The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1911-12-22
WHY is SUCH A LAW NECESSARY
(Evening Capltal News. }


1t ought to be matter fer regret
that the state legislature should
have to be called upon to require pub
lie officials to patroniZe the indus
tries of their own state, but 1t is a
matter for double regret that it
should take a decision of the highest
court in the state in support of a
penal clause in that law to make it
effective.
| Why should it be tnat the men
to the recent decision of the SUI
elected by the people should turn
against portion OF that same peo-
pie to such an extent that they would
take the bread from their mouths or
the profits from their purses?
We refer here, as may be evident
preme court Of this state sustaining
the law requiring county officials to
purchase their printing supplies, first
in the county where they reside, If
possible, and second, within the state
If it is not possible to get them with
in the county. The law throws all
safeguards around the transaction
specifically allowing purchases else
where when the local prices are un-
just or when the work Is inferior.
What puzzles us, and what has al
ways puzzled us is That such law
should ever have been necessary and
that any official could be found who
would contest it's enforcement
through the supreme court of the
state. Why should public officials,
above all others, fight for an oppor-
tunity to make large contracts with
firms outside the state? 1t is such
an unnatural proceeding that there
is the inevitable suspicion, which
suspicion amounts TO a moral GER
tainty that there is reason back of
it all which is not for the public
good.
But, as seeming to contradict this
suspicion we know that there are
men in businessmen who ask your
patronage and mine, men who are de-
sirous of building up a great and
flourishing business OF their own
within our state. who prefer to send
without the state for their printing
work. Begging loyalty to themselves
from other people, they daily prove
traitorous to the very cause they
appeal to and profess to admire
We have actually known men to
go from the post offi"e, where they
had just mailed a good order for
printed matter to some foreign con-
Germ, thus doing their best to injure
a home industry direct to the office
of the local publishing house and ask
the publisher to do something-to
take some step toward the accomp-
lishment of some thing that would
benefit this same man! 1t is true,
perhaps, that the accomplishment
would benefit the general commune
| ty, but it would benefit these per-
sons as well, and they have had the
effrontery to make such a plea under
such circumstance. While begging
or urging-publisher generally do
not need to be begged to do anything
to advance the public good-while
urging the publisher to do something
to advance his personal or business
| interests, he has the monumental
nerve to take the very means away
from him whereby he may accomp-
| lish the good asked of him-his prof
it's from a small piece of printing.
Other men, some OF them greatest
in their demands upon the newspaper
publisher that he serve the public
interests day and night, year in and
year out, will yet So place all the
patronage possible that it may weak
en- and lessen the newspapers oppor-
tunity for accomplishing good.