The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-07-29

ID proposed 10 pay them back In collars
worth only fifty-three cents. Here are,
at the present time, at rough esti-
mate, 100000 creditors and plutocrats,
embracing the men and women who con-
stitute the state, whose claims average
$500 each, whose thrift and confidence
in the national government it is pro-
posed to reward by "pressing down
upon their brows crown of thorus in
the shape of forty-seven per cent repu-
diation of their hard. earned savings.
But these savings bank depositors
are part only of the plutocrats and
gold bugs these crusaders propose to
punish or exterminate. There is
another form of preparing for the evil
days when the grinders cease, of guard
ing against the casualties of life, of pre-
pairing a sheltering egis for depen-
dent ones. Life insurance is a most
beneicent institution. 1t is the saw
ings bank principle vastly enlarged
and powerfully enforced. The figures
which express its bearing, in the aggre-
gate, upon the welfare of this country
are quite beyond comprehension. Those
which relate to Vermont may be more
readily understood. Here again the
insured is a creditor. The premium
he pays annually constitutes loan to
the insurance company. In round
numbers the holders of life insurance
policies in Vermont loaned the compa-
MES 81 100000 in 1896; the aggregate
force in the state was S30,000,000.
This is debt the companies must pay
some time. In 1896 they paid to pol
| icy-holders or their heirs about $780,
900. In the United States at large the
amount of life insurance in force is
some IS 100000, 900 and the sums an
nually paid the companies, in premi
ums, aggregate about S175 100000. The
amount returned to the insured or their
heirs during the last year was S65 000,-
900. Here again are vast sums of
money annually "poured in the current
of trade" From whence do they
come? From some 100000 "pluto-
Gratis )" who are taking thought for the
support of their wives and families or
other dependents when death has re-
moved the principal, or age or infirm
ity has destroyed his productive power.
What does the populistic democracy now
propose to do? BY making all debts,
public and private, payable in fifty-three-
cent dollars, to enable these life insur-
ance companies to pay, or put them in
position where they will be compelled
to pay, their maturing policies at half
the contract price-and many of them
may be rendered unable to pay at all.
The proposition is to repudiate forty
seven per cent of the most sacred COM
pacts that were ever made, involving
sums that are beyond comprehension,
and affecting millions of helpless
women and children, the aged, infirm
and dependent. The monstrousness
of the proposition is beyond adequate
Characterization.
In assessment and fraternal societies,
in miscellaneous forms of insurance,
some 100000 people in the United
States are interested. They are com.
mercial travellers, employees on rail-
ways, men engaged in the diversified
pursuits of life, who are exposed to
danger, and safeguard themselves or
their families, in the event of death or
disability by sickness or accident. The
face value of certificates of this class
in force exceeds $4,000, 100000. Mr..
Bryan proposes to impale these gold
bugs on cross of silver and press to
their lips a sponge soaked in the vine
gar of reputation.
These various classes of investors ex-
coed, in the total, the entire number of
votes cast in the last national election.
The interest they received on their in
vestments in 1895 exceeded S130000,-
600. Upon them half the population
of the country is dependent. These
are the creditors, the plutocrats," the
"gold bugs" that would suffer from
the adoption of the financial policy pro-
posed by the party that has stolen the
name of democracy. The real Shy
locks, the real plutocrats, the real gold
bugs would fatten on the misery this
policy would entail.