THE SPECTATOR COMPANY, Sole Selling Agents, 
 95 William St., New York.
 
 COPYRIGHT 1900 
 
 BY 
 H. T. LAMEY 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 WOODWARD & TIERNAN PRINTING CO. 
 ST. LOUIS
 
 encircle /M^b fir r
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE IXJCAL AGENT 
 EXPECTATION 
 
 CHAP. I Of My Parentage, 
 
 Birth and Education. 
 II The Country Editor. 
 Ill My First Agency. 
 IV The Town and My 
 
 Associates. 
 V Antecedents of My 
 
 Competitors. 
 VI The Office Clerk. 
 VII A Missouri Rate. 
 VIII Reorganizing the Lo- 
 
 cal Board. 
 IX Soliciting Business . 
 
 X Men I have Met. 
 XI Local Observations. 
 XII The Financial 
 
 Problem. 
 XIII The American 
 
 Agency System. 
 XIV A Message From the 
 
 Far West. 
 XV-A Visit to Texas. 
 
 PART II 
 
 THE SPECIAL AGENT 
 REALIZATION 
 
 CHAP. I Introduces the Special. 
 II The New Man. 
 Ill The State Board. 
 IV A Delinquent Agent. 
 V Planting an Agency 
 
 in Missouri. 
 VI Inspections. 
 VII Changing an Agency 
 
 in Kansas. 
 VIII Cultivating the 
 
 Agents. 
 
 IX My First Loss. 
 X A Special's Decalogue. 
 XI -The Hail Man. 
 XII An Adjuster's Yarn. 
 " XIII The Public Adjuster. 
 XIV Agens Speciarius. 
 XV Autographic Biog- 
 raphy of Jones. 
 
 PART III 
 THE MANAGER 
 
 DISENCHANTMENT 
 
 CHAP. I Introductory. 
 II The Manager. 
 Ill Responsibility. 
 IV Ethics. 
 V Legislation. 
 VI The Rate. 
 " VII The Individual Rate. 
 
 CHAP. VIII Insurance Associa- 
 tions. 
 IX Organization and 
 
 Co-operation. 
 X Diagnosis. 
 XI Prescription. 
 " XII Conclusion.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 HE reader may blame the 
 Editor for the lack of conse- 
 cution in Mr. Jones' Me'moires. 
 They were as voluminous as a 
 last century romance, and as 
 prosy as the sermons he might 
 have delivered. The Editor is also responsible for 
 the suppression of three-fourths of his manuscript, 
 but not for all of his opinions. Opinion is so 
 much a matter of temperament and environment 
 that a change in either may produce different 
 conclusions. If you do not agree with all his 
 dicta, it may be attributed to difference in tem- 
 perament, for Jones was red-haired. 
 
 Judged by his Me'moires, he was, with one 
 exception, an ordinary business man. He says 
 he was large and strong, from which I infer that 
 his digestion was good. Yet there are many 
 symptoms of the pessimist, a physical and mental 
 combination most extraordinary. He begins life 
 
 (7)
 
 jokingly, and his jibes grow progressively sarcastic, 
 cynical and Schopenhauerish. Disenchantment 
 follows the realization of his expectations. How 
 many of his middle-aged readers can reconstruct 
 the process from experience? 
 
 The tale of his commonplace life is told with- 
 out literary pretensions. If the story be dull and 
 uninteresting, it is still a fair caricature of the 
 business in his time, and is overdrawn only enough 
 to accentuate some of the abuses that have grown 
 into and become a part of the agency system. 
 As he is not a reincarnation of Dickens, it is too 
 much to expect that his satire may correct bad 
 practices; but some of them may be abated, or 
 at least deserve the contempt born of familiarity. 
 
 Few who have not had personal experience 
 are at all acquainted with the lot of the Country 
 Agent, though some of the foremost American 
 Underwriters began their insurance career in the 
 country town. If he deserves or receives any 
 sympathy, it will be from men familiar with the 
 great expectation, and consequent disappoint- 
 ment, of the humble country agent. His city 
 brother is trained in a different groove, and can 
 see beyond the tinsel of title and authority. He
 
 lives so near the throne, that he cannot conceive 
 of such innocence ; he is disenchanted from birth. 
 The business future is unpromising, but it is 
 not hopeless. Napoleon arose out of the chaos 
 of Revolution, and, under his guidance, anarchy 
 became order; weakness was converted into 
 strength. Strong men are the product of desper- 
 ate situations. May we not expect the coming of a 
 Moses who will lead us through the Wilderness? 
 
 THE EDITOR.
 
 PART I 
 
 EXPECTATION
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OF MY PARENTAGE, BIRTH AND EDUCATION 
 
 N the middle of the nineteenth 
 Century, before the discovery of 
 petroleum, Northwest Pennsylva- 
 nia was noted for its hills without 
 soil, good timber, abundance of 
 game, rough roads, poor trans- 
 portation facilities, and self-sus- 
 taining, self-supporting people. 
 The Allegheny River was the 
 highway, rafts were the vehicles, and Pittsburgh 
 was the Mecca. All that portion of the State was 
 out West, Ohio being 'way out West. 
 
 The early settlers were the Dutch from East 
 of the mountains, Scotch-Irish, and a few trans- 
 planted French peasants, wooden shoes, supersti- 
 tion and all. Everyone knows of the Pennsylva- 
 nia Dutchman and his peculiarities. He is fre- 
 quently born in a log house, while his cattle live 
 in a frame barn. He works in the field fifteen 
 
 (13)
 
 14 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 hours a day, and at least three hours about his 
 stable; thrives through hard work and economy, 
 and thus leaves to the next generation better 
 prospects than he himself inherited. The Scotch- 
 Irish are more ascetic and hard-headed, with 
 strong, well-disciplined religious convictions and 
 prejudices. They make steady citizens, of robust 
 constitutions and healthy blood. 
 
 Such was the time and place of my nativity, 
 and as indicated, I am a Dutch- 
 Irishman, differing from Cun- 
 ningham in that he is an Irish- 
 Dutchman. The ascetic pre- 
 dominated in the home life and 
 morals of both. Neither of us 
 were permitted to whistle on a 
 Sunday when we were boys, and 
 I attribute the sedate and austere 
 manners and conduct of the lat- 
 ter to his early training. However, I do not set 
 much store upon my Geburtsort. We Americans 
 are so migratory that home does not mean as 
 much to us as to our old world ancestors. The 
 chief point is that I was born, not where or when.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 15 
 
 The writer of an autobiography should com- 
 mence early. With due reference to the good 
 example he is to set his readers, his youth should 
 be filled with noble thoughts and aspirations, thus 
 distinguishing him from the common herd. Alas, 
 even the uncommon youngster if there be one 
 is much like Gargantua in his childhood, differing 
 from other children only in degree, and giving 
 little promise of his future greatness. There are 
 prodigies and good children, but they mostly go 
 crazy or die young. 
 
 The educational facilities of a backwoods 
 community were not equal to those of the present 
 city. schools, yet I learned to read, "figger" and 
 fight. Of the three accomplishments, I think the 
 last the most useful for an insurance career. It 
 is true I did not acquire it with malice prepense, 
 as I was a grown man before I ever saw an insur- 
 ance policy. It was not much of a policy either, 
 as it belonged to the brood of township or county 
 mutuals, a few of which have survived even to 
 this day. 
 
 The life of a farmer boy is romantic in the 
 perspective of the past. In the present it is a
 
 16 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 life of realities. As soon as he can walk he is 
 set to herding stones on the meadow, while hun- 
 gry fish are watching for worms. Then he must 
 drop corn, and hoe it when it is up; carry water, 
 turn the grindstone during harvest a thankless 
 task, but strengthening to the arms dig pota- 
 toes, husk the corn, and, beside a hundred other 
 employments, chop the fire wood and do the chores. 
 Is it strange that he should think a professional 
 career more attractive? Is he not 
 justified, considering his exper- 
 ience, in seeking more remuner- 
 ative employment, since his aver- 
 age wages (though he often does 
 more than a man's work) is a quar- 
 ter on the Fourth of July and an 
 occasional circus ticket? 
 
 Next to naming the baby, the most anxious 
 family discussion is connected with his future vo- 
 cation. What shall we make of him? My god- 
 father was a minister, now one of Chicago's 
 prominent divines, and I was destined by my par- 
 ents to the same career, but the cherished hope 
 withered, much to my mother's chagrin, and the
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 17 
 
 Church unknowingly lost a shining light. As 
 piety and good lungs often outweigh brains, it is 
 possible I might have become a presiding elder 
 in the fulness of time. Whether even this ex- 
 alted position outranks that of an insurance agent, 
 I leave to the judgment of the reader. At any 
 rate, what might have been, wasn't. 
 
 When I was sixteen and six feet ; when I had 
 not only gone through all the country school 
 books, but had taught a country school one term, 
 I was sent to college. The result of the four 
 years spent there I summarize as follows: My 
 clothes fitted me better; part of my gaucherie had 
 disappeared; I had absorbed a little Latin, and 
 less Greek, and was less qualified to earn a living 
 at twenty than at twelve. My bump of self-es- 
 teem had developed out of all proportion; in fact, 
 I was a fair sample of most college products; I 
 had a distaste for manual labor, and was not 
 equipped for anything else. I, therefore, trav- 
 eled for a couple of years, and attwo-and-twenty, 
 that serious 1 problem, How shall I collect my liv- 
 ing from the world? was still unsolved. 
 
 , off. K <? -
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE COUNTRY EDITOR 
 
 Y first employment was that of a 
 clerk in an insurance office at 
 Podunk, Mo. I was on my way 
 to Mexico , a country much talked 
 of at that time , and where op- 
 portunities to make a fortune 
 were said to be abundant. My 
 funds were low, and I tarried to 
 replenish the chest. It was a more 
 serious undertaking than I imagined. 
 I was a finished architect of Castles in Spain, but 
 my plans never progressed beyond the drawings, 
 and my dreams of making money differed slightly 
 from the reality. I could pay my board by 
 economy, but I could not accumulate, and the 
 business of insurance, as introduced to me, was 
 not attractive. Although a fortune awaited me 
 in Mexico I was unable to claim it. It awaits 
 me yet. 
 
 (19)
 
 20 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Cherchez la femme, our Gallic friends say. 
 I found her without seeking. Without serious 
 thought of matrimony, behold me married. I had 
 been in love a dozen times before, but not often 
 enough to evolve an ideal. It is the old fellow 
 who has a stock of unattainable ideals, and 
 they do not result in marriage licenses. The 
 world is repeopled by youthful love, not by mature 
 calculation, (which is not a component of love) 
 or, as the cynics and bachelors say, by rashness 
 rather than reason. 
 
 By this time I had established a country news- 
 paper, and had a fair prospect of such a compe- 
 tence as usually comes to the country editor. In 
 inducing Matilda to share my prospective fortune, 
 I was as honest as Col. Sellers and about as wise. 
 What brains I had were evidently not employed 
 in the business department, where a superior 
 quality and quantity was needed. 
 
 In every community there are a number of 
 aspiring writers, but most of them are too wise 
 to own their own educator ; they borrow the local 
 paper for their effusions, and place it under obli- 
 gations for the copy. My refusal to sponge on
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 21 
 
 my neighbor was responsible for a valuable busi- 
 ness experience that to many men conies too late 
 in life. I was young, my enthusiasm was not 
 exhausted, although my small capital was, and 
 my next venture had to be chosen accordingly. 
 My creditors owned the plant. 
 
 While inexperience was partially responsible 
 for my failure, one of the causes lay deeper, and 
 is inherent to the business. The country merchant 
 imagines space is worth nothing. The editor 
 must get out a paper every week, and might as 
 well fill up on advertising as on longwinded edi- 
 torials that nobody cares to read. Consequently 
 when he trades out an advertising bill, he feels 
 as if he was doing his whole duty to the commu- 
 nity. He no more thinks of paying money for 
 locals than does the patent medicine man. 
 
 The farmer pays for his subscription in pro- 
 duce the merchant pays for advertising in goods 
 the doctor in services and a good many of the 
 others not at all . The cash drawer is always empty . 
 During the horse season money is easier, but there 
 is never enough to go around. Everybody pays in 
 trade, and everybody wants to be paid in cash.
 
 22 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Even the devil wants a quarter occasionally . I could 
 stand off my home creditors, as they presented their 
 bills in a perfunctory way, not expecting them to 
 be paid; but the St. Louis houses were not so 
 easily jollied. When I didn't pay promptly, they 
 sent their material C. O. D. and who has learned 
 the art of working an express agent? I never. 
 
 Once I made a killing on a tax list, paid all 
 my foreign bills, and was the proudest man in 
 town. It was so unusual and delightful to have 
 an established credit that I worked it overtime, 
 and it wouldn't remain established. Even a 
 chattel mortgage as a last resort could not keep 
 it going, and when the sheriff added the last straw 
 by getting his sale bill printed at the opposition 
 office, the Bazoo ceased to toot. 
 
 If you want advice on how to conduct any 
 business properly, you can always get it from the 
 man who tried it and couldn't. I know a plenty 
 about the newspaper business enough never to 
 undertake it again, and I offer my experience 
 and conclusions gratuitously to the aspiring youth, 
 who thinks he is fashioned to fill a long felt want. 
 Use some other man's paper freely, if he will
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 23 
 
 permit you, but do not attempt to publish one of 
 your own. There is no money in it. The Wash- 
 ington hand press reminds me too much of the 
 grindstone on the farm. It is a thankless work, 
 but strengthening to the arms.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MY FIRST AGENCY 
 
 HEORETICALLY, there 
 are many ways of estab- 
 lishing a business; but in 
 practice most local insur- 
 ance agents are graduates 
 of the school of adversity. 
 
 Demonstrate by failure 
 that you are unfitted to conduct 
 a business of your own; add 
 creditors q. s., and the pre- 
 scription is finished. I took 
 this course, with a diploma from a country news- 
 paper office, in addition to the following qualifi- 
 cations: A good local acquaintance, some 
 experience as a solicitor, and the good will and 
 best wishes of all my creditors. The latter not 
 only assisted me to companies, but helped the 
 companies get business by trading over-due 
 bills for policies. 
 
 (25)
 
 26 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Jiryodesn 
 
 Nothing so clearly demonstrates the laxity 
 in the general conduct of the agency business as 
 its facility; the companies are literally easy. 
 Ranking next to banking in the volume of finan- 
 cial transactions, entirely at the mercy of an 
 incompetent or dishonest representative, one not 
 _ familiar with the business would suppose an 
 I agency hedged about with some safeguards. On 
 the contrary, agencies go begging in every 
 community, appointments are often made by 
 correspondence without even the pretense of 
 investigation, and men whose local credit is 
 limited to a quarter's worth of soap secured by 
 the washerwife's wages, are authorized to jeop- 
 ardize the assets of million-dollar companies 
 every day in every State. Is it not a legitimate 
 and honorable calling? If so, is it just to depre- 
 ciate the business of established agents by the 
 creation of disreputable competitors? Yet greedy 
 competition is responsible for even worse condi- 
 tions than the elimination of justice, fairness and 
 professional ethics. 
 
 I had desk room in a jewelry store ; my sign 
 was a modest lie; it read "Insurance Agency," 
 
 INSURANCE 
 
 AtiENCY
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 WESTERM DEPARTMENT 
 
 tflTS ^Y'VMCTf 
 
 ntto u 
 
 I \a&s- 
 
 ij 
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
 3 
 
 t tT (^ 
 
 ;ai|^K>f^ y 5A ^ ^E* 
 
 M'FlOfOODWORP 
 
 SPECIAL AQENT 
 MO, KAN. 6- Cot. 

 
 28 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 NOTICE 
 
 SPECIAL ALEUTS 
 . Plenty of room o 
 
 the writer inadvertently omitting the "Wanted." 
 In the make-up, it got into the wrong column, 
 that was all; but it served a purpose, for it 
 attracted the attention of the special agent of the 
 Cataract Insurance Company. After some pre- 
 liminary conversation, he told me a lot of things 
 I did not know; explained the safety valve con- 
 struction of the company; dilated upon the 
 attractive name, and more attractive sign by 
 some great master; persuaded me I could renew 
 all the business on his books (one policy) ; gave 
 me such preliminary instructions as other topics 
 permitted, and went on his way rejoicing. His 
 original report was recently resurrected from the 
 old files of the Cataract office, and is reproduced 
 as a confirmation of the statement that I was 
 made, not born, an insurance agent. The special 
 agent is a practical every-day optimist; every 
 agency change is a good one or he would not 
 make it. Every man will learn at some com- 
 pany's expense. Every prophecy is good if it 
 is fulfilled, and if not it can be repeated ad. lib. 
 Once a start was made, it was astonishing 
 v how many companies wanted to change agencies.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 29 
 
 They showered in, and in a month iny inexperi- 
 ence had been imposed upon by half a dozen 
 specials. All they wanted at first was an agency. 
 It required a second visit to develop the want 
 of business, and sometimes several to get that 
 want supplied. The result was inevitable; as 
 most of them left one over-crowded agency for 
 another, they were still on wheels, and dissat- 
 isfied with my particular brand of dust on their 
 supplies. 
 
 The necessity of living by your own efforts 
 is a powerful incentive to industry. A very few 
 may work because they love work, but most of 
 us work because we must, being born aristocrats 
 vulgarly called lazy. Necessity was the mother 
 of my business, which increased as time passed 
 until my leaders had a larger premium income 
 than the oldest agency companies that had been 
 established there "time to which the memory of 
 man runneth not to the contrary." The then 
 special of the Vesuvius, now one of her managers, 
 had occasion to change his agency, and as it was 
 a valuable company, I was an applicant; but he 
 passed me by for a banker. This was an instance
 
 30 MBMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 of careful selection, for the banker shortly failed. 
 The sign of Bank over his portal was a bigger 
 humbug than my Insurance Agency sign of the 
 previous month. Haec fabula docet: things are 
 not always what they seem ; also : we take 
 chances even in selecting a banker. Why not, 
 since we deal in probabilities, not certainties, 
 and the laws of chance form the basis of our 
 business?
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 OF THE TOWN AND MY ASSOCIATES 
 
 ODUNK CITY was the corporate 
 name of the town, but it was not, 
 strictly speaking, a metropolis. 
 The founders of many Western 
 villages were fond of Hyperbole 
 quite unconsciously, however, as many of 
 them could not distinguish her from Aphro- 
 dite if they met her on the street. 
 
 The plan of the town was not original, 
 but a fair copy of the famous capital of the 
 Blue Grass region in Kentucky. The type is 
 a common one in all the Southwestern States. 
 A public square ornamented with a dilapidated 
 Court House and scrubby trees; a rickety 
 fence decorated with mule teams and mule 
 drivers, both of the lazy, indifferent type; 
 sidewalks frescoed with ambier, buildings 
 sadly in need of repair, and citizens 
 over- grown with moss.
 
 32 
 
 M&MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 The old settlers all came from Kentucky. If 
 all the Missourians who claim origin from the Blue 
 Grass country had never emigrated, it would be the 
 most densely populated region on the globe. If it is 
 as charming as represented, why did they leave? 
 Or, is it possible that some of them were poor 
 geographers? 
 
 While Podunk was a good field for a moulder 
 of thought and a leader of opinion, the hope of 
 securing the county printing was the immediate 
 cause of my choice of location. After my brief 
 and disastrous career as a publisher, and when I 
 enlisted as a recruit in the army of insurance 
 agents, I had no choice. My free-will was dom- 
 inated by my inability to leave, even if I wished, 
 and the necessity of providing food and raiment 
 for myself and family. 
 
 In the course of time the town grew. Many 
 emigrants on their way to Kansas re-considered 
 and located with us permanently. The character 
 of the buildings changed, the appearance of the 
 town changed, business opportunities were en- 
 larged, and the effect on the insurance business 
 was marked.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 33 
 
 While Podunk was moribund, one agent with 
 half a dozen of the pioneer agency companies had 
 supplied the needs of the inhabitants, but with 
 the increased importance of the town other com- 
 panies sought foothold with the following result: 
 Every clientless lawyer and estateless estate agent 
 carried insurance as a side line while we others 
 practiced it for a livelihood : 
 
 1 ex-clothier, 
 
 1 ex-publisher, 
 
 1 ex-Kansas Boomer, 
 
 1 ex-banker, 
 
 2 ex-preachers Campbellite and 
 
 Methodist, 
 1 ex-druggist, 
 
 3 ex-County officers, 
 
 and the above mentioned Old Agent, who was 
 not an ex-, not even an ex-Confederate nor an 
 ex-Kentuckian, but he had the business and we 
 wanted it. 
 
 Covetousness was properly forbidden to the 
 Jews, but under the new dispensation the Deca- 
 logue is reduced to nine, and the old tenth is 
 included in the Beatitudes. Thus the moral code 
 is accommodated to the increasing demands of
 
 34 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 modern business, or insurance agents would have 
 little show for their white alley. 
 
 A load of lumber gave us the same sensation 
 as the bread and butter gave the scholars at 
 Dotheboys Hall. We knew there was not enough 
 business to feed us all, and each wanted to be the 
 one served first. This condition of semi-starvation 
 crowded me out of a local into a special agency; 
 sent one of the ex-county officers to the peniten- 
 tiary ; bankrupted the Old Agent, but never phased 
 the preachers, probably because they had been 
 inoculated. 
 
 During one of the rare intervals when the 
 local board meetings were well attended, its 
 sessions resembled a church conference meeting. 
 The trouble with us was, that, instead of fining 
 each other for cutting rates when we had a plain 
 case, we pouted, refused to attend the meetings, 
 and took personal revenge by stealing a line from 
 the other fellow on the best terms we could get. 
 I have often wondered if the agents in other towns 
 acted in the same way. We had no guide but our 
 consciences, and some of them were so seared 
 that they were not in good working order.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 35 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ANTECEDENTS OF MY COMPETITORS 
 
 OU know how and why I 
 came to be an insurance agent, 
 and the antecedents of some of 
 my confreres at Podunk may be inter- 
 esting and serve as a warning to others. 
 The ex-clothing merchant, who inci- 
 dentally was of Hebraic extraction, blamed 
 the mice for his misfortune. It is more than 
 passing strange that the freak appetite of the 
 mouse for sulphur matches should always coincide 
 with an old stock, dull trade and pressing cred- 
 itors ; but he denied having anything to do with 
 it himself, and said it must be mice and matches. 
 He made more reputation as a claimant than as 
 an agent. There wasn't as much money in the 
 agency branch as in the claim department, and 
 he soon abandoned it. Further, deponent sayeth 
 not.
 
 36 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 The Campbellite minister was not really 
 unfrocked, he was gently dropped. His charge 
 was in the country, and, as the picking was 
 poor, he cultivated hogs between sermons. It 
 was charged, and I fear, proven, that his season's 
 run of sorghum molasses was emptied in 
 the sand, and when the hogs had eaten a 
 hundred pounds or so apiece they were 
 marketed. This was considered too much 
 of a Yankee trick for a Southern congre- 
 gation ; and as such abilities should not go to waste, 
 they were utilized in his new profession. 
 
 The supply of town lots in Kansas was never 
 exhausted, but it was said that the Boomer got 
 one of the new additions mixed up with a piece 
 of land he held four or five miles out. As the 
 real values were probably equivalent, this wasn't 
 much to raise a row over, but he emigrated to 
 Missouri, and later, as a precautionary measure, 
 to Arkansas. There were rumors of fictitious 
 mortgages floated on the Eastern market, but 
 they were set a-going by the malevolent, and 
 never gained general credence.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 37 
 
 Before the high license law was enacted 
 there were seven or eight drug stores in Podunk, 
 and they all did a thriving business. But when 
 Pat Soakum and his fellows were asked to pony 
 up a thousand semi-annually in advance, they 
 became temperance advocates. The profits from 
 the sale of drugs alone would not pay the rent, 
 and some of them retired, among them my old 
 friend, who supplied my newspaper force with 
 medicines for years, in exchange for an advertis- 
 ing bill. We settled accounts annually, and 
 each added say a hundred to his bill to offset what 
 he suspected the other would add, exchanged 
 ratifications, as the diplomats say, and opened a 
 new account. He was one of the best fellows 
 in the business and deserved the success he 
 achieved. 
 
 We unfortunately lost one of the brightest 
 members of the Podunk Board. It is said he 
 went to Canada. Country business was no more 
 desirable then than now, and it was sometimes 
 necessary to meet competition to make the 
 diagram fit the rate, thus:
 
 38 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 The Company after a loss, refused to accept the 
 common definition of detached as unattached; it 
 found, through inspecting the business closely, 
 that he had made some mistakes in describing 
 special hazards as dwellings, and threatened to 
 cut up over it, so the poor fellow had to abandon 
 the profitable business he had established, as 
 well as his wife and family. 
 
 From these samples you will see we were 
 not so slow, we Podunkers. If a premium 
 got away with all of us on its trail, it had 
 to hustle. There wasn't a better insured 
 town in the State; all the inhabitants were 
 educated. Even the farmers had their eye-teeth 
 cut, for the famous Col. Tram of Iowa worked 
 Jay County for a season, and he was the equal, 
 in his special line, to the entire Podunk Board.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 39 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE OFFICE CLERK 
 
 AVING been an employee as well as an 
 employer, I know something of the 
 duties and responsibilities of a clerical 
 position. A scape-goat is a necessity; 
 somebody must be responsible for 
 errors and mistakes, and who so convenient as 
 the clerk? 
 
 The selection of a clerk is like the choice of 
 a business partner you nearly always wish you 
 hadn't. Men are usually employed in local 
 insurance offices, but my preference is for the 
 feminine. I unhesitatingly recommend a young 
 woman, the prettier and more attractive the 
 better. There are so many unpleasant incidents 
 in the daily drudgery of life, that it is a rest to 
 the eye and the brain to gaze upon beauty, grace 
 and neatness. 
 
 It is true a woman can talk back, but so can 
 a man, and she cannot strike back while he can.
 
