Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-04-13
Supervisors Disbursements.

Elsewhere in today's issue we repro
duce from the Rock Hill Herald, the
official report of the disbursements by
the county board Of commissioners
for the quarters ending March 81, 1909.
For the publication of this report
the law provides a compensation of
$50 per annum, and the service is
we'll worth that sum, particularly in
a paper Of the circulation Of The En-
quirer; but this installment is pub
lished in The Enquirer without any
compensation, except the appreciation
Of those of our readers who may not
have the opportunity to see it else
where, and to us that is entirely sat-
isfactory.
1t has been the custom Of the coun-
ty board Of commissioners for num-
ber Of years past to submit the pub
lication of this report to competitive
Of the fact that the principle of COM
petitive bidding is fair, we have felt
that The Enquirer was at a decided
disadvantage for the reason that the
service it would offer for a given
amount was so much greater than
could or would be rendered by any
possible competitor in this county for
the same sum.
this matter, it has been argued by
those who think The Enquirer should
not be favored with this business,
that the subscribers of the other pa
pers have just as much right to see
the advertisements as have the sub
scribers of The Enquirer. This prop
osition we would not deny, for 1t is
absolutely true; but in like manner
each subscriber of The Enquirer has
exactly the same right to see the ad-
vertising as has each subscriber to
any other paper, and if The Enqui-
rer has more subscribers than any
other paper in the county, as we
claim it has, then in determining the
relative cheapness Of the respective
bids submitted, it seems that the
question of circulation should be con-
sidered.
Understanding all these things as
well as we think we do, we have been
taking them into consideration in our
responses to the invitation of the COM
missioners to submit proposals. Up
to about ten years ago, we used to
contend for this work by trying to
underbid the other fellow; but once
we purposely allowed the other fell
low to underbid us at about Is cents,
and when the board afterward paid him
81 we decided thenceforward to stick
as nearly as possible to rockbound
business principles, and since then
we have not offered to cut prices that
were none too high for the service
we had to offer.
Two years ago, The Enquirer offer
ed to print these reports alone for the
sum of $50, or to print them in con-
nection with any one or all the other
papers of the county, or as many as
desired to go into the arrangement,
for it's pro rata share of the $50, the
share being determined by the num-
Der Of papers among which the whole
sum was to be divided, regardless of
the circulation of each. The board
awarded the contract to the Rock
Hill Herald and the Yorkville New
Era, a paper Of small circulation
that was being published in York
Vile at the time. The New. Era sus-
pended publication before the COM
pletion of the contract, and the re-
manning reports were published in the
Herald alone. Only the report for a
single quarter was published in The
Enquirer that year, and that was pub
lished gratuitously. At the letting a
year ago, The Enquirer made the
same bid as before, except that it
stipulated that the papers that went
into the arrangement must accept as
compensation their part Of $50 in the
proportion that the respective circu-
lation of each bore to that sum. The
contract was awarded to The Enqui-
rer, which printed the reports alone
last year for the sum Of $50.