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Fire insurance rates on printing plants are much too high in Oregon. Perhaps they are based on the old-time conditions, when the country shops were small wooden buildings with littered floors and careless management. Such shops are rare today, for valuable machinery and heavy investments in plant call for sub- stantial housing and tidy workrooms.

In a small city with which I am fam- iliar, the printing plant is the highest type of fire risk in town. The building is of stone with concrete sub-floor and is heated by steam. Every precaution and protection is at hand. Yet the rate for the plant is considerably higher than on a retail store with stove heat, with hang- ing cotton goods, and in a row of fire risks.

As a matter of justice I feel the pub- lishers and printers should demand fire insurance rates much lower than now charged. GEO. P. CHENEY, Enterprise Record Chieftain.

Upton H. Gibbs, publisher of the East- ern Clackamas News, reports that he has notified the American Press Association that he will cut loose from it after the close of this year.

"I found," says the Estacada editor, "that I was losing money if anything through it. My paper is a small one with a very limited field, and the bulk of for- eign advertising coming to it, is what the wholesalers send in on account of their clients among the local merchants. This advertising would come in anyhow without particular solicitation.

"The first two years I had charge of this paper, this advertising came to me through different agencies, for which I allowed them the usual 15 per cent. Then the A. P. A. butted in, and all I got from it was this very same advertising only I had to pay it another 15 per cent. It sent me very little new advertising be- sides this, so I have concluded to pull out from it."

A. E. Scott, editor of the Washington County News-Times, is the means of sav- ing the State of Oregon $2.000 a year on postage on automobile licenses. Mr. Scott some time ago saw an article in one of his Illinois exchanges which told that by a special ruling of the Postoffice Department at Washington, D. C., the State of Illinois had been saved thous- ands of dollars on first-class postage that was being paid out on the small envelops that contains the certificate of registra- tion that accompanies each auto tag mailed out to the automobile owners by the Secretary of State.

The Illinois official had secured a rul- ing whereby this envelope should be treated as a part of the auto tag, as it was only a blank form filled in with the necessary data concerning the owner of the machine and was not a personal com- munication as had been the ruling pre- vions to that time. By this ruling the extra two cents in postage was eliminated and brings the total saving into many thousands in Illinois. Mr. Scott sent the newspaper clipping to Secretary of State Kozer, who took the matter up with the department at Washington and received a like ruling for Oregon which results in an annual saving of $2,000 a year. Scott is now thinking of running for Governor on his record for real economy and saving. At the late election he was elected a member of the city council of Forest Grove.

Oregon has added another member to its family of humorists in the person of Bob Pressey, of Bandon, author of "Bob

Pressey's Jingles" which are now appear-