The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-05
"MONSTEI,S, LIVING ON, SWAL-
LOWING, DIGESTING AND
BREEDING MONEY"

has particularly urged against the
present mode of conduct of the two or
three mammoth insurance companies
of the land has been the evil of the
pyramidal surplus and the possible
ties of corruption that lie in such abb
normal financial growth.
Aside from the fact that in the ma
ture of common logic the men who as
policy support and make
possible these vast aggregations of
wealth are in a sense robbed of the
return that they are honestly entitled
to receive from their unselfish love
of those dependent upon them for
protection against the contingencies of
death, there turks in the SURPRISES
themselves a concrete danger to the
country at large.
If the men at the head of these
companies and thereby in control of
a wealth that would make the tabled
Croesus look like the street slang OF
thirty cents were of such charac-
ter as to inspire a universal respect,
the danger would still remain in the
possibility of their own seduction or
the more probable contingency of
weakness in their offspring or sue
cessors. Too much money gives too
much power: and the only plaything
of power is the oppression of the poor
for it's augmentation. Otherwise has
power, when money has taken the
place of force, no field as such in
which to exercise it's limbs.
Undoubtedly the most vivid and
trenchant picture of the possibilities OF
the swollen surplus is a matter of rec
ord in the speech of the Hon. Joseph
II. Choate, Minister to Great Britain, in
the famous hearing of the income tax
case before the Supreme Court of the
United States. The fact that he could
then have spoken as he did and now
contemplate the acceptance of the
post of Chief Adviser to James Hazen
Hyde, the discredited vice-president of
the Equitable, is an illustration of the
fact that politics is not the only in
dustry which is not choice in the Sc
lection of bed-fellows Money chooses
such partners as it wants, and he is
big man indeed who will resist its
solicitation
Choate. before the Supreme Court,
was magnificent as became his brain.
AS the counsellor of Hyde and pros
pective president of the Equitable, he
is but a melancholy exhibit of the
purchasing power of the pile of money
which as a counsel he denounced.
AS quoted by the New York World,
Mr.. Choate, in the income tax discus
sion, said:
Il understand from the announce
ment of the court that Your Honors
are hesitating about declaring the ex
emption of mutual insurance COM
panies lacking in uniformity and
therefore void in law"
1.-THE concrete argument Will best
enforce our opinion on that subject.
shall take a single instance of mu-
tual insurance company, named IRON
the mere nature of it's business. In
respect to which the record shows that
by the methods of business in which
it has been engaged for the last TWEEN
ty-fve or thirty years it has accumu-
lated $204, 1000, 900 invested in every
possible form of property, all exempt
by the act.
your Honors are called upon to
say whether the exemption of that
company is not beyond all bounds of
reason They talk as if a mutual in
surance company were a charitable
organization, and | dare say in the
infancy of the institution there was
an idea of promoting thrift among
few men, who got together and formed
it to enable them to make savings.
"But do your Honors know what
you are doing when you are thinking
of eXempting such a mutual insurance
company as that referred to-and that
as "a sample of all of them? Alb uno
ViSce omneS
what is q mutual insurance COM
pany as thus perSonified?
at goes under the reputable name
of a moneyed corporation.
IF your Honors please, it is a mon
eyed monster
at lives upon money.
at swallows money.
cit digests money.
cit breeds money.
1T lays gold eggs by the basketful
every day, and then it coils a few
lengths of it's person about them for
the purpose of Matching them and
carrying on the process of breeding
ad infinitum.
This monster has as many arms
through it's agents and agencies as
here are States-in the Union, and those
arms are raking in, raking in, rak1ng
in money all the time.
''It is not limited to one nation, nor
to one continent, nor to one hemis-
phere.
''Those arms reach beyond the sea,
and rake in British gold and French
gold and every other mans gold from
across the ocean.
What does it get it for?
ITO make more money to invest
''And how shall it invest the mon
ey?
ut cannot invest it in its own draw
ers. Then how does it invest the
money?
at creates trust companies, it owns
trust compal1ies-more than one.
ut creates bankS-more than one.
cit owns the stock of the trust COM
panies and the banks, and through
them it does all manner of business
in which moneyed institutions engage.
cit builds railroads, it is the medium
of the emission of great issues of
railroad bonds, upon which the rail-
roads are built. More than that it is
the chief factor in the reorganization
of railroads that most profitable in