80 LABOR AND CONTRACTS 



his bid a certified check in the required amount. These 

 certified checks are returned to all except the successful 

 bidder and his check is returned when the contract is exe- 

 cuted, the contract being secured by a contract bond, 

 described under headings 3 and 4. 



3. The Personal Bond. Proposals and contracts may 

 both be bonded in this way, though this kind of bond is not 

 now in frequent use. The proposal may be thus bonded 

 and the contract bonded by a surety company (see 4). 

 The amount of bond is stated in the advertisement and may 

 be equal to or less than the total cost of work. Thus, if 

 the amount of the work is $100,000, each bondsman, there 

 often being two, makes affidavit that he is worth $50,000 

 above all his debts and liabilities of every nature. 



Personal bonds for the contract may be executed by the 

 same men who acted as bondsmen in the proposal or they 

 may be executed by others. When a bondsman signs a 

 proposal bond he is liable also for the contract should it 

 be awarded to the bidder for whom he acted as bondsman. 

 This obligation, however, is practically never taken ad- 

 vantage of, nor abused. 



4. The Surety Company Bond. The obtaining of a 

 surety company bond is purely a matter of business and 

 thus is much more satisfactory than the individual bond, 

 where obligation is always incurred and where reciprocal 

 favors are usually asked if no charge is made for the bond. 

 A surety company before acting as bondsman for a contrac- 

 tor makes searching investigation of his financial standing. 

 If this is satisfactory the bond will be executed, for which 

 a percentage payment is required. Surety companies do 

 not necessarily make their investigation before the exe- 

 cution of every bond, but use their discretion in the 

 matter. When an applicant has once thoroughly satisfied 



