THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Perigord
 
 LIFE INSURANCE SAYINGS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES T. PHELPS 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 THE SPECTATOR COMPANY, 
 95 WILLIAM ST., NEW YORK. 
 
 I9<>5
 
 Copyright, 1895, 
 
 BY JAMES T. PHELPS, 
 
 BOSTON.
 
 Bus. Admin. 
 Library 
 
 8773 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 5 
 
 THE BIRTH OF INSURANCE .... 9 
 DEFINITIONS OF LIFE INSURANCE . . .11 
 
 THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT .... 17 
 
 "Do WOMEN LIKE INSURANCE?" . . 24 
 
 ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM .... 29 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF HOPE 33 
 
 PROCRASTINATION 36 
 
 OLD AGE AND ENDOWMENTS .... 41 
 
 APPLIED MATHEMATICS 44 
 
 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE . . . .49 
 
 THE USE OF QUOTATION 63 
 
 THE HUMOR OF IT 71 
 
 FABLES . 80
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 On the 24th of May, 1895, the National Life 
 Insurance Company of Vermont, whose Massa- 
 chusetts Agent I, and, before me, my father, 
 have together been for forty-two years, issued 
 a small classified collection of the suggestions 
 which for some time I had been daily making 
 to the public upon the subject of life insurance. 
 A limited edition of these Sayings was dis- 
 tributed as " a congratulatory tribute on the 
 fiftieth anniversary of my birth," and because, 
 also, in its judgment, they possessed " intrinsic 
 value " in their collective form. This compli- 
 mentary edition, long since exhausted, elicited 
 an interest among life insurance men and solici- 
 tors, contrary to all expectation, and in excess, 
 even, I fear, of what they merit and deserve. 
 
 I have decided to comply with urgent sugges- 
 tions from many sources for the publication of 
 a further edition, such step being rendered 
 practicable by the voluntary assignment to my- 
 self of all interest which the Company had in 
 the copyright of the original book. I am in- 
 duced to do this the more readily because I
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 believe that the reading and study of these 
 Sayings will bring to many solicitors something 
 of true value to their work. They were always 
 made in the best interests of that work. Out 
 of their persistent and recurring daily use there 
 came to me a fair measure of patronage, and it 
 is just to add that their influence for good upon 
 the general business of insurance has also been 
 evidenced by frequent signs. 
 
 I would also like to obtain for these thoughts 
 the recognition of their owning a broader merit 
 than at first appears. This was referred to by 
 the writer of the Introductory Note in the 
 original edition as follows : " For Life Insur- 
 ance men these Sayings have had a special at- 
 traction, because they contained correct gener- 
 alizations of practical business problems, how- 
 ever quaintly put. They are quite as often the 
 summation, so to speak, of innumerable details 
 of thought as the agreeable expression of a 
 passing idea." This fairly covers what my 
 method of advertising always aimed to effect. 
 For advertising deals with introductions, with 
 the creation of a primary interest. Conviction 
 is in after work. The first is the vigorous de- 
 claration of a claim. It must be short, 
 clear, and impressive by virtue of some merit 
 peculiar to itself. Great human activities are 
 all sufficiently complex in their claims upon 
 public attention to entitle each of them to its
 
 PREFATORY NOTE J 
 
 own special form of display. Life insurance 
 had to be advertised on a basis differing from 
 that adapted to the advertisement of furniture, 
 baking powder, or soap. The saying had to 
 represent a totality of thought, crystallized. 
 All of mine were, by no means, crystals of that 
 kind. They had to be varied, to cover the 
 ground ; recurring, to drive home the idea ; 
 attractive, to win a reception ; radically true, if 
 ultimately they should find their way down 
 what Cicero called " the avenues that lead to 
 men's hearts." 
 
 Back of most of the Sayings and Fables in 
 this little book will be found, I think, this ele- 
 ment of truth, a logic of condition, circum- 
 stance, and fact. The wit of it, if any, must lie 
 in its wisdom; the humor of it, in its weight; its 
 quaintness, even, in virtue of its covering a de- 
 fensible truth, however raimented. Wit, humor, 
 and quaintness have no part in what analysis 
 reveals to be no neighbor of the truth. All 
 good things possess substance. 
 
 In illustration of what proceeds, take the fol- 
 lowing saying on Page 24: " Do Women Like 
 Insurance ? Widows do" 
 
 This question is trite and commonplace, yet 
 would, when seriously asked of any audience, 
 command respectful attention. It is not only 
 serious, but creates a wholly serious impression 
 and leads to wholly serious thought. It is not
 
 8 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 until the answer is read that this impression 
 is dispelled. The " unexpected " in the reply 
 and the play of feeling to which the words, in 
 combination, " Widows do," give rise in the 
 mind, settles it in every case that I have ob- 
 served. It provokes a smile. What of it ? 
 That 's temporary. The smile crystallizes the 
 question. It is the peg upon which the ques- 
 tion hangs itself until settled in the mind of 
 every reader. The question is bound to recur 
 to some minds : "Do Women Like Insurance ?" 
 Next time, their answer may be : " Will my 
 widow ? " The saying suggests woman as the 
 great beneficiary of the productive value in her 
 husband's life and insurance as the one medium 
 competent to maintain that combination indefi- 
 nitely. 
 
 I have devised few sayings myself or applied 
 those of others (which I have often done and 
 here confess) which were not founded in a 
 serious and studied consideration pf the main 
 point. It is hoped, therefore, that co-workers 
 in the profession will find something in them, 
 not merely for the burning of an hour's time 
 but also to their aid and their advantage. 
 
 JAMES T. PHELPS. 
 BOSTON, July 20, 1895.
 
 THE BIRTH OF INSURANCE 
 
 " Blessed labor was born 
 Unto all that is human, 
 Through the charms of a snake 
 And the weakness of woman. 
 Men do not repine, 
 But increase their endurance / 
 And strengthen their work 
 By the aid of Insurance' 1
 
 DEFINITIONS OF LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 WITH what adjectives men will qualify life 
 insurance depends somewhat upon the condi- 
 tions under which the definition is exacted and 
 the purpose to which the definition is to be 
 applied. In the broadest sense of its meaning, 
 life insurance is not defined until everything 
 there is of it has been given, its objects and 
 the media through which its objects are to be 
 secured. A thousand and one avenues lead to 
 the same place, and a thousand phrases, all 
 different, will suggest the same general con- 
 cept. Definition, in other words, leaves room 
 for the uses of imagination. 
 
 Life Insurance shall find favor in your eyes 
 and shine with a brighter light than ever, 
 the protection of labor, the guardian of the 
 destitute, the riches of the poor, the anchor of 
 the anxious, and the luxury of the rich. 
 
 Dorit groan when you pay a life-insurance 
 premium. It is not expense, and you are not 
 paying something for nothing. You are sav- 
 ing money, and insurance is taking care of it
 
 12 DEFINITIONS OF LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 for you. If you think you can do better for 
 yourself, do so, and go without insurance. In- 
 surance makes no special plea ; this is busi- 
 ness, done in a business-like manner. Each 
 one pays his share and does so because it is 
 for his interest to do so, and no others are 
 wanted. 
 
 The Beauty of life insurance is that it 
 reaches its maximum value when everything / 
 else is made uncertain by death. This is ex- 
 actly what it is for, and there is nothing that 
 can take its place, or misdirect it either. 
 
 Time is Bald behind. You must take 
 him by the forelock, if at all. Insurance is 
 the mathematical value of your time if you 
 get it, and the measure of your loss, if you 
 lose it. 
 
 One little realizes how much suspenders 
 have to do with our appearance in society. 
 The same with life insurance ; it is an extra 
 brace to keep the family together. 
 
 Tears are Nothing but salt water, to pre- 
 serve a fresh grief, we suppose. Insurance is 
 business, genuine, old-fashioned, sixteen- 
 ounce precaution.
 
 DEFINITIONS OP LIFE INSURANCE 13 
 
 Life Insurance is the philanthropy and 
 beneficence of the man who insures. It is the 
 organized love of men for their families, the 
 capitalization of affection, the prudence of 
 years, secured now, the riches of the poor, the 
 security of the rich. 
 
 What is Thanksgiving ? A delightful medi- 
 tation on what the Lord has done for us. 
 What is life insurance ? A delightful medita- 
 tion on what we have done for others. 
 
 The Best Family remedy, because it works 
 when all medicines have ceased to act, or have 
 acted, is life insurance. 
 
 A Dead Lift is what insurance is. It takes 
 hold where others leave off. It is the strength 
 of years of plenty applied to the weakness of 
 years of want. 
 
 The Correct Idea about life insurance is 
 safety by average : Cost, in the sense of a 
 guarantee of savings for a future result ; Profit, 
 because of thrift and compound interest. 
 
 An Acorn is a seed, a promise of shade and 
 shelter. Insurance, like an oak, is oftentimes 
 larger than the man who planted it.
 
 14 DEFINITIONS OF LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 Potential Manhood : Why not ' put up ' 
 some of your labor for use when the tree with- / 
 ers ? That is life insurance, a storage battery 
 that will work when the dynamo that gave it 
 power is forever still. 
 
 Husbands and Sons should not be per- 
 mitted by their wives and mothers to go unin- 
 sured. Insurance is a cash appraisement and 
 financial acknowledgment of a valuable life. 
 
 Insurance, well done, is the greatest comfort 
 of modern times. Realize the full meaning of 
 the word ; the certainty of something hoped for Y . 
 and a danger, half-feared, averted, a combina- 
 tion by which losses are turned backward and 
 dark clouds are made to show their silver 
 lining. 
 
 Angels visit us on every sunbeam. Fair- 
 ies wait on us with every flower. Miracles are 
 commonplace, compared with the works of 
 nature. Life insurance is simply an intelligent 
 advantage over natural laws. 
 
 For Good Insurance you should have three 
 important points. First, correct principles; 
 second, the same maintained ; third, honest 
 and conservative administration.
 
 DEFINITIONS OP LIFE INSURANCE 15 
 
 The U. S. Siipreme Court has decided that 
 the beneficiaries are entitled to the insurance 
 done in their name. This means that, no 
 matter what may be a man's misfortunes, the 
 law recognizes the value of his chance, if he > 
 lives. Insurance pays that value, if he dies. 
 There is a good bit of food for reflection in 
 this. 
 
 It's a fair swap of lies when a man 
 tells the agent, who presents life insurance 
 as a big investment, that he does not need 
 it. It is not a big investment, but every one 
 needs it. 
 
 An Endless Belt is life insurance, which 
 will bring back all you put on it. Its value in 
 keeping the wheels moving and equalizing the 
 strain on business men is more or less recog- 
 nized, yet not so fully appreciated as it should 
 be and will be. 
 
