The Holly chieftain., 1899-02-10
pRowERs couNTY pIREcroRy
rha. County Printing matter.

The Sparks last week devoted an en-.
tire column to defending the commits
sioners' action in letting the county
printing, starting out with an emphatic
denial that any commissioner eyer re
ceived money reward for giving that
paper the printing, This denial was
rather superfiuous as no such accusation
had been made by the Chiefain.
But the Sparks goes ON and admits
that the commissioners did receives val
ue, or at least were led to believe they
did. in the way of "political services .
and in giving the printing to that paper
at three time the Chiefain's bid, they
were simply paving debt which they
owed the Sparks. The editor rants a
great deal about kansas ignorance, p
RAT" bids, ETC., ,all of which cuts no
ice in this matter.
The simple fact is that the law re-
quires and makes it the duty of the
commissioners to let the printing to the
lowest bidder. This they did not do
and, as we said before. they compel the
taxpayers to pay several hundred dol
lars to the Sparks, which the editor says
is for political services rendered, Is
it a common rule for the commissioners
OF Prowers county to pay their cam
paign expenses out of the county funds?
lfthis is a fair example of the meth
ods pursued in Colorado, then we con-
iess they are somewhat different from
the Kansas methods.
If the Sparks is clearlYentitled to the
printing by reason of political services.
as the editor claims. and the commits
sioners recognized its claims what was
their motive for adding expense to the
county by advertising for bids? 1t looks
as though they were attempting to fool
someone, doesn't it,
The Sparks may go on explaining un-
til dooms day, but it cannot oblterate
the illegality of the commissioners ac-
tions in letting the contract for printing,
In reprinting the law relating to de-
linqueni tax sales. the Sparks editor
would have been more successful in edi-
flying his readers had lie finished the
lastsentence, which reads, "and such
penalty SO collected shall be credited 70
the general fund of the county, BY
leaving that off the edi, u leads his
readers to believe that the l'v
iapqssU iOr aic l~r Of paying lor
the Gdyenisen and if any portion of
it is nor used for that purpose it lies
idle in the .Ieasury. AS will be seen,
however, the penalties collected are
placed ia tlle general fund and if not
paid out ior advertising itcsn be paid
out for any other county expenses.
We do not intend to enler into pro-
longed quarrel with the Sparks in this
matter, as We expect to fill the columns
of the Chiefiain with matter Of more
Importance 10 our readers. Our object
in discussing the matterwa simply to
show up the high handed methods en-
ployed by those who were elected to
serve the people. Having done this,
we leave the matter with the people for
them 10 approve or conilenn rs they
see fit. We deem it eminently proper
that the people be ipioItled as to eyerv
act of their public officials in oischarg-
ing the duties of their Office. and natur-
ally this information SHOULD be given
in the Official paper. but for some unex-
planned reason it is not,
a Roman OF Socks.
A story is told Of an DID bachelor who