 40 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 She is not too ambitious ; does not expect a raise 
 in salary over twice a year, and is not apt to 
 open an opposition office and try to do business 
 on your expirations. These are some of the 
 reasons for my preference. An anonymous ver- 
 sifier has quoted more, and while I adopt his 
 conclusions, I refuse to accept his barbarous 
 pronunciation of clerk, which is too much for 
 even poetic license. 
 
 Out of employment ? Can we give you work ? 
 
 I'm sorry, sir, 
 But we have no use for another clerk 
 
 Since we have her. 
 
 Though she is a girl, we find she can do 
 The work that was formerly done by two; 
 
 Men, too, they were. 
 
 She does not expectorate, drink nor swear 
 
 As some men do; 
 Whenever she's wanted she's always there 
 
 Till work is through. 
 
 Flirt? Of course she does, but she does not smoke 
 Nor take a night off and come home dead broke. 
 
 Not bv a 

 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 41 
 
 She's honest and faithful as well as cheap 
 
 ( Not half your price ) . 
 She is neat and tidy and knows how to keep 
 
 Things looking nice. 
 We are satisfied, sir, and do not care 
 To discuss it further; as you are aware 
 
 This should suffice. 
 
 There are some exceptions. If the agent be 
 young and susceptible, she is dangerous. If he be 
 old and susceptible, she is perilous. If he be mar- 
 ried, his wife has probably grown so accustomed to 
 believing fibs she may balk at the truth ; and while 
 a little jealousy is as spice to married life, too 
 much is worse than tobasco with a catsup label. 
 
 In any event, even if it is necessary to allow 
 your wife to select her, get a girl; the plainest 
 is better than none, and is not likely to reserve 
 the only extra office chair for her retainers. The 
 specials will, of course, keep the office supplied 
 with gold pens, ink-stands, and small office knick- 
 knacks usually charged to postage account, and 
 you can amuse yourself by watching their culti- 
 vating antics and listening to their smart and 
 gallant speech and compliments.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A MISSOURI RATE 
 
 JMONG the perennial troubles of 
 underwriters, I reckon rates the 
 chief ; and while we Podunkers 
 were simple insurance agents, 
 and did not aspire to 
 j|l be underwriters, the 
 troubles mentioned did 
 not draw such fine dis- 
 tinctions. We had our 
 full portion and to spare. 
 
 Following the dissolution of the old National 
 Board, rates in Missouri also became dissolute, 
 from force of example probably, and one of the 
 first good resolutions of the recently formed Union 
 was the encouragement of State organizations of 
 field men. Among these the old Missouri, Kansas 
 & Nebraska State Board easily took first rank. 
 
 It is now, because of secession and legisla- 
 tion, only a memory, but a pleasant memory 
 
 (43)
 
 44 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 withal. The old associations and friendships are 
 dearly cherished by the few surviving members, 
 some of whom are still in the field and some of 
 whom wish they were again in the field. 
 
 Rates were theoretically made by a Committee 
 of the State Board, acting with and advising a 
 Committee of the Local Board, but in practice 
 the State Board Committee found Garnbrinus a 
 more pleasant consulting associate. The Com- 
 mittee swallowed him, made the agents swallow 
 the rates, and all were full if not content. 
 
 In thus exhibiting the inner workings of 
 rating, I am open to criticism from a respectable 
 branch of the fraternity that does not believe in 
 educating the public or taking it into our confi- 
 dence that is so noisily advocated by some under- 
 writers and class journals. There are arguments 
 on both sides, and as only one has been heard, 
 I shall give the other a line or two. 
 
 Stock fire insurance is business, not philan- 
 throphy nor speculative philosophy. Business is 
 conducted to make money. No matter what the 
 subject the object is the same. The public under- 
 stands this quite well, and is interested in any
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 45 
 
 business not its own, only as you and I are inter- 
 ested in the selling price of clothing, groceries, 
 coal oil or coal. We do not care by what system 
 the Standard Oil Company figures its prices, but 
 we are interested in the prices. 
 
 The public does not weep because fire insur- 
 ance was conducted at a loss in any given year 
 quite the reverse. It considers itself the gainer. 
 You do not pay your railroad fare if you can get 
 a pass. The cost of transportation does not worry 
 you if your own be only cheap or free. Yet rail- 
 roads are public utilities, while stock company 
 insurance is plain ordinary private business. 
 
 Consider for a moment that you are part of 
 the public ; reflect upon how little you are inter- 
 ested in your neighbors' business, and you 
 will concede the folly of the proposed cam- 
 paign of education. 
 
 To return from the field of speculation 
 to Podunk. It was after the departure of 
 the State Board Committee that rates were 
 actually equalized. Pat Soakum's saloon 
 had always been coveted by the Campbellite 
 preacher, but he couldn't reach it alone, 
 
 VO.SJO 
 
 \r M 
 *" 
 
 169*
 
 46 MEMOIR ES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 so he took the Kansas Boomer into his confidence. 
 The Old Agent was Chairman of the Board and 
 ex-officio of the rating committee. The two 
 worthies above were his associates and Pat's rate 
 was reduced from 3% to 2% by a vote of two to one. 
 The companies being dissatisfied, they next 
 usurped the rate-making authority, and the third 
 factor, the compact manager, was born. He flour- 
 ished for a while, but this time the people were 
 dissatisfied, and they took a notion to do some 
 usurping on their own account. As I think it 
 well to leave something to the imagination, I will 
 do so here and allow the reader to imagine, if he 
 can, a Missouri Rate that was fathered by the 
 State Board, nursed by the Local Board, reared by 
 the Compact Manager, and tried, condemned and 
 executed by the legislature.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 47 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 REORGANIZING THE LOCAL BOARD 
 
 EVERAIy committees of the 
 State Board had failed to get 
 the Podtmk locals into line, so 
 Major Macleur, the grand high 
 commissioner of Commission 
 No. 4, since deceased, the Commis- 
 sion, not the Major was sent out to 
 try his hand on us. 
 
 The meeting was called by the Old Agent, 
 the greatest sufferer, who unanimously elected 
 himself Chairman, and appointed me as Secre- 
 tary. As the report of the proceedings is copied 
 from my original notes, it is accurate enough for 
 historical purposes. 
 
 The Major, in his own inimitable way, made 
 us a speech, of which the following is the sub- 
 stance; but its drollery is necessarily omitted. 
 "Now, boys, I have got you together, and we 
 want this devilment stopped. There's only one
 
 48 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 way to stop it. Sign the local board agree- 
 ment, be honest, and we will re-rate the town 
 and commence anew. Bygones shall be by- 
 gones, we'll wash the slate and start afresh." 
 Motion put by the Chairman ; any remarks ? 
 
 1st County Officer: "I'm agin signin' any- 
 thing till the rates are made. If they suit I'm 
 agreeable." 
 
 Kansas Boomer: "I'm opposed on prin- 
 ciple to surrendering our right to make and re- 
 vise the rates to anyone, and for one, refuse to 
 vote for the motion." 
 
 The Campbellite preacher, who has loaded 
 up on shaded business: "I favor the motion. 
 Honesty is the foundation of our business. Let 
 the dead past bury its dead, and let us resolve 
 here and now to abide by correct practices in the 
 future. I hope all members present will sign up 
 and join us in an effort to establish the business 
 on a sound basis," etc., etc. 
 
 The ex-Druggist: "I agree with my prede- 
 cessor, provided all agents are first made to can- 
 cel cut-rate business. I have lost too many cus- 
 tomers to come here and cinch them for the other
 
 A INSURANCE MAN 
 
 49 
 
 fellow by any such action as is proposed. Re- 
 pentance first, then absolution is my motion." 
 
 The Old Agent: "Are there any more re- 
 marks on the motion? I think I have suffered 
 more by bushwhacking than any of you, and I'm 
 plumb tired of it. If you don't do something, 
 I'll make rates wide open, and see how you like 
 it. My companies have reached the limit, and 
 I'm ready to fight. If there are no more remarks, 
 all in favor of the motion will say " 
 
 The Major: "Excuse me, Mr. Chairman; 
 before you put the motion I want to say that there 
 is no compulsion about this. I want to help you 
 out of a bad box. Down in Arkansaw durin' the 
 war, the Yankees had us cornered, and we'd been 
 livin' on parched corn for about a week. The 
 General said one day, 'Boys, I want to help you 
 out. If we stay here we'll starve even the 
 corn's runnin' low. Who's willin' to make a 
 break? ' Now, I'm the General, who's willin' 
 to follow me? " 
 
 Motion put by the Chairman, and carried, 
 17 to 2. The seventeen signed the constitution 
 and by-laws, and appointed a committee to labor
 
 50 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 with the two negative voters. Their companies 
 finally forced them to sign, and the Podunk Board 
 was again an entity. 
 
 As Secretary, I am willing to assert that it 
 was for at least three days after the Major left, 
 as good a Board as ever was sawed. But it 
 couldn't stand the weather, and got shaky before 
 a month, sides warped and ends split as poor 
 a piece of lumber as ever sold for seconds. Then 
 the Major came again, and the process was re- 
 peated with slight variations; old scores were 
 wiped out again; bygones were bygones again; 
 we started fresh again and finally, we busted 
 up again. 
 
 Those were good old days just the same. If 
 we didn't see all the good in them at the time, 
 it was solely from lack of comparison with mod- 
 ern conditions, and we may in twenty years, if 
 we live so long, refer to the present in the same 
 terms. Who knows?
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SOLICITING BUSINESS 
 
 VERY town has a char- 
 acter, a local celebrity, 
 and Podunk was no 
 exception. He was a 
 half - witted German , 
 who built with his own 
 hands a reproduction of his 
 old country home, laboring 
 on it for ten or fifteen years. 
 He threw stones at a storm cloud because it 
 interfered with his work, swore awful oaths in 
 mixed German, and was an unsociable brute, 
 living like a hermit on his scissors-grinding 
 income. Everything in town but his shack was 
 insured, and no one had the nerve to tackle 
 him until the advent of the clothing merchant. 
 Now if a full- witted German is a Judenhetzer, 
 what could you expect from a half-wit?
 
 52 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 " Andy, you ought to have your house 
 insured. Let me write it up for you." 
 
 " My vat?" 
 
 1 ' Your house insured so if it burns down 
 you get pay for it." 
 
 "You burn my house down if I don't pay 
 for it?" 
 
 "No, no, I want to insure it so it won't 
 burn down." 
 
 ' ( Kreutz ! Himmel ! Sackerment ! 
 Nochemal ! Get out ! I haf you arrested yet. 
 Dots my house, versteh? My house. I don't 
 want him to burn down once. Du verfliichte 
 Jude, come 'round tell me my house burn down 
 if I don't pay for it? I show you once I " 
 
 But he didn't wait to be shown, even though 
 he was a Missourian. Andy followed him up the 
 street with a mixed shower of stones and curses, 
 and remained a celebrity the only man in town 
 uninsured ! 
 
 The leading hardware merchant was my 
 neighbor and a crank on insurance , not that there 
 was necessarily any connection between the two.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 53 
 
 He had a Vesuvius policy twenty-odd years old, 
 with twenty-odd renewal receipts, and thought 
 this antiquated document better than any up-to- 
 date policy. We used to drink a bottle of seltzer 
 on a summer evening on my porch of course I 
 furnished the seltzer. 
 
 "John, I want a policy on your stock." 
 
 (I had told him so a hundred times, but he 
 either wouldn't believe it, or didn't want to 
 believe it) . 
 
 "Jones, my boy, I can't quit the Vesuvius. 
 There isn't another policy in Jay County as old 
 as mine " 
 
 1 ' Did you ever study law ? ' ' 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, I have. Did you ever hear of the 
 Statute of Limitations ? ' ' 
 
 " You bet I've heard of it! Old man Cowan 
 knocked me out of a two hundred dollar note 
 Statute of Limitations." 
 
 ' ' How much have you in the Vesuvius ? ' ' 
 
 "Five thousand." 
 
 ' ' If old Cowan would plead the baby act for 
 two hundred dollars, what could you expect
 
 54 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 from a soulless corporation with five thousand 
 involved ? ' ' 
 
 "By George! I never thought of that. 
 Think they'd do it." 
 
 ' ' Do you know who would adjust your loss ? 
 You know what reputations adjusters have ? 
 John, you've been taking chances long enough. 
 As an up-to-date business man, you're a failure. 
 Let's finish this bottle and I'll write you a policy 
 to-morrow that will be worth a hundred cents on 
 the dollar." 
 
 Did I ? Of course. One day his old store 
 fell down and when I refused to pay the loss, he 
 got mad and went back to the Vesuvius but as 
 I was a special then, it didn't matter. 
 
 Farm soliciting was not my forte. Old Col. 
 Snively had a fine farm and was uninsured. I 
 had talked insurance to him a dozen times, in 
 and out of his cups, and finally got a promise 
 that he would consider it. One day I drove out 
 to his place, about fifteen miles, to close the deal. 
 
 "Hello, Colonel, how 're things?"
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 55 
 
 " Putty fair. Onhitch, come in and have 
 somethin' to wa'm you up." 
 
 After I had had something I broached the 
 object of my visit. 
 
 " How much did you tell me it 'ud cost ?" 
 
 " Depends on the amount and the term. 
 One-and-a-half per cent for three years say 
 seventy-five dollars for five thousand." 
 
 "Only seventy-five dollars? By ginger, 
 ain't you mistaken ? ' ' 
 
 " No, that's the cheapest going rate." 
 
 "Well I'll be darned. Look here, old Col. 
 Tram was out here last week and nothin'd do but 
 I must take a policy in the American. Said it 
 wouldn't cost hardly anything, and I didn't have 
 to pay for it now nohow, and jest talked me into 
 it. Wouldn't take no for an answer. Writ 
 me fer windstorms too. Been a powerful lot 
 o' cyclones in these parts lately. You never 
 said nothin' 'bout cyclone insurance did you?" 
 
 ' ' Cyclone policies cost one per cent more for 
 three years can give you combined policy for 
 two per cent one hundred dollars for five thou- 
 sand. Have you got your policy yet? "
 
 56 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 "Sure! I'll let you look it over, and 
 since you're here you can tell me if it's all 
 right." 
 
 Cold comfort this for a solicitor. I had 
 worked him up, and Col. Train had landed him. 
 
 Ten thousand ! Fire, lightning and tornado, 
 for five years. Premium four hundred dollars; 
 ninety dollars in six months, and eighty a year 
 in four annual installments. Notes good as wheat. 
 The first probably already discounted, and Jones 
 in the soup. Served him right. The next time 
 he will not talk per cent to a farmer. Talk 
 money. Eighty a year isn't much for ten thou- 
 sand, and decreases as payment is postponed. 
 No, as a farm solicitor Jones was a failure. I 
 could tell an untruth sometimes, but not all the 
 time. I charged my livery hire up to experience, 
 issued a policy in payment, and abandoned that 
 branch of the business. I didn't want to be 
 classed with Col. Tram "nohow." 
 
 How easy it is to establish a habit, and how 
 difficult to break it. As editor of the Bazoo no 
 one ever thought of paying me money, and the
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 57 
 
 people expected to continue the custom with 
 Jones the insurance agent. 
 
 Mrs. Wheat was proprietress of the local 
 Millinery Emporium. 
 
 "Mrs. Wheat, I want a policy. You used 
 to advertise with me. We ought to be repre- 
 sented on your stock. Can't I write you one 
 for a thousand dollars? " 
 
 " Mrs. Jones used to buy her Easter hat of 
 me too, and you paid for it in advertising. I've 
 a beauty, Paris pattern, that would just suit her. 
 Take it along with you. If she don't like it she 
 can exchange it. Times are so hard and money 
 is so scarce I have to give my insurance to my 
 customers." 
 
 Now Matilda wasn't what you could call 
 cranky or finicky, but I knew my idea and her 
 idea of a hat too well to try to reconcile them, 
 and some one of my companies lost a good risk. 
 
 There is room in this country for another 
 line of banks. We have enough National, and 
 too many State institutions. Their ideas on 
 finance are too restricted. What we country
 
 58 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 agents need is an exchange bank, where we can 
 convert harness, agricultural implements, hard- 
 ware, building material, etc., into New York 
 Exchange. We can always use dry and wet 
 goods and groceries. Or, as the insurance com- 
 panies reserve the right to pay a loss in kind, 
 why not give the Agent the privilege of paying 
 the premium in kind ? Such an institution 
 would take in Podunk and Jay County like wild- 
 fire. I think it would be even more catching 
 than a local mutual.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 59 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 MEN i HAVE MET 
 
 WAS clerking for the Old 
 Agent when I saw the first 
 special. I shall never forget 
 him. He was one of the 
 best specimens of his class; 
 a man of substantial appear- 
 ance, positive and forceful, 
 but withal jolly and com- 
 panionable ; neither too quiet nor too 
 loud, not a saint, but an all-around 
 human being. Though I was not 
 in love with the local business when I was a 
 clerk, this particular special impressed me as 
 occupying an enviable position. 
 
 Who was he ? He has since left the 
 field, but my notions of what a special should 
 be were based on what he was. If I had his 
 company I would make it a leader, and other 
 agents evidently held similar views, for it was
 
 60 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 always near the top of the column of State 
 business. 
 
 The visit of a Manager was a rarity in 
 Podunk. Our hotel wasn't the kind a Manager 
 would choose to rest up in, nor the town im- 
 portant enough to justify expensive cultivation. 
 But once one of mine called, and I confess that 
 I was disappointed. 
 
 He was the one who wrote me long, fatherly 
 letters; who closed two pages of correspondence 
 on the likelihood of fire in a vacant dwelling, 
 with two more pages, written cross- wise in 
 horribly poor manuscript, explaining what he 
 had previously dictated. He was so prolix and 
 convoluted that he forgot the thread of his argu- 
 ment before he got to the point. He was a 
 living, moving, acting German sentence, with 
 the verb missing. From his letters I had 
 pictured him far past middle age, of a dreamy, 
 philosophical turn of mind, with baggy trousers, 
 and a silk hat of uncertain vintage. Well, he 
 wasn't. 
 
 Had I known that he was only a couple of 
 years older than I, dressed in modern fashion,
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 61 
 
 and that he talked and acted like one of my 
 specials, I wouldn't have stood his lectures; I 
 would have talked back. I never had any occa- 
 sion to complain of him or his correspondence 
 afterwards. He changed his agency. 
 
 One of my companies conducted a farm 
 department; that is, it turned a lot of solicitors 
 out to insure a farmer for twice the value of his 
 property, and when the invited and expected 
 happened, sent another man out to pay him half 
 his loss. Yet it claimed there was no money in 
 it, and actually abolished it a few years later. It 
 seemed better than a faro bank, and there is 
 money in faro for the banker. 
 
 There was a loss in Jay County and the 
 adjuster called upon me for information. He was 
 a large, gruff, swaggering fellow, the kind of man 
 you would like to whip if you had a claim in his 
 hands. But you would be in doubt how to go 
 at it, and, on reflection, would reconsider. 
 
 "Jones," in a Valentine Vox voice, omitting 
 the Mr. though we were not intimate, "What do 
 you know about Jarvis' loss at Poseyville? "
 
 62 
 
 MEMO1RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 1 ' How far is it out? ' ' 
 
 " Eighteen or twenty miles." 
 
 " All right, see you when I return." 
 
 But he didn't, though Jarvis did. Jarvis 
 said he accused him of burning his house, threat- 
 ened to have him arrested, frightened the children, 
 told him the company was no good anyway, and 
 offered him three hundred dollars for a thousand 
 dollar policy. 
 
 ' ' Did you accept? ' ' 
 
 "Of course I did. A law suit wouldn't 
 bring me much more if what he said was true. 
 I think I'm in luck to have saved my life." 
 
 Jarvis was a member of the legislature in 
 1889, and do you know what he did? He lob- 
 bied for the valued policy bill and took revenge 
 on the whole fraternity for the disreputable 
 practices of a small, a very small, portion. 
 Farm adjusters and professional appraisers were 
 the authors, and though I believe the bill was 
 not introduced over their names, it bears their 
 imprint.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 63 
 
 Col. Tram lived in Iowa, and only made in- 
 cursions into Missouri at intervals. In some 
 parts of the State the intervals were long, as the 
 farmers were watching for him, and he wasn't 
 anxious to meet them. The Colonel was one of 
 the original farm solicitors, took pride in his 
 work and never let any man with even a chicken 
 coop escape. 
 
 Missouri barns were his specialty. Ever see 
 one? Only a crib of rails, covered with straw, 
 but they were every one of them good for a 
 premium and a policy fee. The Colonel carried 
 a portfolio like the assessor, and went about his 
 business in a business-like way. Opened his 
 book, took out an application, asked the farmer 
 the questions he thought would not make him 
 suspicious, and in a matter-of-fact manner, shoved 
 the document over to him and said: "Sign!" 
 
 " What mought it be, stranger?" 
 
 4 ' Statement that the questions you have 
 answered are true to the best of your knowledge 
 and belief. Are they?" 
 
 "They be." 
 
 "Then sign!"
 
 64 
 
 M& 'MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Some of them wouldn't some did and were 
 sorry, for lie was not modest, the Colonel wasn't, 
 and the crops were often too short to buy gro- 
 ceries and pay his note too, so the grocer had to 
 wait, as the Colonel's company wouldn't. 
 
 These were the good old times my country- 
 men, when my business card was equal to a 
 patent of nobility in the country; when the 
 insurance agent was greeted with expressions 
 usually offered only to Deity the same expres- 
 sions, but with different inflections. 
 
 INSURANCE
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 65 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LOCAL OBSERVATIONS 
 
 [OUGH Podunk was a small town, 
 we had samples of nearly every 
 variety of agent especially the 
 poor kinds. We had one who per- 
 sistently cut the rates; more than 
 one rebater, and a good many willing 
 to trade insurance for anything, no 
 matter what. 
 
 Now, there is a little excuse for a rate cut- 
 ter, as he is generally a man who has no business 
 to be an agent "nohow, ' ' cannot compete on equal 
 terms, and it follows if he does any business at 
 all it must be secured by special inducement. 
 The railroads help out the weak, roundabout 
 brother by giving him a differential, and our weak 
 brother takes one, whether we give it or not. 
 
 I have often regretted my choice of such an 
 unsatisfactory vocation, but from the statements 
 of lumber dealers, railroad men, and others sim-
 
 66 
 
 M MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 25 '/. 
 /O - 
 
 ilarly conditioned, I have learned that they have 
 tariff annoyances equal to our own. There are 
 rarely over half a dozen railroads competing on 
 nominally equal terms and agreed rates for the 
 business at a given point. Do they strictly ad- 
 here to published tariffs? Do the two competing 
 lumbermen of the village execute their private 
 agreements loyally? The number of competing 
 companies and agencies being relatively much 
 greater, is it strange that some of them should 
 seek the advantage most easily obtained by un- 
 derbidding their fellows? 
 
 But the rate cutter, bad as he is, does not 
 approach the rebater in cussedness. One of the 
 Podunk fraternity was especially noted for his 
 liberality. He had an excess commission agency, 
 and they always seem to run to rebates. Their 
 income is so much greater than the average, that 
 they think they can take the assured into part- 
 nership and still come out ahead, but they can- 
 not. I never knew such an agency that lasted 
 five years, but usually before one dies another is 
 born. If they should all happen to die at the same
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 67
 
 68 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 time, Podunk would be a pretty good agency 
 point. 
 
 I never made any pretense to righteousness. 
 I have applied all the ordinary methods of cir- 
 cumventing my neighbor, but I was never ac- 
 cused of the assininityof rebating my commission. 
 No reputable company asks for business on such 
 terms; no reputable agent solicits business on 
 such terms; and no agent can expect to succeed 
 if he loses his good repute and represents com- 
 panies without repute. If suicide be evidence of 
 insanity, business suicide is proof of imbecility. 
 One is the end of life; the other of the living. 
 
 Nearly every agent has a hoodoo company, 
 and so had I. Of the first seven risks I wrote 
 for this company, six burned within the year, my 
 other companies escaping. The business was of 
 good quality, but the company was out of luck. 
 Without investigation, I was considered the hoo- 
 doo, and the agency changed. As the manager 
 shortly lost his position, and the special resigned, 
 with a large overdraft, it is possible that the office 
 needed a rabbit-foot more than the agent.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 69 
 
 Another one of my companies had a mana- 
 ger whose vocabulary was limited to the two 
 words "Please cancel." I once sent him half 
 a dozen dailies, five good brick risks and a frame 
 hotel, a custom I am told much in vogue. His 
 telegram and letter did not mention the bricks, 
 but I supplied the omission. He cancelled his 
 company out of half the agencies in the country, 
 and wound up by having his own engagement can- 
 celled. He remains an ex-manager, and though 
 many years have intervened, the company has 
 not recovered its lost prestige, and may never be 
 a factor in the agency field, though its size, age 
 and loss-paying ability are in its favor. The 
 frame hotel still stands, a monument to ultra-con- 
 servatism. 
 
 Did you ever come in contact with the smart 
 examiner? An agent cannot always distinguish 
 between chronic dyspepsia, an acute night-off and 
 a fool examiner, but he soon becomes familiar 
 with the symptoms . The less the examiner knows 
 about the business, the more foolish questions he 
 asks, and his impertinent queries have queered
 
 70 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 more agencies in an hour than a special can fix 
 in a week. The cause, I suppose, is ignorance 
 of the local business and local conditions. If 
 the office staff could be recruited from the field, 
 as the latter is from the agency force, there would 
 be much less friction. The next best custom of 
 sending the examiner to the field at every oppor- 
 tunity is recommended to managers, by a local 
 agent, as a wise one.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 71 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE FINANCIAL PROBLEM 
 
 HIL,B the city agent has his 
 troubles and brokers (syn- 
 onymous terms?) they are 
 not comparable to his 
 country brothers' worries, 
 foremost among which is 
 the financial problem . The 
 National Standard labyrinth is simple in 
 comparison ! What matter whether we meas- 
 ure wealth by a gold or silver unit, if we 
 lack the yard-stick? And of what use is a 
 yard-stick if we have no cloth? 
 