 1 Selling Liabilities is what a life insurance v 
 company does when it writes a policy. We 
 believe in calling things by their right names. 
 Each policy is a debt and must have its cor- 
 responding asset, else it is deceptive. Think 
 of this when you are asked to insure at large 
 pecuniary gain to yourself.
 
 1 6 DEFINITIONS OF LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 Common Sense teaches that life insurance, 
 like other property, can only be had by pur- 
 chase. It is a value and means something. 
 It is not given away, and cannot be cheaply 
 obtained. 
 
 A Lease of Life, if advertised for sale, 
 would command a fabulous price, provided its 
 surety could be made apparent. The nearest 
 approach to such a lease is an insurance of 
 the money value, the productive value of a 
 life. 
 
 Life is a Chance. Life Insurance is a dead 
 Certainty. 
 
 Trouble with Insurance, The trouble with 
 insurance is to describe it so that people will 
 fathom its meaning. Safety when danger is 
 hard by Relief when disaster comes Value 
 in times of depreciation Assets when liqui- 
 dation is imperative Comfort when privation 
 is epidemic Just the same as money in the 
 bank without putting it there. 
 
 Insurance is an Addition to human power. 
 A valuation and a bid for unwrought plans. 
 A priced invoice of time not yet arrived nor 
 certain to come; a selvage instead of a raveled 
 edge.
 
 THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT 
 
 Associations like this (that of Boston) are 
 for our own good, and by that token, for the 
 good of the public. The office of an Associ- 
 ation like this is, first, to know each other ; 
 second, to help each other; third, to aid the 
 weak ; fourth, to punish the dishonest. The 
 man helps himself best who helps others. 
 The best agent for any company is he who is 
 intelligent enough to admit the merits of 
 competition. Association in a body like this 
 educates all. The strong will wax stronger by 
 the exercise and development of the lax and 
 unused muscles called into play by aiding those 
 less favored than themselves. Then, by their 
 aid, they can do what they can never do with- 
 out it, detect the mountebank and unprincipled 
 practitioner. Every trade has bad-minded, 
 bad-mannered, bad-moraled men in it. Strive 
 to free yourself from such, and guard carefully 
 the interests of the correct, conscientious 
 workers. 
 
 Although working a business the most 
 beneficent, one that appeals to the sense of 
 duty and the finer instincts of men, we are
 
 l8 THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT 
 
 working for pay. We have it in temporal 
 things ; let us add to it self-respect and the 
 pride which conies from the honorable pursuit 
 of an honest calling, and from association with 
 those men only who will join us in all that is 
 right and be bold enough to reprove us when 
 we are wrong. 
 
 Who Invented Insurance ? I don't know ; 
 but the agents of life insurance companies 
 have put a great many men up to it. 
 
 fixed Facts are of value acccording to how 
 they are fixed and who fixed them. Life in- 
 surance is a fixed fact and a well established 
 agent is a fixed factor, while an irresponsible 
 agent is a fact fixer. 
 
 // is Poor Manners to be impolite to a 
 life insurance agent, and a positive iniquity 
 to neglect life insurance. 
 
 Insurance Agents should wake up the peo- 
 ple and make them understand that there is 
 nothing, absolutely nothing, equal to life in- 
 surance, for family safety and family savings. 
 
 " Through Covetousness shall they with 
 feigned words make merchandise of you." (2 
 Peter, ii. 3.) There is a terrible responsi-
 
 THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT 19 
 
 bility resting on those who misinform you upon 
 the subject of life insurance. 
 
 Liars Need Good Memories. Truth is a 
 matter of fact, constant, eternal. Tell things 
 as they are, and you will need no memoranda 
 to help you remember what you said. 
 
 By Their Words shall ye know them. If 
 a life insurance agent talks common sense, 
 listen and believe. If he talks investment, 
 profits and things hoped for but not seen, it is 
 better to decline with thanks. 
 
 Phenakistoscopic estimates are made in 
 some insurance propositions, in which the fig- 
 ures are so drawn as to produce the appear- 
 ance of reality. Use should not be made of 
 the Phenakistoscope. The bargain should be 
 an old-fashioned hand-to-hand agreement, 
 You do your part and we do ours. 
 
 An Agent Lost a client because he would 
 not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, if 
 he lived, he would realize six per cent, com- 
 pound interest on his investment. Thus there 
 are men who will not protect even their fami- 
 lies unless they can have a big profit on it. 
 
 Bacon Wrote : ' I had rather believe all
 
 20 THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT 
 
 the fables in the Legend and the Talmud and 
 the Alcoran than that this universal frame is 
 without a mind.' If Bacon had ever solicited 
 life insurance, he would have had doubts. 
 There is no subject on which the average man 
 exhibits so little mind of his own as life in- 
 surance. 
 
 Inexact Language is at once the cause and 
 the result of inexact ideas. Much confusion f 
 and misunderstanding is made by too much 
 talk about reserves, surplus, loading, etc. 
 
 A dean, Honest Life Insurance Agent can 
 hold up his head, look any man in the eye, 
 and, if necessary, like William Penn, may wear 
 his hat in the presence of a king. 
 
 Common Sense has a place in, and is a 
 basis for, all business rules. Do not be mysti- 
 fied on the subject of life insurance. It is not 
 a scheme for making money, and it should not 
 be so represented. You put in, and take out 
 a policy, and you will yet take out more than 
 you will put in. 
 
 " Why so Many Agencies ? " some one asks. 
 Why so many life insurance agencies ?^Be- / 
 
 cause we are in competition with death, whose 
 
 i ' 
 
 agencies are numberless and whose agents 
 never sleep.
 
 THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT 21 
 
 Is Anybody Pestering you with life insur- 
 ance propositions ? If so, give him a hearing. 
 You have no business so important as the ^ 
 solvency of your estate and the safety of your 
 family. Take or make time and room for the 
 Life Insurance Agent. 
 
 Make a Semi-Lunar incision, penetrating 
 the integument, aponeurotic tissue and perios- 
 teum ; raise the flap and trephine the cranium ; 
 remove the prejudice that has existed for 
 years ; replace the flap. Even then, some men 
 will not insure their lives for the benefit of 
 their families, saying that they can take better 
 care of their money than the companies can. 
 Such people stand in their own light. 
 
 He Never Does It, Why is the man " who 
 is going to insure " like the man who " can ^ 
 drink or leave it alone " ? He never does it.** 
 If not done, it may be done until it may not 
 be done. That is to say, it is opportunity un- 
 til the chance is gone ; then you miss it. 
 
 Consider Bad Investments, how they cost ; 
 they save not, neither do they earn compound 
 interest. Solomon in all his wisdom fell short 
 of the possible, by not mentioning insurance 
 as the best means of family saving !
 
 22 THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT 
 
 We make the Bricks, you furnish the straw. 
 As the straw is to the brick, so is your part to 
 ours. As the straw is to the brick, so is the 
 insurance premium to the policy. No straw, 
 no bricks. Good straw, good bricks. 
 
 Keep in mind that the great factor in life 
 insurance, compound interest, works all the x 
 time, day and night, and the insurance policy * 
 protects every minute. No cessation. There 
 is no forgetful ness about a Contract. 
 
 The Agent and the Doctor, ordinarily, stand 
 in the same relative position toward each other 
 as the man, named Cleveland, who joined the 
 "Home Market Club." He was duly voted in 
 and qualified. Later on, attention was called 
 to his name, which, to a "Home Market Man," 
 was like a bogy to a baby. A meeting was 
 called and the gentleman was asked to attend. 
 Fault was found with him for entering the club 
 with the name of the great apostle of tariff 
 reform. He insisted that he was not to blame 
 for his name, and that, being duly elected a 
 member, no one need take up valuable time in 
 kicking. The case was finally thoroughly dis- 
 cussed and the club sent him its resolution : 
 "He might resign, change his name or go 
 to thunder." Ordinarily, so an agent stands 
 with the doctor. He can be resigned, get an-
 
 THE LIFE INSURANCE AGENT 23 
 
 other man, or travel to that country where our 
 kind of insurance is not practiced, where death 
 comes not, and that which burns is never con- 
 sumed. 
 
 The Poet and the Agent: ' A Poet touched 
 the willing keys and drew forth sweet notes : 
 Deep chords whose tones sublime made one 
 forget the lapse of Life and Time.' An Agent 
 taught the unwilling mind that duty is the com- 
 mon lot, that Life and Time are capital and 
 must be guarded, not forgot. Hence Insur- 
 ance.
 
 DO WOMEN LIKE INSURANCE? 
 WIDOWS DO 
 
 Opinion varies as to whether the objections, 
 placed by many women in the way of proper 
 life insurance on the lives of sons and hus- 
 bands, arise from superstition, ignorance, or 
 prejudice. We are fairly well convinced, for 
 our part, that this uncertain, not to call it un- 
 friendly, attitude of women is in part owing to 
 their inherent commercial disability, and, in 
 greater part, even, to a nervous organiza- 
 tion which makes it hard for them to think , 
 with equanimity of being benefited through 
 the death of those whom they love. Of 
 course life insurance should find its most pow- 
 erful and most persistent advocates in women, 
 who, with their children, are its chief beneficia- 
 ries, whose happiness it especially protects. 
 Legislation, also, has emphasized this fact, 
 the companies have earnestly advertised it, 
 and agents, by a sort of natural impulse, seek 
 constantly to guard their welfare. Now that 
 woman herself is beginning to be regarded 
 from a membership, as well as a beneficiary 
 standpoint, by the business, there is hope that
 
 "DO WOMEN LIKE INSURANCE?" 25 
 
 she will more speedily emancipate her objec- 
 tions and become the chief and most persist- 
 ent friend and advocate of an institution 
 which exists, not wholly, but very largely, for 
 her peculiar good. 
 
 " Do you Believe" said he, " that love can 
 exist without jealousy ? " She : " Yes, but not 
 without insurance. Love aims to protect and 
 to provide." 
 
 A Wedding Present, a 10, 15, 20, and 25 
 Year Endowment Insurance, each one ar- 
 ranged so as to mature on a wedding anniver- 
 sary, would be a systematic Savings Bank, 
 compound interest, affectionate protection. 
 
 What a Widow can do with Three Thou- 
 sand Dollars. Fifteen hundred dollars will buy 
 a home. Fifteen hundred dollars invested at 
 four per cent, interest will earn enough to keep 
 the house in repair and pay the taxes. Now 
 this is not affluence, but it means shelter and 
 independence. This can be certainly secured 
 at the slight cost required by insurance. 
 
 The One who killed the goose that laid the 
 golden egg was no more foolish than she who 
 persuades her husband to avoid or abandon 
 life insurance for her benefit.
 
 26 "DO WOMEN LIKE INSURANCE?" 
 
 A Marriage Certificate would not be out of 
 place if printed on the back of a life insurance 
 policy. 
 
