Panders

(6 of 7)

The citizens flocked to hear him, for so hypnotized are they by their local pressmaster that Bonfils is a greater topic of conversation among them than Prohibition, national politics or the preference of gentlemen for blondes. But Wellington Howard's most direct reference to Napoleon Bonfils was the epigram "We are coming with neither a tin cup nor a lead pipe." He refuted the Post's loud outcry upon "foreign interests" by saying the Scripps concern was no more foreign to Denver than the Chicago railroaders and packers or the Manhattan mining capitalists, through whose offices Denver had grown rich. Moreover, in command of the Scripps papers in Denver he was putting young Edward T. Leech, a onetime cub reporter on the News, whelped and schooled in Denver, post-graduated from the Birmingham, Ala., Post, where he had enjoyed a distinction unique among Scripps editors, that of being also his own publisher with a hand free of all save the most general supervision from headquarters. This freedom would be enjoyed by Editor Leech in Denver.— Whatever they were, the new Denver Newses would be indigenous products, and one of the first things they would do would be to offer advertising space far below the figure to which Bonfils, open- space and white-space pirate, had jacked up advertising in the Post.

Reports indicated that for a week, at least, the Rocky Mountain News held its own against the Napoleonic Morning Post, publishing papers twice as large and with double the advertising. But Napoleon Bonfils was only just swinging into action. "The biggest newspaper fight of the century," as disinterested journalists of other cities called it, was but seven days old. And regardless of the outcome lovers of romance could feel that, for miles around Denver at any rate, there was still something left upon the face of the earth, if only ata- vistic noise, invective and hyperbole, to make the original settlers of that wild and woolly countryside revolve within their cerements.

Hearstlings

Gasps of astonishment may well have attended the reading last week of a soaring "lead" furnished to many a bleating newspaper by International News Service.

"Doris Duke, a slender 15-year-old princess—if an untitled American girl can be called so because she has inherited $53,000,000—is to pay the expenses of the Hall-Mills case, the cost of which has caused a greater squabble, almost, than the recent trial at Somerville itself."

Rapidly, readers glanced at the accompanying picture of gap-toothed, smiling Miss Duke; perused further:

"Not that Doris will miss the money. The will of her father, the late James B. Duke, 'tobacco king,' just disclosed, makes her the beneficiary of a great estate." "

"Padding," objected the perusers. "He (or she, more likely she) already said the girl has $53,000,000."

"A wonderful 'cellar of vintages,' filled with beverages so rare and costly that they would challenge the envy of the greatest connoisseurs of the world, and a bathroom more resplendent than any owned by the old Roman emperors, are among the items of her sumptuous legacy." "

Nice," said perusers. "But, woman, what about paying for the Halls-Mills business?"