Rants and Rivalries

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While we’re on the subject of newspapers, let’s take a look at the intense rivalry between two early newspapers: The Creston Review, started by John J. Atherton, and the Creston Echo – also started by John J. Atherton.

On August 20, 1908, the first issue of the Creston Review rolled off the presses.  It was a four-page paper, owned and edited by John Joseph Atherton, who had already established newspapers in several other communities around the Kootenays. Atherton’s Review contained only local news, and made no secret of its mission:

 “We are here primarily to make a million and incidentally to advertise the resources of the town and district.  It is our aim to see that Creston gets a square deal in all matters, and we shall scourge the wicked and canonize the boosters.  There are no strings on the editor and he alone will dictate our policy and take the medicine.  Tell us the gossip and the scandal, we need it in our business.”

Wilson Avenue, now Railway Boulevard.
The Creston Review office is the small building at the far end of the block

Atherton’s position at the head of the Review was short-lived. In August 1909, he printed an announcement that the Review had been sold, to new manager J.K. Johnson and editor Ralph G. Scruton. According to Atherton’s grand-daughter though, who visited the Museum a few days ago, Atherton actually lost the newspaper in a card game.

Either way, the transition was amicable enough, at least at first, with Atherton wishing all success to the new owners and exhorting them to “keep up the good work.”  The new owners, in the August 13 1909 issue, made it clear they were going to keep going as the paper had started off:

“Under the new management the Review will continue as heretofore to present to the public in a fair manner the resources of the Creston district as a fruit growing section and as an ideal place for homes.  We will endeavour to deal with all public matters in an unbiased manner and shall only criticise public officials when such is absolutely necessary and then only when facts have been presented to us.  Street talk and gossip regarding public servants will not find a champion in the Review.”

By early 1911, though, the gloves were off and the editor of the Review was taking public potshots at Atherton.  One example shows up in the February 24, 1911 issue:

“The Review, at the request of several fruit growers and ranchers, called attention to the presence in Creston of a small flock of English sparrows. …  Mr. J.J. Atherton, a printer, has taken upon himself to pose as an authority on birds and has written a letter to the Nelson Daily News denying that these are English sparrows.  In this issue will be found a letter from Mr. J. Heath, an English horticulturist of many years standing, and a prominent rancher of the Creston Valley, on the subject.  We leave our readers who know both Jay Jay and Mr. Heath, to judge for themselves between the word of an expert, and the biased vaporings of Jay Jay.”

So much for fair and unbiased. Undoubtedly, Atherton replied in kind, but his response doesn’t show up in the pages of the Review.  In fact, on March 6, 2011, Scruton of the Review wrote, “We have received communications regarding those English sparrows; the Review has done its best, to call the attention of those interested to this evil in the early stages. … Our columns are not at the disposal of correspondents who write in acrimonious terms or from purely personal motives, and these communications, which have no practical bearing on the subject and can do nothing but harm, have been consigned to the waste paper basket.”

 It got worse, too, by the time the July 28 issue came out, when the Review reported:

“Creston’s Labor Day celebrations in the past have, on the whole, been very successful affairs. … Unfortunately, the success of these celebrations has been marred by the selfish policy of short-sighted individuals who have not scrupled to twist what should have been a day of fellowship and hospitality, into a “Hold up “ scheme, for gain.  The first individual to give the District a black eye, by this coarse profit mongering on the citizens day, was Mr. J.J. Atherton, who on Labor Day 1909, after having been granted the privilege of making a reaonable profit by running a refreshment booth on the grounds, enriched his personal pocket at the expense of the good repute of the valley, by endeavouring to monopolise the water on the grounds, and charging tired women and little children, a price per cup for a drink of water.”

So what happened to set the two men, Atherton and Scruton, against each other?  We may never know the whole story, but one possible explanation is the Creston Valley Echo – yet another newspaper started by Atherton, of which the Creston Archives has just one copy of the final issue. In announcing the Echo’s demise, Atherton wrote,

“The Echo started out with an object in view, viz., to dethrone a certain party high up in magisterial honors, and also to give a better local paper than was then in existence.  The Echo has made lots of friends and a few enemies. The Echo has always had the courage to plainly speak its mind, and it takes pride to itself that it has remedied evils and crushed hypocrisy.  It has flayed the canters and the ranters and canonized boosters.  It has played the fame of life fearlessly without asking favor of any man.”

A syndicate of local businessmen had bought both the Echo and the Review, and the two papers became one on November 11, 1911.  Atherton, however, wasn’t quite ready to write himself out of the picture yet:

“We emphatically state that we would pursue our program of usefulness tomorrow without fear or favor, were we installed in the editorial chair of the new venture.”

His broad hint was ignored.  The Review had a succession of managing editors over the next few years, but Atherton was not among them. Maybe he’d tried to “dethrone” one too many of the parties “high up” in the community.

Originally published July 2011