 $750 for an Engagement Ring, $25 for a 
 wedding ring, and $i for plated safety pins 
 for the baby is the way in which some young 
 folks start in life. This is contrary to the 
 rules of economy, taught by life insurance. 
 
 A Vagrant, on trial for having no visible 
 means of support, entered as his defense that 
 his wife was a dressmaker. The wives of those 
 who neglect insurance should learn a trade. 
 
 Widowhood is made more comfortable, and 
 , in some cases even desirable, by life insurance ; 
 still this is no fault of the system, but its vir- 
 tue. 
 
 When a Young Lady begins to exhibit an 
 interest in the arrangement of a young man's 
 cravat, his bachelor days are numbered. It is 
 also time for him to begin to think about life 
 insurance. 
 
 Let No False Modesty prevent your de- 
 manding of your husband a reasonable amount 
 of insurance on his life, payable directly to 
 you in event of his death. It is your right.
 
 "DO WOMEN LIKE INSURANCE?" 2J 
 
 The Geometric Sense of truth is more faith- 
 ful and conveys a more satisfactory idea of 
 external forms than the eye itself. Therefore 
 we discover a more sympathetic appreciation 
 of life insurance when we are placing a fortune ^ 
 into a widow's hands than we do when solicit- 
 ing the business. 
 
 Will your Widow dress as well as your ^ 
 wife does ? 
 
 The Wedded State would be much more 
 harmonious if a woman would believe less of 
 what a man tells her before marriage, more of 
 what he tells her afterwards, and insist on a 
 proper and reasonable amount of life insur- 
 ance. 
 
 Whimsical Women, freaky and odd, oppose 
 insurance on account of sentiment. Do you 
 know of any cases where life insurance proved 
 beneficial ? Yes, many of them. Do you know 
 of any where harm came from being insured ? 
 No, not one. 
 
 Patience is exhausted in the case of a 
 woman who is so heedless as to postpone, 
 discourage, or give up insurance. Think of a 
 wife advising surrender of a policy which may 
 save her from the street or the poorhouse !
 
 28 "DO WOMEN LIKE INSC/XANCB?" 
 
 A Joke is a Joke, but leaving a woman poor 
 and her children destitute, as a result of the r'' 
 experiment of "insuring yourself "is poor wit 
 and lean wisdom. 
 
 Wives of Smart Men should remind them 
 they can make their lives secure, and, depart- \/ 
 ing, leave behind them something solid, some- 
 thing sure. 
 
 The Law gives a widow one third. Life 
 insurance gives it all. Often its three thirds 
 saves the other third. There is nothing like 
 life insurance for family savings. 
 
 Women damn life insurance with faint and 
 unwilling praise. Yet thousands are now liv- ^ 
 ing in comparative comfort because of it. 
 They ought rather to form societies for extend- 
 ing its influence and its better understanding. 
 Not to do it is wrong. 
 
 Next Year's Widows will appreciate the 
 benefit of this year's life insurance payments. K 
 Men come and go ; the insurance companies 
 stay and pay. 
 
 Will the Coming Widow work! She will 
 have to if left destitute, as many women are 
 by willful neglect of life insurance.
 
 ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM 
 
 The Applicant who buys insurance upon 
 reasonable grounds will find, upon analyzing 
 his action, that it rests upon the purely selfish 
 consideration of a probable contribution to his 
 own happiness, and the consciousness that he 
 is under moral responsibility to protect his 
 credit and dependents, since the means for 
 now doing this lie wholly within his reach. 
 Yet not until called upon and strenuously urged 
 to do this, will mankind in general respond to 
 this demand upon their moral responsibility 
 and manly conduct. Upon the false hope of 
 the sufficiency unto itself of present evil, they 
 thoughtlessly pass by the only means devised 
 by human wisdom for making certain what 
 otherwise is doubtful and insecure. They fail 
 to perform the strictly moral and therefore 
 obligatory act of giving permanency to the pro- 
 ductive value in their lives. But the determi- 
 nation, through study, calculation, and experi- 
 ence, of the equitable charges and provisions 
 for the practice of mutual life insurance, has 
 so definitely fixed upon every man this grave 
 responsibility that the argument, addressed
 
 30 ARGUMENTUM AD HGMINEM 
 
 directly to his own interests and duty, will 
 always be of paramount importance and value 
 to the solicitor, if used with judgment and dis^ 
 cretion. 
 
 In the Court of Conscience: In re Misfor- 
 tune v. Widow et a?., Annuity Reports, p. i, 
 the court says : "The burden of proof is on the 
 husband and father, to show that he used that 
 degree of care which men of ordinary prudence 
 exercise under like circumstances." Where 
 will you stand under such a ruling ? 
 
 " The Older a Man gets, the more difficult it 
 is to him to retain a believing conception that 
 he must die." (Elliot.) Insurance is our busi- 
 ness and your duty. 
 
 It requires more Self-denial to do your duty 
 without insurance than with it. 
 
 Partnerships involve possibilities of loss as 
 well as of profit. Death does not wait for the 
 dissolution of a firm. Insurance in all busi- 
 ness enterprises is firmly advised. 
 
 The Uninsured are in no more peril than 
 the insured, but their families are. 
 
 The Law should compel those who do not
 
 ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM 31 
 
 insure to pay a special tax for the support of 
 the widows and children of those who, having 
 had the opportunity, die uninsured. 
 
 Generous to a Fault, but careless of and 
 cruel to his family, is the man who fritters 
 away his earnings for their present delight, but 
 deposits no savings for the insurance of its 
 continuance hereafter. 
 
 Look in the Glass and learn if you can look 
 yourself squarely in the eye. If you have a 
 family, but no insurance, we think you will not 
 like the reflection. 
 
 // isn't Wicked to suppose, is it? Sup- 
 pose you were the wife and she the husband, 
 and you knew what thin ice he was skating 
 on, would n't you advise and insist on insur- 
 ance ? 
 
 Get killed by the Cars. Those who neglect 
 to insure should so shape matters as to die by 
 accident, thereby leaving a hope at least for 
 the family. This hope, shared by and with an 
 attorney, may become a verdict. You owe at 
 least this slight precaution to your family. 
 
 There is no Law to punish the man who 
 makes first his wife, second, his children, third,
 
 32 ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM 
 
 his creditors, carry all the risk of his untimely 
 death. Therefore, though your moral duty, 
 you can do as you like about insuring your 
 life. 
 
 He is a Bigot who will not insure ; he is to 
 be pitied who cannot insure ; he is a coward 
 who, having given hostages to fortune, does 
 not insure. 
 
 Bishop Brooks once said that he knew of 
 no man who ought not to have his life insured, 
 except it be, perhaps, " The Wandering Jew." 
 Even he should provide for his own old age. 
 
 The Man who neglects or fails to secure 
 life insurance puts a dent in his head where the 
 bump of hope should be. 
 
 Like a Stiff Neck, insurance makes a man 
 carry his head up. Anything that increases 
 his self-respect is good ; better is that which 
 increases his self-reliance; best of all is that 
 which does both and demonstrates his value in 
 plain ngures. 
 
 Dedollarizing Widows is the name we give 
 to the act of neglect of insurance. It is not a 
 bad name except to those who cause suffering, 
 and they deserve a bad name.
 
 THE PLEASURES OF HOPE 
 
 A FABLE 
 
 A Sick Man was visited by a physician, 
 correct in his diagnosis and skillful in his treat- 
 ment of disease. His opinion was that the 
 patient might recover if he would cease from 
 worry and surrender his mind to rest and free- 
 dom from care. " Oh," groaned the patient, 
 " I am troubled for the future. What will be- 
 come of my family, if I die ? " An Insurance 
 Policy, which had been taken to oblige a friend, 
 spoke up and said, "Keep quiet and get well, 
 if you can ; if not, I will care for your wife and 
 little ones. For I am an average and cannot 
 die." Then the sick man turned his face to 
 the wall and grew well. The physician said to 
 himself, when he rendered his bill, "Insur- 
 ance, and not medicine, saved him." For the 
 physician was an honest man and he said (in 
 his mind), "The insurance companies are my 
 best friends, both in the matter of medical ex- 
 aminations and assistance in the care of the 
 sick."
 
 34 THE PLEASURES OF HOPE 
 
 Worrying Done to order. Nearly all the 
 family worrying can be done outside of the 
 home and office by a system of study and per- 
 sistent investment in life insurance. 
 
 Language is Bankrupt to describe the full- 
 ness of life insurance. Thirty per cent, of a 
 true picture of its benefits cannot be impressed 
 upon your mind by any printed statements. 
 You must feel its security, sleep easy in its all- 
 sustaining arms, and be strengthened by the 
 moral courage it develops. 
 
 There 's Music in the sighing of a reed ; 
 There 's music in the gushing of a rill ; There 's 
 music in all things, if men had ears ; There 's 
 music in insurance when you 're ill. And it is 
 essential that you should take it when well. 
 
 Dry Jim-jams or business horrors can be 
 dispelled by a timely application of the princi- 
 ple of life insurance. Only those who have it 
 realize the luxury of a well arranged line of 
 life insurance. 
 
 Spruce Sawdust is said to be an excellent 
 substitute for sand in making mortar. There 
 is no substitute for sand in a business man. 
 Insurance, however, puts in more grit.
 
 THE PLEASURES OF HOPE 35 
 
 A Rose-colored World is certainly pleasant, 
 free from gloom, and suggestive of the beauti- 
 ful alone. Why cannot every man possess such 
 surroundings ? It is lack of appreciation and 
 a surplus of envy that breeds much misery. 
 Brace up. Insure your life. That will put a 
 different tint in your eye, if you are not color- 
 blind. 
 
 Insurance Men alone understand iiow much 
 comfort there is, and self-satisfaction, in being 
 insured. It is a big anchor cast to windward. 
 
 They say that a bumble bee is biggest 
 when first born. We think a man feels biggest 
 when first insured. 
 
 Being on the Wrong Side of the market is 
 disastrous. Having your insurance arranged 
 on the right side of the grave is foresight. 
 Prudence now brings the reward of security. 
 
 You will feel better off every way, if you 
 have underneath you the all -sustaining arms 
 of life insurance. Insurance boosts a man a 
 long way up the ladder of independence. 
 
 Steps were made for those without wings. 
 Insurance is a step-ladder, so that your family 
 may reach independence if you. do not accom- 
 plish it for them.
 
 PROCRASTINATION 
 
 This thief of time, loss of opportunity, sin 
 of omission, old cat in the adage, by whatever 
 name you please to call it, is a universal vice. 
 It is the daughter of physical and mental inac- 
 tivity and the handmaid of laissez faire. It 
 makes " I dare not " wait upon " I will," and 
 places to-morrow in front of to-day. Inde- , / 
 'V cision, chronic inertia, is its product, general 
 slough of despondency its environment, and, 
 finally, it is the chief friction of reforms. In 
 history procrastination is oftentimes synony- 
 mous with compromise, and that is deferment 
 of the day when forces must range themselves 
 according to the inevitable orders of the laws 
 by which they are governed. In the case of 
 individuals, themselves small worlds, it works 
 the most dire distress from start to the end of 
 life. For to see and to seize the main chance 
 promptly and firmly, that is ability, that is 
 success. In insurance it produces the fatal 
 blunder of delaying immediate provision, and 
 this mistake has destroyed the happiness and 
 hopes of many homes.
 
