Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 1043

Woodruff wanted this political windfall very badly, and everyone assumed that he would get it because he was a close friend of the governor and his stanchest supporter.

After all, Woodruff owned a competent printing plant and was the logical man for the job.

But because the governor was determined that friendship should not influence him one way or the other, he looked for a printer with a knowledge of the law ( which Woodruff did not have ), and awarded the contract to a lawyer named John Steele who had started a newspaper in Helena the year before.