Elmore County Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1910-1915, 1911-07-29

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toll lines considerably in excess
of dividend earning capacity,
and since dividends which would
attract sufficient funds to pro-
vide additions and betterments
were not forthcoming, the com
pany has been forced to borrow
the money needed for its growth,
and the only market for
stock has been in the neighbor-
hood OF sixty cents ON the dollar.
The debt has reached a figure
something like six and a half
millions of dollars; but it is I'M
derstood that in assuming this
debt The Mountain States Tele-
phone and Telegraph Company
expects to fund it in stock at a
considerably lower figure. BY
doing this, and in purchasing the
property from the stock holders al
an equitable value, it would seem
that the Mountain States Tele-
phone and Telegraph Company
will have no difficulty in making
this portion of it's property earn
dividends equal to those Of the
Colorado Telephone Company and
Tri-State Telephone and Tele-
graph Company.
Several prominent stockhold-
ers in The Rocky Mountain Bell
Telephone Company have ex-
pressed themselves favorably on
the terms Of the sale. Said one
OF them: Better to have a six
ty dollar investment paying
steady income than hundred
dollar investment whose greatest
earning capacity merely allowed
it to pay interest on it's debts.
In an interview given today to
the Associated Press, President
Field said in part:
This merger is in no sense
the formation of trust or mo-
nopoly, as no competing proper
ties are included. 1t is merely
the natural outcome Of our ex-
perience of the past two years
with The Tri-State Telephone
and Telegraph Company. For
many years there was distinct
lime of demarcation in the con-,
duct Of all lines of business be-
tween Colorado and New Mexico
and Arlzona,-a frontier or Dor
derland, if you please, across
which but little trade flowed.
Our own affairs seemed particu-
larly susceptible to this, but we
finally solved our difficulty by
giving The Colorado Telephone
Company and The Tri-State
Company joint management
whereby the needs of the two
communities were viewed i'm com
mon. The results were remark
able; the frontier disappeared
almost by magic. So that it was
felt that a joint ownership was
equally logical.
Business men of all Of these
mountain states are daily making
Investments in Denver, Salt Lake,
Butte, Helena, Boise, Albuquer-
que, Las Vegas, Roswell, Bisbee,
Douglas and other cities, thus
making a universal telephone sys
tenn connecting them together, a
commercial necessity.
The new company will operate
it's exchange and toll lines in u
tab, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho,
Eastern Arizona, New Mexico and
Colorado. There is a strong in
ter relation of business in this
great territory we cover, and we
hope to meet the telephone needs
and requirements of this vast a.
rea, which covers some 100000
square miles, or nearly one-sixth
of the total area of the United
States, more intelligently and
more extensively than we could
expect to do with three separate
corporations. We already count
100000 subscribers stations, and
| expect to see this number doub-
led within five years. TO do
this will require large sums of
money, and to get such sums we
must market a safe, stable and
conservative stock. This we ex-
pect to do. | wish to call atten-
ton to the fact that the issued
capitalization of the three conf
panies combined is less than the
capital Liabilities of those three
companies separate. In other
words, the safety Of the invest
ment is increased and the benefit
to the public is alike apparent
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