The Press: Contempt in Denver

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Scripps & Howard, was based on the printing of a political speech by Democratic State Chairman Walter Walker, calling Bonfils "vulture", "public enemy", "slimy serpent", "contemptible dog", etc. etc. Choice excerpt: "The day will come when some persecuted man will treat that rattlesnake as a rattlesnake should be treated and there will be a general rejoicing." Bonfils' lawyer charged that statement was "an attempt to incite the murder of Mr. Bonfils." Less sensitive in earlier days Publisher Bonfils, who boasted of Corsican birth and relationship to Napoleon Bonaparte, never used to protest against printed reviews of his remarkable history; stories of how he hurriedly left West Point, turned Mississippi gambler, ran the Little Louisiana Lottery, took $800,000 and a whole skin out of Kansas City, bumped into Bartender H. H. Tammen at the Chicago World Fair, went with him to Denver where they bought the Post and introduced a blatant, rowdy journalism such as the West had never known. Now, instead of hurling mud at the News, aging Publisher Bonfils (he refuses to divulge his age; Scripps-Howard hints at 72), sued. With evident relish Scripps-Howard went to court, asked Publisher Bonfils a long list of questions which he refused to answer as irrelevant and which the News blithely front-paged. Samples: "What character was given on your discharge certificate when you left West Point?" "Did you always pass under your own name in Kansas City, Kans.?" "Isn't it a fact that you went under the name of ... Bonfeld . . . alias L. E. Winn, on March 21, 1895 and that you pleaded guilty to conducting a lottery?" Some questions were answered in part: A.—I was born in Missouri. A.—. . . I am of legal age. Q.—What was your father's occupation? A.—Don't get in any smart things here. Don't pick on my mother and father. Q.—I am not picking on your mother and father. I thought very highly of both of them. A.—You better not. Attorney Philip Hornbein, for Publisher Bonfils, put a stop to the questions, asked the court to determine whether they were pertinent. The judge ruled that the questioning should continue last week, that he would decide which questions were relevant after all had been asked. Again Publisher Bonfils refused to answer, clapped his derby upon his greying head, walked out on spatted feet. The contempt action followed. Bonfils won a 15-day delay to answer it and to prepare a contempt case of his own against the News for asking impertinent questions.

Fraud in Youngstown?