The morning call., 1890-12-12
THE PRINTING STEAL.

II Supervisors Bingham. Bush. Pilster,
Becker, Kingwell. Barry and Noble fancy
they accomplished anything by awarding
the city printing To the Daily Report on
Tuesday evening, they are allowing their
hopes to outrun their Judgment. Their res
olution amounts to nothing whatever. 1t is
idle wind on waste paper. 1t will have no
more effect in securing the coveted contract
to the organ of the solid nine than ukase
Of the Khan of Tartary.
The dissolution of the Perkins Injunction
is mere matter of procedure. Our Supreme
Court holds. in opposition to the United
States Supreme Court and to the leading
textbooks on municipal law, that the rem
edy Of citizens when unlawful expendi-
lures of public funds are about to be
made by Boards of Supervisors is not by
an injunction sued out by an individual
Taxpayer. but by a suit by the county to
annul the illegal act. Lawyers generally
regard this doctrine as bad law; but. whether
il is or not, the Perkins case does not come
within the rule, and if it did it merely goes
to the form and not to the right of the REM
ely. 1t does not impair the right of citizens
OF San Fran cisco to stop the robbery of
property-owners by corrupt Board of Su-
perviSors fer the benefit OF their newspaper
organ.
That right is clearly affirmed by Judge
Hunt. The printing of notices of street i'm
rrnvements either is public printing or il is
not. Ii it is, it is governed by the State law
which requires public printing to DE awarded
TO the lowest bidder, and a contract permit
ting a newspaper to charge its usual rates"
for it is void, invalid. Illegal and of no effect
Under the old law, such notices were Ie-
mir 70 no inta i,f ba biob,
lshed the proceedings of the Supervisors.
The present law contains no such provision.
The contract which the Board of Super-
visors passed ON Tuesday is rotten through
ont. 1t awarded the city printing TO the
Report on the condition that it should be
done free of charge-forgetting that such
contract was without consideration, could
not be enforced and could not constitute the
ground for suit against sureties to the COW
enant. 1t granted to the organ of the Solid
Nine more than it asked. In its bid the Re
port offered to publish gratuitously among
other matters "all notices and resolutions
pertaining to street work" Yet the con-
tract, or award, declares that the Report
shall have the right to collect its usual
rates" for ."all resolutions and notices of
street work" Of course no such contract
could be enforced in any court of law. 1t is
a fraud on competing bidders and a palpa-
BILE violation alike of the specifications un-
der which the board called for bids and of
the offer of the successful bidder. Such an
award is not worth the paper it is writ
ten on.
1t has passed the board nevertheless
Happily. the remedies which are left to tax
payers are various and are likely to be
effective. In the first place. the new Board
OF Supervisors are not bound by contract
made in violation of law; they may, and
surely WILL cancel it next month. Next,
parties interested in street improvements
are not, under this decision, bound to
advertise them in the Report Fina Iy,
under this decision, an advertisement of
street Improvements inserted by con-
tractor in the Report imposes no liza
bility on the owner of the property
concerned and does not warrant the
filing of lien on that property under the
Vrooman act No property-owner need pay
for an advertisement In the Report unless
he chooses to. The award under which the
Report published it being fraudulent, null
and void, no liability can be created under
1t. and an attempt to assert such liability,
by way of lien or otherwise, could be sue
cessfully resisted. If the Street Depart
ment inserts such advertisements in the
Report OF its own responsibility the news
PAPER must look to the Superintendent of
Streets for its pay.
1t is to be regretted that we have no pub
lie official who can be relied upon to give the
death blow 10 this last attempted swindle by
proceedings taken in the name of the county.
The decisions of the Supreme Court under
which Judge Hunt dissolved the Perkins
injunction are predicated on the theory that
there must be some such official and that he
can be relied upon to do his duty. The diff
Guilty here is that the public do not seem to
be able to find any one who answers to the
description