The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-08-09
THE RISK TOO GREAT
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND TURN
ED DOWN BIZ INSURANCE
COMPANIES.
HIS HEALTH SEEMS TO Be GOOD.

HIS HEAL n SEEMS III bE GUUU.
But Policy Hunters Prefer Not to Take
Amy Chances--An Insurance Expert
Says He MAY Live Twenty Years or
Nav Die at Amy Time--Needs to Take
Outdoor Exercise and He is Spending
Much Time In the Open Air, But He
Gould Not Pass the Examination.
Pittsburg Dispatch.
WASHINGTON, Aug president Cleve-
land was seemingly never in better
health than at present. Those who have
seen him lately describe him as being in
the pink of condition. He is brown as a
berry from exposure to all sorts of
weather.
From last March, when he went on his
long fishing and hunting cruise on the
Chesapeake Bay and Pamlico Sound, he
has spent as much time as he could
spare in the open air. For six week he
has been ont of doors practically all the
time. His flesh has hardened, his step is
elastic and the heaviness in his move
ments, due probably to the recollection
of his painful experience with govt last
winter, when every step was excruciating
torture, has disappeared entirely, and
with it the apoplectic look that alarmed
his friends.
So far as outward appearances go,
Grover Cleveland is at this writing a
sounder man physically than he has
been in years, yet the story is current in
Washington and New York insurance
circles that an application from him for
life insurance for a large sum was turned
down lately.
Regarded as Hazardous.
The story seems to be authentic, al
though the insurance people cognizant
of the circumstances are struggling to
keep it confidential and to restrict its
circulation to the strictest professional
limits.
ANY insurance company would be only
too glad to have the President on its
books; hence the inference is plain that
the only reason that could impel the re-
lection of his application would be that
he was an extra hazardous risk.
1.-THE President may live 90 years, "
said an old life insurance man in dis
eussing the Cleveland case from purely
professional standpoint, land he may
drop off any minute. He simply could
not pass the examination, and for that
matter there are few men of his age who
can, but l take it that the experts who
passed on his case might have found
specially grave objections to accepting
him, else he would have gone through all
right. There Is lots of glory and adver-
Using in having the President Of the
United States on any company's list of
| insurance, but whether from business
standpoint it is worth $500 or $780,
900 cash money is matter of judgment
| should say not, and others seem to be
of the same opinion"
Physician Always With Him.
The President has been fearful of his
condition for several years, and there
has hagdly been moment when he was
| Is minutes from physician. On all his
| trips he usually has doctor along, os-
| tensibly as a companion, but IN reality
because of an ever present s ense Of pos
sible need for quick help from a skilled
/ practitioner.
| A hundred times he has told intimate
/ friends that he would die suddenly.
Many construed this TO mean that he
was afraid that he would meet violent
| death, but such is not the case Grover
Cleveland is a man of great physical as
well as moral courage, and he not only
does not fear personal violence, but does
not even think of it except when his at
tention is called to it possibly by crank
utterances or expressions from over
Jealous friends and then he only laughs.
What be anticipates is not violent
death, but sudden death from natural
causes, AMI be does not fear the dread
event at that.
Like any sensible man, however, who
has great responsibilities TO bear, he
does not feel that he can afford to take
unnecessary chances. If he should be
stricken down and the prompt attention
of a physician can save him, he intends
to give himself the benefit of that
chance. Hence the almost constant at
tendance of a physician. However, the
exercise he is taking and the outdoor
experience is just what is needed above
all things to prolong the Presidents life
Last winter gossip had made him des-
peIately sick man, but he seems to have
faculty Of disappointing gossipers. He
may fool the insurance people, too.