it fanciful.

It is what you should be and what we should be, and I believe every one of us is trying to live up to the idea of not making mistakes, as humans will do, but I will answer for my profession that what mistakes we commit are not mistakes of the heart; they may be mistakes of the mind, with our idea of what constitutes our duty. One more word in regard to the medical examiner. Don't try to bulldoze him, don't say to him, as an agent once did in a western state, the examiner having turned down an overweight man, and the next man he turned down was a man who was too light: "Doc, don't you know life insurance is a business of averages? Here you have a man that you say is too light, and here is a man who is too heavy; put them together and you have the right man. [Laughter.] Unfortunately the doctor was very green at the business, and he adopted the agent's advice.

With these three factors, then, gentlemen, seemingly diametrically opposed, seemingly to be the alpha and omega of our business, there is every reason why we should come together. Diverging lines never meet; converging lines always. You starting from one point and we the other, you with the financial interest and we with the physical interest of our company at heart, must travel along our lines until we meet in a common path. It is liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable, but liberty first: liberty of conscience, liberty for me to act as my conscience dictates, you to act as your conscience dictates; you with a strong independence and reliance upon your duty; we the same; you and I with the courage of our convictions. With, therefore, this independence, with this liberty, there comes a union, a union of respect for each other, a union of respect for the work which we are doing, a union which brings you and me together for the building up and the uplifting of this magnificent business which we call life insurance. I close with a little piece of poetry:

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night—
Ten to make and the match to win-

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,

Red with the wreck of a square that broke ;-
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,

And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks,
Play up! play up! and play the game!"
This is the word that year by year

66

Mr. William H. Herrick, St. Louis-I think we all have been elegantly entertained by the address we have just listened to. I propose that a vote of thanks be tendered Dr. Wells for his instructive and entertaining address. The motion was carried.

Dr. Wells-I thank you very much, gentlemen. It has touched me deeply-the welcome I have received and the vote of thanks I have received. You are my friends, and I am interested more than you can imagine in the success of your work.

President Dolph-I will appoint on the committee on resolutions on the death of Commissioner Linehan, A. W. Childs of New Hampshire, Melvin P. Porter, Western New York, and William B. Freeman, Richmond, Va.

There was born at Monroe, Mich., a good many years ago, of Irish extraction, and with red hair, a boy, whom his parents decided was worth keeping. James Victor Barry or as he is affectionately called out in Michigan "Vic" Barry, was that boy. A trained newspaper editor, with a wide experience in state affairs, having at an early age been assistant secretary of state, he was called to the high position of commissioner of insurance by the

governor of Michigan four years ago, and is at the present time vice-president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

In his official capacity he rendered a signal service to this association and to every life underwriter in this country, when two years ago he revoked the licenses of several agents for rebating, and informed the people through the daily press that a rebated policy was an illegal contract, the payment of which might be successfully contested. Ladies and gentlemen, I find much personal satisfaction in being permitted to introduce the Honorable James V. Barry, commissioner of insurance for Michigan, who will present a paper on "Insurance Ethics," which will interest you. [Applause.]

Hon. Mr. Barry-Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: You will pardon me, I am sure, if I ask your indulgence at the outset while I add one word of tribute to the memory of Colonel John C. Linehan. The gentleman from New Hampshire has well said that Colonel Linehan was the friend of this association. Permit me to add he was the good friend of all worthy people and of all praiseworthy institutions and associations wherever found and of whatever name and nature. He extracted from life the very best there is in it and I have the faith to believe that even now he has entered upon the enjoyment of the very best the great hereafter has in store for those whose lives, like his, have made the world brighter and better. [Applause.]

Thanking you, ladies and gentlemen, for this most cordial greeting, permit me to say that I am not disposed to quarrel with my friend your accomplished president because of the things of a complimentary nature he has seen fit to say this afternoon, simply for the reason that from my earliest youth I have made it a practice to always plead guilty when caught with the goods. [Laughter.] Although I feel the sentiments expressed by one of the gentlemen located in Michigan who upon

a recent and similar occasion said that he had always understood a necessary ingredient of a good article of soft soap was plently of lye, there may also be a grain of truth in what your president has said, for you know we have all been taught to believe that there is at least a little good to be found in every man. That will no doubt suggest to you the anecdote of the two gentlemen who were one day discussing a third party, of whom one of them was not particularly enamored. When the other said, “What on earth causes you to rail so at that fellow; I had the pleasure of being introduced to him a day or two ago, and I hadn't been talking with him two minutes before I discovered there was something good in him." "Something good in him," was the reply, "I would like to know what it was." "Well, as to that, said the gentleman, “I haven't quite yet made up my mind as to whether it was rye highballs or Scotch and soda." [Laughter.]

Having been so generously received by you to whom I am a practical stranger, I feel that I stand somewhat this afternoon in the position of the young daughter of the colored proprietor of a ramshackle hotel in a southern town, who upon entering the hostelry one afternoon was surprised to find his daughter sitting contentedly in the office with the arm of a newly arrived guest of the male persuasion about her waist. "Here, yo' Mandy, tell that gem'n to take his ahm fum round yo' waist." "Tell him yo' sef," was the reply; "he's a pufek strangah to me." [Laughter.] And so while I have not even a speaking acquaintance with most of you gentlemen I frankly confess that it is exceedingly pleasant to be thus enthusiastically embraced, as it were, by such a magnificent gathering of ladies and gentlemen [laughter] representing all parts of our great country.

Before proceeding with the serious business of the afternoon let me ask you to indulge me while I deny the responsibility for appearing on this occasion. I am here really because the executive committee of your important organization through its president saw fit to honor me with an invitation to say a few words at this time, an honor which, I assure you, I thoroughly appreciate; and because, too, I am always willing to aid, however meagerly, in a good cause. Being in this respect not al

together unlike the young convert who, on attending his first prayer meeting after his conversion, and being asked to aid in the work of the church replied meekly and humbly, as was becoming in one so young in the faith, that he would always be found willing and anxious to do whatever his Heavenly Father asked of him, so long as it was honorable. [Laughter.]

Then, again, you know, my friends, it is every fellow's privilege to say a few words when he gets a chance. It is rumored that former Speaker Reed, Ambassador Choate and Ex-Senator Wolcott were spending the evening together on one occasion when the conversation turned to the subject of personal habits, and the ambassador remarked that he could say that he had not used tobacco and whiskey in ten years. "Great Heavens," murmured Senator Wolcott, "I wish I could say that.' "Why don't you," drawled Reed, "Choate did. "And so I don't flatter myself that I shall be able to say anything to you this afternoon that would not be as well if not better said by anyone of you if given the opportunity.

Life insurance, like everything else, is the product of evolution. The business as it exists today is the result of a constant succession of shifts and changes. It is a structure whose stability and permanency has been created and assured by some of the best minds of the nineteenth century.

When we contemplate the achievements of the men who have made life insurance what it is today as compared with the popular estimate of it even within the memory of most of us here this afternoon, we marvel at its development. So wonderful has this development been that one might be pardoned for saying that it savors more of revolution than of evolution.

Time was, not so long ago, when the life insurance agent was classified with the book agent, the lightning rod dispenser and the Bohemian oat artist. Doubtless you all have in your experiences encountered some misguided individual who, in this respect, still lives in the past, not having learned of the modern classification which places the business of providing for the widows and orphans upon the same high plane as that of the clergyman who teaches us right living and the physician who ministers to the physical well-being of those we love.