Arizona republican., 1903-03-01
THE DELINQUENT LIST
The Advertising for Bids a Matter of
 Form.

The folly Of advertising for bids for public printing and the folly of paying any attention to the advertisements was fully Illustrated yesterday. That was the time for the opening of the bids for the printing of the delinquent tax list. There was a wide range in the bidding. For instance, the Gazette of- fered to print the list, four insertions for 40 cents an inch. The Enterprise came forward with a proposition to do the same work for s1.S0 an inch. The Democrats bid was S2.15. In the l dinary business of life it would seem that the problem before the supervisors was easy of solution, but it was not.
 Since the advertising the supervisors 1 had been surprised at the discovery of
 a law requiring that there could be only one bidder and that one should be
 the official paper. The Democrat in the fortunes of politics happens to hold that position.
 | The representatives of the bidding
 papers were present and engaged in q discussion of the question whether the spells did not belong to the victor The Republican newspaper, the democratic | contingent claimed, had no business to
 be present at all and it's bid could not
 properly be considered. The represen-
 tatives of the Democrat held to the
 reasonable theory that if the contract i had to be awarded to that paper there
 were really no other bids on the board
 and the fact was pointed out that the
 printing law of the territory allowed 1 it to charge as much as S2.25 for the | printing. Hence the Democrat had
 really offered to make the county q 1 gift of ten cents an inch. The bid of
 the Enterprise though was made the
 basis of settlement. and the Democrat
 finally decided to do tho printing for | S1 50. thus deliberately throwing away
 45 cents an inch. which was five cents
 more than the Gazeete offered to dc
 the work for. No paper can long sur vive and do business in that generous i way.
 | A question may easily arise as to
 what an official paper is. Some people | believe it is one to which a contract tC
 do any public printing is awarded. h
 making the general awards by which | the Democrat claims to be the official paper, the printing of the delinquent | list could not under the law be let. It 1 IS eXpf eSSiS prONiQeG that that must | be the subject of a separate contract. l It is not unnatural to suppose that the 1 legislature which passed the law did | not have it in mind that the delinquent | list printing would necessarily follow i the rest of the printing. If that had 1 been the intention the legislature would
 net have segregated it. In making the
 general awards on the bids received at 1 that time the board of supervisors
 might divide the printing among as ] many papers as it might see fit. l.
 would be difficult then to see which one
 would be the official paper.
 As a matter of fact the law is silent
 as to the awarding of the contract to the official paper It does say though that the delinquent list must be turned
 over by the tax collector to the official paper. The Gazette which was by far the lowest bidder may naturally believe that if the contract had been awarded tc it yesterday it would have been the official paper.
 The supervisors, however, in the lei ting of the contract stated that while
 they would prefer to award it to the
 lowest bidder, they were acting upon
 the advice or opinion of District At | tOrrey Baker.