The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-20
bROSS REVIEWS
 LIFE AND WORK
 OF FAMED JUR|ST
Louis D. Brandeis Career As Lawyer a Most Event
 full One.

ation of Louis D. Brandeis, for the Supreme Court of the United States was fresh in mind, MT. Bross, a Con- necticut newspaperman tells of his life at Louisville, where he was born; of his two years at school in Germany; of his being chosen by his class to write the oration at the Harvard Law school before he was twenty-one years of age. He writes of his brilliant suc- cess as a lawyer, and then refers to the two contests in which he was con- spicuously in the public's eye. The first with the life insurance compa- nies on the bill to permit savings banks to organize insurance depart ments. We cannot do better than to quote MT. Bross.
 ''When the investigation of the exor- bitant charges and fragrant misman- agement of these institutions was go- ing on, two of his Boston friends who held policies came to his office one day and desired to retain him as counsel with a view of protecting their. interests. In looking into the matter, he saw how far reaching the insurance probe would go, and recognized the need of a cleaning house by these
 
 of policy holders, and at once he told the gentlemen who wished to retain him that he would only represent their interests gratuitously, since he felt it was his duty to be free and un- trammeled in investigating the insur- ance business in general way. At first his would-he clients were put out by his attitude. but he was resolute and they gave him the case, on his own terms. Practically every one familiar with public affairs in the Bay State during the past few years will recall the bitter fight which develop in the legislature when MT. Brandeis introduced the bill to permit savings banks to organize industrial insurance departments. During the fight against the big companies he had made the startling discovery that while old line insurance was being sold at big profits, ths real burden was being borne by working people. When the question of why exorbitant premiums were paid for industrial insurance, the companies claimed that the cost of business-getting was so great among the poorer class that 1t would be i'm ossible to reduce the premiums. Then | it occurred to MT. Brandeis to make a thorough search of the records of the savings banks, which evolved thia comparison:
 While this branch of banking has been in existence only a hundred years | it has never been necessary for those institutions to send out missionaries at enormous expense in order to secure deposits. Insurance seemed as neces- sary as savings deposits, he argued, and why not establish an insurance department at minimum premium cost in connection with the savings banks, thus relieving the working classes of the tremendous burdens they were bearing? *
 "Then he went to work with his usual persistency and scientific analy- sia and developed a plan for the or ganization of the, Massachusetts Saw day in active operation and, in com petition with the industrial compa- nies. Already this philanthropic move- ment has saved the people of Massa- chusetts thousands of dollars not only in selling low cost insurance but by compelling a great reduction of in- dustrial insurance cost on the part of the old companies. This organiza- ton is now headed by former Cover Enof Douglass, and among its other of- fcers, beside MT. ,Brandeis, are former Governors Bates and Walsh.' ~
 The second was his contest on be- half of the shippers with the rail- l reads. in which he insisted that rates should not be raised until the rail- roads had saved all they c1uld in op- erst.rs expenses.
 l Again quoting MT. Bross: "IJe had already made 6 marked success at the bar. when, several years ago. his pro- fessional work made 1t necessary for him to closely gnalyze industrial ineth- ods. Evidently he early learned that would he achieve the ideal. he must Kthink accurately. His first work in this line of industrial activity led hin into discoveries of methods and pro- cesses, which, when faithfully applied
 were sure of bringing about maximum results at minimum cost; and to the