Los Angeles herald., 1892-10-11
THE SUPERVISORS BLUFF.

Yesterday was an apocryphal day at
the court house. 1t revealed the pic
ture OF group of five men, whose names
are frequently coupled with exclamation
points, inviting investigation and defy
ing proof of what everybody knows to
be fact. They passed resolution de-
manding an investigation by q grand
jury of whose legality there is very
strong doubt, without any great possi-
bility of that body's deriving any great
benefit from the doubt. The whole
business grows out of what the HERALD
had to say about the court house equip
ments and the scandalous manner in
which the peoples money had been
upon superfuous Office
furniture and clock that had stood, for
year or more, at "a quarter Of an inch
to eight" as the Yorkshireman put it.
An obscure evening paper takes us to
tack for our utterances on this PROPOSE
tion and says "there was no contract for
clocks" A little further on, in the very
came article, it states that "the sum ol
$4,000 was retained on account of the
clocks" Now if there was no contract
at all, what right had the county to re-
tain any portion of the purchase money
of such clocks?"
The truth is, that there is, and always
has been, total disregard of business
methods in matters OF this sort. In
stead Of letting contracts to the lowest
bidder, under sealed proposals., they
have been let to partisan favorites in
discriminatory. The great register print
ing contract was one case in point, and
the court house clock matter is another.
No sooner was it demonstrated by the
HERALD (for no other paper had the
independence to stand up for the tax
payers on that propositionl that the
court house clock would neither run,
trot, pace, walk, gallop nor canter, than
the supervisors became afflicted with a
spasm of virtue, and, having on hand
the $4,000 of Mr.. Brady's money with
which to operate, advertise for proposals
for 16 clocks for the various Offices in
the court house and one for the tower.
This led to a bid from the Montgomery
Bros, in which they agree, to furnish
the aforesaid clocks for SIPS, with q
proviso in which it is stipulated they
shall have 5000 if four extra dials are
needed for the tower clock, which is a
clear saving of $1S25 from the price
If the original contract let to Mr.. Brady.
Recently another contract was let to
another partisan favorite CIV. s. Arnold,
who is also contractor for the court
house wall,) for building brick conduit
from that edifice to the street, die
lance of 250 feet in all, at 81 65 per linear
foot, the county to furnish cement and
sand and bear the cost of excavation.
This brings Mr.. Arnold's bill up to
$GcSS.50, but as the county is to furnish
the above elements of it's construction
free of cost to the contractor, the total
expense to the county will not fall very
far short of $4,000.
Like the boy whose mother inter-
viewed him so earnestly with her Slip
per in the least honored portion of his
physique, we begin to think "the world
is governed too much" Our county
who is Republican himself,
and never voted Democratic ticket in
his life, is our authority for the statement
that the cost of operating our county
government was 81, 1,347 ,550.54 for the
year 1891. Deduct the So Sundays, and
it makes net cost of 1920 per hour, or
Sl2 per minute, for each and every
day in the year. 1t is for this
wanton waste of public money in the
administration of our county affairs,
that the HERALD has arraigned these
disciples of the Doodle steward
in the sixteenth chapter of St.
Luke and held them up to public con-
tempt. They have demanded their
public acts to be investigated by the
grand jury, believing that an Indictment
oy that body cannot be 'made to stick"
IN any court of record; and as sauce for
The smiling goose is sauce for the sedate
gander as we'll, we ask that the same
grand Jury investigate our own status
with view to enforcing the law of libel.
We shall seek no equivocation nor resort
to any subterfuge. The HERALD has
put its hand to the plow and does not
desire to look back.
Our duty in the premises is plain
one, and we do not desire to shirk it.
We have not gone into this fight against
Wholesale plunder and jobbery without
being first fully made aware of the dan
gers atten iant upon such an undertak-
ng. We have already shown the people
where $4,000 of their money, at least, has
gone in a partisan job to enrich party
organ; and before we get through with
It, we will make several public men
wish that they had remained private
citizens. Again we say, the supervisors
resolution is bluff. They demand in
7estigation because they believe the
present grand jury is an illegal body
whose indictments are not worth the
paper on which they are written. All
'uch Investigations are farce comedies,