Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-05-07
THE PUBLIC PRINTING.

The last issue of the Nashville Bulletin
contains "a chapter on public printing"
in which certain items" are given, that
are interesting to Tennessee taxpayers. 1t
will be remembered that at the last session
of the Legislature. the office of Public
Printer was abolished and the public
printing was ordered under proper regula-
lions, to be let out to the lowest bidder. I'm
der the assessment law, printed schedules
are required to be furnished taX-assessors,
meeting the requirements of the law. The
Comptroller went to the Public Printers,
Messrs. Jones, Purvis & Co., and asked
them how much they would charge for
printing 100000 copies of this schedule
They replied that their charge would be
IS, $50 on DENY paper, 16x21. Wheeler,
Marshall q Bruce, as responsible print
ing establishment as there is in the
State, proposed to furnish the
same number of schedules on flat cap paper,
14x17, for $4,000. The difference in the
cost of the paper proposed by the Public
Printers and that offered by Wheeler,
Marshall d Bruce, is about $500. The bid
| of the latter would have saved the State in
this one item about twenty-five hundred
dollars. The Comptroller (Mr. Hobbs)
| then decided to advertise for bids. The
| Union and american never published the
advertisement, The Banner published 1t.
| Neither of them made bids. The lowest
| bid offered was by Wheeler, Marshal d
| Bruce, being 50, 450. The Comptroller
| awarded them the job, when Messrs. Jones,
Purvis & Co. sued out an injunction, re-
| straining the Comptroller from giving
| it to Wheeler, Marshal d Bruce,
| claiming that as Public Printers they
| were entitled to the work, and that their
| term of office does not expire until next
| November. Thus the State pays tribute to
| these Public Printers, in this one transac-
| ton alone, about $4,000.
The Bulletin very pertinently observes;
"If the rest of the State printing is paid
| for at the same rate, our readers can easily
| estimate how much is lost every year by
| extravagant charges for printing, when
| they know that their bills amount to from
| $4,000. to $780, 900 per annum."
| Since that transaction Mr.. Hobbs, the
Comptroller elected by the Legislature,
has resigned, and Gov. Brown has APP
pointed one of the editors and pro-
prietors of the Union and american, who
is also one of the firm of Jones, Purvis d
| Co., to that position. If, with a careful,
honest and conscientious Comptroller, the
Public Printers make three thousand dol
| lars in six thousand dollar job, what will
| they do when one of their own firm let's
out the work and audits the accounts :?
He can well afford to write bio
graphical sketches and be an organ
when he has the nice sugar plum at his
command worth twenty-five to thirty thou
sand dollars per annum. And when the
good time comes, that the public printing
is to be let out to the lowest bidder, will
not this Comptroller decide that his own
| firm always has the lowest bids? 1t will
| be better even for him then than now, for
he can dissolve the firm of Jones, Purvis
| & Co., and run the machipen in the sole
| interest of his own journal,