The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1916-06-10
STATE INSURANCE
H MIS- ';ss@!u|tD y
Federation of Insurance e.
Urges Legislative Candidates
Not to Pledge Themselves.
LETTER CONTAINS MILD
AND INSIDUOUS THREAT
Candidate Denounces Insurance
Federation AS Reactionary and
Opposed to Progress.

Enemies of the state insurance ad-
iVocates are busy misrepresenting the
proposed measure and the purposes
of those working for this progressive
piece of legislation. The activities of
an organization known as the Insur-
Rnce Federation of Minnesota is un-
covered in a letter to The Labor
World written by IIymen Mendow,
non-partisan candidate for the legs-
1ature in the Thirty second district,
Minneapolis. George w. Lawson,
secretary of the Minnesota Federation
of Labor, has been Informed of the
letters se.-t OUT FLY the insurance fed
Grafton and denies the claims made
by that organization. Mr. Mendow's
letter follows:
To the Editor: The Insurance Fed
GRAFTON of Minnesota has sent out a
circular letter to candidates for the
legislature requesting them not to
commit themselves on the question of
state insurance. Such enterprise on
the part of these people is. proper and
legitimate If they would only stick to
facts and not seek to befuddle the
candidates and the issues.
InsidiOus Threat.
THE mild and insidiuos threat con-
tanned in the letter is enough to make
any rlght-thinking man revolt against
1t. They say, ON the subject of So
called state insurance. in any form,
the Insurance Federation of Minne-
sofa speaks for more than $4,000 citi-
zens of the state who are identified
With the insurance business in one or
another of it's manifold branches"
Such threats to a candidate, for it is
threat, is not only cowardly but worse
than the paternalism that they so
weakly decry. Why does not the Fed
.eratiOn present facts not suppositions
and why does it not face the issue on
the merits rather than clamor in
;pitious wall for protection? The fed
eration has never sounded the Opin-
ion Of the insurance men or of the
policy holders or members Of fraternal
organizations for whom it purports to
spea. And were it to do so, it could
not get an intelligent expression Of
opinion because the general public has
but the slightest idea of the import of
state insurance and it's advantages and
disadvantages. I would wages that
the people who appear on the impos-
ing letter head Of the Federation
know no more than their fears, about
this progressive proposition. The let
ter tells lis that the organization is
educational and it is our hope that it
is, but the inevitable result is that if
1t continues to use the logic and the
perverted arguments that it is now
using, the working people will wake
up and learn the truth by self investi-
cation and then woe betide the Fed
eration and it's aims.
!, Serves to Amuse
'An analysis of the printed circular
serves to amuse the most unthinking.
The logic and the. facts presented are
the creations of the brain of an infan-
tile paradox or of one or more who
deliberately seek to becloud the truth
with sentimentalities that have more
than half century ago lost their appeal
to the voter. No longer can a petit
logging demagogue, be it an individ-
nal or federation, shout paternalism
or socialism and thus divert the prog
ress OF the arts and age. If state in
surance is the cornerstone of social
ism why has Belgium, imperial Ger
many, monarchic England, democratic
France, Italy, and even ignorant abso-
lutte Russia adopt state insurance in it's
various phases?
why has the great state of Minne-
sofa enacted into >law the Lundeen
bill for state fire insurance on it's
own buildings and is hereby saving
the people of the state over a third of
q million dollars instead of paying it
out of taxes to over capitalized, wa
tered, and extortion dividend paying
mt
Continued Page 2.