Article Text
AUTO IS USED AS POWER TO PRINT PAPER Electricity and Telephone Cut Off: Trouble Bunches on Huntington Man. By United Press HUNTINGTON, Ind., Feb. 7.Adversity overtook C. W. H. Bangs, editor of the Huntington News, all at once. He now is forced to publish his daily newspaper with a jacked-up automobile as his power source and without the convenience of a telephone. Facing seven charges of criminal libel and slander on the first state bank of Huntington, he is under $5,000 bond after spending an hour in jail a week ago. With his telephone and electricity disconnected because the bills were overdue, Banks connected the automobile with his press to run it. He bought oil burners to heat his linotype melting pot, and has a small electric generating plant to provide lights in his office. Attacked Bank Policies Besides that, his employes, claiming that their pay is long overdue, are causing him trouble. A former college president and attorney and a specialist in international law study, Bangs has not given up. He took over editorship of the paper about a year ago, making his law practice his avocation. Recently he began attacks on Huntington banks in his newspaper. Local residents said he owed the banks, they were pressing him for loans and he was retaliating. John R. Emly, president of the First State bank, brought charges against Bangs. Six of them alleged criminal libel and the seventh charged slander, asserting that Bangs had circulated verbally false rumors against the bank. Former College President That followed closing of another Huntington bank. Now the two remaining institutions, including the First State bank, are both closed temporarily in a business moratorium. They will reopen if 80 per cent of the depositors of both banks sign a pledge not to withdraw more than a specified percentage of their deposits. Bangs is a former president of Huntington college, a United Brethren supported institution here. Since then he practiced law. Daily he rode a bicycle, carrying his lunch, from his outlying home to his law office. He studied international law in Paris for several years. He took a small son there with him once, and when the child returned here, after two years, he could speak no English.