 PROCRASTINATION 37 
 
 After a Fire settlements are made by the 
 records. After a disaster there is no agent 
 around trying to "bore you" into taking a 
 policy. Even the most anxious for business 
 will not insure your house if it smells of smoke, 
 and none insure the lives of sick men. The 
 insurance office is open for those who are well 
 enough to get there and smart enough to get 
 there in time. 
 
 Putting Money in the Bank regularly is 
 better than life insurance if you live. As few 
 do deposit with persistent regularity and as 
 some do not live, there is no doubt that insur- 
 ance is the better and immediately safer way 
 of accumulation. 
 
 A Curious Fashion has come into vogue in 
 Paris. In all the cemeteries metal boxes with 
 a slit in the lid are placed on the tombstone to 
 receive cards of visitors. There will be no life 
 insurance circulars there, and yet they do good 
 if they are heeded. 
 
 No Directory of any city can be perfect ; 
 for, while it is hastening to publication, some 
 business men are budding and some are pass- 
 ing away. This suggests insurance. 
 
 The Man who procrastinates may be sorry
 
 38 PROCRAS TINA TION 
 
 that he met the undertaker before the insur 
 ance agent overtook him. 
 
 A Hot Candlestick melts one end of the 
 candle, while the other is more slowly wasted 
 by legitimate use. So troubles beyond our 
 reach are more wearing than others. Insur- 
 ance keeps the light burning and the candle- 
 stick cool. 
 
 A Cat ran under James Bradley's feet, 
 tripping him (James Bradley) so that he fell 
 heavily and never regained consciousness. So 
 far as learned Mr. Bradley was uninsured, and 
 no responsibility could be placed on the cat. 
 
 The Man who waited for the rates to come 
 down before he insured has already lain in 
 Mount Auburn Cemetery several years. His 
 wife makes vests and his children are scat- 
 tered. He had his own way and they must 
 go theirs. It was in his power and he had the 
 opportunity to insure. 
 
 While the Free Breezes are blowing things 
 your way, while success follows success, and 
 everything promises a golden harvest, then is 
 it eminently proper time for you to barrel up 
 some of your luck or enterprise, and insurance 
 affords the means,
 
 PROCRASTINATION 3> 
 
 Sentimentally, Many Men are disposed 
 towards life insurance kindly, but they don't 
 attend to it. The result is the same as in the 
 case of those who "did n't know it was loaded," 
 that is to say, destructive to others and no 
 self-benefit. 
 
 // beats the Dutch how some truly bright 
 men will wait for an agent to tire them out 
 before they will act in the matter of life insur- 
 ance. They might have their money ticking 
 away at compound interest instead of at the 
 risk of their business. 
 
 Count That Day Lost, whose low descend- 
 ing sun finds you with health impaired and no 
 insurance done done, not talked about. 
 
 Putting off Insurance is like waiting for a 
 rising river to run by. The longer you wait, 
 the smaller becomes the opportunity to cross. 
 
 Men in their Graves are there to stay. 
 There is no return from the dead to correct 
 mistakes or to do a little more for the family. 
 Insurance must be attended to in life. 
 
 Ghosts not otherwise engaged can make 
 good use of their time (or eternity) in haunt- 
 ing the uninsured. It is impossible to un-
 
 4 PROCRASTINATION 
 
 derstand the dullness of those who procras- 
 tinate. 
 
 An Undertaker was accidentally pushed 
 into an open grave, struck his head on a brass 
 ornament upon the coffin of the body he was 
 burying, and was killed. There is no safety 
 even in the grave-yard.
 
 OLD AGE 
 
 Nicely Balanced are the forces that go for 
 action and progress in this life. Youth and 
 old age are but the extremes of a fixed and 
 indestructible quantity of energy. Youth, for 
 the hope there is in it of future work, com- 
 mands sympathy and receives husbandry ; but 
 old age, sans everything, is manhood ceased 
 from grinding and being ground, settling back 
 into the dust. Fortunate were it for many an 
 Anchises in this world, if he had reared up 
 some yEneas to bear him on the back from 
 the sack and burning of his little Troy. Not 
 then, in his later years, would he be heard ex- 
 claiming with Meliboeus : 
 
 " Dear Cottage, wherein I was born ! Shall 
 Another in conquest possess thee, 
 Another demolish in scorn the fields 
 And the groves where I 've wandered." 
 
 FIELD, Tr. 
 
 But deluded by hope and estranged from pru- 
 dence by a seeming security, men neglect to 
 provide what alone can make old age comfort- 
 able and self-respecting ; what others, if at all, 
 may grant with scant courtesy and averted
 
 42 OLD AGE 
 
 looks. The observed conditions of old age 
 often and touchingly illustrate this sin of omis- 
 sion in youth. For life insurance has long 
 since transferred the responsibility for its pro- 
 vision from the shoulders of filial piety to the 
 individual himself. 
 
 One Third of Your Time is spent in bed. 
 That is why endowment insurance is so profit- / 
 able. It grows while you rest and sleep, and 
 attains its growth at once, if you never wake. 
 
 An Endowment Policy is the roof of the 
 house that shelters the family. The owner S 
 may creep under himself, if he lives to pay for 
 it. 
 
 Old Time, in whose banks we deposit our 
 notes, Is a miser who always wants guineas for 
 groats ; He keeps all his customers still in 
 arrears, By lending them minutes and charg- 
 ing them years. He is very uncertain of dates 
 falling due, And a note against others may be 
 charged up to you. If you owe the old miser 
 and have pledged your endurance, Just keep a 
 good margin of endowment insurance. 
 
 Many old Men are to-day living on the 
 value of their life insurance, taken years ago, 
 when they only thought of the welfare of 
 others.
 
 OLD AGE 43 
 
 Those Who Insure remove the threatened 
 danger to those they love, smoothing not an- 
 other's path alone ; they scatter roses to adorn 
 their own. This is a poetic definition of en- 
 dowment insurance. 
 
 One Misty Moisty Morning, when stormy 
 was the weather, I chanced to meet an old 
 man, clothed all in leather. I began to com- 
 pliment, he began to grin, saying," I Ve a ma- 
 tured Endowment, and I 'm just going to take 
 it in." Young men should take endowment 
 insurance. 
 
 One Third Paupers. Statistics show that 
 thirty per cent, of the aged are paupers. 
 What an argument for endowment insurance. 
 
 While it is Investment and of the best kind, 
 we approach you on the ground of protection. 
 A protecting investment, an investing protec- 
 tion. Something which grows all the time. 
 Grows bigger when you grow less. 
 
 A Promoter is a man who sells what he 
 has n't got, to a man who does n't want it. 
 Insurance guarantees that you shall have that 
 which you otherwise might not get, and makes 
 possible an impossibility.
 
 APPLIED MATHEMATICS 
 
 A Certain Man said to himself : " Since my 
 watch loses ten minutes per day, I am saving 
 time at the rate of over one hour per week, 
 and thus lengthening my life." But the sun, 
 and not his watch, regulates the time, and 
 works by law. Of such an application of math- 
 ematics some men have said: "You can de- 
 monstrate anything by figures," thereby cata- 
 loguing themselves in the company of the man 
 with the slow watch. That is not demonstra- 
 tion, nor proof. It is false reasoning, tons of 
 which sort of thing have been supplied, not ap- 
 plied, to the business of life insurance without 
 other effect than that of increasing ignorance, 
 intensifying prejudice, and confusing truth. 
 The business owes mathematics much, pa- 
 tience in research more, and skillful application 
 most of all. From observation and applied 
 mathematics it obtains its assumptions at least, 
 if not its practice, and from the same source 
 must also come the explanation of that prac- 
 tice. Think of Le Verrier ! By calculation 
 and study only he discovered the planet Nep- 
 tune. Rising from his table, he wrote the
 
 APPLIED MATHEMATICS 45 
 
 Astronomer Royal at Berlin to turn his glass 
 on a certain point in the heavens, and " There 
 you will find a new planet." And it was so. 
 Fools deride what they cannot comprehend, 
 savages worship it, and wise men study it until 
 understood. Statistics may be abused ; but 
 after all they are the only means we have of 
 measuring comparative results. They influence 
 action, because they suggest action. 
 
 Average Luck? Luck is the opposite of 
 average. Average your luck, and you will find 
 you have had none. Insurance is an average 
 of life, or what is the nearest we can come to 
 it, an average of its value. 
 
 Imagination is strangled by facts. There 
 is more or less misinformation afloat about life 
 insurance. First learn what it really is, and 
 then take some. 
 
 Prefix One to a row of ciphers, and you re- 
 present the value of one insurance policy to 
 many an estate. Thus oooo is by prefix made 
 10,000. Insurance must be prefixed. There 
 is no coming back from the dead. 
 
 Over Sixty-Three Thousand, that is the re- 
 ported number of insane people in the United 
 States. This makes no account of the unin- 
 sured.
 
 46 APPLIED MATHEMATICS 
 
 Beveled Insurance, having a slant or an 
 inclination from a right line, is the kind of 
 which people should beware. You cannot af- 
 ford to trust the welfare of your family to any 
 chances. 
 
 // is stated that 20,649 stitches are taken 
 in making a shirt, and fifteen cents is the re- 
 ward for the labor. Life insurance has saved 
 many a woman from a life of toil. How is 
 your family fixed ? 
 
 It is a dry Subject, yet full of interest. In 
 fact, interest is the vitality of the compa- 
 nies. Fortunate are they who understand and 
 apply. 
 
 The Japanese Language contains sixty thou- 
 sand words. A beautiful use of language is 
 that which conveys a message of love, or urges 
 and teaches insurance, which is essentially a 
 protection, voluntary and unselfish. 
 
 If Columbus were alive to-day, and if his 
 contract of April 17, 1492, with Ferdinand and 
 Isabella were sustained by the courts, he would 
 be enjoying an income of about $16,000,000 a 
 year from the bullion product of the western 
 hemisphere, to say nothing of his one-tenth 
 claim for the pearls, precious stones, and gen-
 
 APPLIED MATHEMATICS 47 
 
 eral merchandise of America. If certain hus- 
 bands had lived, certain families would be 
 better fed to-day, to say nothing about lux- 
 uries. We teach the duty and value of in- 
 surance. 
 
 Not one Business Man in thirty-three 
 leaves his family anywhere near money enough / 
 to continue the comforts he has educated them 
 to need and expect. This suggests immediate 
 action on their part, in the direction of life in- 
 surance. 
 
