would spend more money in
Tucson.[69] It appeared that Scripps was cutting his losses.
What had changed Scripps' mind about Blighton? Most likely were his failure
despite Scripps' assistance, the results of Scripps' investigation into
Blighton's marriage (why wouldn't his wife talk to him or take his money despite
being destitute?), and the poor personal impression Blighton made during a brief
visit to Miramar in July 1911. Scripps told a colleague that Blighton talked
like a fool when he got excited.[70] The foolish impression likely put Scripps
in a less-than-receptive frame of mind when Blighton wrote later about his legal
problems. While government officials had a history of corruption in territorial
Arizona,[71] Scripps had grown rich supervising a chain of papers that
successfully exposed government malpractice. He probably believed that Blighton
failed to be careful enough to prove his case -- if not in court, then in print.
Unable to reconcile his views of Blighton as crusading iconoclast and Blighton
as reckless fool, Scripps apparently opted for the latter and dropped the
relationship. Of course, the historian has only Scripps' archive from which to
draw conclusions. A construction of the relationship based on Blighton's
archive, if it exists,[72] likely would differ, particularly if it fills in the
missing details about Scripps' financial and proprietary interests in the Voice.
To what extent would Blighton have interpreted the failure of the Voice as
Scripps' failure? It is not a question that Blighton would have addressed to
Scripps, from whom he hoped to receive further assistance in 1911 and 1915. Nor
is the question likely to receive prominent display in Scripps' archive.
A pathetic appendix to the Scripps-Blighton correspondence arose in
November 1915, when Blighton, after three years of silence, wrote Scripps a
ten-page, single-spaced, disjointed letter from the office of a New York law
firm. The letter is difficult to understand, stringing together half-explained
references to politicians and magazines. However, Blighton once again asked
Scripps for financial help, revealing that his wife was in prison and he was
still in debt. He claimed he had found a story that was "the biggest,
crookedest, foulest thing in the history of our American government -- but had
little or no proof of the biggest end of it." The New York American and New
York World had promised him big money for it, he said, but then had reneged. He
said he took the story to Washington and confronted Secretary of State William
Jennings Bryan with what he knew about President Woodrow Wilson's corrupt
administration, but Bryan was no more forthcoming. Blighton said he was accosted
by Secret Service agents, his wife tortured in a thirty-hour interrogation, and
he had become the subject of a conspiracy to discredit him. These statements
might have struck Scripps as they strike the modern reader -- as evidence of an
unbalanced mind. But perhaps equally damaging was Blighton's revelation that
Governor Sloan had won a libel suit over a story that Blighton had sold to
Everybody's Magazine.[73] Although Blighton's letter said he could prove his
case against Sloan, it added that Everybody's had settled the suit -- an
unlikely scenario if such proof actually existed. Thus, Blighton had
demonstrated his failure to be Scripps' kind of journalist. He had allowed
government and corporate interests to get the best of him. Furthermore, his
adherence to his political ideals without regard to financial concerns -- he had
lost a lawsuit, ruined his own paper and damaged the finances of a national
magazine -- would not have pleased Scripps, whose papers were both profitable
and iconoclastic.
The correction run by Everybody's was revealing of the style of Blighton's
journalism, which contributed to his troubles when he ran the Voice of the
People. Blighton's article had alleged a conflict of interest in Sloan's
sanctioning of a water contract. "The fact is that the contract under discussion
was made long before Mr. Sloan was appointed Territorial Governor," the
correction said. "There was no basis for identifying Governor Sloan with this
contract in any way."[74]
Perhaps Scripps investigated Blighton's and Everybody's lawsuit, or
Blighton's legal troubles at the Voice. Perhaps not. All he needed to revise
his opinion of Blighton had been evident in the 1915 letter, as well as the
earlier letters admitting defeat in Arizona. Scripps' half-page reply to
Blighton said he could not respond to Blighton's call for help.[75]
Blighton had seemed such a bright prospect to the newspaper millionaire,
who appears to have been reliving his youth vicariously through the Voice. But
although the Voice may have influenced the shape of the Arizona Constitution,
its editor's achievements could not outweigh his failures in the eyes of E.W.
