AN INTERIOR VIEW OF LIFE INSURANCE.
WHILE the life insurance companies with flashy buildings, velvet carpets, high salaries and large “commissions” are making assignments, it is well to recur to the old doctrine on this subject. Solomon taught it, and Ben Franklin preached it. The best life assurance policy according to the old doctrine consists of honesty, industry and economy. The honesty insures employment. The industry makes it profitable, and educates the possible widow and orphans to self-reliance and self-helpfulness. The economy puts aside every week and month and year a part of the earnings for the sickness and funeral and for a lift to the family while they are adjusting themselves to the new situation. The new plan so eloquently advanced by the occupants of the flash building, in flash pamphlets, on fine paper, with tony rhetoric and pictures of angels and shields, and all that—is the reverse of the policy of Solomon and Franklin. “Support us in luxury and idleness while you live, and we will support your wife and children in luxury and idleness if you should happen to die.” The gentlemen of the flash buildings and velvet carpets have managed to pile up half a thousand millions of dollars, besides what they have spent in high salaries, fine paintings, fine furniture, and liberal commissions. This money has been paid in by artisans, clerks, and hard workers of all sorts—men whose families would rather trust to insurance companies than make present sacrifices. That the whole system is based on wrong ideas of life and economy is evident. It does good in special cases, as does every ill wind. In very many late cases we notice, however, that the angel with that sword and shield, which we see in the beautiful steel or stone engravings on the advertisements and policies, so soon as the payer is under the sod, uses the sword and shield to fence off and hack and hew the widow and orphans. The sword is a sharp lawyer retained by the angel to fight the widow. The shield is a long lawsuit.—Chic. Interior.