Part 6

“I ain’t a bit sick,” it said, “jest that flustered I can’t help but cry. Don’t mind me—Tobe. I’m real—glad to see you.”

“Mary,” Tobe rose from the chair into which he had dropped and stooped over the little trembling figure until his big, firm, strong hands rested on her shoulders. “Mary, do you reckon you could make out to go on up to Lumpkin with me? I’d love, the best kind to raise a crop this year.”

A cry of inarticulate joy struggled up from the pillows and after a moment a little tear-wet, lovely radiant face looked up at Tobe. “Do you mean—Oh, Tobe, would you take the _chillun_ too?” Mary faltered.

“Sure thing, an’ be only too glad. Land, how I’ve missed them young ’uns!” cried Tobe, every fiber of his being aglow.

Mary’s joy brimmed over. “Oh Polly, did you hear that!” she called in sheer ecstacy. “I couldn’t be happier—no, not if I was in heaven.”

The young man lifted his head and looked straight at Polly with wet, shining eyes. “Say, you’ve got to go long with us,” he said unsteadily, “’cause I ain’t goin’ to leave Mary do a lick of work till she gits plum strong agin, no matter what comes. Git ready, will you, Polly?”

“Me! My land, how pleased I’d be. Why, it’d be like gittin’ to heaven—mighty nigh,” said Polly growing hot and cold by turns. “Now that the boys is both goin’ down to live with pa, too. Seem like things is turnin’ out too good to be true.”

“Don’t it! Tobe, can we go soon?” Mary asked breathlessly.

“Soon as you’n Polly can fix what you want to take along,” Tobe answered eagerly. “I’ll go over an’ fetch the chillun from the factory while you all git ready. We’d oughter git home by dark.”

Then he rose and strode buoyantly across the sun-baked hill to the factory door and Mary rose, too, tremblingly, but without hesitation, while Polly held herself in readiness to support her frail figure should her strength desert her. But there was no further need of anxiety, for Mary had tasted the elixir of life during that brief, transfiguring hour when love had put to rout the dreariness of hope deferred and filled her heart with joy unspeakable.

Bobby Jonks; His Hand and Pen

Man is an animal, but you can easily detect him from the rest of them when he has his hat on. He is of few days and full of things that the doctors cut out if they get half a chance. My Uncle Bob is a bachelor. A bachelor is a man who smokes in bed and burns himself up every once in a while and goes to glory a-hollerin’, while everybody else says “Oh, pshaw!” and “Did you ever?”

All bachelors are wise, but my Uncle Bob knows ’most everything; he says he believes he’d be in Congress right now if it wasn’t for his modesty—no, honesty. But, says he, there is one thing he never could fully make up his mind about, and that is whether clam-digging is fishing or agriculture. A hog is a quadruped; the love of money is the root of all evil—thus we see why the motto of a rich man so often is “Root hog or die!” A man is either a biped or a cripple, according to whether he has messed around in a sawmill or not. The difference between a biped and a quadruped is two legs. A three-legged stool is a tripod, and is mostly used by country editors. A turtle is a quadruped, but he can’t climb a tree and get off a good joke about making a noise like a nut. Neither can some people.

On the only three occasions in a man’s history when he cuts any particular mustard he is called “it”—when he is a baby, a bridegroom and a corpse. And in all three instances he is said by his admiring friends to look real natural. Man was made to mourn, but Uncle Bob says the dad-dogged fool always thinks he can get out of it by marrying again. A woman may be as handsome as a circus horse but she is never satisfied to let another woman be handsome, too. It’s different altogether with a hog—he is perfectly contented to let everybody else be hogs if they want to. Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

_Assessment Insurance_

A HOMILY ON THE ROYAL ARCANUM

BY MICHAEL MORONEY

There is no real or true life insurance but the straight old line regular life, where the policy is payable only at death. Term life insurance, so called, is simply banking for the benefit of the company which takes the risk. In regular life insurance the insured has a certain expectancy at the time of taking out the policy. Payment for the amount he is to receive at death is spread out over his expectancy, less four per centum interest compounded, and he pays it in annual, semi-annual, or quarterly installments, as may be agreed upon. If he lives out his expectancy, he will have paid in all he is to receive at death, either directly, or by the interest carried on his premiums. Of course there is a certain amount of loading in the premiums he pays, but for the purposes of our illustration, that need not be considered. In this plan, the policy holder is really insuring himself, and when he dies his beneficiary, or estate, simply receives back the money he has paid in. The fact that there are so many life insurance companies and that they have become so wealthy and powerful, illustrates the power of interest, especially when it is compounded.

