Bisbee daily review., 1911-04-28
HILL BELIEVES IN
 CONTROL BY PUBLIC
Is Convinced That it Would Be Better for Business
 and Corporations


 ST. PAUL. Minn.. April 27.- James J. HiH. the Great Northern Pacific railroad magnate. sees in publicity of corporation matters and intelligent public control of the cor porations themselves. a long step towards the solution of the present era of business stagnation.
 And the United States needs a saviour" says MT. JHil. "The peo- pie have demanded not only the best but an improvement on the best, and they win now have to pay ac- oordingly. If they don't pay in mon ey, they must pay in prosperity The business Of the country increases 15 per cent every year; the facili- ties for handling this new business increase only one-sixth of that The difference in the ratio is too great and a balance must be struck. sometime. else there will be a com plete breakdown of service or pros perity
 Afraid Of Agitators.
 Why don't the facilities for hand ling business increase more rapid ly2 Because the men behind these facilities are afraid to spend their money for extensions and infbrove- ments."
 MT. Hill has long been an expon- ent of publicity of corporation af- fairs and looks upon that as one of the means of bringing corporation and public together.
 The people are entitled to know what the public service corpora tions are doing and the conditions under which they transact business he says. T have believed in. and have advocated. publicity of cor roratiOn reports for many years. When the public becomes conyer- sant with corporation affairs and is convinced that it is seeing from the inside, much of the feeling against the great business concerns will pass away. That will be one of the effects of publicity"
 In the matter of public control of
 
 quasi-public concerns. Mir. Hill is Q advocate, but he wants that control to lte intelligent: he wants only trained men in the places of con trol.
 intelligent Control Only.
 "A corporation is a piece of paper bearing the stamp and seal of the state" he says. Its life is created by the people and naturally the peo- pie should have some word in mak- ing the rules under which it trans acts business. That propbsition is one I have preached for years and now I am glad to see it making headway among common carrier corporations. Last week President Nudge Of Rock Island railroad de- clared for public control of rail roads; George M. Reynolds, pres ident Continental and Comercial National bank of Chicago, did the same thing the week before: T. N. Vail, president American Telephone and Telegraph, recently made an Of ficial report to his board of direct oTs in which he took firm stand for both publicity and public con trol
 But that control must be intelli- gently administered. Public control simply because it is control by the public. is rot all. It must be intel ligent. as l have always contendec. Intelligent people will ask and ex- pect nothing more. Vail. Reynolds and the others are right in advocat- ing publicity and public control. Both are things which eventually will go far towards making a good feeling between the corporations and the people. and will assist in | settling much of the antagonisms | which now seem to prevail