 Once in Fifteen Years the whole valuation 
 of the city of Boston passes through the Pro- 
 bate Court, and ninety per cent, of the estates ^ 
 settled are declared insolvent. Does this or 
 does it not point to life insurance for a 
 remedy ? 
 
 Theory without Practice is a worthless 
 commodity. Practice without theory is worth 
 about fifteen dollars a week. When both are ^/ 
 well combined in one man of sound judgment, 
 the combination is worth up to $9,000 a year, 
 and the combination is worth insuring. 
 
 Ninety-Seven Married Men out of every 
 hundred fail to leave their families above want 
 at their death. This demonstrates the neces-
 
 48 APPLIED MATHEMATICS 
 
 sity for insurance. The results of insurance in 
 the case of the other three prove its value. 
 
 The Rate of Interest on mortgages varies. 
 If interest is not paid, the mortgage is fore- 
 closed, and the home is lost. The rate of * 
 insurance is less than the rate of interest, and 
 its payment creates or saves a sum to cancel 
 the mortgage. 
 
 "Having to die to win" is one of the 
 
 mouldy objections to life insurance. It is not 
 
 funny, nor fair. You must die, and why not 
 win? 
 
 Rum Bills in the United States are more 
 than three times the amount paid for life in- 
 surance. Tobacco costs more also. Life in- 
 surance should at least have honorable men- 
 tion in the family budget.
 
 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 " IT is useless to spend years in rediscover- 
 ing mathematical truths which the De Wits, 
 De Moivres, Bernouillis, and Prices of the past 
 centuries have already elaborated and given to 
 the world." (N. Y. Life Report, 1868, clxiii.) 
 On the same page, from which this is quoted, 
 Americans are rightly credited, not with the 
 output of scientific works on life contin- 
 gencies, but with " leading the whole world in 
 the practice and adaptation of life insurance 
 to the wants and necessities of the people." 
 The development in America has been along 
 strictly practical lines, and to make people ap- 
 preciate this fact has been the work of the 
 companies and their solicitors. Yet, strange 
 to say, the one medium, the daily press, which 
 would naturally have been thought to be of 
 prime value in arousing public interest and in- 
 dividual action, has been least employed. So 
 that even to-day, when insurances in force are 
 counted by the billions, and assets by the hun- 
 dreds of millions, there yet exists a popu- 
 lar impression that life insurance is a mystery 
 and its representative, like Harte's Ah Sin,
 
 50 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 " peculiar." The following sayings, like all the 
 others, were impersonally addressed to the 
 public through the daily press. They were 
 intended to strike sparks of interest on the 
 general subject of life insurance, as being a 
 clean business, free from speculation, founded 
 upon mathematical and economic concepts, 
 intent on indemnifying loss by death, a sure 
 means of providing for old age, a moral duty, 
 an educational force, a conservator of individ- 
 ual and business credits, and a social factor of 
 the utmost value. This paragraphing had to 
 perform its work by suggestion and not by 
 explanation or demonstration. It resulted in 
 creating impressions, wholly free from the ini- 
 tial prejudices which some forms of advertis- 
 ing effect, impressions based upon sound, 
 legitimate ideas upon the subject. 
 
 Life is an Effort to secure a season of lei- 
 sure, a respite from toil. With humanity all 
 bending their energies in this direction, very 
 few reach the goal of their ambition. Insur- 
 ance, with kindly hand, cannot with certainty 
 land you there unaided, but will boost hard on 
 the high steps. 
 
 Suppose there was no life insurance. 
 What would people do who live out all they 
 earn and only save by being insured ?
 
 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 51 
 
 What Nonsense, to talk of going without 
 insurance because of the cost ? It does not 
 cost. It saves. It does what you cannot do 
 for yourselves (and would not do if you could). 
 It works nights and Sundays. It protects all 
 the time. It makes men smarter, bigger, bet- 
 ter, richer, and women, too. 
 
 The World seems greased, as Billings sug- 
 gested, for the occasion, when a man through 
 some mischance begins to slip backwards. 
 Life insurance is a cleat for just such occa- 
 sions. Everybody needs it some time, and 
 those who take it have it. 
 
 Counts or Cobblers are of the same rank, as 
 classified by life insurance, and can be insured 
 at the same price. 
 
 The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Children should start right by an earnest 
 and unprejudiced appeal to all parents to in- 
 sure. Cruelty leaves off where insurance com- 
 mences. 
 
 Trust few Men, keep your follies to your- 
 self, and carry a good and proper sum of life 
 insurance, so that your shortcomings may be 
 buried with you.
 
 52 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 Men insure to secure to others, if they / 
 die, what they hope to provide for them, if 
 they live. 
 
 The Greeks and Romans measured time by 
 the Clepsydra, from which water dropped 
 slowly. Drop by drop, opportunities come 
 and go, drop by drop your strength wanes and 
 your energy wastes. Drop into some good 
 insurance office, be insured, and let the Clep- 
 sydra drip, as it is then at work for you on 
 compound interest. 
 
 // may seem strange that companies 
 should advertise as a matter of business, when 
 the benefit is all on your side. It is true, 
 however, that life insurance benefits those 
 who live, as well as those who die. Every one 
 is a winner, as can be made plain by careful 
 analysis of the system. 
 
 The Man who denies the benefits of Life 
 Insurance and assumes that, because he goes 
 without -it, he is insuring himself, may thank 
 his lucky stars that the fool-killer is busy else- 
 where. 
 
 Most Squirrels keep two or three stores of 
 food. Wood, the Naturalist, speaks of these 
 reserve stores as provided for exigencies.
 
 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE S3 
 
 Some folks call thrift luck. We call it insur- 
 ance. 
 
 Luther's Will read : " I have neither house, 
 land, nor money to leave behind me. Thou 
 hast given me wife and children, whom I now 
 restore to Thee ; Lord, nourish, teach, and pre- 
 serve them, as Thou hast me." Some people 
 consider insurance as a defiance of Providence. 
 Not so. 
 
 It is a Compliment to be solicited to insure. 
 It is proof that some one thinks you are of 
 some value and use in the world. You may 
 rest assured that, if you are not, life insurance 
 companies do not want you. 
 
 Don't misconstrue, misunderstand, misap- 
 ply, or misbelieve life insurance. Take it as it 
 is, no mystery. Warts and all, it is still far 
 ahead of anything else for savings and protec- 
 tion. 
 
 You may not love your family, but you 
 might be polite enough to insure for their 
 benefit. That much you owe them. 
 
 A Citizen "was hung during the reign of 
 Edward IV. for saying that he would make 
 his son heir to the crown. To-day men are
 
 54 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 applauded for providing for their children. 
 The surest way is life insurance. 
 
 Keeping rich is frequently harder than 
 getting rich. Many a man loses in three *^ 
 months the accumulations of thirty years. 
 That is why you should insure. 
 
 No Insurance is good until something hap- 
 pens. Then is the time when the smart ones 
 who can " take better care of their money than / 
 the companies can "and the ones who "insure 
 themselves," find their level. Those who deal 
 with good insurance are sure of their deal 
 later on. 
 
 Answer to Widow B. " The fact that your 
 husband intended to insure is of value only as 
 a sacred memory. Corporation sorrow would */ 
 starve a goat. Your need for .money is ad- 
 mitted, but the company can pay you nothing, 
 because your husband was not in it." 
 
 Every solid Structure is the realization of 
 somebody's imagination. Air castles are the 
 shadows of coming events. Brains count, and / 
 thought is real property in embryo. There- 
 fore thinkers, investors, men of learning, all 
 who, with continued life, can produce, have 
 the chance to insure the value of their future
 
 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 55 
 
 labor like real ships and houses. Life insur- 
 ance aids this chance. 
 
 Don't work with dull tools. Don't tinker 
 with untried schemes of life insurance. If 
 your life is worth insuring, and it probably is, 
 do it safely. 
 
 A Fixed Fact is of value according to its 
 bearings in the case and who fixed it. A fact 
 fixed is liable to have fixed factors which are 
 deceptive in insurance calculations. Insur- 
 ance takes things as they are, and makes the 
 best of them for your benefit. 
 
 A Dead Man works a long time after > 
 death, if insured. For thus, his family re- 
 ceives the wages he did not live to earn. 
 
 Some Business Men discourage clerks from 
 insurance, because they fear they will want 
 more pay. A clerk who has enough self-valu- 
 ation to insure, and saves by so doing, is the 
 one who sets his own price and gets it. 
 
 A Grandmother called to see if she could 
 insure for the benefit of her grandson, twenty- 
 four years of age, who did not "get along very 
 well, and was mostly dependent on her for 
 support." (She kept boarders.) We advised
 
 56 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 her to buy an annuity for herself and to stop 
 the young man's rations, and see if he could n't 
 get along better and further on his own ac- 
 count. Instead of receiving the suggestion 
 kindly, as was intended, she said she would 
 go to some Benefit Association, as her grand- 
 son told her "the regular companies were no 
 good any way." 
 
 A Merchant assigns the bread and butter 
 of his children, their education and support, 
 the shelter of his wife, her fuel and clothing, 
 by neglect of life insurance. Is it wise to 
 have these duties subject to foreclosure by 
 death ? 
 
 Life is but Air that yields a passage to the 
 whistling sword and closes when "'tis gone." ^ 
 Yet it is real property, because it is produc- 
 tive. Keep well insured, and let the sword 
 whistle. 
 
 The Good-night Kiss to the baby in the cra- 
 dle will be more hearty and self-satisfying if 
 sweetened with the resolve, backed up by ac- 
 tion, to always keep insured for her benefit 
 and protection. 
 
 The Party of the first Part agrees with 
 the parties of the second and third part well
 
 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 57 
 
 and truly to perform sundry and divers things, ^ 
 etc. Suppose said party dies ? There is where 
 insurance steps in. 
 
 If You owned a Goose that laid golden 
 eggs, would n't you insure her if you could ? 
 
 Financial Diplopia is a disease where a 
 person sees a profit two or more times larger 
 than naturally, or, by good reasoning, ought to 
 exist. It is contagious, that is, is transmitted 
 by contact between persons who have some- I 
 thing to sell and those whose systems are 
 wrong from a chronic disease to get something 
 for nothing. In any matter of investment or 
 savings (especially Life Insurance, which is 
 both), a healthy mind is a great advantage. 
 
 Fire Insurance is an acknowledged factor 
 in ordinary business affairs. The mind that 
 directs is as valuable as the mill and machin- , 
 ery that executes. Brains cannot be rebuilt, 
 nor can a substitute for lost experience be re- 
 covered. Life insurance, then, is even more 
 necessary than fire insurance. 
 
