St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-14
On Which to Base the Investi-
cation, Which Is a Star
Chamber Affair.
Mr.. RAMALEY INTIMATEs
That Berg Is Doing 1t to
Justify His Own Ac-
tionS.

David Ramaley fully explained the
recent charges that he had neglected
his duty while in the Office of state
printer. It was stated by an evening
sheet that a subcommittee from the
joint legislative committee on print
ing had spent the forenoon in the
office of the secretary of state, where
ample proof was exhibited of gross
carelessness, to say the least, upon
the part of the late state printer.
The committee was informed that
Mr. Ramaley's accounts were so
hopelessly confused that it was i'm
possible to estimate the value or
amount of the paper belonging to
the state and now in the hands of
the contracting printers. None of
the accounts, in fact, were in a
lucid or satisfactory condition. The
state had paid out $500 for counting
and sorting the official ballots, in
spite of all such work being provided
for under contract. An exorbitant
charge had been allowed of 81 per
1000 for printing $1,000 letter heads.
When he had read the clipping
containing the above statements, Mr..
Ramaley smiled quietly, and with
out exhibiting more than a slight
annoyance that such foolish charges
should be gravely made to the in
vestigating committee, he said:
"Why, this whole matter is
EVIDENTLY INSTIGATED
+ in In
office. OF course, I can't say that
Mr.. Berg is personally responsible
for the matter, but there is no
foundation on which to build any
legitimate charges. 1t would look
as if the secretary was doing this
merely to justify his own actions
and to silence criticism. So far as
it has gone, it's a pure star chamber
investigation, and only one side has
been heard. There's not an item,
not a dollar, that's not perfectly
accounted for. A few hours work
by an expert bookkeeper would at
once convince the committee that
it has nothing to investigate. Nat
urally, as it is, the committee
thinks something is wrong, for it
wouldn't be hard to find fault after
that fashion with any of the state
departments.
Now, take this matter of the pa
per supposed to be unaccounted for.
There are three contract printers
the Pioneer Press, j. w. Cunning
ham & Co. and Smith &, HARRISON
the latter of Minneapolis. All of.
them were supplied by me with pa
per on which to do the state printing,
and every cents worth was charged
to the firm receiving it, which was
obliged to give a receipt. Explicit
accounts appear on my old books
now in the secretary of states Of
flee, and each firm is responsible for
all the paper it has receipted for.
Whenever any printing was done, 1
used to estimate the amount of paper
used, and the contracting firm was
then credited with that amount of
paper. AS natural result, until all
the various jobs in the hands of any
one firm were cleared up there would
always be balance charged against
IilOiii, DoI lllty wei Z ISSpOtlSlDle lOT
the balance, and they were strictly
obliged to pay the state for all paper
not returned in the form of COM
pie ed work. Sometimes a year or
two would elapse before a certain
contractor would clear up his &C
count. Meanwhile it was simply
AN OPEN ACCOUNT
nothing very mysterious, I'm sure,
and always accurately kept. Just
at this time, for instance, Harrison
& Smith are printing 5000 copies of
the state geological survey-auite a
bulky Volume-and the books have
not been delivered Of course the
firm are still charged with the
amount of paper delivered to them.
the value OF which any one can see
by just looking over my accounts.
Again, it is said that the cost of
counting the state ballots was al
ready included in a contract. That
is not the case. There was no con-
tract to cover this work. We used
o0O,0OO ballots. Each ballot was
counted by two different men. The
pallots were then divided into lots
OF 100, and again packed in lots of
5oO. Such work had to be done by
men-not by boys-and by. exneri-
enced men at that. Besides the work
was done in great hurry-mucb of
1t at night. L allowed what T con-
sldered a fair price. You can see
'naI my allowance was not excessive
when 1 tell you that the total cost
OF printing the state ballots was
only little over SO a. Thousand
while the city and county ballots
usually cost from So to s12 a thou
sand. Those $1,000 letter heads
were supplied by the Pioneer Press
company, and the work was all Iftbo-
sraphed. 1 paid 81 a thousand
winch is the usual price. Perhans
some letter heads have since baen
furnished at a less rate, but 7 doubt
IL they were Autographed.
i want to say, too, that It's on,,,
TOUR years that I've been in obaroa
oI the paper supply and the general
accounts-not ten years, as stated
PREVIOUS to that, I merely audited
the Oils as they came in. No
don't think, really, that the commit
Tee Will IND a single item wrong if
they only begin complete and i'm
partlai investigation. I wish thew
would" 'ey