Elmore County Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1910-1915, 1913-02-15

1
petitions to make 1t absolutely bind
ing 1t should have been rewritten
and condensed about ten told, but 1t
was not natural for the publisher to
press this matter when he had such
contract SO he courted the clerk
| for as much In volume as he could
get The clerk even made all con-
tracts entered into by the board a
part OF the minutes, and all the Of
fetal bonds of officers, and these were
published with all the appended af-
| fidavits and endorsements, when
merely a line or two showing that
such bonds were filed and approved
was all that should have been publish
ed. 1t was shameful graft, and the
board should have been impeached
for allowing it, but they went to
Boise and censured the press In gen
eral for that unreasonable expense
.oill County boards all over the
state were committing that kind of
offense in smaller degree, and no ex-
ample of more purely stupid and
wasteful use of public money can be
shown nor Is the press responsible
! for it. County boards and county
| clerks are open to censure for not
having the reports condensed, and
the statute lame as 1t Is, says 1t
shall be "a brief report +"
An instance has come to light In
which the publisher has taken the
contract of publishing the proceed
ings at small lump sum per year
and has been furnished with the ex-
tended report in carbon copy, and
has been required to publish 1t that
way, denying him the privilege Of
condensing it. Appealing to the sta
tute for guidance for the publisher,
the board ruled that as It had been
the custom to do 1t wrong they would
require the publisher to follow Gus
tom and not the law.
| All of the new county boards that
went into office on the 18th Of
January were ambitious to establish
a record for economy, and 1t was not
able that all of them had an eye on
the press One board spent part of
each day until Friday trying to beat
down the price of a printer, but in
the meantime called for bids from
druggists and accepted the bid that
was highest by three hundred per-
cent. Another board equally hostile
to the press, refused to pay steno-
grapher fifty dollars a month to do
county work, but by publishing the
proceedings in the extended form,
they wasted the price of her salary,
and she could have condensed the
proceedings In couple OF hours
work. Penny wise and pound foolish
they give the publisher the fruits OF
their folly and do not know 1t.
Another board equally anxious to-
economic on Monday asked for bids
for the county printing, received
three bids on Tuesday, considered
them on Thursday and on Friday &C
cepted the one that was highest. The
publisher who bid lowest was not
considered at all in making the
award, and the board were divided In
their favor for the two bidding high
est. They may have been justified on
the ground of circlation or the char
acter of the papers bidding, 1t being
possible that the one bidding lowest
represented little or nothing in the
way Of circulation and means of SER
vice.
A bill has been drawn providing
for publication Of commissioners
proceedings in pamphlet form. This
will have to be set in type and print
ed, then 1t will be of no use unless
It is mailed out to the voters, and 1t
will be more expensive than publish
ing. The same bill proposes reduc-
ing the rate one half for legal no.
tees in newspapers making the price
only half as much as they pay In
good old Kansas which Is accounted
the cheapest state in the union Tor
printing. If such change Is made 1t
will probably have the effect OF
bringing such work to cash basis
at once, for publishers knowing that
this q work paid little or nothing
would refuse to print that class OF
notices until the money was tender
ed, and the present disagreeable GUS
tom of carrying the accounts for
from one month to two or three
years would cease the day the new
price goes into effect.
When the special session OF the
legislature in 1912 changed the rev.
enue law so the assessors discarded
the alphabetic system for the num-
erical, they increased the revenue
of the printer without adding to the
work of his office in corresponding
measure. 1t takes more printed
forms to supply the assessor, 1t takes