into different items and give these items new names-in some respects an excellent plan, except in cases where the effort appears to be to conceal the truth and avoid comparison on this important point with the Equitable. But it is natural when the Equitable comes to the front for some of the other companies to seek to divert public attention from the fact that the Equitable's surplus is the largest. In this connection read the fable on page 10.

In conclusion, let me impress upon you the fact that the item in the Society's fortieth annual statement upon which you should dwell chiefly and all the time in canvassing is the item of $61,177,477.77.

REFORM.

W. A.

Of all the reforms introduced into life assurance by the Equitable, the one that stands first and foremost, in my judgment, is promptness in the payment of death claims.

If the Society was not the best every other way, if it did not do better by its policy holders, if it was not the strongest, if it had not introduced every other reform in the business that the public are to-day so much benefitted by, this one reform would be glory enough for a century for its management.

When I am talking with a customer and have not quite convinced him, sometimes I tell him this story: "Many years ago there were rival lines of steamers on Lake Champlain. The new line favored the public a little. An old man wanted to go from Burlington to Whitehall, and on getting to the wharf, inquired for the 'New Steamer.' It was not in, but the Captain of the other line said, 'Come on, we will do right by you.' The old man replied, 'It is for my interest to trade with the man who makes you do right.'"

W. H. S. Whitcomb.

Ethel Why did you marry him? He may live for years.

May-Well, he's been rejected by three life insurance companies.

NOW.

Rise! for the day is passing,

And you lie dreaming on; The others have buckled their armour, And forth to the fight have gone: A place in the ranks awaits you, Each man has some part to play; The Past and the Future are nothing, In the face of the stern To-day.

Rise from your dreams of the FutureOf gaining some hard-fought field; Of storming some airy fortress,

Or bidding some giant yield; Your future has deeds of glory,

Of honor (God grant it may!)
But your arm will never be stronger,
Or the need so great as To-day.
Rise! if the Past detains you,

Her sunshine and storms forget;
No chains so unworthy to hold you
As those of a vain regret:
Sad or bright, she is lifeless ever,

Cast her phantom arms away,
Nor look back, save to learn the lesson
Of a nobler strife To-day!

Rise! for the day is passing:

The sound that you scarcely hear Is the enemy marching to battleArise! for the foe is here! Stay not to sharpen your weapons, Or the hour will strike at last, When, from dreams of a coming battle, You make wake to find it past! Adelaide Ann Proctor.

ARE YOU AN AGENT? THEN READ THE FOLLOWING. "There's Money In It."

Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves. To break our own record, to outstrip our yesterdays by to-days, to do our work with more force and a finer finish than ever-this is the true idea to get ahead of ourselves. Exchange.

To beat some one else in a game, or to be beaten, may mean much or little. To beat our own game means a great deal. Whether we win or not, we are playing better than we ever did before, and that's the point, after all—to play a better game of life. M. D. B.

8

THE EQUITABLE NEWS

An Agents' Journal.

FRANK F. EDWARDS, Editor.

APRIL, 1900.

Have you read the announcement on the last page of our March issue? If not, do So. We want all the Equitable agents to be interested in this little sheet and help us get it out. There are a great many counties yet to be heard from.

If you are doing any newspaper advertising, don't fail to note the announcement on page 14. An electro of any cut desired will be forwarded immediately on request.

On the first page you will see that the Society has a larger renewal premium income than any other company in the world, having a million dollars more than its next nearest competitor. This is something for the agents to be proud of, as it is largely their work.

In connection with the question of advertising, look at the letter from an agent on page 5, headed "The Best Advertisement." His opinions are excellent throughout, and his idea of giving a prize will be considered. In any case, his suggestion in regard to the giving of advertising points by the agents is good, so commencing with the May number we shall give a page to correspondence on this subject. Let us hear from you in time for the next issue.

In the first number of the Equitable News I addressed a few words to my co-workers, and I again take advantage of its columns to express my constantly increasing pleasure and satisfaction at the continuous evidences of fidelity to our great Society, and steadfastness to the great work of life

assurance.

This fidelity and steadfastness is being evidenced on every hand. A recent example occurred to me during a business visit to Providence, R. I.

While there I was entertained at luncheon by Mr. J. D. E. Jones, who surrounded himself with his colleagues from throughout the State, and a few prominent citizens of Providence.

