The County Printing War: Seattle's Oldest Paper Claims Moral High Ground in Bid for Public Contracts

THE COUNTY PRINTING.

As heretofore, the County Commissioners have again awarded us the public printing for another year, and this time at what may be considered fair and remunerative rates. That's right; and we believe the people of the county will so regard it, for the reason that they have been accustomed for the past ten or eleven years to look for the proceedings of the Board and all other county printing in this the oldest established paper in Seattle, and the one by far the most generally read of any in this Territory, and because of their just appreciation, not only of this paper but of the maxim that 'the laborer is worthy of his hire,' and of a just and ample compensation for what he does, whether employed by a private individual or the public.

Yet the publisher of our evening contemporary, who neglected to put in any bid for the printing himself, refers to us in no very flattering terms for happening at last to have succeeded in obtaining this work for about three-quarters of what we might legally charge for any advertising, in the absence of all express contract. There is no merit, however, in his criticisms upon our bid, or in his charge of exorbitancy by us, at the publisher of the Dispatch bid from 15 to 25 cents per square higher than ours—and the Times, if it had felt disposed to do the work cheaper, might have got it. But if it had, it would profit but very little from it—as under our contract, the total cost of the printing for the coming year, can't amount to over ten or twelve hundred dollars in scrip, including the tax list, if it does two-thirds of that sum.

For this man, in this contest, is wrong again in countenancing the idea that any newspaper should do the county or city printing for less than it should be charged any private individuals for the same amount of work. It should, on the contrary, as we most decidedly do, regard our City and County authorities as under an obligation which will always justify them in doing to the utmost what may be lawfully done in all of their local press, being the representatives as they are of that public in whose behalf that press is ever laboring and wielding a most beneficial influence.