 It is all very well for the General Agent 
 to insist upon prompt remittances. Instant 
 decapitation of a lame duck is also a good rule for 
 a special, but, my grave and reverend seigneurs! 
 have you ever sought the cause of his delin- 
 quency? Have you ever diagnosed the complaint?
 
 72 
 
 MR MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 I lxcHA,N<;r PA.C 
 7. Ext5SCHAR 
 
 And will you contribute your portion to the cure 
 when the disease is located? 
 
 You give your agency to Tom , Dick or Harry ; 
 sometimes to all three. The business is all placed, 
 the natural growth slow, but they must have 
 premiums and cannot get them without offering 
 some inducement. To meet their illegitimate 
 competition the agent who has the business must 
 demoralize his own customers, deplete his ex- 
 chequer, and ruin his future prospects by meeting 
 their offers. They promise to give unlimited time 
 credit; to divide commission, or even to give away 
 the whole of it to get the business on their books ; 
 to trade out the premiums as if ready to open a 
 junk shop! They promise anything, having all 
 to gain and nothing at stake, and unless your 
 agent who is always the best agent is willing 
 to sacrifice his income he loses, first his business, 
 then his companies, and stands to lose his repu- 
 tation, whichever horn of the dilemma impales 
 him. 
 
 So long as present methods 
 prevail, just so long will the de- 
 linquent be with us . Since the
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 73 
 
 principals are responsible for the excessive com- 
 petition, multiple agencies, and the over-crowded 
 field, it is but just that they should occasionally 
 suffer; yet the loss by defalcation is infinitesimal, 
 hardly a fraction of a percentage, and not half the 
 amount absorbed by postage overcharges. This 
 should be sufficient evidence of the agents' finan- 
 cial integrity, and I assert that nine-tenths of the 
 shortages are the result of misfortune and not 
 one-tenth of design. 
 
 The reason is easily assigned. The Local 
 Agents are, as a class, superior men. There are 
 exceptions, as previously intimated, and the mar- 
 vel is that the rule and the exception have not 
 changed places. It is a business requiring more 
 brains than the weighing of sugar or the measur- 
 ing of cloth, yet it does not yield a revenue equal 
 to professional or mercantile pursuits . The intelli- 
 gent, tenacious energy required to build up a local 
 business would earn fame if applied to the arts or 
 sciences; reputation in the professions, and wealth 
 in barter. Few agents secure even a modest com- 
 petence, none get rich, and most must be content 
 with a bare living. What charm attracts and
 
 74 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 retains them? The only reward for exceptional 
 ability is the doubtful promotion to a special 
 agency, a change from independence to depend- 
 ence, from the comforts of home to the discomforts 
 of travel. 
 
 Note by the Editor: Mr. B. P. Sadlord, a 
 well known Denver agent, has made a study of 
 the unequal division of premiums between the 
 companies and the agents, with the following 
 conclusions : 
 
 ' ' A successful agent must be one of the best 
 fellows on earth; has to be with the people, and 
 is expected to keep his end up on all occasions. 
 A charity fund is prospected; the Local is leading 
 and circulating. An enterprise connected with 
 the welfare of the town finds the Local on the 
 committee and one of the shining lights. If he 
 is not a member of all clubs, he is not in it. In 
 church work he is a leader, song singer and con- 
 tributor. If a customer has friends in trouble, he 
 goes to this same Local for assistance, which is 
 never refused. 
 
 "As a pall-bearer he is always in demand. 
 At the theater, prize fight, and political meeting,
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 75 
 
 he always has a front seat; and thus he goes on. 
 In all cases the companies get the benefit. But 
 let him get into trouble; do the companies pat 
 him on the back, think of his past record or the 
 amount of money he has made for them by his 
 efforts? No. A special is immediately put in 
 possession of the facts ; a settlement is required ; 
 the Local's friends, relatives or bondsmen are 
 called upon, and if the companies don't get their 
 money the Local goes in the jug. That is busi- 
 ness. The Local has customers who have done 
 business with him for a number of years. Some 
 of them, unfortunately, get into trouble ; the Local 
 extends credit, and loses. Do the companies? 
 Not on your life ! There are many other samples 
 of the Local's trials and tribulations that could be 
 given, but are these not enough? Anyhow they 
 show that the business is too much for the $ 
 standard on the companies' side."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE AMERICAN AGENCY SYSTEM 
 
 UR system of voting is named 
 the Australian ballot probably 
 because it originated in Canada. 
 Our Agency System is known 
 as the American, possibly be- 
 cause no other country is will- 
 ing to father it. Many years 
 ago, the name described it 
 fairly well. There was a time when an agent 
 was all that his Commission described him, but 
 that is ancient history. In the golden age, he 
 selected his risks, reported his acceptances 
 monthly, sent his principal a bordereau and 
 account, and was responsible for the form and 
 details. Good men were in demand, and only 
 the best of the good ones were employed. That 
 was before the telegraph and telephone made 
 Chicago a suburb of New York. 
 
 (77)
 
 78 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 The progress and development of forty years 
 have intervened, and though the skeleton still 
 exists, the heart is dead. One by one the 
 ancient prerogatives of the agent have been 
 absorbed by the official, until the former is but 
 a vehicle for the delivery of the policy and the 
 collection of the premium. Judgment is elimin- 
 ated; responsibility, respectability, familiarity 
 with the local credit and position of insurers 
 are all sacrificed. Policy forms, riders, clauses, 
 mandatory rules, are prescribed by the office. 
 Who and what made a broker of him ? Who is 
 responsible for the passing of the agent ? 
 
 The passing ? He has passed ! The shadow 
 only remains, a poor photograph of the original. 
 The manager or general agent has assumed his 
 labors, arrogated his judgment, usurped his pre- 
 rogatives. From maps, diagrams, ratings, fire 
 records, mercantile agencies, inspection bureaus, 
 he attempts to supply the lack of local and per- 
 sonal knowledge. The one time agent offers him 
 a line on behalf of the assured. His responsi- 
 bility ceases when the copy is mailed. His 
 clerical function is ended. His interest in the
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 79 
 
 risk is gone until it expires he is not even a 
 broker. 
 
 What will the harvest be ? The crop will be 
 a manifold reproduction of the seed. The next 
 planting? Already there are evidences of a 
 tendency to localize the general agent sub- 
 stitute salary for commission, employees for 
 solicitors, and exclusive representation for the 
 so-called American Agency System. With co- 
 operative special work, co-operative adjustments, 
 co-operative inspections in perspective, even the 
 special agency system is in danger. As we 
 approach European conditions, we adopt Euro- 
 pean methods. The Golden Age is turned to 
 steel. The wheel is broken at the cistern. 
 
 Note by the Editor : 
 
 The following metrical grumble is contrib- 
 uted by a far Western local, who is still ground 
 down by the iron heel of the Compact. When 
 the legislature of his State follows Missouri's 
 lead and emancipates him, will he be any 
 happier ?
 
 80 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 I have been a local agent, let me see; since '62. 
 
 You may call me an old fogy, and in some 
 respects that's true. 
 
 I'll not discard old ideas just to take up some- 
 thing new, 
 
 When the old ones suit my notions. 
 
 I can recollect the day 
 
 When the business was conducted in a very 
 
 different way, 
 And I venture the assertion, contradict it if you can 
 
 That the old way was the better. Time was 
 once, when every man 
 
 Could not be a local agent; brains were a sine 
 qua non; 
 
 Special training was required; but these times 
 are past and gone. 
 
 Now the forces are recruited from the rag-tag 
 and bob-tail 
 
 Of all business and professions. 
 
 Ruined merchants; men who fail, 
 
 From their faults or their misfortunes, chiefly 
 men past middle age, 
 
 Take insurance for a Mecca and begin a pil- 
 grimage.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 81 
 
 The agent's an automaton, can neither think 
 
 nor will; 
 With duties purely clerical. Once judgment, 
 
 sense and skill 
 Were prerequisites for agents. Now the bureau's 
 
 hired-man 
 
 Makes our rates with square and compass on a 
 geometric plan. 
 
 Everything is done by schedule, a defective 
 schedule too, 
 
 That rates reputable merchants same as a dis- 
 honest Jew 
 
 If construction and exposure happen to be just 
 the same. 
 
 Should not reputation, standing, and a good or 
 a bad name 
 
 Be considered in the rating? Mandatory forms 
 as well, 
 
 Clauses, riders, regulations , more of them than 
 I can tell 
 
 Cut and dried for our consumption. 
 
 If the present system lasts 
 
 Agents will not long be needed their days now 
 are nearly passed.
 
 82 MEM OI RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Canvassers are their successors book agents 
 and fruit tree men 
 
 Ought to reap a golden harvest when the era's 
 ushered in. 
 
 When all these new-fangled notions have been 
 tried, and cast aside, 
 
 Other systems just as useless will be trotted out 
 and tried, 
 
 Until, from experimenting, the whole fabric may 
 collapse, 
 
 Then we old style fellows will be in demand 
 again perhaps .
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 83 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE FAR WEST 
 
 NE hot summer afternoon I was 
 half dozing in the office, dreamily 
 listening to the buzz of the flies in 
 the windows, when who should 
 enter but P. V. Wisdom, an old 
 acquaintance I hadn't seen for 
 years; in fact, I had lost track of 
 him entirely. His intimates 
 called him "Purely Virtuous" 
 for short. 
 
 " How are you, P. V. ? I hav'nt seen you 
 nor heard from you for ages. Give an account 
 of yourself." 
 
 " Been to Californy for the last three years." 
 "Fine climate they tell me. What have 
 you been doing ? Home on a visit ? Did you 
 get rich ? ' ' 
 
 "I'm back to Missoury for good and all. 
 Got enough climate to do me the rest of my life,
 
 84 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 and that's all I did get except left cleaned out. 
 See you have quit the newspaper business and 
 are in insurance. You still have my sympathy." 
 
 "What did you follow out West?" 
 
 "Followed the other fellow's trail 'bout as 
 you do I reckon: was an insurance agent." 
 
 "We don't hear much in Podunk about the 
 rest of the world. Business out there about the 
 same as here ? ' ' 
 
 "The same? I should say it wasn't. You 
 think you have troubles here? No more'n heat 
 rash to small-pox." 
 
 This was years ago. If P. V. were a con- 
 temporary, he might change his comparison 
 reverse it even. At this point a few of my asso- 
 ciate agents had dropped in, and after the usual 
 greetings and introductions, he continued: 
 
 " In the first place there's mighty few what 
 you'd call real agents in Californy. Most of 'em 
 are only subs. Policies are written in San 
 Francisco, and all an agent has to do is to 
 make out a daily in pencil, fire it in, and back 
 comes the policy. Office in his hat and pocket. 
 It isn't a bad scheme, as it saves rent and clerks
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 85 
 
 and lots of expense, but it was a come-down for 
 me. About all a fellow needs to know is how to 
 get a risk, so pretty near every man that has one 
 or can get one is an agent, and it makes pickin' 
 mighty slim, I tell you." 
 
 ' ' How are rates and commissions? ' ' 
 "Both 'way up; that is, rates is if they 
 don't cut 'em, and commissions ain't if they 
 wouldn't raise 'em but they do." 
 "Any local boards out there?" 
 " No room for 'em. There's one big com- 
 pact, covers the whole coast. They call it the 
 P. I. U. They don't take any chances on 
 honesty. Have a lot of clerks and stamp and 
 check the daily, and if it isn't just right, they fire 
 it back to you for correction." 
 
 1 ' Then there isn't any chance to cut a rate? ' ' 
 " There isn't? Why, the rates are made to 
 be cut, and they're big enough to stand a good 
 deep cut, too. You see, some company always 
 wants the inside track, and it's easy to make 
 arrangements to send in rebates that don't get 
 stamped. Then another company finds it isn't in 
 it, and goes one better by passin' rebates and
 
 86 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 coughin' up commission too. Oh, if there's any- 
 thing the agents out there are not on to I never 
 heard of it." 
 
 ' ' This is very interesting, Mr. Wisdom, ' ' said 
 the Campbellite preacher, who was an attentive 
 listener, "how are the rates made?" 
 
 ' ' They call him a surveyor, and he belongs 
 to the compact. Just makes 'em to suit himself. 
 Prints 'em, then tackles another town. They've 
 got rate-making down fine, but they don't 
 seem to be able to stick to 'em, that's the 
 trouble." 
 
 ' ' We haven't any difficulty here on that score, 
 have we, parson?" said I; whereat, though it 
 wasn't funny, everybody laughed. It takes so 
 little to amuse good humored people. 
 
 ' ' How are they on remittances? ' ' asked the 
 Kansas Boomer, who, being a chronic, is most 
 interested in the subject nearest his heart. 
 
 " Oh, they're easy. You don't have to remit 
 till you collect, and if you never collect you never 
 remit. Mark it off to profit and loss or something 
 or other. Trouble is, you lose your commission 
 if it's never paid."
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 87 
 
 The Boomer sighed a deep sigh. If it hadn't 
 been for the railroad fare, I'm satisfied he would 
 have gone to California instead of Arkansaw. It 
 was an ideal land, a land of promise to pay. 
 
 When the visitor was gone, and we had time to 
 think it over, not one of us, the Boomer excepted, 
 was anxious to emigrate. The ills we have may 
 be hard to bear, but there are worse. The limit 
 has never been found. 
 
 Since then there has been a change for the 
 better in California, while Missouri is going from 
 bad to worse all along the line ; the trial by fire 
 has had a good effect on the Coast. Many of the 
 old abuses have been abolished. Rates are down, 
 commissions are down, expenses are down. If 
 Wisdom had an agency there now, he might be 
 happy yet ; but he stayed in Missouri and never 
 returned.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A VISIT TO TEXAS 
 
 I HEN I was an editor and had 
 little use for them, I had 
 annual passes on all the rail- 
 roads, in exchange for adver- 
 tising. When I wanted and 
 needed transportation as an 
 insurance agent, I could not 
 get it. Thus what we do not 
 want comes easily, and what 
 we need is hard to get. Matilda had relatives in 
 Cleburne, Texas, and took a notion she wanted to 
 visit them, and when a woman gets an idea into 
 her head, nothing is impossible; even poverty is 
 not an unsurmountable barrier. After a deal of 
 begging and wire-pulling I secured trip passes 
 and gratified her wish. 
 
 Wisdom's tale was proof that the companies 
 varied their methods and practices according to 
 locality. In my inexperience I had supposed, 
 
 (89)
 
 90 
 
 MEMOIR ES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 being under one management, that all the States 
 were a good deal alike; but I had changed my 
 opinion and expected to learn something new in 
 Texas. For once, the expected happened. If 
 California was wide open, Texas was at the other 
 extreme, and I was more satisfied than ever to 
 stick to Podunk after my trip south. 
 
 In the first place, there were only two or three 
 agents in Cleburne, which was good for the two 
 or three that had the companies, and they were 
 pretty good men, for Texas, as far as I could 
 judge. The one that had most of the companies, 
 Netherwood, I think, was the name he had 
 assumed, was suspected of having a record. Some 
 said his graveyard had three occupants, some 
 said more; but he was as mild mannered, quiet 
 and pleasant as the Methodist preacher at Podunk. 
 
 I soon got acquainted with him, and one day 
 while I was loafing in his office he got a telegram, 
 and as soon as he had read it, he began to swear. 
 I asked him what the trouble was, supposing, of 
 course, it was an order to cancel a policy, as I 
 never received a telegram with anything else in 
 it. He handed it to me and I read: "Meet me
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 91 
 
 at hotel to-night with the register," signed some- 
 body, a special agent. I did not see anything to 
 swear about, but Netherwood, the agent, did. I 
 handed it back to him, said as much, and he gave 
 me some information, about as follows: 
 
 "It's his cussed impudence that riles me. 
 In this Godforsaken town the specials, and the 
 companies too, seem to think they have an over- 
 due mortgage on the earth, with a right to fore- 
 close any day. We have to beg its pardon for 
 living. The smart- Alec specials travel in couples, 
 or quartettes, work the society racket, play poker 
 all night, and don't consider a local any more 
 than they would a dog. Whistle to us and if we 
 don't run there's the devil to pay." 
 
 " There must be a cause what is it? They're 
 sweeping the streets for agents and business up 
 in Missouri." 
 
 " O, the reason is all right, I suppose. They 
 don't make any money, and are independent, 
 damned independent. The State Board is a close 
 corporation, they all pull together, and if a fellow 
 tries to play one against the other they always 
 catch him at it. I'd like to be in business in
 
 92 
 
 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 93 
 
 some town where there wasn't any fires, or where 
 there wasn't so many. I'd like to be the big dog 
 awhile myself." 
 
 While the Texas way had some advantages, 
 I would rather suffer a little from too much com- 
 petition than to be under so much restraint. It 
 is more consoling to the pride to have the special 
 cultivate me, than for me to cultivate him. I do 
 not know whether the whole State was like Cle- 
 burneor not; if it was, the companies had a warm 
 time, for there was a fire nearly every day. The 
 agents were almost as independent as the com- 
 panies, and would not deliver a policy until the 
 premium was paid, another point where they had 
 the advantage of Podunk. But take it altogether, 
 Missouri suited me better than Texas. 
 
 EXPECTATION
 
 THE SPECIAL 
 
 KEALIZATION
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCES THE SPECIAL 
 
 HE life of a country agent is 
 monotonous and matter-of- 
 fact. I cannot, even from the dis- 
 tance of a quarter of a century, crown 
 the daily routine with a halo of romance . 
 The fete days were marked by the 
 arrival of some special, but 
 even these sometimes ended in 
 mourning because of the sud- 
 den demand for an overdue account. Thus pleasure 
 and pain march through our lives , hand in hand ; 
 we never know when the smile may hide a tear, 
 when joy may end in sadness. 
 
 The business being limited, I had many hours 
 of enforced idleness. During these intervals my 
 thoughts were not always as quiescent as my limbs , 
 and fancy explored regions beyond the boundaries 
 of Podunk. Shortly after I had learned to write 
 a dwelling house form that was not returned 
 
 (97)
 
 98 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 for correction, ambition despite the warning of 
 Caesar's fate whispered Special Agency in my 
 ear. My abilities should not be confined to the 
 narrow limits of Jay County even, and the more 
 I considered the attractions of a fixed salary and 
 an expense account, the more alluring they grew. 
 
 I had met many kinds of Specials, and despite 
 my fund of native modesty, which had been aug- 
 mented by my newspaper experience, I felt equal 
 to the apparent labor required. 
 The usual methods of cultivat- 
 vating the agent were 
 especially attractive. 
 Have a cigar? Take 
 lunch with me? Want 
 to go to the theater to-night? What '11 you take? 
 interspersed with an up-to-date collection of road 
 stories did not seem difficult as long as Jones 
 didn't have to pay the freight. 
 
 As soon as my fellow- sufferers at Podunk 
 understood that I was a candidate, they all rec- 
 ommended me. I never considered it judicious 
 to analyze motives too closely. A good action 
 frequently serves a selfish end, as in this instance.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 99 
 
 Like Joseph's brethren, they expected to divide 
 my raiment as soon as I was out of the way. The 
 preachers were especially solicitous, as they were 
 the natural residuary legatees of my best custom. 
 
 To the country local, who would be a Special, 
 a word of advice. If you cannot see your way to 
 the end by working some company, try general 
 cussedness. Make it so warm for the business that 
 they will all want you removed, and consequently 
 work for your removal. If you are intelligently 
 active, some company may hear of you and employ 
 you upon general principles. 
 
 My insurance godfather was a Special of long 
 experience and had the usual aversion to country 
 town agencies. He considered he was squandering 
 too much of his time and abilities upon them, and 
 induced the manager of the Cataract to permit him 
 to employ an assistant. Accident and the recom- 
 mendation of a good friend a local of course 
 directed his attention to me, and as a result I was 
 turned out to graze upon the high grass localities. 
 I traded my agency for a promissory note ; became 
 surety for my successor and paid his indebtedness 
 to the companies thereunder in due time. With
 
 100 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 high hopes I was immediately transformed into a 
 knight of as large a grip as an inexperienced 
 traveler ever carried. All that remained of my 
 local agency was the promissory note (I have it 
 yet), and some experience as a solicitor that 
 promised to boom the Cataract's business in the 
 country agencies of Missouri and Kansas. 
 
 My income was doubled. When the exhilara- 
 tion incident to promotion had disappeared and I 
 could give my finances close attention, I found 
 my expenses had increased in still greater propor- 
 tion; instead of making money, the Special was 
 poorer than the local. This was a condition at 
 variance with all my theories, and subsequent 
 attempts at reconciliation have failed. With every 
 increase in salary there has been a corresponding 
 growth in expenditures. The surplus of the 
 employe as well as of the Company, depends more 
 upon the outgo than the income.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 101 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE NEW MAN 
 
 I SB your judgment. You will find 
 out what is necessary to be done 
 when you get there," was all the 
 instruction Goodword ever gave 
 me, which, at the time, seemed 
 to me rather attenuated advice. 
 After ten years' experience on the 
 road I have altered my opinion. 
 Judgment is the one necessity of 
 men, of things, of time, of place; 
 whom to select and when, how and where to 
 approach him . A hundred Specials can name 
 the best man; ten can get into his agency, 
 but only two or three can get his business. 
 It follows that the remainder must appoint second 
 or tenth choice, or get second or tenth choice of 
 business; sometimes both. 
 
 My difficulties commenced as soon as my 
 new connection was announced. Feminine like,
 
 102 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Matilda Jones had her notions of the marriage 
 contract, and was not pleased with the new 
 arrangement. As her opposition could not be 
 attributed to jealousy, it was probably due to a 
 distorted imagination. Whatever the cause (and 
 I do not pretend to analyze female humors or fore- 
 bodings) , she objected to a traveling husband. I 
 conquered at the first bout, but I had to fight the 
 battle anew every trip. Matilda wouldn't stay 
 conquered, which I am told is one of the pecu- 
 liarities of the sex. 
 
 To the new, all things are new. New suit, 
 new business cards, and new valise, twice as large 
 as necessary. Like fresh paint every one touched 
 me to test the truth of the sign, found me adhesive 
 and passed me up. I was asked for authorizations 
 on prohibited risks; to solve conundrums that 
 would stump the undauntable Sexton. My judg- 
 ment was solicited on frame range rates, and 
 applauded only when I advised a reduction. I was 
 asked more questions in a month than the dean 
 of the corps could answer correctly in a year. At 
 first I wired for instructions, but as the reply 
 was invariably, "Use your judgment," I soon
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 103 
 
 learned to imitate my associates ; that is, I looked 
 wise , filtered wisdom through platitudinous meshes , 
 and never admitted there was anything connected 
 with the business that I could not master. 
 
 Nor did my troubles end with the locals. 
 While there is not as much esprit de corps among 
 Specials as in the military or trades unions, it 
 still exists . It was manifested by personal actions , 
 varied by personal views, but present and apparent. 
 I was considered a local, not an agent of a com- 
 panion Special, consequently an interloper, and 
 treated accordingly. There were exceptions, and 
 they occurred among the older field men, who 
 welcomed me to their ranks, encouraged me by 
 advice, and laid the foundations of friendships 
 that have continued uninterruptedly to the present 
 time. While jokes and quips at the expense of a 
 greenhorn may tickle the perpetrators, the amuse- 
 ment does not counterbalance the loss of dignity. 
 The greenest timber is seasoned by time and the 
 elements, but the scar of the woodman's axe is 
 never effaced. 
 
 One of the difficulties of an inexperienced 
 man is his expense account. I have rarely heard
 
 104 
 
 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 a Special whose education was finished, complain 
 of his inability to strike a balance, but the neophyte 
 must learn this by practice as he learns penny ante 
 (an acquisition indispensable in some fields) . 
 They are convoluted, and the mastery of one pre- 
 supposes acquaintance with the other. Billiards, 
 cigars, entertainments, and numerous similar items 
 are a serious drain upon the salary of the new 
 man, as their connection with the hotel bill is not 
 apparent to the unassisted sight. In a few months 
 he acquires a mysterious occult vision, and sees 
 things he never dreamed of before.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 105 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE STATE BOARD 
 
 OODWORD, who had been 
 responsible for me 
 up to this time, 
 crowned his work by 
 introducing me at the 
 first meeting of the 
 State Board. I paid 
 my tuition, signed the 
 Constitution, became a 
 
 full-fledged member of the guild, and was made 
 chairman of the rating committee of the Twenty- 
 ninth Congressional District, which included 
 Podunk within its boundaries. I never knew why 
 our divisions were made upon political lines, but 
 presumably it was because it created enough dis- 
 tricts to go around and thus prevented jealousies. 
 I was so proud of my rapid recognition that for 
 six months I gave quite as much time to board 
 work as to the Cataract's business. Jones was
 
 106 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 SOODWORD 
 
 THE OPTIMIST
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 107 
 
 getting his education, as usual, at the Company's 
 expense. 
 
 One of my first observations at the meeting of 
 the State Board was the importance of Podunk. 
 It was used to point a moral or adorn a tale ; held 
 up as a horrible example, or cited as a model. 
 Whenever they ran short of subjects to cuss or dis- 
 cuss, Podunk was whistled for, and like a sailor's 
 breeze, carried the meeting along under full sail. 
 
 How short is an insurance generation. While 
 a few patriarchs survive, most of us are of few 
 days and full of trouble. The then President and 
 Secretary of the State Board, Alf. Bennett and 
 Herb. Low, have both long since passed from the 
 scene, and been forgotten by all but the old guard. 
 Even the old guard has been reduced by death, 
 retirement and promotion until less than half a 
 dozen survive. 
 
 We had no jurisdiction over the large cities. 
 St. Joe was the limit, and even she disputed our 
 authority to interfere with her scraps; but the 
 smaller cities and towns were kept well in hand, 
 necessitating frequent committee visits, a good 
 deal of work, and not a little diplomacy. The
 
 108 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 agents all had an axe to grind, and wanted us to 
 turn the stone; but generally the rates we pro- 
 mulgated were equitable and 
 satisfactory to both agents 
 and policy buyers. 
 
