The Washington herald., 1913-10-26


that ruin was ahead of me IL refused II;
whereas, IL / accepted. everything would
be made easy. / shook my head and an
swered. There is nothing to add to what
II have already said" He responded, You
have made up your mind?'' and I said,
i have" He then said. You know II
means your ruin?" and l answered, well,
We will see about that" and walked to-
ward the door. He said, You under
stand, the fight will begin tomorrow and
will be carried on to the bitter end" l
said, Yes" and added, as / reached
the door. Goodnight Then, as the door
opened, my opponent, or visitor. which
ever one chooses to call him, whose face
was as impassive and as inscrutable as
that Of Mr.. John Hamlin in a poker
game, said, Hold on! We accept Send
in SO-and-so'N Cthe man l had named).
THE Senator is very sorry. but he will
make no further opposition" l never
saw a blum carried more resolutely
through to the final limit. My success
in the affair, coupled with the appoint
ment of Messrs. Partridge and Hooker,
secured me against further effort to in
terfere with my handling of TIE execu-
tive departments
MIR. Perkins aud Insurance.
1t was in connection with the insurance
business that / first met Mr.. George W.
Perkins. He came to me with letter of
Introduction from the then Speaker of
the National House of Representatives,
Tom Reed, which ran: Mr.. Perkins Is
a personal friend of mine, whose straight
forwardness and intelligence will COM
mend to you whatever he has to say. II
you will give him proper opportunity to
explain his business, 1 have no doubt
that what he will say will be worthy of
your attention" Mr.. Perkins wished to
see me with reference to bin that had
just been introduced in the Legislature,
which aimed to limit the aggregate vol
ume of insurance that any New York
State company could assume. There
were then three big insurance companies
in New York-the Mutual Life, Equita-
BILE, and New York Life. Mr.. Perkins
was a vice president of the New York
Life Insurance Company, and Mr.. John
A. Mccall was its president. 1 had just
finished my fight against the Superin-
tendent of Insurance, whom refused to
continue in Office. Mr.. Mccall had writ
ten me a very strong letter urging that
he be retained, and had done everything
he could to aid Senator Platt in securing
his retention. The Mutual Life and
Equitable people had openly followed the
same course, but in private had hedged.
They were both backing the proposed
bill. Mr.. Mccall was opposed to it; he
was in California, and just before start
ing thither he had been told by the Mu-
tual Life and Equitable that the limita-
ton bill was favored by me and would be
put through IL such thing were possi-
BILE Mr.. Mccall did not know me, and
on leaving for California told Mr.. Per-
kins that from all he could learn he was
sure ] was bent on putting this bill
through, and that nothing he could say
to me would change my view; in fact.
because he had fought so hard to retain
the old insurance superintendent. he felt
that I would be particularly opposed to
anything he might wish done.
Studied Question Carefully.
As a matter Of fact, 1 had no such
feeling. 1 had been carefully studying
the question. 1 had talked with the
Mutual Life and Equitable people about
it, but was not committed to any par
ticular course, and had grave doubts as
to whether it was well to draw the line
on size instead of on cohduct. was
therefore very glad to see Perkins and
get a new point of view. went over
the matter with q great deal of care and
at considerable length, and after we had
thrashed the matter out pretty fully and
Perkins had laid before me In detail the
methods employed by Austria Germany,
Switzerland and other European coun-
tries to handle their large insurance COM
panies, took the position that there
undoubtedly were evils in the insurance
business, but that they did not consist
in insuring peoples lives. for that GER
tainly was not an evil, and / did not see
how the real evils could be eradicated
by limiting or suppressing a company's
ability to protect an additional number
Of lives with insurance. ! therefore an
nounced that would not favor bill
that limited volume Of business. and
would not sign 1t II Il were passed: but
that ! favored legislation that would
make II impossible to place, through