LAWSUIT OR LEGACY. 345 



cation of the value of the medical examinations by the expert medical 

 examiners and directors of twenty-oue life-insurance companies ? A 

 risk good enough to " pass " some forty-five doctors employed by, and 

 for the protection of, the companies is, on the face of it, a good enough 

 risk to pay. If this is not so, then the companies, and not the public, 

 should be made to bear the responsibility of the incompetency of their 

 own officers. 



But for the reputation of these medical men, it is a fortunate fact 

 that the contest did not prove Colonel Dwight to be an unsafe i*isk. 

 After his body was dug up several times, and a number of autopsies 

 held, and most of him analyzed, they succeeded in proving that he 

 owned a hotel where liquor was sold ! 



But under these forms of contract, the companies undoubtedly had 

 a legal right to refuse payment upon even so absurdly technical a 

 misstatement of "occupation." It was claimed that his hotel was a 

 side issue ; that he did not think of himself as in that business, and 

 that his failure to say, because of it, that he was " in any way con- 

 nected with the manufacture or sale of spirituous liquors," was a natu- 

 ral one under the circumstances. How many men give, in answering 

 the question as to occupation in their applications for insurance, all of 

 the numerous " plants " in which they have an interest of a financial 

 nature, more or less important r One man says he is a book-keeper, 

 but he may possibly, also, own stock in a mine. His claim could be 

 contested on that ground. Suppose that he really thought nothing of 

 his mining-stock when he made his application and signed his con- 

 tract ? Suppose that in a short time he was called to see the mine, 

 went into it, and died of the results of that trip ? His policy would 

 not, if it contained the usual conditions, be worth, in a legal fight, the 

 paper it was written on. 



That companies often waive their reserved right to contest on such 

 grounds, is used as an argument to prove the innocent nature of these 

 forfeiture clauses and other oppressive conditions. But so long as 

 they hold the legal power to do so, the temptation to contest will be 

 too great for flesh and blood, not to say for corporations, to bear with- 

 out yielding sometimes. The " Get thee behind me, Satan," of a fair, 

 plain contract will be the best safeguard for the heirs in the matter of 

 money, and for the companies in the matter of morals ; while the 

 " economy for the sake of surviving policy-holders " might be directed, 

 as there is surely room for believing that it needs to be, into other and 

 more legitimate channels. Economizing on debts to dead policy-hold- 

 ers is not a very good recommendation to living ones, for the com- 

 panies which thus lock the wrong stable-door. 



The new move toward furnishing fair contracts is in the right di- 

 rection, and it now rests with insurers the public to see that it does 

 not stop short of fulfilling the promise of still better things in the 

 future. 