 No better training school 
 for a Special could be imag- 
 ined. He became familiar 
 with the construction of the 
 towns and the standing of the 
 principal business men; ac- 
 quainted with all the agents, 
 and an expert upon rates and 
 rate making, as then under- 
 stood. I have done a little board work in several 
 Western States, and regret that the same curri- 
 culum is not open to the young man of the present 
 generation. It improved both the man and the 
 business. The time was well spent, and the 
 results quite as satisfactory under the old system 
 as under the present one, while less 
 provocation was furnished for restrictive 
 legislation. There were no compacts to 
 abolish.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 109 
 
 One of the reasons why I am an earnest advo- 
 cate of field men's associations is the excellent 
 resultant co-operation. It is quite easy for the 
 managers to assure each other of their hearty 
 co-operation and just as easy to forget the assur- 
 ance until the subject is gray- whiskered. They 
 not only can wear out the complaint with delay, 
 but they have done so, and have been suspected 
 of designedly evading their obligations. 
 
 The field man cannot afford to do this. He 
 is in constant contact with his associates, and, if 
 he establishes a reputation of this character, it r 
 reacts upon his business. Some one of his agents 
 is met every day by some one of the boys, and 
 even without any preconcerted plan, how natural it 
 is to greet the local with such deprecatory remarks 
 as these, when they see the sign on the wall: 
 
 " Oh, you are the agent for the Eastern, are 
 you? " 
 
 ' ' I didn 't know you represented the Eastern. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Whatever induced you to take the Eastern 
 agency? " 
 
 ''Well, I didn't suppose you would represent 
 the Eastern."
 
 110 
 
 M MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Such remarks and innuendoes, shrugs and 
 winks to each other, cause an agent to think, and 
 neither increase the popularity of a company nor 
 help its business. The punishment is so swift 
 and sure that many recalcitrants have seen a new 
 light, and changed their methods from necessity.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 111 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A DELINQUENT AGENT 
 
 O more disagreeable work is assigned 
 to a Special than the collection of 
 delinquent balances. The agency 
 book showed for Circleville, Janu- 
 ary business, $46.00; February, 
 $92.00; March, $18.00. I found 
 an agent whom I thought would be 
 a business-getter early in January, and was 
 patting myself on the back when I got a 
 letter from the office. 'Twas ever thus. 
 I never congratulated myself upon being 
 devilish cute but something turned up to 
 dampen my ardor. This is the letter: 
 
 " CHICAGO, April 20, 1884. 
 NAT H. JONES, S. A. PODUNK, Mo., 
 
 DBAR SIR: Agent I. M. Pudent at Circleville 
 returns our draft for January, balance $38.60, with a 
 memorandum by the bank 'no attention.' He owes 
 us in addition $77.45 on February account, now over- 
 due, and fails to cancel policy 5018, covering on a 
 second-hand stock, premium $18.00 in March, which
 
 112 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 we have repeatedly asked him to take up. He appears 
 to be an undesirable agent, and when you appoint his 
 successor please take more care in your selection. 
 Please give the matter your attention at first oppor- 
 tunity, and oblige, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 S. I. SWART WOOD, 
 
 Manager. 
 
 This was cheerful news, but I made the best 
 of it, and started for Circleville at once. I found 
 Pudent in his office with his feet on the table and 
 sucking at a cob pipe filled with long green. 
 
 "Hello, Jones," he said, indolently untang- 
 ling his feet. "Wasn't looking for you again so 
 soon. What's up?" 
 
 "I got a letter from the office about January 
 balance, and as I was going to Sedalia anyway, I 
 stopped off to see what was the matter." 
 
 "I never have paid and never will pay a sight 
 draft, that's what's the matter," bristling up like 
 a cat at a strange dog in the yard. 
 
 "All right, then, as I am here you can fix it 
 with me, and you had better include February in 
 the check while you are at it." 
 
 "If you get it before I do, let me know, will 
 you? ' '
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 113 
 
 Human nature can endure many things more 
 patiently than impudence. I was six feet at six- 
 teen and wasn't any less at thirty, and when I got 
 through with him he tied up our supplies nicely, 
 dusted the sign, borrowed the January balance 
 from somebody, and cancelled the February and 
 March policies. This was the second time my 
 early education was adapted to the business. 
 
 This was an extreme case. I have often 
 assisted the agent to raise the money, have visited 
 relatives in the country, driven fifty miles to see 
 an old friend who might lend, have found money 
 for chattel loans, and once was a bar-keep in a 
 Kansas joint until the till relieved the local 
 stringency. This was also an extreme case. 
 When coaxing, cajoling and soft words are in- 
 effective; when the sureties are stubborn; when 
 all ordinary efforts fail, the prison is pictured in 
 all its horrors, and when threats avail not, they 
 are executed, though fortunately such measures 
 are rarely necessary. 
 
 Some day when the business is reduced to an 
 exact science, all the annoyances will be elimin- 
 ated. Then the Special will not grumble there
 
 114 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 will be no Specials. The adjuster will not com- 
 plain there will be no adjusters. The manager 
 will not lose his temper there will be no man- 
 agers . Only good agents and happy shareholders 
 in Utopia. 
 
 We are sailing for Utopia, across the unknown 
 seas ; 
 
 The rudder's gone, the masts are down, the 
 skipper's ill at ease; 
 
 He has lost his charts and compass, and the navi- 
 gator's ill, 
 
 The scurvy crew is mutinous and threatens to 
 rebel. 
 
 With breakers port and starboard and rocks on 
 every hand, 
 
 We've lost our course and reckoning, and almost 
 lost our sand. 
 
 We are sailing for Utopia, the region of the blest, 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the 
 
 weary are at rest; 
 Where there are no legislators no taxes to be 
 
 paid ; 
 
 Where political examiners have never made a raid ; 
 Where dividends are guaranteed and premiums 
 
 abound ; 
 Large, fat and juicy premiums, enough to go 
 
 around.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 115 
 
 We are sailing for Utopia if ever we arrive, 
 How many of the middlemen, the voyage will 
 survive? 
 
 Where every one is honest, no necessity occurs 
 For adjusters, special agents, or even managers. 
 Though present ills are hard to bear, there may 
 
 be worse in store. 
 Shall we stand by the derelict, or jump, and swim 
 
 ashore?
 
 CHAPTER V 
 PLANTING AN AGENCY IN MISSOURI 
 
 ET me introduce myself, 
 Col. Moore; I am 
 Jones, Special Agent 
 of the Cataract In- 
 surance Co." Col. Moore, who is a North 
 Missouri Justice of the Peace, portrays his 
 part. No collar, silk hat of uncertain date, 
 spattered shirt front, short, baggy trousers, 
 and sockless feet. He pushes his specs to 
 his forehead, wipes his watery eyes with a 
 bandana, and says: 
 "Well?" 
 
 "I'm looking for an agent and have 
 been referred to you." 
 
 "What d'ye wanta change fer?" 
 " I do not want to change. The Cata- 
 ract has never been planted here , and I wish 
 to get an opening. The town is growing 
 and appears to be a desirable agency 
 point." 
 
 (117)
 
 118 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 " 'Umph See here young man, I've got 
 more companies 'n I can use. ; They 'es more com- 
 panies 'n risks here now, an' more agents too. I 
 couldn't do nothin' fer you nohow." 
 
 Drops his spectacles, takes a fresh chew, 
 coolly turns his back, and considers the interview 
 ended. 
 
 " Mr. Smartweed, my name is Jones, Special 
 agent of the Cataract Insurance Co. I am looking 
 for an agent, and you are recommended." 
 
 Smartweed runs the local paper, and when 
 the horse bill season is ended, practices insurance 
 to help out. 
 
 " Hello! Jones of the Podunk Bazoo? Met 
 you at Jefferson in '80 at the State Editorial Con- 
 vention. Don't you remember me?" 
 
 Of course I remembered him, now he men- 
 tioned it, but hadn't he changed his appearance? 
 No, same old Smartweed. Wasted an hour on 
 reminiscences found he only wrote his own plant 
 (chattel mortgaged) , but if I would be satisfied 
 with half of it, he would take us in. Would like 
 to do business with an old acquaintance, etc., etc.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 119 
 
 My next call was upon Mr. Chitty, in Black- 
 stone & Kent's office. I had had an application 
 from him a couple 'of months before. He was a 
 student and expected to be admitted to the bar 
 next spring. Found eight glass signs on the 
 walls and half a dozen tin ones on the stairway. 
 Usual preliminaries. Of course he would take the 
 Cataract. Said he: 
 
 " I intend to have the largest agency in town. 
 I have nine or ten companies now, and if I can 
 get the Home and the Aetna and the Phcenix and 
 a few more, I will do all the business in town. 
 They'll have to come to me if I once get them 
 corralled." 
 
 In the two months he had issued three or four 
 $200 dwelling policies, but his expectations were 
 too great. We might want each other, but we 
 didn't need one another. 
 
 "Mr. Hardcasein?" 
 
 A sour visaged, dyspeptic little man acknowl- 
 edged that he was in. Wasn't in the insurance 
 business for his health. Rates were too high 
 any way. What commissions could we pay? No,
 
 120 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 wasn't any money in the business at fifteen per 
 cent. His signs were not displayed. From a list 
 I found that he had all the notorious rate cutting 
 and excess commission companies in the State. 
 As I couldn't get a fifteen per cent agreement from 
 him in any event, he was barred, even if he 
 wanted the Cataract but he didn't. 
 
 U7i7.ll Tiri 
 
 A day wasted for I was whitewashed. Should 
 I stay over and try it again? I had seen every 
 man who had companies, and must look up a new 
 man if I got in at all. Yes ; it was better to have 
 my supplies there for the next visit ; it was easier 
 to change an agency than to plant a new com- 
 pany. A dead agency was better than none. 
 After supper I met the County Clerk, and per- 
 suaded him to accept the great distinction I was 
 ready to confer. He did, and may be agent yet 
 for all I know. I never had to collect a balance 
 h*Mi2iS from him while I was with the Cataract, for his 
 
 Till*? 
 
 page on the agency book was never marred by a 
 figure . 
 
 This is a sample day's work. If you find a 
 man who wants you, take care. If you investi-
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 121 
 
 gate, you will probably find you do not want him. 
 There were a few towns in the Southeast where 
 companies were in demand. They swelled both 
 columns in the State reports, but the larger figures 
 were in the second column. Where I could get 
 business the company didn't want it, and where 
 I couldn't get it, the manager was always hungry 
 so geht es in die Welt. 
 
 He v/o 
 
 fs u '
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 INSPECTIONS 
 
 are many instruction 
 books on the market, and I 
 have no intention of increasing 
 the number, so instead of tell- 
 ing how inspections should be 
 made, I shall confine myself 
 to telling how they are made, 
 without recommendation . 
 These are my Me*moires, not 
 my confessions, and I decline 
 to assume personal responsi- 
 bility for common practices. 
 First, the easiest and most common is known 
 as the office, or register inspection. If the exam- 
 iner has sent out the blank slips, so much the 
 better, as a Special's time is too valuable to waste 
 upon clerical work. This is the kind of inspec- 
 tion that pleases the local and the assured, and is 
 very popular. 
 
 (123)
 
 124 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT H. JONES. 
 
 Second on the list is the car-window and map 
 inspection, especially used for soap factories, glue 
 factories, fertilizing works, pork packing estab- 
 lishments, and similar nasty malodorous things. 
 What is the use of upsetting the stomach, soiling 
 the clothes, and wearying the body, only to learn 
 that they are dirty? That is known already. Who 
 can tell when or where a fire will originate, or 
 where or when it will stop? Not one of us. The 
 inference is plain. 
 
 The third variety is the sidewalk inspec- 
 tion. If combined with the alley, up one and 
 down the other, it is quite effective for frame 
 range business. The exposures and stovepipes 
 are all noted, and the slips O. K.'d with a clear 
 conscience. 
 
 We have been gradually approaching the risk, 
 and have reached the fourth, known as the inside 
 inspection, chiefly made by the younger members 
 of the fraternity. It has its advocates. 
 
 Memo. The desirability of a clothing stock 
 may depend as much upon the size and shape of 
 the nose as upon the amount of insurance carried, 
 or the name; yea, more, as it is fashionable to
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 125 
 
 change or anglicize the name until the identity of 
 the Pole is submerged. 
 
 Memo . Always inspect millinery lines closely , 
 as I have seen prettier things in some millinery 
 stores, than the last summer's hats in the display 
 windows. 
 
 Memo. Saloons and liquor stocks are best 
 inspected by sample. The early part of the day 
 recommended; they might burn before night. 
 
 Nearly all field men would be considered 
 sprinkler experts, though the knowledge of most 
 of them ends with the "double line on risks 
 equipped with approved sprinklers." I cannot 
 withhold a word of advice. Subscribe for Once 
 Upon A Time, whose editor knows more about 
 Western sprinklers than the mill mutuals more 
 than the inventor thought he knew. Sample copy 
 sent to any name and address upon application. 
 
 There is yet another method in use. If you 
 know as little as I do about some of the modern 
 technical hazards, use some other fellow's inspec- 
 tion, copy it, and send it in as your own. His 
 judgment may not be infallible, but it is better 
 than none.
 
 126 MR MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 I always retained a duplicate of all inspec- 
 tions, and found it a great comfort in time of 
 trouble. Every time I visited Adair, I could gaze 
 upon the old frame flour mill I had cancelled off 
 five years ago ; note the frame range marked K. O. 
 (a paraphrase of O. K.), that had persistently 
 refused to burn ; turn from the press reports in the 
 morning paper to my duplicate slip, and see how 
 little my judgment was really worth. It was also 
 convenient on a request for re-inspection, as mem- 
 ory is often treacherous, and a Special gets tripped 
 up often enough unavoidably, without setting pit- 
 falls for himself. 
 
 Possibly two or three times in a century, a 
 risk I cancelled would burn. Oh, the delight. 
 Then Jones patted himself on the head, joshed the 
 agent who had made a row over it, and wrote his 
 manager a congratulatory letter, offering a good 
 opening for the compliments of the season. Did 
 they shower in? Every Special can answer from 
 his own experience. 
 
 I was once asked to inspect a dozen farm risks 
 at a small Missouri agency, and when I inquired
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 127 
 
 of the agent where they were, and how I should 
 lay out my route to reach them easiest, he 
 said: 
 
 ' ' You ' 11 waste your time . You can ' t possibly 
 have a loss, as there isn't anything there to 
 burn." 
 
 "How is that? " 
 
 "I'll tell you. A loan agent has his office 
 next door, and, as his loan company will not lend 
 on unimproved farms he sends a policy along with 
 the loan papers, and I furnish the policies. Don't 
 you think it is good business? Just like finding 
 money? " 
 
 What would you do under such circumstances? 
 So did I, and I have never regretted my action. 
 
 St. Louis business had been burning 
 as usual and the manager sent me there to 
 inspect all our business, probably suppos- 
 ing this would charm our sorrows away. I 
 had worked my legs hard for two months 
 and had seen all our risks but one a $2,500 
 line on stock for the Ruth Pipe Company. 
 Weary and jaded at the close of the day,
 
 128 
 
 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 I halted at No. 423-425 S. Main, with my last slip 
 reached, saw the signs by the doorway, entered, 
 looked around and said : 
 
 1 c You make metal piping here? ' ' 
 
 The workman nearest me coincided and con- 
 tinued his labor, while I inspected the stock; with 
 a deep sigh of relief and a clear conscience I marked 
 the slip "Metal worker Mfrs. Sheet and Metal 
 Piping O. K. Jones." 
 
 Three months later I was on my usual first-of- 
 the-year visit to the head office. After the cus- 
 tomary greetings to the staff, the manager called 
 me to his private office, set up the cigars, com- 
 plimented me on the satisfactory results of the past 
 year (this was unusual) , and said : 
 
 "Mr. Jones, did you personally inspect all 
 our St. Louis risks? " 
 
 "Certainly. I never put in two months of 
 harder work." 
 
 "Did you inspect the Ruth Pipe Co. line?" 
 
 ' * Why, yes. I remember it well , It was the 
 last risk I looked at." 
 
 "Well, Jones, I know you wouldn't make a 
 false report, but I have it on good information that
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 129 
 
 this was a cob-pipe factory. The risk has since 
 burned, and Mr. Kellner, the adjuster, evidently 
 labored under the same impression, for he allowed 
 their claim on a stock of cob pipes. You can't 
 both be right one of you must have made a 
 mistake." 
 
 My explanation was probably satisfactory, for 
 I am still on the Cataract's force. When other 
 kinds fail, honesty is good policy.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CHANGING AN AGENCY IN KANSAS 
 
 EOGRAPHICALLY, an imagin- 
 ary line only separates Missouri 
 from Kansas. Morally, politi- 
 cally, and, I may say, in 
 intellectual structure, they are far 
 apart. Ante bellum antipathies 
 to some extent, survive in the 
 descendants of the original slave-holder on one 
 side, and the abolitionist on the other. While the 
 ex-confederate was the prominent citizen, and 
 inferentially the leading agent in Missouri, the 
 one-armed or one-legged Union soldier was his 
 prototype in Kansas. Time has effaced some of 
 the old rancor, and is rapidly exterminating both 
 species. Veterans of the Civil War are now rarely 
 met in active business, but they were abundant in 
 the early eighties. 
 
 My agent, the town constable, had defaulted. 
 His friends made good his shortage, but were not 
 
 (131)
 
 132 MEMOIRES OF NAT H. JONES. 
 
 kind enough to select his successor. I looked 
 over the ground and found the following men in 
 the business: Carl Weiskopf, Ole Johnson and 
 Major Hunter, leading agents ; Judge Morrow and 
 D. R. A. I,ane close seconds, with the usual num- 
 ber, hanging on the skirts of the business one or 
 two company fellows, unlikely material to work 
 upon. 
 
 Weiskopf was teller in a local bank. I thought 
 I would approach him properly, as much depends 
 upon the first impression you make. 
 
 " Erlauben Sie, Herr Weiskopf?" 
 ' ( That is my name. What can I do for you? ' ' 
 A peculiarity of the German- American or 
 American-German, is his apparent inability to 
 speak his mother tongue. He nearly always 
 answers a German query in English, or, perhaps 
 my Dutch was too much for him? As he was evi- 
 dently ashamed of his nationality, I ceased to be 
 his Landsmann at once. 
 
 <( I am looking for an agent, have you room 
 for another company? A liberal writer, first class, 
 old and well-established, the Cataract." 
 
 ' ' Liberal writer? What do you write? ' '
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 133 
 
 * ' Frame range business ; ordinary special haz- 
 ards, etc. I don't think you have a prohibited 
 risk in town." 
 
 u If you will carry $5,000 on the Parkhouse 
 Sugar Mill, I can give you a policy to-day." 
 
 Now, this was a prohibited risk a sorghum 
 sugar factory, experimental or worse, since the 
 process even with Government assistance never 
 progressed beyond exhausting the appropriation. 
 It was silent, partially dismantled, and heavily 
 mortgaged to the bank. No, we couldn't swallow 
 it. 
 
 Weiskopf froze up and wouldn't consider the 
 matter further, so I called upon Mr. Johnson. 
 
 He represented, in a way, the large Scandi- 
 navian farming community north of town. After 
 he had read my card, and I had stated my mission, 
 he said: 
 
 "Aye tank aye haf company aynuf. Aye 
 been too bizzy to make out so much account efery 
 month." 
 
 All my persuasions fell upon phlegmatic ears 
 I had to give him up.
 
 134 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. II. JONES
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 135 
 
 Major Hunter was one of the original Jay- 
 hawkers; fought against Quantrell; was in the 
 Lawrence Raid, was also a local politician, and 
 generally of much more importance than the army 
 records admitted. It was quietly hinted by the 
 opposition that he was in the Commissary Depart- 
 ment, but he was commander of the local Post, and 
 would not take a back seat for anybody on military 
 record or reminiscences. I saw the sign of the 
 Old Springfarm, and, looking at it, introduced 
 myself by asking if Major Wiseman had been there 
 recently. 
 
 "Know the Major?" 
 
 ' ' Of course ; every insurance man knows 
 him." 
 
 Whereupon he entertained me with a selection 
 of anecdotes I had heard half a dozen times from 
 the originator, the only Major himself ; talked local 
 politics; gave me his army record; scored the 
 rebels and their apologist, the Democratic party, 
 but wouldn't take the Cataiact. I was too young 
 to have served, and as my father was not fortunate 
 enough to have been a conscript, I couldn't show 
 family patriotism enough to do business with him.
 
 136 
 
 MEMOIR ES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Judge Morrow was out of town, showing some 
 one a likely farm, or making a survey for a farm 
 loan applicant. I never met him, 
 but I have seen many of his loan 
 applications, and they were works 
 of art. He divided the quarter 
 section into small squares, painted 
 the orchard green, the wheat red, 
 the corn yellow; forwarded an 
 insurance policy for $1,500 on a 
 $250 house , and secured a thousand- 
 dollar-loan on an eight-hundred- 
 dollar farm. I did not care to get 
 into his agency except as a last resort, and was 
 not very sorry he was out. 
 
 Lane was a young man, a native Kansan, 
 reared in Leavenworth, and, as his initials indi- 
 cated, at a time when stirring events were pulled 
 off. He was known as Anthony Lane Tony for 
 short. To my surprise, I found an opening, or, 
 I persuaded him to make one, and was relieved 
 of the necessity of chasing after the above men- 
 tioned hangers-on. He even gave me a bond,
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 137 
 
 though he demurred at first, and before I left I 
 had seen all our policy holders and given them as 
 good a talk as I could to induce them to stay with 
 us. He made a good agent, and, if alive, 
 must be a rarity the variety is almost extinct in 
 Kansas.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CULTIVATING THE AGENTS 
 
 HEN I was not 
 changing an agency 
 or adjusting a loss, 
 or inspecting a risk, 
 or attending to one 
 of the multifarious 
 duties of a Special, 
 
 I was supposed to be cultivating the busi- 
 ness ; which, being translated, means jolly- 
 ing the agents. I have hinted at some of 
 the most common methods employed; a 
 catalogue of all of them would fill a vol- 
 ume, and serve no useful purpose. Every 
 Special is au fait, before he has been in the field 
 a year. What will get me under his vest? How 
 can I increase my business? 
 
 Dollars and cents not only talk, they roar, 
 but they are coarse. The Special that buys busi- 
 ness is sewing his own shroud. He must get it 
 
 (139)
 
 140 MR MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 on even terms with his competitors, or his exist- 
 ence is not justified. I, Jones, have invented a 
 dozen plans, have tried them and cast them aside. 
 No general scheme will fit all cases. You must 
 adapt yourself and your conduct to the circum- 
 stances for instance: 
 
 It was on my regular visit to Glorietta, and 
 while I was cultivating the agent in his office, a 
 firm-jawed, unprepossessing, half -masculine crea- 
 ture sailed in and said to my agent: 
 
 " You're a nice man, you are. Where is the 
 kindling I told you to order this morning? We 
 can't cook without a fire, nor make a fire without 
 wood." 
 
 "Excuse me, Arabella, this is Mr. Jones, 
 Special of the Cataract; Mr. Jones, my wife," 
 in an apologetic tone and manner. 
 
 One glance and I decided Arabella was our 
 real agent she was the one to cultivate if I 
 expected results. She was the whole household. 
 I told her a parlor story, talked her into a good 
 humor (for her,), and was invited to supper. I 
 played with the children, and, in addition to 
 securing her good graces, placed the agent under
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 141 
 
 obligations by taking him down town during the 
 evening without the usual preliminary row. This 
 was repeated every visit and the Cataract didn't 
 suffer in that agency. 
 
 At Podunk, the Methodist preacher gave most 
 of his business to a company that ordinarily would 
 not command one-third of the volume. I asked 
 him why he favored this particular company? 
 
 "I'll tell you, Jones. The Special is the 
 most artistic swearer I ever met. A man that can 
 swear and curse in as many different ways as he 
 can, anent nothing at all, is certain to have a 
 hard time hereafter, and it is my duty to make 
 this life as pleasant as I can for him. The next 
 is likely to be dreadful." 
 
 No one but a preacher would do it. A 
 layman would have kicked him out of the 
 office. 
 
 I once put over $200 in premiums on the 
 books at a small agency by personal solicitation. 
 The agent never gave us another risk, because 
 we had more than our share. He was the only
 
 142 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 agent in town and said he would have gotten the 
 business anyway. This was an illustration of 
 appreciation. 
 
 Tom Johnson was our agent at Gordon, Mo. 
 The town isn't on the map. No use to look it up, 
 as you couldn't get in if you tried. He gave us 
 practically all his business. Stuck on the com- 
 pany ? No. On the Special ? No. I ordered an 
 extra one of our works of art, which the vulgar 
 call a sign, for his parlor, and because his wife 
 didn't fancy any other company's sign, he had 
 to give us all his business to keep peace in the 
 family. 
 
 One of the meanest tricks was played by a 
 Special of the Kansas Boomer at Podunk. His 
 agent's daughter was the clerk, and what do you 
 suppose he did? Make love to her? Worse than 
 that ; he married her. When the competition for 
 business reaches such proportions, I shall move 
 to Sulu. The laws of this portion of these United 
 States are not liberal enough to justify an exten- 
 sive list of father-in-law agencies.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 143 
 
 Nothing so taxes the ingenuity as the com- 
 petition for premium income, consequently there 
 are no tricks or devices imaginable left untried, 
 some honorable, many questionable, a few dis- 
 reputable. Detraction re-acts, and is never used 
 by a reputable Special. Innuendo is a more 
 common weapon, but the secret is, to get yourself 
 liked, not your competitor in the agency disliked. 
 Positive action aids you directly, while the result 
 of negative action is scattered. You only get a 
 small portion of the benefits. It may require 
 years of waiting to get into a particular agency, 
 and more years to get a fair share of the business, 
 bnt the slow process is the better in the end. 
 Pertinacity is nearly always rewarded, and if you 
 stick to it you can almost get blood out of a 
 turnip. Of course, if you find your agent is a 
 rutabaga, you would better quit at once and try 
 another, but ninety-nine per cent are capable of 
 being worked if you can only find their weak- 
 nesses. 
 
