Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1899 — Commissioners' Court. [ARTICLE]

Commissioners' Court.

The county commissioners met in special session Tuesday to pass on bids filed for furnishing stationery and poor farm supplies for the calendar year 1900. Following are the bids filed and the action taken on them:

A. F. Long, for all article* named in class 4 for Janitors’ use. $128.50. No action. F. Long, drugs for poor asylum, class S, fSJBB. No action. A. F. Long, articles in class 3 for county officers. $386. No action. John Eger, groceries for poor asylum, first quarter. $86.90. Accepted. W. H. Eger, hardware for poor asylum first quarter, $11.30. Accepted. Burt-Terry Stationary Co., blank books, special ruled blanks, and all articles contained in classes 1 and 4, $1,850. No action. Burt-Terry Stationery Co., pens, pencils, and Stationery supplies and ail articles contained in class 3. $168.75. No action. Leslie Clark and George E. Marshall, (ca-boots bid) all the articles named In class 8, $895. No action.

The stationery bids filed for the various classes aggregate $1,913.75 for supplying the county with this class of work for the coming year. As but one foreign stationery firm filed a bid, it would sfeem that there had been some sort of an arrangement made to prevent competition, although the bidders are required to make affidavit that nothing of the sort has been done. Another point we wish to impress upon the taxpayers in this connection, is that the Burt-Terry Co., apparently filed no bid on the particular class of work on which Bros. Clark and Marshall filed their‘"ca-hoots” bid. The law expressly prohibits collusive bidding, and yet here are two separate and distinct printing offices in Rensselaer who go in cahoots and file a single bid. We hardly think this scheme will be allowed to go through. In Carroll county the stationery contracts for 1900 were let last Monday at an aggregate of $987. 35, or $925.90 less than the above people want for supplying Jasper county. The 1898 estimate of population gives Carroll 23.787 population and Jasper only 16,492. It would therefore appear that Carroll would require more supplies of this nature than Jasper. Who this great diversity of bids in the two counties? In Benton county the contract was let for furnishing stationery supplies to the Burt-Terry Co. and Chas. H. West at a total cost of $1,666, which is about S3OO less than is wanted here although Benton is the larger county in population, etc. Carroll is a democratic county while Benton is a repulican county. The commissioners decided to take no rction on the bids filed—except as noted—until their January meeting.