THE HILL OF TARIK IN AMERICA 
basement office. It was like the beginning of the New York Herald by Bennett, 
the elder, in a basement on Ann Street. But it would be an idle play with words 
to make a basement office the real foundation of the Prudential. It was something 
much deeper down than that—nothing else than the bed-rock American princi- 
ple of democracy. The Prudential applied the democratic principle to life insur- 
ance. As Senator Dryden, of 
New Jersey, the founder of 
the company, has said: “Life 
insurance is of the most value 
when most widely distributed. 
The Prudential and the com- 
panies like it are cultivating 
broadly and soundly among 
the masses the idea of life- 
insurance protection. To 
them is being carried the gos- 
pel of self-help, protection, 
and a higher life.” 
And what has been the 
result of the democratic 
American principle worked 
out in life insurance? In 
1875 the first policy was 
written in the Prudential. 
At the end of 1903 there were 
5,447,307 policies in force on 
the books of the company, 
representing nearly a billion 
dollars. The assets in 1876 
were $2,232, while twenty- 
' seven years later, in 1903, 
they were more than 30,000 times greater, or $72,712,435.44, the liabilities at the 
same time being $62,578,410.81. This is a record of growth that is without prece- 
dent in insurance and that is hard to match in the whole range of industry. 
The rise of the Prudential to greatness reads like a romance in big figures, but, 
in fact, it is a record of business expansion that has been as natural as the 
growth of an oak. To say that, in ten years, the company’s income grew from 
something more than $9,000,000 a year to more than $39,000,000 last year is 
amazing as a general statement, but when made in relation to the broad prin- 
ciples on which that growth has been based, there is no mystery about it; but 
there is in it, from the day when the principles were planted in Newark until 
these great harvest days, the genuine American spirit of achievement, strong, 
hopeful, and expansive. 
HOME OFFICES, PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE CO., 
NEW efi 
