The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1917-08-31
Continued from last issue
XVI.

AANl.
There was a great deal of talk
about solving the newspaper trouble
in Bingham county by establishing
a daily. The theory was that the
daily would drive the weeklies out of
business, the publishers would quit
busted" and go into some other
business or quit the country, and no
body seemed to care which they did.
A bunch of the most eminently re-
spectacle CD and influential people
OF the county got together and pledg-
ed some money and signed notes and
secured advertising contracts for the
daily, bought what thew said was a
1000 plant, and set it to going.
Everybody boosted for the new daily,
and nearly everybody gave it their
business. 1t used the United Press
dispatches, which is the poorest ser
vice and the cheapest, till the news
paper management got too poor to
pay the telegraph tolls and could no
longer obtain them on credit. The
daily was losing an average of eight
dollars day at it's best, besides a
big bill of overhead" on installa-
ton which they could not hope to re-
cover. They sent out a squad Of
young men and women to take sub
scriptions to the paper but found that
people looked it over and remarked
that while they were spending their
money for daily they might as we'll
get good one.
Fooled in their attempts to get the
business they put it up to the mer-
chants to each subscribe for rs or
so persons for three months to in
troduce the paper, and it was ex-
pected that when the time was out
these people would renew. People
receiving the paper free said it was
fine, and that it was far better than
the weeklies, but when the time ex-
pired and they had to buy it or do
without, the most of them said it
wasn't much of paper anyway and
they went back to the weeklies. The
merchants were given their moneys
worth in advertising, but it was gen.
orally conceded that it was a poor
policy for merchant to advertise
in paper that the readers did not
care enough about to buy and pay
for with their own money. The daily
went thru all the stages, daily, semi
weekly, weekly, half a paper once a
week, and then to the bankrupt court
where it was covered with so many
bills for rent, labor, materials, origi
nal mortgage, bills of sale, contracts
of lease and bonds that amounted to
nothing, the community shouldered
the loss of some thousands of dollars
and the daily became memory. and
those who had worked on it were re-
leased to engage in productive occu-
patiOns.
While the daily was in operation
there were in the county, five news
papers, and the people were paying
the cost of setting some of the news
five times in five different offices, |
printing it five times, mailing a COM
paratively few copies from each of
five offices, and giving the least for
the money that the people had ever
received Every publisher was doing
all he could to keep from going
broke" and during that period of
plenty of newspapers, there was the
most grating in the newspaper bust
ness that had ever been witnessed
in the county. There was a sharp
competition for county business and
various officials ordered large sup
plies printed by the newspaper office
that they individually favored. Some
of them ordered stuff they did not
need some gave orders for supplies
and had only part of the full amount
printed and delivered, and some of
the orders were never filled at all
but the bills were presented and ap-
proved. 1t was case of every paper
for itself and the devil take the hind
most. Charges of fraud by one news
paper were invariably met by counter
charges by the other, and people /