The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1913-12-03
An Open Letter to the
Telephone Using Public

Denver, Colo, November 80, 1919.
The Mountain States Telephone
and Telegraph company, in the con-
~slderat1On of its future development.
recognizes that its highest interests
as a public utility lie in establishing
the closest and most friendly relation.
ship with the public generally, and
with Its patrons in particular; there.
fore 1t Is the purpose of the Mountain
states Telephone and Telegraph com.
pany, through this announcement, to
lnaugurate what may be termed an
advertising educational series of ar
tlcies. both in the newspapers and
IN the form of letters to it's customers.
1t is our hope that this campaign may
mark q new era In the relation of
public utility corporations to the pub.
tic they serve. We want this educa-
ton to work both ways-that the pub.
Tic may learn the truth about us, and
that we may learn how the public re-
gard US, and how we may fairly and
emc1ently serve the public-in other
words, what is just and right to us
n to the people, and to convince
the public that we will voluntarily
remedy any wrongs we are doing, If
pointed out to us.
we shall show you u financial af-
fairs, frankly and freely. It so hap
pens that our financing has been Of
such q nature that it is easy for us
to clearly show to you this side of u
AFFAIRS. What we mean by this is,
that we have absolutely no water in
our stock; we have no bonds, nor any
preferred stock, and no mortgage Of
any kind upon which we pay fixed
charges. We have more invested in
our plant at it's present replacement
value than our issue of common stock,
and we have no other stock issued
than the common stock. There are no
wheels within wheels, o companies
within companies, to absorb profits.
We finance ourselves from year to
year by selling our common stock to
the people, at not less than par, in the
states in which we operate.
When we tell you the story of our
financing, we will prove to you that
there Eve have been any fortunes,
large or small, made out of the manip-
ulatiOn of our stock-in other words,
no high financing has ever been done
in connection with The Mountain
States Telephone and Telegraph COM
pany, or it's predecessors. The stock
never has had any speculative value;
it has been. and is now, simply a safe
investment.
There is a great misunderstanding
upon the part of the public as to this
side of our business. Persons with
Interior motives, striving for Office,
and newspapers wishing to give star
Ting news (see note below frequent
ly publish stories of how rich certain
officials of u company are. Right
now, this is being done in connection
with the new revenue tax. We sup
pose these stories grow out of the
belief of certain of the public that the
executive officials of our company
own the entire plant. It Is absurd, for
these executive officials of our com.
pany are merely trustees of the prop.
erty, for the stockholders, and none
of them are rich men, nor have they
a very heavy holding of the stock. It
is true that certain reputed rich men
have large holdings of the stock of
II company-some of them being on
u Board of Directors-but not one
of them has made any money whatso-
ever out of dealing in our stock. They
have all paid dollar for dollar, in cash,