The Great Seattle Printing Conspiracy
When the Dispatch editor exposed a 'plunder' scheme by rival newspapers to inflate public printing costs, he revealed the messy, graft-filled reality of 1878 municipal administration.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The system of letting public printing and advertising to the lowest bidder, invented by small-time politicians to magnify themselves as guardians of the public treasury, has always cost more than it has saved, acting as an element of demoralization to the press. When the Intelligencer was the only newspaper published in this county, its publisher demanded and received $2.50 per description for publishing the delinquent tax list for three weeks, which was more than five times as much as any newspaper charged for legal notices not subject to competition. When Thomas B. Merry was temporarily in charge of the Dispatch, a conspiracy was formed between the three publishers of the Intelligencer, the Tribune and the Dispatch to secure the printing at extortionate rates and divide the plunder. Under the letter of the law, the Commissioners felt bound to award the printing to the Intelligencer as the lowest bidder. The Prosecuting Attorney interfered, had this award set aside, and the printing for the year was given to the Dispatch unconditionally. This saved $1,500 to $2,000 for the taxpayers by thwarting the conspiracy.
“The miserable system of letting public printing and advertising to the lowest bidder... has, in the aggregate, always cost more than it has saved.”
The late 19th-century struggle over 'public printing' contracts mirrors today's debates regarding transparency in government procurement and the influence of media consolidation on local governance. Then, as now, the line between civic duty and corporate profiteering at the taxpayer's expense was dangerously thin.
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