The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-03-01
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

ilte insurance game in the carry ~ B. Some of the old mossbacks who have been here for a quarter of a century will remember c4sde McCary.
 He was for years the agent of the Equitable Life, and hustler of the first variety. He worked up great business, then the boom busted and not wishing to waste his talents on a dead town he hied himself for the Windy City.
 I have always thought that those who gave Chicago the name of the Windy City had more in mind than the ones which breezed over Lake Michigan and included insurance solicitors. I got a s call from Clyde shortly after he got located, and I answered it.
 I felt that I, too, was wasting my time in the youth and heard the call of the great west, for Clyde was not merely an artist when it came to getting a prospect to sign on the dotted line, he was a master letter writer long before system pointed out the advantages oi doing business by correspondence.
 I had sold my law library and was cutting my eye-teeth as a newspaper man on an afternoon paper, while draw ing down salary from a big institution which was passing through voluntary liquidation, and involuntarily keeping me on the pay roll to sign minutes and draw checks.
 It was the spring when the great Chi cago fair was being licked into shape for the opening days and I yearned tc be close to it. packed my grip, saic good-by to my friends and lit out to look over Clyde's proposition, which was to take the state agency for a big east ern life insurance company.
 I landed and found him domiciled in what was then the biggest office build ing in the world, the famous Monadnocli building, which to this day is a land mark in Chicago. It had more people in it than lived in Eufaula, my home town. Bear in mind that in those days there were no skyscrapers even in Bir- mingham and Linn's Folly" was still a wonder
 For a month or more I had Clyde's partnership under consideration. I know
 those who now know me will smile when I was trying to find out if I had sut. ficient assurance to write insurance. II may appear a bit strange that any such doubts should ever have lodged in the breast of a man who had practiced law and done reportorial work.
 Yet I hesitated, although I was held in the vise-lilSe grip of one of the greatest insurance hypnotists in America. Let me say right here, found law to be jeal. ous mistress. We lawyers speak with pride of law being profession, but neyei a student of Blackstone burned midnight oil over the master more than did Clyde
 McCary study insurance tables ano morning.
 I never went into business with him but I left him with the sense that he was going to make his way in Chicago
 and one day be high up in the insur- ance world in the United States. He had energy, enthusiasm, stick-to-i tive ness and tact. He believed in his line as
 much as any preacher believed in hls message. We speak of a minister being called" to preach. I do not kriow if a
 man is ordained to be an insurance man
 but do know if such be the case Clyde
 McCary was such one.
 I have come to believe ever since the
 days spent in closest intimacy with my
 friend. Clyde McCary, that the honest insurance agent who is selling policy | in a legitimate company is doing mis-
 sionary work of the highest order anc | deserves to be classed as an apostle c1 righteousness who is really serving hls fellow man in showing him his duty | to provide for those dependent upon him.
 Now comes the curious part I fell that as an executive I might like the Insurance business, but, strange as il will be to those who know me, I found out that I did not have gall enough to be first-class solicitor. Somehow ] just couldn't smile when a man was | rude. It got on my nerves and wanted
 to make 1t personal matter. Remem- Der. this was in the days when the SO licitor did not have the status which he has at present.
 {! Clyde was high-strung southerner 1, yet he had schooled himself to meet a | rebuff, not only without show of tenn
 per. but could get away without it's af- fecting his composure. I tried it out with him just to see if could learn his method I saw men who were most un- civil. men whom I wanted to assault l yet he kept sweet. Here was his secret T work on the law of general aver i ages. For every man who is ungentIe- ! tleman. It's a mere question of fIfty- fifty, and in any game in which there
 is an even break why quit it?'
 l I couldn't get my mind to submit tc
 the incivility. and so departed for New York, where my old friend and law part
 ner, Col. Noble Smithson. had gone. l
 felt that l must take up again my old
 profession, and so got berth in biz Wall street firm and remained true to l my first love until call came for me l to give myself to the ministry