New Britain herald., 1916-08-24
GREEK EDITOR IS
 HELD FOR LIBEL
Alleged to Have Tried to DiSCredit
 Consul in Kings Eyes

New York, Aug. 24.-Solon I. Vlas- | paper Atlantis, was arrested in the of fees of that publication at 113 West l Thirty fifth street last evening on a charge of having criminally Ebeled by articles published in Atlantis, Cleanthe Vassardakis, Greek consul
 sul general in San Francisco. The consul general asks damages of $50,- 900. Demetrius J. Vlasto, Adaman- tiOs Polyzoides, and all the members,
 writers and staff of the Atlantis are
 to follow MT. Vlasto into the criminal
 courts to answer for statements they
 published, according to MT. Vassar-
 dakis. The arrest was made on a.
 warrant issued by Supreme Court
 Justice Delehanty MT. Vassardakis'
 lawyer IS Schuyler M. Meyer of 27
 Cedar street.
 MT. Vassardakis, who was sent to
 this country two years ago as the of
 fcial representative of the Greek
 government, was in full charge of the
 preparations and final opening of the
 Greek pavilion at the Panama-Pacific international exposition, which closed
 with a celebration in MT. Vasardakis'
 honor, last December. Before his ac- tivities were transferred to the Pacific coast MT. Vassardakis had his head quarters at the Waldorf-Astoria, from which arrangements for the pavilion at the exposition were made. In San Francisco he took an active part in suppressing evils in the Greek coffee 1,n in Co1 jo r I,i, he did was misrepresented in The At lands, for the purpose of discredit1ng him before his king and country, MT. Vassardakis asserts. Among the li- bels in The Atlantis, he asserts, was an allegation that he melted his peo- pie to bloodshed in California. Eff teen specific charges against MT. Vlasto, each for $50,O00, are made in the affidavit against him.
 MT. Vlasto, who was decorated with the Golden Cross by the King of Greece, in February, has figured in a number of libel suits, brought against him by Greeks in this country, due to Vlasto was horsewhipped in the lobby of the Hotel Imperial by the Wife of a Greek named Ekinomidy, who the wife asserted had been libe1ed in At- lantis.
 In 1914, VlaStO agaln acquired mo- toriety when he was arrested in the Waldorf-Astoria in a libel action for $5 1000, afterward being released un- der bail for $1,500. Tn this case, Vlasto was sued by Petros P. Tatanis, secretary of the Pan-HelIenic union, who charged that Atlantis published an article accusing Tatanis of writing to William J. Bryan, then secretary of state, alleging that A. Schliemann, to this country, from Greece, was poorly informed on Balkan ques- tlOns. A purchase of coal through the navy department at Washington the Atlantis was said to have declared resulted in the loss of thousands of dollars to Greeks in this country.
 MT. Vlasto said last night that he had been released on bail of $2,500, about $1,5O0 of which was raised by his employees, and the rest through friends. He said that, so far as he knew, Atlantis had not made the statements which MT. Vassardakis inn puted to it. but admitted having criti- cised the appointmen ent of MT. Vassar- dakis as representative of the Greek in this country. He as- serted that papers in Athens and San Francisco had criticised the appoint ment, and that Atlantis had followed suit MT. V1asto said that he regret ted that his arrest had made it impos- sib1e for him to keep a dinner en- gagement.