The Huttig news., 1915-04-24
FOUR MILLIONS E. FUR ARKANSAS nakEE < BELL TELEPHONE co. WILL
 SPEND THAT SUM IN NEXT
 FIVE YEARS. KtF
FEW REALIZE AMOUNT NEEDED
Has Faith in Future of This state-- Already Has Invested Over Five Millions Here-ls q State Builder.

Little Rock.-A budget of four mil lions 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 foI this state. And this estimate follows the expenditure by the company oi
 several millions in Arkansas in the past few years. Besides the material benefit that will result to the state at large in direct way from the ex. penditure of this large sum of money 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 it's lines and exchanges until its expert estimate engineers and executive officials have analysed the situation from many angles and have gone over the ground thorough 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 ed volume of all lines of business.
 Business men at home and finan- ciers and investors and homeseekers over the country will note this an- nouneement of the Bells confidence in the growth and development of Ar kansas. They will count it as more 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 oles as a careful and successfully managed concern. It plants it's ex- penditures Tn fruitful soil and builds constantly for the future.
 With a property value in Arkansas at the present time of $5.600,000 and an annual pay roll of $600,000, the Bell company's 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 declaring that sour 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 separate units or communities to- gether
 The Bell company has crossed mountains and valleys and wild streams and long stretches of forest end 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, the pioneers of development, the builders of a 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 muniues of state together by tele- phone. It Is true that there are no ex- pensive grades to build and rails to lay for trains, but the building and maintenance of a telephone line re- uuires 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 a 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 sery-