The 'Immortal Cinch': Aberdeen's Schools Signed Away a Year of Chairs
In March 1892 the directors of Chehalis County's school district No. 5 promised to buy every desk and seat they would need for a full year from one Seattle furniture firm at prices that could never come down. The local editor read the contract and asked the one question nobody had answered: what did the district get in return?
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 following curious contract is to be found among the papers of school district number five:
"This contract, made this 24th day of March, 1892, between The Washington School Furniture Company, of Seattle, Wash., and directors of school district number five, Chehalis county, Washington.
"The Washington School Furniture Company does hereby agree to sell the A. H. Andrews automatic school desk and seats delivered, set up and screwed to the floor in school house ready for use at the following prices: Nos. 1 and 2, $4.75 each; Nos. 3 and 4, $4.05 each; Nos. 5 and 6, $4.55 each; rears, all sizes, $4.25.
"In consideration of the above agreement, the directors of said district agree to buy of the Washington School Furniture Company all desks and seats they may require to use during the school year of 1892 and 1893 at the above prices and pay for the same in cash, upon receipt of goods, or deliver in Aberdeen, Washington, as part payment, old school desks, seats and rears now in use in the public schools in Aberdeen, at the rate of two dollars each, any sizes and numbers."
It will be observed that the price of chairs may rise or the price of chairs may fall, but the Washington School Furniture Company can look serenely on with the consciousness that it has the immortal cinch on school district number five for the school year 1892-93.
A contract is usually made for a consideration. The question naturally arises: What was the consideration paid school district number five, or any one, for the exclusive right to sell it school furniture for the year 1892-93 at an unchangeable price?
It seems self-evident that if it had merely been the desire of the board of directors to take advantage of the then market price of school furniture at the time the contract was made, the business method would have been to bargain for a certain number of chairs or desks at a fixed price; not to endeavor to tie school district number five to the tail of a school furniture company for a period of one year.
However, the action of the district in this matter has been thoroughly in keeping with its other actions.
“The Washington School Furniture Company can look serenely on with the consciousness that it has the immortal cinch on school district number five for the school year 1892-93.”
A public board signing a sole-source, year-long, price-locked purchasing agreement and calling it a bargain is a story that never gets old — it is the same shape as every modern no-bid contract and emergency procurement that a city council waves through. What makes this one worth reading is that an 1892 country editor did the diligence the board did not, and asked on the record what the district was paid for the privilege of being cornered.
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