The Royal Arcanum professes to give life insurance at actual cost, which it does not and never did. It was organized from the top down. Fifteen persons met in Boston on June 23, 1877, and constituted themselves the Supreme Council. Twelve of them became officers, and three were incorporators simply. This body reserved to itself all the power of legislation and of receiving and paying out the moneys of the order. Provisions were made for the organization of subordinate and grand councils of the order, but they were simply wards of the Supreme Council. Members were received on medical examinations from 21 to 55 years of age and paid for $3,000 insurance, one dollar at 21 years, and up to four dollars at 55 years. The rise from year to year was from 4 to 20 cents. The assessments were to be paid when called for, after the death of a member. The order grew and prospered from year to year until 1898, when the management thought it saw the necessity of increasing the rates. It made 21 at the rate of $1.76 and 54 rate of $7.00. The rise each year was from 6 to 44 cents. At this time the order had 195,105 members, and the loss in membership in the order in the next six months was about 10,000.

However the order continued to prosper until after the annual meeting of the Supreme Council in 1905, when it adopted a new table of rates, which began at $1.89 at 21 and rose to $16.08 at 65, but from Oct. 1, 1905, all the members were to be assessed at attained ages, whereas before that all had been assessed at entrance ages. In other words, on Oct. 1, 1905, each old member was required to reënter the order as a new member, and pay at attained ages. New members after that date were to pay at entrance ages, but all were to pay $16.08 per month on $3,000 when they reached 65 years. At the time of the making of this new rate the order had over 300,000 members. Since then it has lost 50,000 members, and a majority of its members are opposed to the new rates.

There was no occasion for the new rates, as, under the laws of the order, additional assessments could have been made, at any time, to provide for excessive mortality, and the order could have been worked out on additional assessments until it failed, as it is bound to do.

An organization within the order has been formed to contest the new rates, and this has brought a suit in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to have them declared invalid. The protestants claim that when each member entered the order he made a contract to pay assessments at age entrance, and that while the Supreme Council may call extra assessments, as mortality may require, it cannot increase the rates, or compel members to pay at attained ages. Also that the new rates are unreasonable and will create a surplus of $3,700,000 every year, which is contrary to the laws of the order and of the State of Massachusetts. The Supreme Council claims that each member when he entered the order surrendered all his rights to protest or object to any action of that body and agreed in advance to approve any action which it might take in regard to rates.

All of the old life insurance policies of every kind and character are based on contract, and it was supposed that the rates at entrance in a fraternal order constituted a contract between the member and the supreme body of the order. Many of the courts of the several states have so held, but it was for the Supreme Council of the Royal Arcanum to defy reason and common sense and to claim that they were the autocrats of the order. All insurance should be like a deposit in a savings bank, that can hardly be lost. The Royal Arcanum, however, has depended upon lapses. Thirty-five is the age usually taken for illustration in insurance. At that age the average of lapses per 1,000 lives is 37 per cent plus. In May, 1905, there were 305,083 members in the order. That would mean that out of 305,083 members if all were of the age of 36, in any year, 111,000 would lapse. The average policy in the Royal Arcanum is $2,231.67 and out of that there would be lost by lapse, $826.70. If all the members were 36 years of age, on the whole $680,848,000 insurance in force there would be lost by lapse, at thirty-six years, $251,923,760 annually. Now in honest insurance there should be no lapses or forfeitures and in the insurance of the future there will be nothing of the kind. But on this plan, no matter how long one has paid, or how much he has paid in, if he stops paying, he loses all. Misfortune or accident may compel him to stop paying, but no matter what may be the cause, he loses, and other persons dying quickly have had the benefit of the money he has paid in. A member who entered in 1879 at the age of 36 will have paid in on September 1, 1905, about $800, or $30.72 per year. A person insured at the sum of $3,000 would have to live to the age of 133 to pay that sum out at the rate for the first 26 years. But assume the insured has paid $800 to October 1, 1905, and remains in the order. He pays $97.20 the first year of the new rates, $103.68 the second year and $192.96 the third year and the same sum each year thereafter. His expectancy is 12.81 years at 63. If he lives out his expectancy, he will have paid into the order, $3,277.12, or $277.12 more than he will receive. But suppose he should live till 85 years of age, he will by that age pay in $5,205.72, or about $2,205.75 more than he can draw out.

Will any man join an order of that kind where he shall forfeit all by the failure to make a single payment? So long as he can get into a company which will give him paid-up insurance, extended insurance, or a cash-surrender value, he will not.

