The Libby herald. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1911-1913, 1912-12-27
COUNTY DADS UNDER FIRE
F.P. CAREY REPLIES

A number of trouble makers who
are never satisfied unless hard a,
work at their favorite pastime are
busy throwing mud at the county
commissioners of Lincoln and Flat
head counties and accusing them OF
favoring the Coast Bridge company
in letting bridge contracts and in
sinuating that the commissioners
were getting graft out of the deal.
The Kalispell Bee is being used as
the official organ and is filling the
bill to nicely. Commissioner
Carey of Eureka has taken up the
cudgel for Lincoln county and the
following letter is one he wrote to
the Kalispell Times in answer to
the Bee editorials afore mentioned:
I'm the Dec. 9th issue of the
Kalispell Bee, there appears an ed
itorial under the heading, will
Someone Explain?" which has re-
ference to bridge contracting and
building in Flathead and Lincoln
and being party to the Lincoln
county end of it. feel that it ought
not go unnot1ced.
AS to the road building that has
taken place in Flathead county, l
know nothing, neither have l seen
many of the BRIGGS that have been
built there, but if the one at Co.
lumbia Falls is any criterion to go
by, it is no surprise to me that the
commissioners of the county saw
fit to at least experiment with some
other company when contemplating
the construction of other bridges,
and the writer of the article men-
toned in the Bee only shows his
absolute ignorance of bridge build
ing when he alleges that bridges
built by the various companies are
all substantially the same.' I
challenge any man to show that
the bridge just completed at Libby
by the Coast Bridge company is
not superior in many ways to the
one at Columbia Falls, and while l
verify believe the commissioners
awarded the contract for the
Columbia Falls bridge in absolute
good faith, yet they are censured for
so doing, and now they are criti-
cised again for at least trying an
other company. l would suggest
as a solution of the situation in
Flathead county, that the pro-
prietor of the Bee send his little
flock of muck-rakers out on a cir
cult of education, providing they
have brains enough to start with,
to analyze the difference between a
strain sheet on bridge proposition
and chattel mortgage.
Relative to the Lincoln county
situation, this editorial is as false
as it is malicious, as an examin-
alton of the contractors for bridges
in the said county will bear out
The change was not made at Troy
for the purpose of getting onto a
crock foundation as is alleged, it
was made because the people of
Troy wanted it changed, and for
no other reason. Neither did the
change cost $6, 900.
Relative to the change at Rex
ford, if the little muck rakers have
the disposition to be fair and will
visit the location there they will
find a concrete pier in the center,
instead of tubular. if thew We got
sense enough to distinguish the
difference, and the extension there
did not cost even Fl, 900, much less
$4,000 as is alleged.
Presumably, the editor of the
Bee has been interviewing an ex-
county commissioner from the
western end of the county, "a
puzzled Trojan who formerly
paid bis board bill with his nerve,
but of late has been paying it by
criticism of county officials and ad-
ministering estates Of his departed