 After Dryden : Happy the man and happy 
 he alone, He who can call to-day his own ; ^/ 
 He, who secure within himself can say, To- 
 morrow do thy worst, for I insured to-day
 
 58 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 The Men who work are the ones we wish 
 to insure. Life insurance is not for retired 
 men, for has beens, but for those who are. 
 
 Incorporate Yourself. Capitalize your skill 
 and power. Corporations outlive individuals. 
 Life Insurance will grant you a charter. 
 
 The Alchemist gave up his search for an 
 universal solvent when asked in what vessel 
 
 
 
 he would keep it, when found. So time is idly 
 spent in search of a substitute for insurance. 
 
 Intense Mourning is voted vulgar in " re- 
 fined circles." Intense grief is also considered 
 "low." It is a wonder that the members of 
 "refined circles" do not banish death altogether, 
 since it is an old fashion indulged in by the 
 very poorest and most unrefined. Could this 
 be done, the life insurance companies would 
 cease business and divide their large holdings 
 among their members. Until that time comes, 
 its security is yours to command. 
 
 If You are uninsured, don't prosecute any 
 one who calls you a fool. The evidence is 
 probably against you. 
 
 A short Yardstick does not cheapen the 
 cloth. It is a waste of time to try to find
 
 ^ 
 
 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 59 
 
 cheap life insurance. That article is out of 
 the market. To be well insured, one must 
 pay the proper cost exactly as in other things. 
 
 "Fortune is a Fickle Dame" because man- 
 kind is fickle ; for few of us possess the knack 
 or have the staybone in the back, to keep suc- 
 cess in pickle. Insurance, pound for pound, 
 with effort, will, however, preserve your es- 
 tate. 
 
 You cannot always keep secret the neglect 
 of life insurance. It always comes out when 
 a man is mean to his family. 
 
 The Arab never leaves his home, but takes 
 it with him. Many men die, leaving nothing, 
 practically taking the family home with them. 
 For this reason a proper application of life in- 
 surance is constantly urged. 
 
 A Bag of Gold is no price for a head full 
 of brains ; but it will work for the family when 
 the head withers and dies. 
 
 Insurance can be of no use to you in a 
 post-mortem capacity unless you give it the 
 order now. 
 
 You can teach your sons no better lesson
 
 60 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 than that of thrift and economy, suggested, 
 encouraged, and enforced by life insurance. 
 
 A healthy Partner, who understands the 
 business, should be insured by the wealthy one 
 who furnishes the money. 
 
 Self-Denial is needed to maintain life insur- 
 ance. Women should know and appreciate the 
 love and foresight which prompts, and the true 
 manliness which earns and pays for their pro- 
 tection. 
 
 The "Rich " are swapping places with the 
 " Poor "every day. In truth, nothing is certain 
 in these times, but gilt-edged life insurance. 
 
 Little Children show by their dress and 
 behavior the care they receive at home. Little 
 orphans show by their condition whether or 
 not their parents had the wisdom to insure. 
 Sometimes it is put off a little too long for the 
 welfare of the family. 
 
 Strike an Average of the business men you 
 have known for fifteen years, and how much 
 are they worth ? A good many could not stand 
 up long enough to be counted, if it were not 
 for the all-sustaining arms of life insurance 
 which some enterprising agent thrust under
 
 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 6 1 
 
 them years ago, when they were beginners in 
 their line. 
 
 You will be gone a long time when you go 
 for good, and the family will require three 
 meals daily just the same as now. 
 
 The only Bread-fruit Tree which grows in 
 this climate is life insurance. Its fruit is what 
 it bears, and the more it bears the more it 
 leaves. Will you cultivate it ? 
 
 Many rich Men, so-called, if they should 
 die this week, would not leave a cent for their 
 families. Do you see the point ? 
 
 The worst Insurance is that which is never 
 taken ; the best insurance is that which is done, 
 done, not talked about. 
 
 With Brains on top and insurance under- 
 neath, any man can place himself in any posi- 
 tion attainable by human effort. 
 
 People well off break down, trying to get 
 rich. Swapping investments and financiering 
 for higher rates of interest has doughed the 
 cake of many. Insurance has its place in the 
 family and business, economy, and should head 
 the list.
 
 62 ADVERTISING LIFE INSURANCE 
 
 The Man who cuts his own nose off to 
 spite his face is a wise man compared with 
 him who neglects life insurance on account of 
 some prejudice or superstition.
 
 THE USE OF QUOTATION 
 
 ADROIT use of quotation possesses the three- 
 fold merit of, first, finding for one's own 
 thoughts a garment, ready made and in the 
 best of style ; secondly, of stamping on them 
 the courtly influence of precedent, and, finally, 
 often its chief value, of thus using another's 
 reputation to introduce our own infant notions, 
 which, unaided, would otherwise make but a 
 sad and uninteresting debut. Besides all this, 
 the careful use of other men's ideas bestows 
 upon the writer or speaker the reputation of 
 being read and thoroughly up in his subject, 
 and that, of course, gives greater authority to 
 his own utterance. It is also agreeable to the 
 minds of readers and listeners to detect for 
 themselves points of approach and divergence 
 in the ideas presented ; for that affords their 
 own thoughts a sort of playful activity which 
 is incited in no other way. Lincoln's famous 
 saying : " You can fool," etc., has been used a 
 thousand times, and applied with every possi- 
 ble variety of turn, but it rarely falls within 
 sound of the gong, and, with equal rarity, fails 
 to receive its deserved recognition. Once, in-
 
 64 THE USE OP QUOTATION' 
 
 deed, three speakers came to a hall, where an 
 important meeting was in progress, each armed 
 with this trip-hammer, furnished by the great 
 president. The blank look that o'erspread 
 the pale cast of thought in the other two when 
 the first snapped it off was very entertaining ; 
 but its grip on their own minds was so firm 
 withal that each with renewed apologies and 
 rising accentuation, "begged permission to 
 quote again that saying which my friend on 
 my left has but just now so felicitously ap- 
 plied." This suggests, for some unknown 
 reason, that one of the substantial arguments 
 used by the advocates of the Ancient Classics 
 has always been that, without such instruction, 
 it will be impossible to fathom the meaning and 
 much of the beauty of English Literature. 
 The apt quotation has its place everywhere, 
 and is everywhere welcomed, in the court as a 
 rule for action ; in the pulpit as a ground for 
 belief ; in insurance as a guide for thought. 
 
 John Wanamaker, in giving his three rea- 
 sons for being insured over $1,500,000, says : 
 "I take time by the forelock, and in the day of 
 prosperity prepare for the day of trial, whether 
 it be mental, physical, or financial." These rea- 
 sons being valid, the companies yielded to his 
 solicitation, and granted the insurance.
 
 THE USE OF QUOTATION 65 
 
 " The Man who dies uninsured commits a 
 social crime hardly distinguishable from that 
 of a man who dies a defaulter to public office, 
 and leaves his friends to pay his bond out of 
 their hard earnings." (Foss.) This is harsh, 
 but correct classification. 
 
 "Gentle Prevarication, chiseled in enduring 
 stone," is the language in which Bill Nye de- 
 scribes the custom of inscribing on gravestones 
 greater virtues than were possessed by the de- 
 ceased. Many a man has lived his life so self- 
 ishly that his family were beggars before his 
 burial. Insurance cannot cure bad habits, but 
 it prevents some, and atones for others. 
 
 " A Missourian died the other day from hav- 
 ing gorged himself with veal and hard cider. 
 He was a member of seven societies, all of 
 which passed the customary resolutions, throw- 
 ing the entire blame for his removal on divine 
 Providence." (Chicago Tribune.) The friends 
 will pass the hat for the family, and the world 
 rolls on just the same. Meanwhile the pru- 
 dent and thoughtful insure their lives. 
 
 "/ believe that next to the agency of the 
 organization of the Christian religion, this 
 agency of life insurance has done the most 
 good for the general welfare of common human-
 
 66 THE USE OP QUOTATION 
 
 ity and of our states and cities." (Hon. Stew- 
 art L. Woodford.) We accept the compliment 
 to all agencies in general. For we think that 
 it is a true exception to the rule, laid down by 
 the German poet, Lessing, " a compliment is 
 what we always bring, when we bring nothing." 
 
 On his Death Bed, Alexander Pope said, 
 "There is nothing meritorious but virtue and 
 friendship." This was an unconscious tribute 
 from the great poet to life insurance, which is 
 both virtue and friendship. 
 
 "It is Good Workmanship to induce a man 
 to insure his life after thoroughly convincing 
 him that it is his duty to insure for the protec- 
 tion of his family, and to fully inform him in 
 advance of the terms and nature of the con- 
 tract which he is induced to enter into. More- 
 over, it is good workmanship not to load a man 
 up with more insurance than he can possibly 
 carry. It is bad workmanship to fill the insur- 
 ant up with the idea that his policy will cost 
 him practically nothing ; that it is to his advan- 
 tage to invest, rather than his duty to insure ; 
 that he has entered into speculation instead of 
 having performed a solemn duty. In other 
 words, the agent is a f very poor workman, 
 who misrepresents or deliberately lies." (The 
 Chronicle.) This quotation, the best of advice,
 
 THE USE OP QUOTATION 6j 
 
 in the briefest form that can be given to life- 
 insurance men, I prefixed with these words in 
 an advertisement : " We do good work." 
 
 Benjamin Greenkaf says : " Subtraction is 
 taking one number from another to find the 
 difference." When one member of a family is 
 subtracted, the remainder find the difference in 
 loss of support. Hence insurance. 
 
 At a Dinner of Booksellers in London, 
 Rider Haggard eulogized life insurance as "the 
 one doctrine which in days to come will uni- 
 versally prevail and work a cure for many a 
 human ill." This is correct, but life insurance 
 already supplies the only omission. 
 
 A Famous Philosopher, threatened with 
 death by a tyrant, said, " You may kill me, but 
 you cannot hurt me." He, also, like Nero, 
 already mentioned, had the self-reliance of the 
 well insured. 
 
 " Commodore Vanderbilt said to me once that 
 any fool could make money, but it took a 
 smart man to keep it. That saying is an 
 axiom of our civilization. The only hope, 
 then, for the fools is that, when in prosperity, 
 they may be induced to take out insurance
 
 68 THE USE OF QUOTATION 
 
 policies." (Chauncey M. Depew.) Truth is its 
 own commentator. 
 
 " Those who make no mistakes make no- 
 thing." (Hon. E. J. Phelps.) Insurance covers 
 a multitude of business errors. 
 
 " Can a Christian man rightfully seek life 
 insurance?" asked Henry Ward Beecher. 
 Then he answered it by saying, " Can a Chris- 
 tian man justify himself in neglect of such a 
 duty ? " In morals, the obligation to insure in 
 protection of dependents, or as provision for 
 old age, is axiomatic. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle remarked that England's 
 thirty millions of people are mostly fools. 
 The sixty-five millions of the United States 
 are not all fools ; for many of them are in- 
 sured and more are thinking of it. 
 
