Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1905-09-29
INSURANCE.
Stand by the Well Managed Companies.

From the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin.
The revelations before the New York
legislative committee relative to the Sc
cret financial operations of certain life
insurance companies are startlingIy sig
niicant. They unmask moral obliquity
on the part of men high il life insurance
circles, and indicate a woeful disregard
OF trusts which in a social sense trans
cend IN Importance those of the dduciary
institutions which are directly associated
with the commercial life of the nation;
and while they constitute only the be-
glnningS of the investigation now IN
progress, their astounding character will
give the movement toward national con-
troll of life insurance companies an ire
sistible impulse.
National supervision and the publicity
incident thereto will not be unwelcome to
the majority of the life insurance COM
panies of the United States. The Off
Gals of the life insurance companies
which are conducted with due regard for
the st.credness of the trust imposed in
them by the policy holders must feel that
public accounting is the one way by
which the life insurance business can be
placed beyond the smirching influence of
men who can be tempted into surrepti-
tlous and illegal handling of trust
*Inds. The we'll managed companies are
IN the position of solvent ard solid banks
during times of public excitement Incl
dent to failures of sister banks through
ENLIGHTENMENT or unwise banking; and it
is as illogical to put all life insurance
companies Oh the same plane with those
whose affairs have been unmasked to
their discredit as it would be to con
denim all banks because of the
failure of several as result
of criminal acts or mismanage-
ment. Life insurance companies have
come to be as indispensable as banks
and people cannot afford to asperse COM
panies which are rightly conducted be-
cause Of the wrong doings of officials of
other companies. On the contrary, they
should be moved in self-interest to up
hold the well managed companies while
they are condemning those whose officials
nave been guilty of gross violations of
trust.
Self-interest should dictate a resolute
support of companies which can say, as
does the Northwestern Mutual Life of
Milwaukee in its annual statement, that
1t has never been involved with other
financial institutions nor had any con-
nectiOn whatever either as a company or
through any of its officers with any other
line of business" and whose presidents
can say, as does President Palmer of the
Northwestern Mutual Life, in his annual
address, regarding the assets of the COM
pany:
This $2O1 100000 is worth every dol
lar that it represents. 1t is made up of
clean, safe, solid assets; there is nothing
in it to be thrown out. There has been
no trickery in buying these bonds. There
has been no dickering with the securi-
ties of this company for the interests OF
any officer. No investment has ever
been made and none exists today Ill
which an officer has any interest what
ever outside of the interest he feels as
~ Off i0l in I.,ar1 mo 10
They are not members of any syndicate.
Never while they live and are officers
of the company, will they go into any
arrangement by which the assets of the
company, or any part of them, may be
manipulated for the purpose of putting
money into their individual pockets"
Surely, life insurance companies which
are thus rigidly and impersonally man
aged should not be judged in the same
class with the companies concerning
which so much has been revealed that IS
reprehensible and disheartening.
In an article on the cost of life insur-
ance, The Conservative Life News says
considering scope. quality and charac-
ter of the protection, as we'll as the net
outlay to procure the same, the cost of
life insurance to the policy holder has
been very much decreased during the
last generation. And life insurance IS,
perhaps, the only commodity the cost of
which has been so much decreased dur
ing that time"
The Bath On. " Courier makes this
appeal for fair play: while certain
insurance companies are under the scru-
tiny of investigating committees it will
be we'll for the people to be careful lest
they allow themselves to be unjut to all
insurance companies by indiscriminate
condemnation. There is danger of do
ing great injustice by oyerzealous criti-
cism."
Sunshine speaks as follows: Life in
surance will ever remain a great bene1
faction and q godsend to the race. The
system is sound, and built upon a firm
foundation"