New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-15
Group Insurance for Soldiers
Blu George Clarke Cox, Phi. d.

Every one agrees that our soldiers should
have life insurance and nearly every one
agrees that the government should foot the
bill, this being our easy way of showing on
responsibility to an abstraction. We Tor
get that Letat, c'est nous. We pay the
bill. There is no escape from that II the
soldiers in our armies sent and to be sent
TO Europe are insured, the whole popula-
ton will pay their premiums in the form
of increased taxes But that is all right; no
one is Directing. Few people objected to the
sums spent in paying pensions to soldiers
and soldiers families for Civil War service,
amount of fraud involved. The pensions as
such were approved. So with life Insurance
We are beginning to see that. as life in
surance is something that every provldent
man looks after for himself, to provide Tor
at least the immediate needs of dependents
left behind, so all soldiers, provident and
improvident should have this protection for
their families. 1t Is great and stirring
testimony to the essentially honorable record
of life insurance in America. Its principle
is thoroughly vindicated.
But having decided this much, the ques-
ton arises, What will it cost? And the
government recently summoned to Washing
ten representatives of the great life insur-
ance companies to see upon what terms II
any, these companies would assume the risk
The companies declined to assume the risk
at all and recommended that the govern
ment insure the soldiers. This was per-
fectly sound piece Of advice, though there
are many who do not see why.
Life insurance is really misnamed. for no
enc can insure the life. What is insured is
the earning power Of the individual and this
cannot be done completely in any case, be-
cause il of thousand men, all of whom
are earning and producing, one dies, the
amount of mis- earning is abolished All the
kings horses and all the kings men cannot
restore it. Nor can life insurance. All that
can be done is for the thousand men to chip
in" from their earnings in the event
Of each and every death enough to keep the
family of the deceased member from being
totally destitute. There are LOO members
of the New York Stock Exchange. When
ever a member dies all the other members
are assessed so each to make up an insur-
ance. And there is no distinction made be-
tween the late ]. P. Morgan and the least
successful broker.
Rules Governing All Insurance
Certain points should be kept in mind for
the understanding of all insurance:
/. There is bound to be some economic
loss when any member of a group dies un-
less that member is more of liability than
an asset.
2. This loss cannot be made good by
bookkeeping. The economic burden on the
individual can be lightened by distribution
and by this alone.
3. On the basis Of commercial insurance,
membership must be made as equal as pos
sible-i. e., the young pay less, the old more,
the vigorous less, the sickly more, because
the 1000 or $4,000 paid to beneficiaries
takes no account of merit An insurance
company is essentially cooperative and mu-
tual society.
4. Some must be entirely excluded from
the membership because the risk OF their
membership is too great.
s. The exact cost of insurance for CIV
en- group Of men is as surely known, under
normal conditions, as anything is known in
this uncertain world; and an insurance COM
pany. in order to remain solvent, must re-
ceived from its .policyholders at least this
much, plus little reserve to make margin
OF safety.
6. No one knows how much war has
added to the risks of ordinary life, and so
10 one can compute how high insurance
rates ought to be for those exposed to war;
but we do know that the rates would have
to be so high that none but the rich could
pay them. The lowest rate proposed was
500 IN .Lo Li,baet SIM nor 81 000 above the
normal rates.
When the officials of the great life insur-
ance companies were asked what they could
do to insure soldiers and sailors they very
replied that they could do nothing.
They are officers of carefully run institu-
ton, which is based upon the ordinary risks
Of life in peace time. Even this can be pat
ronized only by the more thrifty and we'll
TO do of the land. "The destruction of the
poor is their poverty" And no institution |