The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-11-12
TOO MUCH TALK DETRIMENTAL TO
 BUSINESS HERE

Chicago, Nov. 12-The greatest l drag on readjustment of business Jus+ | now is too much talking ana not enough working, Samuel Insult of l Chicago told delegates to the Ameri- ] can Gas Association here today. MT. Insu1l who started life as stenographer for Thomas A. Edison and today is head of the gas and electric utility companies serving Chicago, ridicu1ed attempting to .1egis1ate good times
 He declared that if the hands of the utility industry, alone, were united and quibbling stopped, new develop ment and new construction work needed by the nation would go far toward ending the unemployment
 be encouraged to become race Of
 savers and investors, rather than of wasters and spendors and declared that investment makes good citizens.
 He pointed to the great army of men and women who now own public util- ity securities, and declared they had
 already solved the question of public
 ownership of utilities and constituted real public ownership.
 MT. Insult said: Everyone is giv- ing advice to his fellows as to what courses they should pursue in order to
 make things come out all right not working with their hands and minds to do the thing themselves. When we try to substitute laws and ordinances and theories for old fash toned business initiative and enter prise, operating in conformity with economic law. that moment we stop 1 going forward and start slipping. But | it does not seem that we are welded Tor too many of us are-to en-
 thusiasm for telling the other fellow | how to run his business and for put | ting obstacles in the way of his doing | things the way experience has taught
 him they must be done.
 | Take for example this great utility l industry of which we are a part. AL
 most every day. the newspapers i'm | press upon us the deplorable gravity l of the unemployment situation.
 "You and know that the utility in | duStry alone needs enough develop l ment and new construction work to
 go far toward oblfterating the unem-
 ployment situation, if the industry g | hands were united. But instead of
 being encouraged, or even permitted | to go ahead and speed Np, the indus | try is hampered by. quibbling over
 ment of required capital is htndered l and time, attention and energy are | diverted from what should be the l main task.
 | shfftless habit we have fafsen into, | wherever a problem arises of having
 some law passed which we seem to
 believe will immediately remedy | things, without any exertion upon our
 part.
 "A gas company has no control over the prices it musc pay for coal oil, labor or the nancy other com l mod1tfes that enter into the manufac- | ture of it's product. It is monopolis- | zic as to its service, only in that it is the only agency furnishing gas. But | it must constantly compete with other industries for the things it buys, and | in selling its product 1t competes with | coal, coke, wood, keronese, gasoline, 1 electricity and all other mediums of
 heating and lighting The price of | gas cannot be -legis1ated. The price Is
 based on the economic situation 1f as much energy were exerted
 with the hands as is being spent
 ting ahead much faster.
 eff much legislation were
 knocked off the statute books as i: being placed thereon, much of it il misguided honesty but disastrous tt 5 remedying conditions, everyone would be happier and things would improv more rapidly.
 ) 'Repea of some of the laws W, enacted during the war time would d, 3 much to unite the kno4s with whicl we have bound ou~~~lves. And afte 3 untyipg those knots, if our legis1a
 for good long restfu1 period and le g their members join the ordinary cit izens in @ program of work, not {klk the nations affairs would progres more rapidly.
 < There Is nothing hopeless abou l the contrary on the horizon can b seen great prosperity and an era o a great building. Today we stand tn e strongest nation in every way in tn f wide world. But completion of tn a job will be hastened by working nor = with our heads and less with our voca l cords"