The Newspaper Bribe: How State Printing Muzzled New Jersey's Press

An attempt was made at the last session of the Washington state legislature to enact a law providing for the publication of state laws by newspapers. It is no doubt a great temptation to legislators to curry favor with the local press, and it would have been a good thing for the newspapers, but considerations of economy prevailed and the bill was lost.

New Jersey is just emerging from a scandal with such a law, and its lessons are worth noting. The state publishes the laws by a twofold method: first, by printing copies in book form, at a cost of about $1,000 annually; and second, by publishing them in ninety newspapers (forty-five Democratic and forty-five Republican), at a cost which this year will be probably $20,000. The average cost for the last five years has been $19,568.

A majority of the newspapers do not set up and print the laws as they do other advertisements, nor do they yield any of their advertising space to the state. The laws are set up and in New York and elsewhere large editions are struck off in supplement form which are sold to newspapers for a small price. For example, this year each newspaper is paid by the state for publishing the laws thus far $500. It buys from the New York printer a sufficient number of copies, folds them into its regular edition and circulates them. Then upon an affidavit that he has published the laws he is paid $500 by the treasurer. In some of the cities and towns one newspaper sets the type for its own use and lends it to its neighbors, who share the expense, one setting of type thus serving for three or four papers.

An investigation of the affairs of the state of New Jersey made early this year shows that a scandalous condition of corruption existed, carried on so long and in some respects so boldly that it cannot fail to have attracted the attention of any sharp newspaper. The fear is that the press was muzzled by the bribe of the state printing and that a law based upon a good purpose was extended to such proportions that it created a corruption fund.

There is reason in the proposition to publish certain laws, such as, for instance, the close season for hunting and fishing and the law as to fences, but it would be waste of money to publish all.