The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1923-02-07

y
with county printing.
This session has been no exception to the
general rule, and several bills Of a character that
would work injury to the newspaper publishers,
particularly the county ones, have been introduced.
A committee of the Montana State Press
met with the house committee to which
two of these bills had been referred a week ago.,
at which time this whole question of county prit-
ing was thoroughly gone into and ydicussed.
This discussion developed that there actually
was little or nothing the matter with the present
law, either as to the prices contained in it for
printing or its other provisions.
The truth is the law has been blamed when
the criticism should attach to the county officers
who administer it, and who in some cases have
permitted newspapers having the county printing
to make higher charges than those provided for
under the present law.
Naturally the responsibility for this condi-
ton rest with the county clerks and recorders and
the commissioners who permit such a condition to
exist and not with the statute itself.
AT that, the representatives of the Montana
State Press association expressed a perfect will
ness to help in making the law more explicit in
an effort to remedy the abuses which have grown
up in a few counties in which only one newspaper
is published and in which there are no competitive
bids made for the printing.
Phillips county appears to be one of these few
subdivisions of the state in which the condition
of a lack of competition exists, and furthermore
a county in which the provision of the present
printing law, it is alleged, have not been strictly
followed or carried out.
The lady from Phillips county, Mrs. Hamilton
came to the legislature possessed with a creditable
desire to remedy the abuse in this matter under
which she considered her people were suffering.
AT the hearing before the house committee
mentioned it was clearly demonstrated that the
objections made by this lady against the law were
not the fault of the law at all, but of the officials
of that county who were disregarding it's provis-
ions.
In an effort to correct this situation in Phillips
county, Representative Hamilton early in the
session introduced a bill throwing all county print
ing open to all printing plants within the state.
This is the same kind of a proposed law as the
one which Governor Stewart vetoed in 1915 under
an agreement with the Montana State Press assoc
iation that a commission would be appointed to
draft an entirely new measure.
This agreement was lived up to, and the
publishers in conjunction with the committee of
the state organization of county commissioners
and the then attorney general framed a bill which
was passed in 1917 and is the present law.
In the house Thursday the committee on
townships and counties that has charge of the
various printing bills, and which had drafted a
substitute measure, recommended that the Hamil-
ton bill be killed.
The lady from Phillips county made such ar
eloquent appeal to save her measure that the
house evidently out of sentiments of gallantry
rather than wisdom, reversed its own COMMITTEES
and sustained the plea of the lady from Phillip.
county.
1t was the very provision which the Hamil
ton bill seeks to enact that Governor Stewar
found so Objectionable when he voted the Pag,
bill March 9, 1915, and in that message he il
part said:
| am of the opinion that the large
{ printing offices in this state would be
able under this act to go into the rural
I counties and take the second class of
county printing away from the local
printer, and, while it might save the tax
payers a small amount of money, it would
tend to destroy the local newspaper,
which is the medium of publicity for a
given community. Certainly this would
not be fair in view of the fact that at
N least in most of the counties of this state
under the present system the county
printing IS being done at a very reason
s. able and fair rate.
1e That Governor Stewar+'s noC;+;oo - ~