 King James called for his old shoes, be- 
 cause they were easiest. Protection and pro- 
 vision, without pinching, is the secret of the 
 great popularity enjoyed by the old companies, 
 engaged in life insurance. 
 
 " Lightning is the Wit of Heaven" said Syd- 
 ney Smith. That depends on how it strikes 
 you. Insurance, however, has but one defini-
 
 THE USE OP QUOTATION 69 
 
 tion, indemnity, security. It is protection 
 against an overwhelming loss. 
 
 Said Daniel Webster: "Suicide is confes- 
 sion." So going without insurance is confes- 
 sion of either utter worthlessness or lack of 
 ordinary business sense. 
 
 " Doctor Guthrie let the people laugh at his \ 
 blue stockings and cotton umbrella, and he 
 often walked when he would have preferred a 
 cab, so that he might pay the price of an 
 insurance on his life for the benefit of his 
 family." 
 
 Atlanta, Ga. (Telegram) : "Jake Morris, of 
 this city, while returning from a Masonic Lodge 
 this evening, died almost instantaneously from 
 excessive palpitation of the heart, brought on 
 by a fit of laughter. He was insured for 
 $24,000." This is no laughing matter, but, 
 speaking seriously, is n't life insurance a good 
 thing ? 
 
 A Pittsburgh Child defined a rope as a "fat 
 string." Life insurance is a man's value, 
 hitched to the end of his rope. 
 
 Canute, the great King, wet his feet in the 
 tide to rebuke his flattering courtiers. Kings
 
 70 THE USE OF QUOTATION 
 
 must move on or drown. There is no royal 
 control over natural laws. Insurance is an 
 application of natural laws for the purpose of 
 equating over all the misfortune which would 
 otherwise assail but one. 
 
 George IV., history informs us, secured his 
 creditors by insuring his life in their favor. 
 At his death the sum had increased by profits 
 to ^"640,000 ($3,200,000), which even more 
 than sufficed to pay his debts in full. Perhaps 
 insurance can serve you, also. 
 
 "Naomi's Husband died, and she was left, 
 and her two sons. And Mahlon and Chilion 
 died also, and the woman was left of her two 
 sons and her husband." Ruth i. 3-5. 
 
 Such things happen every day, now as then, 
 and there is no prevention. Insurance, how- 
 ever, saves some from walking back to the 
 land of Judah for bread. 
 
 The Prophet Gad gave David choice of 
 three scourges, famine, seven years ; three 
 years' defeat, or three days' pestilence. The 
 families of those who neglect insurance have 
 no choice. They must take what comes.
 
 THE HUMOR OF IT 
 
 EVERYBODY is clamoring for a hearing. If 
 only I can get my case before the Upper 
 Court, says the lawyer; if only I can obtain 
 an audience, says the diplomat ; if only I can 
 place it clearly before their eyes, says the in- 
 ventor ; if only I can make him hear me, says 
 the agent. It is the same story everywhere, 
 a trying to interest some one else in what in- 
 terests you, and then making him see it with 
 your eyes. Failure to hit upon the right ma- 
 terial or right method of crossing to the other 
 man's side means break down, and, if the 
 height be great or the stream deep, it may 
 mean drowning. The working tools of the 
 earnest solicitor vary with his company, his 
 own ability, and his clientage. The ratio de- 
 lights one ; the beneficiary's letter, another ; 
 grand summations, a third ; a well drawn 
 blank form, a fourth; invidious criticisms, a 
 fifth ; peculiar policies, a sixth ; the State 
 Reports, those necrologies of business results 
 and cemeteries of yearly statements, a seventh ; 
 and so on, down the list. But a favorable 
 judgment is wanted to supplement a hearing,
 
 72 THE HUMOR OP IT 
 
 the latter being a condition precedent only. 
 Whatever, therefore, creates public interest in 
 insurance, without prejudice, has its place. 
 Whatever does this tends to diminish the costs 
 of acquiring new business, now great because 
 of the public's very hesitancy to recognize its 
 worth. The gentle writer, in adding to this 
 interest, may lose caste for owlishness, but 
 then, Attic salt spices all forms of expression 
 and attracts adherents where Breotian dullness 
 falls flat. To advertise the whole business 
 and yet make sure of your share, that is im- 
 personal advertising made personal. " Hoc opus 
 est" that is a d 1 of &job ! 
 
 Infant Industries need the protection of life 
 insurance. 
 
 Kind Words never die ; neither will they 
 keep the wolf from the door. 
 
 A Grave Mistake, to go without insurance. 
 
 Where there is a Will, there is a way to 
 break it. Life insurance can be made payable 
 directly to the parties interested, without inter- 
 ference by any one. 
 
 // is Insurance that oft proclaims the es-
 
 THE HUMOR OP IT 73 
 
 tate. Let thy policy be as costly as thy purse 
 can buy. 
 
 Grave Digging is a trade where one can- 
 not begin at the bottom and work up. Life 
 insurance requires only one payment at a 
 time. 
 
 A Self-made Man must have a poor opin- 
 ion of the job, if he neglects or refuses to in- 
 sure it. 
 
 You are not poor, so long as you can earn 
 a living and keep your life insured. 
 
 A Chinese Policy, being written backwards, 
 and therefore due at issue instead of maturity, 
 might suit you, if you cannot appreciate other 
 forms of life insurance. 
 
 " My Income is small" said a lover, " and i 
 is cruel to take you from your father's roof." 
 'But," was the response, "I don't live on they 
 roof, and, besides, you can insure your life." 
 
 A Dead Give Away. Life Insurance. 
 
 Great Composers : Beethoven, Mendelssohn, 
 Bach, Handel, Wagner, and Life Insurance.
 
 74 THE HUMOR OP IT 
 
 To be effectual, Life Insurance should be 
 taken, not talked about. 
 
 The Coign of Vantage, Insurance Money. 
 
 Air Castles are made permanent by put- 
 ting in a foundation of life insurance. What 
 better can you have than to have your dreams 
 come true ? 
 
 Three Proposals of Marriage were made to 
 a lady. Like a wise woman, she accepted the 
 one made by a man who had a good profes- 
 sion, good health, and a good and sufficient 
 amount of life insurance. 
 
 A Woman urged her husband to insure, 
 saying she wanted either a husband or some 
 money. With a husband she could get along 
 without money. A smart woman that, worth 
 living with and insuring for. 
 
 Indians tan Skins with the brains of the 
 animals which wore them. When will every 
 man have brains enough to protect his own 
 skin by the use of insurance ? 
 
 A Maine Agent advertises: "The Reaper 
 will come." True ; and if justice is done, 
 The Thresher also will attend the uninsured.
 
 THE HUMOR OP IT 75 
 
 Do you breathe easy ? Don't stop until you 
 insure your life. 
 
 Why is Insurance like Aladdin's Lamp ? 
 Because it acts immediately when the rub 
 comes. 
 
 The Autopsy showed that the brain of the 
 man whose friends called him a fool, for in- 
 vesting largely in life insurance, weighed forty- 
 eight ounces. 
 
 A Great Race is that between the Under- 
 writer and the Undertaker, the Human Race. " 
 Every business man is interested. The under- 
 taker will "get there first" with some. 
 
 A Ten-Ounce Heart is the average size. 
 This may seem small, but it is partly accounted 
 for by the fact that the average is kept down 
 by the uninsured. 
 
 A Total Eclipse of the sun is a matter of 
 peculiar interest to the scientists. A total 
 eclipse of the father of a family is a direct j 
 bread-and-butter problem. In this case no 
 smoked glass is needed to find the loss and 
 suffering caused, nor spectacles to see the 
 benefit of insurance.
 
 76 THE HUMOR OP IT 
 
 Men must not think, because they have out- 
 lived their grandmothers, that for this reason 
 they do not need insurance. 
 
 All Skulls seem to laugh, perhaps at the 
 epitaph engraved on their tombs. Think of 
 one, whose family suffer through his neglect of 
 life insurance, described as a "kind husband' 
 and a " wise parent." Insurance truly is a 
 duty. 
 
 The best Silent Partner is a good and suf- 
 ficient line of investment life insurance. 
 
 Even the Wicked prosper for a while, and 
 it is not out of place for even them to insure. 
 
 Life's Understudy, Life Insurance, plays 
 your part when you are called off the stage. 
 
 Can a Ghost practice law ? A man can 
 for a percentage insure to his family a con- 
 tinuance of that which his brain furnishes 
 them now. 
 
 The Widow's Might : Life Insurance. 
 
 The Man who Insures lives up to his epi- 
 taph as a good husband and a kind father, and 
 deserves it.
 
 THE HUMOR OP IT 77 
 
 Mortification follows when a live man dies 
 uninsured. 
 
 Man born of Woman, and most men are, 
 are of few days and full of trouble. Life 
 insurance helps all cases and injures none. 
 
 De-Monetizing the Family : Neglect of Life 
 Insurance. 
 
 In settling Estates, where there is Life 
 Insurance money, the family receives a share v 
 before the lawyers are served. This is one of 
 the many advantages of the practice of life 
 insurance. 
 
 Narcissus fell in love with his own image. 
 It is not out of place for you to think enough 
 of yourself to insure yourself. 
 
 Nero Fiddled while Rome burned. He 
 possessed the calm of the well-insured. 
 
 Mauritius, the Sicilian, was a pirate. So 
 is the man who neglects life insurance. 
 
 When yupiter loved lo, he created the 
 violet, that she might delight in its dainty 
 petals. When lo died, violets sprang from 
 her body. So comes life insurance, born of
 
 78 THE HUMOR OP IT 
 
 love, directed by prudence, perfumed by self- 
 denial, a gift which was in the beginning, 
 completed in the end. 
 
 "Ah! yM#,"said a loving young wife, "it 
 seems like tempting Providence to get your 
 life insured ; almost as if you were preparing 
 for death, you know," and she wept a little on 
 the collar of his new coat. " Don't be fool- 
 ish, little one," he gently remonstrated; "if I 
 should be called suddenly, you would have ten 
 thousand dollars to keep the wolf from the 
 door." "Ten thousand dollars, John," she said, 
 with a convulsive sob, "I thought you were 
 getting insured for twenty-five ! That is the 
 usual limit, is it not, dear? and you should 
 always go to the limit, John." 
 
 "Jones made his first success yesterday," 
 said Filkins. " What was it ? " asked Wilkins. 
 "He died and left ten thousand on his life." 
 (Insurance Record.) His first success was his 
 last chance, which proves that while there is 
 life there is hope. 
 
 Widow: "Is that the wolf at the door?" 
 Daughter : " No ; it is the man with the life 
 insurance money." Widow: "Thank God!" 
 Daughter: "And the Insurance Agent."
 
