MANAGEMENT

THE

KEYSTONE

OF

THE ARCH.

con

Given a life assurance company ducted on scientific principles, and you have the strongest of financial organizations. It has been said that "a life company cannot fail if properly managed." When the basis of organization (as in the case of an assessment company) is unscientific, failure is inevitable. But every regular company that has failed within the last fifty years has owed its failure to mismanagement, and to no other cause.

This being so, the Hon. O. W. Chapman hit the nail on the head when he said in the sixteenth annual report of the Insurance Department of the State of New York:

"No matter how the subject be approached, that word MANAGEMENT is the keystone of the arch; not simply in the matter of investment, selection of agents and medical examiners, or in office requirements, but in everything pertaining to the company's whole administration."

This maxim is worthy of being printed, and framed, and hung up in the office of every Equitable agent throughout the world.

PERSEVERANCE.

The zeal that springs up suddenly
Soon runs its brief career;
While patient labor brings reward

If we but persevere.

'Twere vain to seek for precious ore
By lightning's blinding glare,
But miners using tiny lamps
Find many treasures rare.

Girl Attempts Suicide Because She Says She Was Overworked.

(From the New York Sun.)

A twenty-year-old girl took poison at midnight at Fifteenth and Pine streets. She had a letter in her pocket addressed to the matron of the Florence Crittendon Home, saying that she was going to die because her mistress never gave her a chance to sleep.

The girl was employed in a big boardinghouse where several shipping men demanded breakfast at 3:30 o'clock every morning. and her work kept her up until nearly midnight. Her father held a $6,000 a year place until his death, five years ago, but he left nothing.

["Six thousand a year and he left nothing." Such men ought to be compelled to leave something. -Ed.]

WHO IS IT?

Some one told us the other day of an Equitable agent who employs the little spare time he has in playing billiards, for which he has a strong penchant. It seems he had occasion recently to visit a small town on business. In the evening, seeking to pass the time, he found a new and excellent billiard table. Upon his inquiring if there was anybody about who could play, the landlord referred him to one of the natives, who may be called John Jones because that isn't his name. They played several games, but the result was against the agent. Try as he might, the country

man won.

"Mr. Jones," he remarked, "I have quite a reputation at home. They consider me a good billiard player, but I am not in your class. May I inquire how long you have played?"

"Oh, fer a spell back," replied the native. "Say, stranger, I don't want to hurt your feelin's, but you're the fust feller I ever beat!"

OPPORTUNITY.

Once, perhaps, in each crisis of our lives, our guardian angel stands before us with his hands full of golden opportunity, which, if we grasp, it is well with us; but woe to us if we turn our backs sullenly on our gentle visitor, and scorn his celestial gift! Never again is the gracious treasure offered, and the favorable moment returns no more.-Gray.

IT IS NOT NEW TO THEM. Your experiences and observations from day to day may be novel to yourself, but are usually an old story to those to whom you account them. Your physician hears just such doleful accounts of illness as yours, with almost the same identical remarks of the patient year in and year out. Your lawyer is seemingly indignant and sympathetic at your recital of wrong, but is giving ear to similar ones all the time.

If the elevator man doesn't grin at your remarks it is because they are moss-grown to him, and the street car man has several times before been told that "there is always room for one more" in his crammed conveyance.

Telling the life assurance agent that you can live longer than any company, or can save your money better, is hardly a novelty to him. It isn't the first time he has heard it, nor the first time he has secured an application and written a good fat policy for the retailer of the remarks. Do not expect the life assurance man to be impressed at your assertion that you had to make your own living and your children must do the same. He has heard that before; knows you more accurately than you think, and has a right confidence in the fact that you act better than you talk. You are going to take a policy for their protection, just as your father would have done for you had life assurance been as available and well understood in his day as now.-Indianapolis Journal.

DIARY OF R. PEPPER,"

OUR IRASCIBLE AGENT.

