The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-11-12
AND PROSPERITY
PRESIDENTMELLEN,S ESTIMATE
 OF NEW EHGLAND,S POSITION.
Address to Chamber of Commerce a
 Promise to Care for Interests of Com

Promise to care for Interests of Conn
 munity.
 MT. Chairman and Members of the
 Chamber of Commerce:
 May say, fellow citizens, neighbors and friends, for have come to make my home among you and to do my full share in all that tends to promote the general good of the community:
 It is a pleasure to meet you this eve ming, to feel in touch with you once more, and to respond to your greetings, but trust to be excused from giving any outline of policy to be pursued by the Consolidated road as result of my becoming its president.
 At the best, can cnly express to you what I trust shall be the relationship between you, our patrons, and us, your servants.
 It would be most foolish that I should come to my task with pre-conceived no- tions of what should obtain, and noth- ing is further from the fact.
 The world has not stood still during the six years that have been away from New Haven. and trust to have learned many things, not the. least of which is my own incapacity to know it all, for I am yet merely student changing my opinions from day to day, as the result of increased knowledge, thoroughly convinced that when l am too old or too wise to learn I shall have outlived my usefulness.
 If in any policy that may be pursued am open to the charge of inconsistent cy, as result of opinions expressed, with less complete knowledge, 1 shall simply plead guilty,
 I believe am inconsistent, and I recognize the fact as mark of prog ress in my business life, and trust l shall be consistently inconsistent to the end.
 My opinion of railroad corporation is that 1t is simply a partnership be- tween those who have and those who have not Individuals furnish money and the community makes grant of rights.
 A railroad is entitled to earn for those who have invested in it proper returns, and the public should have ample Ia cilities, reasonable rates, satisfactory service and courteous treatment The man at the head should enjoy the confidence of both parties, giving to both their just dues, and the posi- tion would be most desirable were it not for the unreasonable element in hu- man nature that wants an undue ad- vantage, that desires to obtain some thing for nothing
 bring to the tasks some little pa tience-I wish it were more consider able experience, desire to please and a capacity for hard work that has never been tested to it's limit
 An equal amount of patience on your part, an equal desire for improvement, a,little encouragement now and then, and we will together make of this child of Connecticut your most efficient pub lie servant, appreciated as highly by the community as by it's stockholders. l know of no more undesirable and deplorable asset of a railroad corpora tion that a discontented, complaining and hostile public, and I shall be deep ly humiliated if I am unable to con- vince the reasonable portion of the community of our desire to meet every reasonable expectation, and shall study hard to anticipate your requirements and remove all just cause for com plaint.
 Don't look, however, for the impossi- ble. Kindly remember there are nearly 3S,0O0 officials and employees on our pay rolls, and it takes time to reach them all, and perhaps, in many instances, change their habits, but the effort will be made to convince them. one and all, that they are your servants, not your masters, and once we get the leaven
 working it should not be long in making improvement manifest.
 Interested as I have been for the past few years in the development of an- other section of our country, have been impressed by the difficulties sur rounding the manufacturing interests | of New England Striving as have to secure the removal of many of these to 1 another section, I have been led ta study the handicaps of a location in New England, and no subject will have l more earnest and careful consideration | than the removal of everything in the nature of a burden upon what is so vital to the prosperity of this section. | New England produces little, and ! manufacturing here is simply process of transformation of the crude product of other sections into finished material, to be shipped for consumption else- | where. We have only skilled labor l even fuel is brought here. Cheapness of transportation is vital to the contin- | uance of the manufacturing industries
 now located with us and to promote the establishment of others. No work is of l greater importance to the Consolidated
 road than a careful investigation of
 whether or not it is not incumbent up- on it's management to do some of it's
 business at a smaller margin of profit, | even at loss perhaps, looking for it's
 reward in the general effect upon the
 whole situation, for prosperity cannot
 remain with it alone. It is your part
 ner in everything, and it should be your | partisan and advocate, the most potent
 and effective, and always alert in a sit
 uation fraught with many dangers to what is of the utmost importance to the prosperity of us ali Gentlemen. have come back to you
 after some years of work in another l field, attended with measure of sue- cess am hopeful of repeating here.
 From the opinions expressed tonight | you should be able to fairly draw con- l clusions regarding the policy I have ir