Extract from Informal and Confidential Talk of Mr. Swope Before the Opening of Camp General on Sunday, July 15, 1928, to the Subscribers to the Electrical Funds

We have in the whole General Electric Company 75,000 people of whom approximately 900 are participating in the investment in the Electrical Funds. In this group, which represents the brains and the leadership of the Company, not only along executive but research and engineering lines, is the hope for the future.

I have thought it would be fine to organize this group more effectively than we have in the past, not as a part of the General Electric organization, but bringing the members of this group into a Society which would be their own, which would be separate and independent of the Company, and where we can have an open forum for discussion, where any question may be asked and will bring somebody to his feet to answer it.

It is recognized that we cannot at any one time bring all the members of the Electrical Funds together, so it is hoped that through a period of years all of the members may be present at some meetings and report back to their associates who were not present at the particular meeting.

We would like to have this body just as critical, just as radical as they feel the circumstances demand. If we could fill this body of executives and leading men with the spirit of adventure to try even unheard of things, the Company would either make progress or go broke, and the older of us would try our best to keep it from going broke.

Maybe you will think it is a curious thing for the man who happens to be President of the great organization, the General Electric Company, to be asking for such an open forum, where critical and radical thoughts may be expressed. I do not think that big organization is asleep, but I am sure that it is not awake to the great opportunity of doing even geater and better things than we have in the past. If we go forward with this spirit of adventure, we are sure to have better chances of accomplishing something.