in on the deal, but it was not the fault of the association that I had contracted for paper ahead.
The particular article of diet upon which Mr. Hayner's "nanny" seems to dote is the tax list. He says that a law should be proposed giving each paper the publications for the land nearest his town. At first that seems a fair proposition, and such a provision was once included in a bill intro duced by the editorial association. It was found so impracticable that it was dropped. The only workable solution of this problem that I have seen is one that I proposed in one of my reports as a member of the legislative committee, which was to have the tax list issued in supplement form, the printing to be let to the lowest bidder, and distributed through one paper in each town having a newspaper.
Some of the ofiicial papers would oppose this, for it would decrease their receipts, and Where the list is now published in two papers in one town, the paper that would be let out would naturally be expected to oppose losing the business. I am sure Mr. Hayner would oppose having taken away from him any business he now has for the purpose of giving it to some other paper. This suggestion of mine was my own and not that of the association. It would be a rather delicate thing for the association to suggest taking business from one class of papers to give it to another.
In the first place, the State Editorial association, so far as I know, has never done anything for the big papers that it has not done for the small papers, except to hold for the big papers business that they already had, while the big papers have paid the expenses of the legislative committee that worked for both the big and little papers.
The law providing for the publication of the school budget is the result of activities of the editorial association.
The law providing that all school district, road district and irrigation district notices must be published in the paper nearest the property, was enacted at the instance of the editorial association.
Outside of these, lawyers may place legals in any paper in the county where the action is had.
A law enacted at the instance of the editorial association says that the legal rate "shall be 65 cents the folio of 250 ems." This is the authority whereby the small paper may charge as much as the big paper. Is this discrimination against the small paper!
The law which defines a legal paper and provides that no paper can publish legals until after having been established a year, is a particular protection to the small town newspaper, for it takes but a handful of type to start a newspaper in a small town, and to be deprived of legals for a year may be serious for competition, but in the big town the paper that can start at all can wait a year for legals.
4
