The record-union., 1893-02-10

The State Printing Office and Bindery
is the largest and best equipped institu-
ton of the kind on the Pacific Coast. The
bindery was established in 1885, and is
model workshop, containing an extensive
plant of the most improved machinery,
ana giving employment to ninety five
persons at the present time. Tie ma
chlnery IN the pressroom has been
doubled since 1885, in order to meet the
great increase in the volume of work re-
CURED by the various departments. At
the present time it requires 232 persons
TO do the work of the State printing and
binding.
If the proposition of the Commercial
fupllshlng Company be received favora-
ply by the Legislature, and the printing
be awarded to it, it would be necessary
to withdraw from the State Printer the
authority to do the work. The inability
OF the Commercial Publishing Company
to accomplish the work for the sum they
name (S50,000), would legally be followed
by forfeiture of their bond most likely
intellectually; and, the work being in
dispensable for carrying on the Govern
ment, the State would be at the mercy of
the contracting Shylocks, who could loot
the treasury at their will. For two years
the robbing could continue before a Legis-
lature could convene to arrest this skill
fully devised scheme of plumber. And
all this time the extensive building and
costly plant of the State Printing Office
would rust in idleness, and would suffer
deterioration, by decay of material,
destruction OF business and operative
discipline. and all the evils following in
the train of an abandoned enterprise.
This deterioration would be SO great that
the valuable machines, the excellent ma
terial of every kind, and all the appoint
re- faf hn hax
only the value of old iron and discarded
type-metal.
The result of our investigations, con-
densed in few words, is as follows:
/. The capacity of the Office is greater
than any other in the State.
z. The character of the work is of a
high grade, equal to the best elsewhere
done.
3. The charges to the State, being the
cost price, and under legislative and ex-
ecutive direction, make the institution
an economical proposition to the tax
payer.
4. The charges for school books, being
also the cost price, relieve parents of from
90 to 70 per cent. of the burden of educat-
ing their children.
.. The printing, being done at cost for
all departments, necessarily inures to the
benefit of the public in decreasing ex-
penditures by the amount of profits
reaped by contractors.
6. The profits heretofore appropriated
by the contractors are not now drawn
from the State Treasury, except by legis-
latlve action for the Improvement of the
plant, and very small percentage of this
| money is ever called for, and only then
to serve for the increased demand for
printing as time goes on, thus making
possible future savings.
Z. The operatives of the State Printing
Office and Bindery are necessarily union
in principle, If for no other reason than
that the large force employed can not be
recruited outside of the unions.
s. The offer Of the Commercial Pub
fishing Company of San Francisco is a
fraud upon its face, as the absolute cost of
printing the reports, bills and journals
alone amount to so per cent. over their
whole bid, and this does not include
stationery, blank books, job printing,
etc.
9. The evident intention of the bid of
the Commercial Publishing Company, is
to disorganiZe the printing office, with
the Interior purpose of stopping the
publication of the school books, the said
company being under the control OF a
stationery and book house in San Fran
cisco, through which the American Book
Company-the veritable Eastern school
book trust-make all their sales.
10. The Commercial Publishing Com
pany, at the instigation of the book trust.
with their corruption fund of $1,000, 900,
are, by their action in this matter, insult
ing our representatives in the Legis-
lature by appealing to their technical
ignorance of the art of printing, impeach-
ing their integrity by attempts OF bribery,
and menacing the existence of trades
unionism.
Your committee denounces this method
of business competition as dishonorable
and criminal, and urge the Federated
Trades of Sacramento to use their utmost
endeavors to sustain laudable govern
mental enterprise now endangered by
these insidious approaches: an enterprise
that reflects credit upon California as the
one State in the Union which has the in
ventive ability and the courage to shield
her children from the rapacious attacks of
unscrupulous book rings, and from the
greed OF recreant citizens of our loved
State. NJ. NJ. GLENN, Ch'm'n,
GEoRE A. PLEAsANCE,
GEORGE L. SHAFER,
w. J. HARDY,
w. f. GORMLEY Sec'y