Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1887 — Cheap Printing. [ARTICLE]

Cheap Printing.

Perhaps there is no line of business n which the work is so poorly paid for ts that of printing. When we take mto account the large expenditure necessary in the purchase of plant and the ;reat amount of wear and tear of type »nd presses there is but scant margin Tor legitimate profit. It is, fherefere, eery surprising to find on every hand a imposition among printers to cut pricesagainst each other with the wildest recklessness. Take the average printers in any town where there are more than two or three of them, and what do you find ? Why, that, that with the exception of those who have become well established. they are doing all they can to lower the already low prices at wnich work is done, by bidding against eac h other until they get little more or even less than the job costs to produce. Competition is all very well, so long as it does not degenerate into a disposition to get work simply to prevent others from getting it. The music of running presses is very nice so long as the music is not the only thing you get out of them; it is a good tiling to employ plenty of help, so long as you are not paying wages simply for some one else’s benefit.

Generally speaking, the result of doing work at less than a fair price is a tendency to try and get straight with the customer by giving him inferior stock and inferior workmanship. There is an old saying about certain things being “cheap and nasty,” which is particularly applicable to some of the stuff being turned out and called printing. In order to do work cheaply presses have to be run faster than they were made to run, so they soon wear out; there is no time to make ready, so extra impression is put on and thus the type is ruined; proof-reading is a luxury that can not be thought of, so the most absurd mistakes are allowed to pass; the boss must be his own bookkeeper (if he indulges in books at all), do h's own collecting and canvassing, work more hours than any person he employs; and, all for what ? The reputation of being a cheap printer? The pleasure of hearing it said that he can supply work cheaper than any one else in the town? Or the pleasure of knowing that if he is working himself to death his competitor has nothing to do ? What folly! Why not rather aim at doing good work at fair prices, or else leave his business altogether before he has lost all his money, ruined his health, and done his share toward ruining the business?— Southern Publisher and Printer.