The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-05-19

on these contracts has been elin11nat- ed, and monopoly assured to the last mentioned company. Tn the city the favored paving material is Bithu- lithic and the city had paid the Stan dard, Bitu1ithfc Company $1,269, 42S during the last four years. for laying pavements at a price averaging SIPS a yard sfor1a. two and one-half inch surface upon a six inch concrete base This, Judging from the testimony of several witnesses, was considerably in excess Of the price for bituminous con crete pavement laid in other cities In the county, outside of Newark, the favored bitumfnous pavement is Warrenite, which was specified ezclu- siveIy by the county engineer and laid on Bloomfield avenue, Myrtle avenue and the Pompton Turnpike.
 Testimony had been presented to witnesses that an unpatented pave mont of the bituninous concrete type two inches thick, which was the thickness of the Warrenite pavement laid in the county, could be- and had frequently 4been laid elsewhere at a price not exceeding ninety. cents per square yard.
 The price paid by Essex County for Warrenite on the Pompton Turnpike was $131 which applied to about 1000 yards Of material. The state road commissioner had at first, 1t | seems, approved the specifications | which excluded competition as to the | type of pavement, and had made an
 allotment of $52.0oO of state funds for the contract Subsequently,, af- ter the contract had. been awarded,
 he decided that the price was ezces-
 sive and refused to approve the con tract.
 The, s.standards' Go.
 The county engineer. Frederick A Reiner, while admitting that he had
 specified Warrenite and thus exelud- ed all competing types of pavement, contended before the committee that, | nevertheless, there had. been compe-
 tition on prizes since he had requir-
 ed the Warren Brothers Company to
 file in his office. before the bidding,
 8 uniform price per square yard of material that any contractor who bid upon the job might rely upon. This price was $1.15 The Standard Bitulithic Company, which had won
 the contract at $1.31, could not pos
 sibIy have done the work at such a
 figure without loss if it had to rely upon the price quoted for the ma teriaI. The price of $1.15 E, there fore, fixed nominaIly in the interest Of free competition, was thus shown to
 be a. pretense and fraud. As a mat ter of fact 1t was shown, and should have been known by county officials, that the Standard Company made the patented paving material at it's own plant at Harrison under a favored IL
 cense arrangement with the Warren Brothers Company. There was strong levidenee that the Standard Bitu- lithic Company was owned. and con ftro1led by the Warren Brothers Com pany and that the public price of | s1155S for the material was fixed
 so as to exclude instead of promoting competition.
 Dummy Bidders.
 i contra ctor having ST 151h for his material would have had ito pay ap- proximately twenty cents to haul and cost of the job to him. Adding twen-
 ty cents 3. yard as a reasonable profit
 no honest. contractor could afford to
 bid less than $1.55 for doing the job. County Engineer Reimer. although he qualified as an experienced engin-
 ger, and said he had formerly been a contractor, showed astonishing ignO- rance of facts that might be ernbar-
 rassing. He did not keep track of
 pavement prices in other places, he
 swore, and. therefore, did not know
 whether ,$1.31 was too high or not.
 He would not tell even pproximate-
 ly, what it would cost to haul or to
 lay a yard of Warrenite He was sure, however, Warrenite was the best type of bituminous pavement, al-
 though he never saw any of it mixed, and had laid only a small quantity Essex County. He was alss sure there had been honest seomp petition as shown by the fact that there were Contipued @ Page