S7-19-03From: Hopfner, John [john.hopfner@us.army.mil]
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 12:36 PM
To: 'rule-comments@sec.gov'
Subject: S7-19-03

I am writing to express my strong support for the subject Proposed Rule on 
"Security Holder Director Nominations."  As a longtime individual investor and 
stockholder, I believe the proposed rule is both fair and reasonable, and 
addresses a long-standing imbalance in the process whereby directors of public 
corporations are nominated and elected.  If the current process for appointment 
of corporate directors were to be proposed to the U.S. electorate as the process 
by which public officials should be nominated and elected to office, the 
proposal would quite properly be laughed out of court.  And yet  this system is 
the means by which corporate directors--supposedly the guardians and watchdogs 
of shareholder interests--are named to their post.  What is difficult to fathom 
is why this state of affairs should have been permitted to go on for as long as 
it has.

It is time, and past time, for implementation of such modest but important 
innovations as those included in the proposed rule.

                                            --J.M. Hopfner