The Cooperstown courier. (Cooperstown, Griggs Co., N.D.) 1902-1913, 1904-01-07

OPERSTOWN, GRIGGS CO.. N.
sides that there are men who die in
solvent before they get under ground,
or before their estate is settled up.
How soon the auctioneer's mallet can
knock the life out of an estate! A man
thinks the property worth $l5, 900; un-
der a forced sale it brings 81, 200. The
business man takes advantage of the
crisis, and he compelS the widow of
his deceased partner to sell out to him
at a ruinOus price, or lose all. The
stock was supposed to be very valuable
but it has been so "watered" that
when the executor tries to sell it he is
laughed out of Wall street; or the ad-
ministrator is ordered by the Surrogate
to wind up the whole affair. The es-
tate was supposed at the mans death
to be worth $40, 600, but after the in
debtedness has been met and the bills
of the doctor and the undertaken and |
tombstone cutter have been paid, there |
is nothing left. That means the chill
dren are to come home from school
and 60 to work; that means the COM
plete hardship of the wife, turned out
with nothing but a needle to fight the |
great battle of the world. Tear down
the lambrequins, close the piano, rip
up the Administer, sell out the ward
robe, and let the mother take a child
in each hand and trudge our into the
desert of the world. A Life Insurance
would have hindered all that.
''But," says some one, II am man
m II nfF oMl frNI
pay the premium" That is sometime
an awful and genuine excuse, but
rarely. The answer to it is this: If
lily, and pay for policy on your life,
dying and leaving them deprived of
the support your brain and hands sup
ply them. In nine cases out of ten,
when a man says that, he smokes up|
in cigars, and drinks down in wine,
and expends in luxuries, enough money
to have paid the premium on a Life
Insurance policy, which would have
kept his family from beggary when he
is dead. A man ought to put himself
down on the strictest economy until
he can meet this Christian necessity.
You have no right to the luxuries of
life until you have made such a pro-
vision. ! admire what was said by
Rev. DR.. Guthrie. the great Scotch
preacher. A few years before his
death he stood in public meeting and
declared: "When came to Edinburg
the people sometimes laughed at my
blue stockings and at my cotton um-
brella, and they said l looked like a
common ploughman, and they derided
me because lived in a house for which
paid thirty-tive pounds rent year;
and Ofttimes walked when would
have been very glad to have had a cab;
but, gentlemen, l did all that because
wanted to pay the premium on a
Life Insurance that would keep my
family comfortable If should die. ~
That / take to be the right expression
of an honest, intelligent, Christian
man.
The utter Indifference of many pe0-
pie on this important subject accounts
for much of the crime and the pauper-
ism of our day. Who are these chill
dren sweeping the crossings with
broken broom, and begging OF you
a penny as you 60 by? Who are these
lost souls gliding under the gaslight
in thin shawls? All! they are the vic
Tins of want; in many OF the cases the
forecast of parents and grandparents
might have prevented 1T. God only
knows how they struggled to do right;
they prayed until the tears froze on
their cheeks; they sewed on the sack
until the breaking of the day, but they
could not get enough money to pay the
rent; they could not get enough money
to decently clothe themselves, and one
day in that wretched home the angel
of purity and the angel of crime fought
a great fight between the empty bread
tray and the tireless hearth, and the
blackwinged angel shrieked, 'Aha! l
have won the day."
Saws some man: II believe what
you say: it is right and Christian, and
[ mean some time to attend to this
matter" My friend, you are going to
lose the comfort of your household in
the same way the sinner loses heaven
by prOcrastinatiOn. ! see all around
me the destitute and suffering families
OF parents who meant some day TO at
tend to this Christian duty. During
the process of adjournment the man
gets his feet wet; then comes Chill
and delirium, and the doleful shake
of the doctors head, and the 0bsequies.
II there be anything more pitiable
than woman delicately brought up,
and, on hermarriage day, by an indulg-
ent father, given to man to whom
she is the chief joy and pride of life
until the moment of his death, and
then that same woman going out with
helpless children at her back to strug-
gle for bread in a world where brawny
muscle and ruggedness of soul are ne
cessary-I say, if there be anything
more pitiable than that, don't know
what it is. And yet there are good
women who are Indifferent in regard
to their husbands duty on this sub
ject, and there are some 50 positively hos
jected man to some fatality. There
man keeping small candy shop, who
YehementlY Opposed the insurance of