Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-24


grantees are required to sell as low as
twenty-five copies at specified wholesale
rates"
The bill is the boldest attempt to despoii
a State of which there is any record; It's
propositions are little short of those of the
knight of the road, and certainly disclose
conspiracy to break down the system of
producing the State textbooks At heavy
expense the State has compiled the text
books and procured plant for their pub
LEGATION. This cost has been ADDED to the
price of the books distributed in one case
over sales for eight, and in TIE other for
twelve years. The proposition now is to
cut of this return, give anybody the right
to freely use the outlay or capital to set
up in business and to undersell the State
with her own goods. OF course when the
State should be crowded out the book ring
woHid cease publication also and thus in
velye the people in SUCH trouble as to rem
Ger it easier to approach them with the
proposition to abandon the State system
entirely.
Apparently, the bill is in the interest Of
printers, pressmen, binders, and other
Woodworking wage-earners but, in fact, 1T
is directly opposed to their interest and
assails them in vital spot. The mechan-
les employed in book-making cannot profit
by it, since the State books are now all
made within the State, and their manu-
facture employs just SO much labor as is
necessary to meet the demand for them
and no more; but under the bill, as will be
seen at a glance, publishers of New York,
Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, or any
other locality, would be authorized to pro-
duce the books abroad
Under this bill of conspiracy, which
should never have disgraced the Assembly
calendar, the State Board of Education is
not even given the pitiful discretion of
fixing the standard of excellence, or of re-
fusing an unworthy applicant, or enc who
has his publishing headquarters in for
eign country, since the privilege is open to
"all persons" the only requisite being that
each one shall file bond not to sell above
4 specified rate. There is nothing to pre-
vent sales at less than the wholesale rate
indeed, the text of the bill will bear the
construction that it is an express affirma-
ton of the right to undersell the State
issue. The private publisher with electro
type plates furnished him at costa figure
with which private electrotypers cannot
compete-working pressmen and binders
at low wages ten hours a day, having no
capital locked up in plant the books
originally represent, can print from the
State plates, bind the series, and put it on
the market just enough less to completely
shut off sales from the State Printing
Office. The State works her printers but
eight hours a day and pays the highest
wages known in the State among printers
She could not, therefore, possibly compete
with publishers to whom she would be
compelled to furnish all the fixed capital
for the business, and who employ cheaper
labor at longer hours.
Even if under the bill the books could
be furnished apparently few cents cheaper
their real cost to the people would not be
| less than now, for the cost of the State print
| ing plant and of compilation must be paid
by the people, and under the bill the print
ing department for books would still have
to be maintained as free capital for the
book pirates. The real prompting of the bill
is a purpose to bring the State school text
book system into disrepute, to transfer the
| publishing of the series to private parties
who have axes to grind and to once more
return the people of this State to slavery
under the book syndicate.
The State series of school books is a
good one; it meets the educational re-
quirement; the books are handsomely
printed and well bound; they are furnished
to the people at from so to 70 per cent.
cheaper than similar books were ever be-
fore offered. Even with State workmen at
high wages and short hours, the people are
immensely gamers. For while they paw
for books SO much less than before, they
are not taxed and annoyed by frequen,
changes of books that afflicted them under
the system of rivalry between private pub.
fishers; they are rid of the pertinacity,
bribery and bulldozing of the school book
agents; the book lobbyist has disappeared
from the halls of legislation the book
corruptionist is no longer at the forefront
of the primary or pulling the wires in
school elections Boards of Education are
not now made purchasable commodities by
book-nakers; the book-house money i.
not now disbursed at the polls, and the
teachers in the common schools are not be.
sought, for coin, to become conspirators
with the book rings in efforts to breach
the pockets of the people who raise up
! children to the State