peal to the nobler side of men to create the beneficence which begins with the death of the benefactor. But every conscientious agent, though naturally providing for his own wants, feels that he is doing as great good for humanity as the preacher and the teacher, and in that lofty sense it may be truly said that life insurance is the highest type of beneficent business.

But there is a finer type of our business which governs all fair-minded agents. It is the unseen spirit that animates our lives, and by cementing us in a common brotherhood, strengthens the purpose for which the underwriters' associations were organized. In a word, that tie is sympathy. We are not gladiators, waiting revengefully for the turned-down thumbs, to deal fatal blows to rivals.

Co-operation, not competition, is the life of our trade, you have heard. We are competitors only because the

business of life insurance is not and cannot be a monopoly. Think then of the magnanimity that actuates agents in sinking selfishness and striking hands in a firm clasp to elevate the moral tone of this beneficent busi

ness.

There is a beautiful legend of the sweet-toned bells of the angels that softly ring out at twilight. Their notes make enchanting music, but only those can hear it whose hearts have been cleansed of all selfishness. This is only a legend, but those who thoughtfully interpret this higher type of beneficence, those who unselfishly live for others, make a music, the strains of which are not only enrapturing to our ears, but its echoes are heard reverberating down the corridors of time. [Applause.]

Mr. L. Brackett Bishop, Chicago, Ill.-Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: The topic which I speak to might be amended to read like this: "Life insurance, properly conducted, is the highest form of commercialized beneficence. Amongst the noblest thoughts of men are the thoughts that are given to the proper care and protection of the family, and this care and protection is brought to its highest development in modern life insurance. The phrase 'commercialized beneficence" is typical of the present age, which is an age of thoroughness and system. It was impossible in former years for the average man to provide for those dependent upon him after his death.

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In those days the heart controlled the good actions done, but in this generation the cool head works with and makes stable the warm impulses of the heart. Never

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before were the sick, the aged, the children, cared for as they are now. The educational work of the charity organization societies all over the land has taught us that relief given must not be haphazard and temporary only, but it must be, if possible "adequate relief." President De Boer cently said "Life insurance is one of the best efforts of civilization to support itself, and warts and all it is the finest thing yet." The modern life insurance policy, broad, comprehensive, fitting all needs and continually being perfected, offers men the greatest opportunity to adequately protect their families and estates, that the world has ever seen, and is therefore the highest form of commercialized beneficence. [Applause.]

Mr. Scovel-Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Convention: In the few words I have to say on this topic. I wish first to point out a special reason why the wording of the topic is not exactly accurate-why life insurance is not to be termed "commercialized"-and, second, out of that very reason, to arrive at the special point of view from which life insurance seems to be beneficence of the very highest type.

Of course we all know that life insurance is not "commerce" at all, in the ordinary sense, whatever the supreme court may ultimately decide it to be under the federal constitution. We know that life insurance, in its theory, is a science. In its practice, it is an applied science, but still exact-as exact as anything can be when applied and operated through human agency. In this respect life insurance is not commercial, but strictly technical and professional. And there lies our great responsibility, whether we be home office or field men; we are dealing with the layman in something he knows little about. He not only knows little about it when he takes

it, but he keeps knowing less and less the longer he has had it. He cannot himself use it, or operate it. After he has bought the automobile, it is the company's ma

chinery that must keep it going and the agent must be the permanent chauffeur to guide it where the owner wants it to go. That is more than a commercial responsibility.

But we must go a little deeper for the special reason I have in mind, why life insurance is fundamentally non-commercial. Commerce concerns itself with some commodity or thing of value to be passed from one person to another. The commodity or thing of value is in existence in the hands of the maker or the seller, before the buyer or consumer comes along. You get up a company and build a blast furnace. You throw in iron ore and coke and limestone, and presently you draw out molten pig iron. You have done something; a product has been made, and there is no difference whether it be sold all to one customer, or to many, or be piled up for a future market. But suppose you get up a life insurance company with ample capital stock, with full array of officers and agents, rate-books and policy forms, and you open up your door with all the machinery to write, say, a million dollars a year. You have not produced any life insurance by all that. The first year you write that intended million dollars, but all on one man. Still you have produced no life insurance. You do the same thing each year for five years. You have five million dollars at risk on five policyholders; but still have not one dollar of real life insurance in force-even though your cash assets be ten millions, twice the face of your policies.

No, sir. No amount of home office or agency machinery, no amount of assets, can produce the commodity we deal in. True life insurance has its existence in lives at risk, enough of them to make an average to which the mortality tables can apply. We can sell a kind of in

demnity or guarantee, but scientific life insurance is only created through the co-operation of the hundreds and thousands of policyholders. The policyholders are the raw material of our product. They are the ore that has to be thrown into this furnace of ours, before any iron can come out. They are co-producers with us. I do not know of anything else in which the consumer is also the raw material and the producer and becomes such in the very act of consuming.

This paradoxical idea, which has not occurred to me before, interests me as giving new emphasis to the old fact that life insurance in its very essence is co-operation. We are continually talking among ourselves of the vital importance of the policyholder and his interests, but we want to put it to him more practically. We ought to say to our prospects: "We have no life insurance to sell you The companies cannot make any without you and your fellows. Come join us and let us make it together." There lies the strength of the fraternity. Absolutely all it has is that single string.

With all its radical defects, it has built up an enormous following simply because it says, "Come, join." It does not say "Come, buy. The fraternity realizes, if we do not seem to, that life insurance is co-operation, not commerce.

Now all this leads directly to the one special point of view from which life insurance seems to me to be the very highest type of beneficence. I would leave out the word "commercialized," but will insert "secular," if you please, to avoid any conflict with the church. So I say life insurance is the highest type of secular beneficence, because it not only "helps men to help themselves," but provides a particular way of self-help that must help others at the same time. It means many peoples doing the same thing for mutual good. It cannot be done alone. You may help a man to get a fortune for himself, but not to get life insurance by himself. He has to have hundreds and thousands of people with him to make life insurance. Therefore the thing we invite people to do not only fills the usual conception of true beneficence, which is content with helping men to help themselves, but it contains still more of the spirit of the

Golden Rule and of human brotherhood because it is a thing which cannot be done at all except where all combine and each one helps the others in the very act of helping himself.

What higher type of higher beneficence could there be? [Applause.]

Mr. J. Edward Durham, Philadelphia, Pa.-Of course in our five minute talks we can only take up one phase of this subject. On some delectable occasions we have cigars and other nice things put in, with which you are of course all familiar, and to those we add a drop of lemon to heighten the flavor. I perhaps in a good natured and conservative way will add a little of that substance to this discussion of the topic.

When recently I first looked my topic seriously in the face I was reminded somewhat of the verse from The Gilbertian Ballad:

"And his gentle spirit rolls Through the melody of souls Which is pretty, but I don't know

what it means."

It looks like such a grand and inspiring sort of topic as a whole, sounds splendidly, good, big, rotund words, of the uplifting sort, seems like one should mount on the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the world of Altruria on such a topic. But, being then analytically inclined, I began to inquire-what shall we include in beneficence, and what are commercialized beneficences, and what are uncommercialized beneficences?

Now, beneficence is a well done thing. Is the public at times a well done thing, and if so, a commercialized or an uncommercialized beneficence? Is Tom Lawson, of whom some of you have perhaps heard, propagating commercialized or uncommercialized beneficence? And are John D. and H. H. and "Various," in laying up a modest competency against a particularly wet season guilty of commercialized beneficence?

Is a savings bank or a building and loan association a