 It isn't so hard to get business for a leviathan ; 
 it commands a certain amount, and being in 
 demand as a leader in the agency, almost works
 
 144 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 itself to the top. Most of us travel for the com- 
 pany of medium size; its dollars are good, but 
 not better than gold dollars; its indemnity is 
 equal to any, but it has neither great age, great 
 size, nor great prestige to recommend it, and the 
 personality of the Special increases as the demand 
 for the company decreases.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MY FIRST LOSS 
 
 AVE you ever been to Osceola? 
 No? I congratulate you. 
 After a thirty -mile drive 
 from the railroad, fording 
 or swimming the Osage, 
 as the stage of the water 
 permits or necessitates , you 
 are ready for as many corn dodgers and as much 
 bacon and other aliment as the local hotel supplies. 
 And such a hotel ! Built before the war ; full of 
 unregistered guests in summer and draughts in 
 winter (when the guests are more or less quiescent) , 
 food swimming in grease and dyspepsia oozing out 
 of the very walls, saturated with the kitchen fumes 
 of half a century. Is it marvelous that white- 
 caps abound and lynchings are frequent? Is there 
 not more connection between food and morals 
 than we suspect? Are not grease, ague and quinine 
 frequently the cause, or at least the indices, of
 
 146 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 night riders, regulators, and other predatory suc- 
 cessors to the original Ku-Klux-Klan? 
 
 On the Osage bottom, ten or twelve miles 
 below the town, I settled my first loss. I had 
 been doing agency work for a couple of years, 
 and was, presumably, by this time, equipped for 
 adjusting, though the connection between the two 
 branches of the business, aside from availability, 
 has never been explained to me. I was considered 
 competent to handle a farmer, at any rate. Yet 
 the unlettered tiller of the soil is full of shrewd- 
 ness and guile, and a more difficult customer to 
 deal with than the average country town business 
 man. His notion of well dressed humanity is gath- 
 ered from lightning-rod peddlers , farm machinery 
 salesmen, gold brick merchants, and other like 
 birds of prey. Can you blame him if he is sus- 
 picious of even an embryo adjuster? 
 
 The agent wished to drive out with me, but 
 I was uncertain of my ground and did not care to 
 have a witness to my possible discomfiture ; so I 
 found my way alone over the flint hills and mucky 
 bottom land, arriving about dinner time. The 
 claimant was a sallow, lank individual, one of the
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 147 
 
 real old stock, and was plowing his corn, when I 
 arrived. I sat on the fence until he crossed the 
 field. When he was about to 
 turn for another round, I said: 
 
 * * Howdy . Fine weather for 
 corn?" 
 
 "Middlin 1 ," he replied, 
 glancing at me out of the tail of 
 
 i 1 i w ^ L* f ' \\3 
 
 his eye, but evincing no disposi- 
 tion to stop his work, and swearing at his mule 
 while he yanked the cultivator around. 
 
 " I am Jones, adjuster for the Cataract Insur- 
 ance Co., and have come out to settle your 
 loss." 
 
 u Ye have, have ye? Now that's what I call 
 doin' the square thing. If ye'd writ me, I'd a 
 met ye in Osceola and saved ye the trip." 
 
 He commenced to thaw a little now. Probably 
 supposed I wanted his money when he first saw 
 me, but to give him my money that was different. 
 
 "What burned?" 
 
 "The hull durned shootin' -match burned, 
 that's what." 
 
 "Barn, too?"
 
 148 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 "Didn't have no barn, but the house an' 
 furniture all went." 
 
 " Did you save your policy?" 
 
 " The loan fellers up to Kansas City have it. 
 I reckon I wouldn't 've had any insurance if they 
 hadn't made me take it." 
 
 "All right. I have a copy, so it doesn't 
 matter. L,et's see : $300 on frame dwelling house, 
 and $200 on household furniture, wearing apparel , 
 etc. Iross, if any, payable to Jawis, Conkhite & 
 Co. Is that correct?" 
 
 "Not by a durned sight it ain't correct. 
 That was a log house, made of hewed walnut logs, 
 and you can't run any flimsy studdin' shebang in 
 on me, not if I know it " 
 
 " But the policy says" 
 
 "I didn't write the policy, did I? Harris 
 wrote it, and he know'd my house; he's been 
 here a dozen times. No, sirree. I want pay for 
 walnut logs no scrub oak but good seasoned 
 walnut, an' it's gettin' mighty scarce 'round here, 
 too. Why I could 'a sold them logs 
 fer five hundred dollars, and'ud'a 
 done it too if Lize'd a let me."
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 149 
 
 Up against it, Jones, old man. Let's drop 
 the house and tackle the furniture. 
 
 ' ' Have you made a list of the furniture? ' ' 
 
 "Lize has." 
 
 ' * How did the fire originate? ' ' 
 
 ''How did it what?" 
 
 "How did it start?" 
 
 ' ' Dunno, must 'a ketched from the chimbly. ' ' 
 
 " Didn't you save anything?" 
 
 "Saved the kids." 
 
 "Well, let's go and see your wife. I want 
 to get back before dark." 
 
 We found Lize and the kids, six or seven of 
 them, near where the house had stood. All that 
 remained was the stone base of the chimney, 
 looking like one of "Blunt's monuments" of the 
 closing days of the war. I*ize was getting dinner 
 in a kettle at an open fire. She wasn't pretty, 
 though before the advent of the kids she might 
 not have been ill-looking. 
 
 " This is the insurance man, L,ize," was my 
 introduction, which she acknowledged with a 
 nod, wiping the smoke out of her eyes, or rather, 
 the tears drawn by the smoke.
 
 150 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 " He wants a list of the traps." 
 
 u Better wait 'till after dinner; I ain't got no 
 time to fool with 'em now. You L,ige, you little 
 brat, keep outin' the kittle, will ye?" making a 
 swipe at Elijah, but not quickly enough to catch 
 him. 
 
 I took pot luck with them. What they would 
 endure for days, I might endure for once, and 
 when the meal was disposed of, we went to 
 work. The list commenced with the items dear 
 to her by association not with the wearing 
 apparel the city bred woman would have men- 
 tioned first. 
 
 " Two feather beds, how heavy were they?" 
 
 41 'Bout thirty pounds." 
 
 * ' Sixty pounds of feathers at 20 cents a 
 pound $12." 
 
 u Twenty cents? You can't get first pickin' 
 feathers like them fer no 40 cents a pound." 
 
 "But they have been used, and we figure 
 depreciation." 
 
 " No you don't figure nothing outer me. I 
 know what feathers is, and nobody in this neigh- 
 borhood had better ones neither "
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 151 
 
 To stop her volubility, pass sixty pounds at 
 30 cents, a fair compromise; same with half a 
 dozen pillows. 
 
 "Split-bottom rocking chair. What was it 
 worth? ' ' 
 
 " More'n we'll get fer it, I reckon. Ole man 
 Thomas made it, and he was the handiest man in 
 these parts. Raised every one of these young 'uns 
 on it, and it was just as strong and good as new. 
 'Druther have it than any of your store cheers, 
 that can't stand no use and " 
 
 Heavens ! At this rate, when will we get to 
 the end? 
 
 " How does $2 strike you?" 
 
 4 ' Two dollars ! fer a seasoned cheer that has 
 raised all these " 
 
 "Three dollars?" 
 
 44 Say four. It was wuth more'n four, but I 
 don't want to be onreasonable " 
 
 Item by item, down to the rolling-pin and 
 the whole scheduled $225. I did not want to 
 send in my first proof without a salvage, and 
 made a bold bluff at 33i off, and a settlement at 
 $150, but it wouldn't go. Finally they agreed to
 
 152 MEMO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 $175 which was ample, and I took up the house 
 again with the old man. 
 
 " How much is the place mortgaged for?" 
 
 " 'Bout $400." 
 
 " All right; I'll pay you $400, that will just 
 cancel the mortgage." 
 
 ' ' Not much you won't. Them walnut logs ' ' 
 
 "But we didn't insure a log house. The 
 company prohibits log houses, and we must either 
 agree upon what a frame house of this size is 
 worth, or we can't pay you anything." 
 
 " Ye can't, eh? By gum, we'll see whether ye 
 kin or not. I saw lawyer Childs, up to Osceola, 
 and he says * Don't you take a cent less than 
 the policy calls fer ; ' that's what he says. They's 
 d State law, a Statoot, or something that's fixed 
 the hull bizness. I ain't a fool if I do eat 
 tumble-bugs." 
 
 Against it again. Walnut logs and valued 
 policy law. Let's try another tack. 
 
 u All right, if you want to settle your claim 
 with lawyer Childs, go ahead; I'm going back. 
 Understand, we do not waive any of the terms 
 and conditions of the policy. The policy will tell
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 153 
 
 you what to do and when it must be done. When 
 you get ready to adjust the loss, if your lawyer 
 will write the company, we will give the claim 
 attention in the usual order of business." 
 
 I hitched up and was preparing to go. The 
 old man chewed a straw, scratched his head, and 
 rubbed his chin evidences of deep thought in 
 one unaccustomed to think but made no effort 
 to detain me. After I was in the buggy, I gave 
 him one parting shot. 
 
 * c Have you agreed with Childs on his fee? ' ' 
 
 "I've been thinkin', an' I'll tell you what 
 I'll do. You make it $450, that's throwin' off $25 
 on the house, and I'll call it a bargain." 
 
 Accepted, proofs attested by a Justice of the 
 Peace, estimate of frame house made to fit the case, 
 and my first loss was settled, but not adjusted. 
 
 One of the many differences between Kansas 
 and Missouri is, that in the former State the 
 Insurance Commissioner would, when reports were 
 filed at the end of the year, volunteer as collection 
 agent for the $25 compromise, giving the com- 
 pany the alternative of paying or having the license 
 revoked.
 
 154 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Note by the Editor: Mr. Jones is mixed in 
 his dates, as the valued policy law of Missouri 
 was enacted in 1889, years after the time he set 
 for his adjustment.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 155 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 A SPECIAL'S DECALOGUE 
 
 ON'T permit yourself to get lost, but 
 wire a change of route. 
 
 Don't order a risk dropped at 
 expiration unless you wish to reduce 
 the line. If too poor to renew, it 
 is too poor to carry over night. 
 
 Don't write the office to cancel 
 a risk. Have the courage to do it 
 yourself on the ground. Agents, 
 like women, despise cowards. 
 
 Don't leave an agency until you have trans- 
 acted all your business. Better stay another day 
 than make another visit. Don't make two bites 
 of a cherry 
 
 Don't buy business. No company can long 
 afford to employ an intermediary to make excess 
 commission contracts; consequently the Special 
 who practices this easy but expensive method 
 of securing business is undermining himself, is 
 working for his own abolition.
 
 156 
 
 MMOIES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 f fbwje . 
 09'^ order a rijK dropped *f exj>tr.fior> 
 
 duce tlje liije . j|f -Joo poor-ft repw, f ij 
 
 at; it^lern;* dir/ li TJjftke e/cejj con)i 9 ijytlo 
 
 carew o 
 
 15 populArl^ 5uppo,c<) -io fcprc^cr/ ftt; u 
 i
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 157 
 
 A 8RCUUC8 
 
 9^Re office . 
 i^^t f>rjn$ -tt)t>i)*benj<tyt t} fy'i 
 
 o/^'ee ,rjo|)fr wropp , /yt nptter of 
 cipli9 , if-^r 90 ol^er retkjop . 
 
 ri^k i^ declined >vi^our* -re&5 
 repderi^ 
 
 <rlK . | m**i^ fcrv > y 
 i.^pcrt.l >5 Ut>o y -ou. live i".
 
 158 MEMOIRES OF NAT H. JONES. 
 
 Don't talk too much. The spouter at board 
 and association meetings, and the loud, long- 
 winded supplicant at prayer meeting will both bear 
 watching. The Lord is not deaf, nor are field men 
 blind, though many are astigmatic. You may not 
 evade responsibility for your own shortcomings by 
 chasing the other fellow around with a tom-tom. 
 
 Don't be a cad. The Special must be a gen- 
 tleman at all times and places. He is the only 
 salaried representative of the companies in touch 
 with the public. His principal is judged by his 
 habits, manners and conversation, and he cannot 
 be too careful of his walk, since one black sheep 
 is popularly supposed to represent an unseen flock 
 of Southdowns. 
 
 Don ' t talk shop outside the shop . The inclin- 
 ation may be all but irresistible, but should be 
 suppressed. Perpetual shop talk is not an evi- 
 dence of the absorbing interest you take in your 
 business, but is a bad habit and prevents the study 
 and discussion of other interesting and important 
 topics. An all-around man must give a portion 
 of his attention to current matters only inferen- 
 tially connected with his business. The change
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 159 
 
 is a mental rest that invigorates while it cultivates 
 and broadens. 
 
 Don't go back on the office. The Special 
 who spends his time apologizing for his manage- 
 ment is himself an apology. Uphold and defend 
 the office, right or wrong, as a matter of discipline, 
 if for no other reason. Do not stultify yourself 
 by taking the agent's part without considering 
 the merits of the dispute. No company cancels 
 a risk which it can consistently carry. No risk 
 is declined without a reason. Investigate before 
 rendering judgment, and, if you find the agent in 
 the wrong, you will earn his permanent respect 
 by pointing out his error. If you weaken his con- 
 fidence in the judgment of his management, you 
 eventually lose your standing in the agency. 
 
 Don't cackle a reprehensible habit acquired 
 by some Specials and exploited in public places, 
 that is responsible for a portion of the general dis- 
 trust of insurance methods. They are heard on 
 the railway, the omnibus, at hotels in and out of 
 season, boasting of their cuteness, and gloating 
 over Green of Poseyville whom they did up in an 
 adjustment. None of the imaginary details are
 
 160 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 omitted. If their fairy tales be true, they are 
 unfit to adjust honest claims for an honest com- 
 pany. As they are usually vain imaginings, the 
 authors should be drummed out of a fraternity 
 which they dishonor. We have enough real sins 
 to answer for without adding an imaginary load. 
 Broken doses of modesty recommended for the 
 obstinate case. 
 
 This decalogue is evidence that the things 
 not to do may be as important as the work for 
 which you draw a salary. If you earn it and 
 obey these injunctions you may remain a Special 
 as long as you live, unless you are promoted.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 161 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE HAIL MAN 
 
 NSURANCE has been so gener- 
 ally adapted to the vicissitudes 
 of life that nearly all contingen- 
 cies are provided against. Most 
 of the hazards are under-written 
 by companies organized for that 
 purpose, but a few have been 
 grafted upon the fire company. 
 In the Middle and Northwest, where the elements 
 are capricious and unreliable, tornado insurance 
 is a factor in the premium receipts of many com- 
 panies, and hail insurance is a necessity to the 
 farming community. 
 
 While indemnity against hail was in the experi- 
 mental stage, the farmer's crop was insured for a 
 lump sum and the losses adjusted at the end of 
 the season. As there were frequently a number 
 of claims in one neighborhood, the advent of the 
 adjuster was anxiously awaited by a number of
 
 162 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 poor devils whose winter provisions depended upon 
 his liberality . Premiums were high , nearly always 
 paid with a note, and when the harvesting, thresh- 
 ing and marketing charges, in addition to the un- 
 paid note, were deducted from the claim, the farmer 
 who did not owe the company money was a lucky 
 man. The popularity of the adjuster decreased 
 as they got better acquainted with him. He often 
 left the claimants less than did the hail storm. 
 
 He never tarried when his business was done. 
 His driver was educated to the necessity of prompt 
 action in an emergency. When he saw his fare 
 bolt out of the house or yard, the team was under 
 way before he reached the buggy, which he 
 mounted on the fly. Hearts were hardened against 
 lamentations and imprecations, and the place knew 
 him no more for a year, maybe forever. 
 
 The story of the settlement is told in his own 
 language : 
 
 *' I had a sectional map of the counties, and 
 located all the claims by a mark, so I could lay 
 out my route. There was one spot in Western 
 Nebraska where the map was badly disfigured. 
 We seemed to have the whole country insured,
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 163 
 
 and there were fifteen or twenty dots in one town- 
 ship. After a fifty-mile drive I found myself late 
 in the evening on the border of a Russian com- 
 munity. L,odging and horse-feed were both 
 refused me, and, to get shelter in a hut, I was 
 obliged to disclose my identity. It was so late 
 that I felt pretty safe in admitting that I was the 
 hail man, but I underestimated the anxiety of the 
 community. The news was spread abroad during 
 the night, as I learned in good time. 
 
 " We were on the road by daylight. Shortly 
 after sunrise, as we reached the crest of a hill, I 
 heard the driver say: 'Well, I'll 
 be damned,' an admission quite 
 in consonance with his walk and 
 conversation, yet it startled me 
 a little . He pointed to the valley 
 below, where there was the stir 
 and bustle and crowd usual to k : 
 
 a camp meeting. A dozen teams were 
 tied to the fence around a sod-house. 
 The folks had congregated to greet me. 
 
 ' ' It was sometimes hard work to settle a 
 single claim, and to tackle them in bunches was
 
 164 
 
 MEMO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 not a pleasing prospect; but I couldn't back out, 
 and determined to face the music. They greeted 
 me effusively and gutterally. All talked their 
 jargon to me at once, each wanted to be adjusted 
 first, and individual action was impossible. Some 
 way must be devised, or I would be in the midst 
 of a riot before I knew it. 
 
 "The house had only one room, with the 
 dining table across one end and benches around 
 it for seats. I ranged my pack of claimants around 
 it, crowding as many as possible against the walls, 
 spread each man's policy in front of him, and 
 began to figure. I made over a dozen statements 
 of loss, of which this is a fair sample: 
 
 IVAN BUSTROWICH. 
 
 40 acres wheat, estimated yield 30 bu . 1200 bu. 
 actual " 5 bu . 200 bu. 
 
 Net loss in bushels 1000 
 
 Quotation at nearest Ry. station, 40c .... $400 00 
 
 Premium note $60 00 
 
 Interest 6 50 
 
 Harvesting charge 50 00 
 
 Threshing charge 60 00 
 
 Marketing charge 70 00 $246 50 
 
 Net loss 
 
 153 50
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 165 
 
 " I made out drafts for every claim, had the 
 receipts signed, put them in my pocket, distrib- 
 uted the drafts and bolted. Before I reached the 
 buggy they were after me, a howling, gesticulat- 
 ing mob; but the driver knew his business, and 
 they never caught me. The ethics? Bless you, 
 there is none in the hail business. If we paid 
 them what they wanted we should be out of busi- 
 ness, so we pay what they must have, enough 
 sometimes to keep them in cornmeal and bacon 
 'till spring."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AN ADJUSTER'S YARN 
 
 KILGORE'S "VENETIAN PAGE" 
 
 E were seated 
 around the big 
 fireplace in the 
 rotunda of the 
 Midland Hotel, 
 recounting our 
 experiences o n 
 household furni- 
 ture losses, when 
 Kilgore, who had 
 been a patient 
 listener, said: 
 
 * ( If you boys will wait a min- 
 ute until I try Dewey on the slot 
 machine for the cigars, I will tell 
 you of my experience with Clara 
 Buster Mound." 
 
 He came back with a quarter's worth 
 of cigars, but by the smile on Peggy's 
 
 (167)
 
 168 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 face we figured that they cost him about forty cents. 
 This is his tale as near as I can remember it : 
 
 ' ' Now this is strictly confidential among us 
 seven. It doesn't reflect much credit on my ability 
 as an adjuster, but I take it from what I have heard 
 that you have all been done up at some time. 
 Mrs. Mound, to whom I have given the title of 
 Her Ladyship, was one of these strong-minded 
 women who was looked upon as a leader among 
 women one who starts in her locality a move- 
 ment for The Assertion of Our Rights, and when 
 she gets the women together announces in a clear 
 and decisive manner: 
 
 ' ' ' Now, ladies, you will please come to order. 
 First of all we must choose a chairman.' " 
 
 "And at the slightest hint, or suggestion, 
 announces her election. I guess you know the 
 style of her bonnet and set of her jaw. 
 
 ' ' When I got the notice of loss I found that 
 besides our one thousand dollar policy which 
 gave permission for other insurance there was 
 five thousand dollars insurance in two other com- 
 panies, and our agent, who was one of these ordi- 
 nary matter-of-fact men who looks on the practical
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 169 
 
 side of a loss, reported: ' Small loss in attic, will 
 not exceed one hundred or two hundred dollars.' 
 There was a little notation on the bottom of the 
 loss notice opposite ' Remarks ' : ' Property dam- 
 aged: some old lace curtains and other goods 
 formerly in a $50, 000 Southern plantation home.' 
 As the largest policy was in one of the home com- 
 panies represented by our agent, and Mr. Smiley, 
 their adjuster, made his headquarters in the city 
 where the loss occurred, I sent a short form proof 
 to our agent, requesting him to have Mr. Smiley 
 represent us, and I supposed I was out of it. But, 
 bless your hearts, within the next three days I 
 received a letter and a telegram from my manager, 
 a letter and a telegram from the secretary of the 
 home company, a telegram from Smiley, and a 
 very appealing letter from our agent all in the 
 same strain, ' We want you you must come. ' I 
 thought there must have been something besides 
 humming-birds in that old Southern home, so I 
 slid my alligators under a berth, told the porter not 
 to forget me, pulled the curtains together and 
 proceeded to pound the rails for three hundred 
 and sixty weary miles.
 
 170 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 "When I arrived, I learned that the lady had 
 formerly been Mayor of the town as a mere matter 
 of form she held the office in her husband's name. 
 She had presented a claim of $1,956.60, and about 
 the time that Smiley had begun to prepare himself 
 for a vigorous kick, she sprung a supplementary 
 on him to the tune of $480.00. This, together 
 with the fact that he (Smiley) feared to antagonize 
 one of his prominent fellow citizens, was why your 
 friend Willie suddenly became so popular with the 
 home folks. Mr. Small, the other adjuster, sug- 
 gested that I do the talking. I think Smiley put 
 him up to it, he acquiesced so readily. 
 
 ' ' The first thing to do was to view the remains. 
 There were none. Of course there had been, but 
 everything had been cleaned up to prevent further 
 damage. This looked all right, and sounded well, 
 for it complied with that particular condition of 
 the policy, but, as I found afterward, it removed 
 the evidence of $1,605.10 claimed as totally 
 destroyed, and Clara was no idle day-dreamer, let 
 me tell you. 
 
 " I took the lists and checked them up, keep- 
 ing my eye open all the time for evidences of
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 171 
 
 padding, for while Willie looks and acts like a 
 jay at times, lie considers himself pretty smart, 
 thank you. I observed the tattered and torn 
 remains of three summer parasols without making 
 any remarks, but when I came across a broken 
 piece of chinaware, just to show interest in the 
 matter, I asked: 
 
 " ' Where will I find this dish on your list, 
 Mrs. Mound? ' 
 
 ( ' With withering scorn she repeated the word, 
 * Dish? ' 
 
 " I said: ' Why, what is it? ' 
 
 ' ' She answered with dignity in every syllable : 
 ' A 1754 Sevres plaque, and I might add for your 
 enlightenment, it is worth at least $100.00, but I 
 put it down at $50.00. ' 
 
 " I didn't turn a hair; simply checked it on 
 the list, but I was more cautious thereafter in 
 giving things a name. After looking carefully at 
 everything on which damage was claimed, we 
 made an appointment to meet Mrs. Mound, with 
 her husband, at Mr. Smiley 's office, and it was 
 there that the proceedings became interesting. 
 Smiley and Small both expressed to me a desire
 
 172 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 to have the loss disposed of before night, fearing 
 another supplementary, and from that time on 
 they were as quiet, orderly and peaceful as Clara's 
 beloved husband. 
 
 " Right here let me remark, that practically 
 all of the goods on which she claimed loss and 
 damage were contained in the attic of a barn 
 temporarily arranged for dwelling purposes, situ- 
 ated on the rear of a lot, awaiting the time when 
 Clara's husband would be sufficiently relieved of 
 financial embarrassment to enable him to build 
 a house on the front of the lot. He hasn't built 
 it yet. 
 
 ' ' When Her Ladyship arrived, I did not detain 
 her, but as soon as she was seated at the director's 
 table I began at once, in the usual way, by open- 
 ing up the list before me and asking : 
 
 " * Now, Mrs. Mound, I notice the first item 
 on your list is one oil painting, " On the Rhine," 
 $75.00. Where did you get this? ' 
 
 ' ' She answered : * It was a present from my 
 papa. He was a Southern gentleman of distinc- 
 tion, who traveled a great deal, and gathered 
 works of art from all the great art centers of
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 173 
 
 Europe, and when he closed up his Southern 
 home, shortly after the death of my dear mamma, 
 preparatory to removing to Washington, he gave 
 me (as I was about to be married) carte blanche 
 to help myself to the furnishings of this delightful 
 old home. As I pride myself on my good taste, 
 and am recognized in this city as an Art Connois- 
 seur, it is probably unnecessary for me to assure 
 you that I selected the very best curtains, portieres, 
 furniture, bric-a-brac, bronzes and statuary for 
 my new home in the North ' 
 
 ' ' And so on and so on for fully half an hour. 
 As there were four long closely typewritten pages 
 to the schedule, I observed hope depart from the 
 face of my co-laborer, Smiley, while our friend 
 Small looked anything but comfortable. 
 
 "The next question (I know you anticipate 
 it) was: 
 
 " 'How long have you been married, Mrs. 
 Mound? ' 
 
 ' ' She answered the question very promptly : 
 ' Twenty years . ' But when she proceeded to 
 recount the coming of poor Mound, together with 
 4 What drugs, what charms, what conjuration and
 
 174 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 what mighty magic ' she had used in landing him. 
 I broke in with : 
 
 u ' Pardon me, Mrs. Mound, I do not wish to 
 interrupt you, nor to appear rude, but in order to 
 avoid unnecessary delay, we must confine our- 
 selves to the list, so to expedite matters I would 
 suggest that you take this pencil and mark a small 
 cross opposite each article on this list that was a 
 present from your father. ' 
 
 The great majority of the articles received 
 the mark of the cross, with a little compliment 
 from Her Ladyship. There were lace curtains 
 varying in price from fifty dollars for appliques, 
 down to twenty dollars for torchons ; black thread 
 lace at ten dollars per yard; a lace shawl (formerly 
 the property of her mother) valued at one hundred 
 and fifty dollars. Oil paintings from fifty dollars 
 to seventy-five dollars each ; etchings from ' A 
 Holland Dyke,' at thirty dollars, to 'A Country 
 Road, ' at twenty-five dollars. All, all packed away 
 for twenty years in the attic of a barn and insured 
 as household furniture. And just as I was about 
 to resume, Her Ladyship, with a splendid display 
 of injured innocence, exclaimed:
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 175 
 
 " ' I didn't suppose you would invite me here 
 to insult me.' 
 
