The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-04-26
Steel Corporation Filed First
Understandable Report.
Harvester Company Has Fol-
lowed Suit Recently.
WHAT WOULD HAVEMEYER SAY
He Made Report Dry and I'm
interesting as Possible.
Millions of Acres of Waste
Land Redeemed.

New York, April 26.-Soon after the
organization of the United states Steel
corporation a subject probably never
before discussed by any corporation
manager was very carefully consider
ed by those who were directing the
Steel corporation A report was TO pc
filed with the bureau OF commerce at
Washington. The business training OF
b older men had always taught them
the lesson of brevity, conciseness and.
in making reports to state and national
authorities, the d~esirab1lity OF not eX-
ceeding by so much as n WORD the
statutory commands. For that reason
reports were for the most part mex
plicabIe to the public The reports
made to the state OF Connect1cut by
the New York and New Haven RalI-
road while apparently meet
ing each detail which the law declared
must be reported, nevertheless We're,
to the average stakeholder, as unln,
telligible, almost, as though they had
been written in the Choctaw language.
None but expert accountants was able
to go behind these figures.
If was always the belief of the late
Henry 0. Havemeyer, president of the
socalled sugar trust, that so long as
the stockholders got their dlVldendS
they should not otherwise be interest
ed in the management or condltlon OF
the sugar
Taciturnity was the rule of business,
and reports were so made out as TO be
of themselves taciturn, so to speak, no
hOdV VINO WAS not III nigh dQlAAOAANS
having any knowledge of what lay be-
hind these statistics. The steel cor
poration management, however, de-
cided that a new era had begun-the
hat this publicity should not be a
sham. but be frank and sincere 1t
should observe not merely the letter,
but the spirit, of the law When II
was intimated that the or
the contemplating investor found sta
tistics dry and uniLtelligible, the p
was made: Make the report interest
ing. write It and illustrate 1t so mat
it will command II i ~
difficult to do that" In the END the
steel decided to make a re-
port tina would be so full ana frank
as to be certain to cause some con
among the veterans OF the
business and financial world. one OF
the reasons for this decision was the
belief that a corporation IKE tne
United states steel corporation, or any
other corporation not purely local III
its oDerations. but whose business ex-
tends throughout the United states
and also to many parts OF the Wor1o' Is
8 semi-public Institution The puphc
has a right to look to the government
for full and accurate re
speeding the affairs and
of any corporation of this k1nd. many
of the ablest thinkers in the business
world are now persuaded that public
itv will cure many, if not all, of the
evils which have been discovered IN
the nageme of some OF the cor
noratious. and which many persons
think Turk in all corporation
tionS.
Initiating h Example.
Already the value of the action
taken by the United States Steel cor
poration is appreciated by some of the
other large corporations Eventually
all of them will accept this new view.
Moreover, the of these cor
poratfons have now discovered that it
is possible to write reports which are
not mere dry and dreary arrays of
statistics. but Instead are so worded
and are so detailed and of such abund-
ant information that reports of this
kind can be made most interesting
reading.
For instance, the -rnatio
Harvester p illustrated the re-
ports which it was compelled to make
BY statute and these reports. by rea-
son of these illustrations which pic
tured forth its plans and described
in popular but simple language the
manner of operation of them, have
become in the best meaning of the
term popular reading. Who, a few
years ago. would have thought that the
American Sugar Refining company,
commonly known as the sugar trust,
would have issued annual reports
comparable in detail, in accurate and