‘Southwest Kansas Register’ soon to be history

After almost 40 years, the newspaper will be changing its moniker for two primary reasons: 1) to be more reflective of the Christian community it serves, and 2) while once being one of many cousins in the Register family of newspapers, the SKR has long since been an independent entity.

The Register would like to enlist its readers in helping come up with a new name. If you have an idea, please call David Myers at (620) 227-1519, email: skregister@dcdiocese.org, or write to: SKR, P.O. Box 137, Dodge City, Kan. 67801. Ideas will be presented to Bishop Ronald M. Gilmore, who will make the final decision.

The Register system of newspapers has its roots in Denver, beginning in 1905. While it first only served the Denver area, the original Catholic Register newspaper would, in a matter 20 years or so, grow to serve Catholics across the country.

The growth of the newspaper could be attributed in part to the Ku Klux Klan, and the efforts of one bishop and his editor to spread the word that the Klan wasn’t worth the sheets they hid under.

According to the book Colorado Catholicism, by Dr. Thomas J. Noel, "This wave of bigotry culminated in the Immigration Act of 1924, which discriminated against Eastern and Southern Europeans, who were often Catholic peoples. To publicize the Church’s stand on these matters, [Denver] Bishop [John Henry] Tihen supported the Catholic press and enabled the Denver Catholic Register to emerge as a national system of newspapers, rivaled in popularity and prominence only by the Our Sunday Visitor magazine."

Matthew John Willfred Smith, 22, a son of Irish immigrants, joined the ranks of the Register in 1913, and would eventually become Msgr. Smith — the primary workhorse behind the growth of the paper, as well as a strong tool in its attack on bigotry.

According to Colorado Catholicism, "Father Matthew Smith, who led the fight against the Klan in the pages of the Register, also attracted its wrath. Smith reported in his memoirs that he had been told the Klan had spied on him: ‘They can’t find a single instance where you chased a woman. Neither can they prove you a boozer. They think you’re too damn clean.’"

With the urging of Bishop Tihen, in 1924 Smith, who was then editor, sent Leo "Team of Wild Horses" Connelly across the country, approaching dioceses "with a deal they could not resist: Their local news would be ‘page one’ with national news filling out the paper. The diocese could buy their special Register edition for a penny a copy and sell it for the nickel. While Father Smith and his crew in Denver did all the work, the diocese and parishes would be making most of the money."

For the next several decades, many Catholic newspapers across the country were printed out of Denver. They would send to Denver their stories for Page 1, from which Father Smith would custom build a newspaper — all with the same inside national news — for each diocese. He continued working for the Register until his death in 1960.

What started out with 5,000 subscribers, had, in the 1950s, grown to a circulation of 850,000 for the local editions, while Smith’s national edition achieved 1 million readers.

Catholic newspapers have changed a bit over the years. According to Colorado Catholicism, "[Smith] abhorred wordiness and misspelling – and being scooped. He would exclude from the front page any correspondent who gave the story to another publication first.

Some of the rules for Catholic journalism in those days, Matthew Smith wrote later in his memoirs, were:

1. Be stodgy.

2. Use language to conceal thought.

3. Never say anything that will astonish anybody.

4. Catholic papers should be as soporific as a phenobarbital tablet.

"‘I helped change all that,’ Smith confessed. ‘Believe it or not, there were both priests and [laymen] in those days who did not think a Catholic paper was pious enough if people read it.’"

While the Register system of newspapers no longer exists, more than 10 Catholic newspapers in the United States retain the Register name.