The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1922-02-04
TELEPHONE COMPANY INVITES
PURCHASE OF ITS STOCK.
District Manager, w. w. Britain, of
Local Telephone Company, Send
ing Out Personal letters.

w. w. Britain, the District Man.
ager of The Delaware and Atlantic
Telegraph and Telephone Company, is
sending out personal letters to tele-
phone subscribers in his district urg-
ing their purchase of the shares of
the American Telephone and Tele-
graph Company.
This move is in line with the best
thought of the times,
1t is becoming more and more evil
dent every day to thoughtful people
that it is very desirable that the users
of public utilities services should be
interested as investors in the compan-
les that render the service. A wide
spread ownership of this sort in the
communities served leads to a sympa-
thetic understanding on the part of
the users of such service of the prob
lens and difficulties with which the
utility companies are confronted from
time to time. resulting in more cordial
relations between the p~urveyors Of
the service and their patrons.
Another advantage that grows out
of wide distribution of stock holding
is that the financing of the growth of
the properties, SO important to the
tOlAillullltltS 10 Hldu0 CdolCl ny nlOlt
persons contributing to the necessary
increases in capital from time to time.
Probably the strongest argument of
all, however, lies in the great desir-
ability of the profits from conducting
the public utilities services in the
community, remaining in hat com
munity for the benefit of its own citi-
zens instead of being taken away from
f1,A nm =, .t1ffrr rar flA hAnaEf ~
stockholders located in other parts of
the country.
We understand that the American
Telephone and Telegraph Company,
directly OF indirectly, own the entire
capital stock of the local Bell Com
pany, and about 80 per cent. of all the
other so-called Bell Telephone Com
panies in the United States. The
American Telephone and Telegraph
Company is one of the largest indus
trial organizations in the country and
has over 1873 900 shareholders. Dis
trict Manager Britain points out with
enviable pride hat over 5000 of the
employees of the Company are reg
ularly paying for shares of its stock,
taken under recent subscription plans,
and that already some $4,000 of them
hold shares for which they have paid
in full. He also points, with natural
satisfaction, to the dividend record of
the American Telephone and Tele-
graph Company, which has paid divi-
dends regularly for the last forty
years at rates varying from $3.50 per
share per annum to 5000 per share
per anuum, which is the present rate
dividends being paid quarterly in
January, April, July and October.
The shares of the American Tele-
phone and Telegraph Company are
dealt in on the Stock Exchanges of
New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Bos-
ton and Washington, and recent mar
ket quotations have been ranging
around $117 per share. 1t is gener-
ally regarded in financial circles as
one of the standard investment stocks
of the country.
The growth of the Bell Telephone
System in the United States is one
of the scientific and commercial mar
wells of the age. Only a brief forty
six years ago the telephone was ex-
hibited at the Centennial in Philadel-
phia by Alexander Graham Bell, and
was regarded by most people as mere
ly another interesting novelty that
might perhaps be called a scientific
toy. To-day its wires reach into
every nook and corner of the CONT
nent, connecting up some twelve mil
lion telephone stations, and it is even
possible to pick up your telephone and
speak to the Island of Cuba. Trans
continental telephone conversations
from New York to San Francisco have
become SO common as 10 no longer
even excite wonder.