The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1898-06-16
CALIFORNIA FIG SYRUP co.
SAN FRANCISCO. Cal.
LOUISVILLE. Ry. NEW YORK. n
A SociaIistic Platform.


not progressive. In their latest platform,
the one adopted by the State convention
at Bangor recently, they leave all other
platforms, including those of Ocala,
Omaha and st. Louis, far behind. 1t is
about the most radical document that has
been issued by political organization for
many day. Not only does it denounce
those labor rObbing institutions known
as national banks and demand that the
government alone shall have the power to
ISIS &c money and should issue plenty of it,
not only does it pronounce bond issues
dangerous and pernicious, and go in
for public ownership of railroad, tele-
graph and telephone systems, for d
graduated income tax, and the initia-
tive, referendum and imperial mandate;
not only does it reaffirm these stock
principles, but it gives silver dig
as part Of ''the barbaric system of metal
money" though demanding that as long
rs the system is retained silver should
receive the same recognition as gold and
be admitted to free coinage at IL to / and
most remarkable Of all, this platform
faVors setting up the State in the fire in
suraDce business.
free coinage at the ratio named would
not be the same recognition. 1t would
be discrimination in favor OF the cheaper
metal. The same recognition would make
the ratio somewhere between 81 and 40 to
l. Live and learn. Two years ago the
discovery had not been made, OF if made
was not announced in the platforms, that
the use of metallic money was barbarouS
That discovery and announcement were
reserved for handful of Populists down in
Maine. Tile St. Louis convention treated
silver more respectfully. 1t will astonish
the great nations of the world-if they
ever hear of it-that they employ a bar
barrie system, and that the only scientific
and progressive currency system is
government fiat paper. On reflection,
however, this sounds like a belated echo
from the Greenback platforms of twenty
years ago.
But the insurance proposition is the
most startling This is rank socialism. 1t
is not original with the Maine Populists,
although they are the first to put it into a
PLATFORM but the proposition seems to have
been first advanced by the Kansas State
superintendent of insurance, a Populist of
course, who in his last report recommends
that the legislature provide for State fire
insurance. Ills plan is to appropriate
money from the general fund and place it
in an insurance fund to pay running ex-
penses, losses, etc, the money to be col
lected by taxation in the usual way and
town and country officers to act as in
surance agents. In this way. he thinks
the benefits of insurance could be obtained
at half the present cost, and insurance
companies would be compelled to furnish
insurance cost or lose the business in
other words be forced out of the State
But if the State can do this with fire insur-
ance, why not with life, marine and acct
dent insurance? There al 9 no limits to the
field if once it is entered.
To be sure, there is not the remotest pos
sibility that Maine will ever be led into
such preposterous undertaking, but it is
rather interesting to speculate on some of
the possible results of such policy. Ac-
cording to the last report OF the State
insurance commissioner, the amount Of
fire insurance written in Maine in the
previous year was above SIG, 600, 600 not
including the factory or mill mutuals.
This vast risk was assumed for the most
part by stock companies, although about
tive and three quarters millions OF it
was carried by Maine mutual companies.
The total premiums amounted to 81, 642,-
427, and the losses to 1888, PAT, This leaves
$3.50, $50, from which running expenses
must be deducted before arriving at net
profits. The profits of the business are
of course outside the province of the
commissioner, but no doubt they averaged
fair, as there was no extensive conf1agra-
ton in the State that year. No corpora
tion-hated name to the Populist-is in
business for fun or pure benevolence
But could the State have done much
better? The ordinary rate of fire insur-
ance is not oppressively large. Suppose
the State, through a multitude of local
agents, had assumed this risk Having
no capital or reserve to fall back upon,
where would the State have been in bad
year for fires, such as has been known,
when losses wiped out premiums and more
too? What would happen in case Port
land, Lewiston, Waterville or Bangor
should be half burned some night, on one
of the smaller cities destroyed? Who
would insure the State against being i'm
posed upon right and left and saddled
with big risks at low rates? Would there
not be danger OF great increase of cases
OF spontaneous combustion and defective
chimneys? The State would be bankrupt
in five years if it should foolishly under
take business for which it is so untitled.
There is little danger, however. Populism
is plant that does not flourish on Maine
soil. Portland Advertiser
* IN very careful not to let my little Ann
Augusta know anything about the present
conflict" Are you afraid of its effect upon
her nerves?'' mo. But the time may come
when she will find it to her advantage not