204 INSURANCE 



states which insure their public buildings against fire, and of course 

 they do it without real necessity; yet public opinion customarily 

 upholds them in this course, the habit of insurance being so univer- 

 sal, and when the practice is questioned, the answer is ready that 

 the annual payment of regular premiums works more smoothly than 

 the making up of large fire losses at irregular intervals. Take, for 

 instance, the recent burning of the state capitol of Wisconsin. The 

 capitol building had been insured according to custom, but the legis- 

 lature thought it best to save for the state the profits which the 

 insurance stockholders were making, and ordered the discontinuance 

 of the fire policies. Soon afterwards the capitol burned down, no 

 doubt to the chagrin of the legislators and the wicked joy of 'the 

 insurance men. Yet the legislature had mathematics on its side 

 when it stopped the insurance, for the fire losses of a great state like 

 Wisconsin, in case they are large enough to increase any one year's 

 taxes unpleasantly, can be defrayed in annual installments by means 

 of temporary loans, and still cost less in the long run than the pay- 

 ment of regular premiums. However logical its course was, public 

 opinion condemned it. If, indeed, it is true that the legislature 

 arranged for the accumulation of an unnecessary insurance fund by 

 appropriating annual premiums to be invested at interest in the 

 name of the state, its course in that respect was deficient in common 

 sense. 



" It is unnecessary, before those who are here present, to dwell on 

 the economic benefits of insurance. As a mere matter of dollars and 

 cents insurance is worth all that it costs to those who need it. Those 

 who preside at the various congresses this week are expected to 

 make very brief addresses in opening the proceedings, and I shall 

 confine what I have to say to a single point. The dollar and cent 

 value of insurance is by no means its whole value. Insurance relieves 

 anxiety. It does away with many fears. 



' That insurance relieves men of anxiety is well known; so well 

 known, indeed, that we seldom think of it. It would be hardly cor- 

 rect to put it the other way, and to say that anxiety is in these days 

 relieved by insurance, for there is in fact no such anxiety to relieve, 

 since the universal habit of insurance acts beforehand by preventing 

 the possibility of the fears and anxieties which would be severely 

 felt if there were no insurance, fears and anxieties of which we can 

 scarcely realize the magnitude. 



"Marine insurance was known in early times, but was not always 

 to be had, and even when available was not always taken, for the 

 system was crude and expensive. In those days the owner of a 

 number of vessels was much better off than the owner of one vessel, 

 because his eggs were not all in one basket. The merchant adven- 

 turers who fitted out ships and supplied them with cargo were, of 



