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In the next 40 years the Post was to become more & more a phenomenon of U. S. journalism. Unspeakably blatant, it declared itself "The Big Brother of The League of Rocky Mountain and Plains States, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota." It called itself a "gladiator invincible, fearless, determined, with a giant's strength, a philosopher's mentality. . . . The champion of every good, and pure, and noble, and holy and righteous cause. . . ." Sprinkled through its pages (and always over fair weather reports) was the legend "'Tis a Privilege to Live in Colorado." Bloodiest stories and pictures of corpses were sanctified by the watchword: "Crime Never Pays." On October 12, 1931 the Post's streamer read: CHRIS COLUMBUS DISCOVERS AMERICA.
In text as well as in spirit the Post personified Bonfils. A barbecue party given by him got front-page headline type just as big & black (or red) as his attack on the current "worst Governor Colorado has ever had." A two-column story told Post readers how the publisher had landed a 7-lb. trout (which was later alleged to be a pet fish named "Elmer," snared from a preserve). He loudly invited children to write him descriptions of their lost pets. "Big Brother" Bonfils would find them.
The night some missing Navy flyers were found in the Pacific, he wrote the eight-column banner himself: BLESS GOD! THEY'RE SAFE! He scorned foreign news on the front page. Said he: "A dog fight in Champa Street is better than a war abroad." He noisily offered the late Calvin Coolidge the job of editor at $75,000 a year. He permitted the picture of his daughter Helen to appear on the front page of the society section over the caption:
Vivacious, sagacious,<BR> Describe a publisher's daughter,<BR> True blue and gracious<BR> Oh, bless the Gods who wrought her!
There were rascally chapters in "Bon" Bonfils history, passages which lawyers for his enemy, the Scripps-Howard Rocky Mountain News, promised to prove in the libel suit (Bonfils v. News) that was pending when Death came. According to those promises: Some of Bonfils' early land deals were crooked. Big winners in his lottery were confederates. He blackmailed Denver merchants into buying his Post coal. He was horsewhipped into a hospital by a Denver husband. He took $250,000 hush-money from Harry F. Sinclair in the Teapot Dome scandal. And the elaborate house in which "Bon" Bonfils died was the object of particularly horrid whispers—that Bonfils got it extremely cheap from a man who feared publicity.
But the Rocky Mountain News's report of Publisher Bonfils' death did not touch on those stories. Instead it paid tribute to his "challenging virility." For fair-minded critics had to acknowledge that his energy outweighed his rascality, his beneficence atoned for his arrogance.