The Green Forest tribune., 1911-04-14
FOR PUBLIC CONTROL
VAIL FOR REGULATION AS WELL
 AS PUBLICITY.
SAYS BOTH HERE TO STAY
Frank Recognition of Public Rights by the President of Western Union and Telephone
 Companies.

Public regulation of public service corporations has come to stay It ought to have come and 1t ought to stay. That Is the fiat and unequivocal assertion of Theodore N. Vail, presi- dent of both the American Telephone and Telegraph company and the Western Union Telegraph company. It came in the form of his annual re- port to the seventy thousand stock holders of the two great corporations. Although MT. Vail's advocacy of full publicity in connection with the affairs of such concerns was well under stood, nobody in financial circles had anticipated so frank an avowal of full public rights in the shaping of their general conduct. It came conse- quently as surprise, not only be- cause of its novelty and squareness, but also on account of the unqualified acqutescence of a board of directors comprising such eminent and eonsery- ative financiers as Robert Winson of Kidder, Peabody & Co.,, and Henry L. Higginson of Boston, Henry P. Davi- son of J. P. Morgan & Co.,; Senator W. Murray Crane, George F. Baer, T. Jefferson Coolidge Jr., Norman W. Harris, John I. Waterbury and others.
 President VaiPs declaration is her aided as the first recognition by those in high corporate authority of the jus tiee of the demand that the public be regarded as virtual partners in all matters that pertain to the common welfare. He goes directly to the point.
 Public control or regulation of public service corporations by perma- nent commissions" he says, 'has come and come to stay. Control, or regulation, to be effective means pub licity; it means semi-public discus sion and consideration before action; 1t means everything which Is the ops posite of and inconsistent with effec- tive competition. Competition-ag- gressiVe, effective ompetition-means strife, industrial warfare; it means eontention; it oftentimes means talk ing advantage of or resorting to any means that the conscience of the con testants or the degree of the enforce ment of the laws will permit.
 Aggressive competition means duplication of plant and investment tion is the possession of the field wholly or partially; therefore 1t means either ultimate combination on such basis and with such prices as will cover past losses, or 1t means loss of return on investment, and eventual loss of capital However 1t results, all costs of aggressive, un- controlled competition are eventually borne, directly or indirectly, by the public. Competition which Is not az gressiye, presupposes cooperative ac- tion, understandings, agreements, which result in general uniformity or harmony of action, which, in fact, is not competition but Is combination, unstable, but for the time effective When thoroughly understood 1t will be found that "control" will give more of the benefits and public ad- vantages, which are expected to be obtained through such ownership, and will obtain them without the public burden of either the public office holder or public debt or operating deficit
 When through wise and judi cious state control and regulation all the advantages without any of the disadvantages of state ownership are secured, state ownership is doomed"
 "If MT. Vail is right" says Harper's Weekly, in a concise summing-up, then it seems pretty plain that we are entered upon a new era in both economics and politics. And 1t is high time we did if evolution is to sup plant revolution as an efficient force In the development of civilization"