THE INSURANCE INVESTIGATION 473 



surplus is withheld from him, it does not make any difference 

 whether it is withheld by Mr. Hyde or Mr. Alexander or Mr. 

 Paul Morton, or for that matter by ex-President Cleveland. 

 It is the unnecessary withholding and accumulation of the 

 surplus by any one that at once robs the policy holder and de- 

 bauches the officials. 



If I have stated clearly the facts that I have tried to state, 

 I need spend no time in pointing out the remedy. The remedy 

 suggests itself. Repeal the laws permitting the surplus accu- 

 mulation and pass a law compelling, as rapidly as consistent 

 with safety, surplus distribution. Put the business back on the 

 foundation upon which it rested in the beginning. Restore 

 to it the principle of protection to the policy holder by short 

 periods of surplus distribution, without which the business 

 would never have had a beginning, much less its marvelous 

 growth. In doing this you are doing no more than a few insur- 

 ance companies have voluntarily done for over fifty years, at 

 all times with great profit to the policy holder and credit to the 

 managers of the companies. In doing this you are doing no 

 more than the laws of Germany, at least, now require; and 

 with which laws the New York Life Insurance company com- 

 plies in that country, in order that it may continue to do busi- 

 ness there. 



Already the signs are many that ingenious efforts are to be 

 made to pacify the policy holders with something less than 

 their rights and the public with something other than justice. 

 The present New York legislative investigation is replete with 

 startling information as to how the policy holders' money rep- 

 resented by the surplus, in the hands of insurance officers, has 

 been misapplied; but the question is, Why is the policyholders' 

 money there at all? The present insurance officials are being- 

 execrated from the pulpit and through the press; some have 

 been deposed and others will be deposed. But what profits 

 it if the surplus remains for a new set of officials to convert to 

 their own use either by the methods with which we are familiar 

 or by new ones to be easily invented? Salaries are being re- 

 duced, and will be further reduced. We may almost hope to 

 see the day when a president of a life insurance company will 

 not receive much more in salary than the president of the 



