Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1906-05-04
FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1906.
The New INSURANCE Code.

Under the above title the New York
Globe well says-
Last July Governor Higgins recon-
mended to the legislature. then sitting
in extra session. the authorization of
an insurance investigating committee.
Yesterday the governor signed the last
of the nine bills that were the fruit of
the committees work. In less than ten
months, concerning a business of vast
volume and complicated detail, the facts
have been gathered and digested, def
mite conclusions reached, and remedial
bills prepared and enacted into law. 1t
is perhaps the biggest job of legislation
ever struck of by an American legisla-
ture in the same period of time. No
wonder the governor, Chairman Arm
strong, Mr. Hughes, and others con-
nected with the great task feel proud as
they contemplate an end so quickly
reached. 1t has been most wholesomely
shown that the capacity for construc-
tive Legislation has not departed from
American law-making bodies-not ex-
cepting the much-criticized legislature
of New York. 1t is also shown-and
this is as wholesome as the other-that
no special interest, no matter how great
and buttressed, is strong enough to pre-
vent reform when a reform programme
is intelligently prepared and passed.
The governor in his Joy exclaims that
"No blot of failure or weakness mars
the completed work" 1t will be cause
for additional public congratulation if
the future justifies the saying. How
ever, the best laws may be defeated by
indirection-their proper enforcement is
as Important as their text. Much will
depend on the character and the ability
of the new insurance superintendent.
We are not warranted in believing that
an insurance millennium will now come
IN of its own accord. There is as great
a demand as ever for watchful scrutiny
both by the public and by those who
act in its name. If the period of in
surance excitement is followed by one
OF indifference it is not improbable that
our new state will prove to be much
better than the old. If insurance man.
agements do not of their own accord.
or under public compulsion, reveal
different spirit than that marking them
IN the past it is by no means impossible
that the insurance legislation of this
winter will yet afford texts for the
cynical.
Insurance reform, reduced to its final
terms, is reducible to one thing-respect
for the obligation of trustee-ship. The
evils of which policy holders have COM
planned have all flowed from violation
of this essential. The new laws impose
no rules that insurance managers should
not have followed of their own volition.
The connection with Wall street specu-
latlon, the contributions to political
funds, the swelling of expenses by ex-
travagant salaries, and by the mad race
for new business that has quartered an
army of 10000 agents on premium in
come-all these things have come from
the notion on the part of executive
officers that the companies belonged to
them personally, and that they were at
liberty to use other peoples money as if
their own. Has the lesson been learned?
Are the new executive officers converted
from the viciousness of the old WAYS?
Or are they-in the mood of the mice
that watch the movements of the cat