News you can use
News you can use
by Emily Mayer
The news of the Border Saloon raid, the upcoming election and Spanish flu epidemic continued, as did the local newspapers making their political viewpoints known. Keep in mind Havre had three newspapers 100 years ago — The Havre Plaindealer, The Havre Daily Promoter and the Hill County Democrat. Each was making its alliances known as well as taking snipes at each other. With today’s political climate being what it is, and so many people today saying reporters should be reporting the news “just like it used to be,” well, your grandparent’s generation of reporters were just as opinionated back then as they are today. They were not always nice about it, either.
Dr. Lanstrum was in Gildford, combatting both the Spanish flu epidemic as well as dealing with the Hill County chapter of the Non-Partisan League, who supported Dr. Lanstrum in his bid for the U. S. Senate. Apparently, avoiding going through Havre was top on their list. Havre’s reputation as a hotbed for vice didn’t sit well with those running for office, and Havre didn’t think much of them either. When Dr. Lanstrum got to Gildford, not only was he dealing with a deadly epidemic, he was also having to deal with dissention amongst the ranks in the Non-Partisan League. It was getting ugly all the way around.
The Plaindealer printed an editorial in its October 19, 1918 issue on failed Democratic candidate the Rev. E. J. Huston’s bid for Hill County sheriff, taking shots at the reverend’s assertion his candidacy was “called by the Lord,” except “The Lord had failed to tell the voters to nominate him and the voters had choice in the matter”. The last paragraph reads:
According to the affidavits of two prominent leaders of the Non-Partisan league in Hill county, the Lord had nothing to do with the Rev. E. J. running for office, but he was induced by the Non-Partisan league to lend himself to their political needs and they induced him to run for sheriff on the democratic ticket to keep the democrats out of the republican primaries. Which satisfactorily explains the real happenings of the case but fails to vindicate the religious inspiration of the radical pastor. The Lord has been blamed for a lot of things with which he probably has no intimate concern, but making him sponsor for an exceedingly common political trick strikes as being most unsportsmanlike.
Readers of this column will remember the Reverend Huston was also intricately involved with the Border Saloon debacle, as was C. R. Stranahan, the candidate for Hill County Attorney supported by the Non-Partisan League. Stranahan, as you recall, had been working with the state Attorney General’s Office to “clean up Havre” and the Border Saloon raid was supposed to be their big score in so doing, as well as allegedly boosting Stranahan’s campaign. Except the state Attorney General’s Office failed to arraign the defendants in the case, setting trial, bringing in jurors from across Hill County (which also encompassed all of what is now Liberty County), only to send them home and have to pay for their trip to Havre because of a vital procedural error. The Plaindealer’s alliance was firmly with Hill County Attorney Victor Griggs, the Democratic candidate for Hill County Attorney. Of him, the Plaindealer campaigned:
The democratic candidate for county attorney has made an enviable record in his profession and the voters will find him one who will fill the office with credit to himself and the county. His cases are never thrown out of court because they are improperly presented or prepared. His qualifications assure that convictions will be secured if possible and no cases lost through bungling or ignorance of the law in which losses the money cost to the county is not the greatest loss although it can be made considerable if an incompetent man holds the office.
Griggs was busy prosecuting illegal gambling cases, among them one from Kremlin of which Non-Partisan League leader, L. E. Brady, was present. The Plaindealer snarked “Brady, Boss of the Non-Partisan league in Hill county who led a procession into Havre recently, one of the featues of the procession being a banner about cleaning up the county seat. Evidently Brady himself needs a little “cleaning up”. It is also reported that Brady expects to be undersheriff or a deputy sheriff in the event that McLain is elected. Of course Brady can be expected to clean up the gambling, at least in Kremlin, of which he evidently has personal knowledge.
The newspapers in Joplin and Gildford were not kind to Havre and its naughty reputation, either, which prompted the Promoter and the Plaindealer to issue rebuttals. The Plaindealer had a response on its editorial page.
REAL GOOD TOWN
Some man in the east has announced that his town has nine lives and that nothing can kill it not even the destruction of its pet industry which reminds us of our own town. It hasn’t a million dollar industry to lose to be sure, but it is in the midst of a section of territory that has been hit twice in successive years by the greatest drouth in the history of the state, and it is still doing business and helping the farmers to carry on.
It oversubscribed its liberty loan quota without a brass band or a moving picture machine to advertise the fact before it was accomplished. It has harbored a Honky Tonk and a restricted district and yet its citizens are mostly decent and self respecting. It has been the field of many a bitter political fight and its factions wax strong in their hatred and contempt of each other. And yet the town goes on growing and prospering. It has even survived vice crusades innumerable, wherein a few self appointed apostles of sweetness and light have attempted to prove that they alone were holy and all others are damned. But the worst thing the good old town has had to endure is the bunch of knockers who have tried to make political or personal capital out of the dislike they could stir up between the town and the rest of the county.
This is a favorite and especially pernicious sort of propaganda because of its nature. No person who is not trained by long experience to weigh and analyze whatever idea comes to his mind can escape at times being influenced by it.
Still we are optimistic about our town in spite of this latest and worst affliction. Hate and suspicion are short lived crops and those who have sown them usually reap the largest share of the yield. Our town will continue to build up its healthy civic life after the intruders who are doing this kind of farming have passed on to other fields. There is always hope. If they who dislike our town can’t get out if it otherwise, kindly death will in time remove them.
The Spanish flu epidemic was taking its toll on activities in Havre and many communities across the state and nation. Here are a couple entries in the Plaindealer:
LAND SALE POSTPONED BECAUSE OF EPIDEMIC
Sale Had Been Advertised for October 25th
The sale of state lands in this section, which has been advertised in this paper for the past three weeks to be held on the 25th day of October at the county court house here, has been indefinitely postponed on account of the epidemic of influenza. This paper has been instructed to discontinue publication of the notice of the sale and has been advised that the lands will be re-advertised before they are again offered for sale.
The Red Cross was not immune:
The annual election of the Hill county chapter American Red Cross, postponed from Oct. 23, on account of the influenza epidemic, has been set for November 20.
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