PITTSBURG AGENCY OUTING. During the latter part of August the Pittsburg agency had its annual outing, and cut a wide swath through the effete East, like a comet flashing through the starry firmament, leaving behind it a trail of stogie smoke. The party numbered about half a hundred, of whom thirty-seven were the "prize winners," the men and women who had qualified for the trip by each, severally and separately, 'steen million dollars of new business. The following were the members of the jolly crowd who take their enjoyment as they write their business-in allopathic doses:

writing

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Agnew, Mr. and Mrs. C. B. Coleman, Mr. and Mrs. S. L. and Miss Goldman, Mr. and Mrs. S. W. Guthrie, Dr. and Mrs. J. S. Mardis, Mr. and Mrs. W. H. McManus, Mr. and Mrs. H. K. Beegle, Mrs. Mary E. McCready, Miss E. Grace Updegraff, and Messrs. B. C. Boyd, Robert P. Clarke, E. J. Cox, W. L. Cummings, Wm. M. Duff, Leonard Fosdick, H. C. Fry, Jr., J. H. Grant, George Hayden, O. P. Hood, D. S. Lynn, T. F. Myler, T. C. McCune, T. C. McKeon, E. S. Naly, C. R. Notman, H. S. Power, W. B. Rankin, C. M. Reich, E. E. Smith, C. A. Steele, W. C. Stephens, B. E. Tinstman, A. E. Umstead, G. A. Walker, S. O. Wright, Charles A. Woods, Edward A. Woods and Lawrence C. Woods.

Mr. J. S. McCargar also qualified, but, unfortunately, sickness in his family prevented his accompanying the party.

was

The tourists left Pittsburg Thursday, Aug. 15, on two special private cars, which were very handsomely decorated. Six delightful days were spent at Atlantic City, where the party were guests at the Royal Palace Hotel. A schooner-yacht chartered for the whole of this time, and the boys brought along a forty-foot pennant bearing the words "Equitable-Pittsburg," which flew at the mast-head whenever any of the giddy yachtsmen were on board. The lettering on the pennant was white on a very dark-blue background, and it is rumored that all the craft in the harbor used to scurry out of the schooner's way, as they mistook the flag for that of a piratical craft. Of course, this was not so, although you could not find a single sailor boy on the yacht who would not have been willing to take someone's "life." Fosdick said that this was not the kind of schooner he had been used to when he sailed up to the bar.

Every evening during the stay there was a reunion and pow-wow at dinner, although there was not enough conversation to interfere with the knife-and-fork drill. An enjoyable feature of the stay at Atlantic City and of the trip was the singing of Miss E. Grace Updegraff, one of the guests of honor, and whose beautiful voice caused Naly to exclaim: "If I had a voice like that I wouldn't talk assurance. I'd sing it!"

On Thursday morning, the 22d, the party left for New York. At noon a luncheon was tendered the party in the Lawyers' Club by the officers of the Society. at which nearly all the officers and heads of departments in the home office were present to do honor to the agency which has led all others during 1901. Vice-President Hyde made the speech of welcome, and received a most enthusiastic reception from those present. In the course of his remarks he referred to the recent election of Mr. Henry Clay Frick as a director of the Society, and pointed out that this was not only an honor to the Society, but a direct compliment to the Western Pennsylvania agency and to Western Pennsylvania. Mr. Edward A. Woods then spoke, thanking the vice-president and the other officers for the reception, and then threw bouquets at his co-workers who accompanied him, and also to those who had to stay at home. He drew attention to the fact that of the thirty-seven agents attending the outing. outside of a little industrial assurance which some had written, thirty-two have never represented any other society than the Equitable. Mr. J. C. Eisele, of the New Jersey agency, then slowly rose, and with tears in his eyes, coughed up a check for $1,000, which he handed to Mr. Woods as payment of his stake in the competition which the Pittsburg agency had won. Tarbell then made one of his ringing speeches, calling on the agency not to relax their efforts, but merely to use the great success they had achieved as a stepping-stone to greater things during the last four months of the year. The party then dispersed throughout the building. The majority of them were seen with bricks and clubs in their hands wending their way to the medical and inspection departments.

Mr.

On the evening of the same day the Pennsylvanians started for Boston on the good steamer "Puritan." On board was the popular Chinese Minister to the United States, Wu Ting Fang, who carries $20,000 in the Equitable. He had already honored the Pittsburg Lunch Club by his presence last fall when he was in Pittsburg, and while on the boat he again honored the agency by spending the evening with its members.

were

Early in the morning of the 23d an arrival was made in Boston, where, after breakfasting, the time was spent in sightseeing. At midday the visitors tendered a luncheon by the Society's manager in Boston, Mr. F. A. C. Hill, at the Exchange Club, where they met some of the Massachusetts agents, who swapped experiences with them. The afternoon was spent in a tally-ho drive. In the evening the party left by rail for Albany, and the next day made the beautiful trip down the Hudson on the "Albany." Captain White of the steamer was most courteous and hospitable to all. He already holds three policies in the Equitable, and the wonder is that by the time he arrived in New York he did not have thirty-seven more.

Upon reaching New York, the tourists went to the Waldorf. The last reunion of the trip was in honor of Mr. Edward Agnew's seventy-second birthday, Sunday, Aug. 25, when he was presented with a cane. The members of the party also made this occasion the opportunity for presenting Miss Updegraff with a beautiful watch and pin, as a mark of their appreciation of the pleasure her exquisite voice had added to the trip.

On Sunday night the party left on special cars for Pittsburg, after having spent ten most enjoyable days, during which no incident occurred to mar their pleasure. On Monday the whole party started in to write some app's to get some money to buy some food to give them strength to write some app's to get some money, and so on ad infinitum.