Scripps. For a year, they worked as mentor and prot g toward giving Arizona a
political future that would include their beloved direct democracy -- a true
"voice of the people." Personal elements then intervened, and Blighton's
missteps despite Scripps' guidance spoiled their relationship. Yet this
relationship remains instructive despite its failure. Scripps' letters reveal
his philosophy that a paper must entertain as well as inform, and they
demonstrate his willingness to blur the lines between politics and journalism,
and between the personal and professional. These tensions are apparent in the
Shoemaker-Reese and Herman-Chomsky models of influence on media content. The
Voice of the People failed because even the support of a powerful man such as
Scripps was not enough to offset the financial, political and legal pressures of
the status quo that Blighton challenged in Tucson, Arizona. Blighton never
achieved the readership or advertising support of a large enough slice of the
Tucson citizenry to allow him the luxury of his iconoclasm, and future research
should address whether there was more to Blighton's failure and Scripps' success
than their skills as journalists. Blighton was more reckless than Scripps, but
they aspired to the same political goals and fought the same pressures. Both
knew the tensions between an independent-thinking publisher and his community.
Such tensions, evident early in the twentieth century, resonate in the
modern-day journalism in which the media's entertainment component, marketing
strategy, and role in shaping political discourse are taken for granted.
NOTES
[1] E.W. Scripps, Faith in My Star: A Selection of His Own Words that
Showcases the Vision and Vitality of E.W. Scripps, Vance Trimble, ed. (Memphis:
The Commercial Appeal, 1989), 125.
[2] Vance Trimble, The Astonishing Mr. Scripps: The Turbulent Life of
America's Penny Press Lord (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1992), 191-92.
[3] Ibid., 192.
[4] Ibid.
[5] See Trimble, Astonishing Mr. Scripps, 306; and Scripps, Faith in My
Star, 64-74.
[6] E.W. Scripps to Ben Heney, December 16, 1911, E.W. Scripps Manuscript
Collection (henceforth EWS), Special Collections No. 117, Alden Library, Ohio
University, Athens, Ohio.
[7] Estelle Lutrell, "Newspapers and Periodicals of Arizona," University
of Arizona Bulletin 15 (July 1949), 33.
[8] Theodore Roosevelt, "Arizona and the Recall of the Judiciary," The
Outlook, 98 (June 24, 1911), 378.
[9] Lutrell, "Newspapers and Periodicals of Arizona."
[10] The Arizona Historical Society has no donor records concerning the
Voice of the People. "Our donor records are pretty poor for the early period, in
any case, but it's possible that we have had it since it was published,"
library/archives co-manager Riva Dean said. See Riva Dean to the author,
December 10, 1996. Letter in possession of the author.
[11] Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese, Mediating the Message:
Theories of Influence on Mass Media Content (New York: Longman, 1991).
[12] Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The
Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988).
[13] Margo Murray, Beyond the Myths and Magic of Mentoring: How to
Facilitate an Effective Mentoring Program (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Publishers, 1991), 13.
[14] See the relationship of William Randolph Hearst to Arthur Brisbane
and Arthur McEwen in W.A. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst (New York: Macmillian
Publishing Company, 1961), and the relationship of Joseph Pulitzer to his
mentor, Carl Schurz, and his protege, John Cockerill, in Swanberg's Pulitzer
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967); also see Pamela J. Kalbfleish and
Andrea B. Davies, "An Interpersonal Model for Participation in Mentoring
Relationships" in Western Journal of Communication, 57 (Fall 1993), 399-415.
[15] James Parton, The Life of Horace Greeley (Boston: Fields, Osgood &
Co., 1869), 556-57. Greeley's letter to "Friend Fletcher" includes the following
injunction: "Begin with a clear conception that the subject of deepest interest
to an average human being is himself: next to that, he is most concerned about
his neighbors. Asia and the Tongo Islands stand a long way after these in his
regard. It does seem to me that most country journals are oblivious as to these
vital truths. If you will, so soon as may be, secure a wide-awake, judicious
correspondent in each village and township of your county, some young lawyer,
doctor, clerk in a store, or assistant in a post-office who will promptly send
you whatever of moment occurs in his vicinity, and will make up at lest half of
your journal of local matter thus collected, nobody in the county can long do
without it. Do not let a new church be organized, or new members be added to one
already existing, a farm be sold, a new house be raised, a mill be set in
motion, a store be opened, nor anything of interest to a dozen families occur,
without having the fact duly though briefly chronicled in your columns. If a
farmer cuts a big tree or grows a mammoth beet, or harvests a bounteous yield of
wheat or corn, set forth the fact as concisely and unexceptionably as possible."
