The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1875-06-10
The County Printing.

was ulleu from one emu 10 the Otncl
of the two inside pages, with per-
sonal abuse of the Editor of the
STAR, the Board of Supervisors, and
citizens from the west side of the
county against whom charges Of
conspiracy" etc., have been made
The main ground for complain,
on the part of the organ, was in the
fact that the Board of Supervisors
had seen fit to award the contract
for county printing for the ensuing
year to G.. X. Radcliffe, who was
the lowest bidder. The organ
quotes the resolution of the the
Board, published by us two weeks
ago, advertising for bids to do the
county printing for the coming year.
Nothing whatever was said about
the number of bids to be offered by
any one person. The lo'cest bidder
was to have the job.
1t would seem, by the report of
the proceedings of the Board and
the organs statement, that most
strenuous efforts were made by GER
tain members to utterly disregard
the fact that the bids had been
opened, and to put in additional
bids. Or, in other words, after all
their chicancry, and wire pulling,
they found our bid still below them,
they proposed to put IN bids them
selucs. In all our experience with
men, We had never before met with
such treatment as this. "Anything
to beat Radcliffe" seems to be the
motto. With such creatures to deal
with, as the cast side members
showed themselves to be, last week,
if we arc not deprived of our every
right, it will be almost miracle.
And now that the organ has said so
much about county printing, and
the action of certain members re-
lating thereto, We will state an oc-
currence of more than a year ago,
in which the present County Clerk
figured conspicuously, as also the
present Supervisor from Chase:
When the STAR was first started, a
contract was made between its pub
Usher and the Board Of Supervisors,
in effect that the STAR should have
the publishing of the proceedings
of the Board, for one year from the
usual Spring session of the Board
and paid therefor, SIS for each
session. The provisions of the con-
tract were carried out in good faith
until the clique set up its organ,
when Towncr proposed that the job
of printing the proceedings of the
Board be given to it. Some of the
members of the Board objected, stat
ing as reason therefor, that they
thought the Board bound to hold to
the contract until the year had ex-
PRED; they considered themselves
morally bound, at least, ifn legal
". There was considerable discus
sion over the matter as We were in
formed afterwards by gentlemen
who were present; and VIC were fur
Their informed that Mr.. Towncr in
timatcd in substance, if not in SO
many words-that he didn't care
for any moral obligation, and if
there was not any legal obligation,
he didn't propose to stand by the
contract. On submitting his rcso-
luton to a vote, it was lost-Tow-
ner and Randall being the only two
favoring it.
Afterwards Towner succeeded in
getting a motion through the Board,
giving the Chase sheet tire publ
cation of the proceedings of that
session, to be paid for at the rate of
% cents per inch. And the copy,
which by contract, belonged to us,
was given to the Chase sheet and
published as "ofTicial," before it ap-
peared in the STAR. For publish
ing the proceedings of that one scs-
sion, the Chase paper received t,ccn-
ty-one dollars and .ffty cents, while
the STAR was paid according to
contract price-$15. We always
held it as breach of the contract;
but looked upon the matter more as
an error of the heads, rather than
of the hearts of a majority of the
Board, and so let it pass. Nor
would we now recall the unpleasant
question, if it were not for the
shameful charges made against the
Board, simply because it has adj
hered strictly to its resolution to
give the job of doing the county
printing to the lowest bidder.
Talk about "injusticc" and soon
spiraciesw If there ever was a
conspiracy to perpctratc continued
injustice upon any one, we believe
it was formed by certain ones, from
the day we set foot in Lake county
to ruin and crush us i'm our bust