The Savannah morning news., 1904-08-07

document mill was given over to
very amiable gentleman, whose poll
tics were irreproachable from the
standpoint of his own party, but who
had mighty little practical knowledge
of printing, the prices of paper, or any
other of the things he ought to have
known about in order to do the work
as it should be done. Also. he owned
no printing office. while his executive
ability was a negligible quantity, and
he had never carried out a big, brisk
business operation in his life.
Naturally. he made a mess of it. His
first order from the committee was for
100000 copies of a four-page doc" and
further orders for 2. 4. 8, Is, "a and 80
page docs" came TO him with bewild-
ering rapidity. At that time he hard
ly knew what the printing facilities of
New York city were, and, the orders
from the committee being all of the
hurry-up sort. he placed them when
ever he could sometimes without stop
ping to ask the price. In a few cases,
he forgot even to make memoranda of
the print shops where he left the work.
and in about two weeks, when the COM
mittee began TO yell for docs" he
was certainly in a tangle. Just as he
was beginning to get Strengthened out
an order for 200, 900 copies of the text
book. a volume of 300 or 400 pages, was
was swamped before, but that order
completely showed him under. From
that time till the end of the campaign
he lived as one In long, hideous, COM
plicated dream.
The shipping bureau.
That same year the shipping bureau
of the party was conducted by another
true-blue party man, who. like the
campaign printer. was novice at the
task which he attempted. In order
10 handle the 100000 documents a
week put out by the printer, the ship
per rented a whole building and en-
gagged a young army Of employees
men, women, boys and girls-to bun
die and address the documents
Meanwhile, the printer. finding il
impossible to get his work done on
time at divers job offices. was Obliged
TO rent lofts and put in printing press
es OF his own, at ruinous expense. He
also had 10 organize a big force under
union rules, which Of course were not
eoftened because his was political
work and wanted in a hurry. When
he finally got well under way, a con-
tinuous stream of heaVily-laden
trucks was delivering docs" the whole
twenty-four hours through every day
and Sundays 10 the establishment of
the shipper, and II was only a short
time after that before the shipper was
as completely showed under as the
printer had been.
1O,O0O,OOO of Docs" on Hand.
A week before the election the ship
per had 100000 or 1900. 900 Of un-
shipped docs" OF every shape and
size in his lofts. with the certainty
that there was no possibility OF getting
them away TO the distant states for
which many Of them were intended, IN
time for proper distribution.
A. a last resort the shipper con-
cluded TO distribute the surplus docs"
in New York and vicinity. and during
the last week Of that campaign he had
twenty trucks. each accompanied by
two or three men, handing out leaflets.
tracts and booklets. each containing
sound political doctrine az his party
understood a., from door TO door In
New York Brooklyn and Jersey city.
One Of the humors Of the situation
arose FROM the circumstance that one