Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1909-01-25
To the PoLicy-hoIders:

The work Of your Company during 1905 and its con-
don the close Of that year deserve than ordn
AIRY consideration and study Your interest in the brief
tabular exhibits attached is two-fod. You have the
responsibility and the anxiety of policyholders you
have also wider interest Commerce is than bust
ness; it is the great cvilizer Life insurance is more
than mutual projections it is great social force Let
us for moment consider that aspect Of these figures
If a considerable portion of the wealth created year
ly by society could be gathered pro rata basis, in
vested so as a reasonable rate of interest and
then under and scientific program be turned
into cash instantly at any point and applied To the relief
of human Distress long step would be taken toward
the social bettement of men. There would be neither
charity nor c0nlscatOn IN such plan II would not
eliminate ambition initiatives but it would greatly
duce poverty, ignorance, and their familiar fruits
But society is not organized in that way. In the
struggle for existence the weak brutaly driven to
the wall Property itself is not always money, and
money saved is frequently worth less than its full value
because it is not well placed is not quickly available
There is nevertheless, large section of society
wisely organized than society a whole-a gild
of men and women whose weak not trampled
on whose property at the time of greatest need always
available and is always money. This is life insurance
Life insurance is what society would be and it does
what society would do if society organized sug
gested above If society, instead Of life Insurance.
cOmplished these results, might begin TO hope for
speedy realization of Of social ideals But
ditions and results achieved less real and less
valuable socially because they belong to what call
business Life insurance achieves such results daily
with certainty, with justice and with large benefits
society
AS a poicy-holder in the New York Life Insurance
Company, you part of such a plan in 1908 and
Indirectly YOU were busy producing just such results
every month in that year
WHAT YOU DID IN 1905
Consider for a moment this COmpany-and bv this
Company, mean, primarily, its memberships it was
at the beginning Of 1905 and consider what it has ac
cOmpshed within twelve months One wear ago the
Company consisted of people insured under about $50
900 policies citizens of every considerable country They
were under definite contracts with each other which
called for scientific cooperation and mutual protection
They had paid such sums into common fund that all
their matured obligations had then been met, and,
January ls 1908 against ultimate average oblea-
ton of about $1,000 per policy there was accumulated
about S525. The membership under definite con-
tracts duly TO provide the difference between the sums
accumulated and the ultimately due
What happened during 1908? You directly reached
and relieved the benehciares under 5000 policies when
their chief resource had been taken away by DEATH
relief went into the 46 states and territories of the
United States and into Al other countries The total
Of TINS relief as expressed in money, SD 131 IL
But that is only part of the story You sent these
families not property, but money you reached them i'm
nedlately and just when need greatest In doing
that You really did more You did what no other OF.
gained body of men could do except those similarly or
gained You paid these benefciaies a partial equiv
aent for the property value of lives cut off prematurev
Most insur1ng persons young. They have
strength OF body, reasonable mental equipment and
an average training. When they assume the obga-
tons of home and children they in effect make con
tract with society, but the burden that contract for
a time is society. They are themselves their chief
asset But the bank will loan money that asset
when life is extinct and very little when life is at its
full II that asset fails these men default TO society
ana society has no remedy except the orphanage and
the TefomatOry.
large portion of the death claims of 1908 repre-
scented the salvage of the really valuable asset which
these families had-a resource which, by all the ordn-
AIRY rules of business, totally lost These PAYMENTS
prevented social defaults and to that extent made the
ofplanage and the refOmatOry unnecessary
IL Is worth while for YOU pocy-hoders 10 know
something of the other things which you accomplished i'm
The year 1908 You paid in all To your own membership
Ni"l9l,Z0SIO This total includes death-clams annui.
ues dividends, maturing endOwments maturing deferred
dividend policies and surrender value for contracts sold
10 the Company You loaned TO your own membership.
on the security Of their own policies, S2S0OOOOO For
your own protection, you increased the general funds of
the company thook yaluesl by about S42OOO00O This