[16] See E.W. Scripps to C.D. Willard, September 9, 1911, EWS; and
Trimble, Astonishing Mr. Scripps, 226.
[17] Kalbfleish and Davies, "An Interpersonal Model," 401.
[18] Trimble, Astonishing Mr. Scripps, 226.
[19] Frank Harris Blighton to E.W. Scripps, October 3, 1910, EWS.
[20] See Scripps to Willard, September 9, 1911; and Frank Harris Blighton
to E.W. Scripps, January 12, 1912. Both are in EWS.
[21] Ben Heney to E.W. Scripps, November 16, 1909, EWS.
[22] Blighton to Scripps, October 3, 1910.
[23] E.W. Scripps to Frank Harris Blighton, October 5, 1910, EWS. Scripps
was referring to his plans to start The Day Book, in Chicago. It began
publication the next year.
[24] See E.W. Scripps, "Letter to a Young Editor," in Damned Old Crank
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), 170-79; and ibid.
[25] Scripps to Blighton, October 5, 1910.
[26] Frank Harris Blighton to E.W. Scripps, October 9, 1910, EWS.
[27] Revelation of charges of criminal libel, in which a journalist is
jailed because a publication is viewed as seditious, would not have discouraged
Scripps. Criminal libel has a proud and somewhat mythic history in American
journalism. Among the journalists who have been prosecuted for criminal libel
are John Peter Zenger, James Franklin and P.T. Barnum. Barnum wrote in his 1869
autobiography, Struggles and Triumphs, that "at the end of my sixty days' term
the event was celebrated by a large concourse of people from the surrounding
country. The court room in which I was convicted was the scene of the
celebration."
[28] See "Sauce for the Goose," Voice of the People, November 4, 1910; and
"The Territory of Arizona, Plaintiff, vs. Frank Harris Blighton, Defendant,"
Case No. A2296, Justice Court, Tucson Precinct, Pima County. The records of the
criminal and civil cases against Blighton are difficult to locate and difficult
to read, having faded before or after being microformed. The filing system of
Superior Court in Tucson does not indicate the nature of territorial cases in
its index, nor does it indicate the length of the cases. In addition, no records
of testimony in Blighton's cases could be found.
[29] Blighton to Scripps, October 9, 1910.
[30] See "Growth of Tucson Is Being Impaired," "King of Tucson Wants It
All," "Peon Laborers Are High-Priced," "Citizens Should Hold Massmeeting,"
"Catch Vegetable Trust in Net," and "Terrified at a Shadow!" All are in Voice of
the People, June 10, 1910. Microfilm of this and the other issues of Voice of
the People held by the Arizona Historical Society is in the author's
possession.
[31] See "The Initiative and Referendum Struggle" and "The Pima County
Beast Turns Pole-Cat!!," Voice of the People, November 4, 1910.
[32] Robert F. Paine to William B. Colver, December 9, 1910, EWS.
[33] Trimble, Astonishing Mr. Scripps, 274-75.
[34] Ibid., 276.
[35] Scripps to Willard, September 9, 1911.
[36] The source for Blighton's year of birth is the National Union
Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints, 61. The reference work lists him as the author or
co-author of three short works. His year of death is unknown.
[37] Voice of the People, May 19, 1911.
[38] Jay J. Wagoner, Arizona Territory 1863-1912: A Political History
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970), 458-60.
[39] Ibid., 475.
[40] E.W. Scripps to Frank Harris Blighton, November 4, 1910, EWS.
[41] Scripps to Blighton, November 14, 1910.
[42] Frank Harris Blighton to E.W. Scripps November 16, 1910, EWS.
[43] Frank Harris Blighton to E.W. Scripps, December 10, 1910, EWS.
[44] See "How the Sunday Lady Brought Santa Claus to America's Rip Van
Winkles," "The Christmas Baby Today and the Babe in Bethlehem," "Missing
Explorer at Last Breaks His Long Silence," "Don't You Feel Sorry for This Poor
Little $30,000,000 Heiress-Orphan?," "Our Caesars," and "Arizona's Governor to
Keep Lid on Affairs." All are in Voice of the People, December 23, 1910.
