The Press: Contempt in Denver

The Scripps-Howard Rocky Mountain News in Denver enjoyed a field day last week at the expense of its arch-enemy Publisher Frederick G. Bonfils of the Denver Post. It seized the opportunity to spread upon its pages with impunity the following allegations about swaggering Publisher Bonfils:

That he "hijacked and blackmailed Harry Sinclair and his associates of $250,000 in 1924 on a threat that he would expose their Teapot Dome activities."

That he conducted a confidence game in the sale of lots in an alleged Oklahoma City, Tex.

That he operated a crooked lottery in Kansas City under different aliases.

That he accepted $40,000 from the Rock

Island Railroad for unethical advertising in the news columns of the Post.

That he "sold shortweight coal in Denver, blackmailing and browbeating customers."

That he bought New Mexico land for $4.60 an acre, sold it at $30 in a fake colonization scheme.

That he conducts a theatre which offers lewd dances, smutty jokes.

That when asleep he requires a constant companion to waken him lest, talking in a nightmare, he reveal some of the shady transactions of his past.

Those statements, and many another, were part of a News petition asking that Publisher Bonfils be adjudged in contempt of court. Reason: He had refused to answer questions-before-trial in his own libel suit against the News.

Publisher Bonfils' $200,000 libel suit against the News, its editor and Publishers