HERMAN ALLENBERG.

Herman Allenberg, the Society's Spokane manager, is a comparatively recent acquisition to the ranks of the Equitable, but during the two and a half years of his managership he has shown what can be accomplished by hard, earnest, systematic work.

Mr. Allenberg became manager on January 1, 1899, and during his first year nearly doubled the business of his agency. In 1900 he still further increased it, and during the first eight months of the present year he has exceeded by over 50 per cent the business of 1900. Manager Allenberg is a large personal writer, and sets his agents a splendid example. During 1900 he wrote personally over half a million of business, and during the eight months of this year he has written almost twice the amount written by him during the similar period of last year. These results, accomplished by his agency and himself, speak for themselves.

The manager is an indefatigable worker and a most enthusiastic standard-bearer for the Equitable, and is developing his territory in great style. His territory consists of Eastern Washington, Eastern British Columbia, and Northern Idaho. It is a territory that is growing very rapidly, and Manager Allenberg is growing with it.

ANOTHER "CHAIN."

I have recently noticed letters from Mr. Woods and Mr. Maher, giving the history of how chains of policies were written in one family, or one business house, and as such accounts are generally interesting in their details, I give the history of two such chains in my own experience.

About three years ago I called on a prominent mill man in Georgia, who carried a large line of assurance, to see if I could not secure an additional policy; I did not succeed in securing him, although he gave me a half-hour interview. But as I was about to leave his office his two sons came in; they were young fellows, not quite of age, and I suggested that, if he would assure their lives, the policies would mature at a time that would probably be of great advantage to them, and that I had taken out a $5,000 policy on my life at age 18 and it would mature in two years' time, and would prove most acceptable to me. I secured the young men for $2,500 each. I dropped into this gentleman's office from time to time, and within the year wrote him for $5,000 and one of the sons for $2,500 additional. Some ten months later I again went round; this time I wrote the gentleman for $10,000 more, the other son for $2,500, and a nephew whom he had taken into the office for $5,000; the gentleman suggested that I see three of his brothers, and, to make a long story short, I secured two of them for $5,000 each. Not bad for one family, was it?

The second chain started by accident, good luck, or whatever you wish

call it.

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I had been working for some months on the head of one of our business establishments, to try and change him from $10,000 of natural premium assurance to regular old line. One morning I got a good chance at him in his office, and had him get out all his policies. I found that in addition to the natural premium insurance he had a $2,000 certificate in a fraternal order that I knew to be getting pretty high in rate. I jumped on that, of course, went pretty fully into details with him, and before I left the office had his application for $10,000.

The next afternoon a gentleman came into my office, and said he wanted to learn

something about the plan I had assured Mr. Bon; that he was a collector for that gentleman, and had heard me talking to him; that he was also collector for a lodge of the order in which Mr. B had the fraternal certificate. He had heard me state that I could give Mr. Bold-line assurance at about the same rate the fraternal order was now charging. I told him “yes I could do so," and he said that he was getting uneasy about the condition of the order; and he would like to take out a policy with us, and have me explain the plan to some of the members of his lodge. I wrote him for $2,000, and two days afterward, on Saturday afternoon, he brought seven members of the lodge into my office. I took them in a bunch round to the examiners, and I wish you could have seen that doctor's face. I went in to secure that whole lodge, and got nearly all.

I worked the matter on the renewal term plan, but in most cases ordered out alternate policies on other plans, and succeeded in delivering a nice lot of the alternate policies. The doctor examined between twenty-five and thirty that month for me, and asked me what kind of policy it was I was getting all these people examined for. I explained, and he said he had a policy maturing in the Equitable in about a year, and he thought he would take $5.000 on that plan when it matured. I had my opening, and said: "Doctor, you have $150 in medical fees coming to you, and in the next month you can readily see you will have $50 more, and as you can get the assurance cheaper now than you can later, and not actually have to go into your bank account to pay the premium, let me write you now for $10,000." I secured the application, and made a memorandum of the date the Equitable policy expired, and determined to replace the expiring policy with another.

Six months after that I was living in Delaware, hundreds of miles away, but I had that memorandum, and another of a $20,000 prospect, so in December last (ten days before that policy matured) I made a trip to Georgia to see my family. I wrote while on my two weeks' vacation at my home over $30,000 for the Equitable; part of it was the $20,000 prospect, and $7.000 of the balance was on that doctor.

G. T. Sibley.

THE PRICELESS BIRTHRIGHT. As a spring can never rise higher than its source, so one can never attain a greater success than he believes he can. Absolute confidence in one's ability to succeed is an indispensable essential to the highest achievement.

When you have found your niche-when you realize that you are working along the line of your strongest faculties instead of your weakest-do not allow anything to divert you from your choice. No matter

what difficulties may arise, no matter how much harder than you anticipated your work may be, do not waver or turn back. Stand firm by your choice. Do not, however dark or discouraging the outlook, admit the possibility of defeat. Set your face toward your goal, and stoutly affirm and reaffirm your confidence in your ability to succeed.

Never permit anyone or anything to undermine your self-confidence. Never admit to yourself, even in thought, that there may be a possibility of your failure. This constant affirmation, this persistent dwelling upon the positive phase of success, and never admitting the negative, will tend to strengthen, to render impregnable, the great purpose, the unwavering aim, which brings victory.

Many fail because their selfconfidence becomes shaky; they allow people to inject their doubts and fears into their minds, until they become uncertain of themselves, and ultimately lose altogether that buoyant faith in their ability to succeed without which no great thing was ever accomplished.

Assert your superiority to your environment; believe firmly that you were made to dominate your surroundings; that you are the master and not the slave of circumstances, and conditions will soon improve. This very domination in thought, this assumption of power, this affirmation of belief