"Can't Take It"?

Pop the name of Fred G. Bonfils at anyone who knows Denver or the Denver Post and that person's mind will instantly register such adjectives as "handsome," "slick," "swaggering," "noisy," "audacious," "crafty," "lusty," "flamboyant," "hot-tempered." Other words, complimentary or vituperative, might occur to commentators biased one way or the other. For instance the Scripps-Howard Express (now the Rocky Mountain News) six years ago chose these brands for Publisher Bonfils and his Post: "shame," "disgrace," "bandit," "brigand." "lawless," "bunco," "scaly monstrosity," "mountebank," "... a blackmailing, blackguarding, nauseaus (sic) sheet which stinks to high heaven and which is the shame of newspapermen the world over." But neither friend nor foe could call Publisher Bonfils "sensitive." Journalistic rough-&-tumble was his particular meat. He was an able name-caller himself. The battle of the Post and Rocky Mountain News was costly to both combatants. Because the Scripps-Howard morning News started an evening edition to compete with the Post, Bonfils brought out a morning Post to harass the News. For two years they tried to outstrip each other in expensive promotion stunts until in 1928 lively little Publisher Roy Wilson Howard went to Denver, made peace with Publisher Bonfils. Scripps-Howard withdrew its evening paper, Bonfils his morning one. There was amiable talk about how the remaining sheets would "deserve the respect and friendship of each other." Last week Publisher Bonfils sued Publishers Howard & Scripps and Editor Charles E. Lounsbury of the Rocky Mountain News for libel. He sued not because of any mean things said by the News, but because of things which the News said had been said by Walter Walker, retiring Democratic State Chairman and hard-hitting publisher of the Grand Junction Sentinel. Chairman Walker had made a speech in behalf of Governor William H. Adams before the Jane Jefferson Club, women's political organization, in Denver's rococo Brown Palace Hotel. Part of his speech, as reported by the News, charged the Post and Publisher Bonfils with foully thwarting the Governor's chances of renomination. Mr. Walker's sentences bristled with epithets reminiscent of Denver's newspaper wars: "vulture," "rattlesnake," "vilest man who . . .", "public enemy," "slimy serpent," "contemptible dog of Champa Street," "foulest, dirtiest, vilest piece of newspaper work. . . ." Publisher Bonfils took no action against Chairman Walker. Nor did he--as he would have done a few years ago--loose a withering blast at the News from the gaudy pages of his Post. Instead he marched into court, demanded $200,000 damages for an attempt "to injure and aggrieve Bonfils and to blacken his good name and reputation." Also he requested that the three defendants be "committed to the common jail of the city & county . . . until whatever judgment obtained against them has been paid. . . ."

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