Extract I.

June 20. Called on B. Smith. Found him excited about the smallness of his dividend. Gave him a piece of my mind, to the following effect:

"You talk as if the future of the universe depended on the amount of the dividend on your one little policy. Some men want the earth, and are never satisfied because they can't get it. It's a lucky thing that you don't run the company you're assured in. It takes brains and breadth of mind to manage a life assurance company.

"You have everything in the world to be thankful for and yet you don't know it, but think you have a grievance. You've got one of the best policies, issued by the best company-'the strongest in the world.' Your assurance is sure. It's backed by seventy-one millions of surplus (the proof of sound and successful management), and you've got a liberal dividend into the bargain.

"But it might be larger? Of course it might be larger a great deal larger. Look in any newspaper at the 'get-rich-quick' advertisements. Think of the investments' that have been floated within the last ten years that have not only promised, but paid, enormous dividends for a while, and have then gone up the spout. A life company can't fail if it's wisely managed; but think of all the companies that have succumbed to mismanagement within the last fifty years.

"Other companies pay bigger dividends? I dare say they do. They have to, in order to lure shallow people away from from the 'strongest in the world.'

"Why dont you exercise a little common sense about your life assurance, as you do about other matters. Why is it that the best stocks and bonds (that pay only moderate dividends), command the highest prices? Isn't it because they are the safest? And is there any investment about which security is of as much importance as an investment in life assurance? What are you buying anyway? Isn't it protection? Then, don't you want protection that protects? Do you want to sink your hard-earned savings in a policy that your wife and children will find worth iess than the paper it is written on? There are lots of policies that have gone into the ash heap!

"Don't you know that it would be the easiest

thing in the world for the company to double your dividends? How? Why, by simply investing its assets in speculative securities that pay large profits If the company gets big dividends of course it can pay big dividends. But do you want assurance or are you speculating with your money? If the latter, you have come to the wrong shop. Put your money into a blind pool; gamble in the stock market; buy shares in a gold mine-you may have a run of luckbut don't let me hear any more complaints from you because the company you are assured in 15 prudently managed; takes no chances; is satisfied with investments that yield moderate returns, and pays its policyholders the dividends earned (and no more.) And when its policies mature (this year. or next year, or in the twenty-first or thirty-first century) will pay-instanter-to every beneficiary ONE HUNDRED CENTS ON THE DOLLAR!"

N. B. After straightening B. Smith out on the dividend question, I showed hima that he needed more assurance and wrote his application for $10,000 additional.

"STRAWS WHICH SHOW, ETC."

Here are two letters received by Mr. Tarbell since his Southern trip, which are only samples of many others. The South is going to be heard from.

The first is from W. A. Danner, dated April 14:

Last month we received from one of our agents, Mr. B. L. Page, twenty applications, which is a great deal more than he wrote the entire of last year. Mr. Page attended the dinner you gave us here on March 10, and next morning when he came to the office he stated that he was going home and sell his farm and write life assurance So you see the great good your talk did us. We sent in applications on 119 different lives last month, and one of our agents has already written nine so far this month.

The second letter was sent by E. R King, of Georgetown, Tex. If he keeps up his gait, he will soon be a King "in the business."

The cabinet photograph you were kind enough to send me was on my desk when I ran inte Dallas Saturday evening. It is a splendid picture and I thank you very much.

Your letter welcoming me to the list of fifty for 1902 was with it. In this connection I wish to say that you can put my name on the list for the rest of the year. I am learning to make the most of every minute. From the date of your visit to Dallas to the 15th of July I am going to have $200,000 or more to my credit. You may charge me with that amount now. On the morning of March 19, under the inspiration of your talk with me, I set out to write an average of one application a day for one month. By the evening of April 5 (first fifteen working days) that resolution, given fresh-air treatment, cost the Equitable $150 in examination fees. Your visit to Dallas was a mighty good investment for me.