I9IS3 Obstacles to Peace 



But a change in this respect set in during the summer, 

 after the sinking of the Lusitania and parallel acts 

 had stirred the indignation of right-minded people 

 everywhere. Yet the date for the Insurance Congress 

 approached without visible change of policy. The a change 

 only indication of altered purpose came with the "f^"'''- 

 printing of the daily program for the first week; 

 this contained no reference to "Insurance Peace 

 Day," already widely advertised, and no allusion 

 to the planned extension of the congress beyond 

 Saturday the 9th. 



Upon inquiry I was informed that an announce- 

 ment for the following week, including the joint 

 meeting on Monday the nth, would be distributed 

 later. It never appeared, however. But according 

 to the printed program, my address on "Govern- 

 mental Obstacles to Insurance" was slated for two 

 o'clock on the afternoon of the 9th. I therefore pre- 

 sented myself shortly before the indicated hour, to 

 find nobody in the hall and to learn that the congress 

 had adjourned sine die at noon that day. Later it 

 was privately intimated that word had come that 

 insurance had parted company with peace. Probably 

 the local managers found it simplest to slip out with- 

 out explanation, not even to Curran, leaving the 

 combined program to be handled by the Peace 

 Congress as it pleased. 



The affair went off well enough, a large audience The joint 

 being present; but in my address on war and busi- ^"■^(■''"^ 

 ness I felt it due my hearers to explain that out of 

 the hundreds of members of the Insurance Congress 

 whose officers had specially urged a joint meeting, 

 only two were present — my cousin, Henry B. 

 Hawley of Des Moines, president of the Iowa Peace 



[669 3 



