Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1906-04-23
TRAGEDIES OF 1.-THE SYSTEM
Continued from page 81

s Continued from page 81
and remain a robust moralist. The
master of the Equitable looked upon
himself as an unrestricted proprietor.
He had an iron will, rough temper
. and fighting energy that carried all
before it. He bent men to his WILL or
destroyed them. And, as the power
involved in the control of hundreds of
millions of dollars was gradually add
ed to his natural genius and an almost
unbelievable capacity for concen-
trated strategic work, even the stout
est men were twisted this way and
that in his strong and ruthless grasp.
All this is no excuse for the grave
offenses committed by Mr.. Alexander
as an officer and director of the
Equitable society, charged with the
guardianship of funds held in trust
for widows and orphans, but partly
explains them. He was not a man
of great force. He was amiable, loved
easy ways of doing things and trusted
to others what a more prudent Or
alare man would have done himself
Under the leadership of Mr.. Hyde he
soon became morally blind to things
done in the interest of the Equitable
society which he would undoubtedly
have scorned to do, or permit to be
done, in his own private affairs.
Living in the midst of wealth
measured by hundreds of millions,
with an almost Incredible absence of
control or of accountability to the real
owners of the millions, the policy
holders, and seeing how readily the
most eminent men in the active life
of the nation-bankers, manufacture
ers, lawyers, statesmen-lent their
names to all that was implied in the
secret methods of the great life in
surance companies, it is not surprising
that man of Mr.. AlexanIer's natur-
ally yielding and indolent tempera-
nent should have lost the fine edge
of his conscience under the constant
grinding of Mr.. Hyde's fierce will.
1t must not be forgotten that at no
time in all this experience was the
main, original principle of life insur-
ance put in Jeopardy. For, in spite of
all the bribery, in spite of the care
lessness, extravaganza and grating,
the secret syndicates and the stock
gambling connections effected through
subordinate trust companies, the most
relentless and public investigation
has failed to show, that any of the
, great insurance companies was ever
for a moment put in danger of insol-
vency. The money held for the pay
ment of death claims was always safe.
The bitterest critic of life insurance
mismanagement has had to admit
{ that. Nor has anything developed in
the shameful revelations of the past
year in any way detracted from the
merits of the life insurance idea, pure
and simple, as an incentive to frugal
ity, providence and sacrifice for the
sake of others. The existence of
about $4,000 900 of life insurance
policies in various forms in the United
States represents a guarantee against
want and suffering that cannot be
honestly contemplated without thrill
of pride in the stamina and intelli-
gence of the civilization that produced
such a majestic result in so short a
time. '~ '...
That fact that the integrity of life
insurance itself was never really
threatened by the methods which he
consented to, both before and after
the death of Mr.. Hyde, may not
change Mr. Alexander's responsibility,
tested by high standards of conduct.
but 1t undoubtedly softened in his
mind aspects of business operations
which shocked the country afterward
when the facts were detached and put
; in fearful and damning contrast, with
out the dulling narcotic of the finan-
c1al atmosphere in which he lived for
almost forty years. It is doubtful
whether any one of the men who have
been pilloried and scourged in connec-
ton with the life insurance exposures
had any conception of the moral
enormity of his acts of omission or
commission, until they We're stripped
of all deceptive, lawyer-bred ~argu-
ments of expediency and tested by
raw standards of simple right and
wrong. ...g. 80
However that may be, it is impossi-
BILE to escape from the fact that, under
the infuence~pf Mr.. Hyde, Mr.. Alex
ander was more or less morally
atrophied. u {. Pc:
g IT, When Mr. Hyde lay on his death.
bed in1sa9s hessent for Mr.. Alexander
and repeatedly exhorted him to stand
by young James Hazen Hyde, then. a
d student at Harvard. It was Mr..
f1ehJr-