 (No tears, however.) 
 
 "'Why, madam, nothing could be further 
 from my thoughts.' 
 
 " 'Well, I certainly shall insist upon being 
 paid every dollar of my claim as shown on these 
 lists.' 
 
 ' ' Smiley tried to steal a look at me out of th 
 corner of his eagle eye, but was checkmated by 
 Clara taking a fall out of him and his company. 
 This gave me a breathing spell, and as I was about 
 to empty the water-pitcher, I collected my scat- 
 tered thoughts, displayed my hospitality in a 
 proffered glass, and was more than delighted to 
 have Her L,adyship accept it. 
 
 ' ' I then took up the question of her wearing 
 apparel, and found, from her answers, that her 
 dresses were all made the previous summer and 
 fall, but she would not admit of any depreciation. 
 
 " I then touched upon the three parasols (you 
 probably remember, that I saw that they had been 
 discarded), and learned from her that they were 
 all as good as new. One white silk and chiffon
 
 176 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 parasol, value seven dollars; one red taffeta silk, 
 value six dollars; one blue and bronze taffeta, 
 value five dollars. All according to her story 
 bought in the same season ( last summer) , and she 
 lived in a barn ; but when I endeavored to convince 
 her that the depreciation on last summer's silk 
 parasols was very heavy, she met me with the 
 statement that I knew very little about such arti- 
 cles, for she could very easily make them last 
 three or four years. I very unwisely put my foot 
 in it by saying : 
 
 ' ' ' My wife never can get a parasol to last 
 more than one summer.' 
 
 " And as old Uncle Remus says, ' dats whar 
 I drapped my merlasses jug,' for she sneeringly 
 remarked : 
 
 "'Probably Mrs. Kilgore has never been 
 accustomed to having good parasols.' 
 
 " I pulled myself together, took another glass 
 of ice water (she was on her dignity now and 
 wouldn't accept my hospitality), and resumed 
 operations by skipping the item of ' one hundred 
 dollars for summer underwear ' and other 
 items that might embarrass Smiley, and this
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 177 
 
 brought us face to face with the dreadful sup- 
 plementary. 
 
 ' ' The first article on the list was ' A Venetian 
 Page.' It was a very graceful figure and had 
 attracted my attention while I was poking around 
 looking at 1754 Sevres plaques, and congratulating 
 myself that the tea-set from the Tuilleries, once 
 the property of Louis XV, had not been chipped. 
 As my young Venetian friend had not been within 
 fifteen feet of the partition, and the fire was on 
 the other side of that partition, and he was simply 
 suffering from a small blister under his chin, I 
 could not convince myself that he was damaged 
 to the extent of one hundred dollars, nor could I 
 understand why the bronze figure of David should 
 be damaged ten dollars because he had lost his 
 sword, while King Saul, in the guise of a Roman 
 soldier, was charged up with fifty dollars for losing 
 his shield. I grew temporarily facetious by insist 
 ing upon a compliance with the usually accepted 
 traditions that we have enjoyed from our youth by 
 picturing David with a sling and Saul with 
 javelin. Clara looked me over very critically and 
 asked :
 
 178 ME MOIRES OF NAT H, JONES 
 
 " ' Mr. Kilgore, are you an Art Connoisseur? ' 
 
 " I answered: ' No, madam, I am simply an 
 ordinary business man.' 
 
 "She turned half way round, looked to 
 Small to uphold her in the statement, and said: 
 
 " ' Yes, very ordinary.' 
 
 " But Small was silently pensive, hoping we 
 might escape without an appraisal 
 
 ' * However, while she bowled me out on almost 
 every proposition, I took serious objection to pay- 
 ing seventy-five dollars for two Dore* engravings. 
 She endeavored to convince me that because Dore" 
 was dead his engravings appreciated in value year 
 by year. I asked her if the plates were still in 
 existence. Again I met that scornful look, which 
 plainly said : ' You certainly are not an Art Con- 
 noisseur,' and she added: 
 
 4 ' ' Why should that make any difference when 
 those were artisfs proofs? ' 
 
 ' ' I had seen them in their damaged and prac- 
 tically ruined state, and knew by the engraved 
 signature that they were not artist's proofs, and 
 she finally admitted she was mistaken. My only 
 victory.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 179 
 
 " Oh, but she was foxy. At the end of the 
 supplementary list was this open question, on 
 which she intended to do a little trading. ' Also 
 blue satin brocade medallion pattern parlor suite; 
 whatever is needed to put suite in good repair. ' 
 (Mrs. Mound volunteered the thrilling information 
 that a copy of this set is in Holyrood Castle.) I 
 decided that this open question must be closed 
 before we made any figures, and I therefore asked 
 if it had ever been upholstered since she brought 
 it from her Southern home. No, it hadn't been. 
 I asked what it would cost to re-upholster the set 
 with as good material as it now had on it ? (The 
 fire hadn't damaged it a particle.) She said she 
 didn't know. I asked if she had endeavored to 
 get an opinion from any of the furniture dealers 
 in her city? She hadn't. 
 
 " ' And,' I continued, ' you cannot give me, 
 approximately, any idea of what it would cost to 
 upholster a set of furniture? ' 
 
 ' ' She answered : ' I cannot. ' 
 
 ' ( Ah ! How delighted I was with myself now. 
 
 " ' Now, Mrs. Mound, will you please inform 
 me, if you cannot express an opinion on an ordi-
 
 180 
 
 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 nary matter such as upholstering a set of furni- 
 ture, why it is you can so readily determine that 
 # Venetian Page with a little blister under his 
 chin is damaged to the extent of exactly one hun- 
 dred dollars ? ' 
 
 " Without ruffling a feather, she very coolly 
 replied : ' Because I am an Art Connoisseur. ' 
 
 " Smiley winked at me and we retired, leav- 
 ing Small to pour oil on the troubled waters. I 
 never knew Smiley to weaken before , but he said : 
 
 u ' Kilgore, don't you know we're up against 
 it ? That woman proposes to stand pat, and if we 
 don't pay her every cent she claims, she will 
 demand an appraisal, and on that old truck of 
 hers she is bound to do us up.' 
 
 "Well, to make a long story short, we called 
 Small out, and as my company had but one-sixth 
 interest, I bowed to the will of the majority and 
 consented to paying twenty-one hundred dollars 
 on a claim of twenty-four hundred and thirty- 
 seven dollars and sixty cents, my proportion being 
 only three hundred and fifty dollars, but I carried 
 my point, that in view of cash payment the poli- 
 cies were to be surrendered. I gave my draft
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 181 
 
 right then and there, and when Her Ladyship sur- 
 rendered her policies, Mr. Small played the part 
 of the polished gentleman and said he trusted she 
 had not taken offence at anything he had said or 
 done, and that she would always feel kindly toward 
 his company. Smiley and I were silent, but with 
 a smile that reminded me of a hyena, she turned 
 to me and asked this very pointed question: 
 
 " ' Now, Mr. Kilgore, that you have cancelled 
 my policies, I want to know if your Company will 
 insure me again? ' 
 
 ' ' My first impulse was to answer ' No , madam, ' 
 but remembering all the little jolts she had given 
 me, and possessing to a certain degree that mean 
 desire to get even, I answered in a hesitating way: 
 
 <4< Why, yes, madam, we will insure you 
 provided you pay us our rate.' 
 
 " ' Why, Mr. Kilgore, is there any change in 
 my rate because of this fire ? ' 
 
 ' ' ' Certainly , madam ; we thought we were 
 insuring household furniture, but now that we 
 know what you have in your house, we would 
 have to charge you the Art Museum rate, which 
 is very high.'
 
 182 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 "Within four months the house (or barn, 
 which ever you please) burned down, and it caught 
 the other two companies, and a gentle stranger, 
 for seven thousand dollars, and although the lib- 
 erality of our first settlement may have caused her 
 to avoid any precautions against another fire, still 
 my lacerated feelings found a soothing lotion in 
 the knowledge that I was directly responsible for 
 saving the remaining six hundred and fifty dollars 
 of our policy. 
 
 ' ' The gentle stranger sent an adjuster out 
 from Chicago, and I obtained from him a sight 
 of her list of stuff destroyed in the second fire, 
 but my Venetian Page was not there."
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 183 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PUBLIC ADJUSTER 
 
 HAD been in the field several 
 years before I met the wet 
 nurse, who calls himself 
 adjuster for the assured. 
 While he had preyed upon 
 some of the Eastern cities 
 for years, I believe his first 
 appearance in the West was 
 at St. lyouis. Why should 
 the State of Missouri be 
 chosen as the theater of all 
 sorts of experimental deviltry ? No wonder her 
 newspapers cry, "Poor old Missouri." She is 
 insurance-wise, a worthy object of compassion. 
 If, as asserted, insurance agents are reformed 
 failures, what becomes of the insurance men who 
 fail? Some try farming, where they can hold the 
 Lord partially responsible if their luck still pursue
 
 184 ME 'MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 them, and some, fortunately a very few, become 
 "vipers, whose treacherous fangs smite the hand 
 that fed them, ' ' otherwise public adjusters. After 
 they lose their attached positions, and the com- 
 panies (probably for cause) refuse to support them 
 in an independent capacity, they sell their small 
 stock of information, dearly paid for by some com- 
 pany, to the first comer. As the dishonest claimant 
 most often seeks assistance, he is the common 
 purchaser of their ability. 
 
 I did not, as a rule, adjust St. Louis claims, 
 which were more economically handled by C. W. 
 Kellner. However, one was presented so out- 
 rageous in its nature, and so apparently doctored 
 to rob the company, that I was requested to give 
 it personal attention. I found old Galgenseil, the 
 claimant, amidst the remnants of a cheap clothing 
 stock. He was probably mentally casting up his 
 prospective profits when I met him, as an angelic 
 smile illumined his countenance. The sudden 
 transformation produced by my business card was 
 ludicrous. Instantly he became ruined even his 
 dirty children howled an accompaniment to his 
 misery.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 185 
 
 It was a bad mess. The stock was originally 
 bad; the location was bad; trade was bad; the 
 man was bad; with such components, how could 
 the loss be good, except for the beneficiary? 
 
 He refused to disciiss the claim with me: 
 
 "You must see my addorney, Mr. Night- 
 ingale, I got noddings to say. I'm ruined. It 
 was a beau-ti-ful sthore yusht see it now," 
 etc. 
 
 As I had known Nightingale when he was in 
 the field, I did not anticipate any difficulty in deal- 
 ing with him. A good attorney is better than a 
 bad claimant; but I had not made allowance for 
 the changes induced by time and circumstances. 
 Instead of a smile, a frown greeted me; a sour, 
 ugly misanthropic frown at that: 
 
 "Why don't you pay your losses, Jones? " 
 
 "We do pay our losses, but not upon such 
 proofs as you have furnished for Galgenseil. You 
 have been in the insurance business long enough 
 to know that legitimate claims are always recog- 
 nized, and illegitimate ones usually investigated. 
 We want to know, you know." 
 
 ' * What do you want? ' '
 
 186 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 " Separate value and damage on each item. 
 Your proof makes a lump demand for four thous- 
 and ; how do you arrive at it? ' ' 
 
 ' * Two thousand totally destroyed and fifty 
 per cent damage on what was saved." 
 
 ( ' So? How much stock do you claim to have 
 had?" 
 
 " About six thousand." 
 1 * Then one-third was totally destroyed? ' ' 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Yet the counters, shelving and floor were 
 not burned barely scorched? ' ' 
 
 " The stock was burned just the 
 same. Don't try any of your obsolete 
 arguments on me . I have been through 
 the mill and it won't go. We want 
 $4,000." 
 
 "I don't doubt your wants. If 
 there had been $10, 000 insurance, you 
 would want ten instead of four; but I do doubt 
 if you get it." 
 
 As Nightingale has the claim on a percentage 
 basis, it is a waste of time to dispute and argue with 
 him. He is only amenable to the argumentum ad
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 187 
 
 hominem . He knows his client's claim is dishonest, 
 yet volunteers to assist him in his attempted theft. 
 " To what base uses we may return, Horatio." 
 
 Now commences an era of notices, evasions, 
 counter notices, demands, counter demands, all 
 over a dispute that could be closed with an 
 honest man in half a day. What was the result? 
 Appraisal, of course, and the ultimate payment of 
 twice the loss. That was the result to the Cataract. 
 To him? An increased clientage ; another letter 
 of recommendation to the speculative claimant. 
 Honest insurers sometimes employ him. Why? 
 Probably because of the prevalent, undefined feel- 
 ing that in case of loss the assured is unlikely to 
 get fair treatment. This impression is false, but 
 it exists. No other business requiring the deter- 
 mining of contingent contracts can show so few 
 disputes, so little litigation, so small a percentage 
 of friction as the adjustment of fire losses. No 
 fairer body of men are employed in any business 
 than adjusters.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AGENS SPECIARIUS 
 
 Kingdom Animal. 
 
 Sub-kingdom Vertebrata. 
 
 Class Mammalia. 
 
 Order Bimana. 
 
 Family Securus. 
 
 Genus Agens. 
 
 Species Speciarius. 
 
 MAY be urged in objec- 
 tion to this classifica- 
 tion that some of the 
 sub-species lack the 
 traits required to bring 
 them within the order 
 Bimana. In explanation, I may re- 
 mark, that in their physical structure 
 they resemble men, and if their mental qualifica- 
 tions are deficient, they are no worse misplaced 
 than possibly one-half of the human race. The 
 dividing line between the next lower order of 
 Vertebrata and the lowest specimens of Bimana 
 
 (189)
 
 190 
 
 M&MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 is so shadowy that some celebrated writers have 
 denied its existence. The Missing Link may be 
 in the insurance business for all I know. If not, 
 he is the only known specimen we lack in our 
 museum. 
 
 .5*. Nepos. Wears good clothes, including 
 dress hat and shoes. Is deeply interested in 
 sporting and theatrical events. Habits, fair to 
 middling. As his position does not depend upon 
 the results of his labors, there frequently are no 
 results. Does not worry agents for increased 
 business. Seldom talks shop. Has a liberal 
 expense account, and a correspondingly large cir- 
 cle of admirers. Comparatively rare and expen- 
 sive to his employer. 
 
 6*. Risbilis. Never overdresses, rather inclined 
 to be careless of appearances. His characteristic 
 pose is feet on desk, and chair tilted, also hat. 
 Laughs his way to his agents' hearts. Associates 
 with traveling men on terms of equality, and tells 
 stories of questionable morality. Conversation 
 liberal, as well as his underwriting policy. Con- 
 siders life a comedy, and gets as much amusement 
 out of it as he can. A very popular character
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 191 
 
 about hotels; known as "Jack " to all employes, 
 male and female. 
 
 S. Bibulus. His habits leave him just enough 
 backbone to make him a vertebrate, and if he 
 could breathe liquid as easily as he 
 absorbs it in other ways , he would be 
 amphibious . This almost excludes 
 him from the list, and very nearly 
 does the business of insurance a 
 good turn. He is a good mixer of 
 drinks, and nearly always addicted 
 to the kindred vices. Changes 
 employers frequently from neces- 
 sity, but always contrives to get a 
 
 salary and expense account equal to his daily 
 necessities. 
 
 5". Giganteus. A large man traveling for a 
 large company, writing a large business. Self- 
 esteem abnormally developed. Will never realize 
 how small a factor he is until he represents a 
 small company. Thinks the business his com- 
 pany commands a personal compliment. Cold- 
 blooded and arrogant. Considers his money a 
 trifle superior to any other brand. Generally
 
 192 
 
 MEMOIR ES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 disliked, but his company remains head with his 
 agents despite his handicap. 
 
 6". Repens. Of a crawling, creeping nature, 
 unable to stand up for rates, commis- 
 sions or good practices. A slimy 
 individual, worming his way into 
 agencies established by honest com- 
 panies, poisoning the agent and 
 contaminating the business. Half- 
 hearted efforts have been made to 
 draw his fangs, but never with enough 
 unanimity to ensure success. 
 5*. Laboris. Is rarely pretty, but his plain- 
 ness is counter-balanced by his industry. Helps 
 the agents solicit business; inspects his risks 
 conscientiously, and makes the acquaintance of 
 his policy holders. Works as many hours a day 
 as he can, and by constant hammering 
 achieves results. He is not gregari- 
 ous, is a poor conversationalist, and 
 modest in his dress. Walks to and 
 from the station and earns the cab fare. 
 Is a thrifty personage, and his busi- 
 ness ultimately partakes of his nature.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 193 
 
 5*. Vulgaris. Ordinarily, a promoted local, 
 who either promised marked ability or an increased 
 volume of business. After the callow period is 
 past, when his freshness has worn 
 off, he does not differ much from 
 people in other walks of life. With 
 an eye to the main chance he 
 approaches it in various ways. 
 Neither better nor worse than his 
 fellows, he is nevertheless the 
 material from which most managers and general 
 agents are made, and we find the same diverse 
 traits, the same peculiarities and the same attrac- 
 tion for the merry rattle of the chips found in 
 managerial circles. 
 
 6". Lusus Naturae. Sporadic cases exist, not 
 readily assignable to any class. The aboriginal 
 farm solicitor sometimes breaks into the 
 fold. The junior office clerk is sent out 
 to gather experience. A life insurance 
 solicitor, who never saw a fire policy nor vT"^ 
 a fire-wall, is employed to prey upon an 
 unsuspecting public. The local who does 
 per diem work in his vicinity for the good
 
 194 MEMO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 it will do the business in his local office. The 
 lightning rod peddler. Any one who cannot be 
 readily assigned to one of the above sub-species. 
 These are the men who represent the company 
 to the local, and the local to the manager. Do 
 you marvel that both are occasionally misrepre- 
 sented? Some of the types are not numerous, but 
 all of them exist, and none are overdrawn.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 195 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 AUTOGRAPHIC BIOGRAPHY OF NATHANIEL 
 HAWTHORNE JONES 
 
 HIS is an account of the evolution 
 of Jones. Born after the man- 
 ner of men and nourished on 
 ordinary food, he filled his 
 head with information and sold 
 it to an insurance company 
 for knowledge. The story of his youth is scrawled 
 upon his school books; fly leaves, covers and 
 pages; horizontally, vertically and diagonally. 
 While he started on the common level Jones had 
 aspirations and refused at this early age to be 
 held down: 
 
 When he outgrew the barlow and was 
 permitted to use a sharp pointed knife, his
 
 196 
 
 M MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 individuality was carved on the desk, seats, school- 
 
 building and 
 forest trees. 
 
 During his 
 adolescence, he 
 was quiescent, 
 but there prob- 
 ably are a hun- 
 dred traces of 
 his existence as 
 N. Hawthorne 
 Jones, possessed 
 by as many re- 
 
 0?e. ftffijf vlxif fe H r Jbiyes Old bom* 
 19 Peni7*ylvAr>ifc -Iff* Editor very forr^t^tcK. 
 secured /5e old fie K. &t wtyi'cb \je **.f i^ 
 fie School Ar><i upoi; wKich %t Boy Joneft_ 
 
 rve<r h'.i i^tijaU Ar>a. recWeA S- 7 d.l4 of 
 )t crm/e . His se& r -n7*ie V.AJ e'<ictjfly a 
 
 - S tje lefr ijo recorcl <Mj4 ob 
 
 ' 
 
 C>ooa 
 
 cipients of his 
 fleeting admira- 
 tion. 
 
 
 
 One of the adored landed him; as usual, he 
 claimed the credit of the capture. Under her
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 197 
 
 influence some of his conceit vanished, and he 
 changed his personality to Nathaniel H. Jones. 
 
 Taken from an insurance policy, issued by 
 his agency, now in the Smithsonian Institution. 
 
 
 From his correspondence as Special Agent; 
 partially beyond the influence of Matilda Jones, 
 his conceit re-appears in flourishes and off-hand 
 style.
 
 198 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT H. JONES 
 
 He has reached the top of the stepladder, an 
 elevation conducive to illegibility. Crystallize 
 conscious importance, frequent repetition, and 
 the hurry incident to the closing hours of the 
 day, and the scrawl represents some manager, no 
 matter who, as his name is printed on the letter- 
 head to assist in identification. 
 
 The Editor. 
 
 
 PEALIZATION
 
 PART III 
 
 THE MANAGER 
 
 DISENCHANTMENT
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 S there are a hundred pri- 
 vates to one Captain, and 
 a dozen Captains to one 
 Colonel, so there are a 
 hundred agents to one 
 Special, and a dozen 
 Specials to one Manager. 
 In functions as in numerical 
 strength we parallel the military 
 organization, and promotions 
 are made in the same manner; 
 the first usually for merit, the second 
 sometimes through a pull, and not necessarily 
 because of ability or seniority. 
 
 As, however, some Captains secure com- 
 missions without having served in the ranks, and 
 a few Colonels have political influence enough to 
 offset subordinate service, so it is in the insur- 
 
 201
 
 202 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 ance field. The office is our West Point, and its 
 graduates occasionally step over the heads of 
 weather-beaten field men, scarred by numerous 
 engagements, familiar with the theatre of war, 
 acquainted with every private, well posted on the 
 enemy's strength and weakness, and capable of 
 meeting any ordinary emergency. 
 
 The adaptation of this system to a business 
 enterprise produces results paralleled by a cam- 
 paign. The unequaled courage of the private 
 cannot outweigh the inefficiency of the officer 
 who leads his men, himself courageous enough 
 but unskilled, to almost certain destruction. He 
 does not know his ground, underestimates the 
 obstacles in his way, undervalues the strength of 
 the enemy, is not mobile. Why? He is a 
 theoretical soldier. He follows a system un- 
 varied by circumstances and conditions. His 
 plan of battle is carefully made, but instead of 
 flanking a hill, he assaults it because it is in his 
 way his plan was so arranged and he follows it 
 without the variations the old campaigner would 
 adopt when the necessity arises. He wins, if at 
 all, by numerical strength.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 203 
 
 Contrast the commander opposing him. His 
 army may be small, his forces unequal. He, 
 too, has courage and courageous followers. He 
 symbolizes the small or medium company Man- 
 ager. He can hold his own only by superior 
 tactics, superior generalship, superior ability. 
 He has no unnumbered multitude (of dollars) to 
 draw upon. He must husband his strength, can- 
 not afford to sacrifice his men, and he must win, 
 notwithstanding his limited resources. 
 
 There are very few first class powers, and 
 many third raters. The former may be strong 
 enough and wealthy enough to afford such a 
 system, but it is too expensive for the latter. 
 Only men trained to their positions, whose en- 
 thusiasm and experience outweigh superior 
 numerical strength, are fit to command the hosts, 
 and as a rule, only such are chosen. 
 
 There are in the field to-day, the equals in 
 many cases the superiors of the present General 
 Agency force. They cannot all be chosen; there 
 is not room for all at the top, but the material is 
 at hand ready for the builder; well seasoned, 
 with some knots perhaps, but generally classed
 
 204 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 as clear. They are the future executive officers 
 of the companies. To their care the interests of 
 the shareholder will one day be committed, and 
 no safer repository could be selected. 
 
 There is no royal road to preferment; acci- 
 dent and opportunity are often more potent than 
 design. I was called from the field quite unex- 
 pectedly (some of my associates said unadvisedly) 
 and I answered the call with alacrity. Did I 
 weigh the responsibilities, count the annoyances, 
 cast up the labor, consider the possible results? 
 Yes, but the position counterbalanced them all. 
 
 Ten years of constant traveling, covering a* 
 times large areas, moderate familiarity with con- 
 ditions at widely separated points, and a large 
 acquaintance with the field and local personnel 
 of the business, may have been some of the deter- 
 mining factors. The judgment was untried it 
 must be taken for granted. The conservatism of 
 executive experience was lacking it must be of 
 slow growth. The ability to organize and com- 
 mand was embryonic it must be cultivated. All 
 things considered, they took some chances in 
 selecting Jones. I, Jones, concede it.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 205 
 
 Have my expectation? been realized 1 Are 
 human anticipations ever fulfilled 1 The country 
 Local imagines he would be happy if he were 
 only a Special, but when he arrives at the coveted 
 goal is he content? The Special longs for the 
 revolving chair. Is it any more comfortable than 
 the old straight-back? 'Tis distance lends en- 
 chantment. Not what we have, but what we 
 wish, we covet. Probably not over one or two 
 executive officers in this country are really happy, 
 and they own their positions, their directors and 
 their subordinates for they own the stock.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MANAGER 
 
 NE who manages. Sometimes in 
 the imperative, occasionally in the 
 potential mood. The head of a 
 department, a responsible gerant, 
 who gets the blame and may be 
 punished for the faults of others. 
 A buffer, bumped from front 
 and rear like a draw-head on a 
 heavy grade with a new man 
 at the throttle. 
 
 He is as varied as man- 
 kind, all human, and with 
 capacity and capability 
 bounded by human limita- 
 tions. The description of 
 him and his idiosyncrasies would characterize as 
 well the directing force of any business. To the 
 country agent, he is a great man. To the city 
 agent, he is an impediment, a useless barrier. 
 
