Life Insurance^ Savings Banks, Etc. 21 



LIFE INSURANCE, SAYINGS BANKS, AND THE 

 INDUSTRIAL SITUATION^ 



Bt C. CAVERNO, Lombard, III. 



Ilaving occasion recently to borrow five hundred dollars, I ap- 

 plied for a loan to one of our successful life insurance companies, 

 which has amassed as-sets amounting to many millions of dol'ara 

 I was informed that, whatever the security I might ofier, the rules 

 of the company forbade a loan for so small a sum. 



Now that the regulation of the company was not wise, for its 

 own convenience OLd protection, and for the interest of all those, 

 myself included, for whom it was acting as trustee, I do not for a 

 moment maintain. But this transaction represents a state of affairs 

 to which I should like to call attention. We may find by inves- 

 tigation upon it some clue to the monetary stringency of the 

 times — possibly some explanation of the malign aspect of the 

 labor horizon. 



In common wivh, say, forty thousand other men, I had been 

 pa}ing to this company small suras of money for a long series ol 

 years. Yet when I, or any one of my forty thousand fellow policy 

 holders, wanted a loan for less than a thousand dollars, no matter 

 what evidence we might give of financial soundness to the extent 

 of the money desired, we must look elsewhere for it. 



The funds of this company, as of all other companies, are 

 largely made up from the contributions of the poorer class of 

 young men — young men who are struggling for a competence, 

 and who have taken out one or a few thousand dollars of life in- 

 surance, to secure creditors of whom they have borrowed small 

 sums, or to tide a wife and children over the shoal of poverty in 

 the event of death. 



Now whatever the intent of life insurance may be, and how- 

 ever excellently it may serve certain purposes, yet here is a state 

 of facts inviting reflection not only from the large army of policy 

 holders in the United States, but from any one who will try to 



