Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1881-05-12
BETTING ON DEATH.


of the profits of their labor
BETTING ON DEATH.
Extent of the speculat ON in Insurance Pol
icies in Pennsylvania-WholeC Communities
Engaged in the Disreputable Business
State Officers In the Meshes.
The Philadelphia Press prints . six-column
expose of the gambling in human lives as car
ried ON in that State under the wildcat insur-
ance system. 1t shows that such bare-faced
speculation never was known; that it infests
church and state, enters the school-room,
reaches as low as the cradle and stalks boldly
into the halls of justice; that even the execu-
tive chair is paralized by its seductive attrao-
tions, and that the lawmaking power is really
part and parcel of the evil itself. Careful
Investigation has developed the fact that there
are 165 companies in that State actually en-
gagged in the business. In addition to the old
line life insurance companies there are only
eight that are entirely free from the speculative
taint-namely, the Fidelity Mutual Aid associa-
ton of Philadelphia, the Mutual Benefit COM
pany of Philadelphia, the New Era Life
association of Philadelphia, the Temperance
Mutual Benefit association and the Odd Fol-
lows Mutual Life Insurance company Of Mont
rose, the Lake Shore Masonic Relief association
of Erie, the Central Mutual Aid association of
Lockhaven, and the Equitable Mutual Aid
association of Glen Rock The last two were
organized within the last year. There are also
three companies that profess to be legitimate
business-namely, the U. B. Mutual Aid socie-
ty of Lebanon, the Home Mutual Life associa-
ton of Lebanon, and the Keystone Mutual
Renefit ASSOCIATION of Allentown,-but these
companies allow their policies after issue to be
transferred to persons who have no insurable
interest in the person insured, which is no
legitimate and amounts to speculation. It is
proven that in Snyder county alone 1000
persons have either neglected or abandoned
their former vocations, and are now engaged in
the speculative
TRAFFIC IN HUMAN LIVES.
most of them agents of companies, others
as officers, (there being eighteen companies in
the county,, and the balance as SPECTATORS
that is, buying and selling policies The re-
suit is hundreds of families, through their eff
forts to keep up their assessments on such
policies, have been reduced to penury. Many
of them during the past winter were unable to
send their children to school for want of
clothes They are also unable to pay the mer-
chants, who are compelled in many instances
to lose accounts or take speculative policies and
risk paying the assessments and recovering in
surance to indemnify them for the moneys due
them by this class of persons. great many
of these speculative subiect persist in living,
and in consequence the merchants upon whom
policies have been imposed are IN financial dis
tress. Men holding public Office and trusted
positions are getting themselves into trouble
by speculating beyond their means, and in their
desperation using the public funds. The
sheriff of an interior county is said to be in
financial trouble, as he is carrying upward of
100000 on the aged and decrepit, and it is
alleged that to enable him to carry this enor-
nous sum of insurance he has made an inroad
on the public funds to the extent of SIS. 600
This officer is very much worried about the
uncomfortable position in which it has placed
him, and the state of his mind may be inferred
from his own language, the purport of which
is: 'sIhe beggars don't die fast enough" The
same state of affairs is shown to exist in sew
eral other counties-namely: Berlin, Schuyl-
kill, Lebanon, Perry, Lancaster, York, and
Philadelphia. In York county a poor man,
Louis Strayer, has risen to be worth over 81 O..
900, made almost wholly by having policies
issued on the lives of persons in questionable
health and afterward transferred to himself
In Philadelphia representative OF a half doz.
en- speculative companies has been found wha
boasted of having written $35, 600 in three
days, who offered to insure a mans diseased
and dying uncle, aged eighty Eight, to the
amount of $25, 900, $4,000 to be placed in
State Capital, Local of Harrisburg, Augusta of
Sunburg, and $5, 600 to be left to the
DISCRETION OF THE INSURER.
He guaranteed that there would be no risk in
it; that he would bring his own physician, who
would make the examination s'right." and then
he sold policy to the reporter for $11 on one
Mary Walker for 81 900, the woman being a
consumptive and not likely to last more than a
month Similar cases are mentioned from the
other counties named above. Among the in
teresting incidents is that Of a doctor insuring
patient under his charge, and an undertaken
man whom he had been called to take meas
ure for coffin son in one instance in
insures his dead father, and six instances have
been brought to light where the insured have
been murdered by those holding assignments
of their policies. Some of these offenders have
been brought to justice, but the so-called in
surance companies are not interested in prose
cutting them, though called to pay the policies
that have been dyed deep with fraud and crime.
The managers have no funds ut their disposal
until the death or murder of an insured person
causes an assessment, and in the % or SO per
cent of the policy retained by them consists
their profits. The policy holders who pay the
assessments are, of course. the losers, but as
they, one and all, are expected to profit in turn
by much the same methods, they pay the
assessments for while, and in due time
the company breaks up and the gamblers
in human life, unsuccessful in one com
pany, are usually quite ready to try their luck
IN another Evidence is adduced showing that
one of the comDanies-the Commonwealth
has for its officers State Printer Hart and
Edward Herricks, chief clerk in the auditor
generals office, and that by permission it refers
to Henry NJ. Hoyt, governor of the State; Hon.
VIM. P Schell, the auditor general; Hon.
Samuel Butler, the State treasurer, and Hon.
VIM. A. Wallace, x-United States senator. the
Endorsement running as follows: 'That it may
be understood that the directory of this asso-
citation will in good faith carry into effect all
they PROMISE they have but to point to the
names of the distinguished gentlemen to whom
they have permission to refer" It is also
demonstrated that there are syndicates of the
| State legislature formed in Harrisburg for the
diseased and dying old people with s view views Of Of
profit thereby. There is an old man living neal
Siegersville, Lehigh county, named Heffer-
finger, seventy years Of age, a worn-out man
Representatives Sieger of Lehigh, Higgins and
Schliecher of Schuylkill have ordered policy
on him. They have already laid $50 for othe1
cases, Schliecher drawing the check Other
members are doing the same, but their names
are for the present withheld.