Every man insured in a fraternal association is in the condition of Damocles. The sword suspended over his head is likely to drop at any time. The moment confidence is lost the whole matter dissolves like a rope of sand, and the insurance is gone. Suppose the Royal Arcanum had ceased to do business on June 1, 1905, $680,648,000 of its insurance would have terminated at that time, which would have been a loss of about $2,231.67 to each member. That is, 305,083 persons would have lost $2,231.67 insurance each. These same persons and their predecessors had paid in $97,004,175.82 of which $94,790,627.86 had been paid out on death losses. Since the new rates have been published the order has lost 50,000 members carrying $111,583,500 insurance. Of the sum paid in, $36,090,650 has been paid in by men who have dropped out and the balance of loss is to be paid by the survivors. Thus it is ever with assessment companies. They must and will fail as soon as it is demonstrated that the adopted rates will not carry any organization for a generation. The new rates of the Royal Arcanum have simply demonstrated the utter worthlessness of assessment companies, and the value of regular life insurance where each policy holder contributes a fund to pay his own policy.

The Royal Arcanum is no better than a suicide club, for it is only the suicides and the weaklings who can have any benefit of the order. The new rates require the members to pay greater sums in premiums than in old line companies, and at the same time the company insists upon the old and exploded system of forfeitures, refuses any paid up or extended insurance, and any cash-surrender values. Who will sit down to a feast of this character? No one but an old member who has paid in too much to stop, and no new man will join the order. The whole scheme of the new rates was to drive the old members out so that the order would not be compelled to pay their death losses. The order is an autocracy. There are twelve life members in the Supreme Council who represent no one but themselves. Three of these are original charterers and nine are Supreme Past Regents. There are twenty-nine officers, who as such are members of the Supreme Council. These thirty-eight by the aid of twenty representatives can control the Supreme Council, and there is added a new life member every two years in a new Supreme Past Regent. No one should be a member of the Supreme Council but some one who represents a constituency. Yet John Haskell Butler, of 244 Washington Street, Boston, Mass., controls the entire Supreme body. In this he is ably supported by W. O. Robson, Supreme Secretary. How these two gentlemen of eminent talent could be imposed on in the adoption of the new rate, which in the case of the old member who entered at thirty-six years, compels him to pay a surcharge of $64.18 per annum more than necessary to carry his risk, or in his expectancy a total of $1,226.98 more than he should pay, or 70 per centum more than his equitable share, is more than we can understand.

The average of the surcharge on all the old members is 67 per centum, and is 27 per centum higher than the new members pay. Naturally, if the membership could be held together, these new rates would create and pile up a surplus, or excess, of $3,700,000 per year over any sum that the laws of Massachusetts permit the society to hold, which at the present time is about $30,000,000.

However, the society has never attempted to create any surplus or reserve over and above about $2,000,000, nearly equal to the proceeds of three assessments. What kind of financing is this which at one fell stroke burdens the members with paying sums which will produce $3,700,000 per year after paying over all mortuary calls? Heretofore the order has preached for twenty-eight years that the surplus remains in the pockets of its members and shall so remain. Now it is to be created and placed in the control of Mr. Butler and his one hundred and fourteen associates who are souls with a single thought. And what for? What kind of actuaries did the Supreme Council employ to make these new rates that such a result is brought about and that the policy of twenty-eight years is reversed at a single session, without any notice to the members? The members of the Royal Arcanum, the men who pay the money disbursed by Mr. Butler and his associates, have no voice in proposing any new legislation for the order, nor in approving or rejecting any enacted by the Supreme Council. They must pay whatever the one hundred and fifteen guardians ask of them or get out of the order.

The $3,700,000 surplus exacted the first year, under the new rates, is not to be used for paid-up or extended insurance or cash-surrender values, but is simply to be kept on hand as a reserve. The reserve, which has heretofore been carried in the pockets of the members, is now to be transferred to the pockets of the Supreme Council. Why are the members of the order, who have carried their insurance at great sacrifices, to have an additional burden placed on them? Why must this great reserve be created unless for the same reasons it was created in the three great companies in New York City? What is the object of creating a reserve when there is no paid-up or extended insurance and no cash-surrender to be made, and when assessments are required to be called for as needed to pay death losses? Why should any assessment company have a reserve beyond a few assessments ahead? What kind of actuaries did the Supreme Council have to make tables to produce such results? What fit guardians of 250,000 people are the one hundred and fifteen members of the Supreme Council who would adopt a table of rates producing such results? The control of the funds must have driven these one hundred and fifteen people mad to have produced tables which will so work. Would it not have been better to have called extra assessments from time to time under the authority of the laws of the order and of the State of Massachusetts, until the order was compelled to fail, than to have adopted the new rates, which are more expensive than old-line insurance and which if approved in the legal contest now pending will insure the failure of the order at once?

