The Prescott daily news., 1915-03-26
BELL TELEPHONE co. WILL
 SPEND THAT SUM IN NEXT ls FIVE YEARS.
FEW REALIZE AMOUNT NEEDED
Has Faith in Future of This State Already Has Invested Over
 Five Millions Here-is ! a State Builder.

Hons of dollars for improvements for Arkansas in the next five years has been prepared by the Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company, according to an announcement just made here by s. A. Lane, commercial superintendent for the company for this state And this estimate follows the expenditure by the company of several millions in Arkansas in the past few years. Besides the material benefit that will result to the state at large in a direct way from the ex- psnditure of this large sum of money, there is the even greater benefit of confidence in the certain growth and development of the state that will re- suit in a general way.
 The Bell Telephone company does not appropriate great sums for i'm provement of its lines and exchanges until its expert estimate engineers and executive officials have analysed the situation from many angles and ly and staked their reputation on the certainty of the development of the state where the service is to be thus improved and enlarged and the growth of the population and the add cd volume of all lines of business.
 Business men at home and finan- ciers and investors and homeseekers over the country will note this an nouncement of the Bells confidence in the growth and development of Ar kansas. They will count it as a more certain index of the states great fu- ture than any mere assertion not backed by the investment of good money in that assertion.
 The Bell has been recognized for years in all business. and financial cir cles as a careful and successfully managed concern. It plants its eX- penditures in fruitful soil and builds constantly for the future.
 With a property value in Arkansas at the present time of s5,600,000 and an annual pay roll of s600,000 the Bell companys announcement that it intends to spend four millions more in this state, coming at this particu- lar time, is most welcome to all loyal Arkansas folks who have faith and confidence in the future of their state. They know that good and sound business reasons dictate the policy of this great telephone company. And so they can draw most favorable con- clusions from the result of a careful analysis of their states future by the experts who wound up their work by declaring that four millions of dollars would be necessary in the next five years to meet the states growth and prosperity.
 The part played by the Bell com pany in the development of Arkansas is worth more than passing notice. Few people realize the part played by the telephone these days in the build ing up of state by the knitting of it's gether.
 The Bell company has crossed mountains and valleys and wild streams and long stretches of forest and uncultivated and unsettled lands in this state and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to connect the business centers of the state with all the outlying towns and settlements. It Is impossible to suppose that these lines crossing so many miles of un- settled country should pay at first. They are the forerunners of business, mir If davainpppnnf a builders of state. They connect the sawmill and the country store and the mine with the business world as rep resented by Little Rock, Fort Smith, Pine Bluff, Mena, or with Dallas, Tex, or Oklahoma City, or St. Louis, or Memphis. The telephone line, the telegraph and the railroad come first, and after them come the small in vestor and business man and worker who build an isolated community into a city or community where all the advantages of modern life can be found.
 Few people realize the immense in vestment necessary to knit the com munities of a state together by tele- phone. It is true that there are no ex- pensve grades to build and rails to lay, for trains, but the building and maintenance of a telephone line re- quires great sums of money and it is often necessary to wait for years for the returns to begin to come in from a certain line. It is not question merely of connecting Little Rock with Pine Bluff by telephone. There is plenty of business to make this line pay. But to give the universal serv- ice that is it's ambition the Bell must