The growth of life insurance in this country during the past quarter of a century has been stupendous. In 1880 all of the life insurance companies reporting to the insurance department of the state of New York had in force less than a billion and a half of dollars of insurance. At the close of 1904 there was in force in companies reporting to the Empire State more than ten billions of dollars of insurance. But greater than this marvelous growth in the volume of business in force has been the improvement in conditions surrounding the business. And better than all else is the esteem in which those who are engaged in this beneficent work are held by their fellowmen.

The leading universities of the country are giving life insurance a well deserved place in their curriculum, and everywhere is the profession recognized as one of honor and distinction, well worthy of the best efforts of men of culture and moral worth.

In this age of splendid financial achievements no institution stands out with a clearer record or rests upon a more substantial foundation than the institution of life insurance. With billions of investments, incomprehensible to the average mind, given wide publicity, there are comparatively few securities held by the legitimate companies of today to which, in my opinion, the taint of speculation can be attached.

There is no financial institution today, in my humble judgment, in which the interests of its patrons are better safeguarded than the life insurance business of this country in its entirety.

The present year has been one of startling developments in life insurance and the results of events that are happening in these strenuous days will be momentous in their effect upon life insurance and the commercial prosperity of the country. During the past few months we have seen one of the great life insurance companies of the country passing through an ordeal which would have staggered, if not actually wrecked, the Bank of England. Scandal has been poisoning the very air it breathed, while dishonesty and graft have been cancerous growths feeding upon its vitals.

Notwithstanding these facts, publicity, a great cure for the evils of life insurance, is doing its perfect work so

well that, in my judgment, this company is today as well, if not better equipped than ever before to fulfill its mission and accomplish the great work for which it was created.

Thirty years ago life insurance passed through a fierce struggle for existence. Fourteen of the forty companies engaged in this struggle utterly failed, entailing upon their policyholders a loss of more than thirty-five millions of dollars. During the same period the solvent companies suffered a tremendous loss in business and prestige. The aggregate of business in force fell off more than five hundred millions of dollars. It was the struggle of the infant for its life.

Now that infant has reached man's estate, having gathered vigor through the years until it stands forth a giant in strength and power. How this strength and power shall be used is a most vital question to all concerned from the humblest policyholder to the highest salaried official, to every conscientious insurance supervisor and most of all, to you whose business life has been devoted to the creation of this strength and power and whose future is dependent upon its proper use and exercise.

If the good name of this young giant is to be besmirched by financial debaucheries, if its strength is to be sapped by the malignant growth of greed and selfishness, if executive officers who are its guardians and teachers are to be guided in their conduct by the questionable ethics of Wall Street rather than by Mt. Sinai's message to Moses of old, then it were indeed better if the child had died in its infancy and your lifework had not been devoted to its development and progress.

Standing before you today in all its strength and vigor this young giant which you have nourished and guided through all the vicissitudes of its infancy and youth, still demands that you shall not permit its strength to be dissipated and its good name dishonored. No management dare pursue any questionable policy against the earnest and united opposition of its agents. The life insurance agents of this country, organized and united as they should be, can do more toward the correct solution of the important problems which confront us at this critical time than any other force or combination of forces.

The disclosures of the past few months have impaired, to a greater or less extent, public confidence in the stability of the business and the honesty of its management. Unless this public confidence is fully restored and honesty and common sense be the controlling forces in the management of all companies, the future of the business will not only become precarious under the best conditions but a harvest of injudicious legislation will be garnered from the tares of scandal and jealousy that have been sown.

I have always maintained and still firmly believe that life insurance is one of the greatest forces for good this country has ever known. There is no feature of our modern civilization that is so sanctified by the graces of love and hope as that institution which has for its object the preservation of the home when age or death has destroyed its natural support. I sincerely believe that the affairs of a large majority of the companies are conducted with honesty, fidelity and integrity and that in the hearts of most of the officers "a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." The eleven ought not to be condemned because there has been found a Judas who would betray his master.

