Montana labor news., 1937-08-19
AN APPEAL TO The
PRINTING CRAFTS
OF MONTANA

Helena Allied printing Trades IN
ions have a large sized scrap on their
hands and this is an appeal to the
craft unions of the state for financial
help which is needed if we are going
to win this fight.
AS you have probably noticed in
the papers bids were recently called
for for the printing of Montana Re
ports" or decisions of the Supreme
Court of the state. This job has been
handled by Bancroft Whitney of San
Francisco since back in the nineties
because no other bidder has ever
appeared on the scene. This year the
State Publishing Co. of Helena APP
peared on the scene and submitted
a bid on the job which according to
past publications amounts to approx
mately two and one-half volumes of
900 pages and index per year. The
contract runs for six years. This
particular contract is let by the
judges of the Supreme Court.
Section 381, Revised Codes of 1885,
says that bids on this job shall con-
tain a provision for the furnishing of
back numbers or complete sets and
that the successful bidder shall make
stereotype matrices of the pages and
keep them in fireproof vaults, or in
other words that no volume shall
ever be considered out of print.
Now then, the provision stated
above of furnishing back numbers is
absolutely out of the question as far
as any concern other than Bancroft
Whitney is concerned because they
could not be expected to set up and
print any one volume or set of vol
umes simply to supply a few copies,
therefore we contend that the state
of Montana Oh the judges is a party
to perpetuating a monopoly.
You r probably familiar with the
law that was passed in 1885 giving
the Montana bidder on state printing
a differential of ten per cent and
still obtain the contract. In other
words the bid of the State Publish
ing Company could have been ten
per cent higher than Bancroft Whit
ney and under the 1885 law the con-
tract should 60 to the Montana con-
Germ. However the Montana bidder
is just a shade under the out-of-state
concern on one kind of binding and
the bids were even for another kind.
Three of the judges, the only ones
present at the time, awarded the
contract to Bancroft Whitney for the
reason stated above that they could
furnish back numbers. The question
is: Does the 1885 law ~supersede Sec
ton 38l which is an older law?
Helena Allied Trades held a meet
ing on July 20, and appointed a com
mittee to lay the case before an at
torney and endeavor to get an opin-
ion on whether we had a case or not
and what the approximate cost might
be to make a test case of this. A
very able attorney, Mr.. Lester Lobe,
of the firm of Lobe and Adair, was
interviewed and after looking into
the matter from several angles he
stated that he believed we had at
least a sixty-forty chance of winning.
From his conversation on the mat
ter we believe his argument will be
that the 1885 law supersedes the
previous n and that the contract
must be let to the Montana bidder
under that law. He stated that his
method of going at the thing would
be to attempt to get a restraining
order preventing the State Auditor
from paying for any copies after No.
l04 is finished which is in process of
being printed now. This, of course,
would stop the letting of the con-
tract until some decision was made
on the case.
Are we going to let approximately
$4,000 worth of printing go to San
Francisco in the next six years with
Continued on Page 81