After luncheon a number of speeches were made, and it would have done your hearts good, as it did mine, to have heard the enthusiastic words that were spoken for the Equitable. They, like all the Equitable men it has been my good fortune to meet, had nothing but expressions of loyalty for their manager and for the good cause they represent.

Although I have already had the pleasure of meeting many Equitable men on their own ground, I feel that I have not met enough, and constantly wish, gentlemen, that it might be possible for me to meet those I have not, and to see you often in your own field. J. H. HYDE.

DOESN'T NEED WATCHING.

The other day the vice-president of a trust company, and a $100,000 policyholder of the Society, sugested this thought on life assurance: "Any other investment one may make is liable to change with shifting conditions. Many investments are good today-they were not good in '93 and '94. Many investments were good in '93. They are not good now.

"On the other hand, you don't have to watch changing conditions if you have an investment in life assurance. In that case the watching and adjusting is done by the company, thereby making assurance a permanent investment, free from worry, a sheet anchor during life."

Edward A. Woods.

SOME FACTS ABOUT OURSELVES. There were 76,011,000 of us on the 30th of June, 1899, according to the estimate of population of the Bureau of Statistics published in the Statistical Abstract of the United States for the fiscal year ending on that date. The estimate for Jan. 1, 1900, is 77,116,000.-New York Times. Who says that everybody is assured, and that the life agents will have to go out of business?

Life assurance is only in its infancy. Only the surface has been scratched. Such figures as these prove that of the assurable men who need assurance, and are well able to carry policies, an overwhelming majority are without it; and an enormous proportion of those who have it carry ridiculously inadequate amounts.

A POETIC CORRESPONDENCE.

F. A. Manger, a New York Representative of the Society, writes:

I attach a letter received from a friend. Of course, I know it is not original with him; I have read it before in some publication. Whether, in sending this to me, he meant it in humor or sympathy, I don't know, but, at all events, I am in no need of the latter.

THE INSURANCE AGENT.

Only an insurance agent, seeking to do good. Sometimes frowned at, kicked at, and oft misunderstood. Only an insurance agent-gentle, patient, kind; expecting the usual stand-off, and to it quite resigned. Some day the scoffer and kicker, when nature's debt has matured, will think of his poor, lorn widow, and wish he had been assured, and when he sits with the harpers, or mops his face, he will say: "I wish I had taken that policy before I was taken away." But for the assurance agent. those gates of pearl swing wide, and "Peter" will say, "step right this way, your endowment is waiting inside; give him the best seat in Heaven, 'midst music, plenty and mirth; there's nothing too good for manager: just think how he suffered on earth."

Here is a copy of my answer:

I think an Equitable assurance man, who really knows his "biz," will get around a "stand-off," no matter who it is. He will sell the man a policy that will protect the wife and save for both some money if he's favored with long life. And such a man is understood, accepted as a friend; he never needs to "suffer" if to business he'll attend.

[Now, W. H. S. Whitcomb must rise ere 'tis too late, or he will lose the title of poet laur-e-ate.-ED.]

This is true of all trades and professions. It is particularly true of the profession of life assurance. There is no business in which a pleased customer or client can give larger returns. If it were possible to trace the policies written as a result of a pleased client you would be astonished. It is like an endless chain. You assure Jones and he is pleased with his investment. He introduces you to Brown and Smith, these two to four more and so on. Of course, you won't write them all, but some day, some of them will be assured, and you have the best chance to assure them.

Then again, Jones being pleased, you can see him once in a while, and some day he will say: "There's Smith, now. I heard him speaking about assurance; why don't you go and see him." This you immediately do, and thus get another prospect. Thus you build up a clientele.

I remember that at the convention last July, Mr. Graham said:

"Some people think that the life assurance business is only a temporary affair. That is one of the greatest mistakes ever made. I tell you it is a fact that I would not sell my good will and fixtures in the life assurance business for $100,000. I tell you that the business which comes to me to-day unsolicited is worth over $5,000 a year commission. I have got a clientele in the life assurance business that I would not give for the income of any ordinary lawyer in the United States, and I tell you that a clientele is open to all of you if you will only persevere. I remember the time I found it very hard to go after a man. I don't have to do that now, because I have got such a list in the city of Philadelphia that I never have to go after a new ellow. It is always from one to another."

