The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-17

| The annual meeting Ol llle 4NeW Iid-
 ven Business Mems association was
 held yesterday afternoon in the rooms
 building and it was a very successful
 one from all standpoints. The reports
 of the association were most encourag-
 ing, all of them showing that energetic
 work has been carried on during the
 last year. The session was called to
 order at 2:45 with President Atwater in
 the chair. After the reading of the
 minutes of the last meeting President
 Atwater submitted his annual report, 1 giving in detail an account of the work
 of the preceding year and showing con-
 cluSively that the association has en- joyed the most prosperous year of it's
 existence and also that the prospects
 are very bright for another successful year. MT. Atwaters report will be
 found in full below. The secretary of
 the association, M. E. Cosgrove, read
 his report and it showed among other
 things that thirty-three new members
 have been taken into the association
 during the last year, making a total at 1 the present time of 208 members.
 The treasurer of the association, $.
 E. Dibble, submitted a report and it showed a comfortable balance in the treasury. Richard A. Tyner of the firm of Tyner & Booth is the collector of the
 association and his report showed that ! about $2,700 were collected from debtors
 of the assoeiation's members.
 ] These were the only reports submit | ted before the meeting and after they were approved the annual election of l officers took place. The result of the election was as follows:
 | President, Edward I. Atwater; first
 vice president, L. A. Mansfield; second vice president, M. E. Cosgrove; secre- tary, F. J. Linsley; treasurer, s. E. Dibble; auditors, Henry Hillman and Leo F. Hammond; directors. George R, Johnson, s. $. Adams, c. J. Monson, Jr, George M. Adkins. F. A. Street, | Ralph $. Pagter, pr. Rollin McNeil, | George D. Post, George J. Bassett, c. J. Levere and James A. Fogarty. | Several matters of interest to the as sociation were discussed at length and | the meeting was a most harmonious one. Thirty were in attendance, It came to d cOHCluSloli at 4.lo tloCh' 1 HE address of President Atwater was as follows:
 To the Members of the New Haven Business Association;
 Nearly a year has passed since l was | elected President of your Association,
 and I must say that the duties which
 have been incumbent upon me during that time have drawn me more closely
 to the members of our Association than I have ever been before.
 I shall not take time to attempt to give you any report as to the cond ton
 of our Association either financially or
 as regards the membership, as both
 these mat ters will no doubt be reported
 on fully by our secretary and treasurer, At the time I was elected President i the conditions under which assumed the office were rather unfavorable, and
 I found it necessary to straighten out certain matters which had already cre- ated unfavorable impressions among. some of our members.
 You will recollect no doubt that at the time I was elected, our Collecting De- partment was in a sadly demoralized condition and the collector had paid very little attention to our work for sometimes I immediately recognized
 the recognition of making a change in this department, and at the first meet ing of our Board of Directors insisted upon immediate action being taken.
 The Committee on Claims worked har-
 moniously with me in the matter, and together we secured the services of K. H. Tyner, who I am pleased to say has given so far as I have been able to learn, entire satisfa ction to all members who have consulted with him regarding their accounts, and I am of the opin- ion, that our collecting department IS now in a more satisfactory condition than it has been before since our organ ization was formed and I firmly believe that our system for collecting bad
 debts is the best system of any that has ever been presented to our merchants, and yet only about one-third of our membership are at the present time taking advantage of the methods we of-
 fer, to collect their bad bills. This is a very surprising thing to me, and if it is for the reason, that so large percent age of our members have been fortunate
 enough. not to create bad accounts in
 their business, of course they are ex
 cusable for not employing the methods which our Association offers them.
 I cannot impress upon you to strongly this feature of our Association, and if
 there are any members present to-day, who have not as yet given any of their
 accounts to MT. Tyner, let me urge
 them to begin the new year by doing
 so and I will guarantee that many &C.,
 counts that they now consider worth less will be collected by our attorney.
 At the time I assumed the office of President we were unfortunately in
 controversy with the Howe & Stetson concern over a misunderstanding be- tween the City Attorney and this firm, which made a good many of our busi-
 ness men believe that the Association was in some way to blame for the &C., ton taken a that time by the City At torney.
 After calling upon the Howe x Stet-
 son people and obtaining from them an explanat tion and one from the City At torney, I found it possible to explain matters in such way that it was plain that the Association was in no way con- nected with the affair." and Messrs
 Howe & Stetson withdrew their letter
 of resignation, and to-day I am pleased
 to say are members still.
 During the last session of the Legis- lature at Hartford, many of our mem hers tOoI< an active part in poopara +ipo