 207
 
 208 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 To the special, he is the envied employer. To 
 his superior officer, he is an employee, whose 
 success or failure confirms or condemns the judg- 
 ment that selected him. To his confreres, he 
 may be anything from an able man to a ninny. 
 What we may think he is depends upon the point 
 of view of the judge, the deflection and refraction of 
 the light ; what he really is depends upon circum- 
 stances largely beyond his creation or control. He 
 is the embodiment of his employer's policy, a mani- 
 festation of the company he represents, and sub- 
 ject to a limited classification upon these lines only. 
 The complacent, satisfied Manager has the 
 privilege of directing the affairs of a large, well- 
 established and well-known company during 
 prosperous times, in a prosperous community. 
 His business flows steadily on, unimpeded by rate 
 disturbances, his bank account waxes strong, 
 undepleted by conflagrations. He is conserva- 
 tive, content with a steady volume of profitable 
 business. He is largely in the minority in fact, 
 his existence has been doubted. His associates 
 are more or less embarrassed by the combination 
 of unappeased wants and deficiencies.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 209 
 
 The company may be large, but dissatisfied 
 with its present volume of business. Its ambition 
 is position, and the times unpropitious for any 
 rapid growth. 
 
 It may be an immigrant from some foreign 
 principality. A giant at home, it brought over 
 a giant's appetite, and finds good forage scarce. 
 
 Another may be clothed in bristles, and 
 though the badge is worn by all its employees, 
 it cannot monopolize the trough with all its 
 crowding and squealing. 
 
 It may be old with the frequent accompani- 
 ments of age, weakness and senility. 
 
 It may be young, too young, a fledgling at- 
 tempting to soar to distant fields ere it had learned 
 to fly on its native heath. 
 
 Or it may be, and most frequently is, a 
 mean between the extremes, and the Manager 
 still be unhappy. Disturbances in rates, unequal 
 distribution of outgo, uneven flow of income, 
 unjust legislative restrictions, all tend to disturb 
 his equanimity; and when superadded to his 
 daily burdens and annoyances, is it strange he is 
 at times all but discouraged ?
 
 210 
 
 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H JONES 
 
 The road to success is up a long, steep hill. 
 The companies are the wagons, the Managers 
 the drivers. The gutters are full of crippled 
 vehicles ; some minus a wheel , or with a broken 
 axle, are out of the race. Some stationary, using 
 all efforts to hold their own ; some with broken 
 brakes sliding down hill; a few toiling labori- 
 ously toward the top. It requires brains to avoid 
 the debris, surmount the barriers, and arrive 
 despite all impediments ; and that brains are not 
 too abundant, even in managerial heads, is at- 
 tested by the Annual Statements. 
 
 Yet his is not the entire responsibility for 
 failure. His policy is prescribed, the boundaries 
 of his labor are clearly denned, the limits of his 
 activity are set by the general management. If 
 he is rightly responsible for the shortcomings of 
 his own employes, of the corps selected by him, 
 he may still divide the responsibility for general 
 results, and this is applicable to the favorable, as 
 well as to the unfavorable. 
 
 The element of luck must be considered, 
 both good and bad. A business based upon 
 chance is subject to runs of bad luck that no
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 211 
 
 skill can break and no dexterity avoid. If long 
 continued and persistent, we call good luck 
 ability; and bad, the lack thereof. The favored 
 one has his salary raised, the other has his 
 reduced or discontinued. One typifies Success, 
 the other Failure. Are we not all gamblers with 
 fate, some skillful, some awkward, but all sub- 
 ject to the varying chances of the game ?
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 HE degree of responsibility depends 
 upon the authority granted or as- 
 sumed in all agency grades, local, 
 special and general. We are all 
 agents of a principal, and subject to 
 the general laws of agency, limited 
 only by contract and established cus- 
 toms. We are often agents for the 
 same principal, some with direct re- 
 sponsibility, and some with partially direct and 
 partially indirect. 
 
 The Manager is directly responsible for the 
 results in his department, subject only to such 
 limitations as may be stipulated in his appoint- 
 ment, or to such customs as may have grown into 
 his relations with his particular company. In 
 some cases he is but an exaggerated Special ; in 
 others he is the embodiment of the policy of the 
 company, and his responsibility for results is 
 
 (213)
 
 214 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 exclusive, or shared in proportion to the authority 
 conferred upon him. 
 
 In what the Special is responsible to him, 
 whether he is responsible for the Special and to 
 what degree, again depends upon the variety of 
 Special he employs. There are three classes: 
 The old-fashioned Special, who is the company 
 in his field. The other old-fashioned one who is 
 an instrument or tool of his Manager, who exe- 
 cutes orders and is not presumed to think his 
 thoughts are all furnished ready-made. The 
 modern variety who costs less, and whose whole 
 duty is to get premiums. 
 
 Each is responsible in his way; the first, for 
 general results; the second, must make his return 
 properly endorsed like an under-sheriff ; the third, 
 must increase the income. All of them are labor- 
 ing side by side in the field ; all bear the same 
 name, but the former is the only real Special, 
 and the others are rapidly supplanting him. The 
 tendency toward centralization so apparent in all 
 lines of human effort, is gradually converging all 
 the authority, all the discretion in the one head 
 the head of the department.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 215 
 
 The choice is only a matter of policy or ex- 
 pediency. If the high-class man is disappearing, 
 there must be a reason, aside from the common 
 evolution that typifies growth. Possibly the 
 Special has deteriorated? Or the scramble for 
 income was too much for him? Or, more prob- 
 ably, his passing is due to the union of a number 
 of causes? At any rate the tendency is toward 
 specialization, and the old all-around man is less 
 frequently met in the field than he was twenty- 
 five years ago. As he dies, is promoted or retires, 
 his place is occupied by one less expensive, with 
 less general authority, and inferentially less knowl- 
 edge and more limited responsibility. 
 
 The same tendency is apparent in the local 
 field, and they all increase the load of the General 
 Agent. As the Locals and Specials depreciate, 
 the Manager appreciates. They are his selections 
 and under his control, and when he assumes the 
 functions formerly delegated he assumes the re- 
 sponsibility associated with them. The imme- 
 diate office force he can direct and instruct. He 
 is always at hand for consultation ; but the office 
 system extended to the field force is a doubtful
 
 216 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 experiment. With self-reliance and independence 
 eliminated, how can a Special form, or act upon 
 his conclusions? 
 
 Every step taken in this direction removes 
 insurance one degree further from a profession, 
 while it does not elevate it as a business. The 
 conclusion is manifest. In the course of time, 
 the Manager will be the one responsible agent 
 between the company and the policy-holder, and 
 his subordinates will be automatons.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 217 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 ETHICS 
 
 F the dealings of insurance 
 Managers with the public, no 
 valid complaint can be made. 
 Their financial integrity is un- 
 impeachable; the fairness and 
 liberality with which disputes, 
 often involving intricate points, 
 are settled, bear evidence of a 
 desire to do right at all times. 
 The customer always receives 
 the benefit of a doubt, and ten 
 concessions are granted to one 
 received. No other line of business can lay claim 
 to a more strict performance of all the duties 
 imposed; no set of men take less advantage of 
 opportunities for sharp practices. But it is not 
 of our duties to the public, but of our relations 
 to each other that this chapter is written.
 
 218 
 
 MR MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 Managers are neither better nor worse than 
 average intelligent business men, subjected to 
 similar provocations and temptations. The ab- 
 stract absolute is unattainable, difficult to ap- 
 proximate even, and although there is but little 
 positive dishonesty, the majority of the short- 
 comings being of a negative character, only the 
 hypocrite asserts he has kept all his engage- 
 ments. Instead of mending one fault, he adds 
 another. All deviate at times; some unfortu- 
 nately more times than others. It is not the 
 isolated case that debases, but the habit con- 
 firmed by repetition. A man may take an occa- 
 sional drink, yet be a temperate man, even a 
 temperance advocate, but too frequent repetition 
 changes his status entirely. There are few or no 
 teetotalers, notwithstanding the Pharisaical pro- 
 testations. 
 
 So long as insurance is a business, the ethics 
 must necessarily remain shadowy and ill-defined. 
 Generally speaking, there is no special ethical 
 code applicable to money getting, or if there is, 
 it is not apparent to the observer in other lines 
 of business. What ethics we have is confined to
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 219 
 
 and necessitated by our system of co-operation, 
 expressed or implied. The outsider is entitled 
 to and receives scant courtesy. As the quacks 
 outnumber the regular practitioners, even our 
 limited code is restricted in its application. Its 
 laws are frequently subjugated by lex talionis. 
 When smitten we refuse to turn the other cheek, 
 and frequently strike back instead, another evi- 
 dence, if another were needed, of our human 
 frailty. 
 
 As original sin, unrestrained by the lax 
 moral code, leavens the whole lump, it fol- 
 lows that practice, not theory, must be our 
 business guide. Our associates are theoreti- 
 cally above reproach. They are presumed 
 to execute all the obligations they have in- 
 curred, but we may not rely too implicitly 
 upon presumption ; we must take account of 
 the difference between theory and practice. 
 Questions arise daily requiring practical an- 
 swers. Conundrums are propounded neces- 
 sitating practical solutions. Situations occur 
 demanding practical treatment. The code 
 of ethics, the courtesy due our associates, 
 
 I,. .. |- 1.,.|. ( . ,.,.,. ,.,.,.,,,!,,,.,. j...|'i'|"T"l 
 -?~>-a->i-oO'2=^ Si *} I 
 
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 -11 
 -ft 
 
 -6 -
 
 220 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 can not untie all the knots. Self-preservation 
 cuts some of them, and is responsible for a good 
 many of our business short-cuts. 
 
 The Manager who conducts an office upon 
 theory, his own or another's, has little prospect 
 of achieving success. If a better system than 
 the one we are following were devised and 
 adopted, the same elements would appear and 
 disarrange the plans. Business will never be 
 transacted ideally, but practically. In an ideal 
 world there is no room for the Manager; it is the 
 deviation from the perfect condition that makes 
 a place for him. Theory will not even amelior- 
 ate. We must meet common abuses in a com- 
 mon-sense way. While we may not eradicate 
 them, we may keep them within bounds, or 
 reduce them to a minimum. If we followed the 
 advice of all the insurance doctors, we should 
 soon land in the cemetery. Such a course would 
 be as foolish as an effort to regulate our daily 
 lives by the don'ts of half a hundred physicians 
 it would starve us to death. 
 
 The conclusions are open to no misconstruc- 
 tion, and do not excuse even negative bad faith.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 221 
 
 They do offer a plea in abatement, a plea entered 
 from business necessity, and registered in the 
 cashier's office. Loyola's maxim may not placate 
 the conscience of the Manager, but it is quite 
 sufficient for the business office if the means 
 attained the end. The conduct of the average 
 executive officer is like my railway line on my 
 railway map. It is an air line straight and un- 
 varying. No deviations are found on the closest 
 inspection, but there are curves in the roadbed 
 for all that. Engineering skill may reduce the 
 number, may widen the gradient, but can not 
 tunnel all the hills, nor fill all the depressions. 
 Some curves are unavoidable.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LEGISLATION 
 
 have 
 
 the General Agent 
 owe any duties 
 to his associates, 
 his agents, or the 
 t>lic not common to 
 business men, they 
 never been discovered. 
 Wherein do our relations to 
 each other differ from those of 
 any class associated in the prosecution of business 
 for gain? Do we owe the public our customers 
 any debt not due from the banking interests to 
 the same public, for instance? Solvency, ability 
 to cash our obligations, fair treatment? 
 
 It is in our relations to government that 
 insurance interests differ from all others, and 
 this anomalous position is the outgrowth of, and 
 at the same time the most prominent example of 
 
 (223)
 
 224 ME MOIRES OF NA T. H. JONES 
 
 the socialistic tendency of American legislation. 
 Starting upon a parity with banking, where solv- 
 ency only was considered the especial care of the 
 State, see how the little mustard seed has grown ! 
 The principle of State supervision once ad- 
 mitted, who can foretell the end? Certainly 
 not the present generation. The Manager of 
 fifty years ago would have considered it impos- 
 sible to transact business under present condi- 
 tions. And, as the limit is not yet in sight, we 
 may reasonably expect continued progress during 
 the coming half century. 
 
 That fire insurance is a legitimate, honorable 
 calling can not be controverted by its most 
 violent persecutor. By what peculiar mental 
 process, then, is it classed with the liquor traffic, 
 and hampered, restrained, licensed and all but 
 taxed out of existence in many States, particu- 
 larly in the West ? The most rational explana- 
 tion is that it is a vicarious sacrifice for the real 
 and imaginary sins of corporations in general; 
 an easily reached representative of the non-resi- 
 dent money power, that in some undefined way 
 is responsible for the low prices of corn and
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 225 
 
 cotton. The punishment is out of all proportion 
 to any imputed crime. The effect too serious 
 and far-reaching for any apparent cause. 
 
 Anti-corporate legislation springs from two 
 sources the assumption that the people cannot 
 take care of themselves and must be protected, 
 and the further assumption that corporations, 
 especially insurance companies, are a menace to 
 somebody or something unstated, and must be 
 restrained. That the people are imbeciles and 
 the companies pirates. That the one requires a 
 guardian, and the other a keeper. 
 
 The labyrinth into which this assumption 
 has conducted us is complicated by the degree of 
 vagary, and the absence of uniformity, among 
 the States. One is content with prescribing the 
 form and conditions of the contract the mildest 
 variety of paternalism; and all the shades are 
 added until the union of all colors is found in a 
 few of the socialistic communities in the South 
 and West. Underwriters are justly disturbed, 
 for in addition to the prescriptions and restric- 
 tions, the burden of taxation is annually increas- 
 ing, until in at least one community it amounts
 
 226 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 (National, State and Municipal,) to quite ten per 
 cent of the gross premium income. 
 
 What can we do to remedy it? Nothing 
 effective. The causes are mental, moral and 
 political. We may hope the public has reached 
 the crisis of delirium, and may change for the 
 better, but we cannot cure it with doses of 
 education. All the professors of political econ- 
 omy could not convince an advocate of restric- 
 tion that an insurance company has a moral right 
 to existence upon any terms. The education 
 required to change his views is fundamental, of 
 a much wider range than any yet proposed, im- 
 practicable, and impossible to execute in one 
 generation. 
 
 Our agents are part of the community, and 
 as they have been the instigators of some of the 
 freak legislation, it is quite apropos to give their 
 mental equipment some attention. We might 
 reach the legislator through the medium of our 
 agent, his neighbor and political associate, but 
 we cannot do any effective work at long range. 
 Arguments fail, reasonings miscarry, facts are 
 scouted. They do not, combined, equal the
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 227 
 
 approving nod of one of his country constit- 
 uents. 
 
 The disease must run its course the fever 
 must burn itself out. During convalescence we 
 must grin and bear, or, if we cannot endure, we 
 may succumb. The would-be physicians mis- 
 understand the disease and prescribe palliatives 
 when constitutional treatment is required. The 
 cure, in any event, will not be accomplished 
 during our generation, and we must adapt our- 
 selves to our environment the best we may.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 OF THE RATE 
 
 HE object of our business 
 is money getting. The 
 source is the premium. 
 The basis is the rate. It 
 follows that the rate re- 
 ceived and the distribu- 
 tion of the premiums are 
 the determining factors. 
 If the one is adequate 
 and the other not squan- 
 dered, the object may be 
 attained. In any event, 
 there is no hope of profit 
 if the rate be under-esti- 
 mated. 
 
 WHAT IT Is. If the rate to us is the basis 
 of the premium, to the people at large it is a tax 
 levied more or less evenly upon the owners of 
 real improvements and personal property; a tax 
 
 (229)
 
 230 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 paid to private distributors, stock or mutual, in- 
 stead of government; a tax paid voluntarily, 
 under only such stress as business prudence 
 necessitates, but a tax nevertheless. It is within 
 the province of the payee when requested to ex- 
 plain not only why levied, but how arrived at, how 
 distributed, and what disposition is made of it. 
 
 The tax is necessitated by, and the rate of 
 taxation approximately determined from, the lia- 
 bility to fire waste. The possibility of fire is 
 always present and can not be eliminated. The 
 probability depends upon many circumstances, 
 chiefly : 
 
 Faulty construction of buildings, faulty ma- 
 terial, plans, or execution. 
 
 Proximity, congestion and exposures. 
 
 The storage and sale of inflammable wares. 
 
 Probability may be increased by vicious laws, 
 or the absence of salutary ones, and diminished 
 by fire protection of various kinds. 
 
 So much for the object. But insurance 
 companies do not insure buildings, they insure 
 persons; property is not insured, but the owner 
 is indemnified against its loss, consequently there
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 231 
 
 are other and frequently as important factors to 
 be considered as the physical, which we term the 
 moral. 
 
 The credit and mercantile standing of the 
 owner or occupant, his business record and repu- 
 tation, his former successes, failures, or fires, a 
 persistent run of bad luck, carefulness or care- 
 lessness, will suggest some of the numerous per- 
 sonal attributes that may contribute to or detract 
 from the probability, aside from the physical 
 hazard. As their presence or absence in the 
 individual risk can not always be gauged, the 
 moral risk is distributed among all insurers pro 
 rata. 
 
 ITS SPONSORS. Its parentage varies with 
 locality. In some States it is a statutory orphan, 
 and under the care of its step-mother the as- 
 sured it is growing weaker, punier, smaller. In 
 other localities where it is not yet forbidden by 
 public policy, nor considered a menace to public 
 morals, the Local is its nurse, the Special its 
 tutor, and the Manager its guardian. Its exist- 
 ence is a modern Pilgrim's Progress, daily beset 
 with temptations, trials and pitfalls; often neg-
 
 232 ME MOIRES OF NAT H. JONES 
 
 lected by its nurse, beaten by its preceptor, and 
 all but abandoned by its guardian. Under the 
 temporary care of the compact and State rater it 
 grew abnormally, and was twice as large as its 
 chief opponent Loss Ratio ; but when the Leg- 
 islature sent its deputy guardian to the peniten- 
 tentiary, it lost its advantage nearly lost its life. 
 How IT Is MADE. In some localities, and 
 in the whole country upon some hazards, by 
 schedule. The basis upon which the schedule is 
 built is the outgrowth of time, experience and 
 competition. It is the unfinished product of evo- 
 lution, and 'the varying conditions are responsible 
 for its lack of uniformity. The schedule is an 
 attempt, more or less successful, to equalize the 
 tariff by classes. All are similar, all essentially 
 one. While the Universal Mercantile Schedule 
 comprises the Summum Bonum, it may be con- 
 sidered an elaboration of any one in use. One 
 of the best defenses of the schedule is that all 
 of them applied to the same hazard yield ap- 
 proximately the same result. They are con- 
 structed to furnish the product z=x+y, experi- 
 ence and competition.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 233 
 
 Though not pertinent to the subject, I can 
 not refrain from mentioning one product of 
 schedule ratings, the book underwriter Local, 
 Special or General who is gradually replacing 
 the man who relied upon his own information 
 and experience for the conduct of his business. 
 He is a good enough fair-weather pilot, but can 
 he be trusted to steer intelligently through a 
 storm that obliterates all his landmarks? Can 
 anything replace personal study and experience? 
 
 CAN WE IMPROVE THE SYSTEM? It is ad- 
 mitted that rates are not scientifically made, 
 neither is the Cripple Creek mineral formation 
 scientific, an illustration of the divergence of 
 science from Nature. Rates may never be scien- 
 tific, but improvements to the present natural 
 system may be discovered. If it were possible 
 (it is not), to reduce rate-making to an exact 
 science, would not government confiscate our 
 business and leave us worse off than we are now? 
 
 Nearly all the companies have a classifica- 
 tion of the receipts and the losses by States, by 
 years and by decades. These show the experi- 
 ence of the individual company, but are of little
 
 234 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 value in determining what the present average 
 rate is by classes, and, consequently, what the 
 future rate should be. The material at hand is 
 not adapted to, was not intended for use as, a 
 basis for rates. Companies keep their experi 
 ence tables for their private information on the 
 proportion of income to outgo by classes at going 
 rates; to determine their trade profit or loss, 
 and formulate their policy, gauge their lines, 
 select their business from their experience. 
 
 Basic classification sheets for rates to be of 
 practical value should consist of amount insured, 
 premiums and losses by classes and States. De- 
 tails are of minor importance, but the amount of 
 liability assumed is a sine qua non; yet this 
 feature appears to have been overlooked in the 
 general discussion. Losses to amount insured, 
 plus loading for expense and contingencies, will 
 show the cost and furnish a lantern light for our 
 guidance; dim perhaps, but brighter and more 
 reliable than the ignis fatuus we now follow. 
 
 WHAT Is DONE WITH IT? The rate pays 
 for everything, on an average, in about the fol- 
 lowing proportions:
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 235 
 
 Commissions 20 % 
 
 Management Expenses 10% 
 
 Supervising Expenses 4% 
 
 Taxes 
 
 Losses 
 
 Dividends 2% 
 
 Total 100% 
 
 For individual companies the division is 
 made in different proportions, some with a larger 
 commission account, some with a larger loss 
 account, but the average is substantially as 
 above. When the parts exceed the whole, the 
 excess is supplied from the reserve or rest. The 
 shareholder is served last or not at all, and in 
 any event his returns are not proportionate to the 
 jeopardy of his capital. 
 
 There is necessarily considerable discussion 
 over, and criticism of, the division, but it, like 
 the average rate, is not arbitrary, but a growth 
 the result of evolution, and has not yet reached 
 maturity. Commissions are growing, taxes are 
 growing, losses are growing. We can not con- 
 trol taxes, we can only measurably control losses 
 at the expense of some other item, and we ap- 
 parently will not control commissions. While 
 the parts are increasing, the whole is stationary,
 
 236 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 or decreasing. The dividends, at this rate, must 
 either be paid from the rest, or shortly disappear 
 entirely. 
 
 One not familiar with the business would 
 suggest an easy remedy. If the rate be inade- 
 quate, raise it; but we may not arbitrarily inter- 
 fere with long-established prices, and while a 
 loss on the entire business would appear to justify 
 such a step, we hesitate. Localities may be pen- 
 alized, and for this there is a justification at hand, 
 as in the case of a particular city where business 
 has long been transacted at a loss. Our relations 
 with our patrons are so delicately balanced, the 
 competition is so active, the raison d^etre of our 
 business so imperfectly understood, that Smith 
 in California can not see why a loss upon an- 
 other Smith in New Jersey should be summarily 
 charged up to him; and the friction resulting 
 from an attempt to convince him may equal the 
 actual underwriting loss under his present rate.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 237 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL RATE 
 
 ECAUSE we charge 
 upon an estimated per- 
 centage of loss based 
 upon past experience, 
 and the estimates may be 
 and frequently are wide of 
 the amount required, it is 
 impossible to fix an exact 
 rate upon any risk or class 
 of risks. All we claim is 
 an approximation. All we 
 can hope is annually to 
 lessen the distance between the estimate and the 
 amount needed. 
 
 As we do not lay claim to infallibility in 
 the aggregate, we cannot claim accuracy in 
 detail. Rates are based upon the experience of 
 years, in wide areas. No one year, no one 
 locality can be considered apart from the aggre-
 
 238 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 gate. With a very few exceptions no one class 
 can be detached from the whole, and be made to 
 yield a profit, or even be made self-sustaining. 
 The individual rate cannot be considered apart 
 from the whole, of which it is a part, since no 
 one risk can pay a rate that will pay a loss. 
 
 No system of classification, however complex 
 or complete; no experience tables individual or 
 combined; no schedule built by fallible man can 
 justify or defend the individual rate apart from 
 its class. The reason is evident. No two risks 
 are identical, physically and morally. They 
 differ in location, exposures, construction, occu- 
 pancy and ownership. Every one differs in some 
 respect from every other, and the infinity of 
 detail is not subject to classification; to attempt 
 it would be absurd. 
 
 Since the underwriter admits the impos- 
 sibility of explaining the exact individual rate 
 charged, whence does the assured, who has given 
 the subject little or no study, derive the fixed 
 opinion that his rate is too high? How may 
 we best explain to him the unknowable? All 
 attempts have miscarried, but to the reasonable
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 239 
 
 policy buyer, and he is one of the large majority, 
 should be explained the broad mutuality of insur- 
 ance; that the stock company only differs from 
 the purely mutual in that the rate is fixed, and 
 the indemnity guaranteed by capital funds; that 
 the responsibility for results is shifted from the 
 insured to the shareholder; that he is relieved of 
 the speculative feature ; that he is not penalized 
 beyond his business competitor; and that he 
 actually, at the present writing, gets his insur- 
 ance at less than cost. No business man should 
 require more for his money. 
 
 THE IMPROVED AND PROTECTED RATE. The 
 influence of fire preventing con- 
 struction and fire extinguishing 
 appliances on the individual rate 
 has been enormous, large enough to 
 affect the general average. There 
 is a difference of opinion on the 
 advisability of underwriters taking 
 an active interest in either con- 
 struction or protection. My own is opposed to 
 the custom as practiced. Admitting they ac- 
 complish their aim the reduction of the fire
 
 240 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 waste at whose expense is it? The entire cost 
 of the equipment is taken from the insurance 
 charge in an average term of five years. The 
 reduction in the rate pays for the installation, 
 and in the West at least, the concessions made 
 are over- adequate. 
 
 Again, as a rule, we are general insurers. 
 Our writings are not confined to any one class. 
 If we pick out all the protected risks and insure 
 them at a minimum, what results? The neces- 
 sary loading for moral hazard, conflagrations, 
 contingencies, even for proportionate expense, 
 is not included, and must be distributed among 
 the non-protected risks. It makes the sprinkler 
 a preferred creditor, not only gives it a mortgage 
 on the assets, but foists the expense of the admin- 
 istrator upon the already burdened general insurer. 
 
 As insurance is business, the only objection 
 is dictated by policy. The impression left upon 
 the general insurer is unfavorable; the gulf 
 between the protected manufacturing risk and 
 the unprotected mercantile risk, or even the non- 
 productive dwelling house, is wide enough to 
 cause comment; and it is questionable if the
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 241 
 
 prospective profits justify the discrepancy in 
 the charge. 
 