Notwithstanding the stability of the business, the achievements of the past and my faith in the future, I believe you must be prepared to intelligently meet and combat a flood of injudicious, if not hostile legislation, with which you are sure to be confronted when the legislatures of the various states again convene.

Such a splendid organization as this, whose influence reaches from one end of the country to the other and whose power can be made to be felt from ocean to ocean, must be the mainstay of those who would prevent the present agitation from resulting in ill-considered legislation which will harass and obstruct the business. A thorough organization in every state, free from jealousies and earnest in its endeavors to accomplish naught but good for the institution of life insurance as a whole, will have a most potent influence on the legislation of the future. Judicious, well-considered legislation should be welcomed by and have the unqualified support of this organization and all that it represents. Any measure which will insure a stricter accounting of the trust funds

to the policyholders, which will keep the investment of these funds within proper limits, or which will fix a more direct responsibility for the betrayal of the sacred trust assumed by company officials should have not only your endorsement but your enthusiastic support.

Would that I had the power today to paint in letters so bold that they would never be effaced from your memory the one word "publicity" which, in my judgment, must be the agency through which life insurance, as an institution, is to be preserved and perpetuated. Any legislation which will insure the greatest publicity and which will impress upon the minds of all having authority in the business that they must account to the public for the manner in which they execute their sacred trusts, demands your earnest support. I maintain that any legislation which does not, either directly or indirectly, measure up to this standard is either vicious or fruitless.

Wherever supervision has thus far failed to fulfill its mission it has, either through inefficiency or dishonesty, neglected to ferret out whatever evils, however small or great, existed in the management of companies and hold them up to that public condemnation which surely leads to their correction. I do not mean by this that an outcry should be made whenever some error of judgment has resulted in undesirable practices. The great object to be attained is the correction of the evil, and if this can be accomplished without harm to the company or impairment of public confidence, neither duty to the public demands nor personal ambition justifies a resort to harsher measures.

No business is more dependent upon public confidence for its success than life insurance. We must have unbounded confidence in that institution to which we entrust the future happiness and welfare of those we hold most dear. An insurance company which undertakes to fulfill a solemn contract in the future when he with whom it was made can no longer guard the interests of its loved ones, must be above suspicion. That company whose every act and deed is done in the broad light of day, whose financial transactions are an open book to every one interested, whose officers not only welcome but invite the closest scrutiny and the utmost publicity of all

its affairs, and whose policy contracts are simple, clear, just and devoid of deception, must of necessity inspire that public confidence which, when nurtured and guided by an intelligent and enthusiastic field force, make for prosperity and permanency.

It has been my contention during the few years that I have had to do with the supervision of insurance companies that the least supervision consistent with safety is the best for all concerned, and I have conscientiously endeavored, as best I could, to adhere to this principle in all my official acts. If it were possible to have, without supervision, the fullest publicity, then, in my judgment, supervision would be wholly unnecessary. Under our present system of government, however, supervision has been found necessary and has thus far proven a most potent influence in upbuilding and improving the business and preventing fraud and deception. Like all things of human origin it has its weaknesses. How to cure these weaknesses and utilize the rocks encountered in the past as foundations upon which to establish warnings of danger for the future is one of the vital problems whose proper solution is the concern of all who are in any wise interested in the great institution of life insur

ance.

It is a generally conceded fact that politics plays altogether too important a part in the conduct of the affairs of insurance departments under the present system. In too many cases this is the influence that dictates the appointment of the supervising official regardless of his fitness for the position he is to occupy. Even when by this system a conscientious person, though lacking in the requisite knowledge and experience, still desirous of doing his full duty intelligently and well, is selected he is too often handicapped by incompetents whom political exigencies thrust upon him. Equally unfortunate is that state whose selection falls upon one who himself has a political ax to grind and who uses his office for the advancement of his personal political ambitions. But more reprehensible than either of these is that department which permits itself to assume the role of guardian and advocate rather than that of critic and judge with reference to the companies of its own state and regards as an affront any examination made by the department of