Now, I say Mr. Graham's ideas are right. I have tried it. I haven't got such a big clientele as Mr. Graham has, but I have got a nice one and it is constantly increasing. I would very much like to see in the News a series of articles from men with the Equitable who have been successful in building up a big clientele income.

"Twelve Years an Agent."

[We heartily endorse all that our correspondent has said. Now let some of the older managers who have built up a large clientele tell us how they did it.-ED.]

FABLES FOR AGENTS.

III. The Prince Albert Coat.

A certain fox who had lost the end of his tail in a trap, was so mortified that he made up his mind to conceal his loss from his neighbors especially a certain fox of his own town who had a very long and bushy brush.

"But," said he, "I shall not expose myself to ridicule as did my uncle Reynard, who advised the other foxes to cut off their tails that was indeed a stupid expedientI know a trick worth two of that." So he got him a long skirted coat and published it abroad that he had just returned from London, and that Prince Albert coats were

all the rage with the smart set. And the re

sult was that from that day on frock coats became quite fashionable in Foxville.

MORAL.

Now, no one has advised the Equitable to cut off its surplus, but several of the life companies act as if they were ashamed of that appendage, and seem to be trying to conceal it. And yet we have never observed that any of the banks or trust companies,

are ashamed of having, or are reluctant to advertise, the amount of their surplus. On the contrary, it seems to be the chief pride of such institutions that they have great surplus strength. And if there is one consideration above all others which justifies the Equitable agent in recommending his Society, it is that the management of the Equitable has been such that it is of all the life assurance companies in existence, "the strongest in the world."

A BUSINESS MAN'S VIEW. LIFE INSURANCE AS SEEN BY ONE WHO HAS LOTS OF IT AND GOOD REASONS FOR HAVING TAKEN IT.

Among the speakers at a recent banquet of life insurance men in Chicago was Mr. Harlow N. Higginbotham, a gentleman of whom it is currently reported that he carries more life insurance than anybody else in Chicago, the sum total of his policies being placed at $600,000. He is a leading member of the well-known firm of Marshall Field & Co., and is probably even better known as having been president of the Chicago Columbian Exposition. In the course of his remarks Mr. Higginbotham said: "The home is the cynosure of every man's affections. He is the chief cornerstone of the household, the supporter of the wife and the hope of the children who have blessed him. Often death comes before it is expected and sometimes its bitterest pang is the knowledge that his loved ones will be left unprotected. Here is where life insurance comes into protect after the producer has gone. Then there is another feature of insurance, the providing for old age. It has been said that 95 per cent. of

those who seem to prosper fairly in their lives die paupers at the close. Old men have no longer toleration in this world. The business world has no further use for them. The adage that a man is no older than he feels rings false. Men are no longer current at this valuation. Happy is he who with wise forethought has converted some of his earnings into an endowment large enough to provide for the requirements of his declining years.

The Chicago Chronicle.

ANNUITANTS AND ANNUITIES. "'Tis said that persons living on annuities Are longer lived than others,-God knows why,

Unless to plague the grantors,-yet so true it is,

That some, I really think, do never die."

There is vastly "more truth than poetry" in the above lines from Byron's iamous poem. That the average life of annuitants at specified ages is better than that of individuals of like ages in the general population is a fact established by the experience of the English Government at an enormous cost, it having at one time raised money by the granting and sale of annuities, a method of financial recuperation in which it is not likely to again indulge. Annuitants have also been found to be longer lived on an average than even the carefully selected lives of corresponding ages for life assurance; a fact recognized by life assurance companies in the calculation of their life assurance and annuity premiums respectively. Whence this apparent favoritism shown to annuitants in the matter of longevity? Actuaries say that the longer average life attained by annuitants is largely due to an instinctive feeling, based on an intimate knowledge of their physical condition, habits, etc., that their probability of life is above the average, and that if they thought otherwise they would not invest their money in an annuity.

There is, however, another reason, not less potent than that set forth by the actuaries, why the annuitants "are longer lived than others," namely: the freedom which an assured income gives from anxiety and uncertainty. This immunity from the constant worry and anxiety attendant upon the procuration of our "daily bread" is recognized by pathologists as one of the most powerful influences in procuring "length of days;" and there is no better method known by which this "consummation so devoutly to be wished" can be obtained than through the agency of an annuity in a strong and well-managed life assurance company, and best of all in the Equitable, the "strongest in the world."