Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1902-02-22
JUGGLING WITH THE COUNTY PUP
LISTING.
Prom MARYLAND Republican

NthfM MAfN anu Atlhn&taH
on Tuesday, February 4th, after prev
iOps advertisement as required by Chap
ter goo Of the Acts of 1896, the County
Commissioners opened bids for the coun-
~ publishing and printing for the year
1902 After opening the bids the award
ing Of the contracts was deferred with
out any reason being given. On We'd
nosday, February 18Th, the publisher of
the MARYLAND REPUBLICAN received
letter from the clerk 90 the County Com
missioners, dated February 18th, saying:
1.-THE Board at its meeting today decided
10 reject all bids for county publishing,
there being no sworn statements as to
bona-fide circulation, &c, as required by
the advertisement Without further no
tice, new bidswill be received until noon
of Tuesday, February 25th, to be opened
ON that day"
We have not seen any bid except that
Of the MARYLAND REPUBLICAN and so
cannot speak of the others. Wed do know,
however, that TO the bid of the MARY
LAND REPUBLICAN is attached an atlida-
Wit of the editor and publisher in the
exact language of the law giving the
actual number of existing paying sub
scribers to the MARYLAND REPUBLICAN
at the time OF the making of the afilda-
Wit The publishers of the MARYLAND
REPUBLICAN made ridiculously low bid
for the county publishing and made it
in proper legal form and were and are
now ready to enter into bond for the
faithful performance of the, work for
which they bid and for which the Coun-
~ Commissioners invited bids This ri
diculously low bid was made i'm the in
terest of the people of the county, be-
cause the publishers have had great diff
fculty during the past year in getting
for publication the proceedings of the
Board Of County Commissioners and, in
deed, they have never felt certain that
the full proceedings were given to them
for publication
Believing that the people are entitled
TO know everything that their servants
are doing, this paper sought by its low
bid for the county publishing to. get the
full proceedings of the County Commits
sioners SO that the people of the county
might know each Saturday just what the
County Commissioners had done on the
preceding Tuesday The law is explicit
that the County Commissioners shall
award the county publishing to the low
est responsible bidder, unless for reasons
net Cf political character, the County
Commissioners shall ia open session by reso-
county demand otAcroISc" We believe
and we think the people of the county
believe that the interests of the county
demand that the proceedings of the
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES should have the
widest publicity And further We are
perfectly. willing to leave it to.the peo-
pie of the county to say what newspaper
published in the county viii give the
widest publicity. Indeed, we would be
willing to leave il to Messrs. Brown,
Steele and Cheston, the three county
Commissioners.
From the action of the Commissioners
we are constrained to say that it appears
that they considered the bids for the
county publishing more with view to
preventing the NJ MARYLAND REPUBLICAN
from getting the contract, than in the in
torests of the county. The MARYLAND
REPUBLICAN is content to leave the mat
ter with their consciences and TO the
verdict of the people. g