St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1892-11-05
THE COURIER AND THE SCHOOL
BOARD.

"At the last meeting of the Foster Pub
lie School Board, the Courier and Demo
crat put in a bid, as has heretofore been
done, for the printing and publishing OF
| its proceedings. The CLARION represented
by [. S. Fontenot made a proposition to
/ this effect: That it would do the work for
the School Board for nothing-prouided,
the Board would agree not to give the
Courier and Democrat its proceedings for
publication. This proposition was ac-
cepted by the Board, Messrs: Guilbeau,
| Wilson and Irion dissenting. The position
taken by these three being that if our pa
pers should be willing to publish the pro-
eeedings free of charge there could be no
reasonable or fair objection to letting
| them do it. But they were overruled and
the Board obligated itself not to permit US
to publish its proceedings for nothing,
| Thus the people of st. Landry are en-
phatieally told that unless they take the
| CLARION they will not know what the
School Board does. The CLAIR
ION having offered to do it for nothing, it
had the right to give it the work and we
had no right to object The CLARION is
welcome to it at that price. Our objection
lies to the refusal of the Board to allow US
to publish them on the same terms, con-
temporaneously with the CLARIoN."-Op-
elousas Courier, Oct. 20.
"On motion of ]. L. Guilbeau, the bid of
the CLARION for printing of the Board
was accepted: The ST. LANDRY CLARION
will publish the proceedings of your hon
orable body. free of charge; provided the
same be furnished to it and not to any
other paper Extract from the proceed
ings.
The Courier says Mr. Guilbeau dissented !;
the proceedings of the school board says
differently. May be the Courier is mis-
taken in some of its other conclusions.
The acceptance of the CLARIoNs bid,
made it impossible for the Board to give
the proceedings to any -other. paper. II the
Courier was so exceedingly anxious to
publish the proceedings for othing," why
did it not put in bid to that effect? Dur
ing the two years past the CLARION has
never been offered for publication the pro-
ceedings of the school board; and during
that time we do not recollect that any such
proceedings were published in the Courier
--if it was SO anxious and intent on pub
fishing them for nothing" why did it not
then?
Last week, the Courier put in a bid the
Democrat put in a bid, and the two jointly
put in bid, all for money consideration:
and then there was that reserved tacit bid
to do it for nothing" if the CLARION made
such bid, which gave those two papers
four changes to the CLARIoN's one, but the
CLARIoN's proviso that it would publish
the proceedins for nothing, if they were
furnished to it exclusively, knocked the
stutfifIg out of that reserved tacit bid, and
the Courier has raised its usual sterotyped
howl.
What is the sense of calling for bids, or
of putting in bid, if the thing bid for is to
be adjudicated to all the bidders? When
this paper makes bid it stands by it. If
it had bid to publish the proceedings for a
certain price, and the Courier had bid to
do it for nothing" it would not have a
word to say, and certainly would not abuse
post .facto, on the same terms with the sue
cessful bidder.
The Courier has been so prodigal of its
abuse in matters of this kind, that it viii |
soon play out, and not even produce sickly |
sdissentersn in voting ON bids for printing; |
and one thing is certain, the CLARION here
after intends its full rights under its print
ng contracts, whether it suits the Courier,
md Democrat, and their dissenting
friends.