Litchfield enquirer., 1878-04-11
THE MUTUAL BENEFIT LIFE.
GOVERNORS VETO.
Representatives

To the House of Representatives.
 l respectfully return herewith to the house in which it originated bill entitled ''House joint resolution amending charter of Mutual Benefit Life company of Hartford, Connecti- cut, with statement of my objections" to its enactment.
 CD The company is required by the bill to invest it's accruing surplus, as fast as received. in the bonds and securities named in the bill and to lodge the same with the state treasurer until the fund with accumulations of deposits and interest collected and reinvested by the treasurer shall amount to one million dollars.
 For these the state treasurer is required to give from time to time receipts in the name of the state and to safely and securely keep the same and any renewals changes and accretions thereof After the fund has reached one mil lien the treasurer is to continue to hold the same as trustee for the corporation, collecting the bonds as they become due, reinvestng the same in other securities and paying the interest thereon to the company until it shall have be- come bankrupt, in which case the treasurer is to become, not under judicial authority, but in his official capacity, receiver for the policy holders of the company, converting the as- sets and distributing the proceeds among the various claimants in the United States. can not convince myself that the public treasury should be converted into a perpetual safety OCpOctt UT Iuc SLAtc De HlaUe to act as it's gratuitous savings bank, steward and baillff. There aIe plenty of savings, safe ty deposit and trust institutions in the state specially incorporated to hold the earnings of those who do not dare to trust themselves with their own earnings and which take for hire and consideration the custody, trust and man. agement of securities and funds, with the care and responsibility of which the owners do not dare or care to burden themselves
 This has not as yet gone into the business of holding, investing, guaranteeing and dis bursing the accumulations of aprivate business corporation, and I must ask the legislature to think twice before it allows such dangerous experiment to be made. If this bill is passed and the scheme means what it purports, the number of checks in the treasury should be doubled, the salary of the treasurer trebled, and his official bonds increased tenfold.
 ca The bill proposes, as l have before said to pile up and imprison in the state treasury all the surplus and profits of business done on the plan of mutual insurance until such surplus shall amount to one million.
 The past history of this company, it having already been in business for eight years and havinghad by it's last reports only $5, 912 of as- sets, would warrant us in believing that the required accumula tion would not be reached in two centuries, if ever But as the company propose new plan of insurance, it would not be fair to judge of the future by the past. It must not be forgotten, however, that life insurance has been terribly overdone; that the whole field has been traversed and secured by canvassers that times are at the worst and competition at the ferCest that the whole businesss is in dispute throughout the country, and that the best companies in the land with the best regulations, and credit founded on millions upon millions of accumulated assets are now at their wits end to make living profit. How much time will be required fol this company, starting with an insignificant capital, a reputation unmade, to pay the ex penses of establishing a new business, and the costs and losses of the business, and accumulate besides surplus of one million
 Not less than two generations, in my judg. ment, at the least. But suppose it to be only one. What will be the result in that case Simply this It will deprive whole genera tion of policy y-holders of one million of sur plus contributed by themselves and by every principle of justice belonging to them, and tt them alone, in order that some indefinite gen eration of strangers may have the benefit O an accumulation not earned by them, and nc cent of which ought to belong to them. Tn, system, in my judgment, is in manifest viola tiOn of every principle of justice and equity and will require generation of martyrs tt give it success.
 (3) The new scheme of insurance proposed by this company is called ''The Tontine Safety Life and Endowment Plan" The name fili, the ear, but conveys no distinct idea to the mind. learn, however, from the officers oi the company, that it is proposed to organize the corporation by creating capital stock oi $lOO,OOO, part of which only is as yet sub scribed and none of it paid in, and then to es tablish a mixed life insurance business al mutual policy-holders being excluded iron membership and management, but everyon, of them being taxed given proportion of thu premiums paid, in part for the benefit of thu stock, and in part for the expense of conduct ing the business. In other words the state , to tax and toll for it's own profit every mutua policy issued by the company. Do need sa more
 If corporations of this sort are to be increas ed, and the evils already existing are to be az gravated, it must be done without my consen Orcooperation.
 May be allowed, with respectful deferenc to invite the assembly to reconsideration and second thought.
 R ID HURRAPn