 WHAT OF THE FUTURE? We may take it 
 for granted that any change will be of slow 
 growth, that united experience will be compiled, 
 if at all, in the distant future. That thereafter 
 it would require a decade to evolve a safe basis. 
 How about the interim? We must continue the 
 present defective system until a better super- 
 sedes it, and we cannot do better than turn all 
 our attention to such improvements as may be 
 suggested. Percentage increases and decreases 
 by localities and by classes have been used as a 
 counter- weight for the fluctuating loss ratio. 
 Cannot a better be devised ? It is open to the 
 objection and partakes of the nature of a punitive 
 measure, a permanent charge for possibly a tem- 
 porary loss. As a penalty for deficient protection 
 for which concessions were granted, it is justifi- 
 able. Otherwise it is undignified, and a con- 
 tradiction of the broad mutuality of insurance 
 above referred to. 
 
 Laying impractical theories and unattainable 
 hopes and expectations aside, is there not suffi-
 
 242 
 
 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 cient grey matter employed in the business to 
 originate something practical ? While we theorize 
 and speculate, we are selling our wares below 
 cost. A patron similarly circumstanced would 
 be unable to secure our policies. He might have 
 a fire, instead of a failure. Are we not in danger 
 of an explosion or a collapse? 
 
 The Manager who continues to accept busi- 
 ness at less than cost, and the Manager who 
 encourages or permits waste or extravagance in 
 the division of the premiums, must surely settle 
 their scores with the shareholder ; must anticipate 
 une mauvaise quart d^heure. We owe our first 
 duty to the stockholder, the next to ourselves, 
 and a final one to the public. There is a dis- 
 position to reverse the order, which bodes ill for 
 the future.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 243 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 OF INSURANCE ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 THE LOCAL BOARD. 
 
 F the agents are the foundation of 
 the business, local boards were 
 the mortar that held the stones in 
 place. When we gouged out this 
 cohesive tie, letting the wind and 
 weather in, disintegration began 
 and unless checked will continue 
 until the superstructure falls upon 
 its crumbling base. In recogni- 
 tion of its shaky condition we have propped 
 it in one place with a compact, in another 
 with a State rater; we have shored it up 
 with union jack-screws, but we have not 
 attempted to repair the foundation, though 
 we have added loose material until it re- 
 sembles a stone heap. 
 
 Shall we continue to inhabit the shack 
 likely to fall about our ears when another 
 prop is knocked out? Shall we move it to
 
 244 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 a new foundation, or shall we repair the old one? 
 We have an abundance of material at hand, some 
 of it good, much of it indifferent, a little bad. 
 We have scores of capable willing workmen. 
 Can not one of the many architects construct a 
 plan upon which we can agree and work? 
 
 THE STATE BOARD. When the local boards 
 were abolished the State Board was first whittled 
 down to a Field Club, then to a social club; a 
 nest for the compact was made out of the shav- 
 ings; but there is not enough of the original 
 board left to make a golf stick. The semi-lit- 
 erary, semi-social gathering is all that remains, 
 where business topics are tabu, and from which 
 nothing of practical value is expected. Its 
 raison d^etre was the rate making power, and 
 when this was withdrawn it lost the cohesive 
 attraction of a vital common m interest. It 
 
 MB 
 
 can be rejuvenated only M through the 
 
 a 
 
 restoration of authority and M responsibility. 
 THE NATIONAL Asso f CIATION. The lo- 
 
 M 
 
 cal agents recognized the iff necessity of associ- 
 ation, and formed one ff national in its scope,
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 245 
 
 which promises to become a considerable factor 
 in the business. While it was viewed by many 
 company officers with distrust when it was first 
 proposed, it is now conceded by all to hold the 
 germs of good. As it has grown, the original 
 radical element has disappeared, and is succeeded 
 by the conservatism born of numbers, 
 with a directing force that recognizes 
 the communion of interest between all 
 branches of the business. As an effort to 
 improve the condition of its members, it is 
 entitled to aid and comfort; for what it has 
 already accomplished, it is to be commended; for 
 what it hopes to accomplish, it deserves encour- 
 agement. 
 
 Its greatest efficiency will be reached only 
 when the State Associations are further subdivided 
 and localized. While it could not perform all the 
 functions of the local boards, it might measurably 
 replace them, and quadruple its usefulness; and 
 the companies could not complain if the ground 
 they have abandoned be occupied by others. 
 
 COMPANY UNIONS. Nothing stands between 
 us and chaos but the associations of the com-
 
 246 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 panics or managers, and what Chaos really is, 
 can be explained by either the New Yorker or 
 the San Franciscan, for both have lived under 
 his rule. What polite language is strong enough 
 to characterize the company or General Agent 
 that not only refuses to contribute to the common 
 security, but skulks around the block-house with 
 knife and tomahawk in hand, scalping friends 
 and enemies alike? What becomes of the guer- 
 rilla when the regular army capitulates? Has 
 he any sympathy in his merited misfortunes? 
 
 These free-lances, under leaders old enough 
 to know better, and strong enough to hold their 
 own with any competitor under discipline, are 
 comparable only to atheists. They offer no creed 
 of their own, no substitute for an institution ad- 
 mittedly a necessary one, and exist only by the 
 sufferance of the society they are attempting to 
 uproot. No epithet is too opprobrious for such 
 canaille, no inquisition too rigid. 
 
 The leper is cast out, sequestered from the 
 community he contaminates. What rule of con- 
 duct compels us to walk arm in arm with the 
 like? Nothing but moral cowardice prevents
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 247 
 
 absolute separation, and nothing less than sepa- 
 ration will guarantee a continued healthy exist- 
 ence. A few tainted ones, if cast away at the 
 same time, would prove an additional safeguard. 
 AUXILIARY ASSOCIATIONS. There are thirty 
 odd collateral societies indirectly connected with 
 the business but not necessarily composed of 
 insurance men. All are useful, especially the 
 technical ones, but not worthy of particular no- 
 tice. They serve as educational institutions and 
 by bringing the individuals interested in like sub- 
 jects closer together are useful adjuncts to the 
 central unions of company Managers.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ORGANIZATION AND CO- 
 OPERATION 
 
 I HEN I was a Local Agent I 
 was an active member of 
 a Board; as a Special, I 
 did my full portion of State 
 Board work; as a General 
 Agent, I consider organiza- 
 tion a necessity of the first 
 importance. Without it, 
 there can be no co-opera- 
 tion, and without a measure of mutual assistance 
 what would become of us? I am not only an 
 earnest advocate of union among Managers, but 
 I go further and deprecate the lack of managerial 
 interest in subordinate associations. A large 
 portion of our rate troubles is the direct result of 
 the usurpation by the General Agent of functions 
 formerly performed by the local and field force. 
 As a very few disreputable adjusters were respon- 
 
 (249)
 
 250 M MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 sible for the valued policy laws, so anti-compact 
 laws were enacted to kill the compact manager. 
 When even the small measure of authority 
 formerly vested in local boards was withdrawn, 
 one of the closest bonds between the agent and 
 the company was severed. When the agent saw 
 long established tariffs arbitrarily changed by an 
 independent authority with which neither he, his 
 Special nor his Manager had any influence, we 
 lost his sympathy and support. When he lost 
 his influence on the rate, his hold on the policy- 
 holder was weakened. Instead of arguing with 
 the dissatisfied patron, or conciliating him with 
 reasonable concessions, he made but one reply to 
 his complaint: "I know your rate is wrong, but 
 I can't help you. You must see the Compact 
 Manager," etc. 
 
 The result of this misapplied power is 
 apparent in many localities. The appeal from 
 arbitrary methods was so effective that we are in 
 a worse condition than we were before. Now 
 rates are lower than the old local board rates. 
 The effect on the field force was secondary, but 
 adverse. No field man can be found who is an
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 251 
 
 advocate of the compact system at long range, 
 though many may recommend it for business 
 centers. St. Louis was the oldest local board 
 city in the West, and the St. Louis merchant 
 and policy-holder was the only man in the State 
 that protested against the proposed Statute 
 abolishing the board. His protest was vigorous, 
 but unavailing. The compacts outside the city 
 were too heavy a handicap. 
 
 It can do no good to mourn over the unalter- 
 able, but how about the many localities where 
 existing conditions are tending the same way? 
 Will we never learn ? Shall we pursue the policy 
 to its logical conclusion, the abolition of rates 
 and rating machinery in any form? The dif- 
 ference between the Missourian, the Texan and 
 the Oregonian is only one of degree. The same 
 effects will follow the same cause; it is only a 
 question of when. Shall we revert to the old 
 system where and while we may, or shall we 
 permit evolution to evolute until association and 
 co-operation are but pleasant memories ? If the 
 latter course is to be pursued, we should equip 
 ourselves for the inevitable. We are not up
 
 252 M&MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 against the Chinese, where hideous noises and 
 grotesque antics will avail. We shall need armor 
 and ammunition, especially ammunition. How 
 about the arsenal ? Is it well stocked ? 
 
 Co-operation is effective only through organ- 
 ization. When we hear the cry of sauve qui pent 
 we do not step back to permit our neighbor to 
 pass. Where there is no organized society every 
 man is his own judge, jury and executioner. 
 We can look for assistance only from the ones 
 we assist. 
 
 Lax co-operation is as much the result of 
 imperfect organization as the inherent desire to 
 take a business advantage of our fellow-man. 
 Without local boards we can get no local assist- 
 ance. Our imperative orders may be executed, 
 but in a dilatory way. The L,ocal can see no 
 advantage accruing to him, and is not sym- 
 pathetic enough to sacrifice anything for the 
 company. Our Specials even seek excuses to 
 delay. "Why help this company retain a risk 
 by cancelling our policy ? It would not consider 
 us a moment if the conditions were reversed." 
 Unfortunately this prophecy is probably only too
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 253 
 
 exact. If the Special of my company were bound 
 by State board obligations to help your field man 
 out of the mire, would he invent an excuse if 
 none were at hand, to evade his duty? He 
 would be ostracised if he did ; would occupy a 
 position no reputable Special Agent could afford 
 to fill. 
 
 It results that what little assistance the 
 companies give each other is confined to the 
 executive officers, impeded by the dilatory tactics 
 of the Local and the excuses or justificatory pleas 
 of the Special. We are human, so liable to err 
 (always in our own favor) that but one con- 
 clusion can be drawn. As the Arizona minister 
 said when asked to deliver an eulogy over the 
 remains of Whiskey Pete: "The less said on 
 this subject, the better."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 DIAGNOSIS 
 
 HE TROSPECTIVE. 
 
 EW thoughtful men who 
 have crossed the hill-top of 
 life and begun the descent 
 can avoid comparisons 
 favorable to the surround- 
 ings of their early labors. 
 The toil and strife of the 
 ascent are forgotten; the 
 annoyances and disap- 
 pointments, the unattained hopes and expecta- 
 tions have faded from the memory ; but the way- 
 side flowers, the overhanging foliage, is ever 
 before them, and unconsciously compared to the 
 withered leaves and dead branches of the even- 
 ing of life. 
 
 How much of the good we see in the past 
 and the evil we complain of in the present is 
 due to this defective but beneficial trait of 
 
 (255)
 
 256 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 memory? Is the world growing worse? Are the 
 conditions under which we exist to-day more 
 unfavorable? Is fortune more capricious? Or, as 
 the optimist affirms, is this the best of worlds, 
 and our yellow vision due to jaundice or infirmity? 
 Which of the schools is right? 
 
 Probably neither is wholly right nor wrong. 
 We have improved in some respects and retro- 
 graded, or what is equivalent, been stationary, in 
 others. In general, our business is not in better 
 condition than it was a quarter of a century ago, 
 nor is the outlook brighter. We can trace some 
 of the causes of our difficulties, and are too apt 
 to give them overdue weight, and to generalize 
 beyond a point justified by the particulars. Many 
 of our annoyances were preventable, had we con- 
 sidered the future instead of present expediency. 
 Should we not now take heed of the final as well 
 as the immediate result of the theories suggested 
 for improvement? 
 
 INTROSPECTIVE. 
 
 The major portion of present adverse condi- 
 tions is the result of our failure to admit and 
 meet the changes taking place around us. We
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 257 
 
 should be the broadest of all business men, since 
 we deal with all kinds and conditions of men and 
 things, but are we? Is it not a fact that we have 
 specialized our thought, and worn the groove so 
 deep we can not see the procession that has not 
 only overtaken but outrun us? Let us note some 
 of the changes that have occurred both within 
 and without. 
 
 As accentuated in previous chapters, the 
 duties, qualifications and responsibilities of all 
 grades of agents have been reset and rearranged 
 during the last two decades. The Local is un- 
 trained and unfit for the duties he should per- 
 form; the Special's education has been so special- 
 ized to premium-getting that other and equally 
 necessary qualifications have been neglected ; the 
 Manager has been loaded down with responsibili- 
 ties that were formerly shared by the locals and 
 specials; organization has been relaxed or dis- 
 banded; co-operation has all but ceased to co- 
 operate. 
 
 From without, restrictive legislation has 
 thrown its meshes about us, affecting every branch 
 of our business contract, rates, claims and asso-
 
 258 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 ciation. Non-affiliating competition has in- 
 creased; our largest customers, by centralizing 
 their management, reduce expenses to increase 
 dividends, and demand and receive wholesale 
 prices at our expense. Middle men are weeded 
 out. The tendency in all lines is toward concen- 
 tration in mercantile and manufacturing, trans- 
 portation and distribution. 
 
 PROSPECTIVE. 
 
 We need not worry over the safety of the 
 principle of insurance, as it is secure, but we may 
 doubt the perpetuation of present methods and 
 the men wedded to them. 
 
 If our positions depend upon the survival of 
 the system, we should be prepared at any time 
 to vacate them. We can not long sell our wares 
 below cost, and the cost is composed of too large 
 a proportion of expense to sell them at list price. 
 We can not continue indefinitely antiquated and 
 over-expensive methods antagonistic to the trend 
 of general business. We must conform to our 
 surroundings, or make way for a competitor 
 modeled upon up-to-date plans.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 259 
 
 The shareholder will be the arbiter. When 
 we fail to give him reasonable returns he will 
 withdraw his capital. So long as he is satisfied 
 we are secure, and it follows that the one final 
 test of fitness is, and the future of the individual, 
 from Local to company officer, depends upon, our 
 ability to earn a margin equal to that afforded in 
 other business ventures. Is not self-preservation 
 a sufficient stake to put us on our mettle? 
 
 Dr. Jones, after a thorough and searching ex- 
 amination of the patient, Fire Insurance, finds 
 him afflicted with the following ailments : 
 
 CHRONIC DYSPEPSIA. Caused by gluttony. 
 Bolting too great quantity in too hurried a man- 
 ner. Symptoms: Capricious appetite, alternating 
 hunger and nausea, flatulence, fever, and pains 
 in the pit of the stomach. 
 
 NEURASTHENIA. Caused by impaired nutri- 
 tion, anxiety and grief. Symptoms: Disturbed 
 rest, lassitude and mental depression, with a 
 tendency to weep. Frightened on slight or no 
 provocation.
 
 260 
 
 ME MO I RES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 He needs attention, as his condition is grow- 
 ing serious. His physicians in ordinary, as well 
 as his nurses, are afflicted with a bad case of 
 Hysteria, resulting from nervous strain, with the 
 accompanying dejection of spirits, impatience, 
 emotion, excitability and marked defect of will 
 and mental power. They need a combined seda- 
 tive and anti-spasmodic. What he needs shall 
 be the theme of the next chapter.
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 
 
 261 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 PRESCRIPTION 
 
 AISE the rates. Reduce the commis- 
 sions. Abolish brokerage. Prohibit 
 term business. Improve construction 
 and protection. Abolish multiple 
 agencies and annexes. These are a few 
 of the specifics upon the market, but 
 not one of them is a panacea; though 
 each might relieve, none would cure. 
 When his engine labors and 
 groans under a normal pressure, does the 
 driver increase his head of steam? When 
 the current is grounded, does the electri- 
 cian double his voltage? Do we need 
 more power, or better and more economical 
 application? Manifestly the latter. 
 
 The present average rate is sufficient if col- 
 lected upon annual business and properly applied, 
 to pay losses, necessary expenses and a reason-
 
 262 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 able dividend. The power is ample, but the 
 machinery needs overhauling. Forty per cent 
 is lost in transmission, and it is our duty to 
 reduce the waste before applying for an increased 
 initial force. Useless wheels, large and small, 
 imperfect gearings, untrue shafting, absorb five 
 per cent of our power. We must reduce the 
 friction. Unpacked valves, leaky cylinders, cor- 
 roded pipes, waste five per cent more. We must 
 repair them. The foundation has withstood the 
 thumping and jarring up to date; is still firm and 
 worthy of a better superstructure. 
 
 The spendthrift's financial condition is not 
 permanently altered by a new legacy; unless he 
 reforms his habits it is soon squandered, and he 
 is again dead broke. If the similes are appli- 
 cable, our first duty is apparent. Before asking 
 our customers for an increased tax, we should 
 give them some evidence of an improved admin- 
 istration. All of us admit the present expense 
 charge is too high. A comparison with the 
 economic conditions of other lines of business is 
 unfavorable to insurance. A continued increase 
 in the cost of administration is opposed to the
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 263 
 
 universal trend of business. A reduction is a 
 prime necessity. 
 
 Inadequate rates are the least of our troubles, 
 because rates are fluctuating and measurably sub- 
 ject to individual influence. Expenses, on the 
 contrary, are fixed charges and amenable only 
 to unanimous organized co-operative control. 
 
 No single company can accomplish a refor- 
 mation; co-operation is necessary. 
 
 There can be no co-operation without organ- 
 ization; organization is necessary. 
 
 There is no existing executive organization 
 broad enough in its scope to include the whole 
 country; a new union is necessary. 
 
 A union composed exclusively of head execu- 
 tives, having jurisdiction over the whole Amer- 
 ican business, to whom Managers and General 
 Agents are subordinate. A union superior to all 
 existing organizations. A union with but one 
 object, the reduction of expenses. Qualification 
 for membership should be broad enough to admit 
 all companies. Object of organization confined 
 to the one question. Rates, tariffs, present affili- 
 ations, ignored. A platform on which domestic
 
 264 ME MOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 and foreign interests may meet on an equality. 
 A union ignoring all embroiling and embittering 
 collateral subjects. 
 
 Such a union is feasible and practicable, and 
 if it included ninety per cent of the premium 
 income, would be successful. Its simple edict, 
 issued on January first, and requiring a percent- 
 age reduction in expenses during the current 
 year, would be effective. The Managers, under 
 suitable penalties, would provide the ways and 
 means. If insufficient, a further percentage re- 
 duction could be promulgated. 
 
 The effects would be far-reaching and bene- 
 ficial. The abuses that fatten on the expense 
 account would be abated. Even so small a 
 reduction as ten per cent of the present cost 
 (twenty-five per cent would be ultimately re- 
 quired) would accomplish more good, because 
 it is practical, than all the theories preached for 
 a century. It would abolish all illegitimate and 
 excess agency expenses; multiplicity of inspec- 
 tions and adjustments; high commissions and 
 brokerages in excepted cities and larger business 
 centers, that have grown out of all proportion;
 
 AN INSURANCE MAN 265 
 
 duplicate and multiple agencies ; supernumerary 
 specials and employees. It would reduce the 
 number of agents, by weeding out the incompe- 
 tents, useless departments and department mana- 
 gers included. It would place the business upon 
 such a basis that it would require no apologist, 
 and it would not reduce the income a penny. 
 
 The pill may be hard to swallow, the medi- 
 cine distasteful to the middle man, but nothing 
 less than such a cathartic will remove the ob- 
 structions. If the proposed remedy is worth a 
 trial, who will be the leader? Who will consti- 
 tute himself chairman and call the meeting to 
 order?
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 NEW prophet has arisen in the 
 world, whose coming is the reac- 
 tion of overloading and crowding, 
 whose doctrine is co-operation, 
 the antithesis of competition. 
 This prophet is The Trust, and 
 Dividend is his God. 
 
 The sun of domestic business 
 expansion has set, and the day of 
 contraction is dawning. The fire 
 insurance field has been so thor- 
 oughly exploited that not a vil- 
 lage has been neglected. The 
 plant is completed and equipped, 
 and the construction gang must 
 make way for the operating force, 
 since the returns can not bear the 
 double charge. 
 
 (267^
 
 268 
 
 MEMOIRES OF NAT. H. JONES 
 
 The opportunity of individual effort is nar- 
 rowing, for capital is preparing for emancipation 
 by shaking off the yoke of mediocre brains. 
 There will always be room at the top, but there 
 will be less room, for there will be fewer tops. 
 
 The soil is yearning for a reflux of the tide 
 that for years has borne its cultivators to town 
 and city. The farm awaits the return of the 
 prodigal with outstretched hand and smiling face. 
 Finance, commerce, profession and trade can 
 spare mediocrity. Jones, old man, are you able 
 to turn the grindstone yet already noche'mal? 
 
 'ARSSJAEARTE.CVIVS 
 
 nEDimLAB^ARI ET FIAI5 7>\EftDICARl
 
 APPENDIX
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Something more than a century ago, Mr. 
 John Weskett, Merchant, published a volume at 
 Dublin under the following title: 
 
 A 
 Complete Digest 
 
 of the 
 
 Theory, Laws and Practice 
 
 of 
 
 Insurance. 
 
 ; 1tE Gbeortes, Xaws and practices of f nsur* 
 ance have 00 multiplied and increased in 
 tbe interval tbat no 3obn TKIleshett, /R>er= 
 cbant, of tbfs Oav> can Diacst tbem. 216 
 an illustration of tbe antiquity of some of 
 tbe Practices, tbe Editor quotes from tbe 
 Butbor's preliminary discourse. ffour 
 generations bave intervened, all of tbem 
 
 preacbing reform, but practicing beress, and tbe legacy 
 
 is ours. 
 
 "It is certain that there have not been wanting; some 
 Instances of those stiled great, and leading Underwriters, 
 from their Avidity of beginning, or subscribing; almost 
 every Policy that appeared to them, who, far more bold 
 then wise, seemed to depend, in every Respect, on mere 
 Chance ; and to follow intirely the ridiculous and vulg;or 
 Adag;e,that"an Ounce of Luck is worth a Pound of Judg;- 
 ment"; and, who have not only underwritten almost 
 every Policy, but adjusted every Averag;e, Loss, Return, 
 
 (271)
 
 272 APPENDIX 
 
 &c, just as they were exhibited to them, or as they 
 have been requested, with little, and very often no 
 inspection, or examination, and without a single Doc- 
 ument, or Paper produced ; till they have, in the End, 
 fatally experienced the infallibly bad Consequences of 
 their Inattention, or Incapacity: for, was it possible 
 that they should have been otherwise then constantly 
 and grosly imposed upon; and caused many others to 
 be so too, who were induced, from entertaining: false 
 Ideas of the Knowledge and Abilities of such Leaders, 
 to follow their illusive Pattern? By Leaders. I mean, 
 more precisely, every Person who first underwrites, or 
 first signs an Adjustment on, a Policy. 
 
 NEITHER would it be short of Truth to intimate, 
 that there have been some considerable Underwriters, 
 os well as Brokers, who were totally ignorant of the 
 true Import and Effect even of some of the common, 
 printed Terms in Policies of Insurance; nay, who never 
 read a Policy throughout in their Life ; as many Per- 
 sons pass for very good Christians who never perused 
 a single Epistle, or Gospel in the Liturgy. 
 
 The numberless instances, daily occurring:, of very 
 extraordinary Unskilfulness, Negligence, and Error, 
 together with ATROCIOUS Deceit and Imposition, in 
 the claiming, stating:, and settling 4 of Losses, Averages, 
 Salvages, Returns, &c. even on Policies of large 
 Amount, ore, in Reality, amazing, and demand a very- 
 serious Regard. 
 
 On the other Hand, it is also true that the very 
 Misconception and Inexperience redound sometimes, 
 though not often, to the Prejudice of Assureds them- 
 selves ; by calculating: and recovering: less than their Due. 
 
 It has been, for a considerable Time past, a very 
 usual, though a very disgraceful Observation, in our 
 Courts of Judicature, amongst the Council employed in 
 Insurance Causes, that "UNDERWRITERS are like a 
 Flock of Sheep" K ; alluding: to the Inconsideraiion, Indo-
 
 APPENDIX. 273 
 
 lence, or Incapacity, with which many of them perform 
 their Business; and their Aptitude to follow implicitly 
 the Example of a Leader; or any one who, perhaps 
 with as little Judgment, or Information as themselves, 
 first subscribes a Policy; or without Enquiry, first signs 
 thereon an Adjustment of a Loss, Average, &c and 
 afterwards, when some one or other whose Attention 
 may have been awakened, his Fears alarmed, or his 
 eyes opened, by a Discernment of some Fallacy, or Dis- 
 covery of some Fraud, the whole Flock, too late, take 
 Fright ; and, being puzzled in the Maze of their con- 
 fused Ideas, but fast bound in the Pen, Dispute succeeds; 
 and they find themselves obliged to run wildly into a 
 Court of Justice for Redress ; which, however, is seldom 
 to be found there, from the great Difficulty of ascer- 
 taining Facts, and of bringing forth the real Merits of 
 an Insurance Cause and the Occasion for which, by a 
 previous, moderate Acquaintance with, and an habitual 
 Attention to what they were about, and to the Nature 
 and Circumstances of the Risque, or Demand, might 
 have been intirely avoided; as well as the illiberal 
 Garrulity of certain. Pleaders. 
 
 Nothing is more usual, in such Cases, than for the 
 Brokers to say, in order, merely through Impatience, 
 to attain their End in getting the Policy adjusted, how- 
 ever wrongfully, or to favor the Assureds, their Em- 
 ployers " Why, Sir, such an one, and such an one, or 
 so many have settled it; Why should you object? 
 Well, 'tis always better to follow Example; to do as 
 others do ; to fall in with the Crowd ; not to be sin- 
 gular; or suspicious; to cavil, or pretend to know 
 better than others ;" and a great Deal more of such 
 Gibberish I But, this Manner of proceeding, besides the 
 palpable and immediate Injustice of it, evidently tends 
 to, what only can be effected by it, the firm Establish- 
 ment and Increase of Ignorance, Error, and Fraua, in 
 the Course of all Matters whatsoever in this Business.
 
 
 >'