The news & observer., 1905-12-30
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE Gov
ERNOR.
On Insurance and Insurance Laws in
North Carolina.

His Excellency r. 3. Glenn. Governor
of North Carolina, Raleigh, n. C.:
Your Excellency:-My only excuse
for thus addressing you IS that the
subject touches the public welfare.
am one of the many thousands who
read with n sense of the deepest sat
isfaction your recent able and timely
address to the people of this good
state on the subject of Insurance and
Insurance Laws" What you said has
been known for some time by quite q
number of people. but your address.
coming as it did from one in such hlgh
authority and one in whom the peo>
pie have such faith and confidence,
will make common knowledge OF the
fact that our insurance laws are rad1-
cally defective and sorely in need or
revision.
Although. as your Excellency's in
yestigations have doubtless disclosed,
we have an insurance department OF
such size and Importance that the
State has leased q separate building
for it's accommodation; and although
we have q most elaborate system of
insurance laws. which are praised (by
insurance cOmpanies) as the best in
the country: still. in the hour of dis
tress, when the people need and appeal
to you for protection. this department
silent IS the grave or as useless as the
idle prattle of child.
Under the laws as they now stand
it would seem that company simply
has to show that it is solvent and safe.
If Il shows that It is able to do right,
then it is permitted to do wrong with
impuEity.
While your wholesome address was
doubtless called forth by those life in
nvn w shocked
the moral sense of the world, one pur-
pose of this communication is TO in
form your Excellency, and through
you the people of this State, that they
are not the only offenders. The fire
insurance companies are also guilty.
Though they use other methods they
are possessed by the same pitiless pas
sion for public plunder. What the life
companies have done secretly by fraud
the fire companies do by combination
and force.
The fire insurance companies doing
business in this State. or at least
enough of them to control the situa-
ton. have entered into combination
for the purpose of destroying compe-
tition and increasing and maintaining
the cost of insurance, and of keeping
down the compensation paid their
agents. and. as is verify believed, for
their own interest and to the preju-
dice of the public Their methods are
arbitrary and tyrannical, and their
power is Il menace to the peace and
good government of this State. Insur>
ance has become Il business necessity,
and some think this combination is in
restraint of trade, and is now in viola
ton of our criminal law. But whether
this be true or not, the next legisla-
ture should make it so. l. is against
the spirit if not the letter of our con-
stitution, and it is expressly against
the National and State platforms of the
Democratic party, which denounce
such trusts and combinations in un>
measured terms. 1t is not a square
DEAL 1t is not right thus to permit
rich business corporations to do what
1t would be = crime for the humbleSt
merchant in the State to do.
That this combination is effective
and highly injurious to the public, /
need Cnly call your Excellency's atten-
ton TO one fact. Although we have
made wonderful improvements in
building. in the esta blishment of
water-works, and in the equipment OF
fire departments; although we have
passed the most stringent laws against
incendiarism and for the prevention OF
fire losses: and although we have Gre
ated 4 special State Insurance Depart
ment and given it extraordinary pow