The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-15
GENERAL MEETING 'OF CIVIC CHAMBER ID
 BE HELD THIS WEEK
Will Discuss Bill Now Before House Prohibiting Inter- locking DirectOrates
 Friday Afternoon

Next Friday afternoon at o'clock will
 bea held in the Chamber of Commerce audi
 torium general meeting of the cham
 bcr. The call was issued yesterday by
 President Shook. The meeting next Fri
 day will be the first of the regular month
 ly meetings to be held this year. At
 these meetings matters affecting the Bir-
 mingham district or business generally
 will be placed before the chamber for &C., tion This is carrying out MT. Shook s policy of getting the opinion of the mem- bers Of the chamber before the board of
 directors takes action on matters of public interest.
 The matter to be placed before the
 chamber next Friday afternoon is that of
 the bill now pending in Congress looking
 to the breaking up of 'interlocking direc-
 torates' It seems that when this bill was first proposed it was looked upon as
 a good piece of legislation, because cer-
 tain eastern financiers were making il- legal or unfair use of their positions as directors in several companies to form
 combinations deleterious to the best inter-
 ests of the country at large. Now, how
 ever it is regarded here as too drastic. In the south especially will it's provisions
 be felt. Many bankers here are directors
 in railroads, but they are not using their interlocking directorates to further one business against the other, according to statements made in the meeting of the directors of the Chamber of Commerce yesterday.
 The Southern railway would be seriously affected. according to l.. Sevier. who stat
 ed that his company was appointing l southern men to directorships in the com
 pany with a view to making the road | entirely southern in management as well
 as in territory. Many bankers have been made directors of the Southern and should l this bill pass it would work a hardship
 not only upon the bankers but upon the railroad
 sydney J. Bowie expressed his disap- proval of the proposed bill and said that he thought the Chamber of Commerce should take some action in the matter It was the sense of the directors that something should be done and the mat ter will be placed before the members
 of the chamber to decide whether or not the bill should be condemned by reso- lution of the Chamber uf Commerce. The Montgomery Chamber of Commerce has already condemned the bill in no un- certain terms and has mailed . copy of the resolutions to the local civic body, | asking it's cooperation in defeating the bill. Among other things the Montgom- cry resolution sets forth that the bill, if enacted into law, twill work great hardship upon practically all classes of Alabama citizens, and that under said bill no individual can remain or become a director or more than one banking in- stitution, be it national bank or state bank; nor can a director in any such institution, state or national. become a director of any interstate carrier" An
 other allegation is that the bill "prac- tically prohibits a citizen from personal ly overlooking his own or any other in- terests he may represent and specifically limits his sphere of official usefulness to
 one pursuit only thereby depriving the community of his experience and capaci- ty for the general business welfare Another matter that will be taken up at the general meeting will be in regard
 to the time for holding. the monthly meet l ings whether in the afternoon or night some of the members are opposed to holding the meetings at night on the
 ground that it keeps them away from their families and others are opposed to holding them in the afternoon on the ground that it keeps them away from | their business. The matter will be threshed out next Friday.