Date:    1/5/98  5:59 PM
Subject: s7-25-97

     
As someone responsible for helping my grandmother administer nearly $1 
million in stock assets and as a shareholder (past and present) in my own 
right in a number of different funds and individual stocks, I would like 
to record my utter disbelief in the proposed rules change that would seek 
to prevent stockholder initiatives from being voted upon and deliberated 
at open stockholder meetings.
     
This is a bad rule.
     
In our current system it is already difficult for OWNERS (shareholders) to 
properly direct increasingly powerful and insulated boards that should 
rightly act in OUR interests, not those of a few powerful owners able to 
command appointments and elections that server their limited views.  Just 
as there should be no taxation without representation, your ill-guided 
attempt to further reduce the rights of ownership and control of ALL 
owners (or shareholders) is a mockery of what this nation stands for.
     
Sincerely,
     
William Affleck-Asch
6542 Jones Ave NW
Seattle WA 98117-5741
(currently on vacation in Santa Barbara, where many other stockholders 
that I know of have voiced their opposition to this proposed rule change, 
but are busy with their own holidays)
     
(biographical information in Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in the 
West, Who's Who in the Media, and numerous international references)