The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1919-11-11

the herds have left the valley, unsold
haystacks abound everywhere, and l.
was supposed to be rolling in wealth
supplied by the sheepmen. If there
were as much bribery going on in
| America as some people think there
| is, we should be drifting into the
| same predicaments that now exist in
| Russia.
Pretty Good Advice
On page two of this issue is a con-
| densed statement from and address
| before the Rotary club of Pocatello
by DR.. A. E. Winship in which he told
| western men what is the matter with,
them in business and political affairs
in which he says that sixteen western
states do not show that they have
mastered the first principles of COM
| mercial science, and am glad to
have the statements of such an en-
inent authority pointing out the way
for IdahO's state government to i'm
prove upon their management. With
his lecture ringing in my ears / went
to Boise and looked over the record
of how the purchases have been
| made for the state house and state
institutions and found that until re-
Gently sixty purchasing agents had
been buying in sixty channels with
out any system or science applied to
the buying, and many of them had
been doing part of their buying on
the mail-order plan and paying the
money to firms 1000, 1000 and 5000
miles from Idaho and in many cases
paying higher prices than the same
goods were selling for in the same
town or in some town in Idaho or in
some city that is closer to Idaho than
where they bought.
As the Army Does 1t
What would you think of an army
that had purchasing agent for every
company? A multitude of little
buyers, each ordering dribble of
goods shipped by local freight over
some jerk-water road, to be un-
loaded at some siding in the woods!
An army combines it's orders into
grand totals, buys in vast quantities,
ships enmasse and thereby gets the
advantage of mass in every way. The
man buying carload or trainload
or shipload gets more bidders into
his office than the one buying a
crate. And he gets a better price
and standardized quality and better
service and more attention to de-
livery than the other.
As the State Does 1t
Idaho has had one man buying
h To bate o% ho to- fioy.
and another buying blankets for the |
soldiers home. Still another man
bought blankets for the Blackfoot !
asylum, another for the Orofino
asylum, another for the deaf and.
blind at Gooding, another for the
feeble-minded at Nampa and another
each for the Tech at Pocatello, for
Lava Hot Springs, Albion Normal,
Lewiston Normal, the university
dormitories and for the camps where
construction work was being con-
Quoted by the state highway and by
cOnvicts.
Corrupting the Press
When one of these institutions
want to buy some blankets and other
supplies, it makes up it's list and adj
vertises it for three issues in some
local paper and pays about $4,000
for the advertising. The newspapers
that receive that advertising natur-
ally favor that system because it
brings business to them. l get about
$4,000 a year from such advertising
for the Blackfoot asylum when keep
still about things there, but when
am criticising the management out
there l usually get nothing and that
much business goes to the competitor
that keeps STILL or that publishes
something to indicate that my critic
isms arise from spleen" or from
pure cussedness. There are about
twenty papers in the state that are
candidates for such advertising at
the various institutions and the one
that keeps the "stillest" about things
that do not look good in institution
is nearly always the one
that gets the business. That shows
you more clearly what meant when
said in chapter one, that a man can
not make living taking the lid off
and criticising those in high places;
that that is why The Boise Statesman
and The Capital News and The Lewis
ton Tribune and The Pocatello Trib-
une and The Idaho Register and
other powerful press Of the state
take the lines Of least resistance. 1t
pays.
Condemning the Editor
On many occasions when ! have
been telling what was wrong with
of the asylum or with
city or county government and have
published facts and stated where
people could 60 and see the facts for
Continued on page nine