 THE HUMOR OP IT 79 
 
 "Unck George, what is life insurance?" 
 asked Rollo, as Jonas finished reading an ad- 
 vertisement of an endowment insurance plan. 
 "It is a system by which a man may provide 
 for his own widow instead of leaving her des- 
 titute." " Do you advise young men to in- 
 sure ? " continued Rollo. " Yes, my boy, and 
 they always do so as soon as their heads 
 harden."
 
 "ONE FABLE DOES NOT MAKE 
 FABLE " 
 
 THE CHILD. 
 
 A little child was once asked by a good 
 Quaker what was her reliance for her daily 
 bread. She answered : " Dad and his insur- 
 ance." And the Quaker said : "Verily out of 
 the mouths of babes and sucklings proceedeth 
 wisdom." 
 
 THE Pious WOMAN. 
 
 A pious woman once upon a time prayed 
 to God that He would protect and provide for 
 herself and children, and destroy their ene- 
 mies. The next day her husband sickened 
 and died. When she found that he was un- 
 insured, she said : " I did not know that my 
 prayer was loaded." 
 
 Moral. 
 
 Elements of safety within easy reach should 
 be appropriated before we appeal to higher 
 powers.
 
 ONE FABLE DOES NOT MAKE FABLE 8 1 
 
 THE MORTGAGE. 
 
 A Mortgage Deed and an Insurance Policy 
 once fell into dispute as to which was the 
 stronger contract. The Mortgage Deed said : 
 "I have just killed a man who broke his back 
 paying interest to keep me from taking away 
 his home." "Good work," answered the In- 
 surance Policy ; " I can lift the mortgage and 
 feed and educate the family." 
 
 Moral. 
 Better the strength to save than to destroy. 
 
 THE DEAD LION. 
 
 A Dead Lion was given a vindictive kick by 
 a well meaning but impetuous Jackass, saying : 
 "You are dead and left no insurance to carry 
 on the business. Verily, I believe you were a 
 greater ass than I am." But the Dead Lion 
 said nothing. 
 
 THE Fox AND THE BOAR. 
 A Fox asked a Wild Boar why he sharp- 
 ened his teeth when there was no danger pres- 
 ent from either huntsman or hound. The 
 Wild Boar replied : " I do it advisedly. When 
 the need for use comes, I have no time to 
 sharpen my only weapons of defense." This
 
 82 ONE FABLE DOES NOT MAKE FABLE" 
 
 teaches that it is dangerous to put off insur- 
 ance until too late. 
 
 THE MAGIC PAPER. 
 
 A kind fairy once upon a time prepared a 
 Magic Paper which had the power of transfer- 
 ring to children the knowledge and skill of 
 parents at their death. Thus all knowledge 
 gained was an increase over that of the gen- 
 eration before, and wisdom grew until chil- 
 dren began to be born who knew it all. Then 
 the secret fell into disuse and was lost. But, 
 long afterwards, came Modern Times and de- 
 veloped, as a substitute, the endowment policy, 
 which hands down to widows and children the 
 money value of the father's professional skill, 
 business education, and experience. 
 
 THE LOST ASSES. 
 
 A certain cruel king sent his servant to 
 look for some lost Asses, promising him the 
 death punishment if they were not found. 
 The servant returned, leading nine men, and 
 said: ''While I have not found the lost, I have 
 done even better. Here are nine men who, 
 having families, yet are they uninsured. Lo 
 are they not greater Asses than the ones you 
 have lost ? " "Thou art a wise man," answered 
 the King. " Wear my crown and let me sit at 
 thy feet until the sun goes down."
 
 ' ' ONE FABLE DOES NO T MAKE FABLE " 83 
 
 THE Two DOCUMENTS. 
 Two Legal Papers met on their way to the 
 funeral of a smart business man. By way of 
 introduction one said : " I am a mortgage deed, 
 and I shall have the most of his property." 
 "By no means," said the other, "I am an Insur- 
 ance Policy, and was born to outwit just such 
 fellows as you are. I am for the family every 
 time." 
 
 THE DYING WOLF. 
 
 A Famished Wolf gathered her whelps 
 about her, and bade them listen to her dying 
 words : " My children," said she, " waste no time 
 prowling about the doors of those who insure. 
 They are, to use the language of the times, 
 too rich for our blood." 
 
 THE CHOLERA MICROBE. 
 A Cholera Microbe, meeting by chance 
 with a Typhoid Fever Germ, that was mas- 
 querading in some sewage as spring water, 
 casually inquired how business was with him. 
 The Typhoid Fever Germ replied with a yawn, 
 that it had been unusually active this fall, but 
 that he had not had nearly as much fun out of 
 it as usual, because so many of his victims 
 carried life insurance, which imparted so much 
 tranquillity to their minds that over three
 
 84 " ONE FABLE DOES NOT MAKE FABLE" 
 
 fourths of them recovered. As he bade him 
 adieu, he added sadly: "If ever we get a 
 chance at any of those life insurance agents, 
 we must pool our issues and put them under." 
 
 THE HONEST LAWYER. 
 An Honest Lawyer was once besieged by 
 a widow, who complained of her poverty and 
 begged assistance. Although a very busy 
 man, her importunities led him to a discussion 
 of the situation, and he said : "My good wo- 
 man, what is the cause of your distress?' 
 "Indeed, sir," said she, "my husband died sud- 
 denly and has left me penniless." "Then why 
 not make your demand on the life insurance 
 companies ? " ft But my husband never in- 
 sured," said she. "Was he never solicited to 
 insure by the great corporations ? " " No, I 
 am certain he never was solicited to insure." 
 "Then I will take your case," he said, "and sue 
 for a good round sum. Do you not know that 
 it has been the practice of these companies for 
 years to solicit business ? Now, this practice 
 so long continued has become a custom. You 
 are entitled to damages if they neglected in 
 his case. The companies freely issue policies 
 which are incontestable, and advertise that 
 they will pay in case of suicide. If they will 
 do this, where men have been given a chance
 
 " ONE FABLE DOES NOT MAKE FABLE" 85 
 
 to insure, how much more reasonable is it that 
 they should be bound to do it for people who 
 have had no chance ? Can you prove he was 
 never solicited?" "Yes," replied the Good 
 Woman; "his business was such that people 
 could not readily speak to him on this or any 
 other subject; he was a barber and talked 
 all the time himself." 
 
 Moral. 
 
 It was a close shave, but the companies 
 lathered themselves. 
 
 THE TRIAL OF STRENGTH. 
 A Savings Bank Account and a Life In- 
 surance Policy, both the children of a prudent 
 business man, met after his death to see what 
 they could do for the aid of his family. With 
 the statement, " I am ready cash," the Bank 
 Account paid the funeral expenses and lifted 
 up its voice and said : " I contribute every dol- 
 lar deposited plus a snug sum of compound 
 interest." The Insurance Policy said : " I 
 contribute every dollar deposited and a snug 
 sum of compound interest and the prepaid 
 fortune for this case made and provided." And 
 it lifted the mortgage from the home and the 
 whole family from poverty to comparative in- 
 dependence.
 
 86 " ONE FABLE DOES NOT MAKE FABLE 
 
 THE COFFIN PLATE. 
 
 A Coffin Plate which had long lain in an 
 Undertaker's window formed a traffic arrange- 
 ment with an Incontestable Go-As-You-Please 
 Life Insurance Policy. After the latter had 
 secured some Cyanide of Potassium Powders, 
 the pair started out upon their travels to drum 
 trade. Meeting a merchant, who betrayed 
 great anxiety upon his face, the Coffin Plate 
 asked after the cause of his emotion. Said 
 the merchant : "Last fall I voted for a change, 
 and this summer I cannot find any." "Well," 
 answered the Coffin Plate (with a wink of his 
 old English I to his partner), "why live and 
 worry, when death is so easy and halos so 
 becoming ? " '* Ah ! " said the merchant, " I 
 must live to feed and shelter my family." 
 " Not so," said the Incontestable Go-as-You- 
 Please Life Insurance Policy. " I am an in- 
 strument of suicide for such cases made and 
 provided. I will enter into a contract, so that 
 your family will be even better off without 
 you." Thereupon a bargain was struck be- 
 tween the three. The merchant was struck 
 with death. The Coffin Plate was struck with 
 an inscription. The Incontestable Go-As- You- 
 Please Life Insurance Policy was struck by its 
 conditions, and the public was struck with the 
 idea that it was a bad piece of business.
 
 ONE FABLE DOES NOT MAKE FABLE" 87 
 
 Moral, 
 
 Liberality of contracts makes business brisk 
 but destructive. 
 
 THE Two WIVES. 
 
 There were two wives, the one wise, the 
 other foolish. The wise wife demanded of 
 her husband, even before their marriage, that 
 he should insure, so that, should she be left 
 desolate, yet would she not be destitute also. 
 And the husband did so, and his love for her 
 was greater than before, and his days were 
 long, and he lived to collect the insurance 
 himself. 
 
 But the foolish wife did scoff at and revile 
 the agent, who pleaded with her husband and 
 had already persuaded him to insure. She 
 denied its value and bargained with him that 
 he should bring her the silver which he was to 
 pay for being insured. And she agreed to 
 care for it, and with it provide many new and 
 beautiful things for their home to the end that 
 they might enjoy it together. And the hus- 
 band, yielding, gave her the silver, yet repent- 
 ing of his determination ; but did not take the 
 policy which the Agent brought. Soon after 
 the husband was stricken with a fever and 
 died, and the foolish wife was fain -to sell even 
 her trinkets to buy bread for herself and the 
 children who had been born unto her.
 
 88 " ONE FABLE DOES NOT MAKE PABLB" 
 
 Moral. 
 
 It is so over and over again, and will be 
 always. 
 
 METHUSELAH. 
 
 Methuselah once applied for insurance, and 
 the doctor who examined him advised the risk, 
 but the medical director at the Home Office 
 ascertained that his father, Enoch, who was 
 the son of Jared, was sixty-five years of age 
 when his son, Methuselah, was born. Enoch 
 mysteriously disappeared. History says : "He 
 was not, for God took him." Evidently the 
 doctor feared moral hazard, and, as he had 
 not declined any one for that agent for two 
 days, he turned Methuselah down on account 
 of uncertainty of his father's death or " taking 
 off." The father was so good that "God took 
 him," but the doctor could n't take the son. 
 Then, as now, the agent kicked, and the doc- 
 tor said, "He won't live out half his days," and 
 he told the agent to tell the old fool to take 
 an annuity. He did so, and Methuselah 
 caught on, and that mistake broke the com- 
 pany clear down to the third and fourth gen- 
 eration.
 
 \
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 OCT 1 ? J95B 
 >C 8 1956 
 
 JUL 1 5 
 
 6 
 
 1965 
 
 AUG 2 1986 
 
 orm L9-42m-8,'49(B5578)444
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000749960 1