The only true assessment insurance is to pay the death losses as they occur, by assessments, and which must include a fund for management and control. When the assessments become too great the company dissolves and that is the end of it. All those who have not died during its existence, or who have lapsed in the same time, have lost their bets, and those who have died have won.

I am not able to give the number who have been members of the order since its origin. It could not have been more than 400,000. Of this number 35,000, or one-twelfth, have died. Over 33 per cent., or 133,333, have lapsed, and if the institution fails, as it certainly will, 367,000 have lost every dollar they have put in, in order that 35,000, or one in twelve, might draw prizes.

Such institutions are contrary to public policy and should be suppressed. Each state insurance department should require such statistics as will show all the facts any one might wish to know.

If I had the exact statistics, I am satisfied the proportion of those who pay in and lose would be much higher than I gave it.

The laws of political economy must be evolved just as we evolve those of nature, and they are as certain when we know them, but any institution which requires a party to live beyond his expectancy in order to pay in the amount of his benefit certificate is a fraud. At 21 a man’s expectancy is 45 years. Now a man at 21 who entered the order June 23, 1874, would have paid in to December 31, 1905, $404. It would take him over 166 years to pay in the $3,000 at the same rate. As he can never do that, his death loss must be paid by some one else, and consequently his insurance by others is a fraud and a gambling transaction.

As eleven persons must contribute to pay the loss of the twelve and then lose everything themselves, the whole scheme is an imposition contrary to the interest of society. Eleven men contribute and lose $250 each that one man’s beneficiary may gain $3,000, and these eleven men lose every dollar they put in. After twenty-eight years of preaching to the public that they had found the El Dorado of Insurance, that they were furnishing insurance at cost and that the members carried the reserve in their pockets, Messrs. Butler, Robson & Company now come to the front and admit that all this time their scheme has been a fake and a failure. They say the unclean spirit departed from them in May last, but I think he returned to them with seven others worse and they have turned the Arcanum into a madhouse.

I do not have the personal acquaintance of all the seven, but two of them might be called Landis and Barnard, because the condition of the Arcanum is worse than before. Now every member must pay in his $3,000 in the period of his expectancy, and if he lives beyond it he must pay till he dies. The new rates indicate that members must die before reaching 65 years, and if they decline, then they must be fined $192.96 per annum for their refusal to do so.

Any man who enters the order now, in view of what he must submit to at and after the age of 65, ought to have his sanity inquired into. It is high time the State should intervene and protect the public from the schemes of these fraternal orders. The fraternity is humbug, and for every loss paid there are many more losses to society from which it should be protected. The correct scheme of insurance has not yet been discovered or announced, but when it is it will not be gambling or commercialism, but will be simply indemnity—which it should have been from the start.

It is well with the world, my masters, It is well with the world and you, When we move along with a smile and song, ’Mid the tasks we are set to do. And the song and the smile of the People Should be ever your compass and chart. Oh! ’tis well with you when the song rings true That comes from the People’s heart.

It is ill with the world, my masters, It is ill for the world and you, When our eyes look down, and our faces frown, ’Mid the tasks we are set to do. Beware of the frown of the People, Lest their wrath and their patience part! Oh! let not a wrong ever burden the song That comes from the People’s heart.

About once in every so often, we, as a race, all lay back our heads, shut our eyes, and let out the shuddering shriek: “Back to Nature!” It is so loud and heart-felt a cry that it makes you wonder why we have to go back at all—why we didn’t stay there. If the Get-Strong-Quick professors are right, this thing of our wearing clothes, and dwelling in houses, and eating dainty cooked food three times a day is sheer tom-foolishness, all the more tom-foolish in that once we led the healthy, happy life that inevitably results from fasting three or four days in the week, then dining on goobers and timothy hay; wearing nothing but a nose-ring and a dash of paint, and sleeping in the hollow trees.

For most of us, “Back to Nature” is too long a road to travel—all the way. Nevertheless, the cry is so loud, and so general throughout the civilized world that we cannot dismiss it as impracticable and meaningless. It betokens something. I think I know what, and if it didn’t look so much like serious thinking for you and me, I’d write out what I think it means. I’ll say this, though: If we judge the future by the past this universal impulse to touch the naked earth once more, and so to gather strength and vigor from it, means that the world is pregnant with a great event, and we must be fortified for the labor-pains of it. A new age is struggling to be born. Mark my words.