[45] Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, 26.
[46] "Thank You, Mr. Lynch!," Voice of the People, November 4, 1910.
Blighton considered the attack made by Graham County delegate A.R. Lynch to be a
left-handed compliment.
[47] "You're Fired!," Voice of the People, May 26, 1911.
[48] Judge Campbell issued his bail ruling on November 22, 1910.
Unfortunately, no copies of the Voice exist between November 4 and December 2,
1910. Blighton discussed Campbell's ruling, but not the basis of the libel
charge, in the December 2 issue. Blighton said Campbell's unfairness served as
an example of the unchecked power of judges that Arizona citizens ought to halt
by adopting the recall provision.
[49] Frank Harris Blighton to E.W. Scripps, December 2, 1910, EWS.
[50] E.W. Scripps to Frank Harris Blighton, December 12, 1910, EWS.
[51] E.W. Scripps to William B. Colver, December 12, 1910, EWS.
[52] "The Tucson Printing and Publishing Company, a Corporation,
Plaintiff, vs. Frank H. Blighton, Defendant" Case No. 4860, First Judicial
District Court, Pima County. This is the only case involving Blighton that is
listed in the Pima County District Court - Index to Actions, 1875-1910.
Unfortunately, the Arizona Department of Library, Archives and Public Records
does not have an index to civil cases for 1911 and 1912. See John H. Akers to
the author, May 9, 1995. Letter in possession of the author.
[53] See William Kent to E.W. Scripps, August 4, 1911; Alfred Allen to
E.W. Scripps, August 7, 1911; and Frank Harris Blighton to Miles Poindexter,
July 22, 1911. All are in EWS.
[54] Jean Folkerts and Dwight L. Teeter Jr., Voices of a Nation: A History
of Mass Media in the United States (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company,
1994), 361.
[55] E.W. Scripps to Sam Clover, May 17, 1911, EWS.
[56] See E.W. Scripps to Negley D. Cochran, August 8, 1911; and Scripps to
Willard, September 9, 1911. Both are in EWS. The letter to Willard described
Blighton as a mystic/"Hindoo" and said, "A year ago I considered him a 'hundred
to one' shot. Now I think he is a 'twenty to one' shot."
[57] E.W. Scripps to Frank Harris Blighton, July 14, 1911, EWS.
[58] E.W. Scripps to Alfred G. Allen, July 30, 1911, EWS.
[59] Frank Harris Blighton to E.W. Scripps, July 23, 1911, EWS.
[60] Blighton to Poindexter, July 22, 1911.
[61] Wagoner, Arizona Territory, 476, 478.
[62] Ibid., 481.
[63] Blighton's and Howard's letters do not include her first name.
[64] Roy W. Howard to John P. Scripps, Western Union telegram, October 9,
1911, EWS.
[65] E.W. Scripps to Frank Harris Blighton, January 25, 1912, EWS. Scripps
was depressed about the guilty plea entered by two anarchists in the bombing of
the Los Angeles Times. Scripps had believed in the innocence of the two men, who
were defended by Scripps' friend Clarence Darrow.
[66] Voice of the People, September 22, 1911.
[67] Frank Harris Blighton to Robert F. Paine, October 27, 1911, EWS.
[68] Frank Harris Blighton to E.W. Scripps, January 15, 1912, EWS.
[69] See L.J. Boudreaux to Robert F. Paine, January 25, 1912; and Paine to
Boudreaux, January 30, 1912. Both are in EWS.
[70] Scripps to Willard, September 9, 1911.
[71] William H. Lyon, Those Old Yellow Dog Days: Frontier Journalism in
Arizona (Tucson: Arizona Historical Society, 1994), passim.
[72] The author was unable to find any Blighton archive.
[73] Frank Harris Blighton to E.W. Scripps, n.d., EWS. The letter was
filed with 1917 correspondence, but Scripps' reply was dated November 4, 1915.
[74] "Straight Talk With Everybody's Publishers: A Correction,"
Everybody's Magazine 31 (September 1914), 431.
[75] E.W. Scripps to Frank Harris Blighton, November 4, 1915, EWS.
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